Limited Resources: New MTGO Cube!

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Limited Resources

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(Congrats go to Marshall’s other Limited Resources half, Jon Loucks, who will be representing the MTGO community at the 2012 Wizards of the Coast Community Cup! –MTGO Academy Staff)




You can follow Marshall on Twitter @Marshall_LR
or check out the Limited Resources podcast at lrcast.com

 

  1. I havent watched the games yet, but i would have run 18 lands in a heartbeat. all that double white- double blue manacost can really hurt you. drogskol reaver i think is indeed an easy cut, but cubing is for fun, so I dont blame you for running it.

  3. Marshall,

    In M1G2 – When Avenger of Zendikar enters play, I think your best line of play is to Exile it with Parallax wave in response to the plant token trigger. It’ll come right back on your turn, but he won’t be able to pump his dudes the same turn he plays it. If you topdeck / skullclamp in to Phantasmal Image and copy his Avenger, he’ll end up with twice as many plant tokens, but they ‘ll all be 1/2s at best on his next turn so your tokens can block his.

    Then after untap, you can skullclamp your Phantasmal Image to kill it, Sun Titan it back in to play, copy Avenger again, and rinse / repeat by attacking with Titan next turn. (Or if you get Venser out of all the skullclamp draws, even better). You end up ahead in token volume and then can safely stabilize with Drogskol, or if you drew in to Venser in those like, 7-8 cards you’d have drawn, just -1 and kill him.

    I freely admit that’s going pretty darn deep, but given that he had Sylvan Library it’s guaranteed he was making his land drops every turn and I don’t think you had any other outs to play to.

  4. I think it’s horrible how wizards abuse cube’s popularity to make a profit. Cost goes up from 7 to 8 tix and prices go WAAAYYY down. Cube tix, what a joke, even if you have them you still have to pay 2 event tix. And winning the elimination draft gets you a whoopie 2 boosters. So sad.
    So I’m not gonna play it this time and i am sad so many people run right into the moneypit.

  5. Early cube content, great.

    Agree with your own analyses of your deck, it just seems too fair. The problem might be that you in fact drafted white/blue midrange, a draft deck. Your deck essentialy felt as a more powerful limited deck.
    Cards like looter, paladin, thalia and tails are not good enough for midrange goodstuff maindecks in cube, I think.

    I applaud you for taking the unlucky break in round 4 with the tinker with a smile btw, great attitude to see.

  6. Man, every time I see someone do cube draft I want them to do the mono-black necropotence deck… Marshal even had a pretty good shot at it this time with Geralf’s messenger, necro, hymn and all that good stuff coming up in the first few packs!

  7. knx, this isn’t an appropriate forum for you to complain about Wizards business strategies in. We would like to discuss Marshall’s pool and games. If you want people to listen to you complain so badly, there is a forum here, and you can find the appropriate place there.

  8. Great fun to watch as ever, Marshall, but yeah, it was a bit fair – if you can call Tradewind Rider fair, first time I saw one come into play I most certainly did not :-)

    Match 2 I just don’t see how you don’t play the Tandem Lookout against the apparently 0-creature deck.
    It just seems like it’d be coming down and drawing a card off of something already in play (if it had been with Thalia in that game 3 hand I don’t see how you lose) and then either forcing an answer right away or drawing 2 more cards.

  9. Posted this on CFB too, but I think people need to start writing in to complain about this. I did.

    Link: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/668/~/magic-online%3A-reimbursement-requests-and-bug-reporting

    I’m completely at a loss as to how the new cube prize payout system is anything less than a scam. So we pay 8 real tix up front to draft. If we win less than 10 cube tix our winnings are 100% useless unless we pay 8 more real tix to have the chance to get to the necessary 10 cube tix to draft again. They are untradeable so the only way to get them is to win them. So you win 8 cube tix, for example, and then have no choice but to pay 8 more real tix to have the chance to win cube tix for the chance to draft again. But even then you have to pay 2 more real tix to enter. And they go so far as to have a 12-8 split for 1st and 2nd place (in swiss), blatantly aiming to create odd balances where you either have to pay more real money or be stuck with worthless tickets. And it’s even only online for a limited time frame. And they’re untradeable to boot, so you can’t even buy them at a discount from bots…How is this not a complete scam? I guess you might win an odd pack or two in single elimination but. I mean, I’m not trying to be a jerk but how is this different from a store that’s sells everything at $9.99 with a $10 minimum purchase?

    Before I didn’t really mind too much that the payout packs were just about worthless, at least I could draft with them and add some fun new cards to my collection. That was a lot of fun and I felt good after cubing, even if I won a Scourge pack worth 90 cents. Now I win a batteries-not-included squiggle wiggle writer. Totally lame and I don’t get it. Which really sucks because cube is my favorite thing to do online.

    Sorry to soapbox in your video thread Marshall. Love your content!

  10. I have no clue why you wastelanded his volcani island m2 g1 i beleive its 100% wrong when you have sphinx in hand

  11. I felt like you weren’t ambitious enough with your picks, often opting for more conservative picks rather than taking some chances on higher variance cards that may only fit in specific strategies. I also feel that you undervalue fetches and dual lands and as a result forced yourself into a two color build. In cube you draft 45 awesome cards, so missing on a few picks is much easier to survive than a typical limited format.

    Bottom line- you need more “Loucks” in your cube drafting style! Good videos though :)

  12. Got quite a fun deck there, though it was, as said, a bit too fair perhaps. First impression of the new cube is that it’s a bit all over the place though. Too many archetypes jammed in so you don’t really get any of them in full and come out with some sort of awkward split deck. But I guess that opens up for crazy dream halls durdle decks.

  13. So M2G2, waiting for you to try Stifle Dream Halls ;)

    Ne sryl, reading your opponents key card should be a good idea, otherwise nice draft :)

  14. Cube tickets and cube payout are really bad now.

    Used to be heaps better.

    People shouldn’t play cube reveals there own ignorance by giving WotC money.

  15. Marshall – Please Read!

    Please review Match 1, Game 1 @ 8:45 and consider this line of play:

    1. Cast Ajani
    2. Use -3 to give Grand Arbiter Flying + Double Strike
    3. Attack Garruk with Grand Arbiter and send Looter @ your opponent.

    This kills Garruk, draws you a card, lets you use another activation of Tradewind Rider (he shouldn’t have attacked) to bounce his Hystrodon, AND still lets you keep your 2 Spirit tokens back to block.

    Then, post-combat you can play your Venser and use it to bounce your Ajani back up to 4 loyalty. Alternatively, you can use the Venser to bounce Tradewind Rider for another blocker, hoping your opponent will attack your Ajani. (to save you life, as you were only at 8) Then just let him kill the Ajani so you can cast Sun Titan and bring it back on the next turn.

    Given he had Pack of Negation, your Ajani would have been countered. This also would have been better than having Venser countered, as Sun Titan can bring it back. You could have then bounced his Hystrodon, knowing he’d have to pay the mana cost for Pact of Negation which would leave him unable to replay Hystrodon. (Effectively saving you 4 life, Time Walking him for 2 attack phases, and preventing him from drawing a card.)

  17. I probably would have cut the Paladin in the opening build. His double white seems a liability considering how much fixing you have.

  18. I played some cube since last week. I do like some card changes they made but the payout system feels like an absolute rip-off.

  19. @Jason: No, what lost the match was Marshall not mulling in G2. ;-)

    M2 G2/3: I was really surprised to see you cut Parallax Wave. It didn’t look like he had any win conditions beyond creates and your removal was pretty light. Parallax Wave basically blanks all his win conditions, no?

  21. marshall as allways unsatisfying and with a lot of playmistakes.. i think i will not watch a video of you in the comming 5months or so.. try to get better please. because i think your not. the only thing that i have to admit is that your voice is great/calm/nice for ears.