The Last Combo - drafting cube changes

I have finally taken out the last remaining combo element in my drafting cube - the cheat in a fat dork strategy. While it is a fairly good archetype it has some less desirable elements that relate to design and game play experience. It is a rather all in archetype, even more so in the draft than in the games. A number of the key cards are unplayable unless you get enough of the other bits you need. A lot of the good cheat in fat man cards don't go into other archetypes and so they are dead picks if you cannot make it work. All combos in draft have the issue of having weak cards if they don't find the appropriate things to pair with them. While Reanimator strategies have some of the greatest redundancy of any combo deck in cube they still suffer in the same way as the rest of them. This results in an "all in" draft with greatly restricted choices when compared with drafting a midrange deck. Having cards that only go into one archetype have the effect of either forcing someone to do it every draft or over straining the other cards.

The game play experience against the cheat in a fatty decks isn't the best either. It is not entirely uninteractive but it is very polar. The right piece of interaction will beat them on its own while no relevant interaction is probably a loss. It is all a bit short and unsatisfying regardless of which side of the board you are on or what the result is. Not all the games go this way but it is more than any other non-combo archetype. The draft, design and game play issues have always existed and I have long wanted to remove the combo. I had held off until now simply because I didn't think black would be able to hold its own or have any real colour identity if I removed the cheat in fatty cards. Black gets loads of play these days. It is mostly as a support colour but that is largely down to it not really having an option to be the lead colour with other than Reanimate in my cube.

I have been very impressed with the effectiveness of Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat and think there is enough support and overlap with other good cube cards and strategies that I should be able to make them appealing as a potential black strategy. I have also returns the various premium Smallpox style cards to the cube to give black further options and identity. Most of the combo and support cards being removed were black and so this swap kept colour balance reasonably well intact. Blue had the second most removed and I replaced those cards with a bit more creature support for blue tempo. I envisage some more tweaking will be needed to get the new black archetypal options optimal and supported suitably by other colours too.

I try and keep my cube list accurately updated on Cube Tutor and have done so thus far pretty consistently. Although the initial major changes have been listed below the whole picture and ongoing refinements are better viewed at http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/36623


out

Show and Tell
Sneak Attack
Emrakul, the Eons Torn
Ulamog,
Ulamog,
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Griselbrand
Woodfall Primus
Exhume
Entomb
Reanimate
Animate Dead
Dance of the Dead
Living Death
Careful Study
Frantic Search
Attunement
Enclave Cryptologist
Borderlands Explorer
Cathartic Reunion
Containment Priest
Lim-Dul's Vault

in

Blood Artist
Zulaport Cutthroat
Yahennie, Undying Partisan
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Grim Haruspex
Bitterblossom
Braids,
Smokestack
Death Cloud
Smallpox
Butcher Ghoul
Geralf's Messenger

Riftwing Cloudskate
Whirler Rogue