The Ravnicube!

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Posted on April 6, 2015, 4:26 p.m. by TheRedMage

Hi all.

Some time ago I decided I wanted to own a cube but, facing the harsh reality that I am a broke grad student, I quickly decided to have it be a pauper cube instead...

So I started from Styb's Pauper Cube list from GatheringMagic, made some changes (what do you mean, no Looter il=Kor?) and rolled with it.

Now, here is the thing - my favorite plane is Ravnica, I really like the idea of a city world and something about the guilds really speaks to me. So I have been tinkering with the idea of making this a Ravnica-themed cube. However, the way I'd like to go about it is a little bit different than people usually do - it's not about the cards, it's about the feel.

You see, every one of the guilds has its identity, its way of doing things. I'd like your average deck archetype in those colors to reflect that, while keeping the pauper restriction. So:

• Azorius should be slow and controlling. The Azorius guild is about enforcing their twisted idea of law, eventually making everything grind to a halt while they hold the reins of what happens. "Skies" (UW control with fliers) seems like a good archetype for them.
• Orzhov should also be a control deck, but it shouldn't be about leveraging your military to enforce a standstill as much as slowly bleeding your opponent dry through incremental advantage. The archetype I have in mind is the Theros-style "lock the board and drain'em" WB control.
• Boros should be a weenie "go wide" strategy that rewards having an army of guys ready to be War Flared or Sanctified Charged or what have you. The model for this is the RW deck in Khans of Tarkir that was the base for some Mardu decks.
• Selesnya should be a solid midrange strategy, possibly with some token subtheme. Selesnya is basically about revering the harmony of nature and shoving it in people's faces whether they want it or not. I do not have a good example for what I want Selesnya to look like, sadly, so suggestions are appreciated.
• Dimir should be a control deck - personally the most dimir-like control deck I have seen is the exploit-based Dragons of Tarkir UB deck. This is also a "skies" strategy with an emphasis on unblockability, it just has the "sacrifice for added gain" angle.
• Izzet should be a tempo-oriented deck. Izzet is the one that wants to fire off twentythree bounce spells, hit you with a suitably ridiculous Kiln Fiend and then finish you by throwing 9 points worth of burn spells at your stupid face FOR SCIENCE. Or with fliers, whatever. The Fate Reforged RU deck is a decent example of that.
• Simic should be... Something? I guess? This guild is confusing. Maybe this is a ramp strategy of some sort? In a vacuum, Simic is about growth, but I am not sure how to make that into an actual archetype.
• Rakdos should be a hyperaggressive guild. They should just have an array of cheap creatures to bash your face in and then finish you in a flurry of burn spells.
• Gruul should be big and stompy. Think Selesnya, but less token-y and more here-is-a-giant-monster-that-will-eat-your-face-y. Gruul should be a ramp strategy with the ultimate aim of making something like a 9/9 appear from nowhere on turn five.
• Finally Golgari should also be a midrange strategy, with graveyard synergies instead of token synergies. Think M15 GB graveyard deck, plus some dredge and scavenge.

So... these are the archetypes. Now I need to make them happen! Do you have any card (or card category) suggestion? Or anything to say in general?

pookypuppy6 says... #2

Well, I will say a few things:

-The first is that while you have defined the guilds generally well, it's often not that simple. Yes, Orzhov tends to bleed its opponent to death and have ards that simultaneously stall the opponent while winning the game. BUT each guild often has cards that differ in what deck they end up in. Orzhov has both controlling options (like Basilica Guards, but also clearly aggressive cards like Tithe Drinker and Syndic of Tithes. Keep in mind that you should allow for a bit of wiggle room for two or more styles to work for each guild, such as Selesnya doing aggressive token swarm or long-game build-an-army attrition. No one wants to draft the same Orzhov deck more than once.

-Simic should be about growth and value, and my favourite Green/Blue archetype is the M15 archetype of "bounce". Using Invasive Species, Quickling, Faerie Impostor, Species Gorger and Peel from Reality, bounce creatures and replay them to do things like set off Evolve creatures, re-use ETB bonuses like Frost Lynx or Bond Beetle, replenish counters on Fertilid, etc. Simic can be quite good for tempo (they have green creatures backed by blue control), or go for a long-game of ncremental abusable advantage.

April 6, 2015 4:36 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #3

-Also, make sure to include plenty of monocolour cards to work for two or more guilds. My favourite example is Slate Street Ruffian, which in Gatecrash Limited helped get Cipher cards through, but also helped Orzhov get damage through to inch closer to winning. Or how about Azorius Arrester, which is not just great for Azorius' controlling side but also for Boros' aggressive swarming tactics (even though they didn't share the same Limited environment till Dragon's Maze). Daggerdrome Imp works in three guilds; Dimir for Cipher-friendly evasiveness, Golgari as a Scavenge target AND Orzhov for some life draining winning-by-not-losing shebang. Filling in the canals with cards like these should mean the interplay between the guilds should make drafting the Cube WAY more fun.

April 6, 2015 4:44 p.m.

TheRedMage says... #4

Thanks for the suggestions pookypuppy6! The idea of having that sort of interplay is very much on my mind. I have been trying to figure out what that entail for the needs of every color - I'll try to figure that out next.

• As for the cards: Azorius Arrester should already be in, afaik. Slate Street Ruffian is an interesting option, might try to sneak it in. I am not a fan of Daggerdrome Imp - in fact, I recently took out a strictly superior card (Vault Skirge) because I found that lifelink was just not enough punch to justify playing a low-impact card like a 1-1 flier in your limited deck - Sungrace Pegasus in M15 is the closest example I remember seeing where a card like that was playable, but that was in a heavy-convoke set in which you were looking to make the pegasus wear a Marked by Honor or something like that to make it more relevant.
• As for the Orzhov deck: I will happily draft the same Orzhov control deck over and over, thank you very much :) (it might or might not be my favorite archetype). I hear what you are saying, but I tend to see those more as defensive cards that can play offense if needed. Syndic of Tithes in particular isn't good at offense so it can go in an Orzhov aggro deck - it's more of an examle of what you were saying afterwards. It's aggressive so it can also end up in a Boros deck! Also, let's focus on the primary archetypes, and then we can figure out what the secondary ones look like afterwards :)
• As for Simic: I like that plan, especially because it sinergizes well with the Golgari graveyard theme (you can rebuy ETB effects via self-bounce of regrowth). Maybe have some graft galore with +1/+1 counters going all over the place?

April 6, 2015 5:14 p.m.

OtakulordAndrew says... #5

If you where still interested in suggestions for selesnya's theme I would suggest a midrange deck strategy that shows a community working together to protect itself with the populate and convoke mechanics combined with spells that prevent damage to the creatures you control or enchantments that strengthen the creatures present or give beneficial effects such as hexproof. Cards such as Conclave's Blessing, Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi, Siege Wurm, Druid's Deliverance, Rootborn Defenses, Coursers' Accord, Attended Knight, Centaur's Herald, Elvish Mystic, Avacyn's Pilgrim, might work well in this type of arch type.

April 6, 2015 9:57 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #6

We have to remember to look outside of Return To Ravnica and Ravnica block cards, because I imagine you want to expand the themes beyond Ravnica cards. My examples of cards above were chiefly Ravnica-based, mainly because the interweaving of the guilds is so present in the cards of that block.

What's not aggressive about a 2/2 for 2 that can drain your opponents for every spell you cast? The point is that Syndic of Tithes actually does both roles. It can attack an opponent, but also defend relatively okay while it sits back and extorts for you. Again, cards that function in more than one role means that you can build more than one type of Orzhov deck if you wanted to. Though as you said, you are happy drafting the same Orzhov control deck each time, others might not.

Also, consider the possibility that, with ten guilds vying for attention in your Cube like in the Dragon's Maze set, people may actually draft THREE colour decks. This means different styles are even MORE important, as drafting White/Black/Red should not mean drafting defensive Orzhov cards with hyper-aggro Rakdos and Boros cards. Orzhov should have things to help be aggressive in those colours, which is the sole reason Tithe Drinker is the aggressive extort card it is.

Aww, poor Daggerdrome Imp. Phyrexian mana in a multicolour block is an interesting thought though. It may help fill in some gaps. but it's quite distinctly New Phyrexia flavour and not Ravnica.

April 7, 2015 5:20 a.m.

TheRedMage says... #7

Ah! I don't particularly care about the flavor of the cards per se though. What I am trying to do is to make sure that when you play the deck, it plays in a similar way to what it did in Ravnica and/or RTR. It's more of a problem of which strategies are aggro and which are control than anything.

To clarify: this is supposed to be two-colored cube (i.e. you are supposed to draft 2-colored decks). I will actually be trying to keep the number of 2-colored cards low (like 6 or 7 per color pair). I agree about Tithe Drinker being there to go in Mardu decks - however, that's because it was in Dragon's Maze, and DGM-GTC-RTR was a 3-color (or more accurately 2.5-color) draft environment. Of course, the more controlling deck in those colors that wanted Syndic of Tithes weren't ashamed to take a similar 2-powered 2-drop with extort, either. That said, I don't plan on having the land support for people to go 3-colors in my cube, so that's not something I would worry about.

@ OtakulordAndrew: Siege Wurm, Attended Knight, Elvish Mystic and Avacyn's Pilgrim are wonderful ideas - so much, in fact, that they are already in :). Druid's Deliverance and Conclave's Blessing are simply not powerful enough and Rootborn Defenses is probably not great in a format with no wraths, but I'll think about it. Centaur's Herald and Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi are very good suggestion and now on my radar. Coursers' Accord does everything we want Selesnya to do and I should try to fit that in very soon. Thanks for your suggestions!

April 7, 2015 1:55 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #8

Ah okay, that makes things more clear. And yeah, that seems like a good number for multicolour cards. If the Cube is 360 cards (the minimum), 6 of each pair is 60 cards or a fifth of the Cube. You may need to experiment with the mix to get the desired effect of drafting chiefly two-colour decks.

April 7, 2015 2:34 p.m.