General CBS

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Those super taplands are essentially unplayable. They are beyond atrocious. Just saying, from someone who started playing in earnest again during Champions block.
 
I can see it in an artifact-based cube where you only want colors occasionally for supporting spells or activated abilities.

I know you want to make these particular lands work, but this idea would probably pan out better with the Vivid cycle.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I think it's mostly just going to be a miserable experience going multicolor and people learn to draft monocolored decks so they don't stumble on mana and can take full advantage of the Guildless Commons. (Quick aside: does anyone else think it's ironic they made this an uncommon?)
 
It’s very funny actually. But it’s two different words.

Common
“Occurring or appearing frequently.”

Commons
“The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.“
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
It’s very funny actually. But it’s two different words.

Common
“Occurring or appearing frequently.”

Commons
“The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.“

I knew that ;)
 
I can only see those being playable in a desperate-for-color situation. All Wastes in the basic box would be a start.
 
Honestly, I think they're entirely playable if the cube is color-light in general. They also signal that you want to flicker or bounce them, since they are very technically untapped duals.

I also think you could get a potentially interesting environment out of making available mana not just grow monotonically (in the absence of land destruction).

...

Maybe replace them with ten Wastes, and fill the basic land box with exertlands instead? Then, after the draft, people can trade Wastes for basics in their colors.
 
I think just Wastes in the basics box and a format where you run a lot of mid-tier artifacts and a selection of colored cards that scale up in power based on the number of colored pips would get me to run those.

You could also consider Tarnished Citadel and Henge of Ramos. There's tons of bad lands you could find with a search. Perhaps a few basics in the main draft as some premium fixing.

Then make any ramp that has the potential to add colors be either over costed or have a drawback or some other kind.

It's definitely gimmicky, but I can see an appeal.

EDIT: Why is Tarnished Citadel $27?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
EDIT: Why is Tarnished Citadel $27?
The answer to questions like this nowadays is either speculators (for cards on the reserved list) or Commander (for other cards). Since it is not on the reserved list, sell your copies before this gets reprinted ;)
 
The answer to questions like this nowadays is either speculators (for cards on the reserved list) or Commander (for other cards). Since it is not on the reserved list, sell your copies before this gets reprinted ;)

Those are my mains two guesses, but neither one fits in this case.

For some STRANGE reason, I don't have any copies of this particular card...
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Those are my mains two guesses, but neither one fits in this case.

For some STRANGE reason, I don't have any copies of this particular card...

https://edhrec.com/cards/tarnished-citadel

It's in 6682 decks (at the time of posting this), or roughly 1% of 470216 eligible Commander decks. That's not an insignificant amount of decks. Also, https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/hhve0w/tarnished_citadel/. Apparently it's been popularized by prominent figures in the cEDH community.
 
Fellow Riptidians, I want to talk about mana sweet spots.
This is pretty relevant when crafting an environment, and I think you're doing good with what you learned from limited, since cube decks usually also have a deck size of 40 and therefore a similar land:spell ratio.

I just wanted to ask how your personal experiences are and how you put that experience into your cubes?

For example, there are some rules of thumb, like having a land:spell ratio of 17:23 will often be a good point to start, shifting slightly if you're drafting either a very aggressive deck or a grindy top-heavy deck. With this 17:23 ratio, hitting 5 lands often is the maximum for non-durdly decks, and it's not too likely to have it on t5, so everything costing 5 and more usually doesn't follow the same rules as everything else that's below, especially for more aggressive decks.

Let me explain with an example:
Clarion Spirit is a 2drop with a reasonable body and a good ability you have to do some work for, you could follow it up with 1drop/2drop also creating a spirit token, or just a three drop like Hissing Iguanar, then following up with two 2drops also creating a spirit token or a four drop like Sling-Gang Lieutenant. So far, I'd say the cards are on par powerlevelwise, for what they do for their respective cost. Now, especially for an aggressive deck, dropping something that's 5 mana should actually be worth having 5 lands on the table, so I'd easily go up in powerlevel with the next card: Angel of Invention. Comparing the Lieutenant to the Angel, you're getting a lot more for 1 more mana. Maybe comparing it to Visionary Augmenter makes it even clearer: the same statline and fabricate 2, but for 1 more mana, you also get flying, lifelink and a Glorious Anthem attached to the body!

While tinkering on my current version, I strictly followed the rule of a tight power band, since I wanted to craft an environment with not so clear first picks, people should be enticed to pick something they find interesting. This could end up problematic in theory, but for now, that's something I'm willing to follow and see where it gets me, since I'm sure people drafting my cube will think that there are some clear picks for them, since they won't know the whole environment and have something to discover, so the draft dynamics will evolve draft per draft.

Now, getting to the point:
wouldn't you say it makes sense breaking this rule for cards with a higher cmc? Angel of Invention looks so much better than Sling-Gang Lieutenant on paper, but my cube is going to end up faster than most limited environments, and there are going to be at least some wrath effects in it, especially full sweepers starting with cmc 5, so I'd say there are actually reasons why Angel of Invention isn't strictly better, or even a clearer pick than the lieutenant.

With my rule of the tight power band, I want to avoid having format-defining bombs/spoilers, since that's what actually killed limited for a lot of people I know (one of the reasons I won't run any planeswalkers). My biggest concern with breaking this rule would be shifting the fight over bombs just to a higher cmc overall, but having it nonetheless.

it's btw not only the angel I think about (re)adding to my cube, another prominent example would be Dream Eater, a card I really, really like, but that's also kinda strong compared to what other cards in my cube can do, but it's also six mana and, just like the angel, weak to a lot of removal, but coming with some instant value.

maybe that's something that is very clear to a lot of people here, but I actually find that to be an interesting topic, and since I want to create a great limited experience with my cube, I also find this to be an important thing to consider.
 
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