Article ChannelFireball: Utility Land Draft

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I am considering adding a utility land draft to my cube, since I found I had to cut all the cool utility lands from my 360 cube in order to make room for other cards. This will only get worse I predict once Conspiracy rolls around, those draft matters cards look really sweet.

The consensus seems to be that you don't want to overload on color fixing, but different decks want different kinds of fixing. I was thinking, maybe you can put 10 mana fix piles (one for each color pair) in the middle. Once a card from a pile gets chosen, turn that pile face down. You effectively still have only 10 fixers in your utility draft, but aggro can opt for the pain land, while control can pick a scry land. How does that sound?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Sounds cool. How would it work? First guy to take a fixing land from a stack closes the stack off to the rest of the group? That would add a cool dynamic actually. I worry about adding too many parameters to the utility land draft just because it adds time though. But that's a minor issue and might not even apply outside my group (who are impatient to get to the actual playing).
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Now that I've seen it in action, I think I prefer Jason's redeemable "Temple of <CHOICE>" and "Painland of <CHOICE>" tech. You could have two or three of each. This would prevent someone from just grabbing four different control-friendly dual lands for their multicolour good stuff deck, which might turn your "sweet spell-lands utility draft" into a "poor man's fixing draft".
 
Diakonov

Diakonov

After today's cube draft, players were clamoring for certain cards to return to the regular draft. Some notables:

Windbrisk Heights
Shelldock Isle
Volrath's Stronghold
Gaea's Cradle

Perhaps some others. Thoughts?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Diakonov said:
After today's cube draft, players were clamoring for certain cards to return to the regular draft. Some notables:

Windbrisk Heights
Shelldock Isle
Volrath's Stronghold
Gaea's Cradle

Perhaps some others. Thoughts?
Click to expand...


Due to power level? I think that's a fair concern. I'm guessing all 4 of these cards are auto picks in the utility land draft? That's probably a sign they don't belong there.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Windbrisk takes enough finessing and setup that I don't think it's on par with most of the spells in your cube, so I'd leave it in the utility pile. Shelldock Isle is borderline - while it's insane in something like the MTGO cube or most large singleton cubes, with their slow-as-molasses environments, it's actually closer to mediocre in fast cube environments, where you can't count on whittling down to twenty cards except in the control mirror. This is one that bounces back and forth between the main cube and the utility list here.

Volrath's Stronghold and Gaea's Cradle should probably both get the promotion, though. Them cards are good.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
CML said:
Shelldock is far better than Stronghold and Cradle
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This has not been my experience at all. Shelldock is usually very marginal here. I'd put Volrath top the list, although sometimes tapping for colorless is a huge drawback.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Last Friday someone managed to cast Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker off Shelldock Isle twice during the evening. That stuff is epic :)
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Eric Chan said:
Shelldock Isle is borderline - while it's insane in something like the MTGO cube or most large singleton cubes, with their slow-as-molasses environments, it's actually closer to mediocre in fast cube environments, where you can't count on whittling down to twenty cards except in the control mirror. This is one that bounces back and forth between the main cube and the utility list here.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The power of Shelldock is totally based on how fast your cube plays.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Changes for James Stevenson:

remove:
City of Brass
Greypelt Refuge
Seraph Sanctuary
Evolving Wilds

add:
Mirage Fetchland of <Choice>
Fastland of <Choice>
(add the Journey Temples)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Uh.....
kXFCqyqgyk_EN.jpg
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Sure, why not? It's a utility land draft, so it still works, even though revealing it is a bit pointless when it's already face up :) I think it's a super cute card as well, since your neighbors will probably not name a color they themselves are playing to try and keep you out of their colors. That's a nice signal for you, and if you end up in the named colors it is pretty much the best mana fixing possible on a land.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
ahadabans said:
Agreed. The power of Shelldock is totally based on how fast your cube plays.
Click to expand...


is anybody activating Volrath's Stronghold all that early? surely even a fast Cube can support decks that want to slow things down where both these cards are nuts. Shelldock is more powerful, though, I assume the reason Wadds assesses it the other way is due to how it's easier to remember that a few Volrath's activations let it take over the game, while when you play against Shelldock you still 'lose to Frost Titan.' That and an antipathy towards Blue which I share
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member


Are the Worldwake manlands a better fit for the utility draft, or the main cube? I've been running mine in the main list for a long time, but someone remarked last night that they weren't quite cutting it, and suggested I move them to the utility pile. I'm not sure I agree with that assessment - Colonnade is a home run win condition for UW - but I can see the argument applying to the lesser manlands of the cycle (sorry, Lavaclaw).
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:


Are the Worldwake manlands a better fit for the utility draft, or the main cube? I've been running mine in the main list for a long time, but someone remarked last night that they weren't quite cutting it, and suggested I move them to the utility pile. I'm not sure I agree with that assessment - Colonnade is a home run win condition for UW - but I can see the argument applying to the lesser manlands of the cycle (sorry, Lavaclaw).
Click to expand...

Which ones were underpreforming? I've never had anyone say that about at least the UW and UB ones. GR might have been a bit top heavy for what the colors were normally doing, but it was solid.

That all being said, I've never run lavaclaw reaches or stirring wildwood in my cube.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yeah, I'm with you. I think Reaches and Wildwood are pretty easy cube cuts, regardless of whether they make it to the utility draft.

My main list has:
2x Shocklands (20)
2x Fetches (20)
1x WWK Manlands (5)
1x Mutavault
1x Reflecting pool

And then my utility pile has, for fixing:
2x <Bouceland of choice>
2x <Painland of choice>
1x Cavern of Souls
1x City of Brass
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Terramorphic Expanse
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I've also got a UR manland ( {U}{R}{1}: becomes a 3/3 flying) which has been nice. They're really nice for the control decks, and I feel if there's a color combo that needed one, UR was it
 
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