The hardest part about this deck is swapping between red and black mana in pool as you are comboing off. A lot of the cards in the list are there simply to help solve that problem. The basic game plan is to find, cast, and resolve one of your big black draw cards. With cunning use of math and probability you can draw most of your remaining deck which should give you enough mana you can make for free to cast a ritual to play a win condition, which if it is a red one you should have sufficient lands in hand for the kill. One of the strengths of this deck is the speed it is able to go off at. For an unpowered decklist this is by far and away your best chance of a turn one kill in cube. Obviously those odds are pretty tiny still but the fact that they exist bodes very well for the decks ability to win on turns two or three.
25 Spells
Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Mox Opal
Mox Diamond
Zuran Orb
Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere
Shadowblood Egg
Mana Vault
Dark Ritual
Duress
Pyretic Ritual
Desperate Ritual
Demonic Tutor
Rakdos Signet
Cabal Ritual
Grim Monolith
Pentad Prism
Simien Spirit Guide
Seething Song
Siezmic Assualt/Lightning Storm
Tendrils of Agony
Ad Nauseam
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Great Furnace
Vault of Whispers
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Graven Cairns
Dragonskull Summit
Badlands
Blackcleave Cliffs
Smoldering Marsh
Foreboding Ruins
1x Mountain
2x Swamp
Zuran Orb is a godsend on the other hand, it helps with metalcraft and storm and lets you draw another 5 cards or so. The choice between Lightning Storm and Siesmic Assualt is a tough one, you can't really afford to run both and each has merits over the other. The Storm is 3 more damage which is very significant, with only 15 lands in the deck and only 20 life you tend to draw around 90% of your deck. If you lay three lands and don't draw a couple things get very tight indeed. Then lifegain from your opponent can be just as much trouble as direct damage! The Assualt you can pre-make, you can even use it to keep a bit of damage at bay and you don't run the risk of them having a handful of lands and killing you with your own combo! The RRR versus 1RR cost is negligible in this list, if you have one red you can almost always have three.
There are a lot of powerful and cute cards you can run like Goblin Welder, Yawgmoth's Will, Wheel of Fortune, Burning Wish however they don't really do that much with the deck. You are better off running more of the same sorts of things, Manamorphose and Elvish Spirit Guide would just be more useful. Helm of Awakening is another card I considered but when you can't afford to take much damage speeding up your opponent is scary. Elixir of Immortality is a card I wanted to run so that I could go off again if needed or survive disruption better. It seems like one of the better cute cards to run if needed. It also occurs to me that against all the odds Gamble might be a really good tutor for this list. You don't need to dump you hand early and the deck is fairly redundant. You can go fetch your big black draw spell and have good odds of keeping it while not discarding something key. It also has the added bonus of being able to pull out the second big black spell from your deck. This means you can go off with the Ad Nauseam with significantly greater comfort and security knowing there isn't a sixing for your face somewhere along the line.
Lions Eye Diamond and Lotus Bloom feel like they should be good inthe deck but the circumstances in which they become useful is just too rare. The Mox and the Lotus Petal are significantly more reliable and effective. A very fun to play deck that does loads of things but is substantially less complex than decks like eggs or storm to pilot. It is fragile to some common things and not overly capable of solving problems but it makes up for this with blinding speed and decent consistency. Most hands you get can cast a turn 3 Bargain, it is just about having the Bargain or Ad Nauseam (as well as the Duress if you fear counter magic) by turn three as well.
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