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!