Cube
drafting and two-headed giant - a match made in the very depths of hell itself
- comes to Rabblemaster Games
I've written before about the joys of
cube drafting; how pure a format it is thanks to freedom from monetary
concerns, allowing you to take the best card for your deck instead of that foil
Tarmogoyf; the pleasure of finding cards suited to your archetype eight cards
deep in packs; hate-drafting cards that counter your specific strategy rather
than cutting your opponents directly. All these things are fun and more. But
regular cube drafting is still for 1v1 play, and regular customers know how
much I enjoy alternative formats, especially multiplayer ones.
Two-headed Giant is an interesting
multiplayer format, because the consultation between players is something
avoided in normal team play. Decks can synergise, producing a horror story for
the opponents when one player is running self-mill/delve and one is
running Survival of the Fittest and Living Death, or have completely
opposing strategies, where the aggro player dumps their hand in three turns and
goes for the throat of both opponents - while the control player defends their
horde of creatures from opposing removal.
Combining the two is going to create
some very interesting board states!
Here's a link to the cube we'll be
using. We've made some notes about the different draft archetypes available in the
cube to assist teams with drafting
Blue &
White is traditionally the control colour combination in Magic. There are no
shortage of other traditional control cards, like Wrath of God and Jace, the
Mind Sculptor, in the cube, but the supported archetype is UW blink. Many of
the anchor cards in this archetype, such as Mulldrifter, Vendilion Clique and
Snapcaster Mage have been regular features in control decks across the span of
Magic history.
UWx Blink anchor cards:
UW Blink utilizes creatures with enter-the-battlefield triggers
(ETB or 187 creatures) and abuses them repeatedly through cards such as Momentary
Blink. Because such creatures proliferate across all colours in Magic, UW is
great to splash a third colour for; Thragtusk, Ravenous Chupacabra and Flametongue Kavu are all great creatures to blink and/or flicker for extra value. In colour value cards to watch out for in the packs are Frost Titan, Torrential Gearhulk, Sun Titan, Karmic Guide and Reveillark – giving the
strategy a fair overlap with BW Reanimator. It’s a versatile archetype that can
easily surprise opponents.
_______________________________________________________
Blue & Black, while also traditionally a control colour pairing,
has a history in Magic of psychic attacks and removing cards from the opponents’
hands and libraries. Cards like Lobotomy and Haunted Echoes have no use in a
singleton format like cube draft, however, so the supported archetype is UB
mill/control.
UB
Mill//Control anchor cards:
The UB Mill strategy is brutal in the 40-card format. It utilizes
counterspells and removal to stay in the game to preserve your life total
whilst you whittle your opponent’s cards and options remaining, rather than
their life total. Splashing colours in cube draft is commonplace, often off
only a singleton fetch-able land, so milling your opponent’s library can also
have the benefit of stranding cards in their hand.
In colour value cards to keep an eye our for as you draft are: Snapcaster
Mage, and importantly, cards that buy time for the strategy to take effect, such as Propaganda,
The Abyss, Evacuation, and as many removal and mass removal spells as you can
get your hands on.
UB Mill cross polinates well with UR Spell Slinger, with Fork, Reiterate,
Increasing Vengance and Mystic Retrieval all being great ways to double down on
those mind-erasing attacks.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Black & Red has had various identities across Magic history;
early cards like Soul Burn had interesting crossover, but both colours have
long been concerned with resource denial – sometimes, consistent with the Red
strategy, at a high cost to the player’s own resources. In this cube, the BR
Pox/Stax strategy is all about denying your opponent the resources to
effectively play the game
BR
Pox/Stax anchor cards:
BR Pox is a low to the ground deck that limits the resources and
board-state of the game. Cheap, Recurring creatures such as Reassembling
Skeleton, Gravecrawler and Bitterblossom make the deck work. Land Destuction
with Stone Rain, Sinkhole, Molten Rain and Strip Mine are useful to gain board
advantage – you want to cast Pox when your opponent has four lands for maximum
effect.
Cards to keep an eye out for are Geralf’s Messenger, Lavaclaw Reaches - avoids a beginning of turn The Abyss trigger and can still swing - Gurmag
Angler, and threaten effects like Act of Treason and Captivating Crew, which are
particularly dirty if you have a sacrifice outlet handy such as Carrion Feeder,
Greater Gargadon or Goblin Bombardment. The deck requires patience and rewards tight play.
_______________________________________________________
The RG Fires deck is a simple, yet highly effective stragtegy. Ramp and/or cheat your fatties in. Swing and trample through for the win with Nylea, God of the Hunt and Fatal Frenzy. The cube is filled with fatties to Sneak Attack out, or to ramp into, including Thragtusk, Terastodon, It That Betrays, Kozilek Butcher of Truth, Ghalta, Primal Hunger...and the list goes on.
RG
Super Ramp/Fires key cards include:
See the unwritten
The seemingly rather shallow archetype is quite heavily supported
with dirty combos like See the Unwritten (on the stack, Worldly Tutor in
response) or Sneak Attack a Pathrazer of Ulamog, with super menace and haste,
into Fling post-combat, all for 1RR!
RG Fires
cross-pollinates well with RW Tokens, with many Devour Creatures like Mycoloth
and Predator Dragon being able to gobble up your whole army and win in swift
order. BG graveyard also works well with these same fatties; if you can fill
your graveyard using Survival of the Fittest or Fauna Shaman and fire off a Living Death, you’re in for a great time.
_______________________________________________________________________________
GW
Auravoltron - well known in Modern circles is the "bogles" deck - playing hexproof creatures, loading them up with auras, and going to town. This cube supports a similar strategy, with card advantage provided through "enchantress" effects and plenty of powerful auras to suit your creatures up with.
But hexproof creatures are difficult to interact with, so this cube's GW Voltron relies instead on creatures that wear auras well like heroic creatures or creatures with solid abilities like Aerial Responder and Knight of Meadowgrain. Combos with Auratog and Femeref Enchangress draw you into more gas if your threats are taken down, and those heroic creatures get even better with Hardened Scales on the battlefield. GW Voltron gets big quick and can get out of hand with the right draws; creatures growing well out of the range of red removal spells and protected by totem armour enchantments against black ones are damn hard to kill, but not impossible to get through.
Key archetype staples:
In colour value cards to watch out for: Cultivator of Blades enchanted is great
when you swing with the team. Evasive creatures like Aerial Responder or Akroan
Skyguard wear all enchantments well, so you want a fair helping of those, and as
many “enchantress” effects like Kor Spiritdancer and Sram, Senior Edificer as
possible to keep the cards flowing.
Selesnya Voltron requires the drafter to commit and go deep in the
strategy, although there is a bit of overlap with UG counters and heroic
creatures, plus, blue creatures tend to be naturally evasive; they wear auras just
as well as they handle those +1/+1 counters
_______________________________________________________________________________
BW Reanimator is a dominant cube archetype; with the plethora of
big threats in the cube, cheating them in early can be back breaking for your
opponent. There are many discard outlets like Undead Gladiator, Putrid Imp, Oona’s Prowler and Collective Brutality. The deck can go fast with T1 Putrid Imp, T2 discard
Wurmcoil Engine, Reanimate and win, but also has a very good long game.
BW Reanimator key and priority cards when drafting:
In color value cards: Grave Titan - because who doen’t want an
early game 6/6 deathtouch zombie spawner - Pathrazer Ulamog, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize to protect your combo
pieces – which you’ll want to draft a lot of. Bridge from Below is easily
discarded and can add a lot of 2/2 zombie value when you cast Recurring Nightmare and Victimize. It’s a deck that requires a lot of separate pieces –
discard outlets, fat creatures, and reanimation spells – and it is sometimes
hard to know which option to pick from the pack; let too many reanimation
spells pass and someone else jumps in on the strategy, but if you don’t grab
enough discard outlets and fat creatures, you won’t have anything to reanimate!
The deck cross pollinates well with BG Graveyard decks to fill
your graveyard with threats that can be reanimated. Cards like Survival of the Fittest are exceptional for the archetype allowing you to tutor and reanimate
your big threats. UB mill can also work well with this deck, enchanting
yourself with Curse of the Bloody Tome rather than the opponent and running Snapcaster
Mage to hit your payoff cards more than once is disturbing.
_______________________________________________________________________________
BG Graveyard decks are a great mid-range decks and have made use of the dead for many years now. Fill up your yard at the start by using your removal on early game threats, or through self-immolating creatures like Fleshbag Marauder and Sakura-Tribe Elder; get value from Iskanah, Grafwidow and your Spider Spawning from all those things you’ve dumped in the graveyard with Wild Mongrel, which is an all-star in this deck. Drop a Tarmogoyf early and watch it grow when you crack Verdant Catacombs, play Grisly Salvage or Commune with the Gods. Next thing you know, you’ve got Survival of the Fittest in hand and you have a massive Tarmogoyf to fend off any attackers - or to go for the throat.
BG
Graveyard key cards
The deck benefits a lot from picking up a Recurring Nightmare, as do most decks, and other recursive spells such as Living Death. When
drafting the deck, make sure to keep delirium in mind. You wouldn’t want to
draft a deck with just creatures lands and sorceries. Solemn Simulacrum is
a great addition (like it is with any deck) along with Moldervine Cloak to stretch your delirium count
and feed your goyf; I've seen it as a 5/6 and even a 6/7 in this cube before. Stabilise the board early and build up to a midrange win.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Anyone who has played against the ridiculously popular Atraxa, Praetor's Voice in a commander game will recognise the UG
Proliferate archetype.
Cards to keep an eye out for:
In colour value cards: Hornet Queen with some counter nonsense just got a whole lot worse. Avenger of Zendikar plant tokens can flourish with
proliferate effects. Chasm Skulker is an absolute stud in this deck, throw
a Sylvan Library into the mix and you will have a giant squid horror, followed by a lot of smaller ones. River Kelpie and Kitchen Finks can be of great value with their persist
abilities to draw you into gas or give you much needed life; drop those +1/+1 counters on either of them after the fact, and they're set to go on another death & rebirth cycle. But what you really want to draft is the engine cards; Thrummingbird, Contagion Engine, Master Biomancer and Kalonian Hydra - these are what takes it over the top, turning a few counters into a ton of'em.
UG Proliferate cross-pollinates well with UW Blink to get extra value
off those ETB triggers from Prime Speaker Zegana and Deepglow Skate, or makes a good pairing with GW Auravoltron's heroic and evasive creatures.
_______________________________________________________________________________
UR Spell Slinger
Think about how many times you see the words "whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell" on red and blue permanents in Magic. This archetype is all about benefitting when you do that; burn, counter, bounce - whatever effect you need - is always better when you can tack two damage, a scry, or an extra card onto the effect!
Key cards for the archetype include:
There is no shortage of red and blue instants and sorceries in the cube; counterspells, burn, card draw and everything in between. Your spells matter a lot to the archetype, but you'll need to ensure you draft enough payoff cards; Guttersnipe, Thermo-Alchemist, or creatures with prowess. It’s very easy to flip Delver of
Secrets if you’re running the deck right, and it's one of the few archetypes than can run as few as 14-15 lands. An early Delver flip will give you an indication if
you have drafted and or constructed your deck well enough.
There is so much value in this deep archetype. Bounce things, burn the face and then flood the board with Crow Storm tokens. Feed your Academy Elite and Enigma
Drake whilst you draw into more gas with Trail of Evidence. Return your spells for another go with Mnemonic Wall and Archaeomancer. When you draft the deck, you may
end up with enough playables to head down the mono-blue control path with Counterspell and the gang. Or alternatively, you may wind up in the old faithful mono-red
burn with extra points for including goblin tribal for Goblin Grenade.
Control the opponent's bombs, burn what you don’t like on the field, then swing with a flying 15/4 Enigma Drake.
_______________________________________________________________________________
White and Red are the premier aggro colours in Magic, having been at the heart of successful aggressive decks since time immemorial (1996 or so) and are paired together here in the W/R Token Aggro archetype
Going wide with WR tokens is fast. Very very fast. T1 Legion Loyalist T2 Raise the Alarm into T3 Spear of Heliod or Intangible Virtue gets very messy. When you can spit out Goblins with Dragon Fodder and Krenko’s Command with assistance from a Hammer of Purphoros, Krenko, Mob Boss goes nuts. A flooded board like this turns on the City's Blessing for Tilonalli's Summoner to go to town - and stay there. Hero of Bladehold and Brimaz, King of Oreskos are menacing enough on their own, Anointed Procession just makes matters worse.
WR Aggro Tokens anchor cards:
In Colour Value Cards: Voracious Dragon can often devour for the win as you run out goblin tokens, not to
mention Goblin Grenade. Extra points for Cathar’s Crusade paired with an 'on attack' token generator like Brimaz or Kari Zev. Goblin Bombardment is a great way to get those last
points of damage by sacrificing the team, or said team can be fed to our hasty friend Predator Dragon.
WR Cross pollinates well with
Pox/Stacks Decks with Assemble the Legion + Smokestack to wipe an
opposing board state. When The Abyss is wiping out a token a turn on your side and a real creature on the opposing side, you're laughing. Maniacally.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Now, just because the cube supports ten two-colour archetypes, that doesn't mean that you're forced to go into one of these strategies. There's plenty of alternatives, including the old cube stand-by, mono-red aggro; mono-blue artifacts with Tinker and Memnarch; zombie aggro with Gravecrawler, Dark Salvation and Relentless Dead. Cards can be combined into dirty decks like Bant stax with Stoic Angel and Brago, King Eternal to keep your permanents untapped. With enough mana fixing (and this cube has it in spades) very little is impossible.
We hope you all have fun drafting this cube!
_______________________________________________________________________________
Now, just because the cube supports ten two-colour archetypes, that doesn't mean that you're forced to go into one of these strategies. There's plenty of alternatives, including the old cube stand-by, mono-red aggro; mono-blue artifacts with Tinker and Memnarch; zombie aggro with Gravecrawler, Dark Salvation and Relentless Dead. Cards can be combined into dirty decks like Bant stax with Stoic Angel and Brago, King Eternal to keep your permanents untapped. With enough mana fixing (and this cube has it in spades) very little is impossible.
We hope you all have fun drafting this cube!
