Played my 380 cube with some new people the other day. One drafted Reveillark and questioned why I had that in over Karmic Guide. I didn't have an answer really, because I've never had reveillark be useful. I see that it's included in almost every cube, but it's always just been dead weight. Even when I have several things for it to hit, the restriction on CMC makes it feel underwhelming. What am I missing here?
I'm currently at 380~ cards in my cube, including the conspiracy constructs, and am going to make the jump to 400. However, I'm not sure if I want to get there solely by mono-colored cards, or by going from 3 to 4 for each guild. I'm leaning towards going to 4 for the guilds, but I'm sure that might have some kind of unforeseen negative effect on the draft. It would end up as 55 of each color and 4 of each guild vs 57 of each color and 3 of each guild. Any opinions?
The five swords have been out of my 360, unpowered cube for a couple of years now. Generally I don't draft with more than 4 people, and sometimes just 2. Having a sword of your opponents' colors is pretty oppressive. I'm not sure if I should leave them out or try to jam in more answers to artifacts. I already run a fair amount of disenchant effects, and I think many more would water down card selection. While drafting with fewer people means we see fewer cards, having 5/360 cards in the cube is still a decent chance to have a couple show up in the draft. Fewer cards drafted also means fewer answers to the swords. Anyone have any opinions?
If I had larger than a 360 cube I'd try the artifact reanimation. I've had wildfire in for a while. Just need to make actually try to make a deck around it. Thanks everyone.
I'm looking over the Red Power Ranking votes so far and am realizing I don't have a good chunk of what people are voting for. Zurgo, Wheel, Sneak Attack, Daretti, Feldon, Welder (though my artifact section is weak), a couple others that have shown up occasionally. I've never been impressed with wildfire, but man people seem to love it. These results are surprising to me. Maybe red is due for an overhaul.
Pilgrim, Geist, Naturalize, Satyr, Vengevine, Centaur, Harmonize or Vorapede are all fine cuts.
As an aside, I don't think this needed its own thread. Could just post in the "this or that" thread, and put the list in spoiler tags.
Thanks for the suggestions! I think geist is gone, I haven't liked him much for a while. Also I should've posted there. Didn't even see it. Will do for next time. Thanks!
So I'm really wanting to try out Den Protector, but I'm very bad at deciding what to take out of my decks. I have a 380~ cube counting the draft altering constructs. I have 53 green cards, which is more than the 52 or 51 my other colors have, so I don't want to just jam it in there in addition to the other things. Here's what I currently have:
It feels like I have excessive amount of low drops, especially two drops. I'm thinking either drop one of the one-mana mana dorks, experiment one, strangleroot geist, wall of roots, or farseek. Any opinions?
Seeing the absurd success of this lady in standard makes me wonder if it's 360 cube material. I'm not sure what I would cut, but this is some pretty good value, and I love value.
The three artifacts are always nice to draw. 1 mana for a token and to draw a card is great.
I run a very heavy token focus. I play a lot of creatures that make tokens when they ETB, so Master of Waves and Evangel of Heliod are in there, among other things. I probably have more of a token focus than you're looking for, so you probably don't want all these pump effects, but here's what I use just in case you want some:
The crusader and liege have flash, so those are great. Cathars' crusade is certainly the most powerful of these and can quickly make your creatures enormous.
Other random cards of interest you may like. Sky Hussar - Draw two cards a turn for -1 maximum hand size. It's usually worth it. Mentor of the Meek - Draw even more cards. This deck draws a million residual cards. This helps it do that. Things like whitemane lion and dream stalker turn into "3 mana: draw a card" if you get into a situation where you somehow have a ton of mana and nothing in your hand. Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa - Just like the two cards above, you get to draw cards just for playing the game. You can eventually be drawing cards in every phase of the turn with almost no effort or extra investment. Dust Elemental - Maybe not as great for you, but like I said, I run a lot of things that make tokens when they ETB. This lets me save them and use them again, give me fuel for ephara, and is a hefty creature in its own right. Cackling Counterpart - Instant speed creature for Ephara, has flashback for value. Also consider momentary blink.
Also mana rocks. Lots of those. I play several that costs 2 or less, because getting Ephara online as soon as possible is imperative. Also you'll often be drawing a very steady stream of cards, and you need mana to cast those spells.
I think I'm going to try out conspiracy in my list. Works with endrek sahr, xathrid necromancer, rotlung, and Requiem angel. Doesn't combo with teysa so it's not quite as broken as darkest hour. Could be fun.
Topic title says it all. I feel like any of the "fun" decks I want to try will be too weak and just lose to everything. Are there any fun to play decks that are also competitive?
Purphoros
Kiki-Jiki
Zurgo
Wheel
Sneak Attack
If I had larger than a 360 cube I'd try the artifact reanimation. I've had wildfire in for a while. Just need to make actually try to make a deck around it. Thanks everyone.
Thanks for the suggestions! I think geist is gone, I haven't liked him much for a while. Also I should've posted there. Didn't even see it. Will do for next time. Thanks!
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Experiment One
1 Rancor
2 Farseek
2 Wall of Roots
2 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Strangleroot Geist
2 Naturalize
2 Lotus Cobra
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Fauna Shaman
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Rofellos
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Sylvan Library
2 Regrowth
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Eternal Witness
3 Boon Satyr
3 Kodama's Reach
3 Cultivate
3 Curse of Predation
4 Vengevine
4 Thrun
4 Phantom Centaur
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Wickerbough Elder
4 Harmonize
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Garruk Relentless
4 Natural Order
5 Wolfir Silverheart
5 Acidic Slime
5 Deranged Hermit
5 Vorapede
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
5 Plow Under
6 Primeval Titan
7 Hornet Queen
8 Woodfall Primus
0 Treetop Village
It feels like I have excessive amount of low drops, especially two drops. I'm thinking either drop one of the one-mana mana dorks, experiment one, strangleroot geist, wall of roots, or farseek. Any opinions?
Repeatable Token generators
The three artifacts are always nice to draw. 1 mana for a token and to draw a card is great.
I run a very heavy token focus. I play a lot of creatures that make tokens when they ETB, so Master of Waves and Evangel of Heliod are in there, among other things. I probably have more of a token focus than you're looking for, so you probably don't want all these pump effects, but here's what I use just in case you want some:
The crusader and liege have flash, so those are great. Cathars' crusade is certainly the most powerful of these and can quickly make your creatures enormous.
Other random cards of interest you may like.
Sky Hussar - Draw two cards a turn for -1 maximum hand size. It's usually worth it.
Mentor of the Meek - Draw even more cards. This deck draws a million residual cards. This helps it do that. Things like whitemane lion and dream stalker turn into "3 mana: draw a card" if you get into a situation where you somehow have a ton of mana and nothing in your hand.
Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa - Just like the two cards above, you get to draw cards just for playing the game. You can eventually be drawing cards in every phase of the turn with almost no effort or extra investment.
Dust Elemental - Maybe not as great for you, but like I said, I run a lot of things that make tokens when they ETB. This lets me save them and use them again, give me fuel for ephara, and is a hefty creature in its own right.
Cackling Counterpart - Instant speed creature for Ephara, has flashback for value. Also consider momentary blink.
Also mana rocks. Lots of those. I play several that costs 2 or less, because getting Ephara online as soon as possible is imperative. Also you'll often be drawing a very steady stream of cards, and you need mana to cast those spells.
Waaay too slow for delver