General CBS

[EzPzJapanezy]

Why the Masticore? It seems like a worse card than let's say Putrid Goblin, for this deck.

The discard requirement on cast makes it generally worse than Putrid Goblin in most decks that are all in on the Persist combo itself, I would agree. I might have been projecting my own list a bit too much here, apologies.

I support artifact / welder and reanimator pretty heavily, and Masticore works well in both. Even with the Discard requirement, it being colorless is helpful when Persist shells have to dip into 4 colors. It being an artifact creature is both a liability and a boon. A lot of cards can remove it, but it juices some classics like Arcbound Ravager and Krark-Clan Ironworks. In the case of Ironworks, it can 'combo' into a board wipe using its expensive Activated Ability (this isn't relevant for your list but it is too cute for me not to point out lol).

But buffing specific cards is a claim to fame that Putrid Goblin has as well, and looking a little bit harder at your list it might be more exciting on that front. Pashalik Mons becomes lethal as a typal-blood-artist with it, and while it can be a little pricey the sacrifice Ability would put in work here too. Goblin Trashmaster is a little wonky here, but from my understanding he can situationally sacrifice Putrid / Redcap infinite times if there is a single valid artifact to target?

They both have their pros and cons in your list, it is a hard call to make, I'd say just trust your gut.

 

[ravnic]

Great catch! Didn't think of Trashmaster but of course ti would work with Redcap and Putrid Goblin. Now all I want to see is someone draft a nice Rakdos/Jund Goblin deck with a potential persist combo, including Goblin trashmaster, Murderous Redcap, Metallic Mimic and Grumgully the Generous.

The discard requirement on cast makes it generally worse than Putrid Goblin in most decks that are all in on the Persist combo itself, I would agree. I might have been projecting my own list a bit too much here, apologies.

I support artifact / welder and reanimator pretty heavily, and Masticore works well in both. Even with the Discard requirement, it being colorless is helpful when Persist shells have to dip into 4 colors. It being an artifact creature is both a liability and a boon. A lot of cards can remove it, but it juices some classics like Arcbound Ravager and Krark-Clan Ironworks. In the case of Ironworks, it can 'combo' into a board wipe using its expensive Activated Ability (this isn't relevant for your list but it is too cute for me not to point out lol).

Checks out, I see. I also have a lot of discard stuff going on, mostly madness but reanimator too. However, I never got around to test the Masticor yet, because it just reads sooo clunky. Maybe this new application will change my mind ...

 

[MilesOfficial]

So now we've got two land cycles which I've always liked completed, and I'm thinking a lot about it.

Now, I've never been one who's concerned with having complete cycles in Cube. That said, I do have four complete land cycles in my two-color guilds: ABU duals, Ravnica shocks, fetches, and MKM surveil lands. The other two dual-color lands are flexible, sometimes chosen for aesthetic/nostalgia like the poorly fitting Ice Age Adarkar Wastes, sometimes chosen for vibes like Mount Doom, but generally chosen because it's the ideal two-color dual land for the combo regardless of whether it's from a finished cycle or not, like Fiery Islet.

I have, at writing, 8 of the "verges". I like these because they tap for colored mana on turn 1/2 no matter what. They're easily understood don't have too many words on them. I'm saving my complexity for other things in my Cube!

But man, I don't like the art on them. For a long time, I ran the ten Kaldheim extended art MDFC lands, a mix of the Secret Lair and the Kaldheim set ones, for aesthetics alone. They were sweet, and served the same purpose as the Verges. But they were too fiddly, and I've really pulled away from DFCs, and recently cut the last of my MDFCs. This has been a painful process, but I think a good one for my Cube's sake. I'm willing to suffer the word count of a The Legend of Roku because it's more straightforward in its execution and doesn't rely on knowing every ounce of detail of both sides at once, just as I am with Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy. But now, I'm procrastinating by doing sample drafts, and yeah, I don't like to see Aetherdrift more than I have to, and I especially think the omenpaths look like the kind of MOBA aesthetic that drives me crazy in SOS.

So the solution? Maybe I replace the verges with the tango lands or the cycling lands. The cycling lands match my Cube much better, giving another ten cards that can discard. I'd like to keep it a whole cycle or most of one for the sake of giving my drafters an additional shorthand. The issue? The art on the cycling lands isn't much better.


The "best" choices for some of the cycling lands. I don't mind the Scattered Groves one generally, but it looks more like a RW land than a GW one.

Sure, it's fine. But when my basic land box has over 300 unique cards that are all chosen to be the height of aesthetic brilliance from the game's history, it's rough having only 1-2 choices for most of these, especially in the cases where I think every option is underwhelming. There's a high volume of UB art here too, which normally isn't an issue, but ends up being rough when there are so many non-fantasy elements going on, and lands are one place where I most am concerned about Magic looking like Magic. It doesn't help that the original cycle of these were from Amonkhet, a fine plane, but one with a slightly undercooked visual identity in its landscapes.

Does Umbral Expanse help alleviate this concern? Absolutely.

But the tango lands are so much better.






Sunken Hollow and Cinder Glade have multiple I really really like.

So yeah! I only run one suite of fetch lands in 720 cards and only Farseek and Nature's Lore that would care about them beyond that, so the land types are pretty secondary here. Should I make the art swap?

 

[shamizy]

The Tango Lands are my favorite cycle after Shocks and Surveils gameplay wise. They're perfect fixing for their respective two-color decks, promote better sequencing decisions (either playing tapped early for fixing options or two basics for untapped entry on T3), and are obviously fetchable. Having multiple great art options gives you a lot of flexibility on which to deploy.

These would already be in my cube, but I'm waiting to swap back once they make foil copies available for all of the enemy options.

 

[ravnic]

Have you considered ~20-60 Prismatic Vistas instead?

 

[ravnic]

On a more serious note, I totally get your problem with the bicycle land arts. The Festering Thicket from the Lorwyn Eclipsed commander decks is very nice, and I like Irrigated Farmland for being very unique, and of course the new Umbral expanse looks awesome. But a lot of them are... mediocre.

Since you mentioned that basic land types don't really matter that much for you and since you are running shock lands, have you considered running a full cycle of pain lands? I am running the full cycle from tenth edition, and they all look gorgeous. They have beautiful artworks from classic Magic artists like Rob Alexander, John Avon, or Anthony S. Waters. All of them are incredible, and they play, if fetching doesn't matter as much, almost like shock lands, sometimes even better, because you just might need to ping yourself once.

 

[MilesOfficial]

On a more serious note, I totally get your problem with the bicycle land arts. The Festering Thicket from the Lorwyn Eclipsed commander decks is very nice, and I like Irrigated Farmland for being very unique, and of course the new Umbral expanse looks awesome. But a lot of them are... mediocre.

Since you mentioned that basic land types don't really matter that much for you and since you are running shock lands, have you considered running a full cycle of pain lands? I am running the full cycle from tenth edition, and they all look gorgeous. They have beautiful artworks from classic Magic artists like Rob Alexander, John Avon, or Anthony S. Waters. All of them are incredible, and they play, if fetching doesn't matter as much, almost like shock lands, sometimes even better, because you just might need to ping yourself once.

I run a few of them, and there's 10 with good art. But I think the Ice Age ones (which I would 500% use for the allied pairs) are too hard to read and I probably should include them now.

 

[ravnic]

If there is a full cycle, that makes them all easier to parse for drafter, just sayin