Powerful Nothing

No Cards in Library? No Problem - the best ways to win with a Thassa’s Oracle in cube #60

• Too Sweet MTG • Season 1 • Episode 60

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Generally running out of cards in library will lose you a game of magic, however cards like Thassa’s Oracle and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries make it a legitimate win condition in cube. In this episode we will be discussing how to empty your library and profit in cube.

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/Cd-qwuw2o06rkeAxuyr-KA

Video Version: https://youtu.be/5qhugqw51VI

00:00:45 - Best Wincons for an empty library
00:06:12 - How to empty our deck
00:30:07 - Alternate ways to empty the deck

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

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Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm the host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James. James. How are you doing? You. Well? I'm very well. I'm very well. I'm to talk about some good degenerate combos today and I'm stoked for it. Yeah. This is, this is a proper combo, Jack that we gonna talk about today. Today we're going to be talking about the best way to win with that is Oracle. So generally in any game of magic, running out of cards in your library is bad. You lose the game. But with cards like that, as Oracle and Jason builder of mysteries, it turns it into a legitimate win condition in cube. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about how to empty your library and how to properly profit from it. So let's start at beginning. Let me read that is Oracle. That's Oracle is a blue blue for A13 creature merfolk wizard. It has Wentz's oracle enters the battlefield. Look at the top X cards of your library where X is your devotion to blue, but up to one of them on the top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. And Jace World of mysteries. Similar type of thing. It is one. Blue blue blue. Reform. Starting loyalty Jace Planeswalker with a plus one of target player plus the top two cards of their library into the graveyard. DrawCard a minus eight of draw seven cards. Then if your library has no cards in it, you win the game. But it also importantly a static of if you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game. Instead that these two cards were printed pretty like relatively close to each other. Like about a year or so. A park, and they've really kind of become stand out win conditions. So I think that is Oracle has kind of taken over a lot of formats like Command Canadian Highlander as just like like if you're doing a combo win on it often ends with that as Oracle. But in cube where we need some redundancy, that's where Jace, wielder of Mysteries, comes in. James, talk to us about that as Oracle and Jace, wielder of mysteries. How do they play? What is the play pattern of both of them? And which one do you think is better? Yeah. So I mean, if you look at them, they're sort of standalone cards. They're both pretty weak. You could argue. I guess Jace will do is, does more of an facile call when you're not comparing. Right. It is at least a planeswalker, which is extra card and you, which is fine. But, really, we're here for the combos where we're here to proactively empty our live face and, and use these cards to win game. And for that facile call is certainly the better one is. It's literally half as much mana. Jace will say triple blue, which can be pretty tough. I circles double blue, but that is easier. But yeah, the big thing here is just for the mana difference. If you're trying to be a combo pack and you're trying to empty your library, pass one of these cards to win the game, you want it to be the cheaper one. So far, so cool. Is your guy we have a big thing is, And what what makes that so cool, so strong is that it doesn't care about the movable spells at all. Sure, it has the devotion clause, but if you, if you cast it with an empty library, then it doesn't matter what your devotion is. If I kill the fast response, your devotion zero. You still win the game. If you have seven cards in your library. Jace, wielder in fairy does care about removal, but it doesn't come up that much. So, they do have a window. If you cast Jace, you don't have any cards in your library. You set and they, kill Jason. Response you will lose. But in reality, it goes up to five loyalty. So it's not like they're bolting out or even fire blasting at, And there just aren't that many. Like instant speed and downfall type cards that people are actually playing. Cuz I don't find it to be, this huge issue. But yeah, I think that was definitely the, the one you want to prioritize. If you're combating hand. Yeah, those are the two that we tend to see in higher power level cubes. There is an OG version of this effect. Laboratory maniac two in the blue, two to creature. Human wizard. If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game instead. In theory, this seems similar to Jace in that it's a threat you have. It's. It is a effect you have to put into play before you then go about milling your whole deck over. Why is lab man not played as much as the other two? And why is it weaker? Is there's two really big things here. Firstly, it sort of gives you an extra step, right? Because like if you have fast so-called you need to empty your library cards fast so-called you win the game. That's why it's lap man. You need to empty your library, cache that man, then draw another card. It doesn't say if you have no costume library. It says if you would draw the card while you have no cards in your library. Obviously you could just pass the turn and hope you still have a luxury maniac showing your next door step. That is not a good plan to win many games of Keith, because if they remove that, you are just going to die immediately. So generally what you want to try and do is, until I've cast arbitrary maniac and then 12 another card afterwards, like cast a cantrip, do I draw into your Anti-Life family the game? But that's just it's adding sort of an extra step to the combo, and even then, you're still giving your opponent the opportunity to have an instant speed removal spell. And it is not a difficult feature to kill that. It's it's a formality to, so yeah, it does in Faerie do have the same effect, but it's, it's a much, much weaker version. Yeah. I think initially when, when that's the recall really start kicking off as a way to win in cube especially I, I think the first time I did it, I think I was running all three, in my 540 cube, I think I was running through Oracle, Jace and Lab Man, but quickly realized that it's just not good enough. It's just not strong enough. Like, I could see if you're trying to do this archetype fairly, maybe it gets there, maybe in a more budget round, but we're going to move on to now. Those, in theory, are our wing cons, but let's go over how we actually empty our deck. How are we getting to. Because spoiler we're not just going to be drawing, we're not going to be drawing one card a ton and getting there through fogs. We're going to be trying to get to our deck as quickly as possible. So let's move on to the most broken way of going through your library, and one that it might actually be too strong. This card we're gonna be going over isn't actually in the Mega Vintage Cube right now because of it, because it's too strong for a power cube. And this card is demonic consultation. This is a very broken magic card. Especially with that is Oracle. So how this works is demonic constellation is a single black mana for an instant. I'm going to read the Arata on this card. Choose a card name. Exalt the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards on the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exalt all of the cards revealed this way. So, James, for a single black we can effectively exile our whole deck. This seems incredibly good. Is that right? Yeah, this is this with facile call in particular, is just one of the most powerful, the most efficient and easy to assemble, compose. You can rarely put into any cube. Probably only very second of all key in terms of, in terms of power level hand because it's it's so easy. Right? It's like you, you don't get that many two card combos that just win the game on the spot and don't care about removal. Normally a lot of will win the game stuff. They have more of an opportunity to interact, right? So the ones that where they don't care about the movement, they just you can just do it from hand. That's really powerful. To get to do that for free. Mana total control is one, fast cycle is two. That's kind of just ridiculous. Like, once you've got this combo in your deck, that is pretty much the thing your deck is doing. Like, you don't really need to worry too much about. For Blinken's, your deck should be then just be built to survive and to find these two cards. Like the value of any sort of 12. See, goes way up that can cheat off the combo pieces. Nice cubes. Can't handle that sort of power level, to be honest. Certain point people just find it not fun, right? Because they've had it too many games where that Titan just finds this combo pretty early in the game, and there's nothing they can do about it. Right? Like you've got to have permission by then. It doesn't matter if you have a marvel light, and because it's so cheap, you can like, really get filled that with your card. Jardine put this piece together pretty quickly. So, yeah, this this is really this, but like that top, top power level of cubes. Yeah. We're talking like a, like, time vote. We're talking initiative. This is upper echelons. Because the other thing as well that you can do with the on station is if you think you're close to losing and you haven't assembled your pieces, but you have the demonic station in hand, you can name that is Oracle. And if it's not in the top six cards of your deck, you will then go through and two to. For the fastest oracle. It is a way of finding that link on piece. Yes, you will need another way of exile in your library, but it still leaves you. It doesn't. It means you're not dead, it leaves you open. And if you if you're a blue deck, as you're running that circle, you could just run a snap, cast a mage and snap it back. Cast demonic consultation twice. That's quite good. That's quite strong. We had this in my cube. I went adorable first, got printed, and the player who won with it twice in a row that it needed to be cut. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I think if. And that's your cube. Unless you just want to max out the power level of value in every possible way, I. I probably wouldn't recommend first, because it is also the thing that after a while, this isn't that fun, right? Like there's. Yeah, it's not there's nothing cool going on. Rarely have I like it is just cast this card, cast this of a card like nothing else needs to happen. You don't you don't need to do any work. So I think, yeah, I this is it. It's cool having some powerful women game combos, but, this is like, not the not the most interesting one, I think. And there's a bunch of what, to me, way more interesting ways to, to make the, fast arc or chase wielder stuff work. I would say it is if you're doing this with Chase, wielder of often focal is obviously like a fair amount Rica because it's just like about five mana voluntary mana, but still massively powerful, like an a very easy win condition. It probably just means that you have to concentrate a little bit more on staying alive, but you tend to have a bit more interaction to, to get a mana, but not a difficult thing to win with at all. No. Makes sense. Well, let's let's move on to a more fun way of winning. It is it is harder. And this is currently the way like I think the best way to to win with with the is Oracle Jace builder of mystery style deck currently in vintage group and that's doomsday. The doomsday is a black black black for a sorcery search, a library and graveyard for five cards and exile the rest. But the chosen cards on top of your library in any order. You lose half your life, rounded up. So, James, talk to me about doomsday. We've all. I think most magic players have at least heard of a doomsday pile. A lot of people who have played Vintage Cube will probably have seen someone do it against them. But for those who haven't made a doomsday pile, what are we doing? How does this kind of come together? Yeah. So doomsday is, I think, a very unique, really fun, but incredibly skill testing card to play with. It feels like the first time you draft a Doomsday Deck is, you will probably find it pretty difficult. I would suggest, unless this is something. And that's all. Just like a magic five, this sort of stuff comes naturally to you because you really have to think all the way through. And and this is during deck building and dragging for drafts like this, really, what you want to do with them save is you cast your doomsday. You have a way to draw into your doomsday pile this way, and then because you can go doomsday follows me any five cards from your deck. So there's can be five cards which enabled you to. Once you've drawn into the first card, you can then get through that five cards very, very quickly, ideally in the same turn, and cast your face, or cast your Jax wielder and win the game that that same turn that you has to do and say, let's nuts. Sometimes you have to make piles where you cast teams. That way you like costumes and you pass the turn, but in general, you like you want to be doing is a strong into it. By the way. It's a very fun card to play with because it makes you, fact it lets you plan out turns in a wave of magic. Generally doesn't by in general, in magic, we do our random card off top each each turn, and we, we adjust our game plan accordingly. When you make a doomsday, you have locked in your tool sets of a major of a game. So if you if you can figure out for the invite pile for you to get through that in one turn, that can be very powerful, but it's very, very limiting factor is always going to be is going to be mana and control right in the to say pile. So you need to be prioritizing keep ideally three ways to draw cards. Very, very powerful here. Actually in sort of both both parts of this. Right. Because play it something like attack scene five, for example, enables you to draw into your doomsday pile the turn you cast doomsday. That's so much better than passing down, say, passing time, say, passing the turn and waiting for next draw. Set to draw your first card off your replay pile that does that for zero mana, but also even when you don't have it in your hand before you casting, say you're very often put it in your doomsday pile because it just gets you one card deeper into that pile without having to spend any mana. So that sort of stuff's really powerful. If three cards get thrown, I'd say, gosh, it's the best here by quite a lot, actually. That's for, five Manor Instant for two cards. But you can the turn to islands to your hand instead of paying its mana cost. Because if you costume, say, and spend cash, gush immediately, you're now two cards deep into your doomsday pile, and then it's very easy to win the game from that most of the time. Like, say, your two cards, you trying to. It's like you just should want to say like Gtfo. Blindside diamond, you phobe, then crack your diamond with a probe on the stack. You're playing fast, you're fast, so call your fast. So who wins your game because you got your diamond right? I can example of a nice easy doomsday pile you can make if you have a gushed advantage. The first two cards, if you're only going into the first one cards, you generally need some more manner to be starting off with like, because that spot pile lets you win with just you only had to top your free doomsday manner van. You could theoretically do that on turn three, which is pretty bad. Generally, you need a little more stacking manner to get going with this. But yeah, coming coming up with these doomsday piles is it's just a lot of fun. That's a very, like, unique, a draft experience, I think, you know, definitely. Yeah, definitely. A lot of, a lot of moving bits. One thing I'm getting from this deck, James, is that the manor requirements seem quite tricky because we're talking about doomsday, which is a triple black spell we're talking about that is Oracle that there's a double blue spell. How are we making the manor on this work? Like you mentioned lines I diamond. But what other options do we have to really kind of, tie everything together, as it were? Yeah. For sure. So I think another really important card for, most team stacks is going to be Dark Ritual. For single black make black, black, black. This is because in your doomsday attacks, most of the time you're going to be a pretty heavy blue. You can have a lot of blue pips, but you're also going to be wanting to make black, black, black. And you can make it pretty early. And on that turn you can also have on matter leftover. So Dark Ritual is absolutely phenomenal here. It lets you it lets you build more mana intensive doomsday piles. Right? Because you only had to cast once formed. Cast your doomsday on top of that is often also a good thing to put into your doomsday pile, right? And if if you need a little more mana to get all the way through your pile, like you don't have all of the, all of the feature. The other thing that's really nice with that as well is, frantic search, because frantic search can then turn your black man off of a, dark ritual into blue mana for your fast circle because you use your black man to tap the tantric search. Then the frantic search on tap islands. And while it's doing that, it's getting you through the to, say, pile to get to your anti-tax caste, cast your follicle. So that can be really powerful. Have, I think quite like low key, quite important cards call out here. And I think is a very nice addition if you're putting tunes saying your cube is some convergence, this is the blue black filter. And, so the, yeah, you could play out do a black to make blue blue or black black coffee. Black. This is a phenomenal way of like, be able to turn a blue mana into two. Black mana is is very, very powerful. If we to cast a triple black card in your nicely blue combo pack. So I think like switching a different dual and to some convergence can be, can be a very nice switch if you're trying to make do, say, work. Yeah. If you see sunken Ruins in a cube, it's it's primarily because doomsday is there. There are there are cheaper, more efficient options if you just want a dual land. But if it's a it's a fast track of knowing if this deck is supported in the basically. Yeah for sure. Nice. And then is there anything else kind of like that's either good to be in the deck or useful to be in your doomsday part is going to like it. Just like, is it just it is just other ways of going through your deck. Like like other cantrip. Like. Like how? Like I know that they're more man intensive, but how do we feel about things like, oh, how do we think about things like thoughts? Are those good in the deck? James Yeah, for sure. I mean, firstly, the can ships are all pretty good in the deck because they help you dig to your doom. So. Right. And we need to cast casting say a lot of time in this deck. Trying to, like, going for your doomsday pile. You. If you're spending mana on your cards for you want to be sort of getting as many cards deep for as little manner as possible, right? So ops is actually not great for getting for your pile because it only gets you one card deeper because your striker is on the bottom. Consider it's better because you surveil the card into the graveyard. So she gets you two cards deeper for scour. Better again. Gets you three cards deep because you put two cards into your graveyard and, And for your card. So, yeah, outside of a free card for, like, Full Circle is certainly one of the best you can have. Another nice little, little addition, actually, if you're it's mostly if you have full scour and you're winning with fast. As I recall, a nerf can be a nice little addition. Him just the black, Vietnamese, CMC for your last feature, then you can make a pile where you draw, trying to scour you for scour yourself. You mill the fastest oracle and then you ones that's also all that else is. It saves you a matter of like, yeah, you got to spend a single black banner instead of two. You manage to put your best cycle in play. And all of all of those little savings are really important because it's, if it chooses, you know, when you're looking at your, you know, doomsday and you want to cast it and then you need to think, how much mana is it going to cost me to get through my file and put that cycle into play after I cast my doomsday? Because a lot of the time you you don't want to cast a costume, say, and pass for ten because you're losing half your life is really going to hurt. Plus, you just spent three mana not affecting the board, so your opponent's going to have a pretty big opportunity to kill you in the ten before you untap. And even if you do on tap, you've given them that off. You sort of telegraphed them what you're going to try and do next. And they now have a new opportunity to interact with you. And yeah, the IBC cast bending free black and then getting for a five card deck and putting fast Oracle or Chase will do and say, that's a lot of mana. So all those little savings like getting to a nerf from Castillo. How cool they are. Very matter that can be be the difference between combo off and being one mana shot. You know, changing tack a little bit because this is a combo deck. It is. So I can see a world where you've gone through the line of great, I've doomsday. I set up my pile. I now have to cast a spell that needs to resolve, are you running any protection in the like? Like is protection good in this pile, too? Kind of like. Because if they manage like your. That is Oracle, you're just sat there with no cards, left hand deck. And then what do you do? Like like like like like how important is protection in these decks? James you say yeah for sure. It's it's it's can be really good. It's if you can sometimes. Right. You have a you're in the late game. You have a lot of mana. You can maybe afford to build a pile where you're gonna be able to advance the same force of. Well, and have that up when you cast your first circle. Because opponents might if they're sitting on one counter spell, especially if it's something like a minor league, which is a soft counter, they might be tempted to let your doomsday resolve and then try and stop you winning with a facile call. Because if you let's see if I can heal faster, I'll call the game and sight you lose. So being able having the option to build a pile with force, there's something like a force of will can be really powerful for, if it's early in the game, you're a bit more mana constrained. You might not have that opportunity, right? Because you might be using all the spots for the cards you headlong into for like mano and more casual. But it's, it's certainly a powerful option to have. And, obviously force well is going to be great in the stack anyway because, we need to stay alive. Now. Very, very true. One of the main things about doomsday is that is a very unique experience. Like, we touched on our previous episode about how having channel in a cube kind of makes a whole that kind of like with doomsday, you do need a way of profiting from it. You can't just run doomsday by itself. Actually, maybe that is similar to channel you instead of a big colorless threat. We need like a way of winning with no cards in our deck, but as a deck building constraint and as a drafting environment. Doomsday is very unique and that is very awesome, and it's very rewarding for players to put together like we've been. We've had plenty of players in our cube who the first time they have doomsday is is in our cube environment. And that's a very cool and interesting thing to do. Kind of like, doomsday does seem like a very fun package to add to cube, and a lot of the cards we've spoken about things like gush attacks in frantic search. These are causing a lot of cubes will just naturally be running like dark ritual powerful cubes. Run those thoughts, go a cubes, run those on a cubes. Run that force of will. Probably a staple in our large majority cubes. So realistically, with a little bit of tailoring, you can make doomsday. That is Oracle Chase, wielder of mysteries work kind of like as as I mentioned, like sunken ruins secretly being a doomsday card. Like it's little swaps, like little swaps of things that might already be in there. So, so, so rather than the oppt run the thought scour, for example, these small little changes you can make can make this whole deck exist. And that's one thing I love about cube that is awesome. Would you would you go along with that, James. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think it's a, I think it's a really, really like it's very unique experience to cube. I think, definitely team stacks because, like, so you can play doomsday and stuff like vintage, but to me it's a lot less cool because it's all 3 to 7, right? It's, you know, your pile going into starting the game of magic, like, oh, starting into your day, even. Exactly, exactly, exactly. I know, Stephen and Endian for a long time maintained for, the doomsday spreadsheet. This was back in the day when they had to win with Lab Man. It was all about. Okay, so, I it's I could open source did say spreadsheet where I was like, if they have this combination of eight pieces in play, what do you say? If I look at valve? But, yeah, but in cube, it's different every time they and the other than because you're always you always have an imperfect set of resources and you come your pile is often not easy and it's not straightforward. And that like, makes for experience very rewarding, I think. And, I still managed to screw up quite a lot of this. And when you do make it work, I think it's a lot of fun, actually. Quick question, James. Say we drove to doomsday because generally speaking, if you're the player, like taking all the cards for the doomsday pile you've lent into early, you've got the doomsday, you've got the manor base, you've got the the way of making money, you've got the car draw, but take you in a logic cube and that is Oracle isn't opened. Or maybe someone else took it early and then didn't get the rest pieces because you were taking them and your whole deck just ruined. Or how can you how can you win if you don't have any of the payoffs? Yeah, you can definitely build doomsday piles, but where you can win without one of these cards being, it is more difficult and you're probably going to have to be a lot more creative in the games with coming up with different piles. But, the sort of defaults you could have going in, if you have just enough, a powerful two card combo in your deck, you can just put them both in your doomsday pile, right? It's going to I want to be something very efficient. So, I in kind of made out cubes, for example, you can do it with, if your pile includes with a boom of antis, chain of smoke. You can just vote in today's card, say, like in today's cards. And when that way, that's anything you can do. You can also do stuff with like draw sevens. So, if you obviously you need to have cards in your hand face casting do say like because you only have five cause I say file but say you in drawn for your doomsday pile and you want this is often more things like Lotus Alliance. I diamond let's say say draw like late lotus time twister. In fact, like this time twister. And then you draw your lotus in your time. Twister again. And you can because you only have seven cards in your in your deck, in your graveyard combined. Right. And you can kind of just keep doing that and then eventually brain freeze them and you have a bunch of stuff that's quite cool. But these of all, it's certainly a lot harder. Right? And you're going to have to do a lot more, some sort of calculating before you cast your doomsday about, how you're going to get into that file. And, it's probably not going to be like the same pile over and over again as you play your games. Whereas with the follicle stuff, it often pretty much can be, but yeah, you can, you can do with creative ones. I've seen stuff like, yeah, you've drawn to your shelf while you play Shelter Island, and that's an ample on top of your deck, you know? Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff you can do, but, yeah, certainly it gets trickier when you, when you don't have a pharmacologist. Yeah, I get that. I mean, effectively you're using doomsday as a to to to set up your other combo. That's kind of what you're looking for. If you don't get there with the with that Oracle basically that that does make sense. Yeah. Exactly. Like yeah. Five cards is still quite a lot. You can win the game with five cards. You're often like you're not trying to get through all your five cards immediately. It's a thing like, because you actually need more space. So when you real cool. So yeah, we've been talking about doomsday a fair bit because that is kind of the, I'm going to say, the de facto way of doing this type of deck in Let Me Go, vintage Cube and in a lot of cubes. But there are other ways of channeling through your deck really quickly that we kind of want to touch on. Especially if you're thinking of adding this to your cube. Maybe you want some extra, extra redundancy. Maybe you're a larger cube, like one card we want to shout out is thought lash. This is a very unique card from alliances. Thought lash is two blue blue for enchantment, cubes for upkeep, eggs on the top card of your library. And whenever a player doesn't pay this enchantments goes upkeep that player exiles all cards from their library and exile the top card from your library. Prevent the next one damage that would be dealt to you this turn. So, am I reading this correctly, James? That you can just cast this and exile your whole library to prevent any amount of damage just coming at you? Can you just do that straight away? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no cost involved. You can get in your whole library immediately. But it also gives you that control, right? And it's, it's not like something, something like console left you console and name a card. It's not a note that you're committing to exile and your hold that you can do incrementally. And it does seem like kind of neat stuff when you don't want to immediately exile your whole deck to, so yeah, let's see, like this sort of baseline we're going for here is we cast this, we exile out that quick ass fast circle we went, okay, that's easy. We can all work that out. It's kind of expensive. But it can work. But the nice thing with this, compared to something like, like casting Fey Jace wielder and trying to, on top of it, this enchantment enchantment, pretty hard to tell. Like evolve a permanent type. Enchantments tend to be people don't have found many answers, right? So it is very reasonable to just cast Flash Pass for turn. It's very hard for your opponent to kill you that time, because you can just exile a bunch of cards and not take any damage. And then if you have your, you'll have a combo piece in hand, you can just cast it next to an exile. You likely would have a game. That's nice. That's quite a can. We have like a relatively quick game, like that can be like turn five without any acceleration. But even better than that, if you have, if you say you have a fork, but you don't have your, your facile foliage. So whatever you're trying to combo it that, it should have a way to look at the top card of your library. And there are quite a lot of these in magic now, right? There's just so many cards that are like, you can look at the top cards, your library, you can play whatever type of card we have chosen for this one off the top. So like your cost of prefixes, your mystic forgers of a sort of nonsense, anyway, where you can look at the top card, this can then give you a ton of selection. Right. If they have kosher and play a new cast space, you can just, look at the top cards. You keep exiling cards until you see the, the face arc or whatever you're trying to win with on top. Then you draw into that face cycle asset exile the rest of the cards, you win the game that way. You do have to be a bit careful with when you do this, because, if you can't, like, drawn to it right away, you can check for anything. You don't want to end up in the spot where you like exile. So yeah, that's cycles on top and you get the upkeep. You have to pay cumulative upkeep for this. Guys. My. Oh, no, it's not a fast cycle. Yeah. I it still works just after about a month. You just have to as often. If you're just looking for a follicle, you'll, like, pay the cumulative upkeep. Then before your doorstep, you will exile thoughts until you find some follicle. But yeah. But. And then even if you're not finding right away vote, but still just a ridiculous amount of selection and you can, you know, you can keep hitting lands, she'll call so you can find cards and cast off a it does a lot of like interesting and powerful stuff and it keeps you alive. And then I actually kind of believe in this one. I think it's, probably not for power cubes, but I think, like nice cubes below that. Like this with like, a follicle is pretty good. It's also nice that the mana looks so much nicer. Yes. Yeah, anything in blue seems seems massive. So. Yeah. Yeah. Again. Yeah, I do agree. Probably not one for the most powerful cubes or that is a very strong card. I've seen it in, like, stats Oracle deck in Canadian Highlander. As I said, there's just another bit of redundancy to a doomsday pile. So yeah, we do like, thought less. All right. Another card we wanted to touch on is Tainted Pact. This is a very unique shockingly in a episode where we're talking about that is Oracle and Doomsday, we have another unique effect. Tainted pact is one the black for an instant, the top card of your library. You may put that card into your hand unless it has the same name as another card. Exalt this way. Repeat this process until you put a card into your hand. Or you exalt two cards with the same name, whichever comes first. So effectively this. This also has a unique deck building constraint of you can't run duplicates. Now you might think, oh, it's cube. Most cubes don't have duplicates, it's singleton. But this does include basic lands as well. So that is a deck building constraint to this card. But if you can make it work effectively this is a tutor for any card in your deck which seems quite strong. James like painted pike. Again, the deck building constraint to this is quite high, but if you can get it working seems quite good in this deck. Would you agree? Yeah for sure. I mean, if you have literally no duplicates, you have one of each base like it's yeah, you can choose of any card in your deck, but it also does the demonic consultation thing. Right. It also just exiles your whole deck if you want to, when you have for Farkle. So that's busted. If you can make that work, it's great. It can also be a pretty solid card. So if you have if you even if you don't get to quite that, it basically is power level scales with, how many of you have your base? Six. You have to learn like, like if you're in a blue black deck and you have eight swamps and islands, this isn't going to be great because it's going to be you're not going to see that many cards before you hit the second Swan Island. Like it's still but nice thing about because it's even when it's not enabled, it's still actually kind of fine. Like it's a decent selection spell. You can kind of view it as like a nice concept, like you've got, and you've just got to play fairly cautiously once you like the first one. Oh, the next one might be a swamp. I had a good spell I have to take up, but, But it can be in a spot with your, like, consulted deck, right. You have, say like eight non basics and then you'll have like three islands, three swamps, two forests. Tens of packs can be very good in that deck. Because when you cast it early you're just going to be like until you hit the first one and phase, that's one of the islands you can just keep exiling about. You don't have to worry until you have a good card. Once you've got hit, say, one swamp, you would be like, well, there's two more left in this, like 20 cards. Like I have to. When I hit a good spell, I'll take out. I'm obviously not like exiling my deck and doing that, that cycle thing, but it is a powerful piece of card selection. Like I'm only paying two manifest. But then later in the game, you know, you've, you fetched out a couple of your basics. You've, you've font on some of your basics. You might be singleton by the time you get to like, the mid game. That's not unreasonable. Maybe you play some like, nature's little type cards to getting out your basics and then out y'all can out your document and then it becomes the full power to like two to for every single thing, right? I'm not saying I'd done, like, just this entire cycle and that's like a get fully singleton, but it's kind of like a nice backup. But yeah, if you can be, if you can get to just one of each basic, which is basically going to be a thing if you're doing like a five color deck, you can actually do that without paying much cost. Like it's not that that you pay full, like if you're doing the whole like five color domain thing, for example, but you just naturally only play one of these basic, so I listen, there's a big tax that there is a big deck building cost this, but I think it's a cool and fun card to include and cubes anyway. And it adds an extra dimension to it to have faster cube. Also have jacks wheel to the cube. So I think Kappa for that reason, it is certainly one like base worth bearing in mind again, the definition of a build around, but it is very cool. Yeah, it's I think it's cool that it makes you think about something you don't have to think about very often during tax building. Might not 100%, let's keep it going because there was a card printed actually quite recently. But this year, Stillness in Motion that we think goes in this deck, one in a blue for an enchantment. As many of you upkeep male three cards. Then if a library has no cards in it, exalted enchantment and put five cards from your graveyard on top of your library in any order. So this feels a little bit slower, in fact quite slower than doomsday, but it will still give you the ability to do the thing like maybe like, do you think that this is one for lower power level cubes who are maybe who maybe fast as oracles, too good, but maybe Jason lab maniac is a nice level for a more slow environment. Do you think that's where I think that seems reasonable? I mean, I think even if you're in a lower power level cube, like be maybe fastest Oracle is still fine. FTL enable as, like this and, takes it back, say because cited facts. That's a very big set up cost. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of like the idea or, like, flashy, but I kind of like the idea of, like a more like mid power level cube where you have, like, a chase wheel to a fast as oracle of this in a flash, as a, as a little package. I think that could be quite cool. I like this card, especially if you're, if you have other cards or care about mailing yourself as well, because for all the turns between when you cast this, making your mini doomsday pile at the end, this is just say, cards that is mailing you for free every time. So if you have other reasons to care about self-will, that seems kind of strong. Yeah, I do like this one. It does seem cool. Another couple of hours just to finish things off. I guess you're kind of ramping up the power level with this one. And it's Oath of Druids oath. Enjoyed this one. The green for an enchantment as being a beach base upkeep that player chooses target player who controls more creatures than they do and is their opponent. The first player might reveal cards on top of their library until they reveal a creature card. If the first player does, that, player puts that card into the battlefield and all of the cards reveal this way into their graveyard, so this can be extremely strong if you have very little like normally innovative joys that you're not running that many creatures. But going down the as Oracle or Jace will do a mystery route with it. It's quite nice. Like this will start as Oracle specifically is a bit rough, but if your only creature in the deck is that man, it means you will win on the next upkeep. If I don't kill the lab man, or if there's no creatures in your deck and you just have to chase, this does win you the game. If they have one creature. That's kind of. That's interesting. The reason we added this one to the list is because normally if we're already doing doomsday, that's the kind of cube that can normally fit in an oath of druids. And like, it's not going to be the most common way of winning with a with a fast oracle aura that would have with a effect that wins with no deck, with no cards, and like B, but if it's already there, it is a thing of you probably can make it work. Is that fair dreams? It's it's interesting. Yeah. It's I think it's kind of tough because you need you kind of need to play this and, and play your card and have your Jace and your lap man and untap with them like you don't get, you don't get to win the turn. You play those cards because, somebody's got anything into an empty library that happens in your upkeep. So you need the, you need to feature all of that team play in your tool set by chess. It's kind of tough because you haven't been. Yeah, you've given them their whole turn to interact. You've just, like, tapped out your case. We'll just say, and you have a knife and you say, go. And they have a whole tense, to do what they can to that Ball State. Yeah. I mean, Oak is a cool card. You should put it in your cubes, but, I'm not a hugely convinced by it in this context. No. That's right. Yeah, it definitely doesn't work with with with that is the Oracle. Big oath is one that kind of scales nicely with power level of cube I think like depending on what you're cheating in. So there is a world where maybe in slower cubes a fair O stack might be able to exist. What do you think of in virtue of truth? James, this is two black black for six, six and devoid flier that went into the battlefield. Exile. Oh oh. Cards from your library face down and shuffle all cards from your graveyard into your library. This was we. So this takeover pioneer effectively in a similar sort of deck to what we're talking about, kind of how would you feel about the inverted James? Yeah, it's an interesting card. The big saw that a few difference big differences have VM. So essentially you're making your your graveyard is going to become your of it's going to become your library. So if you've got your win condition in your graveyard or in your hand, you can get access to it and hopefully your graveyard is pretty small. So you can get through that remaining library very quickly. So you just don't have that much control all the time over what's in your graveyard? Like, sure, you can make take proactive steps to put stuff that but also stuff is going to end up there when they like faster discard spell or you can fetch land of like mildew or you mildew, you know, and because it's a shuffle, it's the you don't get to pick the order like you do. 15 saving. And of these cards, yeah. You could they could end up being for the unfortunate, I think the ideal use case for this is just like you cast this with no cards in your graveyard, and, and then you cast your win condition. Right? But, there's a lot of ways I can, in fact, that in a lot of ways, they can put cards in your graveyard. So I think, I think it's a little bit tough, although it is a six, six, five five also. So sometimes that will win the game. I guess the piles of doomsday can be quite daunting for especially for newer players. Like, I'll be honest with you, I find it daunting and I've been playing magic for over half my life. There is a world. There is a world where maybe in of truth at least kind of like have annual cube, because taking the piles away from your players might mean they're more likely to do it, because it's like, I can try and do something that makes me work. And I like that there are ways of of you controlling your graveyard. Like like death spells work quite well with this, like treasure. Cruising with this seems quite good if you can, like, really help control what was in your brain. Again, not as strong as doomsday, but I think. I think it has a place. The last one we're going to, the last card we're going to touch on is more of. It's oddly more of a place to the fattest oracle than to the milling. And that's nexus of fate. Next to fate is five blue blue for an instant pick an extra turn off of this one next to fate we have put into a graveyard from anywhere. Reveal it and shuffle it into its own as library instead. So this is sort of a fastest oracle in that if you mail your whole deck over this on your upkeep, or this, when it goes to graveyard, will go on top of your library. If you can then cast it every turn, you, in theory, will take extra turns infinitum. Now, this does require you to have seven manner in play when you've meld your whole deck and a way of winning the game. Because if you don't have, like an evasive creature or a plains, all that they can take up and win the game. Effectively, you've just drawn it, but it is a cool way of avoiding the game in these kind of self piles, like it's one I've had in my job for a while. I don't think anyone's ever done it, but the dream is that, I'm a fan of I'm a fan of actually turn spells. Anyway, so for me, this is kind of like a nice little crossover because it kind of goes over with some other decks, but I think Nexus Effect is a cool backup. I went on to this deck, and if I'm honest with you, I think I prefer it. And I think it's more like to win than lap man in higher power level cubes. See that? I mean, it has a lot more utility than, on something like flat man, right? Because it's I mean, time water is powerful, and it can, you don't necessarily have to get to being completely empty the first time you cast it, right? Because you, you cast it, it gets shuffled back in, you find it again, you cast it again, and each time, you know, your life is got a small lather because you're seeing more cards. You know, the game is progressing and it's just getting progressively easier and easier to find this again, this you, as you combine it with your card selection spells, That's cool. Maybe this is the way you do it with out of druids, right? You, Yeah. You. Oh, with no creatures in your back, everything gets meld into your graveyard, but then this goes back into your library, and then you draw a nexus of fate every turn for the remainder of game, and you still need a way to win. That could be an angle, I suppose. Yeah. Listen, this isn't like, it's doesn't really do the same thing as Final Call, but it does, I guess, exist in the same space, and it has potential to see something powerful. If you get Dante in your library. But here's the thing. But, you know, it's a seven mana card. Like this is not say, this is not a fast way to win a game 100%. But I think one of the things that I've kind of taken away from this episode is that the reason why that is Oracle demonic consultation is the best is because it's neat and it's cheap and it's efficient, but that's too good for most cubes. Every other way involves some kind of, I'm going to say, faffing around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're here to faff about. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what. And that's what makes this deck cool. Like like the modern consultation is too. It's too linear. It's too boring. I like it, it's strong and it's very unrewarding to do. It's very unrewarding for repeated cube play. Everything else we've mentioned, janky or not, is at least you have built as a Rube Goldberg machine. You have gone ultimate, ultimate Timi. You have made the engine in some way, and that's one of the most interesting things about these decks, is like, there's a bunch of other ways we haven't talked about, like there's perma druid, there's a bunch of other cool ways you can go through your deck and win with these up as well. It's kind of the point of the day was kind of like, talk about the ones that one see the most Q play or Contingently see Q play, because they work in other strategies that often see playing cube. Yes, for sure, for sure. And it's I think this is yeah, it's a it gives your cube a greater that of of gameplay experiences. I think having this sort of combo in that, and you kind of don't have to add that many cards to make it work. So I do quite like it as an addition for a lot of cubes. I think outside of the console thing, it's it's hard for this to become a sort of dominant strategy. Right. Because obviously you do need like quite a lot of different moving pieces to come together. So mostly ends up being good when other people don't want aren't taking them. Right. And that's kind of why you want this sort of deck. Yeah. I think this is a pretty fun thing to add to a lot of different games. And I think it is worth looking like beyond just doomsday. I think some of the other ones do work. I quite like the idea of, like in a mid power level cube. I think having Doomsday Flash as your two enablers and then focal cases, you know, two one cons is a very nice place to be. Because it means that nice when con cards still have some tax, when you don't open doomsday. Yeah, definitely. I that is definitely a thing of there'll be some players in, in your play group who will hate this and never want to touch it, but there'll be some people who this is like their peak of magic. This is like the most thing they want to do and talk with your play group, see if it's something that they want. And, I would be shocked if there wasn't 1 or 2 people in your play group who weren't. Yes. Let's add doomsday because it's cool. And even if you haven't tried it before, as long as you never try it, it's really, really cool. Like I've all the cards we've mentioned fast as Oracle is probably the most expensive, but if it's something you haven't tried before, this is the perfect place to proxy to test it and see if you like it. It'll also definitely get a refund to some point in the future. It's been in secret layers. It'll get reprinted. It'll be fine. I really like how we mentioned isn't super expensive between the 5 to $10 dollar range, that kind of stuff. So it's definitely something that you can try. It's not like the both me and James really, really like, and it's one of those archetypes that leads to the most amount of stories. And that's awesome, especially when you're cubing with your friends and stuff. It's it makes games that people remember. And that is sweet for sure. For sure. Like, you remember the times you drafted didn't say more from the Titans, but you drafted Black Friday, right? Yeah. Awesome, right? Well that's going to do it for today James. Pleasure on that one. Man. That was really good. Always a pleasure. Wonderful. All right. That's going to do it for today. Everyone listening. Please give the podcast a five star review. Tell a friend all that good stuff. Whatever you can do greatly helps us out. Until next time, it's good bye from me. That's good bye from James and we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.