Danny's World of Stuff – Page 4 – Things and such for the discerning humanoid.

Interlude: Cycle Completionism Cube-builders OCD

When I started building the cube I had two big driving forces behind doing it. The first was playing with cards I liked but didn’t really have a use for only really playing commander and limited formats (i do play the odd bit of standard and modern but not as much as I’d like). The single card that most set this off was [mtg_card]Deathrite Shaman[/mtg_card] as I had a set and had not really gotten any use since rotation (I used them a little in Inn-RTR standard Jund). A close second was the pack fresh Force of Will I had opened in an ice age/alliance/cold snap draft we did one night.

The second was that I like cycles of cards and outside of the 5 colour [mtg_card]Progenitus[/mtg_card] commander deck I keep meaning to make you never really get to make use of a whole cycle in something. On top of that no matter how much you like a cycle most of the time there are only one or two playable in a given constructed format. Doing all this gave me a chance to make use of all the big cycles I liked without thought to format competitiveness.

The earliest build of the cube was in fact a lot heavier on cycles but quite a few got removed to make way for more archetype cards and to increase the power level in general.

That original build also had set amounts of different rarities of cards of each colour, a concept rapidly abandoned.

Titans

The first decision I made on the cube and it’s play style was that I wanted it to be big and splashy, more intended for games to go long and be full of commander style shenanigans.

In part I wanted the cube to be approachable to people who only play occasionally or very casually so the archetypes are all fairly direct (see a tribal lord, pick up cards of the same type etc) and some of the traditional cube staples like twin don’t really work for that.

With that in mind some of the first cards I picked to go in were the M11 titans. Anyone who knows the basic rules can read one of the titans and say “that’s powerful, I’ll take that first” and be happy with that pick later on. They’re also popular with experienced players and fit in any deck in the colour.

I also include an honourable mention colourless bonus card in this cycle: Wurmcoil Engine. It maintains the CMC 6, 6/6 mythic with powerful ability stats and it’s something I remember as part of that standard along with the titans (I jammed 4 in damn near every deck I played except bad RDW).

[mtg_card]Sun Titan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Frost Titan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Grave Titan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Inferno Titan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Primeval Titan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Wurmcoil Engine[/mtg_card]

As a fun aside this is also something I’m fond of from a pimp perspective as I have an alt art version of each titan (don’t have the [mtg_card]Wurmcoil Engine[/mtg_card] promo yet). The [mtg_card]Grave Titan[/mtg_card] promo is in fact the card that brought me back into playing magic after many years off. A friend was playing the original Duels of the Planeswalkers on steam and I jumped in out of curiosity and got the ad for the promo real cards…I soon found a new LGS where I picked up way more than I intended to including the Grave Titan promo. I then spent most of the next three years in there until the shop sadly closed.

Star Dragons

Rolling back to the first time I played the game, Kamigawa block, I wanted to include the Star Dragon cycle. These ones haven’t aged as well as the titan cycle but they still pack a reasonable punch.

Kokusho in particular was a favourite of mine back in the day and one of the few things I got back then that was still in any particular way playable when I came back, once we passed the “what the hell is this” phase when I brought out my old decks (they were terrible but we all go through that phase).

[mtg_card]Yosei, the Morning Star[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Keiga, the Tide Star[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Kokusho, the Evening Star[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Ryusei, the Falling Star[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Jugan, the Rising Star[/mtg_card]

I like to think that [mtg_card]Ugin, the Spirit Dragon[/mtg_card] is an honorary member of this team.

Khans

When I was building the early versions of the cube I was drafting Khans of Tarkir multiple times a week so I picked up a liking for 3 colour shenanigans.

There are, at present, almost no face down (morph or manifest) cards in the cube even though I’m a huge tarkir fan as for a while I planned a second cube including every face down or face down matters card ever printed. I had an attack of sanity however and that idea faded into the background. In the near future I shall probably add some in.

The Khans do fit fairly nicely into what these colour groups want to be doing such as Narset sitting between Spellslinging (UR) and Temp (UW).

[mtg_card]Anafenza, the Foremost[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sidisi, Brood Tyrant[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Surrak Dragonclaw[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Zurgo Helmsmasher[/mtg_card]

Guild Leaders

The Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash mythic legendary creatures come from a time I played in a weekly standard league where I actually (unlike a lot here) played quite a lot of this cycle at one time or another, so this is another cycle with some memories for me.

Trostani was my favourite card in my [mtg_card]Conjurer’s Closet[/mtg_card] flicker deck (it was very much like the reanimator deck just replacing [mtg_card]Advent of the Wurm[/mtg_card] with [mtg_card]Armada Wurm[/mtg_card] and the reanimation package with some more ramp and [mtg_card]Conjurer’s Closet[/mtg_card]).

Niv-Mizzet was one of the value engine/win con cards in the UWR midrange deck I used occasionally (and more often loaned out). It was way more creature heavy than many of the decks in those colours at the time (it ran [mtg_card]Snapcaster Mage[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Boros Reckoner[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius[/mtg_card] and some other value creatures on top of 4 [mtg_card]Bonfire of the Damned[/mtg_card] and 4 [mtg_card]Mizzium Mortars[/mtg_card]…take THAT aggro decks).

I attempted (and failed) many times to build a GB zombies deck, but I did get some fun wins sacrificing [mtg_card]Thragtusk[/mtg_card]s to [mtg_card]Jarad, Golgari Lich lord[/mtg_card]. Some early (bad) versions of my vampire tribal deck ran [mtg_card]Rakdos, Lord of Riots[/mtg_card] as a big beater before I got better cards.

[mtg_card]Prime Speaker Zegana[/mtg_card] joined Trostani later on in RTR-Theros in a bant deck I made around [mtg_card]Ajani, Mentor of Heroes[/mtg_card] (and [mtg_card]Armada Wurm[/mtg_card] again). I also played a pretty standard BW midrange during RTR-Theros with [mtg_card]Obzedat, Ghost Council[/mtg_card] (although blood baron was my favourite). Aurelia was in my first commander deck ([mtg_card]Kaalia of the Vast[/mtg_card], I’ve dismantled it since as I grew to find it a little too linear to keep amusing me, eventually I plan to make it into [mtg_card]Zurgo Helmsmasher[/mtg_card]….with Aurelia again).

Lava, Borborygmos and Isperia are the only ones I never really made much use of.

[mtg_card]Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Isperia, Supreme Judge[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Borborygmos Enraged[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Lazav, Dimir Mastermind[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Rakdos, Lord of Riots[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Prime Speaker Zegana[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Obzedat, Ghost Council[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Aurelia, the Warleader[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord[/mtg_card]

Maze Runners

While I’ve played less with these than their Mythic counterparts I still quite like them and a fair few fit very nicely into their matching archetype (not that I’m that strict on cards having to match archetypes, especially in a big cube like this, plenty of room for just fun cards).

This is also the only cycle I’ve included where one (and possibly soon a second) is subbed out for a different card.

Melek, Varolz, Lavinia, Vorel, Ruric Thar, Tajic and to a lesser extent Teysa all fit into their matching themed deck. Mirko doesn’t really fit either his tribe or the theme but is a viable win condition in a control UR deck as all you need to do is hit a couple of times and you could conceivably in from there by stalling out the game.

Exava is on the chopping block at the moment as her ability just doesn’t work AT ALL with the other cards in these colours, which is a shame as I like her. She’ll probably be swapped with something else soon, possibly (another Innistrad 2 wishlist item here) for a new RB vampire legend to buddy up with Olivia.

This leaves the elephant in the room (or more accurately the turd in the booster pack)…You can probably see this coming a mile away…[mtg_card]Emmara Tandris[/mtg_card]…I just can’t do it. Even though her ability actually fits the GW deck the only way shed get in is if I proxied a “fixed” version perhaps with “Affinity for Token Creatures” or with dramatically toned down cost and stats, maybe a 2GW 2/2 or even push her into a GW 1/1 (dies to everything but none of your other stuff does). But for now I don’t want to really play around with errata so she doesn’t make the cut. Her replacement is a favourite of mine, [mtg_card]Tolsimir Wolfblood[/mtg_card].

[mtg_card]Tolsimir Wolfblood[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Teysa, Orzhov Scion[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Ruric Thar, the Unbowed[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Melek, Izzet Paragon[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Varolz, the Scar-Striped[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Tajic, Blade of the Legion[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Lavinia of the Tenth[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Vorel of the Hull Clade[/mtg_card]

RTR Guildmages

The Return to Ravnica Guildmages are mostly in as fun multi colour cards but for the most part they do actually fit the themes of the decks they would be in. Duskmantle is the only one that really stands out as not being part of the deck.

[mtg_card]Korozda Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]New Prahv Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sunhome Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Nivix Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Duskmantle Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Rix Maadi Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Skarrg Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Vizkopa Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Zameck Guildmage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage[/mtg_card]

The Pantheon

All 15 of the gods of theros are in the cube. There’s not a lot to say here except this was a cycle where I liked enough of them individually that I decided to put in the lot. There is a little archetype crossover in the minor gods (Iroas and Pharika spring most to mind but many of them fit tangentially into the decks such as Xenagos in Gruul ramp…doesnt directly ramp you but make everything you cast just that bit better). It’s only really Phenax who stands out as wrong as there are only really her and Mirko-Vosk as enemy mill, but like the maze runner she can be a mill deck win condition in a can.

[mtg_card]Heliod, God of the Sun[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Erebos, God of the Dead[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Purphoros, God of the Forge[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Nylea, God of the Hunt[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Athreos, God of Passage[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Ephara, God of the Polis[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Iroas, God of Victory[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Karametra, God of Harvests[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Keranos, God of Storms[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Kruphix, God of Horizons[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Mogis, God of Slaughter[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Pharika, God of Affliction[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Phenax, God of Deception[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Xenagos, God of Revels[/mtg_card]

It saddens me to this day that [mtg_card]Chromanticore[/mtg_card], god of Jank-ass 5 colour decks could be neither Legendary nor a God. Perhaps its for the best though, that double height type line would have been nasty. Maybe he could have been the first landscape orientation non split magic card. Now THERES a proxy.

Weapons of the Gods

This cycle made it in largely due to my irrational love for Whip of Erebos. Seriously I didn’t play a swamp for two years without a pair of these in the 75. And it’s in every black commander deck I play. And the cube.

Spear of Heliod is something I at least experimented with in standard. For a couple of weeks I ran a version of mono blue devotion that splashed white for a pair of [mtg_card]Spear of Heliod[/mtg_card] and a set of [mtg_card]Azorius Charm[/mtg_card]s. The idea was that the Spear would keep my tokens alive when [mtg_card]Master of Waves[/mtg_card] inevitably bit the dust. It was just slightly too clunky to work, as were most “splash a colour for x” versions of “hopelessly devoted to U” (come on wizards, bring back the silly deck names). Bident of course made it into all my versions of the same deck because why wouldn’t it.

Bow and Hammer are among the first cards in these cycles to purely be here for completion, not that either are terrible cards, they just don’t appeal to me that much personally.

[mtg_card]Spear of Heliod[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Bident of Thassa[/mtg_card] (no not Biden, safari autocorrect, I’m not doing politics tonight)
[mtg_card]Whip of Erebos[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Hammer of Purphoros[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Bow of Nylea[/mtg_card]

Ascendancies

Another leftover from my massive amount of KTK drafts is my love for the ascendancy cycle. Mechanically I like what they all do but more than that they all, for me at least, define in a single card what each clan is all about. If you showed someone familiar with the game these 5 cards long before KTK was spoiled they could probably work out a lot both mechanically and thematically about the set which I think is quite cool. I’m a big fan of cards which kind of tell a story just through one card in isolation (not necessarily counting flavour text) and I’ve always thought these do well at that (the single best example of single card storytelling is of course…Desert Wooder).

[mtg_card]Abzan Ascendancy[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Mardu Ascendancy[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sultai Ascendancy[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Jeskai Ascendancy[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Temur Ascendancy[/mtg_card]

Zeniths

The zenith cycles inclusion comes from the presence of Green Sun’s in FTV 20. I had a pair and had no real use for it as it was banned in modern and I wouldn’t want to run it outside of mono green commander (which I don’t have).

RSZ was also a card I was quite fond of (recurring fireball is never bad). The rest just slotted in nicely. USZ is just a big draw spell, nothing controversial there. BSZ is a great control card and WSZ fitted into the WG tokens deck.

[mtg_card]White Sun’s Zenith[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Blue Sun’s Zenith[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Black Sun’s Zenith[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Red Sun’s Zenith[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/mtg_card]

I considered including an altered [mtg_card]Lightning Shrieker[/mtg_card], bearing the new name I gave it but sadly Dragon Sun’s Zenith wasn’t really good enough to make the cut.

Charms

The 10 guild charms and the 10 shard/wedge charms were all pretty much auto includes. The former in the very first build of the cube and the latter as soon as I decided to have the small set of cards in each 3 colour combination.

Of them all the only one that has any real personal significance is Izzet Charm, both one of my favourite cards and the only card I ever won a full playset of over a month of FNMs (it was also one of my favourite FNM promos so that was a nice month for me).

I think they’re all good to some degree and it’s nice to throw in some cards that give people more options in game, plus modal spells are almost never dead but still give you some of the niche effects of things like situational counter spells and narrow removal without being dead cards without the targets. I considered the dragon lords charms as well but those 15 card guild coloured sections are already chock full with more cards I want to include.

[mtg_card]Selesnya Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Izzet Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Gruul Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Azorius Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Rakdos Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Dimir Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Simic Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Boros Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Orzhov Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Golgari Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Abzan Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Mardu Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sultai Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Temur Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Jeskai Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Bant Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Esper Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Grixis Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Jund Charm[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Naya Charm[/mtg_card]

Swords of Chalk and Cheese

For me the swords hold a special place as the only set of cards I missed out on twice. As mentioned earlier when I first started playing the game it was Kamigawa block so I just missed out on the original swords, and as I didn’t spend much on singles then I ended up seeing them as the cool powerful cards I just couldn’t get my hands on.

When I returned to the game it was just before M12 game day so I had once again missed the boat on the new swords. I know I could have just ponied up and bought them but playing standard at the time there was always something else I needed for the league that bumped them down the list. It was only around the release of BFZ that I ever obtained a set and it was specifically to go in here.

[mtg_card]Sword of War and Peace[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sword of Body and Mind[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sword of Light and Shadow[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/mtg_card]

Under Consideration: Tarkir Elder Dragons

Four of the cards in this cycle are almost definite shoe-ins. Dromoka and Silumgar are both rock solid cards despite not overly fitting into the archetypes. Ojutai is a fantastic tempo card/control finisher for UW and Atarka would make a great top end ramp target for the RG deck.

The thing is however that it would annoy me greatly to have the 4 cards without the fifth to complete the cycle and Kolaghan has an issue. Although it’s base stats and first ability are fine something severely bugs me about the concept of having a card in the cube where a significant chunk of the text is non functional. I may buckle under anyway and include it but it will be with a slight persistent sense of irritation.

(Commence Ramble: I did hear maro discussing this on his podcast and while I do understand his point that Legendary Creatures are not solely for commander I sort of feel that one member of a cycle of mythic legends which are obviously going to be desirable commanders isn’t necessarily the place for that logic. I would probably feel better about that ability if it were some random standalone guy or a creature which was obviously pushed to fill a role in standard or modern but to me Kologhan sticks out as out of place among the cycle).

[mtg_card]Dragonlord Dromoka[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Dragonlord Ojutai[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Dragonlord Kolaghan[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Dragonlord Silumgar[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Dragonlord Atarka[/mtg_card]

Under Consideration: Manlands

The original plan for the cube was for ten two colour archetypes, five mono colour tribal sub themes and a multicolour artifact deck. Over time Iv’e cut back the mono colour tribal elements (as I go through each archetype they shall probably gradually fall back out of the cube…Zombies have become a full two colour deck, elves have been purged as a theme, I could never decide between merfolk and faeries for blue and that leaves goblins in red and soldiers in white and they shall probably become a supported sub theme of the RW aggro/battalion deck) to the point they effectively no longer exist. The artifact deck is rapidly fizzling out as in my tests I just can’t make it a viable thing without screwing up the actual proper archetypes.

There is an alternative option I’m considering which is making artifacts the UR mechanic but this would most likely be a lot of shoehorning to allow me to keep a couple of pet cards in ([mtg_card]Pia and Kiran Nalaar[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Atog[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Megatog[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Whirler Rogue[/mtg_card] etc).

Another concern is that the current mana fixing setup of Duals, Shocks, Fetches and Trilands doesn’t seem to appear quite enough for a heavy multicolour cube of this size.

This all leads me to the conclusion that I shall likely strip the artifact theme out and reduce it to just “some good artifacts that go anywhere” and use some of those slots to add an extra cycle of lands. I considered filters or temples but in light of the completion of the dual colour manland cycle I shall likely include these.

[mtg_card]Celestial Colonnade[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Creeping Tar Pit[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Lavaclaw Reaches[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Raging Ravine[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Stirring Wildwood[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Shambling Vent[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Wandering Fumarole[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Hissing Quagmire[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Needle Spires[/mtg_card]
[mtg_card]Lumbering Falls[/mtg_card]

Broken Cycles

Although I clearly like to include whole cycles, perhaps to slightly to high a degree, there are a few isolated cards that came out of cycles.

The most prominent is [mtg_card]Cryptic Command[/mtg_card]. That card in particular is one I like due to it’s inclusion in my modern UW [mtg_card]Geist of Saint Traft[/mtg_card] deck but the others were from the time I was out of the game and don’t have any particular resonance with me.

[mtg_card]Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Sheoldred, Whispering One[/mtg_card] are both in but the remaining praetors haven’t really made the cut. I was considering [mtg_card]Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger[/mtg_card] until I remembered that the card I was actually thinking of was [mtg_card]Omnath, Locus of Mana[/mtg_card].

Cube Archetype – WU Control/Tempo

Along with some of the cards from the previous WB section, WU will be a mix of control and tempo in this cube.

Card Advantage and Selection

Every control deck needs a way to avoid running out of gas, whether it’s card draw spells, 2 for 1’s or recurring effects in some way. You also want to have ways to filter your deck to get to the answers you need for what your opponents have done (control in this cube is pretty reactionary as there aren’t the resources to lock an opponent out of the game, this is a deliberate choice on my part as this is intended to be playable be the much less experienced). Blue is, obviously, the best colour for this, probably followed by black (and Esper control is a perfectly viable deck in this cube too).

[mtg_card]Ponder[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Preordain [/mtg_card]and [mtg_card]Serum Visions[/mtg_card] are all traditional cheap card selection options. Slightly higher up the curve are [mtg_card]Anticipate[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Impulse[/mtg_card]. There’s also [mtg_card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/mtg_card] for constant scrying, plus her second ability could be helpful in a more tempo focused build (getting your [mtg_card]Jhessian Thief[/mtg_card] style creatures through).

For multiple card draw there’s [mtg_card]Divination[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Coastal Discovery[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Ugin’s Insight[/mtg_card] and a few others. There’s also [mtg_card]Bident of Thassa[/mtg_card] for the more creature heavy decks. [mtg_card]Treasure Cruise[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Dig Through Time[/mtg_card] round out the top end. I don’t think it will be particularly difficult to fill up the graveyard enough to cast them at a reasonable time.

White doesn’t have a lot in the way of card draw in this, [mtg_card]Mentor of the Meek[/mtg_card] does NOT fit this deck will if at all (he’s more for WR or WG). White’s card advantage comes more from the boardwipes or from generating multiple bodies off of a single card.

There are also a few creatures with selection and draw bolted on, such as [mtg_card]Augur of Bolas[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Omenspeaker[/mtg_card]. [mtg_card]Snapcaster Mage[/mtg_card] also counts in a way as card advantage, letting you get back some spell or other.

There is [mtg_card]Brainstorm[/mtg_card] (and [mtg_card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Jace the Mind Sculptor[/mtg_card]) but if you want to make the best of it you’ll need to prioritise fetchlands as there are only a few ways to shuffle away dead cards.

Tempo

There are plenty of options in here to make a tempo deck in UW.

The classic tempo plays are bounce and tap effects, disrupting your enemy until you can either grind them out, assemble some form of game winning combo or land some unanswerable bomb ([mtg_card]Geist of Saint Traft[/mtg_card] springs to mind, a card I love but haven’t yet steeled myself on putting in the cube…I can see some bad games coming from “here’s my unanswerable threat, come at me bro”). There are plenty of both in here. [mtg_card]Feeling of dread[/mtg_card] is one of my favourite of these, and there’s a few others plus [mtg_card]sleep[/mtg_card], the king of “and now I’m swinging with everything” tap spells. Bounce has an assortment too, most notably [mtg_card]cyclonic rift[/mtg_card], the all star of the last time the cube was played in person (a UG counters deck with a crap ton of draw leading into a massive rift induced kerb stomp).

A tempo deck also wants to get the most out of its creatures and there are plenty in U/W with beneficial effects for this kind of deck such as [mtg_card]Jhessian Thief[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Aether Adept[/mtg_card] at the lower end. There is also [mtg_card]Venser the Sojourner[/mtg_card] who works well with many of the value creatures in these colours (bonus points for locking an aggro deck out with [mtg_card]Lavinia of the Tenth[/mtg_card] and Venser).

There is also a little sub theme of awaken with [mtg_card]Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper[/mtg_card] and a small assortment of awaken spells. I’m also considering throwing in the 10 mainlands so that would be a little extra edge (there is also [mtg_card]Ruinous Path[/mtg_card] in black).

Control

Differing from tempo there’s hard control. Most decks will be a mix of the two but you could build quite a hard “counters, removal, board wipes and win cons” style control deck and I think it would work. I do feel like this would be the time you would be leaning most into Esper for blacks removal (and possibly cards like [mtg_card]Phyrexian Arena[/mtg_card]).

In a creature heavy format board wipes are absolutely essential and theres no shortage in here. [mtg_card]Wrath of God[/mtg_card] is the classic and pretty reliably gets rid of everything. There’s also [mtg_card]Planar Outburst[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Martial Coup[/mtg_card] in white, both of which come with built in win conditions and the aforementioned [mtg_card]cyclonic rift[/mtg_card] in blue ([mtg_card]upheaval[/mtg_card] is a card I’ve left out as I’m leaning away from screwing that much with lands for now…maybe in the next round of changes. The power level might be allowed to increase as cards are released to improve the potentially weaker archetypes like zombies and vampires).

While there aren’t a huge variety of counter spells I’ve opted for the ones I think are the better ones. [mtg_card]Counterspell[/mtg_card], the pair [mtg_card]Negate[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Essence Scatter[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Dissipate[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Dissolve[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Scatter to the winds[/mtg_card] along with a few others. There is also [mtg_card]Force of Will[/mtg_card]. I admit that’s slightly out of place but It’s one of the more valuable cards I have and I have nowhere else it would really fit (opened last year in a paper draft, all nice and pack fresh).

Point removal isn’t the strength of this pair outside of [mtg_card]Swords to Plowshares[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Path to Exile[/mtg_card]…but they are pretty much the best point removal.

An example deck

This time I got a midrangey deck with some counterspells, card selection and chunky midrange creatures, backed up by an assortment of wrath effects.

The deck also dips into black for [mtg_card]Merciless Eviction[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Sphinx of the Steel Wind[/mtg_card] at the top end (I threw in [mtg_card]Tithe Drinker[/mtg_card] too, but that’s only because I like it, not because it was a good idea).

[d title="WB Taxman"]
Creatures
1 Containment Priest
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
1 Heliod's Emissary
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Soulblade Djinn
1 Sun Titan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Non-Creature Permenants
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gideon Jura
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Spells
1 Preordain
1 Serum Visions
1 Anticipate
1 Dissipate
1 Scatter to the Winds
1 Planar Outburst
1 Ugin's Insight
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Martial Coup

Land
1 Maze of Ith
1 Underground Sea
6 Plains
7 Island
2 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Abzan Ascendancy
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Force of Will
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Megatog
1 Midnight Haunting
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Murderous Cut
1 Norn's Annex
1 Shrine of Burning Rage
1 Steam Augury
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Tower Gargoyle
1 Tragic Slip
1 Vorel of the Hull Clade
1 Zhur-Taa Druid
[/d]

The complete list

Fun fact, the entire non creature contents of blue fits in here. Blue just loves control and tempo…it’s just to what degree does any card care.

[d title="BG Cube Subtheme (Graveyard/Morbid) - December 2015"]
White
1 Gideon's Lawkeeper
1 Azorius Arrester
1 Seeker of the Way
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Banisher Priest
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Crusader of Odric
1 Field Marshal
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Flickerwisp
1 Gideon's Avenger
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Archangel of Tithes
1 Knight of Obligation
1 Restoration Angel
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

1 Gideon Jura
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Celestial Flare
1 Feeling of Dread
1 Midnight Haunting
1 Rebuke
1 Lingering Souls
1 Spectral Procession
1 Wrath of God
1 Planar Outburst
1 Martial Coup
1 Pacifism
1 Oblivion Ring

Blue
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Jeskai Elder
1 Omenspeaker
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Tidebinder Mage
1 Aether Adept
1 Jhessian Thief
1 Mistblade Shinobi
1 Tandem Lookout
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Lhassa, God of the Sea
1 Master of Waves
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Thassa's Emissary
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Frost Titan
1 Pearl Lake Ancient

1 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

1 Brainstorm
1 Vapor Snag
1 Anticipate
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Echoing Truth
1 Essence Scatter
1 Impulse
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Remand
1 Think Twice
1 Turn to Frog
1 Crippling Chill
1 Dissipate
1 Dissolve
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Scatter to the Winds
1 Aetherize
1 Cryptic Command
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force of Will
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Dig Through Time
1 Distortion Strike
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Serum Visions
1 Silent Departure
1 Divination
1 Coastal Discovery
1 Sleep
1 Ugin's Insight
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Claustrophobia
1 Mind Control
1 Bident of Thassa

Azorius
1 Judge's Familiar
1 New Praha Guildmage
1 Azorius Charm
1 Lyev Skyknight
1 Roil Spout
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
1 Skymark Roc
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Lavinia of the Tenth
1 Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
1 Venser the Sojourner
1 Sphinx's Revelation
[/d]

The recently spoiled [mtg_card]Reflector Mage[/mtg_card] is going into this as soon as hes on cubetutor, hes just lovely. Throw in [mtg_card]Venser, the Sojourner[/mtg_card] and your opponents best thing is never coming back down.

Cube Archetype – The Taxman Cometh (WB)

Completing the four black colour pairs is Orzhov. The basic concept of this deck is to put together a large bulk of cards which in various ways hinder your opponents. Effects include making your opponents pay more to attack or block, making them pay more to cast spells, anything with the extort keyword and effects which, in general, are just a bloody nuisance.

There are also a few exalted cards in these colours too to make combat less predictable for your opponent.

I’ve pulled ideas on what to include from decks like pillowfort, hatebears, death and taxes etc.

Disruption and removal

This deck doesn’t have the advantages of some of the other colour combinations in terms of card synergy (the tribal decks), grinding advantage (graveyard decks) or just silly hugeness (ramp) but what this pair does have is some of the best disruption in the cube. Both colours have some of the strongest single target removal (I actually cut back on whites targeted removal while doing this as it was a little too good, I’ve kept Path and Swords as a “best in class” kinda thing).

Black also gives you plenty of options for hand disruption, the latest addition being Hymn to Tourach which now I’m increasing the cubes power level should be fine. I considered Cabal Therapy but outside of a constructed format the first cast is basically luck based which I wanted to avoid.

Also as is a theme in this deck you get many extra copies of the same effects bolted onto creatures, such as Fiend Hunter and Banisher Priest for removal and Tidehollow Sculler and Sin Collector for hand disruption.

Taxes and interference

Another section of this archetype is permanent which disrupt the general course of play for your opponent. I’m aiming for a variation on the sort of cards you would see in a WB hatebears/pillowfort type of thing.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Vryn Wingmare punish your opponent for playing non creature spells. Ghostly Prison, Norn’s Annex and Archangel of Tithes all make attacking difficult for your opponent and are particularly punishing for any deck that wants to go wide, such as a GW tokens deck.

There are also a few cards to reduce the effectiveness of your opponents cards. Blind Obedience, Hushwing Gryff, Containment Priest, Aegis of the Gods, Spirit of the Labyrinth and Eidolon of Rhetoric all nerf or outright prevent something on your opponents side from functioning (the effects are largely symmetrical, but as is often the case in magic the person controlling an apparently symmetrical effect usually gets a disproportionate benefit from it).

Winning the game

All this is well and good but you do need to eventually be able to win the game. You could just throw in a Baneslayer Angel or a Grave Titan but there are some slightly more subtle ways available.

Exalted is the first way this deck has to win. Sublime Archangel turns just about any creature you can protect into a huge threat, plus there are a few extra sources of exalted triggers dotted throughout white and black including my personal favourite exalted creatures Knight of Glory and Knight of Infamy. Speaking of…

Protection is something I tried to keep to a minimum in building this cube and most of it is in this deck. The aforementioned knights, Soldier of the Pantheon and a few others have protection (there’s a little outside of black white but its either at the high end or fairly niche…except for Stormbreath Dragon which is basically trinket text unless you have a StP in hand and True Name Nemesis…because True Name Nemesis). You also get Mother of Runes, a card which just makes everything difficult for the other guy, basically blanking one removal spell or combat interaction per turn.

There’s also Pontiff of Blight to win without even attacking, Bitterblossom to gradually overwhelm your opponents with flyers (bitterblossom + pontiff + just about anything = fun).

Off-Colour/Crossover cards

This deck doesn’t have a great deal of synergy with other colours but there are some deficiencies which are helped by pulling cards from other colours. Green works particularly well as both the Selesnya (WG) and Abzan (WBG) sections have some big chunky creatures (such as Siege Rhino) and some good hate effects (such as Dryad Militant and Voice of Resurgence).

This may change as I’m thinking of heavily reworking the artifact deck (currently spread across all non green colours) into either UR or entirely replacing it with eldrazi.

An example deck

Realising I should really have been doing this with the other archetypes as I go (hmm….TO THE EDIT BUTTON…when I can be arsed), here’s an example deck.

This one came out a little low on spells but, the cards that come up are the cards that come up.

[d title="WB Taxman"]
Creatures
1 Mother of Runes
1 Thrull Parasite
1 Alabaster Mage
1 Aven Squire
1 Basilica Screecher
1 Child of Night
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Banisher Priest
1 Drana's Emissary
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Hushwing Gryff
1 Sin Collector
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Treasury Thrull
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Non-Creature Permenants
1 Blind Obedience
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Thran Dynamo

Spells
1 Smallpox
1 Wrath of God

Land
9 Plains
8 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Blood Seeker
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farseek
1 Goblin Guide
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Hellhole Flailer
1 Jiwari, the Earth Aflame
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Read the Bones
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Siege Rhino
1 Sign in Blood
1 Spectral Procession
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Tandem Lookout
1 Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
1 Unburial Rites
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Windswept Heath
[/d]

The complete list

[d title="BG Cube Subtheme (Graveyard/Morbid) - December 2015"]
White
1 Mother of Runes
1 Soldier of the Pantheon
1 Aven Squire
1 Containment Priest
1 Elite Inquisitor
1 Knight of Glory
1 Suture Priest
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Aegis of the Gods
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Banisher Priest
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Hushwing Gryff
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Archangel of Tithes
1 Knight of Obligation
1 Sublime Archangel

1 Blind Obedience
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Norn's Annex

Black
1 Thrull Parasite
1 Basilica Screecher
1 Blood Seeker
1 Knight of Infamy
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis
1 Pontiff of Blight

1 Despise
1 Duress
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Smallpox

Orzhov
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Drana's Emissary
1 Sin Collector
1 Treasury Thrull
[/d]

On looking at all this I think the raw power level on some of the cards in this section is higher than most of the BG/BR/UB section but the cards in this section will be more fought over for generic good stuff decks, whereas the tribal or graveyard cards will be easier to pick up a larger number of the cards for.

Cube Archetype – Graveyard (BG)

Completing the Sultai/graveyard/zombies/sacrifice wedge of the cube is the Golgari graveyard section.

There will be some sacrifice effects, discard and self mill to fill up the graveyard and a variety of effects that make this desirable. Specifically the main pay off is “Creature cards in graveyards matter” in keeping with the old Innistrad [mtg_card]Spider Spawning[/mtg_card] draft deck, although there will be other benefits too. Sacrifice effects, death triggers and undying all play into this theme as well.

This section, if you look to the full list at the bottom of the post, is quite a bit longer than some of the others. This is largely because of the number of cards from Zombies/Vampires and just general goodstuff cards that play well into this archetype. [mtg_card]Murderous Cut[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Whip of Erebos[/mtg_card] are happy in any black deck, it just happens to have an even bigger edge in this deck. This also leads to the conclusion that the person going all in on the graveyard deck won’t have a ridiculously good card pool as many of these will be shared with the other black or green decks.

The All-In Cards

As mentioned before a lot of the relevant cards in this colour pair are just “good cards” which happen to fit into the deck, either through being improved by a full graveyard or just being generally good. There are of course a few cards which just don’t work if you’re not in “the graveyard deck”.

Spider Spawning (sad note: the spider spawning deck was always overdrafted back in the day of Innistrad draft where I used to play so I never actually pulled it off successfully) and Boneyard Wurm both do precisely jack if you have no creature cards in your graveyard. Splinterfright and Nemesis of Mortals are both at least viable in another deck but in both cases they would be overshadowed by most of the other options available.

Corpseweft, Deathreap Ritual and Deadbridge Chant all stand out as cards that work a lot better when the graveyard is being filled, or in the case of Deadbridge Chant when you can selectively pull stuff OUT of the graveyard (Deadbridge Chant plus Scavenging Ooze/Deathrite Shaman/some delve cards makes “random” a lot less iffy).

The Standalone Cards

Sheoldred, Whispering One is a great top end in both this deck and…well…any deck that can get to that mana cost (a rampy green deck could conceivably get this out early enough to be a major pain). Outside of green the cube didnt really have much if anything over the CMC 6 level in its early iterations. Having got some play in ive reached the conclusion that I can push that up a bit across all the colours due to its midrange silliness level.

Whip of Erebos and Birthing Pod are both grindy value engines that fit into any deck in the colours (although pod requires a bit more set up). If you happen to get both so much the better.

The exploit cards in black all fill your graveyard while giving you some form of value, while also playing very nicely if you end up in the 3 colour zombie/graveyard deck. Given that Gurmag Angler made it into modern and just what Tasigur does everywhere he goes I don’t think any explanation is really needed here.

The Filler Cards

I haven’t worked out yet just how good Tarmogoyf will be in this cube. Outside of the full on graveyard deck I don’t really have a handle on how quickly the different types will get into the graveyard. There aren’t a huge number of enchantments and they won’t be dying that much, and there aren’t that many lands that will end up in the graveyard (I might improve the land section in the near future with wasteland, strip mine and some other higher power goodies). My intuition says he belongs mostly in the BG deck….I may be wildly and hilariously wrong on that though.

There are plenty of other less dramatic cards that play with the graveyard and theres not much to be gained by writing about them, and theyre also pretty interchangeable.

Honorouble mention for failing to make the cut goes to Grisly Salvage…It really SHOULD be in here, but im trying to stick strictly to the numbers in each colour section and I really like what’s currently in the Golgari section. Without breaking a cycle (charms, RTR guildmages, guild leaders, maze runners) or taking out Deathrite Shaman (the card that prompted me to actually make the cube in the first place) the only one that really fits to go is Dreg Mangler…He may not last much longer.

Crossover With Other Archetypes

As ive mentioned before (and I shant bother retreading here) there is a lot of crossover between this deck and the UB zombie archetype, and to a lesser degree with the BR vampire deck.

Evolutionary Leap is most intended here, but works pretty well in any creature heavy green deck. Blanking your opponents removal spells is always nice but if you can get any repeatable reanimation or token generation then this becomes a source of gradual card advantage too, especially in something like GW tokens.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

Unburial Rites might as well be a WB card. You would definitely want at least a small white splash just to flash it back. Timely Hordemate (assuming it survives the next round of cuts) fits relatively well if you have some aggressive creatures (might let you recur a small value creature like a Sakur-Tribe Elder). The token makers in white give you some fodder creatures for the sac effects but the best one for this deck is clearly Lingering Souls, as you can at least get some use if you mill it.

Other colours also have a couple of nice graveyard fillers, Forbidden Alchemy in blue and Faithless Looting in red. Both also have flashback which is a bonus in this deck.

The bloodrush creatures in RG also are a good way to up your creatures in the graveyard count. Pyrewild Shaman in particular is good as you can recur him for multiple triggers off of cards such as Blood Artist.

The Sultai selection also has some good options. Sultai Ascendancy improves your draws and fills the graveyard. Sultai Soothsayer gives you a good defensive body, card selection and also fills the graveyard. Lastly Sidisi, Brood Tyrant once again fills the graveyard and also gets you blockers and combos with anything else you have that mills you.

The complete list

[d title="BG Cube Subtheme (Graveyard/Morbid) - December 2015"]
Black
1 Gravecrawler
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Sultai Emissary
1 Blood Bairn
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Erebos's Emissary
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Rakshasa Gravecaller
1 Shadowborn Demon
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Silumgar Butcher
1 Mikeaus, the Unhallowed
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Liliana of the Veil

1 Tragic Slip
1 Murderous Cut
1 Barter in Blood
1 Unburial Rites

1 Corpseweft
1 Whip of Erebos

Green
1 Boneyard Wurm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
1 Splinterfright
1 Graverobber Spider
1 Lumberknot
1 Thragtusk
1 Vorapede
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Nemesis of Mortals

1 Commune with the Gods
1 Mulch
1 Spider Spawning

1 Evolutionary Leap

1 Birthing Pod
1 Bow of Nylea

White
1 Timely Hordemate
1 Lingering Souls

Blue
1 Forbidden Alchemy

Red
1 Faithless Looting
Golgari
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Korozda Guildmage
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Nyx Weaver
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Deathreap Ritual
1 Golgari Rotwurm
1 Deadbridge Chant

Sultai
1 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
1 Sultai Soothsayer
1 Sultai Ascendancy
[/d]

While I make changes to the cube I do a lot of sim drafts just to see if enough of a given archetype appears that it’s even a thing. This one so far has definitely come across as less “all-in” than the previous vampire and zombie ones. It comes across a little more like a grindy midrange deck. This doesn’t strike me as a bad thing but I do plan to come back and review this section post SoI.

Cube Archetype – Zombie Tribal (BUg)

Continuing in updating my cube to make the themes a bit more noticeable, today I’m looking at Zombies.

Originally this was the BG archetype but while there are a few good BG zombies there are very few straight up green zombies. There are however some BU zombies I’m quite fond of and some acceptable mono blue zombie creatures.

The BG “happen to be zombies, actually graveyard matters” cards will stay in and become part of a kind of 3 colour arc of graveyard matters decks (the black part of Rakdos vampires, Golgari sacrifice and Dimir zombies, plus Sidisi herself in Sultai can all to a degree mix and match).

The All-In Cards

Much like vampires we have a pair of lords, one mono black, one dual colour. [mtg_card]Death Baron[/mtg_card] nearly made the cut over [mtg_card]Lord of the Undead[/mtg_card] but I thought that in a primarily midrange/control cube which is designed to encourage big silly plays mass deathtouch could be a little on the OP side (or at least really annoying to play against).

[mtg_card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Lich Lord of Unx[/mtg_card] are both aimed at giving you a huge horde of zombie tokens. Endless ranks is dead outside of a heavy tribal deck and I do want a few cards like this in each theme.

The Standalone Cards

As expected for the titan cycle [mtg_card]Grave Titan[/mtg_card] is a bomb in its own right. [mtg_card]Liliana’s Reaver[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Sidisi, Undead Vizier[/mtg_card] are both great in any black deck.

[mtg_card]Mikaeus, the Unhallowed[/mtg_card] basically goes into ANY deck which has few or no humans. The undying is a little better in a deck with sacrifice effects but is still perfectly good in isolation.

[mtg_card]Grimgrin, Corpse-Born[/mtg_card] is a little on the clunky side BUT is a huge trundling value engine as long as you can keep him fed (happy time occurs if you have a [mtg_card]gravecrawler[/mtg_card]).

[mtg_card]Army of the Damned[/mtg_card] is a card I glossed over as too slow and clunky when I first built the cube, but after playing it (and realising my concerns about rampant aggro were hilariously unrealistic) I decided I could push up the top of the curves and put in a few over the top items like this.

The Filler Cards

[mtg_card]Deranged Assistant[/mtg_card] is an enabler for the graveyard cards in here (plus this isn’t a quick deck so every little helps). [mtg_card]Havengul Runebinder[/mtg_card] obviously plays better the more zombies you have. The actual blue zombies all either fill or eat your graveyard (roll on Shadows over Innistrad for more blue zombies).

Black has a bit more selection, but zombies arent great at the sub 3 CMC level. [mtg_card]Gravecrawler[/mtg_card] sits at 1 and is best used as combo fuel with sac outlets like Grimgrin. 2 has [mtg_card]Blood Scrivener[/mtg_card] (not terrible if you ever manage to grind a game out long enough to empty your hand), [mtg_card]Highborn Ghoul[/mtg_card] (blech, true filler) and [mtg_card]Sultai Emissary[/mtg_card] (I really quite like this guy, I only just remembered he was a zombie).

Once you pass CMC 3 the selection opens up and we have the more interesting [mtg_card]Nantuko Husk[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Lifebane Zombie[/mtg_card], and [mtg_card]Ghoulraiser[/mtg_card] all having useful effects stapled on. We also have [mtg_card]Rakshasa Gravecaller[/mtg_card] (conveniently makes zombies, plus one of my absolute favourites from DoT) and [mtg_card]Silumgar Butcher[/mtg_card] (I’ll just sac this here [mtg_card]Gravecrawler[/mtg_card]).

Crossover With Other Archetypes

[mtg_card]Pontiff of Blight[/mtg_card] is great in the zombie deck (especially as its slightly slower to get rolling than some of the other decks and would be happy to gain a little extra life to stay in the game) but is intended mainly for the BW taxman deck.

[mtg_card]Corpseweft[/mtg_card] gets a mention here also as its much more at home in the GB deck which will have a full graveyard a bit more often. UB cares more about getting its stuff back out (Ghoulraiser, Lord of the Undead, Gravecrawler, etc) and has less means of getting cards into the yard.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

[mtg_card]Golgari Rotwurm[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Lotleth Troll[/mtg_card] all serve as strong creatures with a means of filling the graveyard up (again, this is going to be Golgari’s thing) while also being zombies. In addition all our tribal lords synergise with at least one of these guys.

[mtg_card]Dreg mangler[/mtg_card] is just a decent body with the benefit of working from the graveyard (Golgari is rapidly filling up with things I like too much to remove so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go at some point).

[mtg_card]Varolz, the Scar-Striped[/mtg_card] is an honourable mention as he isn’t a zombie at all (although I briefly thought he was) but is a pretty strong addition to the deck regardless as both a strong sac outlet and a use for whatever youve put in your graveyard.

[mtg_card]Sidisi, Brood Tyrant[/mtg_card] works as great in both the GB and UB decks, or a combination of the two, Lord of the Undead and Cemetery Reaper both love a full graveyard and there are some incidental self mill cards floating around the general Sultai section of the cube (such as Forbidden Alchemy, Mulch, Splinterfright and Nyx Weaver).

The complete list

[d title="BUg Cube Subtheme (Zombies) - November 2015"]
Black
1 Gravecrawler
1 Blood Scrivener
1 Highborn Ghoul
1 Sultai Emissary
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Ghoulraiser
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Rakshasa Gravecaller
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Silumgar Butcher
1 Grave Titan
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Pontiff of Blight

1 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Army of the Damned

1 Corpseweft
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead

Blue
1 Screeching Skaab
1 Armored Skaab
1 Skaab Ruinator
1 Stitched Drake
1 Havengul Runebinder
1 Relentless Skaabs
1 Skaab Goliath

1 Deranged Assistant
1 Forbidden Alchemy

Dimir 
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Lich Lord of Unx
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Possessed Skaab
Golgari 
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Golgari Rotwurm

Sultai
1 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
[/d]

In the future I’d definitely like to improve the quality here and add a couple more early game cards. Innistrad 2 is pretty guaranteed to at least buff up the Vampire and Zombie tribes (hopefully not with some kind of parasitic ingest esque mechanic stapled on). In an unrelated aside I would love to see more werewolves too…I want modern werewolves to be a thing…I know it wont…but give me just a few more and I’ll try dammit (another decent 1 and 2 drop and at least the deck will be roughly the right shape).

Cube Archetype – Vampire Tribal (BRw)

Last Friday in place of our usual draft we had a cube draft night.

Due to some drop outs we had a less than ideal 6 players but good times were had by all with an abundance of silly decks. From the previous times I played the cube I was concerned about the possibility of there being too many aggro decks but we got quite a good assortment, including:

UGr +1/+1 Counters (splashing Sarkhan Unbroken and Borborygmos Enraged)
WBG Midrange (Seige Rhino, Tasigur, Wurmcoil and other goodstuff)
RWu aggro/soldier tribal (Field Marshall and Captain of the Watch with Assemble the Legion)
BG Midrange.
Jund Midrange (some vampires but not a tribal deck).
Something I’ve forgotten.

It all went well though and it’s put me in the mood to start work on improving the setup again. Specifically I want to look at the various archetypes (one in each two colour pair although some bleed into a third colour to include some cards I like, plus there are some miscellaneous tribal themes and an optional artifact deck).

Due to the cubes size (just over double the normal size to allow for lots of variance and for more players) to make an archetype actually appear in drafts and be noticeable a thing you can play you need a few more cards for it than you would normally have so if this looks like overkill its just to balance it. Also due to the variance theres a lean towards cards that work on their own without going all in on a theme with just a few hard themed cards.

In this example I’ve leaned towards there being quite a crossover with the BG graveyard/zombie deck (the sac outlets and death triggers in particular).

Today I’m looking at the BR theme (which has a very slight bleed into white) which is Vampire Tribal. The original build didnt have near enough cards to make the deck viable, nor were there enough tribe relevant effects to make you want to draft it. This version should improve slightly (the full list is at the end of the post).

The All-In Cards

There are a few cards which just don’t do a great deal while you aren’t running critical mass of vampires, Chief among these are the tribal lords Captivating Vampire and Stromkirk Captain, neither are playable without multiple other vampires but are all stars if you’ve got the numbers on your side.

These guys are also the big indicators that there is the possibility of drafting a tribal deck as a lot of the cards play well enough independently or are bombs in their own right.

Kalastria Highborn wants a vampire heavy deck but also works well if you have elements of the GB-Sacrifice/Zombie deck.

The Standalone Cards

There are plenty of vampires which are strong enough to be bombs in their own right and get taken by any deck playing the colour but get pushed a lot by being surrounded by more vampires.

Anowon is great on his own as in the event of there being no other vampires out he will still just kill everything BUT himself which is no bad thing for a black centric control deck.

Nighthawk, Drana and the Aristocrat all get improved greatly by having a lord in play (with a Stromkirk Captain in play nighthawk kills anything it touches and it costs a lot less to keep Aristocrat alive in combat) and Drana will keep some of your more fragile vamps from biting it (no pun intended, seriously its not even a good one).

Olivia gives the unique benefit of potentially turning everything with more than 1 toughness in your deck into a vampire, and that’s on top of being both removal and mind control.

And Malakir Bloodwitch…despite the textbox being a direct synonym for “PLAY MOAR VAMPIRES” would be absolutely fine as the only vampire in your deck (4/4 flying with pro-white for 5 is already bomb-level good, draining 1 on top of that is at least some degree of relevant).

The Filler Cards

There are a pile of other vampires to fill out the deck (most being just acceptable cards on their own, a couple like Bloodcrazed Neonate need a little more work to make good).

Between the high likelihood of seeing some planeswalkers in the draft and some of the shenanigans that could come about in the GU deck then Vampire Hexmage is a strong pick for any black deck. The same applies to Gatekeeper of Malakir, as he is strong in his own right and is another card which would play nice in a base-black control deck.

There are also a handful of red vampires from Innistrad in here to fill out the deck.

Crossover With Other Archetypes

Given vampires seem to change theme every time a block includes them (Original Zendikar had the “less than 10 life” theme, Innistrad had “the slith ability”, Return to Ravnica had Orzhov vampires and Battle for Zendikar has life gain…although on that front I wish Kalastria Healer was a “vampire enters the battlefield” rather than “ally enters the battlefield” for the purposes of this even though I know that would make absolutely no mechanical sense in the set) there’s quite a wide variety in effects.

This does mean that a few of the vampire cards fit pretty well into the other Bx decks in the cube.

Blood seeker is fine in the BW Taxman deck as one of many effects that gradually kill the enemy outside of combat.

Viscera Seer and Blood Bairn fit into the BG deck as sacrifice outlets and Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble and Butcher of Malakir all serve as part of the payoff for those sacrifice effects.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

There are 3 vampires in BW which are included in here. They all serve roles in the defense oriented BW-Taxman deck but are perfectly acceptable splashes here given how multi colour the cube often leans. They’re all also cards I’m quite fond of, particularly the two Dragon’s Maze cards as I played them a lot when they were in standard (Tithe Drinker bumped the frustratingly bad Bloodcrazed Neonate out of my standard vampire deck and I played Blood Baron both in that deck and BW Midrange for his entire time in standard.

Technically in this section is [mtg_card]Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker[/mtg_card]. He is however absolutely sod all to do with the deck and is basically an alternate win-con for a UB deck, although he wouldn’t be an abysmal splash.

The complete list

[d title="BRw Cube Subtheme (Vampires) - November 2015"]
Black
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Blood Seeker
1 Child of Night
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Blood Bairn
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Markov Patrician
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Butcher of Malakir

Red
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Bloodcrazed Neonate
1 Crossway Vampire
1 Markov Blademaster
1 Rakish Heir
1 Vampiric Fury

Rakdos
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
1 Olivia Voldaren

Orzhov
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Drana's Emissary
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

Dimir
1 Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
[/d]

I have yet to obtain 100% of this but it (and changes to the other decks) will be going in before the next time the cube comes out to play.

Battle for Zendikar – Casual Deckbuilding 1

While I don’t often get to play standard (I have a nice casual draft I like to go to on Fridays) I still cant help having the odd brewing session. Today I’m looking at some decks which are distinctly on the “filthy casual” end of the standard spectrum.

Sideboards on these are EXTREMELY placeholderey and in a lot of cases contain cards I just generally like. If you want to use any of these…well you know your metas better than I do.

BW Warriors

This one is probably the closest thing to competitive here (the pre rotation version of this got me 4 wins at a GP). Thankfully the deck didnt lose too much to rotation (the main hits were [mtg_card]Hero’s Downfall[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Temple of Silence[/mtg_card]) and what we did lose pretty much got a 1:1 replacement.

The creatures are solid, and in this version I’ve upped [mtg_card]Arashin Foremost[/mtg_card] to 4 as he really was the best card in the deck back at the GP and I only ever wanted more. [mtg_card]Brutal Hordechief[/mtg_card] has been demoted to sideboard and also the first card to remove should you want to slot in something for your meta.

Extra copies of [mtg_card]Blood-Chin Rager[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Mardu Strike Leader[/mtg_card] reside in the sideboard, the former for creature heavy matchups, the latter for control.

The removal is still pretty solid. [mtg_card]Valorous Stance[/mtg_card] is still great, [mtg_card]Ruinous Path[/mtg_card] does the job (it’s just here as unconditional removal, the awaken is pretty unlikely to happen very often in this deck) and [mtg_card]Ultimate Price[/mtg_card]/[mtg_card]Murderous Cut[/mtg_card] are pretty flexible between main and side depending on what you expect to play against more.

With [mtg_card]Thoughtseize[/mtg_card] gone I’ve opted for [mtg_card]Despise[/mtg_card]. I found this decks downfall being things like multiple [mtg_card]Siege Rhino[/mtg_card]s or [mtg_card]Dragonlord Atarka[/mtg_card] more than control.

[d title="BW Warriors - October 2015"]
Creatures
4 Arashin Foremost
2 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Chief of the Edge 
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Battle Brawler 
2 Blood-Chin Rager 
4 Bloodsoaked Champion 
4 Mardu Woe-Reaper

Removal
4 Ruinous Path 
2 Ultimate Price

Utility
2 Secure the Wastes 
4 Valorous Stance 

Land
4 Shambling Vent 
4 Caves of Koilos 
8 Plains
6 Swamp 

Sideboard
4 Despise
2 Murderous Cut
1 Utter End
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Blood-Chin Rager
2 Mardu Strike Leader
2 Brutal Hordechief
[/d]

UG Morph/Manifest

This one a little further towards the silly end of the scale. It uses [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elemental[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Temur War Shaman[/mtg_card] to get extra creatures on the board, then uses their “turns face up” abilities for various effects.

The deck lacks any traditional hard removal but there are some flexible options in Temur War Shamans fight ability and Fleetfeather Cockatrices bounce. You also have some anti control options in [mtg_card]Scatter to the Winds[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Stratus Dancer[/mtg_card]s counterspell abilities and [mtg_card]Mistfire Weaver[/mtg_card] to protect a key creature.

The win conditions are either getting a face up [mtg_card]Sagu Mauler[/mtg_card], chipping in with your flyers or flooding the board through [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elemental[/mtg_card]s.

The sideboard adds some more counter options, some more [mtg_card]Sagu Maulers[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Mistfire Weaver[/mtg_card]s.

[d title="GU Morph/Manifest - October 2015"]
Creatures
4 Den Protector
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Stratus Dancer
4 Icefeather Aven
4 Deathmist Raptor
2 Mistfire Weaver
4 Whisperwood Elemental
2 Temur War Shaman
2 Sagu Mauler

Enchantments
2 Secret Plans
2 Trail of Mystery

Spells
2 Scatter to the Winds

Lands
4 Lumbering Falls
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Thornwood Falls
8 Forest
4 Island

Sideboard
2 Ainok Survivalist
2 Silumgar Sorcerer
2 Kheru Spellsnatcher
2 Mistfire Weaver
2 Sagu Mauler
3 Disdainful Stroke
2 Scatter to the Winds
[/d]

RUG Midrange

This is a less competitive and less expensive (read less [mtg_card]hangarback walker[/mtg_card]ey) version of some of the temur decks floating around at the moment.

The land base is a bit on the pricey end but theyre good cards to be getting.

The ramp is…worse than we’d like but w cant always have [mtg_card]Birds of Paradise[/mtg_card].

[d title="RUG Midrange - October 2015"]
Creatures
2 Frost Walker
4 Whisperer of the Wilds
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Savage Knuckleblade
2 Yasova Dragonclaw
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Icefall Regent
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
2 Dragonlord Atarka

Planeswalkers
2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
2 Sarkhan Unbroken

Enchantments
2 Temur Ascendancy

Spells
2 Crater's Claws
2 Exquisite Firecraft

Lands
2 Cinder Glade
4 Forest
4 Frontier Bivouac
2 Island
4 Lumbering Falls
4 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
4 Radiant Flames
2 Roast
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Ascendancy
2 Harbinger of the Hunt
2 Heir of the Wilds
1 Dig Through Time
[/d]

Star Trek: Attack Wing – Homebrew (2009/Into Darkness)

(This post is a follow up to my earlier BoardGameGeek post here)

The last big alternate timeline bundle comprises the ships of the 2009 reboot universe.

This doesn’t include the Kelvin (and by extension Captain Robau and the Kirks) although I may make these up as Federation ships.

When it comes to the 2009 universe I cannot stand the oddly scaled hugeness of the ships so for the purposes of this assume that the new Enterprise is about the size of the original but with the stat line of the refit version to represent the technological edge. That puts the Vengeance in line with the bigger 24th century Federation ships (and not utterly ridiculous) so it’s stats fall roughly in the area of the sovereign class (with some downsides).

USS Enterprise

The Enterprise has the stats of the Constitution Refit, representing the alternate timelines seemingly higher tech level. The ship ability and move dial both let the ship push what a Constitution would normally be able to do (a 4th attack dice and a 5 forward maneuver) at the cost of auxiliary power tokens, after all a few scans of the Narada and a new arms race with the Klingons aren’t going to lead to fully developed and integrated tech.

The crew have had some changes since my original release. Captain Pike is now an Admiral. His ability remains largely unchanged but could be a shenanigan enabler given it can be fired off from any one of your ships on the Admiral side.

Kirk and Spock both have new templating courtesy of one of the many, many Riker cards (I THINK Pegasus Riker). Kirk is a pet favourite ability of mine, as I always wanted some way to use the two upgrade dice together (and fluff wise represents the ridiculous luck level of this Kirk).

The rest of the crew largely got minor templating changes and the obvious faction change.

Narada

The Narada breaks a few rules conventions. The named ship is the fleet killer we know from the movie while the generic is a lightly armed mining ship.

The logic here comes from the comics leading into the 2009 movie. The standard ship lacks any significant weaponry and has a terrible move dial. Once the stolen Borg technology is integrated into it it gains the Borg faction and upgrade slot, some more shields and a massive PWV. It does however lack any improvements to maneuverability or the agility value as the ship is still immense and bulky.

Nero’s original version had a restriction on where he could be used. I planned, in this version, to restrict his ability to being used on ships with a high PWV but that just wasn’t readable so now he just throws extra dice at point blank range (and grants a second reroll on top of any target lock or other reroll you may have).

Nero’s first officer Ayel has a shot at disabling each character on the enemy ship but it requires some dice luck. The Red Matter Bomb puts a token (I haven’t made this yet but basically a planet token sized object with an objective token in the middle) on the field which gradually destroys anything unfortunate enough to not be able to escape its gravitational pull.

USS Vengeance

The vengeance lacks any crew slots has a high powered stat block. To balance this it loses the 180 forward firing arc of most Federation ships of this era and gets a rather clunky move dial. It does however have a white forward 5 and a reverse 1 white (2 is still red). It goes fast…it just doesn’t turn very well.

Admiral Marcus also got the upgrade to Admiral and his action got a buff, basically allowing a ship to use old school disable torpedoes every turn.

Khan also got some alterations for readability reasons. His ability still functions the same but the text has been bumped onto a free (for him) upgrade card in the style of the NX-01 and enhanced hull plating.

And last but by no means least is Ambassador Spock, specifically Spock prime. I’ve made him dual faction Vulcan and Federation and given him an ability which, on a ship with the right upgrades, should have him working his usual magic.

There will likely be one more alternate timeline post (a few odd items like the Bozeman, Kelvin and Premonition plus anything else that comes to mind) and then I’ll get onto the Typhon and working out how to make a carrier work with the retail fighter rules. Well that or my Dominion War stuff.

Star Trek: Attack Wing – Homebrew (Yesterday’s Enterprise)

(This post is a follow up to my earlier BoardGameGeek post here)

Number 4 in the series of Alternate Timeline attack wing expansions is Yesterday’s Enterprise, including the Enterprise-C and a warlike variant of the Enterprise-D and crew.

The Enterprise-C (not mirror universe as it was a prime universe ship that just happened to end up in an alternate future…pay attention wizkids) falls into an odd spot gameplay wise between the Excelsior and Galaxy classes. There’s no spot between 3 and 4 attack dice, nor does the ship really justify a second defence dice like my earliest version. Factoring in some feedback on my original BoardGameGeek post I settled on a massive-hulled flying tank with an unusual move dial focusing on low speed turns (in the DS9 opening the Ambassador class looks pretty nippy).

The named ability also factors into the floating tank aspect, giving you an extra defence dice against a ship outside your firing arc.

Captain Garrett can be discarded to prevent your ship from being attacked for a turn. I wanted this one to have a little edge over the usual attack cancellers so its outright NO attacks as opposed to cancelling a single attack.

Castillo improves your defence, as long as you keep performing evasive maneuvers actions.

The alternate Warship Enterprise-D is designed to discourage the normal attack wing opening joust. Attacking it head on will let it split its attack with potentially quite a few additional attack dice. Alternate Picard gets stronger the worse the situation gets for you or your most damaged nearby ally and when you finally do get taken out (lets face it this ship would be a bit of a firepower magnet) you can throw one last shot at your attackers.

Riker is slightly underwhelming against a single target, but gets progressively better the more targets you fire on. Throw the named ship plus Picard and Riker, with 2 damage on the ship into a split attack against 2 ships at range 1 and youll be rolling 10 attack dice split against the two targets with a guaranteed hit against each.

Data lets you turn the ship around 90 or 180 degrees. This one is probably the most potentially broken of my things, although unlike Admiral Q he does only apply to a single ship. Wesley is another passive defensive buff with the option to trade in for an emergency reroll.

Tasha Yar is another attack canceler, this time preventing an attack against another ship rather than your own, the threat of which hopefully being enough to force the enemy to focus on Tashas ship first.

Lastly Guinan (now dual faction Federation and Mirror) is another time travel/alternate timeline themed card, this one letting you mulligan a set of dice rolls or a maneuver.

Next in the list is the new movie ships.

Star Trek: Attack Wing – Homebrew (Timeless)

(This post is a follow up to my earlier BoardGameGeek post here)

Today’s custom goodness is the Voyager alternate timeline episode “Timeless”.

This one includes another shuttle I made before official shuttle rules, or mirror universe rules. My original Delta Flyer has now been changed to Mirror Universe (as well as getting a generic version) and had its stats changed to match the official one.

The USS Challenger also got changed to mirror universe and has had its stats altered to match the mirror Enterprise-D (and therefore doesn’t have a generic or move card).

The flyer is a simple faction change of the Federation version with a new defensive ability added on.

Captain Chakotay’s original version gave a flat reduction to your attack dice as the penalty for using his evasive action but I changed that to a variable based on the agility of the ship you attack, just to make it a little different (and there’s a kind of fluff logic to it…the slower your target is the easier it is to hit during evasive maneuvers). Harry, as in the show, tries to save another ship by repairing a critical (or preventing it from ever happening). Tessa disrupts enemy ships at close range. The flyer will easily get out of the arc of a large ship like a Galaxy and when they try and get you back in arc they’ll have to plan around a potential aux token.

The Temporal Transceiver (Seven of Nine’s severed head, creatively rewired) is another way to simulate the effects of altering time. In this case it let’s you remove a troublesome critical from one of your own ships or take a second shot at crippling an opponent. Both this and Harry are unlimited range, just for thematic fun reasons.

Enhanced Thrusters is a generic “one per ship” tech upgrade for both Federation and Mirror Shuttles. The original version just gave +1 agility, but I decided to push this one a little too, originally because the new Flyers move dial is slower than the one I made on the first attempt. The end result is a pretty cool fluff card (in my opinion) that lets you trade in enhanced maneuverability to overheat your engines for a burst of speed.

The Challenger is meant to represent a ship with a former engineer captain running at peak efficiency, hence removing extra auxiliary tokens (intention with this version is for it to remove 2 on a qualifying green move, 1 on a white. Would this be considered brokenly good if Wizkids released it…maybe…It would certainly be at least good.

Geordi straight up lets you repair a damage or shield, even if you are on auxiliary power. This works even better in Mirror than it did in Federation as the MU does tend to lean towards slightly less tanky versions of ships, so that’s nice. This one is also pretty pushed in power terms…but I’ve always liked Geordi.