This article was great timing for me. Over the last few days I have been experimenting with different cascade builds revolving around the nexus. Always good to see someone else's take on a deck.
The first one I made was the affinity build. Something about playing a myr enforcer with double cascade on someone else's declare attackers(orrery) and hitting enlisted wurm can be tickling.
The second required nexus it have a chance but included great possibilities like lightning bolt cascading into 4 ancestral visions + reminisce for repetition.
Like you I found the lists to be slow and not very competitive but they are extremely fun and just take over long games. I would highly recommend for some sort of free for all multiplay.
Ive drafted the GR weenie flyer deck a few times. Missed 10 picks in pack 2 and still made the finals with it. It feels really janky to be playing Fire Drakes, Scryb Sprites, Fire Sprites, and the Faerie Lords but the deck works even without a single bomb. The version with Jungle Lion needs Giant Growths but the flyer version really doesnt.
Playing that type of weenie deck you wouldnt think that the 8-mana 7 damage red spell is good but its a bomb in this deck. First pick material. There are no counters for it. Alot of times the horse deck will manage to outrace you after they get a few Wu Longbowmen on the table and take out your weenie flyers. The finisher is necessary to pull this type of deck through.
Ive found that you dont use your removal unless you absolutely have to. Just pile it up, ping them with flyers, and then burn them out. Doing math a few turns out is important.
Please note that these aren't decks built for fun. These are tournament decks and as you also know in tournaments anything goes. I do know very well how to build fun decks and share them here with other players from time to time but none of this week's decks are such decks (as you can tell).
And Kriterian, yes, I could have given these decks their own articles and maybe they deserve that too. But I like satisfying content as a reader and rarely one single deck is enough for me.
Excellent read as always. In general and apart from the content(which is also always satisfying), I do like the way you write a lot. And just like Paul, I've also been wanting to play this kind of Cascade craziness since ARB but sadly there were always more important things. And your article convinced me that I'm missing a huge fun.
Wow you could have given each of these decks their own article, but it was still a good read. I really want to try other formats, besides Pauper and drafting, but I hate the deck editor/purchase section. It's hard enough to go get 20 cards I need to finish a deck, after making it but I can't even imagine adding 100 cards one at a time and then having to go buy 98% of them.
Thanks for the comments guys! AverageHulk - well spotted! I wrote this article from a different PC (so didn't have Magic loaded up on it), so wrote the list out from memory. That'll teach me. In reality I only played one Jund Charm and two Farhaven Elf, leaving space for three Mulldrifters. Sounds a bit iffy to me.
I still like the final decklist I posted, though it too needs more Mulldrifter. I'd probably cut Jund Charm to the side, and lose a Terminate and a Capture Sunlight to squeeze a playset in. Would need testing though.
Cheetoe - I like Supply/Demand, but this is a Standard deck. Inriguingly, this build could quite easily head into Kaleidoscope, where Supply/Demand would be fine. If only people still played Kscope.
Amar - you're right, and that's partly why cutting Fertile Ground and Wheel is so easy. Really unfortunate things to Cascade into.
Ragman - Thanks! I decided not to use my Vivids for this deck, just goes to show quite how much colour fixing there is right now that I could afford to leave them out.
Paul - I'd highly recommend it, pencil yourself down for a playset for Christmas 2014...
I don't see that title as offensive. Playing the casual room with teenagers, now that's offensive. You learn a lot more words that way, and W T F is fine there :)
If you notice a colour is open, then you can usually pick up multiples of cards in that colour, especially when you value them highly for a certain archetype. For example, if you are drafting Minotaurs you can get multiples of the tribal minotaurs if there is no one else drafting them at your table. This really only works for a set like ME3 when you are opening 3 packs of the same set.
Print run means groups of cards that appear together. For example, Sol Grail and Brilliant Plan are beside each other in the print run. When you crack one, you will often see the other sitting beside it. This knowledge can be used to tell what your neighbours have been drafting as well.
I can say from personal experience that the first deck you listed is a real beating. Nice article. A bit on the pricey side but that is the format. I am wondering how your later decks do against RDW and other cheap variants that are the poor man's alternative.
Funny article (though a bit low brow) I am really digging the mystic...Jacuzzi eh? That psychic mysticism gig must be working out well for him. I've been wanting to play this deck since ARB came online but sadly I never seem to pick up the Nexuses or Angels. Perhaps this will encourage me the next time I have $ to spend that aren't going towards 100s staples. (In a few years :p)
I agree mostly with Wiffy's comments. The 2nd deck might not have been tourney at all. Or the pilot might just have copied a net deck and not known how to play it. Cascading Balance is a netdeck by now and while it is an elegant combo solution it requires some small amount of luck to get it to line up properly for the win. I guess it is sort of between a tourney deck and a casual deck. If it doesn't get the pieces it falters badly.
Good Games. Horsemanship will definitely be a factor in determining creatures in future decks. Rolling Earthquake is certainly an interesting choice as most players will not have a horsemanship deck yet to evade the sorcery's damage. I'd been interested in seeing more games. 5 seems too small a sample to really see how the deck does.
An over looked card you might think of including in this handy deck would be Supply/Demand. It meets all your colors. If hard casted can give you plenty of chumps. If cascaded into you get to pick the next Multi-colored spell you will cast the following turn for some wonderful fixings. With its low casting cost most anything will cascade into it. Heck if you added in those handy artifact lands with multi-colord cost you just added another land fix as well. Its just an all around fun card I have found.
Embrace the blueness of the deck and relax on the aura love.
We think about the Eventide auras and how awesome they are on a dual-color creature. But +1/+1 and shroud, judiciously applied, isn't so terrible itself for just 1 mana, which is why it's not awful to put the Clout on a mono-blue creature. 5/5 shrouded Ephemeron is pretty hard to deal with (provided you can dodge edict effects). Even 3/3 untargetable Mulldrifter is a problem for opponents in a format ruled by targeted removal and trading 2/2s. So those solid creatures (both good without auras) are good candidates.
However, I would probably not run a UR and a UG theme in the same deck. You don't want to Clout a Boggle or Favor a Mimic. So I would clean that up and then be clear on a targeted format. I think Extended Pauper is a potential goal for this approach - more flexible than the soon-to-change Standard and less punishing than Classic.
I don't know if you've followed Mike Flores' attempts to make cascade decks work. He hasn't played Nexus at all, but what he did find was that it helps to limit the number of low-end non-cascade spells. The result is a more guaranteed outcome whenever you cascade. He ends the chain with Blightning and Esper Charm, or Anathemancer or Maelstrom Pulse out of the side. (Of course he has the benefit of pricy life-gain cards like Baneslayer and Primal Command to come back against speed decks.)
I thought the deck concept was brilliant and it looks endless fun to play.
I was a little confused not to see Mulldrifter in the deck list even though its one of your most predominant plays in the walkthrough. Am I missing something?
Very nice, I've been trying to figure out this deck for a few days now ever since I picked up Maelstrom Nexus and Maelstrom Archangel from MTGO traders. My problem has been not having Vivids and not wanting to buy them with rotation soon. Glad to see the mana worked out, my solitaire games with tri-lands and Kaleidostone seem hit or miss.
the game 2 opponent was most asuredly a casual deck. it may have been very expensive but given the plays you say he made, if it were tournament worthy he would have won the game the turn after vamp tutor. no that was deff casual as all he did was play a string of defenceve elements that would have put him in a great position....if he could make the game drag on 20 turns.
game 4 was deff a tourny deck, good job beating it
game 5 im surprised that you complemint this actual non casual deck. this is a focused combo deck that is looking to stop you from doing anything of value. yet i suspect that the fact that the deck dose not cost 600 dollars you write it off as casual.
this is why people debate endlessly about what is and what isnt casual. they dont know them selfs.
I like the deck horsey and quake is deffenatly a strong back bone.
Well, you could have a winning % that only registrered games in the casual room for pairing - wouldn't exactly be hard to implement (X games played, Y won) - and you could only "cheat" it by playing on different accounts/making new ones, and who in their right mind would go to such lengths to annoy others? Still, when we can't even get to display our ratings these days that's probably not going to happen (for some odd reason it's not allowed to have proof of being better on MTGO any longer). I probably have a very high one (winning percentage that is - not rating) as I mostly play decks that aren't quite good enough for tournament play a la DNT in Classic, Red Rock and Merfolk in Extended and so forth, and I would love to get paired with similar decks/players. Sometimes I advocate my games with the classic "Only good decks, please.", but that merely results in people bringing either their M10 preconstructed decks because those people don't read the descriptions anyway or a random tier 1 deck from the format in question.
How do you get so many of the same card? My draft decks look like singletons most of the time. What do you mean by "print run"? When I draft, I tend to see 3 cards I want in one pack, then nothing useful when the cards get passed. What's the deal with that? I'll try your tips next time I play!
Thanks for the article! I've been doing terribly at me3 drafting. I had figured these archetypes out myself, just from seeing other people play them. I've made some of them and always get beat. I've been trying G/R aggro lately. I usually get some hits in for the first 3 or 4 turns, but after that I'm getting blocked and my chain lightnings are useless against toughness 4 creatures. I've used disharmony a few times as instant removal. I was pretty happy with the trick, but I probably ended up losing the game, so maybe you are right that it's no good. My burning question that you didn't answer -- what's a good ratio of removal, creatures, and lands?
This article was great timing for me. Over the last few days I have been experimenting with different cascade builds revolving around the nexus. Always good to see someone else's take on a deck.
The first one I made was the affinity build. Something about playing a myr enforcer with double cascade on someone else's declare attackers(orrery) and hitting enlisted wurm can be tickling.
The second required nexus it have a chance but included great possibilities like lightning bolt cascading into 4 ancestral visions + reminisce for repetition.
Like you I found the lists to be slow and not very competitive but they are extremely fun and just take over long games. I would highly recommend for some sort of free for all multiplay.
Thanks for your article!
Why not just call them your Plan A?
Ive drafted the GR weenie flyer deck a few times. Missed 10 picks in pack 2 and still made the finals with it. It feels really janky to be playing Fire Drakes, Scryb Sprites, Fire Sprites, and the Faerie Lords but the deck works even without a single bomb. The version with Jungle Lion needs Giant Growths but the flyer version really doesnt.
Playing that type of weenie deck you wouldnt think that the 8-mana 7 damage red spell is good but its a bomb in this deck. First pick material. There are no counters for it. Alot of times the horse deck will manage to outrace you after they get a few Wu Longbowmen on the table and take out your weenie flyers. The finisher is necessary to pull this type of deck through.
Ive found that you dont use your removal unless you absolutely have to. Just pile it up, ping them with flyers, and then burn them out. Doing math a few turns out is important.
-M
Thanks for the comments guys.
Please note that these aren't decks built for fun. These are tournament decks and as you also know in tournaments anything goes. I do know very well how to build fun decks and share them here with other players from time to time but none of this week's decks are such decks (as you can tell).
And Kriterian, yes, I could have given these decks their own articles and maybe they deserve that too. But I like satisfying content as a reader and rarely one single deck is enough for me.
LE
Excellent read as always. In general and apart from the content(which is also always satisfying), I do like the way you write a lot. And just like Paul, I've also been wanting to play this kind of Cascade craziness since ARB but sadly there were always more important things. And your article convinced me that I'm missing a huge fun.
LE
Wow you could have given each of these decks their own article, but it was still a good read. I really want to try other formats, besides Pauper and drafting, but I hate the deck editor/purchase section. It's hard enough to go get 20 cards I need to finish a deck, after making it but I can't even imagine adding 100 cards one at a time and then having to go buy 98% of them.
Thanks for the comments guys! AverageHulk - well spotted! I wrote this article from a different PC (so didn't have Magic loaded up on it), so wrote the list out from memory. That'll teach me. In reality I only played one Jund Charm and two Farhaven Elf, leaving space for three Mulldrifters. Sounds a bit iffy to me.
I still like the final decklist I posted, though it too needs more Mulldrifter. I'd probably cut Jund Charm to the side, and lose a Terminate and a Capture Sunlight to squeeze a playset in. Would need testing though.
Cheetoe - I like Supply/Demand, but this is a Standard deck. Inriguingly, this build could quite easily head into Kaleidoscope, where Supply/Demand would be fine. If only people still played Kscope.
Amar - you're right, and that's partly why cutting Fertile Ground and Wheel is so easy. Really unfortunate things to Cascade into.
Ragman - Thanks! I decided not to use my Vivids for this deck, just goes to show quite how much colour fixing there is right now that I could afford to leave them out.
Paul - I'd highly recommend it, pencil yourself down for a playset for Christmas 2014...
Good article.
I don't see that title as offensive. Playing the casual room with teenagers, now that's offensive. You learn a lot more words that way, and W T F is fine there :)
If you notice a colour is open, then you can usually pick up multiples of cards in that colour, especially when you value them highly for a certain archetype. For example, if you are drafting Minotaurs you can get multiples of the tribal minotaurs if there is no one else drafting them at your table. This really only works for a set like ME3 when you are opening 3 packs of the same set.
Print run means groups of cards that appear together. For example, Sol Grail and Brilliant Plan are beside each other in the print run. When you crack one, you will often see the other sitting beside it. This knowledge can be used to tell what your neighbours have been drafting as well.
I really need to step up my SIngleton 100 game, those decks are really powerful!
I can say from personal experience that the first deck you listed is a real beating. Nice article. A bit on the pricey side but that is the format. I am wondering how your later decks do against RDW and other cheap variants that are the poor man's alternative.
Funny article (though a bit low brow) I am really digging the mystic...Jacuzzi eh? That psychic mysticism gig must be working out well for him. I've been wanting to play this deck since ARB came online but sadly I never seem to pick up the Nexuses or Angels. Perhaps this will encourage me the next time I have $ to spend that aren't going towards 100s staples. (In a few years :p)
I agree mostly with Wiffy's comments. The 2nd deck might not have been tourney at all. Or the pilot might just have copied a net deck and not known how to play it. Cascading Balance is a netdeck by now and while it is an elegant combo solution it requires some small amount of luck to get it to line up properly for the win. I guess it is sort of between a tourney deck and a casual deck. If it doesn't get the pieces it falters badly.
Good Games. Horsemanship will definitely be a factor in determining creatures in future decks. Rolling Earthquake is certainly an interesting choice as most players will not have a horsemanship deck yet to evade the sorcery's damage. I'd been interested in seeing more games. 5 seems too small a sample to really see how the deck does.
An over looked card you might think of including in this handy deck would be Supply/Demand. It meets all your colors. If hard casted can give you plenty of chumps. If cascaded into you get to pick the next Multi-colored spell you will cast the following turn for some wonderful fixings. With its low casting cost most anything will cascade into it. Heck if you added in those handy artifact lands with multi-colord cost you just added another land fix as well. Its just an all around fun card I have found.
Embrace the blueness of the deck and relax on the aura love.
We think about the Eventide auras and how awesome they are on a dual-color creature. But +1/+1 and shroud, judiciously applied, isn't so terrible itself for just 1 mana, which is why it's not awful to put the Clout on a mono-blue creature. 5/5 shrouded Ephemeron is pretty hard to deal with (provided you can dodge edict effects). Even 3/3 untargetable Mulldrifter is a problem for opponents in a format ruled by targeted removal and trading 2/2s. So those solid creatures (both good without auras) are good candidates.
However, I would probably not run a UR and a UG theme in the same deck. You don't want to Clout a Boggle or Favor a Mimic. So I would clean that up and then be clear on a targeted format. I think Extended Pauper is a potential goal for this approach - more flexible than the soon-to-change Standard and less punishing than Classic.
I don't know if you've followed Mike Flores' attempts to make cascade decks work. He hasn't played Nexus at all, but what he did find was that it helps to limit the number of low-end non-cascade spells. The result is a more guaranteed outcome whenever you cascade. He ends the chain with Blightning and Esper Charm, or Anathemancer or Maelstrom Pulse out of the side. (Of course he has the benefit of pricy life-gain cards like Baneslayer and Primal Command to come back against speed decks.)
Just a thought. It does look like a fun attempt.
I thought the deck concept was brilliant and it looks endless fun to play.
I was a little confused not to see Mulldrifter in the deck list even though its one of your most predominant plays in the walkthrough. Am I missing something?
Very nice, I've been trying to figure out this deck for a few days now ever since I picked up Maelstrom Nexus and Maelstrom Archangel from MTGO traders. My problem has been not having Vivids and not wanting to buy them with rotation soon. Glad to see the mana worked out, my solitaire games with tri-lands and Kaleidostone seem hit or miss.
RagMan
I really liked that Voreless Vore deck. Looks fun to play.
the game 2 opponent was most asuredly a casual deck. it may have been very expensive but given the plays you say he made, if it were tournament worthy he would have won the game the turn after vamp tutor. no that was deff casual as all he did was play a string of defenceve elements that would have put him in a great position....if he could make the game drag on 20 turns.
game 4 was deff a tourny deck, good job beating it
game 5 im surprised that you complemint this actual non casual deck. this is a focused combo deck that is looking to stop you from doing anything of value. yet i suspect that the fact that the deck dose not cost 600 dollars you write it off as casual.
this is why people debate endlessly about what is and what isnt casual. they dont know them selfs.
I like the deck horsey and quake is deffenatly a strong back bone.
Wasnt there just an article on how power creep in formats destroys the casual enviroment? I think these decks are perfect examples of that.
Well, you could have a winning % that only registrered games in the casual room for pairing - wouldn't exactly be hard to implement (X games played, Y won) - and you could only "cheat" it by playing on different accounts/making new ones, and who in their right mind would go to such lengths to annoy others? Still, when we can't even get to display our ratings these days that's probably not going to happen (for some odd reason it's not allowed to have proof of being better on MTGO any longer). I probably have a very high one (winning percentage that is - not rating) as I mostly play decks that aren't quite good enough for tournament play a la DNT in Classic, Red Rock and Merfolk in Extended and so forth, and I would love to get paired with similar decks/players. Sometimes I advocate my games with the classic "Only good decks, please.", but that merely results in people bringing either their M10 preconstructed decks because those people don't read the descriptions anyway or a random tier 1 deck from the format in question.
How do you get so many of the same card? My draft decks look like singletons most of the time. What do you mean by "print run"? When I draft, I tend to see 3 cards I want in one pack, then nothing useful when the cards get passed. What's the deal with that? I'll try your tips next time I play!
Thanks for the article! I've been doing terribly at me3 drafting. I had figured these archetypes out myself, just from seeing other people play them. I've made some of them and always get beat. I've been trying G/R aggro lately. I usually get some hits in for the first 3 or 4 turns, but after that I'm getting blocked and my chain lightnings are useless against toughness 4 creatures. I've used disharmony a few times as instant removal. I was pretty happy with the trick, but I probably ended up losing the game, so maybe you are right that it's no good. My burning question that you didn't answer -- what's a good ratio of removal, creatures, and lands?
hmm to bad theres no option for duel lands or anything like that... at leeast the m10 would be nice...