#MTGWOE “DANGER ROOM” BATTLE BOX / EDH CUBE UPDATE
I’m proud of the opportunity to once again provide an update to one of Magic’s longest updated decks, my The Danger Room stack! Today, I’ll be sharing my favorite picks for Battle Boxes, and unpowered Cubes alike. The cards I’ve selected from MTG’s newsest expansion, Wilds of Eldraine, to make the cut in my “big stack” have to carry their weight in 1v1 Battle Box play, 1v1 Cube as well as EDH Cube. So, I tend to gravitate toward cards that I view as having a lot of “play” to them without being too broken for Limited style gameplay my stack supports.
I’ve been playing my stack a lot more often than usual over the past few months as I’ve been using it as a tool to teach my wife to play Magic! She’s really starting to get the hang of the game just from dueling Battle Box with me in the evening. Battle Boxing is a great way to teach the fundamentals of Magic: the Gathering to a friend or loved one and a terrifically fun way to enjoy the game for recreation. The extra games have provided me the opportunity to see a ton of games play out recently which is useful for fine tuning the stack.
I’m really happy with how the stack turned out after the last major update (both for great 1v1 duels and Commander Cube drafting) and so I didn’t go too wild in today’s update despite adding a whopping 13 Eldraine cards. In fact, the major change I’m making to the stack is simply adding one of each 2-color guild spell to the multicolor suite without cutting anything. I’m only making a few “swap” outs this time around just to keep the ratios “as is.”
When we Cube draft the set for EDH, the way it works is I make booster packs out of all the mono and colorless spells and then create an additional ten 2-color guild packs with all the multicolor spells sorted out (with 2-color mana fixing lands) that are randomly assigned to each player in the draft.
So, each player starts an EDH draft by being assigned a 2-color Guild with 10 on-color spells and 5 mana fixing lands to start their draft (for regular 1v1 Cube I shuffle everything including nonbasic lands and multicolor spells into the the deck and then make packs out of the entire cube).
Let’s get to my picks from Wilds of Eldraine:
WILDS OF ELDRAINE IN DANGER ROOM
First of all, #MTGWOE is kind of a weird set for Battle Boxes because of how prominently the new “Roles’ mechanic is to the design of a lot of the cards. While “roles” and “bargain” do create some interesting gameplay in WOE’s Limited format, I simply can’t bake enough synergy into my stack to make the majority of the cards particularly useful additions to my Battle Box or Cube Formats.
I had a challenging time finding mono cards from this set I’d want to add to my stack. I did find two that I liked and here’s what I added and subtracted to make room:
In general, I think the curve of the stack is really solid and so I didn’t want to mix that up too much and opted to swap three drops here.
Lord Skitter’s Butcher seems like a sweet one. It’s sort of a Charm effect since it has three really useful options to choose from once resolved. I assume Nighthawk is a little bit better in some types of 1v1 duels, (based on what a defining Limited card it was back in Zendikar) but I love the options on Skitter’s Butcher, particularly the ability to give one’s team evasion for a big alpha strike in multiplayer. So, this is a swap primarily aimed at EDH Cube draft efficiency.
It’s sad to cut a classic design like Icy Manipulator, but I think it’s a pretty functional upgrade to a card that felt a little on the weak, or weird, side. I certainly enjoy playing with Icy, but Crown is just an upgrade in most situations, and the situation where Icy shines: tapping down a dual land, is kind of counterintuitive to the rules of the format providing equal and balanced mana.
I could have just added Hylda’s Crown of Winter without swapping out a card, but I really try to make each card in the stack have a unique effect and play pattern. I didn’t think the stack needed two versions of a similar card and I do like the new version a lot.
I added this one to the stack just to try it out. I’m always curious about experimenting with Treasure Tokens as a way to incorporate mana into the Cube. I love the mechanic, it’s so elegant! Looting effects are also at a premium since I do feature some Madness and graveyard synergies as well. I love that this card can be drafted into a wide array of archetypes, so I’m trying it out. I do have room for a few more colorless spells in the stack, so it’s always fun to find a nice one to try out.
MULTICOLOR ADDITIONS TO DANGER ROOM
I simply added one of each 2-color guild card to the stack from Wilds of Eldraine.
The set felt deep on good options in multicolor, much more so than the monocolor cards in the set which tended to be geared around mechanics my stack doesn’t have enough support for: Roles, Bargain, Food, etc for many of the cards to really flourish in my stack.
I was also surprised and happy to find some really nice Legendary creatures that will serve as nice Commander options in EDH Cube Draft. I know a lot of Danger Room / Battle Boxers don’t care as much about the EDH Cube Draft aspect but I highly recommend giving it a try as it’s one of my favorite ways to play the game of Magic: the Gathering right now.
I’m actually working on coordinating an EDH Battle Box Cube Draft day at RIW Hobbies for an upcoming episode of Legendary Showdown. I’m excited to stream and share this cool format variant with everyone going forward.
Let’s get to the multicolor additions.
The subset of cards I liked the most are the two-color Adventure spells. Adventures are one of my favorite mechanics from the new era of design and a fixture of Eldraine sets and so that’s a big part of what I wanted to highlight and include in my stack (which I view as a History of the Game stack!).
There were some really nice Simic designs in WOE and I decided I wanted to double up and so I made room by cutting notable dud Gretchin Titchwillow from the stack. I think The Goose Mother is actually a more interesting Commander and a significantly better Battle Box card (since GTW will never be able to put land from hand into play when Battle Boxing – Lands are all in exile).
Grove’s Bounty, the Adventure half of Elusive Otter, is a pretty incredible spell that I like in Simic Colors. I really like the way +1/+1 Counters play in my stack and I’m always looking for more ways to include.
Ash is a pretty aggressively priced two-drop beater that I could also see being a nice Commander since it’s so low on the curve. I tend to like cheap Commanders in the EDH Cube that can be played early in the curve.
I love the pairing of Adventure and Creature here; both are great effects and the -1/-1 Adventure will do a lot of work early in Commander Drafts, mopping up Soul Wardens and Mana Dorks. Shepherd is a solid Limited card which makes up the backbone of my big stack / Cube power level.
Scalding Viper is one of my favorite designs in the set. I love that it’s basically a Man-o’-War with some upside when it sits in play for multiplayer. I’m a big fan of the Adventure Mechanic and it’s one that I’m happy to include as many quality designs of as possible. Let’s go on an Adventure!
Faunsbane Troll is the only card I selected to include with a “Role” ; it’s a great monster with awesome stats and ability. It’s just a great card and I’m happy I found one example of a card with a “Role” I felt warranted inclusion in the stack since I do try to incorporate as much History of the Game into my stack as possible. While I don’t think “Roles” are as elegant, synergistic, or easy to represent on the board in my stack as say, +1/+1 counters, it’s nice to find a “role player” for my deck.
Sharae is a solid value on the board creature to try out. I generally find four drops with solid ETBs to be a fixture of my stack and the fact this creature is Legendary and can potentially serve as a value Commander in a Control deck is nice for multiplayer. I’ve been considering a swap out of Geist of Saint Traft (because it feels really hard to beat in Battle Box) and Sharae is a great second Legendary for EDH Cube.
I had this card in my sealed pool and really enjoyed playing with it. The ability to churn bodies into tokens is nice for the Sacrifice synergies, and I think it’s a good card in general sense.
Between Totentanz and Lord Skitter’s Butcher I’ve added some Rat stuff to my stack which makes me wonder if maybe I should try out Pack Rat again. It’s so weird to me that Rats and Mice are different creature types in MTG WOE.
Should Pack Rat be “in the stack rat”? It’s a sweet card and with a little more Rat support perhaps I’ll find room for this staple of RTR Limited X-0 decks.
A pretty stiff upgrade to Merfolk Looter (which was a staple in my stack for a long time!). I already mentioned how much I enjoy creating Looting and Graveyard synergies in my stack as a source of advantage to play for and Likeness Looter is my favorite card design from WOE so far. One of my favorite designs in all of WOE.
Ruby, Daring Tracker, a two mana accelerator creature that can also serve as a Commander is pretty exciting to me. It definitely opens up some new design space to play a Gruul deck that has access to consistent mana production. It’s also cute that this Mana dork eventually gains a combat boost to help bring the beatdown. I like the card a lot.
Pollen-Shield Hare is another card design that I’m a big fan of and excited to add to my stack. I’m also a big fan of rabbits in MTG so it’s cool to include some powerful cuties in the stack. Both halves of the card are on point and powerful in a GW tokens deck, which is the direction I’m looking to drive the GW archetype in my cube going forward.
MY FAVORITE BATTLE BOX / UNPOWERED CUBE DESIGNS IN #MTGWOE
I’ve reviewed a lot of cards for Battle Boxes and Unpowered Cubes today, but let’s cut right to the chase: these are my favorite designs from #MTGWOE that I’m most excited to add, play with, and enjoy in my stack from the new release counted down from fifth to first place:
I generally pick cards for my Danger Room Battle Box Cube deck that I believe are the most fun and interesting designs in the set that don’t cross the “too powerful” threshold. Despite the fact that some of the new core set mechanics don’t synergize with my stack (Roles and Bargains) I found the multicolor Uncommons and Rares to have a whole slew of fantastic designs that I’ll be enjoying in my stack going forward! Enjoy the new set and let me know if you find any cards I overlooked that you think I should give a try!
