What a Trip

 Last week's paper cube draft was the first for what felt like months and it got me excited to draft again this week. Our local group in Winston was voting for Pre-Modern, and so I decided to head up the road to Greensboro and draft with Luke and company. Luke is a fellow cube and pauper organizer and his group tends to be a little bigger. 

I was also accompanied by a new to the area player, Dylan. He moved from WI recently and was looking for a new Magic community to plug into. So, we drove up and chatted about living in a small town and job prospects in the area. 

The shop we attended for cube night is rather large. Dragon's Hoard in Greensboro has a standard sized shop, but also boasts a big side room that could easily have been a furniture showroom back in the day. Tonight, it was occupied by Beyblade players. I never got into Beyblades, but it seemed folks were enjoying smashing their tops against each other and chatting it up. Places like these make you feel awkward and welcome all at once. The exposed metal beams, random old posters of games long forgotten, microwaved food and some dusty parts of shelves makes a Magic player feel right at home. 

We were a group of 12 tonight. So, in preparation, I brought my "Look Ma! No Hands!" cube out. This cube is built around everyway you can cast spells from places that are NOT your hand. It's a celebration of card advantage, but in the less traditional sense. Graveyard, FutureSight, Madness, Theft, Cascade, Foretell, Adventure, Plot, Suspend and even casting from your sideboard are all prevalent here.  



The other cube was Julius' "Tapped Out" cube. It consists of 5 instant speed spells and lots of tap effects. Spacecraft, Vehicles, convoke and more. I wasn't able to play it, as we split into two 6 pods, but the draft chatter was rather lively. I do recall watching a game 3 after we finished our first round that involved a 10/10 Unicorn Mount with lifelink that pooped out horses or something from OTJ. Seemed like a cool cube. 

Here is a link to the 2 lists if you're interested in checking them out: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/NoHands

 Tapped Out

My draft started out with one of my favorite cards: Currency Converter. This cube has a ton of ways to utilize discard. Whether it's Madness, GY stuff or triggers around things leaving the yard. CC is a great engine and also being colorless, it is a great way to start a draft. My deck ended up being mostly Red, but Temur. I had some decent interaction with Remand, Circular Logic, Impending Flux, Rift Bolt, Skewer the Critics and Noise Marine. My engines were: Currency Converter of course, Headliner Scarlet, Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald and numerous ways to Cascade. Stuff like, Into the Time Vortex, Wild Magic Sorcerer, and especially Norin, Swift Survivalist from Duskmourn. That was is so sick when you get multiple triggers from casting spells from exile. It also is helpful when you're facing a 6/7 Barrogoyf, which happened vs my opponent Sawyer. I was able to attack freely and exile before damage so he wouldn't gain any life. 

I ended up finishing 2-1, I lost to Dylan and his absolutely broken Boros deck. He had a timely Aven Interrupter which hosed my Cascade plans and a combo of Phlage and Bazaar of Baghdad that made life rough. My removal ended up lining up very poorly vs his deck. 

Here is my decklist from last night: 

We had a blast and look forward to the next one! 

Second Nature

Draft much? 

My favorite way to play Magic is limited, drafting a new set is always fun and exciting. New cards, new synergies to unlock and the Wild Wild West vibes of knowing that others you're playing against are experiencing this for the first time as well. It's a beautiful thing. 

However,  there is an issue with retail limited. Formats become solved over time. The wealth of content produced by folks like Limited Resources, Sam Pratt(Rough Drafts) and Alex with Limited Level-Ups combined with data from thousands of drafts and games on 17lands.com widens the gap between your average Joe and a seasoned limited grinder. The later understands what archetypes are best, what rares/mythics are worth building around and what a good deck in each color pair should look like. This creates a huge discrepancy between these two types of players and their end results. 

My brother in-law is new to Magic. I convinced him to come "hang out" with my fellow Magic nerds, drink a beer, and check out cool Goblin artwork a few months back. He oddly enough was dabbling in Warhammer 40k at the time, and I shared some of the cards and art that was used for the Warhammer Magic EDH decks. He was very intrigued and this led down a path of discovery for him. 

He came out to a cube BBQ event I organized at my home while my wife was at the beach with the kiddo. Brisket tacos, old school cubes, good weather and a bustling atmosphere drew him in. After that day, he was pretty much hooked. I got random texts about a card he discovered or a some Secret Lair that he bit on. It has been a very fun and rewarding thing to be a part of. 

I bring all of this up, as a preface for my new cube: Second Nature, because it was designed with him and folks like him in mind. In fact, this entire blog stemmed from a long post I made to try and help him understand how to draft and approach a new cube. I couldn't fit it all on my Cube Cobra update, so I was kind of forced. 

Second Nature above all is meant to be the most accessible cube I have built thus far. It is comprised entirely of cards that are available to craft on MTG Arena. I know this is nothing new. However, I wanted to take it a few steps further and of course make it somewhat unique. MTG Arena does not allow you to just play with whatever they have outside of their own formats without first acquiring each card using their wildcard system. You're basically spending in-game currency to purchase a digital copy of whatever card you wish to play with. Commons and uncommons are plentiful and earned at a faster clip than higher rarity slots like mythic and rare. Given that I want to be able to play this cube with a newer player, I minimized the need for higher rarity cards. 

Using more commons and uncommons serves another purpose in my design goal for this cube. I want this to feel more like a retail limited set. My favorite cube, and by far my most popular cube with my playgroup is my IPA Block cube. It mimics Invasion/Planeshift/Apocalypse draft by including duplicates of commons and only 1 copy of uncommon and rare cards. When you open a pack, you mostly see commons, but will have a few uncommons and a rare to pick from. So, it does feel similar to opening a booster pack from back in the day. 

I want to evoke the feeling you get from sitting down and drafting a pack of retail limited, but with some fixes. I won't go too deep on this topic, but the recent changes Wizards of the Coast has made to retail sets includes cards that are not meant for limited play. In Second Nature, I have included 3 copies of each common, 2 of each uncommon and 1 of each rare. So, you will still be able to easily construct your draft deck with minimal wildcards on MTG Arena, but will also be able to power up your card pool with impactful and synergistic rares. 

 Now that you have a peek behind the curtain and into my mindset for this cue project, let's review the archetypes and some of the notable cards. 

UW Blink. 

Classic archetype that looks to gain value over and over with card draw and creature ETB effects. This is a mid-range deck that can also be on the controlling side by nature of blue counterspells and white removal. Soul-Herder and Cloudblazer are the signpost uncommons here

UB Ninjas  

 

So fun. Use evasive creatures in blue and black to sneak in for damage and on hit effects. This deck looks to control the board and gain advantage for a powerful late game. Cards like Fogwalker and Aether Poisoner are both evasive and have ETB effects that do double duty here. 

BR Sacrifice

Utilize aggressive red creatures to push early damage, then sacrifice then for value once they have been outclassed by your opponents threats. Act of Treason and several free sacrifice outlets are available at common here, so look to close out the game with a steal and sac combo or burn your opponents last life total away  using red's damage effects. 

RG Landfall

The mana base in this cube is mainly common and some uncommons, so expect to be more 2 color than not. The traditional Gx multicolor soup decks that are prevalent in cubes these days doesnt really exist. Instead this Landfall archetype is aggressive and looks to push damage with landfall effects that buff creatures or deal damage to your opponent directly. Brushfire Elemental and Akoum Hellhound do serious work in this deck. 

UG Flash

One of my favorite decks of a bygone era. Green Blue flash looks to use blue instant speed interaction and green combat tricks/auras to make combat and life in general very difficult for your opponent. This deck is a little more skill testing than others but is very fun to pilot. Cards like Frilled Mystic and Repulsive Mutation can be backbreaking, so prioritize them highly.

GW Enchantments

Less turtle-up and win without combat, this archetype looks to steamroll opponents with a myriad of impactful auras and evasive creatures. Cards like Gladecover Scout or Beloved Princess as 12/12 creatures is kind of sweet to pull off and definitely happens here. 

WR Heroic

This deck is definitely on the aggressive side. It wants to put the opponent on the backfoot and make them block with their key pieces so they don't die from out of nowhere. The heroic deck can turn a 1/1 into a 5/5 pretty easily and close out  with white fliers or red direct damage. Akroan Skyguard can get massive and make life very difficult if it's backed up with a few white protection spells and auras. 

WB Modified

Like the heroic deck, this WB strategy wants to buff your creatures and overpower the opponent. However, this archetype also plays with the control elements in black and sacrifice synergies to go into the late game as well. Oona's Blackguard and Aerie Auxiliary are perfect cards to pair together here. 

GB Graveyard Matters

This archetype is a late game powerhouse. Green has strong creatures and interaction for non-creature pieces and black has strong creature removal and recursion engines. Pair the 2, and you have a recipe for a grindy deck built for attrition. Cards that self mill, and reward you for having a large graveyard are very important here. Look for cards Like Champions of Dusan or Liliana's Elite at common for this deck. 

UR Spells

Spell Aggro is such a sweet deck to pilot. Blue and Red interaction paired with aggressive and evasive creatures puts your slower decks on the backfoot. Get on board and utilize blue and red interaction to disrupt your opponent. Cards like Thermo-Alchemist and Balmor Battle-Mage can push a ton of damage here. 


Lastly, I want to call out some notable rares and further dive into the manabase. 

The manabase consists of lapped duals, including a surveil or scry land for each color pair. There are 10 copies of evolving wilds and 2 copies of demolition field to help enable landfall synergies. So, fixing is abundant, but there is a real cost to playing off curve. 

A lot of times folks will tank their manabase or warp their draft around cards that are just too good not to play. However, as we lead into the rares, most of the rares are synergistic and need some support to really shine. So, I hope that these inclusions will lead to better draft navigation and really reward folks that find their lanes. 

Rares that do work in a lot of decks: 

Collected Company - Basilisk Collar

These are generically good in most decks. Company was an include for Flash, and Collar for modified strategies, but either of these cards can be impactful on their own. Company is a powerful one time effect, so I am less worried about it taking over a game. Collar could warp a game and make combat very difficult, so it is something I will keep an eye on. 

Notable rares for each color:

White: Avatar's Wrath - This is a unique effect in this cube. Outside of Black, this is the only mass removal effect in the cube. It also requires the drafter to build around it to make the best use of it. White is able to buff creatures with auras and heroic stuff, so the ability to have your one pumped threat stay in play is the ideal scenario for this card. Bonus for rebuying ETB creatures in white.

Blue: Bident of Thassa - The card draw is very much a blue thing and leans into the evasive threats in the blue archetypes pretty well. I like the powerlevel of this card vs something like Enduring Curiousity. Being Sorcery Speed and not attached to a creature that comes into play after being removed makes this a powerful, yet fair piece. 

Black: Deadly Cover Up - The mass removal is a thing that will only come up sometimes due to the size of the cube, but I like the added benefit here of removing key commons and uncommons from your opponent's deck. This won't come up in many other cubes, so it's something I wanted to take advantage of here. Great card, and very much a black thing. 

Red: Emberheart Challenger - Exactly the type of engine and powerful creature Red wants. Creatures can be dealth with in a lot of colors, but the haste and all-in nature of challenger is very much a red trait and I am happy to say this is a power outlier in this cube. 

Green: Scythecat Cub + Nightpack Ambusher - I am calling out 2 rares here. Cub is a generically powerful card that doesn't require much to pop off. However, this cube doesn't have ways to play multiple lands per turn without an investment of a card. So, I am ok with it being here and playing a similar role to Emberheart Challenger in Red. Nightpack Ambusher is the main reason to play Flash, outside of tempo/control proclivities. Ambusher just sits there and generates value every single turn. However, it is a creature and there are plenty of ways to interact with it. 


That is my overview for the cube. If you are reading this and have access to playing online, I want to encourage you to check out the list and hit me up to jam a draft sometime. I am looking forward to future iterations and changing the format on the regular. I go by Last Abzan on Discord and BlueSky 

My 1st Roto Draft - The Conclusion

Welcome back! This is  the final post about the SamP Arena Cube - Roto draft. I feel I could go on even more about the experience because there was so much time to focus on it, so many games to play and banter to be had in the Discord. 

   The sacrifice theme that's fully supported in this cube is a little bit higher on the curve than a Lurrus deck can play. Noting Mayhem Devil, Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.

 

I didn't actually end up with like the best version of either the sacrifice deck or the artifactr deck. My deck was in between both. I had a lot of really cool synergies and I'm going to be posting a deck list down below for people to take a look at it. I'll just kind of go through the last pics in the draft and then we'll talk about the matches and how that went. 

So I did end up taking Hangarback Walker, and Inspiring Vantage(R/W) next. Vantage comes into play untapped by turn three. My curve is so low I'm okay with it. I am very rarely going to miss having a tapped land on turn 4, especially with the curve and artifact ramp.

I picked up some hand disruption next with Inquisition of Kozilek. I also picked up Kolaghan's Command because I feel like it would absolutely hose my deck and so I didn't want to play against it. I then found myself leaning into the Lurrus strategy a little bit more with Pyrite Spellbomb. Scavenger's Talent is another card I picked up which can be an alternate win con. It works really nice with my theme.

I then picked up Michiko's Reign of Truth. I incidentally have a lot of artifacts and enchantments in this deck, so it could be a 2 mana 5/5 most of the time. It also pairs well with another card I will mention shortly. I picked up some more solid removal; Sheltered by Ghosts which is something that I can recast with Lurrus if it gets answered at some point. I picked up some more premium removal with Bloodchief's Thirst and Damnation. 

Damnation is the one card I was really tempted to take earlier because it works so well with Selfless Spirit. I can just imagine sacrificing the Spirit, giving all my creatures indestructible and then casting Damnation to make my own Plaguewind. I can even rebuy it with Soul Cauldron to give another creature the effect again as well. 

We then have Chromatic Sphere, Legion Extruder, Chainsaw and a really late pic Gingerbrute. So Gingerbrute is a one-mana artifact that I use ASC's ability to make any creature unblockable. So my thought is pair it with Chainsaw or Michiko's Reign of Truth and swing in for the win(Which did happen several times in the matches). 

I also picked up Caustic Bronco, Pile On, Phyrexian Tower and another utility land: Spymaster's Vault which I found very good. The last card which is actually ended up being really great was Sorin, of House of Markov. There's so many aggressive decks. I've been playing test matches and my deck has felt like it needed something that could get on the board and kind of hold back some early aggressive threats. 

Okay so let's go through my deck and my sideboard plan for the matches.

So my game one build, the one that I'm submitting is a B/W deck that's built around Scavenger's Talent, Agatha's Soul Cauldron and drain effects using Meathook Massacre and Marionette Apprentice. I've got cheap interaction with Inquisition of Kozilek, Portable Hole and Bloodchief's Thirst. I also have a load of great two drops with Bitterblossom to pressure opponents, Caustic Bronco, Cathar Commando and Selfless Spirit. I've got my engines that allow me to gain long-game card advantage with Staff of the Storyteller and I got ASC and of course Lurrus. I have my good top deck cards like Massacre and Hangerback Walker to just gum up the board. It's looking really fun. I love all the different synergies and I'm excited to share kind of like how the how the games went as well

 

So sideboard plan I felt like I wanted to have a total switch with a different deck that's more built around artifact aggro. So this deck is mardu and it utilizes Max Opal, Galvanic Blast, Chainsaw and Gingerbrute to push damage. I think is going to be really good to sideboard into versus other slower decks. 

So moving into the matchups I'm looking at the opponents and I've got four decks that I think the artifact deck is a little bit better and five decks where I think the Scavengers Talent plan works out in my favor.

The first couple of games go pretty well I start off with three or four wins right away and I'm happy with kind of how the deck performed. 

I fired off matches super quickly and like I said that initially went pretty well. Then we stopped playing some matches for like weekends and work and stuff like that and I tried to pick up matches kind of anytime others could. So if I'm like busy doing something else but I want to jam a game you know I'm trying to make that happen. That was a little bit of my own downfall with this deck. 

  I forgot to pull up my sideboard plan and didn't actually SB versus one matchup and I ended up losing 2-0 when I definitely should have like been more competitive with the other version of the build. I also got really greedy and had a board state where I had selfless spirit and Damnation in hand, but I was way behind on board. So I waited to cast Damnation and got totally run over by a couple of timely combat tricks. So I ended up coming all the way down to the end and I did win five matches and lost four. It was a very fun deck to play but it's not something that you could really pilot well in a distracted state. You need to be really engaged, and thoughtful of every interaction to play the deck well. 

It did exactly what I thought it was going to do versus some decks. Vs. the blue the mono blue player I was just able to get underneath their counter Magic and pressure them pretty well. I did lose to the green deck after beating them around the time the draft was wrapping up. That matchup was one of the ones I was kicking myself for. I think I didnt take the ample amount of prep to get my SB plan pulled up and look through the differences in their build from our scrimmage. I wanted to actually step on the gas vs them and I ran out of time trying to pull up my SB plan. So, that's on me again. 

So many cool decks at the draft. I was super impressed by everyone's builds and want to thank Sam for putting this together! If you havent already, please go listen to his podcast: Rough Drafts. It's a fantastic limited focused pod. 

Rough Drafts

I'm proud of the deck I had a lot of fun playing the matches and I would definitely do this again and  recommended to anybody that is interested.

Roto Drafting SamP's Arena Legal Cube Part 4

Welcome back! Let's recap what we have in the deck so far: 

1. Demonic Tutor 2. Currency Converter 3. Mox Opal 4. Deathrite Shaman 5. Lurrus, of the Dream-Den 6. The Meathook Massacre 7. Marionette Apprentice 8. Chthonian Nightmare 9. Bitterblossom 10...

.....Agatha's Soul Cauldron 

We're now in round 10 now of this rotisserie draft. Once you get to the round 21, you get two pics per round. Just something to pay attention to as we move into the next couple of days. 

    I'm having a great time and the cards that I've identified that work well with my strategy are kind of pushing me in certain directions which I think is pretty cool. I'm trying to find the best synergy pieces while also making a functional deck. After Agatha's Soul Cauldron I realized no wouldn't had taken Staff of the Storyteller. Staff is a newer to Arena card and I played with it a bunch, so I know how strong it can be. It obviously plays really well with my first couple of pics. I can just imagine being able to put out a staff and a bitter blossom. That would be amazing. 

 

Right after I took Staff the other card that I was hoping to wheel in the next six pics got taken and so a little bummed about that and that was Voice of Victory. Voice and Staff go really well together and also works really well with my sacrifice plan. So on the way back a lot of people started taking lands and I decided I really needed some good hard interaction. It also worked with my game plan of graveyard and so I ended up taking Bitter Triumph which I feel like is one of the best black removal spells in this environment. It hits creatures or planeswalkers, it's instant speed and it's only two mana. 

    After that it looks like we had some people decide to move into a little bit more into black in the next couple of pics. Someone ended up taking unearth and it looks like they're playing a good Jund game plan. The mono red player decided to start taking some blue cards with Spell Pierce which was really a smart pickup. The mono blue player pretty much has all the answers that he would ever need, but Spell Pierce is a really nice card to have access to versus that kind of a deck. 

    Toxic Deluge got taken, followed by a couple of nice white cards and the mono blue player is kind of sticking with his game plan. There's also a Wrenn and Six / Strip Mine player is pretty much mono green at this point and over the next several pics he gets a lot of really strong payoffs like Rofellos, Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Endurance. That green deck in the mono  blue deck look really good so far. A lot of these decks look fantastic, but I'm just calling out some notable decks that are in the pool right now. 

    After the Bitter Blossom + Staff pick, the person that I'm passing to towards the top end of the draft has two pics. They ended up clearly going into an Aristocrats deck with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Priest of Forgotten Gods. I have to be really careful about passing too many Aristocrats type pieces that way. Token makers especially, because I feel pretty confident that they're going to contest some of those cards. 

    After I take Bitter Triumph I started thinking about my fixing and also my Mox Opal is looking a little lonely. I have the Agatha Soul Cauldron but I didn't have much else as far as cheap artifacts to go with it and so I ended up with Chromatic Star to pair with something like Umbral Collar Zealot, which is a new card from Edge of Eternities. It works with my game plan of draining people out with Marionette Apprentice. Chromatic Star says, whenever it leaves the battlefield you draw card, so if I sac it with the Zealot for free, I just get to draw card and I can play it back with Lurrus every turn. If the Zealot gets answered or gets put into the graveyard, I can use ASC to give any of my creatures that same ability which I feel like is just super strong synergy. 

   

After that, I ended up getting my first fetch land and unfortunately the only one left at this point which was Prismatic Vista. I followed up Prismatic Vista with some more cards that work well with Agatha Soul Cauldron and Lurrus; Cathar Commando, Selfless Spirit. I feel like Selfless Spirit  and Bitter Blossom is going to be really really nice. Cathar Commando to be able to deal with my opponents artifacts and enchantments is important. There's a few of the Overlords in the cube, there is Retrofitter Foundry, Smuggler's Copter, Fear of Missing Out, Esika's Chariot just a name a couple. These are the types of syngeries that also advance my game plan. I want to be able to one for 1 or 2 for 1 my opponents, stall the game out and pull ahead with card advantage using Lurrus or land a Bitter Blossom early that continues to pressure even after the dust clears. My threats are cheap, interactive and difficult to remove without graveyard hate(which there isn't as much available after Deathrite and ASC are taken). 

    Okay so my last couple pics I'm looking at the cardpool and some things are drying up. I'm interested in fixing for the most part. I'm also looking at the person next to me who is also in black/white and there's some black cards that are getting contested. I'm thinking about jumping into red for some of the artifacts/sacrifice synergies. There's several cards that I think will be really really good and so I'm going to take I take some fixing here around picks 18 and 19 with Godless Shrine and Talisman of Conviction which is the boros talisman. These are the Talisman is a really boring pic but I think it glues my mox opal pick up. Even though my curve is really low I do have a lot of mana of sinks, especially with currency converter. I do plan on playing cards that scale into the late game. So these are all things that I'm considering right now. I'm also really interested in solidifying the mana base probably taking up some more interaction to go with that bitter Triumph. 

 

 I took some time yesterday and looked at the entire list again. If I do end up getting into red a little bit, there are a lot of good removal spells Mardu colors. There is not a lot of token makers in the Mardu colors that I want per se. So I think my next couple of pics are going to be hanger back walker or Jadar. Jadar is a two drop that makes at 2/2 decayed zombie every turn. Hangerback Walker is another artifact that I can play on turn two or four that dies into thopters so it works really well with my game plan. 

  This format seems super fun to me. I've enjoyed about the cube, thinking about drafting like all day for like a week or two and I'm excited to play this deck. I feel like the deck is going to be super sweet. There's some very strong decks here so that's something. One thing I want to take into consideration is how my deck lines up against certain matchups. I do feel like if I continue to get some more removal my deck can go toe-toe with a lot of the creature based strategies in the queue.

 I'm a little concerned about the mono green and the monoblue player just because of the just because of the fact that they haven't had to take any fixing and they've got just really premium spells all the way up and down their list with a lot of interaction. Also green has a ton of graveyard interaction in the cube. Endurance was a nice pickup. The mono green player has access to Scavenging Ooze and the Bloomborrow one that exiles cards for one mana.

Secret Santa Cube: A Cube Holiday Tradition

Twas the Night before Cubemas,

               and all through the Discord, everyone was thinking of Magic cards galore. 

    I was tinkering with my Shoebox submission, while fellow cubers were dreaming of Omniscience. 

  When all of a sudden, it struck me so clear. What if Stone Soup was now and bringing good cheer? 

   So, I dashed to my PC and wrote up my idea. We shall all share archetypes and, yes, that can includes Phelia. 

    Name a card, a deck or a theme if you will. Just put it out there, for someone's dream will be fulfilled. 

   Regardless of the tradition, let's make a new cube with your favorites. Like Tree of Perdition?

    

    We draw our names, like that cringy game. However, instead of Dollar Tree gifts, we deliver 45 picks for an epic card game. 

     All right I have an idea of a new Cube Limited Format that is like my take on Secret Santa. 

   We all have our favorite decks, our favorite strategies, our favorite types of things we like to do when we're playing Magic the Gathering. 

   What would you do if we made a wish list? Just like if we had a Secret Santa. Where we put any number of types of decks or archetypes that we really love to play, and that was our wish list. 

   We build a cube where everybody that wants to participate, selected a player to build an archetype for. 

Each player donates 45 cards that they've selected to fit in the archetype for the person that they got. 

  Come the end of the year, we mash all the cards together(blindly) and we draft the cube. Would the people that really really love certain archetypes be able to get into those decks? Could they find the theme that they recognize? Would the gifter bring a new take to a favorite?

I think it's going to be very interesting, fun and a nice twist on a holiday classic. I think this is kind of perfect timing since we're right November we've got about a month, month and a half out and we can play the games leading up to Christmas/Holdays. Then, once the dust settles, we can reveal who had who at the end of all the games.

A Conversation with Anthony Adams aka. UberBear of the Uber Cube Podcast

 I was fortunate enough to stumble across the  > UberCube Podcast < right before a trip to the Zoo a few years ago. Anthony, Stu and May bring a wonderful friendly vibe and make you want to draft or even build a cube. I joked with my wife after binging a few episodes, "I would love to play with these guys! They just have such a fun vibe, I have to listen to this"

    When I learned that Anthony lived in my state, I reached out and he has been super gracious. I have gotten a chance to meet and play with him and the other great folks from Raleigh, NC several times and am proud to have them as friends. 

When thinking about who I could highlight on the blog and bring a different kind of discussion to, Anthony was top of my list. If you haven't met him, you hopefully can get a chance to learn more about one of the nicest and best creators in the cube space in this conversation. 

LastAbzan, 

Hey Anthony, how was Cube Con?

Uber Bear,  

It was a wonderful experience, reminiscent of the first Cube Con. 

The vibes were rich, and the setting felt very casual and the energy was positive throughout the space .

We stayed at an Airbnb and that really helped us get well rested each night where we played Magic over a kitchen table and talked about our experiences throughout the day.

It was also really amazing to be recognized by individuals in the crowd for our podcast. It was personally rewarding to help grow the Cube community. 

The event was five stars all around!

LastAbzan, 

Cube Con seems to be one of those events that can really help connect you to the greater magic community. For anyone that's not familiar with your podcast, tell us a little bit about it.

Uber Bear, 

Years ago, I had the idea that I wanted to be the change that I wanted to see in the Cube community. Likewise I would challenge everyone to do the same and to share your voices.

That was the inception of the podcast. From there, Stu and I decided to put the proverbial pen to paper. 

Our podcast is a way that we can channel our back porch conversations on a hobby that we are passionate about as a group. 

As the show has evolved, we found it as a medium to share ideas, design, philosophies, and to challenge our thoughts as well as listeners by presenting meta free flow conversations on cube curation. 

LastAbzan, 

How did you and Stu come across Cube? I may recall hearing in one of your episodes that you guys played EDH prior. Is that how you guys met?

Uber Bear,

Stu was playing modern and vintage online.

I was commander and Chris Moore aka Sammich  introduced us to his Pauper cube and perhaps vintage. Timelines are fuzzy when you’re having fun.

May, she was and is a commander player who wanted to design something interesting from the Eldraine story book adventures.

Stu and I converted our commander game conversations/discourse to MTG as a whole  and down the rabbit hole from there on. 

LastAbzan,

How do 4 players that are playing different formats come together in the first place? I am very curious now.

Uber Bear, 

I think ultimately, it was a treasure hunt for finding what brought us all to the game to begin with that kitchen table vibe. Also all four of us favor the idea of creation and game design.

LastAbzan,

I am sure that sentiment is shared with a lot of Magic players. 

How has being a "creator" affected your relationship to the game and the cube community as a whole?

Uber Bear, 

This one is complicated. Since we release every week, I find myself scouring from games in the name of content more than one should. Honest answer is I find a single solid interaction in a game or card response, take notes, and then form an episode. This opposed to just playing the game sometimes can be difficult. 

While it doesn't impact the joy of playing, it does cause me to think more than I sometimes should about a future episode instead of living in the moment of the game if that makes sense. Also being a content creator does shine a spotlight on the imperfections in the performance of a cube. This is certainly self imposed however it can feel like if I am going to talk about one of my designs it better be mostly right. 

On the other coin I sometimes force the idea of just playing the game and turning off that content side of the brain. Cube Con was like this I just played. Now that I am home of course I am going to write about the experience for future recordings. 

I think I could give one piece of advice to myself and your readers is to make time for yourself to enjoy the game for what it is and not what the world expects it to be.

LastAbzan,

That's a great reminder. Well said. 

You drove up to CC with the local Raleigh playgroup.  What is the food situation like on the road up, and how would you characterize the Madison food scene in general?

Uber Bear,

The trip it was not an amazing food experience lol, fast food and protein bars and I am pretty sure a BK Whopper was the death of me. 

Madison however the food was excellent. We have this place we visit every year called the American Tavern that has the best Old Fashions paired with smoke brisket in all forms. We also visited a Public House and had some delightful meals paired with a little bar cube style play. 

Madison has a lot to explore in terms of food and beverage, I would rate it highly. 

LastAbzan, 

I feel like bad fast food is part of the road trip experience. You kind of roll the dice and hope you picked the right place. 

I am personally a snack fiend on the road. Do you have any Go-To travel foods, drinks?

Uber Bear,

Sure do, Waterloo of all flavors and coffee. Food, I lean towards a Quest Bar and trail mix. Keep it simple and have focus foods for driving. Eating healthy while on a long road trip is important as BK has proven lol.

LastAbzan,

You're much better than me. I have to have beef jerky. Usually a sour candy as well. And a diet coke. Lol 

You have several, pretty famous cubes. Which one is your personal favorite to draft from a gameplay perspective?

Uber Bear,

Uber Bear's Artifact Cube. The technical aspects and deck diversity is appealing to me. Plus it was the most difficult to design and curate. The color shifted context or lack there of (55% colorless) created the challenge of balancing.

LastAbzan, 

That's also my favorite of what I've played of yours. I love trinkets. 

You tend to build cubes that have restrictions or clear themes. Outside of your powered cube of course. Is that intentional? Does having a challenge upfront help you hone in and avoid building a homogeneous cube?

Uber Bear, 

Yes. I like thematic  design it allows me to express myself artistically. For those that don’t know I love to write and I love to draw. 

I kinda combined both of these ideas when I’m creating a narrative within a cube .

Take for example The Monopoly. 

Every card choice specifically the name points towards economics . 

Even if I’m being abstract at points towards the idea  of the American dream for all of its faults and imperfections as well as its positive outcomes. 

It’s a way that I can tell a story about corruption and about those that are trying to scratch their way to the surface all the while mimicking a love and hated board game 

LastAbzan,

I love it, quite flavorful. I do recall drafting that cube a while back and getting stomped. 

Do you have any art examples you wanna share?

Uber Bear,

Bear and Bull Markets

 

Endless Debt 

Retirement OR the Lottery 

LastAbzan 

Very flavorful. 

Wanna share any of your personal art as well?

Uber Bear, 

LastAbzan 

These are great! I had no idea you did the logo for the show. 

I like to draw as well, but have a hard time with freeform and maintaining proper proportions. 

Have you taken any classes?

Uber Bear 

My father taught me while reading stories he sketched them 

We drew together

LastAbzan 

That is a great thing to continue and pass on. 

I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. I just have a few more questions to finish up. 

What is your favorite episode of the podcast thus far?

Uber Bear

PK’s having Stu personify  Sloppidy Bilepiper 😂

Seriously I actually enjoyed making The unconventional archetypes episode. It was neat to delve into atypical cube/deck, construction.

LastAbzan 

I'll have to relisten to those.

Do you have a favorite Magic card?

Uber Bear 

Yes, this card represents my retirement lol. I  ❤️ Folio's art! 2nd Favorite is Bobo. It was my first real commander deck that I still have together and tune. I love the art and the questions this card ask of the opponents. 

LastAbzan

Hahaha, that art is fantastic. 

We're chatting just as fall hits in North Carolina. Do you have a favorite fall drink? Beer and non-alcoholic beverage

Uber Bear 

Yes. Atomic Pumpkin (spicy) by New Belgium 

Non - coffee with cinnamon

LastAbzan

I haven't done coffee with cinnamon before. Sounds nice. 

What's next for the podcast? You had Uber Cube-a-thon previously, are there other events or other content you're working on?

Uber Bear 

We are working on a secret event still in talks TBD on that one. We are working on adding more YouTube engagement with the online cubes we have in our arsenal on the Uber Cube Discord. In progress on this one too.

LastAbzan 

Very cool. I'll keep an eye out for those.

Appreciate your time! Any parting words?

Uber Bear 

Cube may not outlive Magic but the  Cubemunity will.

Kitty Time: SamP's Arena Cube Roto Draft Part 3

Not going to lie, this has been a very fun, and mind melting experience already. The fact that I have to consider really every card in the cube before I pick is a lot to take in. I want to be open to a lot of different strategies, but also I want to find my direction soon so I can get key pieces. It's a difficult balancing act that I am having fun trying to understand and balance. 

   Day 3: Yesterday ended really well. I did end up taking Mox Opal. Opal is going to pair really nicely with Currency Converter. Taking inexpensive cards that can also have a game warping effect is already something I want to do, and Mox Opal is as close to a Mox as I am going to get in this cube. It's also early enough to build around. 

   

I'm going to catch you up on the other pics as well. Both of the Goyfs have been taken. Ocelot Pride, Thoughtseize, both Hierarch's, Gut, Phlage, Ancient Tomb. It's also important to note that the drafter two seats or three seats away from me drafted Urza, Lord High Artificer. This could be a control win condition, but it may mean I will compete with them for some cards in the artifact lane. 

  I do want to call out what some of these decks look like through the start. It's interesting is that we have four different mono color drafters. I am one of them and so far I am on a black. 

We have the mono blue player that is clearly playing control with an artifact sub theme. 

We then have an aggressive but blink value-based monowhite drafter using Phelia, Solitude, Path to Exile, Elite Spellbinder and both of the Thraben Inspector variants that are in the cube. 

The monored player has Ragavan, Pyrogoyf, Ancient Tomb, Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Laelia, Fury and Chain Lightning. 

The other decks at the table are green X. We have the first player who is drafting Simic but mainly green. They have three fetch lands and two Mana dorks, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, Springheart Nantuko, Scythecat Club, and Six. 

We have a clear reanimator deck which is pick number two. They have Reanimate, Thoughtseize, Gut, Troll of Khazad-Dum, Sephiroth and Yagmoth. 

Then we have a Boros value pile. You could say it's boros good stuff; Swords to Plowshares, Ocelot Pride, Phlage, Goblin Bombardment, Lightning Bolt, Reprieve, Stone Forge Mystic and Arena of Glory. 

Then we have a Jund player with two fetch lands, Birds of Paradise, Barrogoyf, Icetill Explorer, Emperor of Bones, Fatal Push, Inti, Fear of Missing Out. 

Then we have the Strip Mine player who is playing Wrenn and Six , three fetch lands, Rofellos and Primevil Titan. 

  We have Dimir control / reanimator strategy with Crabomination, Fallen Shinobi, Sheoldred, Dark Ritual, Dauthi Voidwalker, Overlord of the Balemurk, Time Warp + Temporal Manipulation, Stock Up and Unholy Annex. 

  So that brings me back to myself and where I sit in all of this. I am the fourth pick out of 10. 

Pick 3, I took Deathrite Shaman. Desperate Shaman to me counts as really important interaction. There are two copies of each fetch land in the cube, there are also several very clear reanimator strategies. I am looking at Dauthi Voidwalker, Yawgmoth, Reanimate, Fear of Missing Out and Icetill Explorer all as really powerful ways to interact with the graveyard. So Deathrite Shaman being another black spell to follow up my Demonic Tutor and being able to interact with these strategies and potentially even ramping me, I was very high on my list. So I was able to take it and then immediately afterwards there's more powerful cars that were taken. I am thinking about my interaction and my potential threats. I am trying to balance the amount of interaction, with the amount of proactive pieces for my own game plan as well. So, Deathrite Shaman was an interactive piece in my mind, and then on the way back I noticed that Lurrus was not taken yet. 

  While I was doing this Roto draft, I was also drafting my IPA Cube at a bar. So I was kind of distracted during all of this. I thought for a long period of time about what I should take next and I looked at Lurrus as a very clear power outlier. So I ended up taking it on the way back to me. It works really well with Mox Opal, Currency Converter and other cards I have. It gives me a direction to go down.  I'm very early in the draft and I feel like having a direction of some kind that narrows my focus on what I want to draft is helpful in distilling down the massive amount of cards that are around and focusing in on something clear and proactive.

   
   After Lurrus, I really wanted to pick up another piece of interaction and something that would work well with countering all of the aggressive Decks that I'm looking at. So if I'm facing down Ocelot Pride or a Phelia, I want some ways to catch back up. I ended up taking the Meathook Massacre. I feel like this is a win condition and also away for me to extend the game by boardwiping and gaining a lot of life in the process. So I took that very highly. With Lurrus it's something I could just play from my graveyard for two Mana using Lurrus' ability to slowly drain my opponent out using some kind of a sacrifice outlet. After that pic a lot of other really good cards went and this is not very surprising cuz we're in still in the top 100 cards in the entire cube out of 540. However Massacre got me thinking about an aristocrats type game plan. Also the artifacts that I am also looking at, I didn't think would be prioritized as much by other people. So, I took a gamble and grabbed Marionette Apprentice.

   This was such a perfect card for my deck because I already had MOX opal and I wanted a way to grind out the long game. It made two bodies for 2 mana, it's something I could recur very easily and it worked really well with what Lurrus is trying to do, which is replay cheap spells out of the graveyard. It also combos with treasure tokens from currency converter or other artifacts that I might pick up later to enable my Mox. Nobody else has been blatantly saying I'm playing artifacts just yet outside of potentially the blue player. The blue player picked Urza second pick, however they didn't pick any other artifacts afterwards. That is, until pick 7 with Retrofitter Foundry. Then, my nightmare scenario; they also take Bauble on the way back. Perfect card to pair with Mox and Lurrus. Ouch.

     I'm really at this point I'm still focusing on mainly black. It would be really nice to be able to stay in a one color for as long as possible in my opinion. It just makes my manabase that much easier. It also allows me to stay flexible and watch what other people are doing and jump into a color only if I feel like it's really open. I think that's important because I'm looking at some of the fetch lands getting taken pretty highly and I personally would like to take a fetch that maybe goes in a color that other people are not taking so I can get my key pieces early. So I ended up taking Chthonian Nightmare as a follow-up to Apprentice and Meathook. Is so perfect for my deck because it works well with sacrifice/aristocrats plan. It also basically gives me another copy of Lurrus. I feel like if I'm going to go into the strategy, I should prioritize something that's going to give me a redundant effect in case Lurrus is answered.

Side note: I'm really excited about with this deck as I feel like it counters a lot of the other really strong decks at the table. I'm looking at very aggressive mono red right next to me and I'm looking at a mono white deck on the other side. Those are some of the strongest decks that you can play, however I feel like my deck can gum up the board, gain some life and replay lots of different cards to be able to out value them in the long game. I will be able to go toe2toe with those decks by making cheap creatures that you don't necessarily want to deal. I should be able to stall the board so I have time to find and cast my board wipes. I will need time to tutor, find my answers and have a lot of ways to interact. That's my game plan right now. Just a pure Lurrus value, long game, mid-range type of a game plan. 

   Now the blue player is somewhat concerning because they interact really well with like my bigger spells. However, if you're in mono blue you don't have access to board wipes, and you don't have access to a lot of good creature removal. So my deck I think is also going to be able to pressure a control player very early and get underneath them while they're trying to set up late game engines. So I feel pretty good about my spot. Luckily enough, after I picked up Chthonian Nightmare I picked up Bitterblossom.

Bitterblossom to me in this cube is one of the strongest cards. There are Planeswalkers in this Cube and there are a lot of ways to make tokens in this Cube. I wanted a way to pressure my opponent and pressure their Planeswalkers but also add to my proactive game plan. Give me a body to sack to a Chthonian Nightmare, give me bodies to win with Meathook Massacre and Marionette Apprentice. I'm imagining stalling the game to a point where I have five flyers in play and I just end up winning with a boardwipe to drain for final points of damage. The cheap fliers should also do a good job of blanking my opponents threats with these really difficult to interact with pieces. 


So, I'm looking at my next couple of pics and I'm very excited with where the deck's going. I have a game plan. I also have a need for fixing and removal, and I'm thinking about jumping into white or red or even blue but definitely not green. Green seems to be very contested. Blue and Red seem to be contested as well on the splash. So I'm looking at white and red because the cards that I'm interested in are not going to be the same as the current drafters in those colors. II'm also thinking about taking more graveyard interaction with Agatha's Soul Cauldron and I think that's going to be my next pick because it combinations with Deathrite and some of the key Lurrus pieces like Selfless Spirit and Zack Fair. Or even the cards that my opponents are going to be playing that I want to get rid of like, Dauthi and Yawgmoth.