Article ChannelFireball: Utility Land Draft

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Suicufnoc said:
Someone needs to put together a list where the fixing is like 4 or 5 complete cycles of Filter Lands, and that's it.
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YEEEEESSSSSSSSS. I have been suggesting this. Someone else do the work though. :D

Ok, but more seriously, the most interesting thing it lets you do is curve CC into DDX much more reliably. Or C into DD as stated. And it's actually not obvious how to take advantage of this in an interesting way in every color. I think it does make W/x aggro better though. There are a lot of white aggro cards with a heavy white commitment.

I mean check out this white section. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcurve/43329 I think a lot of these cards are more reliably castable with a metric shitton of filter lands.

Having way more trouble figuring out the other sections though.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member


Are these just hot garbage? I had pretty high hopes for most of them, but after playing with them for a while, I'm kinda underwhelmed.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Eh, I don't mind them. Looming Spires plays pretty on-par with Teetering Peaks (it's better if they want to block, worse if they don't).
 
Ferritovore

Ferritovore

Eric Chan said:
Are these just hot garbage? I had pretty high hopes for most of them, but after playing with them for a while, I'm kinda underwhelmed.
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You'll have to take the plunge and build a Parlante-style bounceland-using cube to find out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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In the low dregsy power of the New Player drafts on MTGO, which are 3 boosters each and only 4 drafters, I have gotten a ton of value out of the black tapland even in non-black decks. I don't use the others as much but I like all of them except the green one.

YMMV but I prefer B, W, R, U in that order. Straight don't use the green one ever.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

My first impression of Mortuary Mire is that it was a really awful Volrath's. I actually really like it now, but I suspect it's too slow for faster cubes. Red one is fine but unexciting. Green I haven't run but I feel like it should be good actually, especially with a borderline hand (5 deep should almost guarantee you hit a land). I want to test that one but that slot is probably better left as Treetop Village. White one has been pretty crappy, but it could be like Mire where it has more impact later in the game. I've honestly only seen it in play once.
 
Ferritovore

Ferritovore

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RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I tried Keldon Megaliths for a long while and I'd advise against it

It was live a lot less often than I wanted, and it encouraged bad plays to empty your hand for minimal value. I'd pretty firmly advise against it unless Hellbent/Madness is a "thing" in your cube, and even then, the value of it is really quite questionable. If it didn't enter tapped, I might be a tad more open-minded, but ETB tapped lands have a real cost to them in low-curve oriented formats. Obviously YMMV but I think it's trash and I tested it pretty hard (same goes for Shivan Gorge fyi)
 
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Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Hellbent is one of those mechanics that is 'on' a lot less often in practise than I would've guessed, even in aggressive red and/or black decks. It's not all that common for an aggro deck to be completely out of gas and relying solely on the top of their deck, and that might be because cube games don't go quite as long as constructed ones do. I've tried a bunch of hellbent cards over the years - most recently, honourary club member Blood Scrivener - and, like for RavebornMuse, none of them panned out.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Chris: MTGO Academy said:
How did the decks perform? How do you draft your ULD lands?
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I lay out the ULD pile in the middle of the table at the start of the draft. After the third booster we snake draft four picks per person. In the draft without the ULD I did not notice any glaring deficiencies. Mana was good (the mana fixing is mostly in the cube anyway), and people did not really miss the utility lands. Games were still fun, and the draft was much less of a hassle. Afterwards it was easier to disassemble the decks as well, because only basic lands were added. In the games with ULD I heard people complaining about certain utility lands, mainly Nephalia Drownyard and Shelldock Isle. I think if I add those and other popular/archetype promoting lands to the cube again, both the drafts and the disassembling after the draft might play out a bit quicker.
 
B8R

B8R

I'm on the fence about it. I did cut down the draft to 2 picks (at the end), which helped save some time. I was also routinely running only 2 of the lands anyway when I picked 4, so it seemed like an easy cut. I'm getting a little tired of the same suspects getting picked and played though: Treetop Village, Shelldock Isle, etc, etc. I kind wish the power level on the spread was a little flatter.
 
Diakonov

Diakonov

Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yeah, over the years I've also found that a) some of the high-powered utility lands belong in the main list, because they're clearly deserving of a pick over some marginal 24th spell, and b) four picks per person is a hair too many. I've alternated between two and three picks per drafter, and have currently settled on three - each person takes one land in the first round, then it snakes, and you take two lands in the second round.

It doesn't take any additional time if you run it while people are building their decks, and have the utility lands laid out alongside wherever you put your basics.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Eric Chan said:
It doesn't take any additional time if you run it while people are building their decks, and have the utility lands laid out alongside wherever you put your basics.
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I've found this to not be true, but maybe I've got a picky audience?

Diakonov said:
I added Academy Ruins, Faerie Conclave, Shelldock Isle, Phyrexian Tower, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Volrath's Stronghold, Gaea's Cradle, Treetop Village, and Yavimaya Hollow to the main cube, and people are happy with it. Like B8R, I've gone down to only 2 ULD picks, since we found that without the high-powered ULD cards people didn't even really feel the need for a third one and just want to finish building their decks. I still like having it, though.

Love the new avatar, Eric.
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I was going to add some of the finest utility lands to the main cube, and figured the rest will sort itself out. Maybe give the player who drafts Life from the Loam some cyclers or so, but other than that. Eh.

Also, I agree on the avatar :)
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Onderzeeboot said:
I've found this to not be true, but maybe I've got a picky audience?
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It takes a mortal age for my drafters to figure out what they're picking, but tbh more than half of them have never seen these lands and/or don't understand why they'd want them. I guess maybe that's an argument for not having them. But the flip side is that killing them with cool lands is the only way they'd ever learn...

Onderzeeboot said:
Also, I agree on the avatar :)
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Velrun

Velrun

(Up)

I've been doing the Utility Land Draft and most people find it awesome. Now I've come to the point where I would like to try this "Temple of 'Choose'" in the land pile. How did you guys do it?

Did you make a custom card proxy with some cool artwork and the text "Choose a Temple. Add this to your draft pile" or?
 
vennythekid

vennythekid

I kept a penny sleeve with the 10 temples proxied in them, then wrote over a basic plains "Temple of Choice". Upon selecting the temple, I slid the paper proxy over the plains, and boom, temple of choice. I keep my ULD in a binder, that helps a lot with the organization.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Not until I find a good way to do it ;)

I need something visually beautiful. I'm thinking of a proxy with text explaining but what kind of artwork could lead the drafter to see all 10 Temples in the card?
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Velrun said:
Not until I find a good way to do it ;)

I need something visually beautiful. I'm thinking of a proxy with text explaining but what kind of artwork could lead the drafter to see all 10 Temples in the card?
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You need a 10-way hologram.
 
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