And let's not kid ourselves, throwing up a few walls does not make this much of a control deck you don't have the qaulity of control crds to make this anything other than aggro-control that needs to put down threats.
Early critters are almost entirely defensive. Lots of removal, including 1 mass removal, bounce, counters, card draw, and planning to win with a big finisher once the board is controlled. If this isn't a control deck, than what is?
Which cards in this deck don't qualify as "quality control cards?"
It makes sense that the vulnerability here would be too few threats. How many win conditions do you really want your control deck to have, though? I cut the Cadaver Imps because with such a low creature count, it seemed likely that I wouldn't have anything to retrieve with them. Gloomhunter is pretty fragile to be considered a reliable win condition, and is pretty awful on defense which is what I really needed on turn 3. Spy Patrol was the last cut from the deck, and very difficult. The deciding factor for me was that it dies to Consume the Meek.
The Dreamstone Hedrons may have been a mistake. I thought that, though my deck doesn't have huge fat guys to ramp into, it would still be quite mana hungry with Mnemonic Walls returning Corpse Hatches. Cutting at least one of these for another threat would almost certainly have been right, though.
I won on turn 4 a while back with a T2 Bramblesnap, a T3 Kiln Fiend, and a T4 Brood Birthing (just making 1 token) and Might of the Masses. Opponent had made a guy on turn 2 and spent her mana leveling it on turn 3, so I knew the coast was clear for the alpha strike.
In the next game, I won on turn 5 when I made several creatures/tokens on turns 1-4 and then swung into her fewer blockers with FOUR Might of the Masses in hand.
What are its vulnerabilities? What cards contribute the least to its overall gameplan? How well would you expect it to do if you were piloting it? Thanks in advance for your analysis and constructive comments.
You owe it to yourself to try Dominion if you're a fan of limited Magic. It's a very strong game with nearly unlimited replayability. You can try out an online version of the game at brettspielwelt.com. They have the entire base game and a few cards out of each expansion.
Other tabletop games I have been playing recently and enjoy quite a bit include:
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Agricola
Power Grid
Battlestar Galactica
Rune Wars (this one is new)
For some reason I have a mental hangup about including cards in my cube that are way better than they would normally be in a 40-card deck. The main culprits are Shelldock Isle and Nemesis of Reason.
I'm like 9/9 winning games after resolving Rude Awakening. Also have never won a cube game when it was resolved against me.
I know some people don't like the card because of the risk of walking into cycled Decree of Pain or Rout or something, but realistically there are only like 4 cards in the whole cube that can take you by surprise and wreck you in that fashion, and they're not hard to play around if you're a smart player.
People are underrating the new Sarkhan, imo. I don't think it's going to be a top pick in cube, but it will suprise some people.
Look at it this way: how much would you pay for a sorcery that said "As an additional cost to play CARDNAME, sacrifice a creature. Put a 5/5 Dragon token with flying into play." I think that card would fairly cost about 5 mana, and probably not cubeworthy (though it might get a little discussion). At 4 mana it would be extremely good, and almost certainly cubeworthy.
Sarkhan, at 5 mana, gets to do that, and potentially can live to do it a 2nd and 3rd time. Sure, it would be neat if the dragons got haste. But the creature you already had (even if it's just a 1/1 or 2/2) can attack before you use Sarkhan's ability to off him. So that mitigates the dragon's lack of haste a bit. Then the Dragon will be there untapped to protect Sarkhan through your opponent's next turn. Then, once you don't have any more creatures you want to turn into dragons, Sarkhan can replace himself with his first ability at the very least, and potentially stick around to draw you more cards.
The 3rd ability is what throws people off, because it looks so akwardly costed. I admit it's a bit marginal, but in the right situation it will be very good. Let's say you play Sarkhan on turn 5. You attack with one of your dorks, and after combat, turn it into a dragon. On turn 6, you can effectively attack for 10 by swinging in and then using Sarkhan's ultimate. It's situational, to be sure, and you need to be wary of instant-speed removal, but the threat of it is pretty massive and will force people to make desperate plays. And once in a while they'll just have no answer for it and you'll win on the spot.
I thought it looked bad on paper at first glance, but it's growing on me.
Poppet shouldn't even be in the cube in the first place. That card is waaay overpriced for the effect. I'm much more likely to play something like Kodama as a finisher in my final list than to even have Grim Poppet find a spot in the final 40.
I agree that Poppet shouldn't be in a small cube (I cut him a few months ago), but it's not like it's a worthless card. He's certainly include-able in larger cubes, and it just so happens that we have the perfect deck for him...controllish, with lots of recursion. As someone pointed out above, he's absolutely sick when you have Nightmare going. He's certainly a weaker card than Kodama in the abstract, but quite a bit better for OUR deck than Kodama, IMO.
I wouldn't want to play City of Brass in this deck, unless we were splashing. Which I don't think will be happening. Gatekeeper for me. It could come in out of the board at least, against a control deck that runs creatures that our Nekrataal and Snuff Out can't kill.
I kinda wanted the Mutavault the first time around. Cube decks, most of the time, will have an abundance of playables. More than they need. Good cards...cards that fit the deck's archetype, even...are going to get cut. This will be the case with our deck. When everybodys' (or at least most people's) decks are like this, little advantages like getting value out of your lands...even if it's "just" a 2/2 changeling, are the difference between the good decks and the best decks. Agree with Wtfwlfsfefff here...Mutavault should be a sought-after card, and to see it 15th should be very rare and require some very exceptional circumstances from the people who passed it 10th-14th.
Early critters are almost entirely defensive. Lots of removal, including 1 mass removal, bounce, counters, card draw, and planning to win with a big finisher once the board is controlled. If this isn't a control deck, than what is?
Which cards in this deck don't qualify as "quality control cards?"
The Dreamstone Hedrons may have been a mistake. I thought that, though my deck doesn't have huge fat guys to ramp into, it would still be quite mana hungry with Mnemonic Walls returning Corpse Hatches. Cutting at least one of these for another threat would almost certainly have been right, though.
In the next game, I won on turn 5 when I made several creatures/tokens on turns 1-4 and then swung into her fewer blockers with FOUR Might of the Masses in hand.
Sphinx of Magosi
Frostwind Invoker
3 Mnemonic Wall
Merfolk Skyscout
Zof Shade
Bala Ged Scorpion
Arrogant Bloodlord
Guard Gomozoa
2 See Beyond
2 Deprive
2 Regress
2 Corpse Hatch
Consume the Meek
2 Flame Slash
2 Dreamstone Hedron
Evolving Wilds
2 Mountain
6 Swamp
8 Island
Stuff that got cut: 2 Cadaver Imp, Gloomhunter, Bloodrite Invoker, Hada Spy Patrol
Edit: sorry, didn't mention what format it is. Real life weekly draft at a friend's place.
Other tabletop games I have been playing recently and enjoy quite a bit include:
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Agricola
Power Grid
Battlestar Galactica
Rune Wars (this one is new)
WAAAY too good in Legacy to ever see print.
I know some people don't like the card because of the risk of walking into cycled Decree of Pain or Rout or something, but realistically there are only like 4 cards in the whole cube that can take you by surprise and wreck you in that fashion, and they're not hard to play around if you're a smart player.
Look at it this way: how much would you pay for a sorcery that said "As an additional cost to play CARDNAME, sacrifice a creature. Put a 5/5 Dragon token with flying into play." I think that card would fairly cost about 5 mana, and probably not cubeworthy (though it might get a little discussion). At 4 mana it would be extremely good, and almost certainly cubeworthy.
Sarkhan, at 5 mana, gets to do that, and potentially can live to do it a 2nd and 3rd time. Sure, it would be neat if the dragons got haste. But the creature you already had (even if it's just a 1/1 or 2/2) can attack before you use Sarkhan's ability to off him. So that mitigates the dragon's lack of haste a bit. Then the Dragon will be there untapped to protect Sarkhan through your opponent's next turn. Then, once you don't have any more creatures you want to turn into dragons, Sarkhan can replace himself with his first ability at the very least, and potentially stick around to draw you more cards.
The 3rd ability is what throws people off, because it looks so akwardly costed. I admit it's a bit marginal, but in the right situation it will be very good. Let's say you play Sarkhan on turn 5. You attack with one of your dorks, and after combat, turn it into a dragon. On turn 6, you can effectively attack for 10 by swinging in and then using Sarkhan's ultimate. It's situational, to be sure, and you need to be wary of instant-speed removal, but the threat of it is pretty massive and will force people to make desperate plays. And once in a while they'll just have no answer for it and you'll win on the spot.
I thought it looked bad on paper at first glance, but it's growing on me.
I agree that Poppet shouldn't be in a small cube (I cut him a few months ago), but it's not like it's a worthless card. He's certainly include-able in larger cubes, and it just so happens that we have the perfect deck for him...controllish, with lots of recursion. As someone pointed out above, he's absolutely sick when you have Nightmare going. He's certainly a weaker card than Kodama in the abstract, but quite a bit better for OUR deck than Kodama, IMO.