Well, I am undefeated in Cube drafting. I think that Mirror Entity is a windmill slam first pick. I highly recommend odd play mistakes on the part of your opponent. Odd play mistakes are a big part of Cube though, since you are dealing with strange interactions between powerful cards that you've never played together before. I drafted a moderately fast GW beatdown deck splashing red for Fireball. Channel also got in there but never combo'd with Fireball. Why not? Because Mirror Entity is actually a much better combo with Channel.
I started the draft off thinking I would probably force Green a little. There had been a lot of talk about how weak Green was, but I did feel like there were a lot of bodies there. It seemed like people might get a little overly enamored of 7 mana bombs and powerful spells and forget that creatures pretty much rule limited. Especially 4/4s for 4. To give you an idea of how committed I was to this plan, I first picked a Werebear. Not great, not terrible. I managed to end up passing some HUGE green dudes (Kodama North, Verdant Force) because I didn't feel like I had enough accelerators. Instead I got a bunch of efficient midrange stuff (Hierarch, Arrogant Wurm), some pump (Rancor, Armadillo Cloak) and a bunch of White Knights (3 or 4 first striking 2/2s). Match one I pulled out even though I managed to grossly misplay Fireball. RTFC. Match two, I donkeyed away game 2 but the captain (no relation) was horribly manascrewed game 3. Match 3 game 3 was interesting. My opponent was outdrawing me with Bob and had like 7 creatures, only 2 of whom were non black. He had a Kami of Ancient Law stolen from me with Ink-Eyes and a green dude. I had 2 pro-black dudes, but they had to play defense because he has chumps and I die on the crack back. Finally, we reached the point where he could alpha strike for the win next turn. I was on 11, he on 10. I have Mirror Entity, Mystic Enforcer and White Knight. I draw for the turn. It's Rancor! I immediately play Rancor and Channel. I declare my attacks and he immediately cacks my Rancor with Kami of Ancient Law. Oops, blown out by my own card! Except, he no longer had chumps for both pro:black dudes. He was tapped out, so I channel down to 1, dealing exactly enough damage with my 10/10 White Knight. Bad beats, man.
I am not sure how viable it would be to repeat the strategy. Hierarch and Armadillo Cloak provide a pretty strong argument for going GW, but man did I ever want some freaking removal. Lifegain off Essence Warden, Hierarch and the Cloak were all relevant at one point or another.
7 comments:
I agree that there were definately many misplays by all due to not fully understanding the interactions of cards that are not normally played together. However, I think that after two or three more cube drafts most everyones way of thinking will adjust and the number of gross misplays should return to near normal limited numbers. Also a quick list of cards that ended up being realy awful and will be coming out:
Tinker --> Not nearly enough good targets to make it playable.
Duress --> This is limited and not being able to get creatures makes this card unplayable (Tony played it twice against me & I revealed two critters and multiple lands each time).
Also of the X spells, Earthquake is definately the weekest. I wonder if an X-spell in Green would be better (perhaps an instant speed huricane).
Hey, where are you guys from? Cause I have a cube, and the desire to use it once and a while, but I don't know anyone irl around here that can play. Since, I usually play online, where this format doesn't exist, it's hard.
-Andrew.
Also, including some pictures, or even videos from your drafts would make this a pretty eventful place to come for "cubers", because I know from looking around the net, no other site offers it.
-Andrew.
We are in the Milwaukee area. We should totally make a video next time. I have no idea what the video would be of. But that would be teh awesome.
Oh, and Duress has already been replaced with thoughtseize.
Awww man, that's too bad, I live in Florida. And the video should be maybe just the reactions to drafting, maybe showing a couple shots of the players picking cards, and building their decks, and even like the finals. I run both duress and seize in my 4 man cube, aswell as persecute, hymn, and specter. My cube, is extremly powerful, but VERY well balanced with all the colors, and artifacts, and even the lands are first pick cards now. I've been working on it for a long time, and am surely close to getting it just where I want it, but I won't lie, doing it by yourself is a very long hard process. Well worth it though. I'll be sure to check back for more updates for you guys, and if anyone from Florida comes across this, or if you guys are in town for an event, message me and we can make arrangements to do something.
-Andrew.
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