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. 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. Vintage Cube features a wide range of viable archetypes, and even the most successful drafters will offer different insights on what they believe the best archetypes to be. Ancestral Recall and Time Walk are always included in your deck, even as a splash. But I decided to go for it, to see how we could do. Cheap and efficient cards that are interactive and/or have clearly defined roles/archetypes are where you want to be. It's enough. We go Soldier of the Pantheon into Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Tidehollow Sculler, revealing Mountain, Fauna Shaman, Primeval Titan and Thundermaw Hellkite. We'll take a punt. 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. LSV and Marshall Sutcliffe of Limited Resources recently addressed the MTGO Vintage Cube by saying, "Not having cheap cards is expensive . We're now locked out of playing white spells. All you can hope to do is race. If you do manage to get the nuts, then congratulations! 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. 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. Blue is the best color in Cube, hands down, and the average Cube draft can support five blue drafters without much trouble. Storm specifically is more interested in Dark Ritual than most, and you should pick Yawgmoths Will on the level of a Tier 0 card. 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. Id be remiss if I didnt mention Balance and Armageddon, as I know a lot of folks are really big on these cards. The former Jordan Marsh, which opened with the mall in 1984 until 1996, was a throwback until its last days from department stores of its vintage: wood adornments, smoked mirrors, artificial flourscent skylit partitions and other garish, recessed lighting elements. In the three drop slot are good sideboard cards that are strong enough to main deck in most decks like Manglehorn, Reclamation Sage, Courser of Kruphix and Eternal Witness. 18 Lands is too many, but we're short on playables, forcing us to play some very dubious cards like Chandra, Flamecaller, Lightning Greaves, and Guttersnipe with only 3 cards to trigger its damage. I hope the information provided here is helpful for those of you looking to tighten your skills in high-power environments. All Rights Reserved. They drop a Chandra, Pyromaster. 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. They Frantic Search, loot, crack the Memory Jar, play LED, Rakdos Signet, and Grim Tutor for Living Death. Match 3, Game 1: They play Turn one Island, Black Lotus, pass. If youre familiar with the history of the Vintage Constructed format, then youll know some pretty embarrassing cards (looking at you, Slash Panther) have been propped up significantly by Mishras Workshop and other fast mana. When I sit down to draft vintage cube, I have about 7 decks in mind that I will choose between depending on my first several picks. The most common splash color is blue for card draw spells like Compulsive Research, or for Counterspells or for Opposition which is its own lock-out win condition. z-index:1; Is This The Last Chance To Play Arcums Astrolabe In Modern? Look out for Fractured Identity, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and Teferi, Time Raveler. It includes the Power 9, all original dual lands, and some of the best creatures and planeswalkers out there. The important notes here are the high volume of one- and two-drops with a sprinkling of threes and fours. Land Destruction: You are the deck that wants Strip Mine, Wasteland and occasionally even Rishadan Port. Sungold Sentinel is also totally playable, but is on the replacement-level side of two-mana creatures for aggressive decks, whereas Cathar Commando is just solid for any white deck and Intrepid Adversary is in contention for the best two-drop for white aggressive decks. top:37px; Do what feels fun to you. None of its cards are so strong that they are correct to first pick them. Getting into Vintage Cube is a pretty daunting endeavor, which tends to be truer the newer to competitive Magic you are. Ramp out, play a big threat a few turns earlier than you otherwise should, and run over the poor schmuck across the table. And for your amusement, here is my misadventures in playing White / Black Disruptive Aggro: Match 1, Game 1: I drop a Turn 1 Soldier of the Pantheon. 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. To get things out of the way early, this is going to be my last set cube update for Magic Online . The big takeaway that I want to offer today is that Vintage Cube is much less about figuring out which archetype is best and much more about understanding how to navigate a format with absurd mana generation. } T-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more, designed and sold by independent artists around the world. Make sure its worth it to splash. These are specific to Vintage Cube, but some, like Mono Green or White Weenie, are pretty much the same in Legacy or Modern Cube as well. All of these cards account for huge swings that far exceed the mana invested. Black is honestly weaker in Vintage Cube than I would like it to be. All you really need to get started is a strong reanimation or entomb spell, like Reanimate or Entomb. Because no one else wants them. Shop affordable wall art to hang in dorms, bedrooms, offices, or anywhere blank walls aren't welcome. 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. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Gaeas Cradle are two of the most powerful cards in the mono-green decks, and they dont really play well with other colors. Ive seen many disappointing Dreadhorde Arcanists in 540-card Cubes and zero good ones, so good riddance there. 1 Mutavault I Tidehollow Sculler their last card and play my sword. As Pro Tour March of the Machine approaches, qualifier Dom Harvey offers observations on Standard and Limited, the viewer experience, and star-making. Until next time, stay safe and stay healthy! Ugh. My conclusion: Don't play fair decks. Or at least it can be. One important tip is to look at how your dual lands, tri-lands, and fetch lands interact. White actually does have some interaction in this Cube in the form of Mana Tithe, both Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, and Ive even been rolled by an early Armageddon. The fetch lands are particularly important. When you're drafting the Vintage Cube, my strong advice is to pick your cards with the assumption that you'll be in these colors. When you try to force Storm sometimes your deck just doesnt actually do anything and sometimes even when it does it can be impossibly hard to play. Primeval Titan, Craterhoof Behemoth, Rofellos, Channel are top picks. I play Spectral Procession. Vorinclex has higher potential to do nutty things with planeswalkers as well as some other cards like Walking Ballista than Tovolars Huntmaster does so I dont love that substitution, but the Huntmaster is one I expect to play. You pay two more mana upfront but you get six more mana worth of effect from your Consecrated Sphinx token. He started off playing in his store's Journey into Nyx league, and his favorite formats are draft and commander! 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. Yes, Soulfire Grand Master does go infinite with Time Walk. They Unburial Rites their Griselbrand, but I have Anguished Unmaking. Theyre almost always worth drafting early thanks to the inclusion of Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, and Zealous Conscripts. Some two-drops: The best is Eidolon of the Great Revel, but Abbot of Keral Keep, Young Pyromancer and Harsh Mentor will all make your deck.
We could win this game! I equip my sword, swing and mill 10. Sometimes, a Commander player just wants to stomp with a big, angry Dino. We allow some wiggle room to account for sheer complexity, but you are still expected to assemble your 60 card list in a reasonable timeframe. By Ryan Overturf October 20, 2021 Augur of Autumn illustrated by Billy Christian visibility:visible; Channel and Tinker turn a very small amount of mana into stuff like Myr Battlesphere and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. But if that's your idea of fun, keep doing it. } First is that you force it. They find a Nature's Claim for Sword. In the last run of Vintage Cube I noticed players were passing Oko entirely too much. 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. I don't mine either in the sideboard, but remember that your power is in speed not in splashing mythic rares. You could say that Magic is generally about that sort of thing, but Vintage Cube is the Draft environment where this is most loudly declared. The Vintage Cube is here for fun. 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. Borrowed Time wasnt printed as a replacement for Oblivion Ring; its another data point in the fact that the passage of time has made Oblivion Ring much less exciting. Inside macy*s at Crystal Mall during June 2020. /* ------------- CSS Popup Image ------------- */ I would bet it ranks close to number one for cards that I lose to immediately when my opponent casts them. I play Parallax Wave, target Griselbrand and hope for a miracle. }, Lorcana shows off demo decks, new cards, and more at the GAMA Expo, Dusk Till Dawn introduces Prism, Advent of Thrones as well as new Shadow Runeblade hero. The challenge of splashing for double blue cards like Opposition or Jace, The Mind Sculptor is that enough need enough sources of the secondary color. 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. 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. The Moxen are also great in just about any deck, even if theyre not on-color. Power Fours: Koth of the Hammer and Hellrider are excellent. There are some truly incredible non-basic lands to be looking out for in the cube. If no one is in Mono Red, its not uncommon at all to see cards like Goblin Guide, Sulfuric Vortex or Hellrider with 3 cards left in a pack. 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. Drop your thoughts in a comment below or head over to the official Draftsim Discord to chat about it there. Go into it if see Sulfuric Vortex or Goblin Guide late. 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. Some packs just arent exciting, though not every 3-0 starts with a Black Lotus. Regardless, the Power 9 are about as impactful as youd assume. Bouncing two creatures and countering a spell is a pretty common way to swing a game against a more aggressive deck, and both the counterspell and the bounce ability play quite well against most of the combo decks in the Cube with so much of the Cube being dedicated to putting some large creature on the battlefield. Holiday Vintage Cube 2022. Especially in League. 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. Supreme Vintage Cube is a slightly altered version of Vintage Cube where you pick two cards each pick of every pack. Have you tried the Vintage Cube? Sneak Attack is among the easiest cards that take a player from no battlefield presence to winning, and red offers a handful of rituals and other effective cards for the Storm decks. Theyre also very heavy direction-setting cards. This just goes to show that if you complain loudly enough, you can have Niv-Mizzet Reborn in any Cube! As Pro Tour March of the Machine approaches, qualifier Dom Harvey offers observations on Standard and Limited, the viewer experience, and star-making. This is Vintage Cube. The best cards in the Cube will be highly contested and you cant do anything about the presence of some cards that youll never want to play, but if Huntmaster of the Fells makes your deck, try your best to make it because you were shy on playables and not because you tricked yourself into believing it could hang. Pack 1, Pick 1, you see that Goblin Guide, and you say, "I'm in. High quality Vintage Cube Archetypes 2021-inspired gifts and merchandise. See what's going where! Red does serve an important role in a couple of non-aggressive archetypes though. You can find her writeup on the most recent update here. Its far more important to have a solid direction with synergies between your cards than a pile of great cards with no connections. They play a Turn 1 Sol Ring. The most powerful cards are too much better than the next-best options for me to pick lands as highly as other players do. They play Fauna Shaman and swing for 5. Golgari (), Simic (), and Gruul () each offer a strong midrange playstyle through some great interaction and powerful creatures. Im actually a bit miffed that Arcane Artisan, a card that I was generally happy to pick early, was cut from the Cube while Show and Tell and Eureka remained in despite their massive downsides. Scoop. Today Ill be going over the updates to the Cube to get you in fighting shape, but first I always like to link my inaugural Vintage Cube article here on Star City Games. They play Splinter Twin. This strategy plays very similarly to any green ramp deck you mightve piloted before. Assuming you have the mana to cast your cards, its also important to efficiently generate card advantage, and nobody does it better than Ancestral Recall. They play Looter Il-Kor. Looter il-Kor gets the obvious upgrade to Suspicious Stowaway, and Impulse gets the boot it probably should have gotten years ago. Last week I covered two of the best decks and win conditions in the Vintage Cube: Reanimator and Grixis Goodstuff. Lots of pink. It gives you a way to win once the board is clear and youre holding up strictly interaction. Fallen Shinobi probably sticks out here, but I really never see that card hit without ending the game. Now, without further ado, Ill break down the changes to the Cube by color and what this means to you as a drafter. Entomb into Reanimate is great, and if you are able to load up on great card selection you can make it happen consistently, but cards like Buried Alive and Oonas Prowler are typically too inefficient to be competitive and it generally makes more sense to me to play good creatures that are at least somewhat castable and try to do that in an deck with Signets and other, better forms of fast mana. They have Manglehorn for my signet, making me happy I didn't play out my sword. the most expensive and powerful cards in Magic, Vintage Cube Archetypes Ranked / Best Vintage Cube Archetypes. We play Legion's Landing, swing, play an Ophiomancer, and Strip Mine their Swamp to keep them off tutor mana. 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. By Carmen Handy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Sheldon Menery is adding over 70 of its cards to his decks. Because I assume I'm going to be Grixis. If you must Storm though, and I cant blame you, here are a couple of pointers on pick order. Dont forget about interaction. Necromancy | Illustration by Pete Venters. We swing with everything but Ophiomancer to flip Legion's Landing. Sideboarding Rules Change. Additionally, their is one high-end spell you want: Tooth and Nail. vertical-align:bottom; The other way you get into Mono Red is that you backdoor in. We win a game? 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. 1 Parallax Wave 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. That part works out though, because you should only be drafting Storm if nobody else at the table is interested, which means youll be wheeling a lot of the spells that make your deck. Vintage Cube is all about efficiently leveraging your mana. Library of Alexandria is perhaps one of (if not the) most powerful lands in the Cube. Having the Twin combo in the deck adds a certain level of consistency to actually being able to close out games. Do you like having the chance to play with all of those crazy cards, or is it a little stale after a while? The Six Decks Im Considering For The SCG Invitational At SCG CON. First, let's start in the most logical place - blue decks. Toss a Mox or a Black Lotus in the mix and these decks are definitely capable of a 3-0. Vintage Cube typically sticks around for the entire month its made available. Experience is the best teacher, but Ill do my best to facilitate some good lessons. For instance, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin are both one half of the Izzet ()-based Twin deck (one of the best archetypes). Copyright 2020 Star City Games. The Scarab God and Fallen Shinobi are some of the best creature threats out there. Personally I dont see the appeal of Birthing Pod in Vintage Cube, but it does certainly do more for archetype diversity than all of my Mono-Green Ramp darlings that are on the outs. Or off-color mana sources? Its pretty odd to me to add Storm the Festival in the update that removes Whisperwood Elemental because you really want some kind of sweeper protection if all youre doing is flooding the battlefield with cheaper threats. Even two-color decks do want some multicolor lands so theres obviously some nuance here, though my personal bias in a format as swingy as Vintage Cube is to make sure I have the sort of spells and mana acceleration that put my opponent on the back foot before I worry about how Im casting them. The Vintage Cube has returned to Magic Online. Youll end up with 36 cards from 18 packs, never having seen a pack youve picked from before again. Pair these two with Giver of Runes or Mother of Runes and you have some of the best early creatures, period. We play Seeker of the Way. position:absolute; There are a total of 540 cards in the Vintage Cube, which are always subject to change. Bennie Smith gives in to this awesome urge with Etali, Primal Conqueror, his Commander Deck of the Week. Cathar Commando and Intrepid Adversary both cracked my Top 10 Cube Cards for Midnight Hunt and are the most significant additions with this update. Our Grixis deck ended up winning with the card Sneak Attack. 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. The play patterns are just horrendous, and Adeline more or less returns to form in a lateral substitution over Brimaz. 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. Shutting off or copying fast mana sources is powerful, and shutting off or copying payoffs is even better. Next down comes Jace, Architect of Thought. The biggest pitfall in blue is the card Show and Tell. No, the Vintage Cube is not free on MTGO. Mono-Green Ramp might be my most-drafted archetype in Vintage Cube. The Vintage Cube can be played on Magic Online once or twice yearly when its made available. Which do you want: more forests for Rofellos? Sheldon Menery is adding over 70 of its cards to his decks. If youre first-picking one of the listed cards in these two categories, youre starting things off in great shape. Planeswalker 2023 Wizards. Grim Monolith is definitely behind those effects, though a lot of draws from most decks will fold to a resolved six-drop on Turn 3. 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. 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. width:700px;
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. Bad choice. Youll greatly benefit if you can use their extra mana to ramp out threats early. }
Erno Rubik, who devised one of the world's most popular and enduring puzzles, opens up about his creation in his new book, "Cubed.". Draftsim.com is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. 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). Nor are you an Inferno Titan. Very uncommon. I believe that the colors Blue, Red and Black are miles better than Green and White in the Vintage Cube since they unlock so many unique and powerful win conditions. Theres plenty of card draw in the Cube, and this land comes online if either player has a library with 20 or less cards in it. Check out every card revealed so far from Lorcana's The First Chapter. Match 1, Game 2: I cast Inquisition of Kozilek making them discard Exhume, revealing Island, Swamp, Thirst for Knowledge, Liliana of the Veil, Grave Titan and Yawgmoth's Bargain. height:252px; With the exception of Primal Command, all of the green cuts are cards that I happily maindeck. We play Knight of the White Orchid and accelerate up to 4 lands. 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.
Infinity Faeries. 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. 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). Theres not a lot changing in blue this time around, which shouldnt be surprising. 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. Fiery Confluence is the best non-creature spell. Match 1, Game 3: They mulligan to 6, but have a Turn 1 Imperial Seal. }
. We swing back for 8 and grab our sword with Stoneforge Mystic. They Burst Lightning our Ophiomancer and Treasure Cruise. Not over a one-mana accelerator, but over most everything else. The Vintage Cube has returned to Magic Online. Erno Rubik, who invented the Rubik's Cube, wrote . .thumb:hover { Wheel of Misfortune has popped out and now back into the Cube relating to a bug.Its more fun than good, but its plenty fun. As such, side boarding has always taken a back seat. I love casting Mystic Confluence on Turn 4. Once we get past the most broken fast mana and the cheapest and most efficient effects, we start looking at cards that require a little bit more investment but correlate very strongly with winning the game. I would love to see Oko, Thief of Crowns cut from every Cube. How Much Does It Cost? The first is that the Mono-White Aggro archetype is basically always open, and if all you care about is drafting a coherent deck it will always be there for you. The nice thing about them is youll often be the only green drafter, which means you can get your best cards like Gaeas Cradle and Natural Order late in the draft due to their niche nature.
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