MTG - Khans of Tarkir Cube Update 1

Another big update with the release of Khans of Tarkir.  My previous cube post had my thoughts on what I was planning on adding and I pretty much stuck to it with a few minor deviations.  I also took the opportunity to add a few things from Conspiracy and a few other sets.

Of the mechanics in Khans I added three (really only two because I only added one card)

• Outlast - Mostly added this because a few of the outlast creatures gave creatures with +1/+1 counters extra abilities.  I have a lot of ways to give creatures +1/+1 counters so these creatures would benefit those decks a lot.  The actual Outlast ability was secondary.  
• Ferocious - Works well as there are a lot of 4 power creatures in the cube or ways to get 4 power creatures.
• Prowess - Only added one card with this ability, Monastery Swiftspear, as it plays well with the Izzet Blitz archetype I have present.  Blue has no cheap Prowess creatures and I don't really think going Jeskai Blitz would work well in limited (white has a few cheap Prowess creatures).  Admittedly there is a lot more fixing in my cube so it could work.  Something to think about in the future.

On to the actual update!

MTG - Khans of Tarkir First Impressions for my Cube

Fetch lands!  This alone makes the set exciting.  Then more mana fixing in the form of the wedge lands, and then more mana fixing in the form of the paired coloured lands.  I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking as to what I'm going to take out and add in terms of land.  And the whole set isn't even released or fully spoiled yet!

Anyways on to a more organized breakdown of how this set will impact my cube.

MTG - Journey into Nyx Cube Update 1

Big update this time.  With the full set of temples available I've found a way to include them.  I have a large gold section so having the proper mana fixing is important.  The temples are a great addition while not breaking the bank.  Drafting 5 colour good stuff will now be more feasible in my cube!

I also removed the following mechanics as they were kind of confusing to my friends who don't play MTG outside our cube nights or conflicted with other mechanics in my cube or I just felt were under performing.

• Bestow - A very cool mechanic and gives so many options.  You could have cheap aggro creatures that had late-game impact and they trigger Heroic as well.  However, the rules behind it were very complicated and the intricacies of the mechanic are beyond my playgroup.  I did keep Chromanticore though as it is just a fun and powerful card.
• -1/-1 counters - Goes counter to all the +1/+1 counters that are present.  Again the interactions between the two types can be confusing so I chose to remove them.
• Scavenge - The timing of this ability caused a lot of confusion in my group so I removed it.  I did keep Varolz, the Scar-Striped as it is a fairly strong card and with only one instance of Scavenge it would be easier to explain.
• Detain - Fairly lack-luster and I wanted to try new things in the UW slot.

So on to the actual changes!

MTG - Journey into Nyx Pre-Release Report

Found time to play in the Journey into Nyx Pre-Release on Sunday.  I originally wanted to play white because the promo (Dawnbringer Charioteers) had pretty cool art, was a good beater in sealed and goes well in my cube.  Unfortunately I registered late so all the white was taken and I ended going blue (the promo was Scourge of Fleets which has cool art and I figured was a pretty bomby card when played).

The pool I opened was ok but nothing spectacular.  I did not have many of the powerful blue commons and uncommons (no Hour of Need, no Voyage's End, no Griptide, no Sea God's Revenge) and no removal from any colour (aside from some enchantment removal in green).  I had a lot of good 5-drops but no acceleration of any sort to ramp into them, so the deck I built ended up being some weird mid-range aggro/control style deck with a bunch of powerful 5-drops and some cheap tricks/filler creatures at the lower casting costs.

My deck consisted of

• Scourge of Fleets
• Thassa's Devourer
• War-Wing Siren
• Riptide Chimera
• Nyxborn Triton
• Font of Fortunes
• Stratus Walk
• Hubris
• Aerial Formation
• Polymorphous Rush
• Prescient Chimera
• Nullify
• Humbler of Mortals
• Cloaked Siren
• Pin to the Earth
• Pheres-Band Thunderhoof
• Nyxborn Wolf
• Artisan's Sorrow
• Desecration Plague
• Mischief and Mayhem
• Leafcrown Dryad
• Oakheart Dryads
• Fleetfeather Cockatrice

With a relevant sideboard of

• Pheres-Band Thunderhoof
• Hubris
• Desecration Plague
• Triton Cavalry
• Kiora's Dismissal
• Desecration Plague

Not the greatest deck but considering the cards I got, it was the best one I could come up with in my opinion.  My full card pool can be found after the report.

Game 1 - Won 2-0

Faced off against a GW deck that had no real synergy.  My opponent must have had a bad pool as I don't recall any real bomb card and I was able to play my flyers and win that way.  He did have an Athreos, God of Passage out early on game 2 but I managed to play around it.

Game 2 - Lost 1-2

Played a GW deck packing a fair amount of removal.  2x Time to Feed, Deicide, Banishing Light and some good creatures (Mistcutter Hydra absolutely wrecked me in game 2 and 3).  I managed to take the first game as I was able to hold off his early rush until I got a Humbler of Mortals followed by my Scourge of Fleets and then shortly after that I was able to drop an enchantment and play Mischief and Mayhem on both of my fatties to trample over for the win.  The 2nd and 3rd games though I couldn't find my fat creatures fast enough to overcome the early removal and Mistcutter Hydra.

Game 3 - Lost 0-2

Another GW deck but this one was super fast.  Not a lot of removal but just a lot of fast aggressive creatures like Golden Hind, Eagle of the Watch, Oreskos Swiftclaw all backed up by a Dictate of Heliod and other auras.  Both games I could not keep up with the early beats.

Game 4 - Lost 0-2

A fast aggressive RG deck.  Lots of 1 and 2 drops backed up by auras and combat tricks.  At this point I didn't really care too much if I won or lost so I played pretty badly and made some horrible plays.

First time since Scars of Mirrodin  that I didn't Top 8 a pre-release event but oh well, that's the nature of sealed sometimes.  Hopefully at the next event (M15 release I think) I'll get a better pool.  In the meanwhile I'm already thinking about what cards from Journey into Nyx I want to add to my cube and what they will replace.

MTG - Born of the Gods Cube Update 2

Since the release of Born of the Gods I picked up a few more packs and made some more minor changes.

Green

• Peregrination replacing Nessian Asp

With the addition of Graverobber Spider in the last update I felt I didn't need more reach creatures.  More land-fixing never hurts especially with the abundance of gold cards and especially if I want people to try and play some of the shard cards or even Chromanticore.

Red

• Everflame Eidolon replacing Goblin Wardriver
• Archetype of Aggression replacing Spearpoint Oread

Taking out Goblin Wardriver will make R/x aggro decks easier to work with.  Everflame Eidolon also has a better late game than the goblin does.  Archetype of Aggression is very aggressively costed and makes your whole team better.  When combined with some of the firebreathing creatures it will give R/x decks more reach.

Blue

• Nullify replacing Thassa's Rebuff

Finally got one and I think the hard counter will be better than the situational counter.

I did manage to get my hands on a Temple of Plenty as well but still not sure where to fit the temples in without taking out the keyrunes/cluestones.  Now I just need to find a Brimaz, King of Oreskosz and Scourge of Skola Vale and I think the Born of the Gods update will be complete.

MTG - Born of the Gods cube update

I got to play at the Born of the Gods prerelease and managed to get 2nd place.  Not bad as I got a few packs of the new set.  To be honest though, not much in the new set excites me.  Regardless, I picked up some stuff from the prerelease that I felt would be good additions to the cube.

Red

• Forgestoker Dragon replacing Charmbreaker Devils
• Impetuous Sunchaser replacing Foundry Street Denizen

I took the dragon as my pre-release promo because the art looks cool and the ability is quite relevant.  Charmbreaker Devils was kind of a niche card and although it helped the Izzet blitz decks, it cost too much.  Izzet blitz wants to win quick and a 6 mana creature just doesn't do that.  The dragon also makes Utvara Hellkite and Scourge of Valkas more useful.

I decided to remove Foundry Street Denizen because I removed a lot of the cards that made the goblin more effective (Goblin Rally and Krenko's Command).  Impetuous Sunchaser is still aggressive and with the right auras can be quite scary.

White

• Akroan Skyguard replacing Phalanx Leader
• Loyal Pegasus replacing Daring Skyjek
• Ornitharch replacing Knight Watch

Phalanx Leader was hard to use outside of a dedicated mono-white weenie deck and I felt that Akroan Skyguard would make for a more consistent GW heroic deck.
Loyal Pegasus added more consistent aggressive evasion as it only requires 1 other creature instead of 2 other creatures.  It does kind of become useless though if it's the only creature you have but in an aggressive weenie deck, that probably won't be likely.
I liked Ornitharch at the pre-release.  Either it's a 5/5 flyer or a 3/3 flyer and 2 1/1 flyers.  Both forms are good in my opinion.

Green

• Courser of Kruphix replacing Battering Krasis
• Fated Intervention replacing Nemesis of Mortals
• Raised by Wolves replacing Moldgraf Monstrosity
• Karametra's Favor replacing Gatecreeper Vine

Courser of Kruphix is an interesting card and I don't have anything like it in my cube.  I still don't fully understand its uses but from what I've read it makes green decks better.  At the end of the day it's a fairly efficient creature and will help with mid-range decks.
I like tokens and Fated Intervention is one heck of a token generator.  Instant speed for surprise blockers or if played on your turn can help smooth out your draws.
Raised by Wolves provides more tokens and another useful aura.  Should make heroic decks easier to build with more auras.  Also it goes well with Howl of the Night Pack.
Karametra's Favor pretty much does everything Gatecreeper Vine does and then some.  The aura ramps and is a decent heroic trigger.  Does dilute the defender theme a bit so makes Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian slightly worse but I think the trade-off is fine.

Black

• Herald of Torment replacing Arrogant Bloodlord

Herald of Torment makes early black aggression even better.  Plus it has awesome late-game potential compared to Arrogant Bloodlord.

Blue

• Thassa's Rebuff replacing Simic Fluxmage
• Sudden Storm replacing Frost Breath

Despite me not liking to play against counter spells, I felt my cube needed a little more.  I originally wanted Nullify but I did not get one in any of my packs.  Thassa's Rebuff does encourage playing permanents though which is what I want.
Although Sudden Storm isn't strictly better than Frost Breath, I felt the scry addition is powerful enough to make the swap.

Other

• Chromanticore replacing Ulamog's Crusher
• Graverobber Spider replacing Korozda Gorgon

Chromanticore is such a fun looking card I couldn't resist.  No idea if anyone will ever try to make a 5 colour deck but this could fit in so perfectly.  Gonna miss Ulamog's Crusher as it is a good creature and fits any deck but it will be fun to see if anyone will make Chromanticore work.
I was never fully happy with Korozda Gorgon as it's ability depended a lot on whether you could get enough scavenge or green evolve creatures.  With Graverobber Spider you can at least use its ability without depending on anything else other than creatures dying (and creatures will die).

I managed to pick up 2 of the 3 temples for this set at the pre-release but I haven't included them in just yet.  I'm probably going to wait until I have all 10 temples (currently I have 7 of 8) before trying to figure out how to include them.  I currently have all the Keyrunes and Cluestones slated to be replaced by the temples but I'm not sure about that.  I really want a way to fit the Keyrunes/cluestones and the temples so I can have lots of colour fixing and some acceleration.

There are a few other cards from Born of the Gods that I would like to add to my cube but I will have to wait until the set is fully released before I can pick them up.

MTG - UB Mill in my Cube

The dreaded mill deck.  Frustrating to play against for the most part and sometimes you just feel dirty for winning with it.  Mostly because it's such a passive deck for the most part.  You don't need to attack your opponent's life total in any way to win with this style of deck.

UB can sometimes also be built as a control deck where you eliminate your opponent's threats until you can drop your own and win, but I'll focus on the milling aspect of the two colours for this deck.

The following are the cards you want to look for and draft

• Millstone
• Thought Scour
• Mind Sculpt
• Dream Twist
• Psychic Spiral
• Nephalia Drownyard
• Selhoff Occultist
• Vedalken Entrancer
• Belltower Sphinx
• Undercity Informer
• Oona, Queen of the Fae
• Psychic Strike
• Coerced Confession
• Pilfered Plans
• Codex Shredder

These are the main milling cards in the cube and if you can grab a few of them (especially the recurring ones) you can easily mill your opponent out as the decks are usually only 40 cards (And of those 40 cards you only need to mill away around 30 or so).

In addition to the actual milling cards it helps to pick up some defensive creatures like Wall of Frost, Fog Bank and Mnemonic Wall so you can stall your opponent.  Some kill cards like Doom Blade or Murder are also useful for taking care of things your walls can't stop.

There are a few cards that may not seem like they would fit but are actually really good for the deck.  Jace's Archivist and Prosperity can help you achieve your goal of milling your opponent.  Jace's Archivist may not seem useful but if you are milling your opponent they most likely will not have as many lands as you so their hand will be fairly large.  The added cards will usually be more beneficial to you than it will be to your opponent.  Similarly Prosperity can force your opponent to draw more cards than he intended and bring him closer to being milled while at the same time filling your hand with more useful spells.

Of course if you can't mill your opponent to death, you do have the option to go on the beatdown, especially if you can land a few large creatures like Oona, Queen of the Fae, Frost Titan or Lazav, Dimir Mastermind.  If you've milled your opponent early enough it will be easier to drop one of these bombs and just take over the game.  This alternate strategy is also advisable after game 1 where your opponent might side in more cards to make his deck bigger and harder to mill so for your own sideboard you might want to add some unblockable creatures like Keymaster Rogue and Deathcult Rogue to your sideboard and switch strategies between games.  These creatures also work well if Trepanation Blade is already in your card pool.

Like the other decks I looked at it is a fun deck to play, especially if you like frustrating your opponents.

MTG - Enlarging the cube!

I listened to Episode 14 of Joy of Cubing while marking at work and decided to enlarge my cube.  Also the Commander 2013 decks provided some cool cards you can't normally find easily.

In the beginning I made my cube 450 cards so that it could draft 8 people with a few extra left overs so each draft would be different.  It was a good size for my group but I had a hard time fitting everything that I wanted.  So things like cool creatures, or cool spells or answers to said cool creatures/spells were sometimes hard to balance.  If I included too many cool creatures they needed answers or games came down to who could play their bomb first as no one had an answer to it.  Similarly if I had too many answers, no one could run the bomby creatures as they would come in and then leave before anything would happen.

Playing sealed was also kind of strange as the pools were kind of all over the place.  No one really got enough of any one theme and we would end up with weird decks that had little or no synergy.  Mind you that is kind of what Sealed is like at times but at least in regular sealed formats the card pool is limited and you can get multiples of cards in regular sealed.  My Cube is highlander (I think most cubes are) so the kind of redundancy in normal sealed is non-existent.

Of course enlarging the cube can dilute some themes but at the same time allows me to add more cards for each theme and in different colours.  Some deck types might even emerge that I didn't think about.  Regardless it should be lots of fun.

On to the additions!  (The full cube list can be found here)

MTG - BR Aggro in my Cube

Another aggro archetype I wanted to support in the cube was BR.  This time moving away from white and going the more aggressive and risky but in my opinion better able to close out games due to the direct damage capabilities of red and removal of black.

Black, much like white, is blessed to have an abundance of aggressive creatures but they tend to have drawbacks.  Compare say Elite Vanguard to Vampire Lacerator.  Both are 2 power creatures for 1 mana, but the Vampire Lacerator can potentially kill you (the tradeoff is that it has 1 extra toughness over Elite Vanguard).  Similarly Diregraf Ghoul is also a 2/2 creature for 1 but comes into play tapped.  Not as big of a drawback as the 1 life per turn but useless late game if you need a blocker right away.

Red also has a lot of efficient creatures like Firedrinker Satyr and Reckless Waif.  These ones don't have as big of a drawback as the black ones so they are easier to use.  The amount of cheap creatures gives the deck a plethora of early plays so you can guarantee some early damage from creatures early on as most decks don't want to trade their early creatures (either because they help ramp or are their main source of damage in the case of another aggressive deck)

The better early creatures you would want, aside from the ones mentioned above, are:

• Rakdos Cackler
• Rakdos Shred-Freak
• Foundry Street Denizen
• Stonewright
• Skitter of Lizards
• Knight of Infamy
• Spike Jester

The downside of the deck is that since all the creatures so small if the game persists to mid-game or late-game you lose a lot of power as they can be easily outclasses by the larger creatures available in the cube.  At this point, the removal power of both red and black make their presence known.

Adding cards like

• Lightning Bolt
• Go for the Throat
• Dismember
• Murder
• Brimstone Volley - very effective with Tymaret, the Murder King
• Volt Charge - combines well with Unleash creatures

gives the deck ways to clear away troublesome creatures and force through more damage.  The red cards also do double duty in that they can be pointed at your opponent's head to finish them off.

Alternatively there are some larger aggressive creatures in both colours that can be added to give the deck some more mid-game punch.  Things like

• Bloodgift Demon
• Bloodfray Giant
• Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
• Underworld Cerberus
• Tymaret, the Murder King
• Carnage Gladiator

provide the deck more power in the mid-game and some extra reach.  Tymaret, the Murder King makes your small creatures useful again as fodder to throw at your opponent and Carnage Gladiator can make blocking your attackers a dangerous prospect especially when combined with the zombie king.

BR aggro is definitely an all-in balls-to-the-wall deck that rewards aggression.  In my experiences, the archetype tends to win big (especially if it curves out properly) or lose big (when it can't curve out properly).

MTG - Wx Aggro in my Cube

This was perhaps the hardest archetype to try and include in my cube.  Mostly because Wx aggro decks tend to be composed of a bunch of small creatures and these small creatures tend not to be that cool looking at first glance.  Think of say Elite Vanguard vs a dragon like Moltensteel Dragon.  One card is a vanilla 2/1 creature while the other is a 4/4 flying fire-breathing monstrosity.  For a newish player, who isn't familiar with all the MTG archetypes, the choice tends to lean towards the dragon.

So a good majority of the good aggro cards would not get picked up because my cube contained a lot of dragons and other large creatures.  That's partly my fault though as my first cube incarnation was very Timmy focused.  I've since moved away from that and have started to put some more support for fast aggro.

With that said, my cube can support Wx aggro quite easily now I think.  There are a number of fairly efficient white creatures like

• Soldier of the Pantheon
• Phalanx Leader
• Kor Skyfisher
• Accorder Paladin
• Fencing Ace
• White Knight
• Blade Splicer
• Fabled Hero
• Porcelain Legionnaire

and a lot of support cards like

• Spear of Heliod
• Griffin Guide
• Armored Ascension
• Apostle's Blessing
• Emerge Unscathed
• Darksteel Axe
• Silver-Inlaid Dagger

Many of the white creatures also come packed with Heroic abilities so auras and combat tricks are doubly effective.  With that as your core you just need to fill it out with either more white creatures or pair it up with another colour.

I don't think there is a best partner as each colour provides a unique quality to the aggro deck but here are few cards I would look for in each of the possible colour pairings with white.

MTG - Tokens in my Cube

Tokens decks I've found are always fun decks to play.  Making a huge horde of creatures and then just overrunning your opponent always appealed to me so I made a concerted effort to include enough token generators and token helpers to make Tokens a viable archetype in my cube.

To start, you'd need token generators like the following.

• Master Splicer
• Blade Splicer
• Attended Knight
• Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
• Captain of the Watch
• Courser's Accord
• Midnight Haunting
• Knight Watch
• Trostani's Summoner

With cards like that it provides a good base of token creatures as well as some support (the Splicers bonus abilities make the golem tokens better and Captain of the Watch makes the soldiers better).

To make the deck better it needs some good support cards.  Usually things that globally pump creatures or make more tokens.  Once the core token producer cards have been taken, support cards like the following are drafted next

• Spear of Heliod
• Phantom General
• Victory's Herald
• Collective Blessing
• Rootborn Defenses
• Wayfaring Temple
• Trostani's Judgment

This gives the deck a lot of punch as the Spear of Heliod, Phantom General and Collective Blessing make each token scarier.  Those 1/1 birds suddenly don't look so tiny with pump effects like that in play.

At some point though you need something to bust through so a few finisher cards are necessary.  That's part of the reason to grab a card like Victory's Herald that can make all your tokens flying.  Similarly a card like Predatory Rampage can be enough to force through enough tokens for the kill.

This archetype is fairly obvious but for some reason no one but me seems to draft it whenever we draft the cube.  Tokens is a lot of fun and if allowed to grow their army, hard to stop.

MTG - Bx Reanimator in my cube

Second deck I wanted to focus on was my attempt to incorporate a reanimator deck.

So the basic idea for a reanimator deck is to dump giant creatures into the graveyard and cheat them out with spells.  To facilitate this you need cards like:

• Forbidden Alchemy
• Erebos's Emissary
• Thought Scour

These cards help you dig through your deck for the pieces or chuck the giant creatures into the graveyard or both.

The follow up to chucking big things into your graveyard are some reanimator spells like:

• Rise from the Grave
• Rescue from the Underworld
• Obzedat's Aid
• Miraculous Recovery
• Unburial Rites

These will bring things back from the dead and generally faster than hard casting them.

So what makes a good reanimator target?  Well basically anything that is big and bomby.  Some of the better ones in my cube are:

• Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis
• Sepulchral Primordial /Artisan of Kozilek- these have the added benefit of bringing something else along when they come out.
• Myr Battlesphere
• Shipbreaker Kraken
• Sphinx of Uthuun
• Captain of the Watch
• Victory's Herald
• Moldgraf Monstrosity
• Pelakka Wurm
• Ulamog's Crusher
• Dragons

These creatures are all from different colours so reanimator decks tend to be  at least 2 colours and most likely 3 and maybe even 4.  Some of the better combinations are Black/Blue cause blue gives you lots of card draw and some large creatures as well as the most options of throwing stuff into your graveyard.  Black/White gives you lots of reanimation options and lots of good early stuff to keep you alive.  It does lack in ways to dump stuff into the graveyard though.  Black/Green gives you ways to abuse your graveyard even more.  Cards like Jarad's Orders, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Varolz, the Scar-Striped and the scavenge creatures provide more things to do with the stuff in your graveyard in addition to reanimation.  Not to mention green provides a lot of mana fixing so you can easily go 3 or 4 colour reanimator.

The biggest drawback to a deck like this is that the early game tends to be slow and there is a great danger to just flat out dying before you can get the deck going.  This makes removal spells and resilient creatures a high priority.

This deck is not an obvious choice to make but it's quite fun cheating out giant creatures and smashing face.

MTG - UR Izzet Blitz in my Main Cube

When I updated my cube I made a more conscious effort to include specific archetypes in the cube.  Before the update there weren't many archetypes that saw play.  I think I saw tokens (which I almost always played as those cards always got passed), mono-red burn (only because one player would always force this) and mill the most often.  Everyone else kind of just had a hodgepodge mix of whatever they could draft.  All good, but no real synergy.

With this latest update I've hopefully added more archetypes into my cube so everyone can have a decent deck to play with rather than a hodgepodge of spells.

The first archetype I wanted to focus on was the UR Izzet Blitz deck that is possible.  Alternatively this could be called the Spells Matter archetype (or the Kiln Fiend deck as Kiln Fiend kind of popularized this style of play a few years back as well as on the MTGO Pauper scene) as it depends on getting enough instant and sorcery spells to power the creatures that kind of depend on it.

The main idea behind this deck is to draft the following creatures (hopefully most, if not all of them):

• Kiln Fiend
• Nivix Cyclops
• Spellheart Chimera
• Guttersnipe

and then enough instant and sorcery cards to support them.

I figured flashback and rebound cards would be useful as they are effectively two for one spells and they can activate the creatures abilities twice.  So you would want spells like:

• Nightbird's Clutches
• Geistflame
• Distortion Strike
• Staggershock

After that, the rest of the deck should be filled with more bounce, counters and removal and maybe some cards that recycle spells like Archaeomancer or Mnemonic Wall.

The basic plan then is you want to clear the way for your creature(s) with spells (which incidentally makes your creatures bigger), then attack and burst your opponent down with your big creatures.

If that fails, you can hope to draw into a big finisher like an overloaded Dragonshift or Teleportal or just constantly ping them to death with a Guttersnipe or Fire Servant fueled burn spells.

This archetype isn't as obvious though for new players so it might not see play but I think it would be fun and I will probably try to force it next time my group plays just to see if it will work.

MTG - Main Cube Update

The Theros pre-release and release weekends came and went and I managed to pick up a bunch of new cards.  Got lucky in my pre-release and got Xenagos, Erebos, a FOIL Steam Augury and I managed to go 3-1 to get a few more packs.  My streak of breaking even continues (ever since Mirrodin Besieged I've broken even or been in the plus at every event release I attended).

With the new cards in hand I proceeded to update my main cube.  I ended up updating my noob cube as well but I'll write about that later.

One of the first things I decided to do was remove some of the more powerful token cards in my cube.  It was becoming quite evident that if you drafted tokens in my cube, you pretty much won.  The constant stream of two creatures for one spell that could be had was just insane.  At the time it would be something like Intangible Virtue into Attended Knight into Master Splicer into Sensor Splicer into Courser's Accord/Collective Blessing/Captain of the Watch.  Other times it would just be a constant stream of creatures from Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage or Trostani, Selesnya's Voice and yeah, if you didn't draft one of the sweepers you were kinda dead.  So I removed some of the cards that made the tokens crazy like Intangible Virtue and I added a few more sweepers like Divine Reckoning and Rolling Temblor.  I have a Crater Hellion and Winds of Rath in my consideration pile so I might try to fit them in if token swarming still seems too overpowered.

I also removed all the infect cards as I felt that mechanic was too narrow.  Basically there was nothing I could add to that archetype from new sets as the Infect mechanic has only appeared in one block and probably won't appear for a while.  In it's place I've tried to incorporate a different theme for BG, namely that of abusing +1/+1 counters with scavenge cards, Corpsejack Menace and evolve cards.  Removing Infect also allowed me to add some more aggro cards so Bx or Gx aggro should be better supported and I've also been able to add some more green and black fatties (like Nessian Asp and Bloodgift Demon) so those colours have more finishers.  Black, especially, I felt was underplayed in my cube and maybe by adding some better black cards it would see more play.  If I had gotten some of the double black Theros cards I might have tried to push a mono-black devotion deck so I might look for things like Grey Merchant or Abhorrent Overlord in the future.

Anyways, here is my new updated list which I hope to draft with soon.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/my-casual-cube/?category=color

There are a few archetypes/decklists that I am trying to push but it might not be totally obvious to some so I will write about those decks at another time (hopefully in the near future).

MTG - Noob Cube complete

One of my summer to do list tasks is complete.  I've completed a cube for MTG designed for newer players.  The cards are all fairly straight forward with not a lot of complex interactions.  No super complex combos, only evergreen abilities and a focus on creatures and creature interactions.  Now just need to find some new MTG players to test it on.

For those curious the complete list is here.

My MTG Cube Archetypes

This holiday season saw me run my cube a few times for my gaming friends and they seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.  Most of them have played Magic: The Gathering before but it's been years since many of them picked up a deck so for all intents and purposes they are pretty new.  Regardless of the MTG experience at the table, everyone seemed to have a great time and due to the nature of the cube, everyone had playable cards to make a decent deck.

For reference my cube list is here.

From what I observed in the sealed deck flights and drafts that I ran the following decks were quite common:

My MTG Cube

For anyone who has read about MTG cubing or done MTG cubing it's a very fun format.  You get to draft in an environment where your pack will almost always be good (unless you are playing with a reject rare cube or something silly like that).  Unfortunately, I dropped out of MTG for a few years so lost quite a bit of my old stuff that normally goes into a power cube like Sol Ring or the original dual lands and what not (I never did get my hands on the Power 9 though).  Fortunately, there are so many cards in existence now that one can make a powerful cube without all those old staples and that's what I decided to do with my cube.

The majority of the cards in my cube ended up being from Zendikar block onward (so Zendikar block, Scars block, Innistrad block, Return to Ravnica block plus M11-M13) as that is around the time when I picked up MTG again.  For the record I started playing in Revised up to Visions, then stopped.  When Onslaught rolled around I started again cause some of my friends started up again.  I continued until the end of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block as I started my teacher program at that time and had no time to play and then when Scars came out I jumped back into the MTG pool as I liked the orginal Mirrodin block and revisiting the place was a cool concept.  Anyways, enough about my history of playing MTG.

Building my cube using cards from Zendikar to now does provide some pretty cool interactions despite not having a lot of the older power staples.  Zendikar and Innistrad have a lot of vampires so the vampire tribal theme in black is quite well represented in my cube.  All the artifacts from Scars provides lots of fixing (and ramp) so the multi-colored cards from Innistrad and Ravnica as well as the giant creatures from Zendikar are easy to cast.  There's a bunch of high-quality equipment so creatures are important but at the same time there's plenty of strong removal to keep them in check.  Proliferate works great with all the blocks (level counters, +1/+1 counters, -1/-1 counters, poison counters and charge counters all benefit from that mechanic).  Another bonus is that, for the most part, all the mechanics are pretty easy to understand.  Nothing like Cumulative Upkeep from Ice Age/Coldsnap or Suspend/Vanish from Time Spiral.  All in all I think the 4 blocks provide a great starter cube for me and my group.

I figure I will eventually make the cube into a 4 block + 2 core cube which will probably eventually transition into a Type 2 cube (for those folks who don't remember, Type 2 was the old name for Standard).  As the sets rotate I will probably dump the old cards into a secondary modern cube (which will most likely be a tribal cube of some form or another as I like creatures and I'm a Timmy at heart)

For those curious, my current cube is here.  The yellow cards are cards I haven't physically added to the cube yet but are in my possession.

Tournaments, MTG Cubing & D&D Next

Orctoberfest 2012 came and went and seemed to be a success again.  Had the biggest turnout this year, surprisingly I think Orctoberfest had more people show up than the annual Remembrance Day tournament that has been going on in the area for the last 15 years.  I suppose advertising helps? 

Hopefully the turnout for next year's Orktoberfest will be just as big.  I'm expecting so as next year will be a 40k year for the event and 40k should be more popular with more 6th edition books coming out between now and next October.  More details in the new year.

The only unfortunate thing about this year's Orctoberfest was that I didn't get any pictures.  We were in the middle of packing for a move which never occurred and I totally forgot to pack my camera or ask to borrow my dad's digital SLR.  Oh well, next year for sure I will have pictures.

Kinda bummed I missed out on this year's Remembrance Day Challenge but house hunting was more important.  The owners of Great White did mention they were going to be putting on a Warhammer Fantasy tournament in the spring so maybe I'll try to attend that one.  Just need a fantasy army.

As for other wargaming, not much has occurred.  I picked up the Dark Vengeance box.  Mostly for the rulebook but I did manage to trade the Chaos half for more Dark Angels.  The models in hindsight, while good looking and well detailed, were unnecessary as I have a complete army already.  It's been a few months since I got them and I've only put together two Tactical Squads and one Deathwing squad.  Still have the two Ravenwing squadrons and a Deathwing squad on sprue plus the commander and librarian and special edition chaplain.  Tempted to sell the non-Deathwing stuff I have as I read there are rumors of a Deathwing box being released with the new Dark Angels codex and I hardly ever play with anything other than a full Deathwing army nowadays.

So what have I been doing to keep my gaming self satisfied?  Got around to building an MTG cube with a bunch of MTG cards I had lying around plus some generous donations from my brother-in-law.  I had heard about the format before but never played.  After some reading about cubing, it sounded like fun so I put one together and played with some of my old high school friends.  Turns out they enjoyed the cube and wouldn't mind cubing again.

I wasn't happy with the original cube though so I scoured channelfireball.com for some cheap cards to make some of the themes and archetypes stand out a bit more.  Most of my friends haven't played MTG in years so aren't familiar with many of the newer mechanics or synergies so my cube is a pseudo-noob friendly cube.  Mostly basic mechanics and strategies with a few intermediate-advanced strategies and the cards I bought should make those strategies more obvious.  Just gotta wait a few days for the cards to arrive and then I can update my cube!

This brings up an amusing anecdote from the first run through of my cube.  I was mentioning that there was a lot of red burn being passed around in the first pack and after the draft had finished, one of my friends who had never played before beat me quite handily with a pure red burn deck.  He ended up picking every high damage burn spell and just burned me out both games.  Maybe I had too many burn spells but at least that is a noob friendly strategy.  Hoping to see what other strategies show up as we cube over the holiday season.

In addition to the construction of my MTG cube, I had my same high school friends make up D&D characters so we could play test D&D Next.  We ended up doing random race, class, background and specialty and a random wrestler name.  So the group (they decided would be called Outlaw Shizzle to honour the last group we had) is as follows:

• The Rage - Stout Halfling Cleric Guardian Noble
• Grudge Jr. - Hill Dwarf Warlock Bounty Hunter Healer
• Slater Jr. - Human Fighter Thief Acolyte
• Angel Ripper the Third - Wood Elf Sorcerer Thug Necromancer
• Pretty Boy Ray - Halfling Lightfoot Rogue Blacksmith Jack of all Trades (we were all disappointed that this guy turned out very archetypal)
• Anvil - High Elf Wizard Knight Lurker

You'll have to sign up for the play test to find out what all those terms mean but needless to say, the group makeup is quite interesting.  I think I will have them flesh out their backgrounds when we meet up next so we can have some idea of how this bizarre crew got together in the first place.  I think I will run the campaign like a serial action TV series similar to shows like The A-Team, MacGuyver and similar.  Less planning and no need for an overall story arc (though given my style of story telling I will probably put some recurring themes which will eventually fit into an overall story arc)

Looking forward to a nice holiday season of gaming with my friends.