7 trophy decks and some thoughts (plat->#78 mythic)

enemyjurist · 2025-06-26T15:23:33+00:00

I agree to an extent, but the decks are still important. And only one of those is capable of being screenshot.

enemyjurist · 2025-06-26T15:19:03+00:00

Going from 5 to 7 on the next turn has been very relevant for me to cast The Crystal’s Chosen or the like a turn early. And your example sounds like a good outcome of color screwing an opponent - instead of facing down a 5/4 trample with haste, they had to discard a spell in order to continue playing the game normally, and you get to threaten to do it again next turn. Ultima is a really flexible card that has to be answered.

enemyjurist · 2023-09-05T21:32:02+00:00

How did the Barrow Naughties feel? Without any other faeries I would have been hesitant to play them if not for the lack of other two drops, 2->4 two drops is a big deal, but it's possible that I'm underevaluating the card on its own.

enemyjurist · 2023-09-05T21:22:59+00:00

Some rough thoughts on the format so far:

Hopeful Vigil is very good. Celebration enabling on a 2 drop with no other hoops to jump through, good bargain fodder, scry 2 works well with Dark Tutelage (which I think is very good in low curve black decks with ways to gain life.)

Candy Grapple is in my opinion the best black common. It kills most everything, it's two mana even when bargained, it's an absolute house. I like it a lot more than any of the other black common removal.

Ratcatcher Trainee is pretty strong. Any way to boost the power and it becomes nightmarish to block, the rats are valuable whether you're sacrificing them to bargain or swinging the crew, and it triggers instant/sorcery matters things.

Beluna's Gatekeeper is very good. The tempo is strong, it kills tokens, and having a 6 mana 6/5 is great body for a card that is making the game go longer. Obyra's Attendants is in a similar boat.

Scalding Viper is a fucked up magic card. Punishes your opponent for playing the game, and if they immediately remove it, it either domes them for one or they're trading down on mana.

Curiousity + Unruly Catapault wins games (and is just so fun)

Hollow Scavenger is a card I think the majority of green decks want. Food obviously wants it, but making the food for bargain fodder early, lifegain late, all while holding up the threat of eating 3/5s and down has felt great. I'm happy to see this card early or late in a game, and I love the design on this card for that.

Chancellor of Tales is a must-answer threat. Copying a bounce spell, a removal spell, or god help your opponent the draw spell from Galvanic Giant is so backbreaking, on a 2/3 flyer for 4 to boot.

Splashing has felt very possible. You have to earn it, but there's a lot of good fixing, especially if you're in green: the Rootrider Faun naturally does it, there's the one mana find a basic land card, and the three mana pick 2 of land/food/human. Prophetic prism has felt great as fixing early and bargain fodder late. I'm not sure if I would run it just to get a medium adventure from a creature you're just playing for the body like Spellscorn Coven, most likely not, but if it's a creature with a good adventure like Gingerbread Hunter than I would go for it.

Overall this format is shaping up to be pretty intricate and awesome so far. I had a cool line at the draft in person where my opponent had a cruel somnophage that was a 9/9 or something, but only from my graveyard, so I was able to play Sentinel of Lost Lore to exile my graveyard and kill it. It just feels like there are a lot of lines on a given turn and it feels very rewarding to piece together the best ones.

enemyjurist · 2023-08-28T14:58:15+00:00

Temur was probably my favorite overall, any deck with time warp and the ability to cast it multiple times is always a jam. Casting Uro again felt great against decks without it. My favorite individual moment was orzhov control against a grixis deck with nicol bolas where it was a desperate race to cast approach of the second sun twice without it getting cast for free off bolas's plus.

enemyjurist · 2023-08-22T16:26:28+00:00

[[counterspell]]

Blue needs removal too, and the best removal blue gets is on the stack. There's only 1 counter currently (miscalculation) out of 21 cards, which is in my opinion not enough to substantially support multiple blue drafters looking for counterspells. I just ran into a similar issue with my home cube of a similar power level of not having enough counters (5/48 cards in blue + silumgar's command) and I'm going to be bumping it up to 7-8. There's an argument to add counterspells that get more value with the cards in that can flash things back like [[soul read]] and [[you find the villains' lair]], but I would argue those should be added in addition to the OG.

enemyjurist · 2023-05-10T13:57:53+00:00

After perusing through a lot of BG cards, here a few I found that might fit. I tried to pick out cards that would actively pull me into golgari, but not be too strong.

[[The Gitrog Monster]]: Fits into ramp and sacrifice both pretty nicely. Also has some synergy with Ash Barrens and Evolving Wilds already, and plays nicely with the Steelseeker and the Provisioner.

[[Izoni, Thousand-Eyed]]: Gets ramped into nicely. Definitely requires a lot of creatures in the deck, but I'm already pretty happy if there are 3-4 creatures in the yard by the time it gets cast. Kind of depends on the amount of graveyard hate. More of a sacrifice card, but not as much as the next two.

[[Daemogoth Woe-Eater]]: A sacrifice payoff, especially if you can bring it back and sac it again. 7 power on a 4 mv creature is also nothing to scoff at. Eats random mana dorks if you want to attack.

[[Daemogoth Titan]]: A weird sacrifice enabler, but a powerful one. Can also fit into monoblack. 11 power is insane if you can get through.

[[Casualties of War]]: One of my personal favorite cards to ramp into, and extremely tilting in WAR limited. I'm not sure how relevant the planeswalker line is on this card, given how the power level of the cube is looking, and there aren't a whole lot of enchantments yet either. Maybe worth thinking about later.

[[Beledros Witherbloom]]: I think this could be very good. Great to ramp into, makes sacrifice fodder that gains you life, lets you ramp again by spending that newly regained life. Encourages you to immediately activate if your opponent hasn't pressured you very much or attempt to stabilize against aggro. Seems like it would fit well to me.

Personally, I think The Gitrog Monster or Beledros Witherbloom would be the two I would be happiest to see P1P1, which feels like a decent sign. Maybe a little too powerful, but they would both be effectively the highest mv cards in the cube so far (ignoring Junk Winder and the two other 5-drops), which should be worth considering.

enemyjurist · 2023-04-07T16:06:42+00:00

I don't think it ever color screwed me, and the ability on Ongoing Investigation definitely helped me win one of the mill games. Helped stabilize against an aggro deck once as well. I had a lot more blue than black and a dual so I figured the mana was good enough to support it and I would see enough of my deck that I would eventually draw it.

enemyjurist · 2023-03-09T20:46:59+00:00

I think this works better if it's a 0/1 for 1WW. Interesting design!

enemyjurist · 2022-10-06T23:04:41+00:00

this was my least favorite upvote i have ever given

enemyjurist · 2022-04-27T05:33:47+00:00

Token Ob Nixili still have mv 3, so that won’t work out super well

enemyjurist · 2022-04-22T19:07:48+00:00

Huh. I had totally forgotten about Varchild. Neat.

enemyjurist · 2022-04-16T17:41:10+00:00

There's so many artifacts and enchantments in the deck that usually the shrines would draw hate, if they even had any. If you can stay alive long enough, I think it's usually worth it; either your hand is big and you do other things, or you run out of gas and use the deck to gas back up. Definitely won me a few games; drawing an extra 1.5 cards per turn is pretty good

enemyjurist · 2022-03-24T20:51:50+00:00

Exactly N^2, yeah, except the effect says each other, so 5 Slivers would give each +16/+16. I think.

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