General Fetchland Density

[Jason Waddell]

Fetchlands are the coolest thing to ever happen to my cube. They fix like nobody's business and have so many wonderful interaction.

Lately I've been flirting with the idea of running more. Probably 22 or 24 out of 360. The extra slots would be poly slots, but it doesn't really matter since the cards are so versatile anyways. Do you guys have any opinions on the matter?

 

[Laz]

I have been running 22 for a while now, and the fixing is fantastic. It would be awesome to see some of the awesome interactions they enable.
I will start with a couple of the obvious ones:

 

[Onderzeeboot]

 

[Dom Harvey]

[Fetchland of choice] for utility land draft IMO

as for interactions:

 

[Suicufnoc]

fetchland of choice is too good for utility land draft, IMO. I run 26 fetches plus 2 Terramophic Expanses in the utility draft.
2 sets of 10 fetches + 5 single-type fetches that you can sac for tokens instead, and a Brass Cave.
Its not too much, but I don't think I want 10 more, and I'm not ready to jump on the polycube train. I am doing 2 sets now, though

 

[Jason Waddell]

I cleared up some slots, I'll be running 23 for the next draft, which puts us just at 3 per drafter if you include the utility land draft. That would come out to the density of about 4.5 per player in a 60 card deck, which isn't anywhere close to constructed but is still large enough to be interesting I think.

P.S. this is a fun card.

 

[Jason Waddell]

[Fetchland of choice] for utility land draft IMO

I added "Mirage Fetchland of <CHOICE>" there. Feels like a good compromise.

 

[Diakonov]

I cleared up some slots, I'll be running 23 for the next draft, which puts us just at 3 per drafter if you include the utility land draft. That would come out to the density of about 4.5 per player in a 60 card deck, which isn't anywhere close to constructed but is still large enough to be interesting I think.

P.S. this is a fun card.

Also

 

[CML]

I cleared up some slots, I'll be running 23 for the next draft, which puts us just at 3 per drafter if you include the utility land draft. That would come out to the density of about 4.5 per player in a 60 card deck, which isn't anywhere close to constructed but is still large enough to be interesting I think.

P.S. this is a fun card.

i would be a little wary of too high a density with the ULD and fail-to-find but eh if it doesn't happen too much over there

how about this



probably too bad

 

[Jason Waddell]

Mindcensor is great here. I tried to run Arbiter, but part of the problem is my WW decks run Lynxes and I don't really see a solution there.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Also

I didn't know this existed! Adding it!

Shadow of Doubt seems fine considering it has a built-in cantrip that doesn't require a target.

 

[Changling Bob]

that artifact that says when an opponent shuffles, shock them

 

[Onderzeeboot]

you mean? Is that playable though? At maybe! but at it's a little expensive... Also, poisonous as heck.

 

[CML]

Mindcensor is great here. I tried to run Arbiter, but part of the problem is my WW decks run Lynxes and I don't really see a solution there.

there should probably be WW decks that don't run Lynxes

 

[Jason Waddell]

there should probably be WW decks that don't run Lynxes

That's not super appealing, especially considering those decks will want to run their own fetches with or without Lynx. I like its roll in constructed where you can build fetchless decks with Arbiter in it, but I'm not sure that translates very well to cube.

But I'm open to suggestion. I can toss it into a partial slot and see what pans out, but I don't have a great idea for where it fits in at the moment.

 

[CML]

I'm not advocating Arbiter, I'm arguing you should design to create greater diversity of WW decks

 

[Jason Waddell]

I'm not advocating Arbiter, I'm arguing you should design to create greater diversity of WW decks

I mean, there's some pretty good diversity there already. Just because they usually have a Steppe Lynx or two in their 40 doesn't mean the decks are anywhere near the same from draft to draft. I don't really see it as a problem, but I will experiment with Humans eventually.

I still really like Steppe Lynx as a beater. I was watching the replays of last draft, and my opponent was holding fetchlands in case I played blockers he needed to beat through instead of taking the immediate damage. There's play to the card and its power level varies with your drafting.

It is possible (and happens) that you can build a good WX deck that plays no Lynxes, using white's other one-drops and borrowing from other colors.

 

[CML]

Yeah Lynx is cool. There are a lot of great choices at this slot. Boros Elite is of great interest. Soldier of the Pantheon is kind of boring but his human buddies are all a delight. Isamaru is there because there is no Neapolitan without vanilla.

 

[Changling Bob]

you mean? Is that playable though? At maybe! but at it's a little expensive... Also, poisonous as heck.

Its not poisonous so much as just being a hate card to put in mono coloured aggro, to use vs n-colour good stuff decks. It may not be good enough in limited at 2; as a creature it probably would be.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Its not poisonous so much as just being a hate card to put in mono coloured aggro, to use vs n-colour good stuff decks. It may not be good enough in limited at 2; as a creature it probably would be.

Uh, you're right

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

?

 

[Suicufnoc]

Idk. Add basic landcycling 2?

 

[Suicufnoc]

My mono-fetches continue to play fine.

 

[Lucre]

Can you guys explain your reasoning for having additional fetchlands in specific colours.

Spoiler

Also I'm curious about why I had so much universal negative response to my implication that if you were going to make brainstorm a pillar of a format, you might make blue fixing more available to service a broader number of decks (like say in legacy where people have high access to the card brainstorm and blue fixing and don't tend to have to cross their fingers or fight to play blue decks). It seems like that's the direction people are taking with their rando extra fetches which didn't at all match the response I got whenever I mentioned increasing blue's availability before.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Can you guys explain your reasoning for having additional fetchlands in specific colours.

Also I'm curious about why I had so much universal negative response to my implication that if you were going to make brainstorm a pillar of a format, you might make blue fixing more available to service a broader number of decks (like say in legacy where people have high access to the card brainstorm and blue fixing and don't tend to have to cross their fingers or fight to play blue decks). It seems like that's the direction people are taking with their rando extra fetches which didn't at all match the response I got whenever I mentioned increasing blue's availability before.

It's mostly that it's completely unnecessary to further support blue. I'm not increasing its spell density, it still has 50 just like every other color. All I'm doing is replacing some of the filler (Ponder, Preordain, whatever) with Brainstorms. One of the challenges I've always faced with Blue in cube is how to introduce meaningful synergies and interactions. If you read the design documents for, say, Innistrad, you see that they intentionally planned some open-ended strategies with a sense of structure to them. Blue is still very open, but Brainstorms introduce the ability to put some synergies in there that are not at all linear.

I can see the merit of a cube where blue is more prevalent, and I would certainly move in that direction if I were building a Legacy/Vintagy cube, but the dynamic you describe (cross your fingers and hope to be able to play blue) isn't really indicative of reality. It seems like a reflection of personal bias, considering you admit to almost always jamming blue decks.