Update to Combo Cube and the Site

First of all I apologize for my lack of posts. I’ve been unreal busy the past couple weeks and I don’t see that slowing down for at least another week. I’ll see then if I have the time and desire to resume daily card reviews. In the mean time work has continued on the combo cube and come hell or high water I’m drafting it this Thursday.

This list is here.

I’m going to break down the major changes from the combo cube but first an update on colors:

  • White is still looking kind of weak, I’ve added more combo cards and more disruption so hopefully it will pan out.
  • Blue is still looking amazing.
  • Black is still looking amazing and now has storm.
  • Red no longer plans on attacking much, it is focused on supporting combo decks.
  • Green now has a huge elf theme allowing you to draft an elf combo or attack deck (I hope).
  • The guild section has been converted to just a gold section.
  • Colorless has picked up more of MUD theme.

Okay so there were three big changes beyond those:

  1. I added seven cards that can be drafted in multiples. How it will work is these seven cards will have a special mark on them. When you draft them you get two more copies for deck building. These will help support some archetypes and let some narrow cards that wouldn’t normally make the cut get in there.
    Squadron Hawk
    Accumulated Knowledge
    Dark Ritual
    Rite of Flame
    Nissa Revane (get Chosen)
    Manamorphose
    Cloudpost
  2. I added storm combo. Without the extra rituals afforded by #1  I wasn’t confident in it. Now I think it might be too powerful. We’ll have to see.
  3. I cut the dual lands and fetch lands from the guild section and moved them to the new “land draft” section. As I have said this cube is designed to be drafted by 6 people. The land section has 36 cards that will be drafted in packs of six at the end of the draft. This lets me have more space in the colors and run things like artifact and cycling lands that I wouldn’t otherwise. I’m still keeping the most powerful lands like Mishra’s Workshop in the cube proper.
2011
03/01
CATEGORY
Cube Changes
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Soltari Trooper

A problem that comes up in most newly built cubes is an over abundance of hard to cast two mana creatures. Nowhere is this more pronounced then in white. From the classic White Knight to new hotness Leonin Relic Warder white has a huge number of very good WW creatures. The problem is unless your deck is running 16 plains you can’t always plan on casting these turn two. This problem is compounded when combined with another color like black or red that also has a lot of two mana creatures with two colored mana symbols. Luckily these problems can be mitigated by looking for good creatures that cost 1W.

I don’t believe Soltari Trooper was in the first draft of my cube. The first draft of my cube was based on Evin Erwin and Tom LaPille’s cubes. Evan’s cube has been updated many times in the past few years but Tom’s cube which has not had its list updated does not have the Trooper.

This is a huge oversight. Of the eleven other white two drops in my cube there are nine I’m sure I’d cut before the Trooper. We can best compare the Trooper to four cards: Soltari Priest, Soltari Monk, Stormfront Pegasus and Mistral Charger. The Trooper I think compares favorably to the two other shadow creatures. It looses a protection effect that will be relevant in less then half of your matches and becomes much easier to cast. As far as combat goes they are very similar. One power is all that is required to kill any of the shadow creatures in my cube except an attacking Soltari Trooper. This doesn’t matter much as shadow creatures rarely block. I also think the Trooper is better then the pair of Pegasi (Pegasuses?).  What it losses in the ability to block it gains in unblockablity.

Soltari Trooper while unassuming on the surface is one of the best white two drops and I recommend everyone runs it in their cube.

Rating: 360 Staple
Pricing:
Tempest – $.025

2011
02/23
CATEGORY
White
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Skinrender

Everyone loves creatures with enter the battlefield abilities. Some of the strongest in cube have always been the ones that kill a creature when they enter the battlefield. Recently Wizards printed one of my favorites of these.

Skinrender‘s closest analogs are Flametongue Kavu (FTK) and Nekrataal. I think it compares pretty favorably to these. Most of the time whichever of these you play will kill the opponent’s creature. FTK kills anything with four or less toughness however is very ineffectual against 5+ toughness. Nekrataal can kill a creature however fat unless it is black or artifact. The first thing I really like about Skinrender is the ability to shrink anything. Skinrender can’t kill a Titan but after making it a 3/3 Skinrender can trade with them. You’ll even randomly hose a Kitchen Finks or Woodfall Primus some games.

What I really like about Skinrender is the 3/3 body. The problem with FTK’s body is the two toughness so it trades with almost everything. The four power is nice but how often does your opponent have two 4/4s so you can get maximum value? Usually FTK comes in, kills a 3/3 or 4/4 and then trades with a 2/2. This is by no mean bad but isn’t ideal. Nekrataal doesn’t have a problem with 2/2s but does look very weak in the face of a 3/3 or heaven forbid a Cunning Sparkmage. Skinrender is amazing when your opponent has two creatures and one of them is smaller then 3/3. Below are three examples of what Skinrender can do from the last cube draft I did.

My (nearly) mono-green ramp opponent plays Genesis. This is usually a very hard creature for a UB control deck to deal with. I just played Skinrender and ignored his 1/1 until my Grave Titan came down to clean up the game.

My UWB control opponent plays a turn three Serendib Efreet, I play a turn four Skinrender giving him a 0/1 creature that pings him.

My RW aggro opponent had a 3/3 Student of Warfare and a 2/2 creature. I played Skinrender killing his Student and making his 2/2 unable to attack. My opponent went from having a good board position to having no avenues of attack.

Skinrender is in my opinion one of the best cards for the cube from the excellent Scars of Mirrodin. I recommended more or less every cube run it.

Rating: 360 Staple
Pricing:
Normal: $0.50
Foil: $2.00
WPN Foil Promo: $1.00

2011
02/22
CATEGORY
Black
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2/20/11 Cube Update

Been busy and have missed a few days of card reviews. They will be back Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime a couple swaps in the cube.

Cut Dance of the Dead for Nezumi Graverobber
I’m not as big a fan of Graverobber as some but it is a fine card. Dance of the Dead is a pet card of mine which I can now play in my combo cube so I won’t miss it.

Cut Slagstorm for Hell’s Thunder
I like Slagstorm but wanted to get Hell’s Thunder back in. I actually think that the four battlecry cards in white&red make this type of creature noticeably better. Slagstorm just isn’t what I want red to focus on. UR happens enough even without direct support for it.

Cut Thopter Assembly for Sundering Titan
These cards will mostly be played in the same decks and Titan is just better.

Cut Duplicant for Chimeric Mass
Going to give Mass another shot. I like Duplicant but it just doesn’t cut it against more aggressive decks.

Cut nothing for Sphere of the Suns
Had an open slot in my artifact section and was looking for another 2cmc mana source. Think it should work out well.

I’m also still tweaking the initial list for my combo cube, you can follow the changes on it’s spreadsheet. I’ve tried to add more combos and more combo support to R/W.

2011
02/20
CATEGORY
Cube Changes
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Sundering Titan

Many people when first building their cubes run very narrow cards that more or less only work with one other card. The classic example is Darksteel Colossus hoping to get it and Tinker in the same deck. I’m guilty of this as much as anyone, DSC was in my cube and Progenitus has been as well. Now my running Tooth and Nail does make it a little more likely that a deck will want one of these but they are still not worth it. What I really like are the card that work great with something like Tinker also get hard cast.

Sundering Titan is a card that was in my cube for a long time and eventually got cut. I think I’m going to put it back in and there are a few reasons. I’m also strongly considering finding room for it in my second cube.

Sundering Titan costs eight mana which is unattainable for an aggressive deck but not that uncommon from a control or ramp deck. It can be cheated into play with Tinker, Tooth & Nail, or reanimation.

It’s size means it is nigh indestructible in combat and impervious to burn. It does however roll over and die to artifact removal from white, red, or green opponents. Even black will sometimes Go For the Throat. However your opponent killing it usually results in their manabase being decimated. Titan usually takes out 2-3 of your opponents lands on the way in and about the same on the way out. Losing four of five lands makes it pretty hard to play spells.

Sundering Titan really excites me in my new cube which you can read about here. In that cube it is a great reanimation target as well as working with Tinker or mana ramp.

Sundering Titan isn’t for every cube but if you’re looking for another huge monster for your artifacts he is a good choice. I’d say he is the second best artifact creature costing more then six after the excellent Myr Battlesphere.

Rating: 630 Roleplayer

2011
02/17
CATEGORY
Colorless
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A Challenger Appears

Background
For a while now I’ve wanted to build a second cube. Like many who have toyed with the idea I’ve considered a dozen options: common/uncommon, artifact, tribal, mythic-free, all new card frames, bigger, smaller, mutiplayer, Commander (more on this another day).

Well, I think I finally might have it. I’m going to tune the list for and then attempt to build/proxy a new cube. What is the “hook”? Well it is very small and I hope very powerful.

Basic Info
The cube will be 264 cards. This is 4*11*6 or exactly enough for a six man draft using four packs of 11. This is the format I most commonly draft in and my favorite.

You can view my first draft along with some additional commentary in the Google spreadsheet here.

Why so small? It lets me try and push things that don’t work in a larger cube. I’m going to run Time Vault in this cube. Normally I don’t like Time Vault in a cube because even if your cube is as small as 360 cards it can be hard to pick up something to untap it. When both cards that untap it are available in your six man draft the odds of getting them goes up quite a bit. Time Vault is not the only combo card, Entomb and Exhume become a lot more appealing when 43% of black’s cards ether let you discard a creature or put it into play from the graveyard.

This warping of what to expect from a cube draft has caused me to cut a lot of the “best” cards and add in many that seem less powerful. However much I like Soltari Trooper he just can’t compete with

White
White’s roll will be to attempt to disrupt the broken things that opponents will try and do while it beats down. This makes cards like Leonin Relic-Warder all-stars. At the moment Wrath of God has made the cut. I’m not positive it will stay that way. White doesn’t offer that much to the combo decks so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is rarely played with white or black. My backup plan if this doesn’t work is to put an Enchantress shell into white and green.

Blue
Blue’s section has been the hardest to build so far. It is, as usual the best combo color. It offers protection in counter magic, filtering and tutoring, and of course combo cards. Blue is full of powerful cards to find and protect combos as well as fight against them.

Black
Black has a very single-minded focus to put a fatty into play for very little mana. I managed to get the color to 43% spells that ether discard a fatty or put one into play. I’m expecting a lot of turn two Grave Titans out of this cube.

Red
Red like white is not the best color to look for combos in. It does do a good job of creating a lot of damage quickly and blowing up artifacts.  23% of red’s spells can take out an artifact which is much more then in most cubes. This I hope will help slow the broken decks down long enough to burn them out. My backup plan if this is underwhelming is to try a goblin theme.

Green
Green is one of the best colors in my current cube for it’s ability to ramp. I have a feeling it will have more of a struggle doing that in this cube so I had to look for edges to give it. First, it is running Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman which I’m sure will lead to BG reanimator decks. Secondly it gets to be really unfair with Natural Order and Pattern of Rebirth, aiming to put Progenitus into play. Third I’ve given it more mana disruption then it has in most cubes. Lastly it can offer some good support to aggro decks with cards like Rancor and Vengevine. I hope all of these aspects will be enough for it to keep up.

Guild
I’m going to try the guild system for this cube. This means rather then having dual lands in my land section, signets in artifacts, and gold cards in their own section they will all be together. Each allied color pair has two spells and three lands while each enemy pair has one spell and three lands.  Again the choices are unsual because something like Murderous Redcap just doesn’t cut it when your opponent’s only creatures are 6/6s and 8/8s. I’m strongly considering cutting down the number of lands/signets to fit more cards into other sections. I might even tailor the guild section to favor the more popular color pairs after a few drafts.

Colorless & 3+ Color
I combined these two sections as I don’t feel a need to balance 3+ color cards, I just want the most effective.  The equipment selection has been cut two four cards as I doubt most tables will have more then two aggro decks and there is a lot of artifact removal running around. Many combo artifacts have been included. I’ll have to see if stuff like Grindstone that does nothing by itself is worthwhile. There are a large number of fatties at the top end of this section to make sure cards like Tinker, Sneak Attack, and Natural Order have targets.

Random Combos
What I’m really hoping for are some of the combos I scattered across the colors to come together.  I want someone to have the Braids, Cabal Minion, Smokestack, Fastbond, Life from the Loam, Raven’s Crime deck. I want someone to have the Zombie Infestation, Upheaval deck. I’ll have to wait and see but I know I’m excited.

Wrapping it Up and Where You Come In
Well if anyone made it this far thank you, I’m impressed. I’m really excited to try this cube. I imagine it will be somewhere between a cube draft and a Vintage rotisserie draft.

I’d love comments from everyone on this. If you’ve tried some of these combo cards and have thoughts I’d like to hear them. If you have a combo card you think I should add, let me know.

This cube will be an experiment and could fall flat on it’s face. I hope however it results in very powerful, very fun decks and even better games.

2011
02/17
CATEGORY
Cube Changes
Off Topic
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Marsh Flitter

Black creatures have always struggled to compete. Until recently they usually cost more and were smaller then creatures in other colors. In the past three or four years we have gotten a number of excellent black finishers though I still feel the three and four mana slots in black are a little lacking. This is one of my favorite black creatures because it’s effect is pretty usual for the color.

Marsh Flitter is an affordably priced black creature that makes relevant tokens. Marsh Flitter is a very flexable creature. It and it’s tokens can attack into a ground blocker. When they block you can sacrifice the blocked token to pump your flyer. It is also good on defense where a token can chump block and then pump Flitter so it can beat a 2/2.

Marsh Flitter is also very good against removal. The cards that are often best against token producers: Arc Trail, Arc Lightning, Electrolyze and not as good here. Marsh Flitter’s controlled can sacrifice a token to pump Marsh Flitter. This makes going after all three creatures with a burn spell impossible. The more subtle way in which Marsh Flitter is good against removal lies with another type of card in black, reanimation. Marsh Flitter can die easily and does die often. Bringing it back and getting two new tokens is great, especially if some of the original tokens are still around.

I like Marsh Flitter for it’s flexibility, it gives black decks some options they might not otherwise have. Unfortunately, on strict power level it doesn’t do as well. When it comes down to it you’re paying four mana for three 1/1s. For that reason I don’t think everyone should run the card in smaller cubes. It comes down to personal preference, I like the card and it has done quite well in my cube.

Rating: 720 Staple

2011
02/16
CATEGORY
Black
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Juggernaut

Few creatures from Alpha have stood the test of time. Some of the most iconic creatures in Magic are now limited fodder: Shivan Dragon, Serra Angel, Nightmare. A few however have managed to keep up with power creep and are still proud members of cubes.

Juggernaut has now been printed in English twelve times when all promotional and special set versions are counted. This is a staggering number for a card that went from 1994 (Revised) to 2004 (Darksteel) without being reprinted. The fact was that Juggernaut was much more powerful then most creatures in Alpha and the sets that followed. This caused R&D to stay away from reprinting him. How far creatures have come in terms of power is shown by the fact that I didn’t know he was Standard legal until writing this review.

So enough history, how is he for cubes? It’s complicated. Having five power on a four mana creature is pretty rare. The ability to kill in a few hits is not to be underestimated. Being an aggressive artifact creature is another plus fitting into many draft decks.

However he has two major downsides. The first is his three toughness. Between this, being forced to attack each turn and being an artifact he has a VERY short lifespan. While he can kill someone in a few hits he rarely does as he is often killed soon after entering the battlefield.

The other downside is less obvious. Juggernaut while fine in the abstract pales in comparison to the other four mana spells aggressive decks can pack. Rank the following four cards:

Here are my rankings:

1. Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2. Molten-Tail Masticore
3. Hero of Oxid Ridge

5. Juggernaut

Juggernaut just can’t compete with the more recent cards Wizards has been printing. While he does fit in any aggro deck you’re rarely excited to run him. It is for these reasons I recently cut him from my cube. Now that is not to say he is bad or everyone should cut him. If my cube was larger I’d add him back in without hesitation.

Rating: 630 Staple

2011
02/15
CATEGORY
Colorless
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A Few Tidbits

  • I’m working on part two of Rarity in Cubes. It is going to focus on cubes with rares and should be up this week.
  • I didn’t do a second Weekend Pimping & Pricing Report, it was a lot of work the first time for not much payoff. I think I’ll start including some basic pricing info at the bottom of reviews but am open to recommendations.
  • I’m going to try and do more cube-content that isn’t just single card reviews. I’m hoping to do a strategy guide to Winston drafts this week.
  • If there are any cards or types of cards you’d like to see covered please let me know. Right now I am just choosing whatever strikes my fancy but I’m flexible.
2011
02/14
CATEGORY
Off Topic
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Ankh of Mishra

Many cube players and designers struggle with aggressive decks. It’s hard to compare with cards like Mana Drain and Mind Twist when your deck is just looking to turn guys sideways. One key element of supporting aggro decks is to give them the tools needed to fight unfair decks. The card today is a great tool for any aggro deck facing down a scary opponent.

Ankh (look at that rules text!) was not in my cube for a long time. It is an older, kinda funky card that I’d never considered. While I was aware of the card I’d never considered it. When I did I became enamored. It has a few key things going for it.

  • It’s cheap
  • It’s colorless
  • It’s a recurring, non-combat source of damage (see: Sulfuric Vortex)

There are relatively few non-equipment artifacts that help aggro and Ankh is one of the best. If you’ve ever seen someone on the play go one drop, Ankh on there first two turns you’ll know what I mean. It is incredibly hard to come back from that as a control player. It isn’t as powerful on the draw but can still do a lot of damage.

If you figure most control decks want to get to about six mana to start playing their finishers that means that Ankh will deal them ten or eight damage if they want to get to land six.

Ankh also has some synergies with aggro decks. First, most aggro decks don’t need more then about four lands in play, this means that you’ll take less damage. Secondly, if your aggressive deck has land destruction it can work very well with the Ankh. If you start blowing up your opponent’s lands they are forced to play more, taking additional damage.

Ankh is not flawless. It becomes less impressive as the game goes on. It can also be destroyed before dealing significant damage. It also is not very good in the aggro mirror and should be boarded out.

Despite these flaws I think any cube wanting aggro decks to be successful should be running this card. I rank it very highly and am always happy to have it in my final forty.

Rating: 360 Staple

2011
02/14
CATEGORY
Colorless
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