Tokyo Draft: A Cube Report

[MrSuperlove]

This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Tokyo Draft: A Cube Report. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.

[bateleur]

Great stuff! Loved this!

You have my decklist above: What would you get here?

Probably: Looter il-Kor, Man o'War, Willbender and Crystal Shard.

Reasoning is roughly as follows: You're urgently in need of two things: tempo and spells. Looter will help you find spells. Man o'War and Shard will help to disrupt the opponent's tempo and reuse your own creatures. Willbender will potentially strand cards in his hand, since a Black deck can be expected to be full of removal. And all these cards are cheap so that you'll be able to deploy them quickly.

(Your chances are still low, but that's true whatever you fetch...)

[Darkmindtone]

I very much enjoyed this article. A lot of the points you bring up are very true, especially the dominance of a blue deck if people aren't fighting for that color. If blue is underdrafted, it's very, very difficult to beat a well-built deck with a competent pilot. Not impossible, but very difficult.

For all those who Cube regularly: Has Gifts Ungiven truly been the all-star I sometimes hear it is? I played it for a few months, but it was never something anybody was excited about (same thing with Intuition). It's so hard to set up a solid combo, and usually it ended up being a bad Fact or Fiction (similar to something like Murmurs From Beyond). Maybe my/our initial evalutaions of the card were incorrect and it's in fact bonkers (I'm well aware of it's constructed applications, but it felt very different in limited). Thanks.

[jokalhaups]

I noticed that the decks have a lot more non-creature spells than normal. Does this usually happen in Cube? Are there a lot of non-creature spells that you HAVE to play? What's the ideal creature/non-creature spell ratio? For the deck, I assume 15 creatures to 8 non-creature spells? If you're finding that decks normally have 10+ non-creature spells, do you think that the cube should have creatures added, and maybe even reduce the number of non-creature spells?

[Finn]

Superlove, while this was in production I read it. I actually tracked down Tom LaPille's cube webpage and began construction on my own cube as a result. Thanks, dude. I look forward to playing it.

[Dr. Tom]

For my cube, these are the creature counts for each color (90 total cards of each color).

White: 55
Blue: 38
Black: 45
Red: 44
Green: 63

I also have gold/hybrids (70 total, split about evenly on creatures/other spells), and artifacts (more noncreature spells). We haven't drafted since I upped the card counts, but I expect that most decks will feature more noncreature spells than a traditional Limited deck. It depends on the colors you choose, of course, but in regular Limited play, creatures are usually the best way to win the game. Cubes, because they contain so many good Constructed cards, often have a much higher ratio of good noncreature spells. THat accounts for at least part of the difference.

[Usman]

The cube is so awesome, it's easily my favorite MTG format.

My pick for the Gifts Package would be: Oblivion Ring, Faith's Fetters, Man o War and Crystal Shard.

[Pringlesman]

I just purchased sleeves for my cube, when they get in I get to go through the long and arduous process of printing proxies out. I can't wait!

[Volcanon]

I live in Tokyo (or I will until the end of August). Maybe we can cube together.

[Mr Wilson]

Interestingly, my first few picks would have been something along the lines of...


Eternal Witness
Mind Twist
Dark Ritual
Harmonize of Counterspell... depending on my mood and how much good green/blue the previous packs had.

You mention the cube has a lot of power so I wouldn't actually be thinking that a phasing 3/1 flier was a big signal that blue was open... specially as some packs will be naturally heavier in one colour. Looks like it turned out okay for you in the end (Have just finished reading the article and noticed that the other blue drafter got forced out of the colour. I tend to think it's worth fighting for blue as it is, unquestionably, the best colour in cube (unless you were playing with some weird "anti-blue" cube...)).

Gifts pile... it really, really matters what the other "beater" he's dropped is. Something like a thieving magpie is actually acceptable against the two beaters you've mentioned just because it blocks both and can then start swinging back once you've stabilised. If his other beater is a solid flying monster, you might want to fetch sakashima to copy it. O-ring and fetters seem acceptable too... although I might also opt for a man-o-war just to get back in the game a bit. As I say... without complete knowledge of the board (and, to some extent, reads on what your opponent has... or at least how many cards he has in hand) a Gifts pile is difficult to choose.



Also... I love cube.

[MrSuperlove]

Thanks for all the feedback guys- much appreciated!

Originally Posted by bateleur

Great stuff! Loved this!


Probably: Looter il-Kor, Man o'War, Willbender and Crystal Shard.

Reasoning is roughly as follows: You're urgently in need of two things: tempo and spells. Looter will help you find spells. Man o'War and Shard will help to disrupt the opponent's tempo and reuse your own creatures. Willbender will potentially strand cards in his hand, since a Black deck can be expected to be full of removal. And all these cards are cheap so that you'll be able to deploy them quickly.

(Your chances are still low, but that's true whatever you fetch...)

Yes, that makes sense, though is looter perhaps a little slow?

Mr Wilson: Sorry, I should have been clearer in the article but as I said at the top I hadn't planned to write the matches up beforehand so I had to reconstruct from memory and talking to Chris. I think the mystery beater was Dauthi Horror.

On the picks: Moat was definitely a mispick I think, it's really not that hard to work around it in Cube. Eternal Witness makes much more sense but I thought Green might be favoured by the less experienced Cubers at the table since its strengths are more obvious. I wish I could remember the rest of the pack more clearly... next time I'll be prepared and make some notes!

Fighting for blue is always worth considering. especially in this case since I was to the right of the player most likely to be competing for it, and thus in a better position to win the struggle.

Finn: glad to hear it, that's what this article was all about!

Darkmindtone: I think Gifts Ungiven will be as good as you are : I can think of very few cards whose effects on the game scale so dramatically according to how well they are used. You also need to have some cards that work from the graveyard to get full use from it, and it's worth drafting accordingly once you've picked Gifts. Only then can you give your opponents piles where none of the options are good for them.


On creatures vs non-creatures: as has been said, Cube decks often look more like constructed decks so the ratios will be different. There are far more board sweeping and card advantage effects in Cube, so just dumping a creature on the board every turn and swinging is not always going to do the trick like it would in draft. My blue deck in this draft actually had rather more creatures than is normal for the archetype- I wouldn't have minded a couple more good cheap counterspells!

[misterorange]

Nice article, good read, I enjoyed it

You made me forget how cool Arashi, the Sky Asunder was (I just love saying the name all badass too).

Originally Posted by Darkmindtone

For all those who Cube regularly: Has Gifts Ungiven truly been the all-star I sometimes hear it is? I played it for a few months, but it was never something anybody was excited about (same thing with Intuition). It's so hard to set up a solid combo, and usually it ended up being a bad Fact or Fiction (similar to something like Murmurs From Beyond). Maybe my/our initial evalutaions of the card were incorrect and it's in fact bonkers (I'm well aware of it's constructed applications, but it felt very different in limited). Thanks.

I don't like Gifts. As you said, it's a bad Fact or Fiction where you basically get the lesser of four evils. Not very fun and difficult to use. If it wasn't so crushing I'd probably remove it, and part of me likes to keep it in there precisely _because_ it's not that powerful, and it teaches people how good some cards are (i.e. Crystal Shard = omgwtfbbq) and how other cards simply appear that way.

[MrSuperlove]

Originally Posted by misterorange

Nice article, good read, I enjoyed it

You made me forget how cool Arashi, the Sky Asunder was (I just love saying the name all badass too).



I don't like Gifts. As you said, it's a bad Fact or Fiction where you basically get the lesser of four evils. Not very fun and difficult to use. If it wasn't so crushing I'd probably remove it, and part of me likes to keep it in there precisely _because_ it's not that powerful, and it teaches people how good some cards are (i.e. Crystal Shard = omgwtfbbq) and how other cards simply appear that way.

Thanks Evan, glad you stopped by (and hope you don't mind my linking people to your site!)

Agreed on crystal shard- I think everyone passed on it in this draft before it got to me and I only took it on a whim, thinking it looked solid- none of us had played it before. Turns out it's incredible, with even the threat of activation really stifling your opponent's options.

'The lesser of four evils'... I like it. I was excited to play gifts in this draft because of its 'fame', since I wasn't playing much when Kamigawa was around. It wasn't nearly as powerful as I'd hoped, for the reasons you outline, but I think it can still be a strong card in the right deck. You'd almost always rather just draw three, though.