Article ChannelFireball: Utility Land Draft

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I mean give it to the player for free, I've literally never seen it done, and a lot of the time the battlements gets cut from the deck anyways.
I tried for a while, but eventually gave up and now just deal with the meld trinket text
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

InfinityBlack14 said:
This is true for my drafts too. I've even switched gw entirely to make different archetypes.
Click to expand...

What did you do? Curious because I'd like to revisit it honestly. Nothing I've tried seems to stick.

When I sat down to think about the archetypes I wanted to push in my combo cube, I left off GW completely. It's rolled into other things (Abzan rock), or split apart. I just conceded straight GW is lame in the eyes of my players.
 
InfinityBlack14

InfinityBlack14

Taamas said:
And in this late hour of night, a demon seeds a doubt in my thoughts:

Should I have Hanweir Battlements in the ULD, or should I give it for free to the person who picks Hanweir Garrison? Picking the creature to see the land being picked by other person has to be the worst feeling a cube is capable of producing.
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Giving extra cards away as a "package pick" may work if your play group is okay with it. You'd need to do at least 1 for each color to add appeal imo.

Edit: Packages could be the swords of this and that (pick two) to save cube space, set of squadron hawks if you play lots of equips or combat tricks, blue could be a weaker wizard with the wizard cycling card, green?
 
InfinityBlack14

InfinityBlack14

ahadabans said:
What did you do? Curious because I'd like to revisit it honestly. Nothing I've tried seems to stick.

When I sat down to think about the archetypes I wanted to push in my combo cube, I left off GW completely. It's rolled into other things (Abzan rock), or split apart. I just conceded straight GW is lame in the eyes of my players.
Click to expand...

I added sigarda, host of herons, dragonlord dromoka, mirari's wake, finks, knight of the reliquary, and Ajani unyeilding. Most spells are an easy splash and the big creatures have flying and some way to avoid removal. That being said, lightning greaves and the two equipment tutor creatures work best in these decks. I have yet to use Ajani as I only added him recently, and haven't drafted since. I hope I helped.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
InfinityBlack14 said:
Giving extra cards away as a "package pick" may work if your play group is okay with it. You'd need to do at least 1 for each color to add appeal imo.

Edit: Packages could be the swords of this and that (pick two) to save cube space, set of squadron hawks if you play lots of equips or combat tricks, blue could be a weaker wizard with the wizard cycling card, green?
Click to expand...
There must be a thread or two about squadron picks somewhere around here. Anybody care to dig them up?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

InfinityBlack14 said:
I added sigarda, host of herons, dragonlord dromoka, mirari's wake, finks, knight of the reliquary, and Ajani unyeilding. Most spells are an easy splash and the big creatures have flying and some way to avoid removal. That being said, lightning greaves and the two equipment tutor creatures work best in these decks. I have yet to use Ajani as I only added him recently, and haven't drafted since. I hope I helped.
Click to expand...


Mirari's Wake is the card I've recently come back around too. It's very slow, but it's a combo enabler which works well in my combo cube (duh). Not sure it will catch on, but having 12 mana on T6 with things like various X spells and silly stuff like Crush of Wurms I feel will have appeal to people in my playgroup.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I was tempted to do an Urza land option (2 of each?). But never tried it. I think Jason and others were doing multiple locus lands, but it costed you 2 ULD picks (or maybe all your ULD picks). Something like that.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
ahadabans said:
I was tempted to do an Urza land option (2 of each?). But never tried it. I think Jason and others were doing multiple locus lands, but it costed you 2 ULD picks (or maybe all your ULD picks). Something like that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think it was 2 Cloudpost and 2 Glimmerpost for 2 picks, i.e. you skip your next pick (and you can't choose this option when you have less than 2 picks left). I personally did a few drafts with 3 artifact lands (2 colored ones + Darksteel Citadel) for 2 picks, and that was a succes.
 
Aston

Aston

I've been doing 3 Cloudposts and 2 Glimmerposts for all 4 picks and it's probably too strong, I think cutting a Cloudpost will help
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Aston said:
I've been doing 3 Cloudposts and 2 Glimmerposts for all 4 picks and it's probably too strong, I think cutting a Cloudpost will help
Click to expand...

The only squadron pick in my current cube project is Cloudpost; you pick the one in the main cube, and get 2 Cloudpost and 2 Glimmerpost with it (so a total of 5 posts with 1 pick). I'm liking the balance right now; you can pick up the package and draft around it depending on how early you get it, rather than drafting around it and taking it near-guaranteed from the ULD after. However, since my current cube is very artifact-centered, it might be a bit better in my list than most.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, I was just thinking the "right" density is somewhere between 4 and 5 posts, and that if you required a 45 card deck or whatever that you might hit the sweet spot.
 
InfinityBlack14

InfinityBlack14

I have my first attempt of "Powered Utility Lands" for my cube. One for each colour pairing. Please remember that my cube is powered and high synergy focused, so these abilities may seem over the top, but are really meant to make fair decks more competitive compared to the unfair ones. That said, please let me know what you think.


Simic------------------------

Novijen
t: colorless
t: choose one:
put a 1/1 on each green or blue creature that entered the battlefield
put a 1/1 on each creature with 1/1 counter
-------------------------------

Izzet--------------------------

Nivix
t: colorless
r/u, t: exile the top card of your library. Until the end of turn, you
may play the exiled card.
-------------------------------

Golgari------------------------

Svogthos, the Abyssal Tomb
t: colorless
bg: until end of turn, becomes an x/x elemental plant zombie
creature, where X is the number of cards in all graveyards.
-------------------------------

Boros--------------------------

Sunhome, Legionnaire Fortress
t: colorless
wr,t: Until end of turn, target creature gains two of the following:
Haste, Vigilance, Doublestrike, Lifelink, +2/+2
-------------------------------

Gruul--------------------------

Skarrg, Colliseum
t: colorless
rg, t: Until end of turn, target creature gains Trample and gets
+x/+x, where x is its power. Sacrifice that creature and a land
at the end of turn.
-------------------------------

Selesnya-----------------------

Vitu-Ghazi, City-Tree of Growth
t: colorless
gw, t: Untap up to 3 other lands, then choose one:
- Creatures you control get +2/+2 until end of turn.
- Look at the top 3 cards of your library. Choose a permanent
card from among them. Reveal it and put it into your hand. Put
the rest on the bottom in any order.
-------------------------------

Rakdos-------------------------

Rix Maadi, Palace of Chaos
t: colorless
rb, t: Each player puts a creature card in their graveyard onto the
battlefield under their control. Each player loses life equal to
their returned creature's converted mana cost.
-------------------------------

Azorious-----------------------

Prahv, Spires of Power
t: colorless
uw, t: Creatures you control gain flying until end of turn.
-------------------------------

Orzhov-------------------------

Orzhova, Church of the Counsil
t: colorless
wb, t: Put a permanent with X converted mana cost or less from
your graveyard onto the battlefield under your control, where X
is equal to the number of lands you control.
-------------------------------

Dimir--------------------------

Duskmantle, Underground Keep
t: colorless
ub, t: Up to two target players put the top three cards of his or
her library into his or her graveyard.
-------------------------------

I may boost Gruul as it and selesnya are the least played guilds.
 
Brad

Brad

All non-reprint lands since M15.

Notable cycles to me:
Castles and >=3 lands from Eldraine.

Kaldheim ?realms. Plus two that are kind of interesting in same set.

Battle for Zendikar enemy manlands

Amonkhet and Ikoria Bi/Tri-cycles. Not exactly utility, I dunno.

Ones I thought were standout from cycle or not in a cycle:


The first link will be best to get the full picture, of course. 275 cards, so it isn't too terrible. I chose M15 because I think you mentioned five years in a another post? Might be wrong. You can alter the scryfall search according to your most recent update if you want.
 
Velrun

Velrun

This one I adore



You only need 10 permanents once (and then you can block with your 1/1 tokens) to reap the reward for the rest of the game. It has a mini game built in and you have to work for it. But it can really shine.

I would also include the 5 Castles that Brad mentions. And if you run no bounce lands in the cube I would also include the Guildless Commons in your ULD. Bounce lands enable so much fun stuff and this one is equally fair towards all color combinations.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Originally I had more, but the ones I included were never really being used. Castle Ardenvale would definitely be next on my list, but it feels so... underwhelming? Maybe I'm seeing it wrong, but 5 mana for a 1/1 wasn't inspiring me. I could see cutting something for it though.
 
Velrun

Velrun

I think you're underestimating it. One of the biggest upsides to the Castles from Throne of Eldraine is that they tap for colored mana and they have the easiest requirement to enter the battlefield untapped. Also they do not require multicolored decks to function like Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree. I think Ardenvale is the second strongest of the Castles from a neutral/don't know what we're playing yet point of view. It's the only one of them that is an actual win condition and it can overwhelm much easier than the Zen 1 and Zen 2 manlands.
 
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