Usman's Cube Content

Well, it looks like I’ve once again forgotten to do anything with this blog.  As Anthony and I haven’t had time to record lately (as it turns out, getting time blocks for 3-4 hours aren’t as easy to get nowadays) and so, I’ve not really done much with this thing since it was mostly a crack-a-pack dumping ground.

So, hi.

I wrote a review of Hour of Devastation and Commander 2017 (PS if you don’t have Heirloom Blade in your cube, you should.)

I’m happy with how it turned out and I think the breakdown of Heirloom Blade worked out well.  Here are a couple of 3-0 decks that have utilized it well, showing that it’s not just theoretics.  The person who drafted the deck with Hellrider said “it isn’t Grafted Wargear, but it’s kinda like Skullclamp.”  Ovious exaggerations aside, it generally finds something useful, and so long as you don’t mess up and reveal your entire deck by forgetting you only have 1 devil (Hellrider), it generally works out.  No, it doesn’t have a free equip cost like Wargear, but that doesn’t mean that it shoule be discounted as “just another tribal card.”

One of these days, I wish that MaRo would write more about the concept of Additive Distraction, as I find that tends to be a pitfall of evaluation, even for those who’ve played for many years.

There aren’t many “dead ends” for the chains (the latter deck only really had 4 – Hellrider, Koth’s elementals, Bomat Courier and Figure of Destiny [which can hit things if it hits the right level.])

I’ve also finally updated my pauper cube; lately I’ve been getting in the habit of just doing a reset because it’s just easier than figuring out a series of changes in the last year.   I’m quite happy with its current direction (I wish I could cube it more, as I just draft it on the last weekly cube day of the month.)  There are a lot of good cards that obviously aren’t in there, and unfortunately, cube discussion can tend to focus on saying “card X is bad, card Y is good” or “don’t cut card X because it’s good! / no love for card X?!” etc, which doesn’t tend to be good for critical thought or thorough and holistic analysis.

That said, some thoughts:

• My kingdom for some good red 1-drops.  The Mogg Conscripts never really panned out that well and tends to be bad in the late game when you’re in burn mode.  Same applies for good black 1-drops, but I may end up trying Night Market Lookout.
• I’ve been pretty happy with the metalcraft/affinity package thus far.  I’ve been tinkering with cutting the guildgate cycle and putting in 10 more artifacts or 1 WUBRG / 5 artifacts, but the pool of good artifacts started to get thin.  It isn’t so much that the guildgate cycle is “bad,” because they aren’t, I’m just unsure if the effect of the meta would be better with more artifacts.  It may very well be.
• I tried a “value storm” thing some time ago, ala Time Spiral and Modern Masters 1 – the latter being a set that had a big hand in the implementation of my pauper cube’s “reboot.”
• Having bouncelands and signets hasn’t made aggressive decks weak.  At all.
• Guess what the card with the most 3-0s has been in my pauper cube.  I’m pretty sure you won’t get it, even after 10 guesses.
• Blue could probably use some more 2s and less 3s.  Maybe -Geist, +Looter il-Kor?
• I’ve had Heliod’s Pilgrim and Totem-Guide Hartebeest in since forever, but I’ve shied away from them lately because, despite the lack of tutors in the format, they’re just slow and clunky.
  “But isn’t the rate on Heliod’s Pilgrim the same as Imperial Recruiter, by being 2X for a 1/1 tutor?”  Yeah, I dunno.  Could just be a weird feeling.
  • I also cut most of the Nantuko Husks and the only ones that remain are Bloodthrone Vampire and Carrion Feeder.  I guess I never really found the payoff to be all that great, despite seeing some 3-0s out of those decks.  Again, I’m not really sure if they weren’t worth it.
• There are some individual cards that I’d like to include – cards that are great but I haven’t included, but are in my on-deck binder:
  Quirion Ranger, Death Spark, Mesmeric Fiend, Seraph of Drawn, Spontaneous Mutation, Runed Servitor, Mardu Skullhunter, Typhoid Rats/Pharika’s Chosen/Sedge Scorpion, Neurok Stealthsuit, Hunger of the Howlpack, Impulse, Perilous Research, Withdraw, Cloudfin Raptor, Wingcrafter, etc.
• Like I’ve been doing lately in my other cube, I’ve been keeping multicolor and hybrid separate (since multicolor is a drawback, hybrid is a boon) and all of the hybrid is balanced in representation.  To make room for more things, I’ve kept multicolor *very* tight, with only one true multicolor in each pair.

I haven’t updated my powered cube, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that not updating a CubeTutor list == not updating it, as I pretty frequently make updates (it’s rare when I do two drafts and there isn’t at least a small change being made.)  I’ve made some pretty big changes to my powered cube with some inspiration from my pauper cube and some discussion that I had with Kranny several years ago, but I’m still working out things on it and, since these are mostly Uncharted Waters, the process is going pretty slowly.