Article ChannelFireball: Utility Land Draft

[Eric Chan]

You can do what we do here: run the entire utility land draft at the end, during the deckbuilding portion, rather than in between packs. I basically let everyone start going over their picks and constructing decks, and then calling out who's turn it is for the side draft. No extra time wasted!

 

[ahadabans]

You can do what we do here: run the entire utility land draft at the end, during the deckbuilding portion, rather than in between packs. I basically let everyone start going over their picks and constructing decks, and then calling out who's turn it is for the side draft. No extra time wasted!

That's a solid idea. You just do utility lands though, right? You still have the more powerful lands (duals, fetches, wasteland, et all) still in the main cube? Do you always draft the whole cube (all utility lands)? Because one thing we often do in my group is draft half the cube (4 players is typical), play a few games, then draft the other half of the cube. So what I was thinking of doing is splitting the utility land pool in half and drafting half of it for the first draft and the second half for the other. Anyone try that? And thoughts?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Whether you do all the lands like me or just the utility lands like Eric, I highly endorse the idea of doing it all at the end. Not only is up less time consuming, but you don't signal your deck with your picks, which is why my playgroup prefers it that way.

 

[ahadabans]

Thanks. I'm going to try all lands at the end. That will also allow me to get my list back down to 360 without having to cut some of the fringe stuff I like playing with. I'm a fan.

 

[Chris Taylor]

We've been doing 4 packs of 11, which has worked better than 3 packs of 15 as far as deck quality. I don't like drafts dragging on forever. I mean, I enjoy them, but the other guys get burned out on the draft itself quickly. They just want to play, so I'm cautious about adding elements to it that make it go longer (more packs, etc). This is actually something working against me for the utility land draft idea. Not sure the guys really want to do it separately even if it's quick.

This is hilarious, my buddies are the exact opposite: They kinda loathe playing out the games
It's never even a forgone conclusion, they just love the draft process with all the sweet sweet cards

 

[Ryan]

Has anybody tried Keldon Megaliths as part of their utility land? I've got it in my peasant cube and so far I've been pretty happy with. Also when I do a draft that's less than 8 people we normally do 5 packs of 9 and I've been pretty pleased with that.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Has anybody tried Keldon Megaliths as part of their utility land? I've got it in my peasant cube and so far I've been pretty happy with. Also when I do a draft that's less than 8 people we normally do 5 packs of 9 and I've been pretty pleased with that.

I tried it and it was a huge burden with ETB untapped. People do play Teetering Peaks, but that seems to have much higher impact.

 

[ahadabans]

I wish it came into play untapped but dealt one damage when tapped for mana (ala Barbarian Ring). It would be much better I think.

Decks that want the hellbent effect do not want their lands coming into play tapped generally (but those same decks tend to not care that much about pinging themselves).

 

[Ryan]

See I actually changed Teetering Peaks to the Keldon Megaliths because it was just too often that you had to play it as just a mountain that came into play tapped because you didn't have a target and a lot of times even if it did have a target it was very easily blocked/traded with. Also why does nobody in the world play with snow covered lands? You get an extra Rampant Growth in Into the North, a red Swords to Plowshares in Skred,a couple of cool utility lands in Mouth of Ronom and Scrying Sheets, as well as a potential "Sulfuric Vortex" for white in Cold Snap.

 

[ahadabans]

I was running Mouth for awhile, and might put it back in once I switch to the separate land draft. Removal on a land is solid IMO, and that thing does 4 damage which is a lot. I was just playing Mouth like all basic lands were snow though (sort of errata I guess - you had to tap a basic land to activate it basically).

Skred is a really powerful card. I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to run it. It really depends on how many basic lands decks tend to run. In cubes with a crap ton of non-basics running around, this card loses a lot of value.

Those are the only two I'd run though. I hate cumulative upkeep (so a big fat NO on coldsnap for me). Scrying sheets IMO won't net enough CA without a dedicated snow deck (where it's a very strong card). And I personally don't think Rampant Growth / Into the North are good enough in cube honestly because you can't get duals with them. I'd rather run Farseek or Edge of Autumn if I really wanted that effect as a spell (the former gets you duals and the later cycles when you don't want the ramp which is cool). Sakura-Tribe Elder does the rampant growth effect better anyway since it gives you a chump block with your ramp.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Make a Snow thread?

 

[ahadabans]

Sure, why not?

I remember my friend made a snow deck and he ran this annoying thing in it.

​

The flavor is really cool (though I think this should have been a blue card, not a red one). It would need to cost 6 mana by today's standards (and even then, I'm not sure it would be playable). ​

 

[Ryan]

Make a Snow thread?

I think this is more or less the most amount of snow discussion possible haha.

Scrying sheets IMO won't net enough CA without a dedicated snow deck (where it's a very strong card).

I think you underestimate the power of Scrying Sheets. This thing helps fight flood and provide gas. Being able to get a basic land off the top of your deck when you need action is huge. When this was in standard I played it control decks, aggressive decks, and ramp decks and it was a star in every one.

Also has anyone ever given Soldevi Excavations a shot??

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, Scrying Sheets seems pretty cool. Do you run snow lands entirely in lieu of regular basics?

 

[Ryan]

Yeah, Scrying Sheets seems pretty cool. Do you run snow lands entirely in lieu of regular basics?

Yeah that's the plan. Their types are all just "Basic Snow Land-X." So it's essentially no different than those 25 of each basic or whatever you have sleeved up for your drafters, except you get access to a couple more, in my opinion, very good cards.

 

[ahadabans]

My issue with Scrying Sheets is that without some top type effect, it whiffs a lot (even in a dedicated snow deck). With just 10 basic lands out of 40 cards, you are only going to get a hit 1 in 4 times. That kind of blows for 2 mana (even if it's something you are just doing with mana you can't use). I just think you need to build a deck around it to get enough value to make up for that land not tapping for colored mana. But that's just my opinion.

Soldevi Excavations seems expensive and risky to me. Since you are losing a land in the process, that ability (scry 1 basically) really costs 2U not 1. For 1RU, you can get a looter effect instead with Desolate Lighthouse, without setting yourself up for a 2 for 1 with land destruction. Granted, it's less splashable though.

 

[Ryan]

I think Scrying Sheets is a pretty high upside for almost no real cost to your deck. 1x draw the top card of your deck if it's a basic land seems pretty solid. As far as the Excavations go it adds 1u if you tap it for mana so you don't really fall behind on mana. Definitely a bit of a risk but seems like it could be a pretty good payout depending on how LD heavy your cube is.

 

[ahadabans]

To be fair (and I didn't even get this right in my last post), Scrying sheets costs 3 mana (2 to activate, plus you must tap scrying sheets). Same with excavations (one mana plus you must tap the excavations which is 2 additional mana).

Is Scry 1 worth 3 mana? What about "flip two coins. if they both come up heads, draw a basic land", because that's what Scrying Sheets is going to be in a non-snow deck with only snow lands. I just think in cube you need to get more for those costs, even when they are attached to lands. But I could be wrong. I've never tested either land in cube so I could be underestimating either or both.

 

[Ryan]

I'm mostly basing my experiences with Scrying Sheets off of my constructed play with it where all I was hitting was snow lands and it was definitely great. Soldevi Excavations I have in my combo cube which is my only experience with it where the scry is fantastic and there is 0 LD. That's why I was wondering if anybody else had any experiences with it.

 

[CML]

i can corroborate that sheets and mouth are both super-powerful, even a marginal effect is good when it's stapled to a land.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm not hot on scrying sheets, since that's a lot of mana to justify a colorless land that may or may not do anything.
Though I suppose you can justify anything in the utility land draft, so hell, throw it in there. Maybe it just comes for free if you draft top or sylvan library or something.

How about this beast?

 

[James Stevenson]

I like the art but seven mana is too much, unless making things snow has more applications.

 

[Chris Taylor]

You do get a hella big creature for your 7 though. It's in play, so any basics anywhere count, plus it getting bigger.
I did actually play a snow draw-go deck with top and scrying sheets back in the day, and this thing can kill in one swing sometimes, two easily. I figure it was worth mentioning, given the dearth of snow cards

 

[Jason Waddell]

I'm not hot on scrying sheets, since that's a lot of mana to justify a colorless land that may or may not do anything.
Though I suppose you can justify anything in the utility land draft, so hell, throw it in there. Maybe it just comes for free if you draft top or sylvan library or something.

How about this beast?

I actually don't think it'd be that "hella big" in my cube. Rough numbers here:

79 nonbasics per draft (47 in the main cube 32 (8x4) from the utility land draft)
Assuming all of those get played, and 17 card decks, that means you're looking at about 7 basic lands per deck, or about 41% of the lands.
Let's say that when Rimjob Owl enters the battlefield there are 7 lands on each side of the table. Then we have an expected size of ~5.7 / 5.7. Assuming we're not playing other snow duders.

Sure, it can grow, but so can this guy.



But don't get me wrong, I love the idea of playing a cube where all basics are snow lands, and going from there.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I actually don't think it'd be that "hella big" in my cube. Rough numbers here:

79 nonbasics per draft (47 in the main cube 32 (8x4) from the utility land draft)
Assuming all of those get played, and 17 card decks, that means you're looking at about 7 basic lands per deck, or about 41% of the lands.
Let's say that when Rimjob Owl enters the battlefield there are 7 lands on each side of the table. Then we have an expected size of ~5.7 / 5.7. Assuming we're not playing other snow duders.

Sure, it can grow, but so can this guy.



But don't get me wrong, I love the idea of playing a cube where all basics are snow lands, and going from there.

I'm imaging a different sort of enviornment than your super small, aggro centric all fetchland beast jason