Article ChannelFireball: Utility Land Draft

[Jason Waddell]

err, ok, i do the same thing i realize, but vivids and shardlands are so much sweeter and are less likely to be just 'worse than a basic' i think

Usually you change your mind within a single post, but I guess this thought required two.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

A friend of mine, so inspired by the utility land draft, actually decided to take all of the utility AND fixing lands out of his cube and moved into a separate subdraft. So far, he likes the results.

 

[Jason Waddell]

A friend of mine, so inspired by the utility land draft, actually decided to take all of the utility AND fixing lands out of his cube and moved into a separate subdraft. So far, he likes the results.

How exactly does he run it?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

He runs it at the end of the draft, Rotisserie. I don't think he's settled on the number of picks yet. I'm not sure the composition of the card pool either, he only mentioned it to me, I haven't actually played it yet.

 

[CML]

i would be concerned with this taking a long time practically. like when we get together for impromptu cube sometimes we forget about the utility lands and then i put them on the table and people take their faves.

shelldock was a little excessive so i shipped it back to the main cube

 

[Eric Chan]

I've changed my mind. I think painlands might actually be at exactly the perfect power level, at least here. It turns out that aggro isn't too good in my cube after all, and I'm witnessing that decks of all shapes and sizes can stretch to support a painland or two. I feel like anything stronger than painlands would get snapped up instantly, rendering the actual interesting utility lands an afterthought. As it is, both picking and slotting in a Brushland take real commitment, as you have to balance how much damage you want to eat from your manabase. It's fun!

 

[CML]

eric: i agree with both you (the damage vs stability tension is fun) and nwo (the damage drawback is annoying).

for me i think i don't run 'em because then there won't be enough fetchable lands.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Clearly add basic types and a city of brass style drawback

 

[Jason Waddell]

I am going to try something dumb and put this in the utility land draft:

 

[CML]

awwww yeah i like it. lmk how it goes.

again signets are really powerful cards. they were heavily played in most decks of that era and defined said formats

 

[Jason Waddell]

Nobody picked it, but it didn't feel like it was bad to have it in there with the other lands.

 

[Chris Taylor]

It opens up a scary door doesnt it
How long before Blasting Station makes it's way in eh Jason?

 

[Jason Waddell]

It opens up a scary door doesnt it
How long before Blasting Station makes it's way in eh Jason?

Into the utility draft or the main cube? Because it's already in the main cube.

I'm back to running it with both lands, but, I'm not really worried about slippery slope arguments. The main reason that 8-player drafts are the way they are is because of the size of booster packs. I'll experiment with whatever, but I imagine most ideas don't actually produce a better drafting dynamic.

The utility lands don't really improve the drafting so much as they improve the gameplay. The games are far more interesting with a higher density of lands that do something.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh into the utility draft. (Thing is sweet in green decks btw, that blew my mind)
I'm aware the slippery slope argument is a nombo, I'm just wondering what your personal line is.
I kinda like it being just lands. 2 drop accellerators are pretty insane, I'd probably leave them out. (I don't utility land draft atm)

The more consistent T3 Wrath is, the faster aggro has to be, which really ends up punishing anyone who doesn't have enough artifact mana to be consistent.

Fair or not, I'd advise againt keeping it there

 

[Jason Waddell]

I don't really have a personal line.

So here's the design challenge. Aggro is fun in my cube. A lot of fun. Cards like Steppe Lynx and Gravecrawler make it that way. I'm happy with their design. Control struggles a little bit, which may well be a unique challenge that I face. I'm not worried about Turn 3 wraths, aggro can still 3 - 0 with some of those floating around. The question is how to properly push control in a way that is fun and interesting. Maybe people just can't draft the super slow control decks in this cube, and should model their decks after, say, the BUG control Legacy decks whose curves top out at 4 CMC and are packed with threats and interactive elements.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Ancient Tomb, City of traitors, Crystal Vein, Remote Farm and Ruins of Trokair are all lands that can enable a turn 3 wrath as well.

 

[CML]

RE. CONTROL -- Yeah, I agree that Legacy is the best way to model these decks. Pullulate your Cube with metaphorical Steppe Lynx and Gravecrawler and Bloodbraid Elf, but also Innocent Blood and Brainstorm and JTMS. It's the same principle behind your "high-quality removal, high-quality creatures" shtick -- that kind of dynamic tension is fun, and Magic is best when people do stuff right away. If you try to make your Cube games as much like the good games of Legacy as possible, I don't see where you could go wrong.

RE. LANDS -- Azorius Signet went pretty quick, I think Rakdos Signet is also great (imagine if Standard Jund had these) and think maybe 2-3 is the right number. I got rid of the cycling lands because they CIPT and just raised the power level of these lands as much as possible. How about the Horizon Canopy spike tho

 

[Jason Waddell]

The cycling lands are great, even in non-Loam / Crucible decks. As somebody who talks a lot about the negative aspects of games dictated by color screw, I thought you'd be all over some flood protection.

 

[CML]

I'm a big fan of those cards -- I'd love for them to be reprinted -- but between 64 lands main + 36 side I run into the issue of people needing to fetch basics and then we botch the manabases and they end up running much better with basics and then I wonder wtf I'm even doing with the utility land draft. The whole "even Junk Reanimator with its all-dual manabase can only afford to run 1x Vault" idea is interesting here, as I wonder what kind of Standard decks would go for Tranquil Thicket & co.

Like that last WR deck I drafted had but did not want to run Forgotten Cave, for example.

Maybe I'm just crazy but I really think they don't work in my Cube. So then I wonder why they're such a hit in yours and fathom how sensitive Limited environments are to design changes and marvel that playable sets even exist.

 

[Eric Chan]

So. Designing the utility land pile and settings its constraints and pick rules is hard! Without question, the players here love it, and are very much in favour of this added new dimension. But I'm kind of winging it and I don't really know what I'm doing.

For those that run the utility land draft, how do you guys do it? Help a brother out!

1. How many picks do you give each player?
2. How many fixers do you run in your utility draft?
3. Do players run all of their utility land picks into their decks?
4. Are your players' manabases worse off after jamming in a bunch of colourless and tap lands?

Maybe we can compare notes and all learn something from each other.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Here's my current pile:
MONO: [24]
Flagstones of Trokair
Windbrisk Heights
Eiganjo Castle
Karakas
Secluded Steppe

Faerie Conclave
Shelldock Isle
Riptide Laboratory
Academy Ruins
Halimar Depths
Lonely Sandbar

Phyrexian Tower
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Volrath's Stronghold
Barren Moor

Barbarian Ring
Teetering Peaks
Ghitu Encampment
Forgotten Cave
Hellion Crucible

Treetop Village
Gaea's Cradle
Yavimaya Hollow
Dryad Arbor
Tranquil Thicket

UTILITY: [9]
Tectonic Edge
Ghost Quarter
Rishadan Port
Dust Bowl
Mishra's Factory
Mutavault
Blinkmoth Nexus
Ancient Tomb
High Market

MULTI: [6]
Grand Coliseum
Undiscovered Paradise
Murmuring Bosk
Gemstone Caverns
Gemstone Mine
Evolving Wilds

INNISTRAD [7]
Moorland Haunt
Nephalia Drownyard
Kessig Wolf Run
Gavony Township
Vault of the Archangel
Desolate Lighthouse
Slayers' Stronghold

I really like the assortment of fixers I am using and find it has the right "feel" to it in the fixing vs. utility sense. Players get 4 picks (1/1/2) and tend to play all of the ones they choose, occasionally leaving one out. Naturally your fixing base gets "worse" if you play colorless lands but I don't see a lot of games ending due to blatant color screw.

 

[CML]

For compare / contrast:​

I've been moving in a more active fixing direction. Basically I moved all the non-fixing lands out of the main cube and shipped 'em over here, so then the extra power of Volrath's Stronghold made me want to offer appealing options all across the board -- often one wants a colorless land or fixing, so I like to offer that choice.​

I draft with a competitive-constructed crowd mainly so it surprises me that this is true, but we've ended up misbuilding our manabases when there's too many colorless lands (the Vault/Township parable in Standard). Though it's really sweet to have everyone hit their colors, I wonder if I'm overemphasizing this part of the draft, since bad mana is such a liability (i.e. missing a step could be just as bad as doing so in the Modo Cube, even if rarer).​

TOTAL (36, 4/drafter, 2x after p1 2x after p2)​

---​

ISD (5): Clifftop Retreat, Sulfur Falls, Hinterland Harbor, Woodland Cemetery, Isolated Chapel​

M10 (5): Sunpetal Grove, Rootbound Crag, Drowned Catacomb, Azorius Signet, Rakdos Signet​

W (2): Karakas, Windbrisk Heights​

U (4): Cephalid Coliseum, Academy Ruins, Shelldock Isle, Riptide Laboratory​

B (3): Volrath's Stronghold, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Phyrexian Tower​

R (0): bleh​

G (2): Treetop Village, Dryad Arbor​

Also ISD (5): Kessig Wolf Run, Moorland Haunt, Gavony Township, Nephalia Drownyard, Vault of the Archangel​

Misc (6): Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Mine, Horizon Canopy, Arcane Sanctum​

Safe Word (4): Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge​

 

[Jason Waddell]

0 Red can't be correct.

 

[Eric Chan]

Ghitu Encampment and Teetering Peaks are both reasonable

 

[Jason Waddell]

I draft with a competitive-constructed crowd mainly so it surprises me that this is true, but we've ended up misbuilding our manabases when there's too many colorless lands (the Vault/Township parable in Standard). Though it's really sweet to have everyone hit their colors, I wonder if I'm overemphasizing this part of the draft, since bad mana is such a liability (i.e. missing a step could be just as bad as doing so in the Modo Cube, even if rarer).​

I also wonder why you feel the need to protect your players against misbuilding so much. You let them draft 45 cards but I assume nobody ever fields 70-card decks, no?