>>> # Welcome to Matt's Graveyard Cookbook! <<< --- <<[[!/Astral Drift]] [[!/Drake Haven]] [[!/Living Death]] [[!/Blast from the Past]]>> --- <<[[!/Life from the Loam]] [[!/Ash Barrens]] [[!/Mayhem Devil]] [[!/Hollow One]]>> Hi my name is Matt, and I'm a huge fan of graveyard mechanics, so that's my cube. This cube highlights the smorgasbord of flavors that using the graveyard brings to magic in a bunch of fun and exciting ways. The power level of this cube is well above masters sets like Ultimate Masters, but I’ve tried to avoid power outliers so the synergies can shine. Basically, I want to make sure discard matters can hang with everything else. --- The overlapping graveyard mechanics make it really important to have a plan as you build your deck. You can jam together powerful cards and they will work together, but your deck might get stomped by a deck that honed in on a specific game plan. I’m hoping that writing a more detailed cube primer will make it easier for folks to find and draft a sweet deck. Here’s a guide to some of the big themes and mechanics that make up the cube. (This is still in progress a bit!) If you want to dive into the details a bit more, I wrote a [slightly more in-depth cheat sheet](https://cubecobra.com/cube/blog/blogpost/629645706b7873121da03cfc) that gives a few suggestions for each color pair. --- ## Table of contents - [Discard matters {U}{B}{R}](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/3z4#discard-matters-grixis) - [Self-Mill {U}{B}{G}](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/3z4#self-mill-sultai) - [Sacrifice {B}{R}{G}](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/3z4#sacrifice-jund) - [Flashback/Recursion {W}{U}{R}](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/3z4#flashbackrecursionreanimator) - [Big Tokens{W}{U}{G}](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/3z4#tokens-bant) --- # Discard Matters (Grixis) --- While discard is available across all colors in the cube, it primarily pays off in Grixis colors. All three colors include metric ton of looting, rummaging and discard outlets. The payoff with Madness, Flashback, and other cards that get more powerful from the graveyard. **Enablers** <<[[!/Jace, Vryn's Prodigy]] [[!/Collective Brutality]] [[!/Faithless Looting]]>> **Payoffs** <<[[!/Drake Haven]] [[!/Archfiend of Ifnir]] [[!/Fiery Temper]]>> **Subtheme: Cycling** Adding White to the mix with Blue or Red, gives you access to some key cycling-specific and Draw 2 payoffs. Prioritizing [[Flourishing Fox]], [[Astral Slide]], and [[Faerie Vandal]] along with the strong cycling cards in all three colors. **Subtheme: Delirium / Undergrowth** Discard in green with black generally enables you to get Dredge cards going or get more creature cards in your graveyard for fun and profit. --- # Self-Mill (Sultai) --- Self-Mill is centered in Blue, Black, and Green. These colors fill up your graveyard quickly and it’s up to you to figure out what to do with all the bodies. [[Laboratory Maniac]]? [[Murktide Regent]]? [[Living Death]]? It’s up to you. Enablers <<[[!/Emry, Lurker of the Loch]] [[!/Stitcher's Supplier]] [[!/Life from the Loam]]>> Payoffs <<[[!/Thassa's Oracle]] [[!/Living Death]] [[!/Kessig Cagebreakers]]>> --- # Sacrifice --- Sacrifice outlets are strewn across Black, Red, and Green, but they each have very distinct flavors and can be combined in a number of different ways. Maybe I should call this death matters? **Enablers** <<[[!/Woe Strider]] [[!/Goblin Bombardment]] [[!/Orcish Lumberjack]]>> Payoffs <<[[!/Zulaport Cutthroat]] [[!/Mayhem Devil]] [[!/Titania, Protector of Argoth]]>> --- **Subtheme: Aristocrats (Abzan)** Black has the most powerful sacrifice payoffs and recursive creatures like [[Gravecrawler]], but white and red both provide a lot of tokens. White also brings the goods for mass recursion with [[Faith's Reward]]. This deck can be tricky to build, but with the right ingredients it’s super fun. --- **Subtheme: Academy Manufactor stuff (Colorless)** I've started adding a lot more support for Clues/Food/Treasure. Continuing to evaluate whether or not this is going to work out. --- **Subtheme: Lands** Land sacrifice is based in Naya colors and has all the pieces for a powerful deck. [[Titania, Protector of Argoth]] is important here along with [[Crucible of Worlds]] to get them right back. --- # Flashback/Recursion/Reanimator --- Since you've got a lot of stuff going into the graveyard in the other archetypes, it just makes sense to figure out a way to get things out again. **Cast your spells (again!)** << [[!Snapcaster Mage]] [[!Bloodthirsty Adversary]] [[!Torrential Gearhulk]] >> **Reanimate some artifacts** << [[!Triplicate Titan]] [[!Trash for Treasure]] [[!Daretti, Scrap Savant]] >> **Let's just bring everything back one-at-a-time** << [[!Portal to Phyrexia]] [[!God-Pharaoh's Gift]] [[!Virtue of Persistence]] >> --- ## Tokens Tokens Tokens --- Wait, tokens aren’t graveyard themed!? Well, one of the flipsides of needing lots of tokens for sacrifice is that you have a lot of them running around, and I’ve included support for going both wide and tall with tokens in case those sacrifice outlets don’t line up for you. Enablers <<[[!/Call of the Herd]] [[!/Battle Screech]] [[!/Honored Hydra]]>> Payoffs <<[[!/Divine Visitation]] [[!/Battle for Bretagard]] [[!/Intangible Virtue]]>>