Here's what you're looking for when you draft Mono-Red: All the One Drops: Goblin Guide is the best, followed by Firedrinker Satyr, Grim Lavamancer, Zurgo Bellstriker, Falkenrath Gorger, Monastery Swiftspear and Jackal Pup. Some of the best and most powerful mana rocks are also included. . text-align: center; I Mind Twist away their remaining four cards. The Ultimate Guide to March of the Machine Sealed, The Ultimate March of the Machine Limited Set Review, The 30 Most Expensive and Must-Have Cards in March of the Machine, Background in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards, The Best 6 Budget Commander Decks You Can Build for Cheap, The Ultimate Guide to MTG Arena Jump In! When I venture into black its most commonly for Leovold, Emissary of Trest or to try to play Storm. But I decided to go for it, to see how we could do. You may have already heard, but in case you havent, Im here to let you know that Vintage Cube is returning to Magic Online (MTGO) for three weeks starting today! Go for it. Izzet tempo is one of the best general archetypes you can look to get into early thanks to the power of blues cards and the synergies with red. Our Grixis deck ended up winning with the card Sneak Attack. Because no one else wants them. I guess there is a sliver of hope. How am I 2-0? Cube has long been one of my favorite ways to play Magic. The simple fact is that the very best cards in Vintage Cube are foolish to pass and the very worst cards are foolish to pick. Vintage Cube is on Magic Online usually twice a year, once in the summer around July and then again in December for the holidays. Maybe Mono Red saves your draft. Do you like having the chance to play with all of those crazy cards, or is it a little stale after a while? You're not a Thundermaw Hellkite deck. } Scoop. None of the others are high picks. Match 2, Game 2: They go Forest-Forest-Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Strip Mine hanging out to push back on the opponents mana development is also huge, and is much more welcome than more fours or getting into any five-mana spells. They draw 7 more cards. } I tend to be down on Chandra, Pyromaster, but its decent out of the sideboard against green and white x/1s and to stop blocking. left:37px; Mono Red is good like that. #thumbwrap { Mono Red is a strange bird. Compare it to using Oblivion Ring on Consecrated Sphinx. Counterspells, Control Magic effects, and even bounce spells are all generally pretty powerful in most Cubes and their strengths are amplified in Vintage Cube as ways to interact with opponents leveraging fast mana. Im really looking for Goblin Bombardment and some other cheap support before I give that one a close look. Urza's Saga, Urza, Lord High Artificer, and other expensive artifact threats like Wurmcoil Engine or Myr Battlesphere are your finishers here. While I believe that Bloodbraid Elf is considerably more powerful than Arlinn, the Packs Hope, I also dont really want to play with any of these cards ever. : Complete List and Rewards (March of the Machine), 150 Play Points, 2 Qualifier Points, 1 Friendly Trophy, 1 Treasure Chest. High quality Vintage Cube Archetypes 2021-inspired gifts and merchandise. As somebody who has had one of my own Cubes run on MTGO, Im here to impart some wisdom on how to best enjoy your Vintage Cube experience and how to best navigate one of the most volatile Limited environments imaginable. First, let's start in the most logical place - blue decks. My pick order is based on understanding which cards are the very best and committing as hard as possible to playing these cards starting from Pack 1, Pick 1. I can see Rite of Harmony having a high ceiling, so I like giving that one a shot, but any deck that asks me to play a Savannah is fighting uphill. Planar Bridge (The Cube) | Illustration by Alexandre Leoni. It was easy to justify putting Agadeems Awakening in a deck with the opportunity cost being so low, but I rarely saw doing so amount to much in Vintage Cube. Sullivans Satchel: Baneslayer Angel; Uro, Titan Of Natures Wrath; And Casual VS Competitive. I will say that not everyone is going to value Mox Sapphire the same way that I do. Deck-building for the Vintage Constructed Cube is likely the most difficult part of drafting it. Its a very straightforward and sometimes boring strategy, and you can easily pick up the most important pieces for this archetype in your first pack. Until next time, stay safe and stay healthy! Next they find Dragonlord Ojutai. We swing with everything but Ophiomancer to flip Legion's Landing. Golgari has great cheap removal in the form of Assassin's Trophy and Maelstrom Pulse, and Vraska, Golgari Queen often gives you a 2-for-1 trade. The decks your players will draft and build need to have the tools to be successful decks. Here's a less-than-ideal Mono Red deck I recently drafted: So much is wrong with this deck. Drop your thoughts in a comment below or head over to the official Draftsim Discord to chat about it there. Wizards Posted The MTGO Vintage Cube List today 7-20-21. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online/magic-online-announcements-july-20-2021 Here Are the 35 Cuts and Additions in an easier way to read from what the have posted. Young Pyromancer, Expressive Iteration, Mana Drain, Counterspell, Dack Fayden, and Vendilion Clique are all great ways to get started. Some of these tiers will be exhaustive lists, while others will be a sampling of the nature of that tier, which I will make explicit in my thoughts on each category. Ryan Overturf analyzes the latest changes so you can make the most of the three-week Limited MTG experience. They play Fauna Shaman and swing for 5. So my Grixis strategy is to take the fixing, take the tutors, take the irreplaceable power cards and win conditions, like Tinker, Sneak Attack and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and then just trust that by the end of the draft your win conditions will come together. text-align:center; Regardless, the Power 9 are about as impactful as youd assume. Need more proof March of the Machine is a Commander player's dream? The other way you get into Mono Red is that you backdoor in. We trade resources. Unconditional removal that exiles is great against Reanimator strategies and really just anybody putting creatures on the table. It provides a unique style of gameplay unlike any other strategy and lets you play around with the most powerful cards in the game. You still want to pick up the strong tempo cards like Counterspell, Expressive Iteration, and Dack Fayden, but theres a much bigger focus around the combo. In case you havent heard, the Vintage Cube is back on Magic Online (MTGO) for the month of July. Beyond that, Jaces Ingenuity would make a lot of my blue decks even in Vintage Cube and thats the floor of Mystic Confluence. Vintage Cube is all about efficiently leveraging your mana. It is powerful on occasion, though if youre not winning the turn you cast it with something like Thousand-Year Storm, its more likely than you might think that your opponent will just annihilate you with some Eldrazi. These are specific to Vintage Cube, but some, like Mono-Green or W/W, are pretty much the same in Legacy or Modern Cube as well. Phyrexian Revoker, Reclamation Sage, and Acidic Slime are good to have around to slow the opponent down in the early-game and something like Woodfall Primus or Terastodon can slam the door once you get them online (preferably assisted by a discard outlet like Jace, Vryns Prodigy). The pick order outlined above offers a lot of direction for how to navigate the early part of the draft, though an understanding of each colors strengths and weaknesses is imperative to navigate from there. position:absolute; There are some great hatebears in the Cube too in the form of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Esper Sentinel. I expect Wrenn and Sevens time in Vintage Cube to be forgettable, though it remains to be seen whether it ends up being short. Personally, I hate this kind of deck in the Vintage Cube because its far too "fair" for my liking. This is more of a general drafting tip, but its especially important to recognize due to the fact that it becomes incredibly tempting given what cards youre looking at in each pack. They're going to default to pick the best cards too. Our Privacy Policy. the most expensive and powerful cards in Magic, Vintage Cube Archetypes Ranked / Best Vintage Cube Archetypes. Last week I covered two of the best decks and win conditions in the Vintage Cube: Reanimator and Grixis Goodstuff. It's much better to have a Tier 2 archetype deck that comes together as a 9 or a 10 than a Tier 1 deck that only comes together as a 4 or a 5. If Im going to spend that much mana on something that isnt a sure thing, I at least want it to give me looks at Craterhoof Behemoth. Sometimes you're just in the mood to watch it all burn. We counter with Stoneforge Mystic, fetching our Sword of Body and Mind. Burn: This is the most generic element of the deck. It gives you a way to win once the board is clear and youre holding up strictly interaction. Its always a lot of fun whether youre watching or drafting yourself, and I cant recommend it enough! Mana Drain gets a nice two-for-one here on being interactive and giving an absurd mana boost. Next down comes Jace, Architect of Thought. vertical-align:bottom; Blue is the best color in Cube, hands down, and the average Cube draft can support five blue drafters without much trouble. Sometimes its wide open. Blue is the best color in Cube, hands down, and the average Cube Draft can support five blue drafters without much trouble. Admittedly, Teferi, Time Raveler and Monastery Mentor are very noteworthy cards, though it would not be difficult to drum up a reasonable sampling of cards in any other color or even just a couple of artifacts that would have yielded a comparable deck. Vintage Cube has the best cards in the game after all, and throwing them in a pile and saying go could lead to you having a great curve. . Its a high-powered experience where you get to draft the most expensive and powerful cards in Magic, and be paired up against somebody with just as incredible of a deck as yours. Sheldon Menery is adding over 70 of its cards to his decks. Some packs just arent exciting, though not every 3-0 starts with a Black Lotus. Cards like Black Lotus can make 4-drops on turn 1 a reality. They swing, discarding Island, playing Izzet Signet and Chart a Course only to draw 2. They play Looter Il-Kor. But in reality this often results in you having mana issues, missing out on any kind of coherent strategy, and being entirely dependent on drawing the right cards in a matchup. Your original strategy dries up. Sometimes the stars align and the cheap red cards are opened in the draft and I dont open a Tier 0 card, but it doesnt happen nearly as often as I would like. Aggro decks are fun, especially mono-red, but honestly, your cards are so much weaker than your opponents. Recurring Nightmare is one of those cards that is too good for most Cube environments while being somewhat overshadowed in powered Cube, but it can still get the job done. .thumb { Usually it shouldn't be your Plan A since there is no individual cards that are so strong that they are the "correct" picks in your pack 1 picks 1-4, but its a deck that the sum is a lot better than the parts. Supreme Vintage Cube is a slightly altered version of Vintage Cube where you pick two cards each pick of every pack. But you've already got a Lightning Bolt, there's an empty pack for you, and what do you know, an eighth pick Koth of the Hammer. Nissa, Who Shakes the World is the consensus best five-mana planeswalker for Vintage Cube, though Vivien Reid is markedly better than whatever the next best option is. White also just presents some of the best planeswalkers in the Cube, with Teferi, Time Raveler and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria both being very high picks. Its imperative to make sure that you end up in a deck that does some combination of efficiently leveraging your mana while having some ability to curb your opponents ability to do so. I take no joy in reporting this, especially considering that I was able to post a 3-0 with the archetype the only time it felt open during the last run of the Vintage Cube. Tutors are never good. Cards like Counterspell and Thoughtseize are efficient enough to be reasonable against basically any opponent and tend to overperform in Vintage Cube. Bribery and Treachery will similarly often result in well worth the value of tapping five lands. Forest, go. We win a game? I completely understand not wanting to play with Oko, though hes one of the easiest routes to free wins. float:relative; /* must be floated for same cross browser position of larger image */ One important tip is to look at how your dual lands, tri-lands, and fetch lands interact. When Jake isn't at his LGS he can be found on MTG Arena where he's usually forcing blue in draft. One other stores of this archetype are still open in Jefferson Valley Mall in . There's one more hidden advantage to drafting mono-Red as well: no one else wants your cards. Youll greatly benefit if you can use their extra mana to ramp out threats early. In my experience, once you have Yawgmoths Will, if anybody at the table opens Lions Eye Diamond it will come to you, which is the easiest two-card combo for making a lethal Storm turn happen. Unique Vintage Cube Archetypes 2021 Posters designed and sold by artists. Even if the worst 4 cards in the deck were replaced with stuff like Searing Spear or Lightning Strike, two very low end playables for most other decks, they would have been very happy filler for us. And yet as a deck it is much more powerful than the sum of its parts. Theres also the infamous pairing of Narset, Parter of Veils and a wheel effect like Wheel of Fortune. Not over a one-mana accelerator, but over most everything else. There are plenty of other effects for consistency like Putrid Imp, Oona's Prowler, Shallow Grave, Corpse Dance, Makeshift Mannequin, Exhume, Animate Dead, and Necromancy. The Twin/Kiki deck, while sharing a lot of cards with the non-combo Izzet tempo deck, is still different enough to be a separate archetype. Ramp out, play a big threat a few turns earlier than you otherwise should, and run over the poor schmuck across the table. The removal of Legions Landing is a blow to those aggressive decks, both in reducing the total number of one-mana threats and it being in the upper half of those on power level. I attack them down to 6. I attack them down to 6. border:1px solid #000; My friend and co-SCG Baltimore Team Open champion Liz Lynn enjoys forcing white and believes it to actually just be the best archetype. Mox Diamond doesnt hold a candle to the real thing, but its all the same when youre resolving cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Wheel of Fortune. I wouldnt take it over a counterspell or a cheaper card selection spell, but I also expect it to overwhelmingly make my deck when I do draft it. I wasnt positive that wed see Vintage Cube between the releases of the two Innistrad sets this year with the releases being so close together, but Im happy to see the format go live one more time between now and its inevitable return towards the end of the year. A way to keep the cards flowing as well as clear lands off the top of your deck is most welcome in green decks, and I have nothing but good things to say about the Augur. Go into it if see Sulfuric Vortex or Goblin Guide late. The swings in Vintage Cube can be a lot to handle, though I do find joy in the fact that midrange decks are just horrible. How do you get into Mono Red then since none of the cards are first-pickable? Cathar Commando and Intrepid Adversary both cracked my Top 10 Cube Cards for Midnight Hunt and are the most significant additions with this update. The Six Decks Im Considering For The SCG Invitational At SCG CON. Laelia, the Blade Reforged is one that Ive been playing in the original Twobert since its release and has been great there. .scgtour-ad img { The first book by the reclusive inventor of the world's most iconic puzzle, the Rubik's Cube. Ill first-pick a Griselbrand out of some packs, though more commonly my Vampiric Tutors are tracking down Tinker in my mostly blue deck. I zap their Young Pyromancer, they zap my Soldier of the Pantheon, I play Phyrexian Revoker to shut down their Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. There are tentpole cards (channel, tinker, Kiki Kiki/splinter Twin, etc) that are more or less unique, and there are cards that are better or worse versions of the same effect (exhume vs reanimate, etc). Howdy, gamers! Here's the downside to Grixis: in general, you should expect that when you draft the powerful blue, black and red cards that your fellow drafters will also know this is the optimal strategy. Neither is a terribly high pick in Vintage Cube with Mono-White Aggro and Azorius Control being the best white archetypes, but if I had to choose to include one I would go with the Guide. Storm is the textbook of example of a parasitic archetype, and below I've included a sample decklist from a January 2021 Vintage Cube draft by Caleb Gannon. A secondary note: this kind of deck is one of the few homes one could justify odd duck cards like Braids, Cabal Minion or Smokestackce you are flooding the board with tokens. To get things out of the way early, this is going to be my last set cube update for Magic Online . In Pack 1 I was thinking I would end up as a Dimir deck, though the only good black card I got the entire draft was Fallen Shinobi and I didnt see any good fixing. Were talking about the sorts of cards that would be easy first picks in the absence of power, and a few cards that are generally considered too good for those environments. Blue has a lot of power for bullying opponents and stuff like Opposition and Deceiver Exarch combo will end up leading to less consistent and less powerful decks than just drafting busted mana and busted individual cards about as often as theyll pay off in my experience. I think that Jadar falls flat in the way that the two cuts did, though Im always in favor of lowering the curve. I swing back for 5 and break their signet with an Anguished Unmaking to keep them off mana. max-width:100%; But the payoffs are fairly limited, and they boil down to essentially either locking your opponent out through a bunch of creatures and Opposition, or hitting a Craterhoof Behemoth off of Natural Order. This is a problem, because there are only seven aggressive red one-drops in the entire Cube, and one of them is Figure of Destiny which will be picked highly for white decks as well. We'll take a punt. } They play (Selesyna Signet) into Reclamation Sage, destroying my creature. Its limited availability on MTGO helps underscore its important and localized demand for when its actually available, which also helps reduce queue time and make it more of an event. While theres occasionally a two- to three-week period where the Vintage Cube is available in the Spring, that isnt always guaranteed. In reviewing todays update and taking inventory of the slight blow to Mono-White Aggro and the hits to Mono-Green Ramp, Im thinking that the most powerful card being added is Portent The more things change, the more they stay the same. For my money the other Moxen are more or less colorless sources that sometimes fix your mana, while Mox Sapphire is a tremendous boon for blue interactive decks. This goes beyond picking power. A deck with a lot of artifact mana and planeswalkers can seriously leverage a Balance, though its really tough to get all of the right cards together as theyre all high picks, and Id rather have the fast mana and planeswalkers than the Balance. Memory Deluge is going to be a much bigger deal for formats like Arena Cube, but its a serious card advantage spell that offers a good amount of selection for the price. Mana Crypt is close enough to Sol Ring to fit in here, but theres some give and take. A Dutch artist worked with former plantation employees to create a "white cube" that they hope will one day display works returned from European museums. Power Fours: Koth of the Hammer and Hellrider are excellent. This strategy plays very similarly to any green ramp deck you mightve piloted before. Azorius () also has some power cards to have some fun with. Simic relies on greens mana ramp but gives great payoffs in Hydroid Krasis, Oko, Thief of Crowns, and Hornet Queen. The Vintage Cube is here for fun. Midnight Reaper also just doesnt have the kind of support that you want for a card like that with some of the most powerful cards for sacrifice decks absent from the Cube. display: block; Storm specifically is more interested in Dark Ritual than most, and you should pick Yawgmoths Will on the level of a Tier 0 card. As Pro Tour March of the Machine approaches, qualifier Dom Harvey offers observations on Standard and Limited, the viewer experience, and star-making. margin:0px; Necromancy | Illustration by Pete Venters. Gulp. Beyond that, cards like Sulfuric Vortex, Mother of Runes, Entomb, Mana Leak, or anything that provides some identity to your deck are fine places to start. Mono white: The archetype I would recommend the most. He starts with the basics of first picks and the best archetypes for each color. When it comes to utility lands, youre presented with an equally powerful choice of cards. In the last run of Vintage Cube I noticed players were passing Oko entirely too much. 1 Mutavault top:37px; width:252px; Smoldering Egg is worth playing in controlling decks or even in Storm, but isnt one that I expect to be valued highly at the table and is a card that I would hope to wheel if I were interested in it. Ramping cards like these out, especially ones with protection, are the easiest way to win the game on turn 1 or 2. Your email address will not be published. I really dont have much to say about the significance of any of these cards in Vintage Cube. All rights reserved. Sometimes you back into it to save your draft. Heres what to look out for if youre trying to get the ball rolling: The artifacts deck, while often difficult to put together completely, is still one of my favorite archetypes in the Cube. Ive 3-0ed plenty of Vintage Cubes staying mono-blue, and blue is most commonly my primary color in any two or more color decks. I play a Shambling Vent and swing with Mutavault which trades off. He started off playing in his store's Journey into Nyx league, and his favorite formats are draft and commander! Once you have Craterhoof you dont have to worry about having other top-end or having awkward mana ramp effects to bridge you to casting a bunch of stuff that casts seven or more; you just need to put some bodies on the table and summon the extremely lethal Beast as quickly as possible. 1 cards The cards you want to look out for are essentially any high-tier blue or red cards. The play patterns are just horrendous, and Adeline more or less returns to form in a lateral substitution over Brimaz. In the coming weeks Ill be putting out articles looking at interesting draft picks as I come across them on MTGO, which should help to build on the groundwork Ive laid here. 2023 Wizards. Ryan Overturf analyzes the latest changes so you can make the most of the three-week Limited MTG experience. I love casting Mystic Confluence on Turn 4. Players have access to fast and mana-positive rocks like Mana Crypt and Grim Monolith on top of the classic Signets. I fetch my Sword of Body and Mind with Stoneforge Mystic and swing with Mutavault. Bad choice. Augur of Autumn is the major update here, and one that I will draft highly for all of my green decks. Then I play Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, making an Ally token. After another Mountain on their side, I Mind Twist them for 4, leaving only Master of the Wild Hunt in hand. The copyright for Magic: the Gathering and all associated card names and card images is held by Wizards of the Coast. The most important pieces will be Tolarian Academy, as many Signets as you can pick up, and any other instances of fast mana in the form of an artifact like Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, and Sol Ring. Bennie Smith gives in to this awesome urge with Etali, Primal Conqueror, his Commander Deck of the Week. The most important thing in Vintage Cube is getting set up early, so I value these slowlands lower than fastlands, but I would also value all of the cards being cut lower than fastlands. Show and Tell is admirable in that it intends to cheat on mana, though the symmetrical nature is incredibly likely to bite you. It includes the Power 9, all original dual lands, and some of the best creatures and planeswalkers out there. It really improves your win rate against slow fair decks like mono green or control whereas Izzet tempo would be more pressured to be the aggressor. The bar is much higher for Vintage Cube and the card is more or less replacement level by virtue of being an aggressive three-drop, but its a great option to fill out your curve once youre full up on ones and twos. Mono red: Load up on one drops, and curve out while other people figure out the format. My conclusion: Don't play fair decks. Youll end up with 36 cards from 18 packs, never having seen a pack youve picked from before again. Here are some of the big ones you should look out for: Planeswalkers have been a part of Magics history more than they havent lately, and there certainly have been some powerful ones printed into existence. This is an especially good combo since Narset shuts down the highly prevalent number of cards draw spells that just about every archetype has access to. This site is Draftsim.com. We'll take whatever we can get with this deck. Yes, Soulfire Grand Master does go infinite with Time Walk. If youre first-picking one of the listed cards in these two categories, youre starting things off in great shape. Tier 2 Archetypes: # 1 Green X Ramp. I would bet it ranks close to number one for cards that I lose to immediately when my opponent casts them. Land Destruction: You are the deck that wants Strip Mine, Wasteland and occasionally even Rishadan Port. To top things off you can get a very consistent deck if you manage to pick up some of the tutors in black like Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor, or Vampiric Tutor. I hope you Birthing Pod fans are happy! In the same vein, I always maindeck Manic Vandal since killing a signet is the same as killing a land. Wrenns +1 and -3 are fine, but their impacts on the battlefield are minimal relative to the format and we have to dream bigger than that. Parallax Wave goes away. This is what happens sometimes when your original deck dries up, you backdoor into Mono Red, and the quality is there, but you still end up about 4 solid playables short of a deck. Drafting mono-blue typically means being heavy on artifact mana, though this is a fine example of a two-color blue deck that is clearly leaning on the blue cards that I 3-0ed with: This deck is honestly a little bit of a mess, and serves as a good example of how the best cards in the format are all that matter. Turn two I play Mox Pearl into Orzhov Signet. It just doesn't happen unless you pick them over everything, picks 1-4 out of every pack. width:700px; Signets are great because theyre mana acceleration, and I more commonly pick off-color Signets to fill out my mana curve than I do for any kind of mana fixing. All Rights Reserved. The Moxen are also great in just about any deck, even if theyre not on-color. I dont plan on picking Storm the Festival highly or maindecking it in all of my ramp decks. A lot of countermagic costs multiple blue mana, and when many of your opponents will be using fast mana to cast expensive spells, counterspells become one of the most powerful forms of interaction. Always always always bias your picks in favor of efficiency and do everything in your power to not end up with uninteractive midrange cards in your pool. I equip my sword, swing and mill 10. The other thing white does well is providing solid interaction for controlling strategies. The Vintage Cube is a high-power cube developed by Wizards that includes some of the most powerful and popular cards from Magics entire history. Ugh. Its really easy to assemble these combos and make incredibly strong mana bases early on. How Much Does It Cost? .article-footer-ad .footer-ad-text{ visibility:visible; Ive seen many disappointing Dreadhorde Arcanists in 540-card Cubes and zero good ones, so good riddance there. Gaea's Cradle? Ugh. Lightning Bolt is great, but honestly its not much different than Searing Spear or Char.
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