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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Cloudpost in the basic land box go
This is arguably the worst idea for a format I've ever heard of, and I've given serious thought to building a Yet Another Aether Vortex cube.
Like, I know it's a joke, but the problem here is that Cloudpost counts all Locuses in play. If both players make their land-drops on the first couple of turns, whoever's on the play can hard-cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on T3.
At that point, you might as well just build a Type 4 cube, because it'd actually be more balanced to give everyone infinite mana than it would to give each player more than double the mana of the previous person to go.
I also did this via ULD and it was super broken.
We used to have Cloudpost in our Fantasy Cube back when we didn't do Coliseum and now Ascension.
One pick gave you three Cloudposts. The card looked like this
It was a little too good. Three was on the high end of copies to get from one pick. The sweet spot would have been somewhere between 2.5 or 2.75 Cloudpost.
I always wanted for the Cloudpost pick to be replaced by Urza's lands but I never found a good way to do it. I thought about giving all 3 lands in a single pick and then include 3 of those picks into the cube (9 lands split over 3 draft picks) but that seemed like a poor solution.
I like @LadyMapi 's solution with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers. Never thought about that one. It might play different but it kind of feels like the same A+B.
One pick gave you three Cloudposts. The card looked like this
It was a little too good. Three was on the high end of copies to get from one pick. The sweet spot would have been somewhere between 2.5 or 2.75 Cloudpost.
I always wanted for the Cloudpost pick to be replaced by Urza's lands but I never found a good way to do it. I thought about giving all 3 lands in a single pick and then include 3 of those picks into the cube (9 lands split over 3 draft picks) but that seemed like a poor solution.
I like @LadyMapi 's solution with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers. Never thought about that one. It might play different but it kind of feels like the same A+B.
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I need some help for a non-Magic project.
I'm looking for the most high resolution artwork of
- Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings
- Westeros from Game of Thrones
- The Lands Between from Elden Ring
Map view
I want some art on the walls in my home cinema room. They are for acoustic purposes as well as art.
I'm looking for the most high resolution artwork of
- Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings
- Westeros from Game of Thrones
- The Lands Between from Elden Ring
Map view
I want some art on the walls in my home cinema room. They are for acoustic purposes as well as art.
Is it just me, or have we come full circle into agreeing that the Tron lands are actually the right balance between effort and reward? It seems like they're a bad idea regardless (too high a power level delta between success and failure), but if you are going to try something like that, it should be them.
I am building a lower power format with themes that are outside of my usual wheelhouse (WIP: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/zwej).
I am trying to include targeted spells for a heroic style archetype as a broad theme across most colors: Auras, equipments, instants/sorceries and even mutate!
That's where it gets dicey for me. Mutate has the annoying non-human clause, but I find myself with humans I want to run in White. A few options:
1. Cutting mutate in White and letting auras, equipments and instants/sorceries do the work.
2. Cutting humans to simplify mutate.
3. Cutting mutate cards, they are cool but warp the format too much in terms of complexity.
My least favorite option is 2 as there are bound to be more cool humans printed and it seems very limiting design-wise.
I am trying to include targeted spells for a heroic style archetype as a broad theme across most colors: Auras, equipments, instants/sorceries and even mutate!
That's where it gets dicey for me. Mutate has the annoying non-human clause, but I find myself with humans I want to run in White. A few options:
1. Cutting mutate in White and letting auras, equipments and instants/sorceries do the work.
2. Cutting humans to simplify mutate.
3. Cutting mutate cards, they are cool but warp the format too much in terms of complexity.
My least favorite option is 2 as there are bound to be more cool humans printed and it seems very limiting design-wise.
Proxy/sharpie the humans to be other creature types.
Or run no humans apart from Champion of the Parish just to mess with your drafters.
Or run no humans apart from Champion of the Parish just to mess with your drafters.
I'd probably just avoid Mutate altogether. Not a real big fan of the mechanic, I don't think you can really simplify it much, and there's not a whole lot of depth to it the last that I checked. I wouldn't be surprised if we just never hear of the mechanic again ala Energy 5 years out. You've got way more to work with via the other 3 options you've highlighted for targeted spells. Removing humans feels kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don't think it's worth doing that for the 36 mutate cards that exist.
I was going to say sharpie out the non-human clause of mutate.
On a different land-related note...
I feel like this cycle is the best cycle of dual lands WotC has ever printed, as far as drafting is concerned.
You see, each one is secretly four different dual lands, and you choose which one it is when you play it.
Want your aggressive Boros deck to be able to transform into a midrange-y Mardu deck through sideboarding? Have a bunch of lands that transform from Sacred Peaks into Sunlit Marshes or Geothermal Bogs now that you've boarded in your black cards. Decide that it'd be better to be in Naya instead? Now they're Radiant Groves or Wooded Ridgelines.
The really nice thing, though, is that it makes dual lands more interesting for players in a single color pair. If you run two full cycles of Shocks (for example), a given color pair is only going to be interested in 10% of those lands, while a wedge/shard is going to be interested in 30% of them. If you run the equivalent number of Thriving lands, on the other hand, each color pair is going to be interested in 40% of those lands, while wedges/shards will be interested in 60% of them.
It also cuts down on the chance that you'll pick up some dual lands early on and then pivot into different colors later on because it turns out that one or more of those colors weren't actually open. Like, I'm not the only one this happens to, right?
I feel like this cycle is the best cycle of dual lands WotC has ever printed, as far as drafting is concerned.
You see, each one is secretly four different dual lands, and you choose which one it is when you play it.
Want your aggressive Boros deck to be able to transform into a midrange-y Mardu deck through sideboarding? Have a bunch of lands that transform from Sacred Peaks into Sunlit Marshes or Geothermal Bogs now that you've boarded in your black cards. Decide that it'd be better to be in Naya instead? Now they're Radiant Groves or Wooded Ridgelines.
The really nice thing, though, is that it makes dual lands more interesting for players in a single color pair. If you run two full cycles of Shocks (for example), a given color pair is only going to be interested in 10% of those lands, while a wedge/shard is going to be interested in 30% of them. If you run the equivalent number of Thriving lands, on the other hand, each color pair is going to be interested in 40% of those lands, while wedges/shards will be interested in 60% of them.
It also cuts down on the chance that you'll pick up some dual lands early on and then pivot into different colors later on because it turns out that one or more of those colors weren't actually open. Like, I'm not the only one this happens to, right?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
They are probably the 2nd most flexible lands behind fetchlands
While this is true, it's important to keep in mind that fetches only achieve that flexibility if you have fetchable non-basics. If you only have basic Islands and Mountains in your deck, Scalding Tarn is basically just a funky Riverglide Pathway.
(This is just stating the obvious, sure, but it does have implications when it comes to how you have to set up your format.)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The problem is my aggressive Boros deck doesn't want to run taplands in the first placeOn a different land-related note...
I feel like this cycle is the best cycle of dual lands WotC has ever printed, as far as drafting is concerned.
You see, each one is secretly four different dual lands, and you choose which one it is when you play it.
Want your aggressive Boros deck to be able to transform into a midrange-y Mardu deck through sideboarding?
I also dislike the memory issues when using them in a three color deck, though that's nothing a slip of paper can't fix.thriving shocks
The memory issue is a problem, yeah.The problem is my aggressive Boros deck doesn't want to run taplands in the first place
As for the taplands thing... honestly, blacksmithy probably has the right idea if your aggressive decks have go under other decks to work properly (and aren't based on, say, trading card advantage for snowballing on-board value).
...
A kinda-incoherent side note: I feel like the traditional division of archetypes into "aggro", "control", and the like tends to assume a lot about how formats work that doesn't even necessarily apply to most of the "official" formats, let alone something like cube.
Like, what if my aggressive Boros deck is built around using Zirda to make stuff like Fearless Liberator or Paladin Class *really* cost-effective?
yeah my boros and rakdos decks have always historically been receptive to a tapped land or two. Rakdos is built around aggressive staying power through recursion and the like, so doesn't need to win in the first 3.5 turns, and boros is an equipment deck that can hit a power curve in the midgame if an initial push wasn't effective.
I want a casual deck for work. Needs to be budget and I think that Battle of Wits will be fun for myself and the kids. However, I don't want to be searching this big pile of cards, so none of that. I also don't think that a budget mana base of 100 lands is going to facilitate any kind of faster deck. Should probably be 2-3 colors for the budget mana base. Anyone have any cute ideas? There's so much space in a list.
Their decks are made out of random stuff of a huge variety of strengths, but everyone's well below Modern power level. Like tier 3 Modern power level will be plenty competitive lol.
Their decks are made out of random stuff of a huge variety of strengths, but everyone's well below Modern power level. Like tier 3 Modern power level will be plenty competitive lol.
Without searching you probably need every Time Twister effect there is. Also Propaganda and similar pillow fort cards to survive until you draw the Battle of Wits. There was a Canlander decklist from Ben Wheeler where he built a 250 cards deck winning with Battle of Wits. Maybe that can help you getting a few ideas. That's a link to his decklist.
Well, the deck doesn't have to win via Battle specifically.
There's a Modern build that uses Bring to Light, Scapeshift, Gifts, and every combo it can pack into the 250 card list so that it has a ton of 4-5 mana instant wins. Battle happens to be one of them.
There was a Battle of Wits Zoo deck that played all the repetitive threats from Zoo decks through the years and only had Battle in there as a 5 mana instant win, for example. I'd probably run something like this online because I love Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion and the 250 card deck severely decreases the odds of drawing Emperion.
Not saying any of this is especially powerful. Just pointing out that a Battle deck can have more cards that win the game. It doesn't have to be all tutoring for Battle. It's potentially even more enjoyable when the Battle has to be a natural draw.
There's a Modern build that uses Bring to Light, Scapeshift, Gifts, and every combo it can pack into the 250 card list so that it has a ton of 4-5 mana instant wins. Battle happens to be one of them.
There was a Battle of Wits Zoo deck that played all the repetitive threats from Zoo decks through the years and only had Battle in there as a 5 mana instant win, for example. I'd probably run something like this online because I love Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion and the 250 card deck severely decreases the odds of drawing Emperion.
Not saying any of this is especially powerful. Just pointing out that a Battle deck can have more cards that win the game. It doesn't have to be all tutoring for Battle. It's potentially even more enjoyable when the Battle has to be a natural draw.