Rocky Mountain Yetis

The last paper cards I bought as a kid were Tempest. I’d been eyeing the new spoilers for weeks and this set had it all – big creatures, flashy spells, actual characters as cards. I took half my savings from my allowance to the game store and spent it on ten booster packs. Ten! I was balling. The store owner asked if my friend and I wanted to split a box but that was way out of our price range. This was the most I had ever spent on Magic and I couldn’t wait to have all the best cards for once. I ripped open those packs and marveled at the weirdness. I played with those cards non-stop until I stopped playing Magic altogether.

About the cube

This Tempest cube was my attempt a unique and ideal cube experience. Aesthetics is important to me so I wanted a consistent look. Ideally all the cards were from one era of art. I had played a friend’s Mirage cube and had a blast reminiscing back to an old environment. I decided to finally polish off the rough edges of a Tempest cube I had half put together and acquire the remaining cards. From my big money purchase in 1997 I already had a good start. I am pleased to say that I opened from packs half the cards in this cube back in the day.

When Mark Rosewater designed Tempest, he was trying to cram so much in that the set is jam packed with story cards, bizarre mechanics, and oodles of interactions. When I decided to put the cube together, the number one experience I wanted to make happen was make slivers great again. After a brief internal debate, I broke singleton and slotted cards into rarities of common, uncommon, and rare, with respectively three, two, and one of each. This let me play three Muscle Slivers but also get extra mileage out of Kindle, Wood Sage, and Lobotomy. You can see the cube list and top deck types here. Let’s get on to the draft today.

The players

1st place: Luke 3-0
Luke took down the day with an excellent Black/Red aggro deck. Tempest is known for being a fast environment with efficient beaters and ample burn. Luke’s deck did not disappoint. He snagged most of the burn that went round, but also played other bombs like Hatred, Rathi Dragon, and Furnace of Rath. He got in two kills with Hatred for the day, but Furnace of Rath never made an appearance.

My first match was against Luke. We both started fast with his Jackal Pups and my shadow Soltari Priests. Game 1 he couldn’t block my attackers and I couldn’t block his. His were a bit faster and with some burn, game 1 ended in a hurry. Game 2 I managed to stick an en-kor to hold off his assault while my priests sleuthed in again unobstructed for the win. 

Game 3, He played an early Fireslinger. I didn’t get any guys with protection from red so he could kill my whole army. I had a Kor Chant to take out his pinger but needed five mana to pull it off. I finally do, but it’s too late and he ends the game with two Kindles right at my face.

Luke goes on to blitz the rest of the competition and take home the trophy for the day. Well done!

2nd place: Brian 2-1
Brian drafted a strong Blue/Black deck with lots of countermagic, creature removal, and ways to bring things back. Cursed Scroll was too strong for Tempest Constructed and got banned, but here in cube it is A-Okay!

Here Brian is seen buying back a Forbid (again) to keep Luke’s Mogg Flunky alone and unable to attack. Luke ended up taking down this finals match but Brian is looking pretty good from this pic.

3rd place: Brandon 2-1
Brandon and I both wanted to draft monowhite today. He had some great suggestions on how to make white more powerful after the last time we drafted the cube together and we both wanted to try them out. He was more committed to it and ended up getting the powerhouse enchantments like Humility, Spirit Mirror, and Field of Souls. He put those to good use with the Helm of Possession to win games.

Humility + Spirit Mirror is a brutal combo that keeps your creatures coming back. You can see a commanding board state here with a lot of those white combo pieces coming together nicely.

4th place: Chad 1-2
I really wanted to see one person draft slivers and Chad proudly stepped up to the plate. He grabbed Sliver Queen early and after some debate if playing 5 colors in draft was too greedy, he did the right thing and went big with the Big One herself. His deck came together beautifully with all the right pieces and he had more slivers in his sideboard if he needed them.

He stomped me handily, attacking for 18 damage on the fifth turn. I had a Capsize in hand to survive one more turn and let me cast Dream Halls, but he had redundant Muscle Slivers and Heart Slivers that did me in.

Chad lived the dream and got the Queen into play. Pacifism and Shackles can’t stop this mean one from pumping out a brood of critters. He was set up to turbocharge her with Awakening to make even more little ones.

But Brandon was prepared, with one of the few answers for her. He snags her with Helm of Possession and he is the one pumping out baby slivers.

5th place: Me 1-2
Having only drafted this cube once, I really wanted to play monowhite. I also dreamed of playing Dream Halls. Dream Halls needs specific cards to work, but it should be lots of fun if I can pull it off. Pack 1 I open a Meditate, one of the key cards, and know I can’t pass up a chance at the combo. Pack 2 has nothing, so I pivot back to white weenie. I fail to ever make up my mind going back and forth, but with only six of us drafting today, I ended getting enough of each to build an okay version of each deck. I pick white weenie as my main but end up transforming into an entirely different deck for some of my games.

My white weenie played great and I was pretty happy with it. It was missing a few removal spells and a bit smoother curve that would have bumped it from just below average to just above. I only picked 22 white cards while drafting two decks at the same time, so I had to play 18 lands in the low-curve deck which bit me a bit. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

The real dream was pulling together this crazy combo deck. Dream Halls was declared the worst card in Stronghold by Inquest when the set came out but Zvi Mowshowitz built a top tournament deck using the now often-banned card. I love combo and pulling off something like this in cube is wholly satisfying. This version had almost every key piece. Evacuation boosts the deck quite a bit with the ability to play the two Scriveners again and draw eight more cards with Meditates, but I never saw it. It could have had a few more cheap answers in red or blue like Shock or Mana Leak, but you can’t have everything.

My last match against Starr I got to pull it off and play Dream Halls on turn five and win on the spot. I didn’t know if this deck would work in real life but it was just like I drew it up. I did try the combo earlier against Luke in a bonus match and despite landing Dream Halls, the Meditates didn’t draw me the cards I needed to keep going and he burned me out before I got to go again.

6th place: Starr 0-3
Starr is newer to our play group and started playing more than a decade after these cards were printed, so she was a trooper to come out and play this cube with us. She drafted a solid Blue/Red deck with good cards but today just wasn’t her day. She did halt my white deck with Propaganda in game 1. I had a bunch of pegasus tokens but they couldn’t attack because I’d sacrified my lands for more pegasus tokens. Her Mawcor and Searing Touch took them out anyway and then she could attack in for the kill.

Games 2 and 3 I tried out the Dream Halls combo and it worked well enough to take down the match for 5th place. Great games Starr! I’m so glad you made it out to play with us.