Sword Aggro Has Become Oppressive Again
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The Sword Cycle in an Unpowered Cube
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Source: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/606445-the-sword-cycle-in-an-unpowered-cube
#1 May 14, 2015
The v swords take been out of my 360, unpowered cube for a couple of years now. By and large I don't draft with more than 4 people, and sometimes only 2. Having a sword of your opponents' colors is pretty oppressive. I'm not certain if I should leave them out or attempt to jam in more answers to artifacts. I already run a fair corporeality of disenchant effects, and I think many more than would water down carte selection. While drafting with fewer people means nosotros see fewer cards, having 5/360 cards in the cube is still a decent chance to have a couple show up in the draft. Fewer cards drafted also ways fewer answers to the swords. Anyone take any opinions?
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Delicious!
#2 May 14, 2015
I was actually in the same position for a while when first creating my cube.
Average draft size was 3-4, and I forbid Umezawa's Jitte as well as any sword from the cycle.
Instead I used Bonesplitter, Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Vengeance, and a whole slew of other bad equipments including Trusty Machete, Leonin Scimitar, Sylvok Lifestaff, etc.
I shortly found that these lesser equipments (the latter ones), weren't carrying their weight and then I decided to add Jitte and Sword of Lite and Shadow. While they became loftier picks, they weren't too oppressive in play. They gave aggro decks the much needed umph, while control and philharmonic decks had no use. I then added the rest of the sword bicycle and so far zero oppressive has come of it.
I have a 620 card unpowered cube and still draft at low numbers (3-4). Having the swords is great for decks that want them. Decks that don't want them have ways to deal with them, or only don't care. The sword bike is the strongest and most interesting prepare of equipments. I think it'southward fine to include even at 360 cards.
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#4 May fourteen, 2015
I like the Swords non but because they are fun and splashy but also I meet Cube as an extension of my collection. Notwithstanding, in that location'southward been ane person in my playgroup who has been pretty vocal against Swords. He draws parallels to how fifty-fifty Randy Buehler took the Swords out of the Legacy cube as he saw them equally also degenerate. Other than him, in that location's actually no one that sees a problem with them. I will accept them out before a typhoon if someone has a trouble with them, merely otherwise I'm looking to consummate my ready.
Merely I experience the best stories come from playing against or even with Swords. My favorite lucifer to sentinel was 1 player was beating down with a Sword of Calorie-free and Shadow equipped onto a Looter il-Kor. He was dead on the next turn and his opponent was at a healthy 29 life with 4 blockers on the field. His board had a whole bunch of derpy 1/1 tokens from Marsh Flitter and Myr Battlesphere. He draws Mirror Entity and immediately plays it. He activates Mirror Entity's ability to make all his creatures 4/4s. He swings in with the squad of 11 attackers into iv blockers and taps the summoning sick Mirror Entity to the Battlesphere's ability for exactly lethal. Everyone went crazy, one of the best moments from my cube.
Jitte, on the other hand, I have found to be pretty necessary against mono-ruddy. Mono-ruby aggro tends to be ane of the more powerful but 1 of the easiest archetypes to draft in my cube at least. Jitte is one of the few cards that hoses mono-red and I justify Jitte's place for that reason.
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#5 May 15, 2015
This strikes me equally taking a sledgehammer to a grape. There are plenty of ways you can hose mono-ruby-red without playing a format warping card similar Jitte.
Swords are expensive (5 to cast and equip one and you still have to striking a role player with it to become any real benefit). Power level wise, I don't retrieve they are a trouble for most unpowered cubes. It's the double protection that can just randomly screw people over though. And that's the principal reason I got rid of them. If you run a high amount of artifact removal though, I think they are fine in unpowered if you lot are absurd with the random protection hosing. And in powered where everything is busted (especially fast cubes), these are about underpowered.
Jitte though is just broken. It's the all-time equipment carte du jour ever printed (and it's not fifty-fifty close). It's a removal check that is horribly oppressive if you don't have said removal, and it tin can be played in pretty much whatsoever deck (because allow'due south be honest here, how many creatureless decks would yous instead choose to build versus picking Jitte if you opened it in a pack?).
Either you lot accept removal when your opponent plays Jitte, or you lose. It's nigh unbeatable if y'all tin can't go rid of it. With that said, in a powered environment every deck is doing broken things so it's really not out of identify in that location. But slow things downward a footling and dial back the power level a scrap and this card just becomes retarded.
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#6 May 15, 2015
Considering the competition is already steep I don't think swords would be overpowered in a 360 unpowered list. They're groovy aggro tools just every bit Balance and Treachery are great control tools. You'll e'er have something that is much more than powerful than the average cube card until you cut power and then 20 or so cards on top of that. There are enough of great artifact removal effects to allow swords in at 360 that should be mainboarded anyways and I do believe that a classic, powerful cube (fifty-fifty unpowered) should have at least enough artifacts to justify running mainboard artifact destruction.
I wouldn't error a designer for not running them, check with your playgroup to see what they retrieve since they're the ones who draft with you.
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#7 May 15, 2015
Swords are strong. They are amongs the stongest cards in an unpowered cube, but even in a powered cube they rock.
People seem to overestimate the difference betwixt powered and unpowered. Information technology matters for some cards (Tinker, Trinket Mage, Gorilla Shaman,Snapcaster Mage,...) but Tinker and Snapcaster Mage all the same dominion in a unpowered cube. Those few cards don't change the rest of your whole cube.
Swords are ever strong and can be game winning quite often, which is why they can be beginning selection material. One way they tin be truly oppressive if you happen to be unlucky and have exactly their colours in your deck. But that is only bad luck. Mainly I recollect is that a lot of people don't run enough 'destroy artifacts' effects. Everybody agrees decks demand fauna removal, but even in cube, a environment filled with broken artifacts and enchantments, a a lot of people don't pick enough Disenchant-effects.
Information technology might only be the downside of your way of drafting. The variance is higher in two or four player drafts. It is easier to detect yourself without the right answers, only information technology also is easier to observe yourself having too many swords for too fiddling ceatures, not enough reanimition targets for your reanimate deck, having an artifact deck only somehow only having only one or two mana rock.
Powered or unpowered is just a small factor in this and clearly not the nigh important. I think the decision is that games can exist won past 'bombs' and this happens more than when your decks are weaker. Every bit a ii or four histrion typhoon gives less focused decks so total table drafts, sometimes your deck will not be able to defend against sure cards. Be it swords, big fatties or enchantments.
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#8 May xv, 2015
Five mana to play and equip is a lot and so I would consider cubing them. Having an answer at that point in the game - generally turn 4 or 5 - should be possible, and if information technology's instant speed, and so you tin can create a large tempo swing and possible menu reward which balances the large impact the Swords accept. Dedicated antiquity removal is something important even in unpowered settings. Jitte on the other hand I would non cube in an unpowered setting as described by the other posts. 2+2 is rather unlike than three+2 in practise and the effect can't be nullified by blocking the creature similar the Swords can.
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My 405 card Alpha-Present Cube: CubeCobra
On spoiled bill of fare wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
#nine May 15, 2015
I don't think they're too good for unpowered cubes. There are a lot of cards that are constitute in unpowered lists that are far more egregious in powerlevel than the Swords are.
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#10 May 15, 2015
Body and Mind is the only i I might say is too powerful. Jitte is absolutely bonkers merely otherwise forces yous to play a somewhat fair aggressive deck unless you sneak it into a deck with a few weenies like blue control or elves ramp.
They can exist stopped with counterspells, creature removal, or artifact removal. I find that to be one of the learning lessons from playing cube and designing cubes with the swords and jitte in information technology: EITHER play a degenerate deck OR play a "fair" deck with artifact removal.
This isn't only because of the swords, information technology'due south because of cards similar Shackles, Mimic Vat, mana rocks, Batterskull, Wurmcoil, Sundering Titan... etc
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#eleven May fifteen, 2015
For me, the reason to cutting Swords is that I don't like 'protection from color' as a blueprint for a express format. Protection is randomly either irrelevant or close to unbeatable.
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#12 May 15, 2015
This is the 1 area I think a powered environment has a big advantage pattern wise over unpowered. Artifact removal cards are never dead and because of that you can run more narrow stuff primary deck like Manic Vandal or Disenchant because you will e'er have a target (whether information technology's a mox or something similar a sword, Jitte, clench, etc.).
In unpowered, you lot have to make a difficult design option effectually this. Do yous push a high powered enchantment/antiquity theme and so yous can make the above cards chief deckable? Do you instead make side boarding a more of import aspect of your meta where yous may need to bring these cards in for certain match ups? Or exercise you remove the must-exist-answered-or-you-lose enchantment/artifacts altogether and remove (or at least greatly reduce) the demand for as much enchantment/artifact hate?
All iii are viable, but each comes with information technology'due south own pros and cons.
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#thirteen May 15, 2015
See, in my opinion, if you run all the swords most decks drafted will have at least ane target for a disenchant effect. Even if there are some decks that practice non get a sword, there are other crazy flop artifacts that you would want to remove. Stuff like Vedalken Shackles, Lodestone Golem, signets, deal banker, metamorph, ankh, black vise, mimic vat, etc are all worth main boarding the card for. I would experience bad about my deck if I didn't have a principal board manner to kill an artifact and that keeps swords under command.
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#14 May 15, 2015
I also think that artifact hate is maindeckable in pretty much every cube format. Powered and traditional unpowered lists alike.
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#15 May xv, 2015
Those five moxen and that Sol Ring don't brand that much difference in total Disenchant targets. Maybe if you also ban Jitte and all fast mana, that you lot terminate with also few targets, but I still doubt information technology. There are nearly always Disenchant targets, also in an unpowered cube. Just every bit you lot side out creature removal, yous can side out Disenchant if yous feel like they are not worth it.
I always find information technology strange that some people mutter about strong artifacts and enchantments, but the same people go on on passing all the Disenchant, sexual practice monkies and Manic Vandals. You cannot accept your cake and eat it. You can ignore defense, simply volition logically have consequences.
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#17 May 15, 2015
I don't agree with that. Those cards (moxen and sol ring) are motorcar includes in nearly every deck imaginable. They are near always P1P1, and if they don't go immediately, the next guy will have and play them. The odds of y'all facing a deck with at to the lowest degree one of these cards is very good. The only thing you are more likely to see are bones lands.
When my cube was semi-powered, it was heavily dominated past the moxen. When I took them out and de-powered a bit, it became dominated by equipment (Jitte, swords, clamp). At present that I removed all that, yous run across very few cases where pulling your disenchant is the difference betwixt winning and losing games (creature removal OTOH is a completely different story).
Again, there is no correct or wrong with how you build your meta - dissimilar strokes for dissimilar folks. You just accept to balance removal with the threats you run and enchantments/artifacts are trickier than creatures to get right because much of the removal is narrow and express to specific colors. I don't personally remember it's 1 of the improve designed features of Magic honestly and while you can certainly work around it, information technology'south pretty piece of cake to jack it up too balance wise if y'all aren't mindful of the warping issue some of the more broken pieces accept on the game (especially with express answers).
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#18 May 15, 2015
The powered artifacts make up an incredibly small-scale percentage of disenchant targets. Even if they were gone, I'd still maindeck antiquity detest in every deck I play.
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#19 May 16, 2015
The Swords are indeed very powerful, only I'1000 not certain I agree that they are too powerful for unpowered cubes. If I wanted to remove "power" from my cube, I'd be looking at Jitte for being too oppressive long before I started looking at the Sword cycle. They can be back breaking, that's for sure. Sometimes they have just the right protection or simply the right power confronting your deck.
Simply let's talk about powerful oppressive artifacts for a minute. To the folks that have removed the Sword cycle considering they are also good and regularly win games on their own that might not take been won without them, what other artifacts are you cutting for these reasons? How well-nigh Tangle Wire? I've won tons of games based on 1-drop, ii-drop, Tangle Wire. Winter Orb falls into that same category as well. What about Batterskull? I'd much rather run across a Sword across from me than this thing.
I can completely sympathise (and sometimes fifty-fifty relate to) not wanting to run powerful fast mana in your antiquity department. It can be incredibly unfun to lose to a deck that has access to four or more mana on turn two. Nosotros can tell yous to draft and maindeck Disenchant effects, but losing to a turn i Sol Band means that you had an incredibly small-scale window to observe one of those answers before your opponent ran abroad with the game. In the instance of the Swords and other powerful artifacts, though, the window to discover your reply(s) is much larger. If you don't depict your respond, that'due south just bad luck. Sometimes your opponent plays a 5 driblet on turn five and you can't draw ane of your half-dozen answers to safe your life. Information technology happens. With that said, though, it drives me nuts to see people cutting Disenchant with the "I can side this in" mentality when it's their only answer to these types of cards. I don't first pick Disenchant, but I practice accept information technology highly and I do maindeck it a skilful percent of the fourth dimension. In that location are then many really skillful artifacts and enchantments in the cube that information technology simply seems insane to me to not run these types of cards in your deck.
tl;dr Swords are not too good. Draft Disenchant. Play Disenchant. If you draft and play enough answers and all the same don't draw one, that's bad luck. It'due south non the Sword's fault that you didn't describe well.
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#20 May 16, 2015
Swords are only overpowered if you permit them to exist that manner in your cube environment. Speeding upward the cube tin can turn equipping into a liability where yous have to spend too much fourth dimension or mana doing it and possibly get blown out tempowise by a well timed spell.
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#21 May 16, 2015
I agree with that. Cutting the swords and leaving everything else doesn't remove the demand to run a critical mass of disenchant furnishings.
There are at least a dozen artifacts more than oppressive than the swords (other than the random double protection scenario when it happens to exist your deck colors). I'd have clench, jitte, batterskull, shackles, all 5 moxen and band obviously, orb, mana crypt, mana vault, blackness lotus and peradventure Myr Battlesphere (assuming information technology'southward later in the typhoon and I have tinker and/or other pieces to corruption information technology - I'm not sure that's the right thing to do though). I might also take smokestack because I love pox decks. And maybe coalition relic because that thing is busted (and the only unfair mana stone I still run). Those last three choices are probably not objectively meliorate than a sword though.
If the swords didn't have protection (maybe intimidate against two colors or something instead), I'd run them. I didn't want to have them out, but the double protection thing is just randomly annoying and experience bad . I left 1 in for nostalgia for a long time and that worked out OK considering it could merely show upward in ane deck. This thread is making me miss the swords honestly, and so maybe I'll bring one of them dorsum for a short run.
I have very few uber powerful artifacts at this betoken (just wire, shackles and battle sphere from the above list and the final 2 probably shouldn't exist in my cube honestly).
Tangle Wire though is a actually cool menu with a lot of play to information technology. Information technology's certainly very strong, only I don't remember it requires a disenchant issue or you lose. But that likely has a lot to do with all the beast removal I run. i drop, 2 drop, wire is a beautiful get-go for an aggressive deck certainly, simply it only car wins if the other guy went durdle, durdle, uh oh. Even if the aggro guy went first, the other thespian on turn ii can counter the wire (if they are playing blue) or they could have dropped a blocker which would have slowed things down, or they could kill the two drib in response with instant removal (or could have with sorcery speed equally well). All those plays would greatly reduce how much harm wire did in that game (and none of them required a disenchant).
The simply times I've seen wire really pause the game is with welder and/or other recurring shenanigans (resetting fade counters, etc). And in those cases, straight disenchant isn't e'er an answer.
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#22 May 16, 2015
The swords suck. five mana is way too much for what they practice and if they get bulleted you just lose from the tempo loss.
Except when the abilities line up simply right and the opponent doesn't have a bullet and they come down and win the game.
Neither of those situations are fun or interesting and the center ground where they do something interesting is too infrequent to justify their inclusion.
The swords are bad design, they accept no place in any cube.
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#23 May sixteen, 2015
/\ /\ /\
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#25 May 17, 2015
Protection from color is not at all in line with what I envision for a Cube environment, and then from that signal of view the Swords are indeed bad pattern.
TheElGrande may not have put it the most eloquent fashion, merely the point he makes is worth considering. What if the swords did not provide protection, would they exist good? The triggered abilities could so easily exist stopped past blocking. Sorcery speed removal or instant speed removal drawn a turn besides belatedly would still be helpful. Of course a unmarried hitting from a Sword would all the same provide a lot of value, and information technology is certainly possible to engineer a plow where you lot tin play and equip a Sword. five mana in that scenario is definitely not on the cheap side.
With the protections mixed in, the Swords provide the value necessary for the 5 mana investment, but because of the nature of protection from colour in a limited environs, the cost for this is a higher variance. Some people similar high variance, some despise it.
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#26 May 17, 2015
Really I thougth ElGrande was trolling, but if this was serious and then he just hasn't lost enough to swords I remember. The protection is very nice, but the main thing is the advantage you lot get from the damage triggers. One fourth dimension is bad plenty, but if you get repeatable hits through, your opponent is screwed.
Without the protection we wouldn't run all swords probably, but a sword like Fire and Ice is only so good that the protection is the icing on the cake. Very nice icing, but it would still be very cubable without.
Are swords a tempo loss? Sure they are slowish equipment, but this is just how they work. You cannot have cheap equipment and accept it be incredibly powerful. That is similar complaining that fatties cost a lot of mana. That is what makes them a fatty.
Swords are proficient, but I often pick Bonesplitter over it for example. Swords accept to compete with other iii drops in your deck. In aggro decks this can be quite difficult, while every aggro deck tin can use a Bonesplitter. The fact that there are five as well makes that people feel this is a bigger trouble then it is. This make it seem that you lot have more 'problematic' games, but you should separate this by five.
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#28 May 17, 2015
I like the evasion and protection granted by the Swords. The double-protection makes it far less of a random take a chance, considering having one of the ii protections being relevant is pretty common. It makes creature threats more relevant, increases the value of evasion, encourages players to play answers to artifact threats and colorless cards, and allows y'all to extend your board presence without overcommitting. Sometimes there's a feel-bad moment when your Orzhov deck runs into a Sword of Light and Shadow, just that'southward okay. In that location are TONS of powerful cards in the cube that have favorable matchups against certain decks; protection is no unlike. Typhoon/play answers to Swords in your deck, and play answers to creatures with protection. I don't retrieve it'due south flawed/bad pattern at all. I think they exercise exactly what they were intended to do, and the protections add together valuable aspects to the cards. They're powerful cards, and they add a suite of very scary threats that tin appear in a multitude of different decks, and they always seem to do different and unique things as the abilities and the protections lend themselves to existence situationally dependent effects, which makes for excitement and variance. I think they're well designed, powerful, and perfectly suited for this surround.
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#29 May 17, 2015
Never understood all the hate for protection, its a fine mechanic. It is still possible to trounce a sword that has both protections relevant against your deck.
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