Is anyone trying to make this green control thing work or am I just throwing cards at the wall anyways?
What do you want to be the defining characteristics of green control?
General Custom Cards: The Lab
- Thread starter anotak
- Start date
What do you want to be the defining characteristics of green control?
I'm not trying to make green control a thing. Amusingly, at the BTG prerelease I got into a board state where I was effectively playing mono red control vs blue aggro. Almost any color can play control in limited under the right circumstances.
no, you're not alone in trying to make it work. i like that design a lot
also divination is a big pile of shit despite it getting standard play in the points in times when there's nothing better because there's, well, nothing better
also divination is a big pile of shit despite it getting standard play in the points in times when there's nothing better because there's, well, nothing better
Moment Cage
Enchantment
Flash
When Moment Cage enters the battlefield, exile target spell.
When Moment Cage leaves the battlefield, the owner of the exiled card may cast it without paying its mana cost.
too efficient compared to counterspell? either way it is such an obvious design i cant believe i hadn't thought of it before
Enchantment
Flash
When Moment Cage enters the battlefield, exile target spell.
When Moment Cage leaves the battlefield, the owner of the exiled card may cast it without paying its mana cost.
too efficient compared to counterspell? either way it is such an obvious design i cant believe i hadn't thought of it before
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Yeah I Think so. even if it would normally be cancel thesedays, it's A lot to expect a hard counter without blue in it.
maybe?
maybe
?one day i'm going to make a cube where these gold tokens from Gild matter. gild matters as opposed to guilds matter
Gilded Blossom
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
Redistribution of Wealth
Sorcery
Destroy all artifacts. Each player put three colorless artifact tokens named Gold onto the battlefield. They have “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
gold mana dork thing
Creature — Elf Druid
: Exile target card from a graveyard. Put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
1/1
Gilded Blossom
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
Redistribution of Wealth
Sorcery
Destroy all artifacts. Each player put three colorless artifact tokens named Gold onto the battlefield. They have “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
gold mana dork thing
Creature — Elf Druid
: Exile target card from a graveyard. Put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”1/1
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Well I'll tell you one thing, that mana dork is nuts!
Remember all these cards function bascially like awakening zone. Other than that shatterstorm, which I'm not a huge fan of just because it looks like even with all the gold flowing, it doesn't seem that strong.
Doesn't even stop metalcraft
Remember all these cards function bascially like awakening zone. Other than that shatterstorm, which I'm not a huge fan of just because it looks like even with all the gold flowing, it doesn't seem that strong.
Doesn't even stop metalcraft
yeah, it probably is all sorts of broken, just throwing sketches out there to see what sticksWell I'll tell you one thing, that mana dork is nuts!
Remember all these cards function bascially like awakening zone. Other than that shatterstorm, which I'm not a huge fan of just because it looks like even with all the gold flowing, it doesn't seem that strong.
Doesn't even stop metalcraft
the big difference w/ this and awakening zone is that it doesnt clog up the board w/ potential blockers
some more stuff:
Gold Golem
Artifact Creature — Golem
~ gets +1/+1 for each permanent named Gold you control.
: ~ gains first strike until end of turn.2/2
Melt It Down
Instant
As an addition cost to cast ~, sacrifice a non-artifact permanent.
Put three colorless artifact tokens named Gold onto the battlefield. They have “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
Funded Exploration
Enchantment
: Scry 1., : Reveal the top card of your library. If that card is a land, put it into your hand.Winter Cache
Artifact
: Put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”Gilding Tree-Emissary
Creature — Human Shaman
When ~ enters the battlefield, put two colorless artifact tokens named Gold onto the battlefield. They have “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
Tax Enforcer
Creature - Soldier
First strike
Whenever an opponent casts a spell during your turn or when ~ dies, put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
2/1
Melt It Down
Instant
As an addition cost to cast ~, sacrifice a non-artifact permanent.
Put three colorless artifact tokens named Gold onto the battlefield. They have “Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.”
I am unsure about the flavor of this one. I can melt a Nacatl into gold? Also this is like, broken as fuck, no? Even if you're sacking a land and doing nothing else, you get to cast a 5-drop on Turn 3, otherwise it's a T3 Titan? Heaven forbid you have something that wants to be sacrificed...
I'm a bad person!
Spring is in the Air
Instant (U)
Search your library for a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest card and put it into play.
When you cycle Spring is in the Air you may scry 1.
Cycling -
Expansion
Instant (U)
Search your library for a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest card and put it into play.
Flashback -
Expansion
Instant (U)
Search your library for a basic land and put it into play.
Cycling -
Flashback -
I'm doing my best here.
Spring is in the Air
Instant (U)
Search your library for a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest card and put it into play.
When you cycle Spring is in the Air you may scry 1.
Cycling -
Expansion
Instant (U)
Search your library for a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest card and put it into play.
Flashback -
Expansion
Instant (U)
Search your library for a basic land and put it into play.
Cycling -
Flashback -
I'm doing my best here.
Yeah I like to think of cultivate et al as more half accellerator half dinvination. Makes them a little more paletable.
Actually on that note:
Sorcery
Reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield, otherwise put it in your hand.
Draw a card.
Green Control?
I think this could be an instant.
yeah honestly this is probably turbo broken as are some of the others. might need a bit higher curve environment to work which im not sure is a good sacrifice. idk, might have to design it more like wotc limited
hmm
i'll figure something out for it
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I agree
oh wait wtf yes i somehow didn't see them before
i like the 2nd or 3rd one the most but they all sort of encourage different types of play so it depends on environment
RE: Green Control
I don't think I'm as concerned with making green control a thing as being aware that green is another "enabler colour" but it seems to fall seriously short of what blue is able to do in helping decks work and helping generate more relevant turns. I think it would be great if green was better at filling the role blue often plays in control decks.
I really like how it enables bigger turns faster, gives you more avenues to interact with your lands, helps you work hard with your top, gives you more ability to work with mana sink abilities, helps clutter the board/stabilize and gives you some selection with cards like Green suns, Command and Library. I'd love to see more of that or more cards that capitalize on green's strengths in those areas.
I don't think I'm as concerned with making green control a thing as being aware that green is another "enabler colour" but it seems to fall seriously short of what blue is able to do in helping decks work and helping generate more relevant turns. I think it would be great if green was better at filling the role blue often plays in control decks.
I really like how it enables bigger turns faster, gives you more avenues to interact with your lands, helps you work hard with your top, gives you more ability to work with mana sink abilities, helps clutter the board/stabilize and gives you some selection with cards like Green suns, Command and Library. I'd love to see more of that or more cards that capitalize on green's strengths in those areas.
One of the interns at my company who's fairly new to Magic made a great observation that while all his casual green decks often didn't do anything, other than plopping down bodies and hoping for the best, his green cube deck was able to pump his extra ramp mana into stuff like Polukranos and Kessig Wolf Run, even after running out of cards. I think this might be one of the better directions to take late game green stuff - activated abilities that any deck can use, but that scale well to green decks with lots of spare mana. This is innately more interesting than just ramping to nine for a huge Genesis Wave, because you're still interacting from the midgame onwards, and not just stalling for time until you can cast your one big spell.
Quick! To RoE!
Maybe this is just my style, but even in booster pack drafting I try to get a few mana sinks into any deck for flood insurance. Am I unusual for thinking that's critical? I think that's actually why I don't like playing weenie strategies...
No, I think that's actually fantastic. Especially in aggro decks! Those decks can sometimes deal with mana screw, by virtue of having low mana costs across the board, but mana flood in the mid or late game is brutal when you're trying to deal those last five points of damage.
In retail limited I find it hard to find an acceptable mana sink for weenie strategies. In cube I'll gladly throw in a few fireball-like effects into weenie though. I just don't look for as many as I do for say a green white midrange deck.
Now I don't want you to get the impression that I don't like bombs, but you guys have been putting to words a lot of stuff I've had in the back of my mind about limited and deckbuilding. I really love mana sinks, and I've always enjoyed the idea of including them as a deck's late game. Eric knows how I love to cram rocks into decks that seem odd and how much love I have for a man land or city tree.
Eric, what you bring up also applies to card advantage a large amount of the time. Those extra cards you have might as well not be there if you never have the mana (or time) to cast them. Even if the game goes long, lategame interactions are usually in large bursts or "fights" where you try to make situational answers less relevant with casting availability. I only really cued on this from playing a lot of tempo decks and designing tempo cards, but I think my impression that green and blue are both masters of tempo on other ends of the spectrum might be more true than I figured. I assume more avid limited players have known this stuff for ages.
But in the same "limited theory" that says a 4/5 is worth 2 cards in the same sort of way getting two 2/2 tokens is for a comparable cost, comparable blocking investment, comparable number of searing spears, a 4/5 with monsterous might even be worth a third card eventually. Always spend your money, don't tie it up or make a trust fund, as the old starcraft theory goes.
Maybe that's why I want more colours (than Blue) to have more cheap card selection so badly. We just don't have enough things to do with our mana when we aren't drawing live.
Eric, what you bring up also applies to card advantage a large amount of the time. Those extra cards you have might as well not be there if you never have the mana (or time) to cast them. Even if the game goes long, lategame interactions are usually in large bursts or "fights" where you try to make situational answers less relevant with casting availability. I only really cued on this from playing a lot of tempo decks and designing tempo cards, but I think my impression that green and blue are both masters of tempo on other ends of the spectrum might be more true than I figured. I assume more avid limited players have known this stuff for ages.
But in the same "limited theory" that says a 4/5 is worth 2 cards in the same sort of way getting two 2/2 tokens is for a comparable cost, comparable blocking investment, comparable number of searing spears, a 4/5 with monsterous might even be worth a third card eventually. Always spend your money, don't tie it up or make a trust fund, as the old starcraft theory goes.
Maybe that's why I want more colours (than Blue) to have more cheap card selection so badly. We just don't have enough things to do with our mana when we aren't drawing live.
That's definitely a good one that does a lot of good things in a weenie strategy. But its also a rare. Most of the mana sinks that you see in retail drafting is definitely more suited for midrange decks, not weenie. Think of Rix Maadi Guildmage or Skarrg Guildmage. The first one can go into a weenie strategy but still works better in midrange. The second I just don't like in weenie at all.
Of course none of this applies to any given cube. Good sinks for aggro do exist (the billion fireball variants, for instance) they just aren't omni-present in retail limited.