General Gate Format Musings

[LadyMapi]

OK, so a while back I had this idea for a gate focused format, which boils down to "start with Basilisk Gate + Heap Gate on the battlefield and one of the OG gates in your hand". And that was fine and all for a brainstorm, but it felt WAY too gold for my tastes — due to how flexible your mana is, you can basically just grab the best cards from any color and jam (which I personally find to be kinda tricky to draft).

So, I decided to iterate on the idea a bit:

Your deck does not have lands in it.

At the beginning of the game, put these five lands off to the side:


(Azorius Guildgate and Boros Guildgate can be any two guildgates — I'm not cruel enough to force everyone into Jeskai.)

You play lands from this pile off to the side, and get to make two land drops on T1.

What's The Plan, Stan?​

This effectively gives you three routes to develop your mana in the early game, based off what you play on T1 (assuming, of course, that you play Plaza of Harmony on T2):

1) 2x Guildgates → Harmony → Basilisk's, then play Gateway Plaza when you can afford to pay the . This gets you to 4 mana on T3, but you will need to drop to 3 available mana at some point to get down Gateway Plaza... which, conveniently, is how much mana you'll need to activate Basilisk's Gate.

2) Guildgate + Basilisk's → Harmony → Guildgate, then play Gateway Plaza when you can afford to pay the . This is like #1, except you can play a colorless 1-drop on T1 and have to wait until T4 to get 4 mana.

3) Basilisk's + Gateway Plaza → Harmony → Guildgate → Guildgate. This develops more slowly than the other two, (no T1 1-drop or T3 4-drop), but you don't need to worry about Gateway Plaza's cost... and you have perfect gold mana on T2 (annoying, but kinda unavoidable with this kind of set-up).

I feel like each of those routes has its own benefits and drawbacks and naturally lend themselves to different decks as long as the format is designed with them in mind (#1 lets you play stuff with triple pips on T2, #2 is great if there's a 1-drop utility artifact you want to get down, and #3 is great if you're splashing around).

If you don't care about the extra 3 life, of course, there are a few other routes that you can take:

4) Harmony + Basilisk's → Guildgate → Guildgate. Starts off strong (you can play a 2-drop artifact on T1!), but develops the slowest (2→2→3→4). This might be worth it if you draft the right cards and have the right opening hand.

5) Harmony + Guildgate →Basilisk's →Guildgate. Basically #2, except you get to start off with a colored 1-drop. Swapping the second Guildgate and the Basilisk's Gate makes this only slightly faster than #4, but gives you all of your colors on T2... which probably isn't worth it?

Opening with Harmony + Gateway Plaza is basically just a worse version of #3, and I don't see a compelling reason to do it.

On Guildgate Choices​

So, there's actually quite a bit of nuance when it comes to what Guildgates you let people pick:

Two Matching Guildgates​

The strictest choice — you pick a color pair and you stick with it. This maximizes the difference between #1 and #3, but minimizes the difference between #1 and #2. It also means that splashing or going for three colors forces you to use #3... which may or may not be desirable as a way to draw distinctions between 2 color decks and 3+ color decks.

Two Overlapping Guildgates​

Pick one color to be your main color, then pick two others to splash into. This increases the distinction between #1 and #2 (since #2 will be "missing" a color on T2), but means that you aren't forced to pick #3 if you're playing a 3-color deck. This is honestly what I'm leaning towards for this kind of format.

Any Two Guildgates​

The chaos option. This minimizes the difference between #1 and #3 and introduces quite a bit of sequencing for #2. I'm not too terribly fond of this option, since it pushes how gold-y the mana base is.

Why The Other Three Lands, Exactly?​

Basilisk's Gate is honestly just a fun card, and giving everyone a big, sorcery-speed pump spell built into their mana base means that even wimpy little dorks can potentially be threats (you get a +4/+4 bonus with all of your lands in play, after all).

Gateway Plaza was interesting to me for two reasons. Firstly, it was a way to play Basilisk's Gate as a "tapped land" on T1, which felt like a nice mirror-image to playing two Guildgates on T1. Secondly, it felt like the best 5-color gate, which I felt was important for splashing purposes.

Finally, Plaza of Harmony probably feels a bit weird, but I feel like it really helps round out the spread. It offers mana fixing (but is reliant on Gateway Plaza to get all five colors) and "dulls" Basilisk's Gate a little bit (it makes Basilisk's Gate cap out at +4/+4, and that 3 life means that someone going full-out aggro will need an extra turn to get through your life total). I just think it's neat.

What About The Other Gates?​

I considered the five Thriving Gates, since it'd make the "two overlapping guildgates" rule exceptionally simple (just hand everyone two of the same gate)... but I decided against them because they potentially introduce memory issues once they get onto the battlefield.

Thran Portal kinda sucks, honestly. I feel like you might be able to get good results by swapping out one of the guildgates with a Thran Portal (it caps you at 3 colors before Gateway Plaza comes down and gives you a card with a basic land type)... but I don't think it's really worth the hassle. EDIT: Also, it has so many words that I apparently forgot that it's a fastland. That actually makes it a bit more interesting, though I'm not sure the quirks it adds are worth the hassle (long story short: it offers a much better curve if you're focused on 1-2 colors).

Gond Gate is an obvious replacement for Plaza of Harmony as an alternate gold gate, but it also makes your gates ETB untapped. This pushes the format heavily towards just playing Gond Gate on T1 and then slamming your Guildgates, which kinda wrecks all of the interesting sequencing.

The other two "color fixing" gates, Baldur's Gate and Heap Gate are potentially interesting... but both of them make it really easy to play T1 2-drop artifacts without giving anything up. On top of that, Baldur's Gate is kinda awkward as a splash enabler until you have 3 other gates (aka you've fully developed your mana base), while Heap Gate is a little too good as a splash enabler — your choice of curves basically turns into "2x Guildgate → Harmony → Heap → Basilisk's" or "Basilisk's + Heap → Harmony → Guildgate → Guildgate", depending on whether or not you open up with a 1 or 2 drop, and you have a second 3-mana sink for turns when you don't want to play anything (which creates more mana!).

This isn't to say, of course, that another arrangement of gates wouldn't work... but this is the set-up that feels best to me.

(Oh, yeah, you could also replace the Gateway Plaza with Nearby Planet... but that seems a bit extra if you ask me.)

What Does The Card Pool Look Like?​

To the shock of literally no-one, I haven't actually started developing the rest of the cube. The way that this mana base works out, however, does imply stuff about what kind of cards you can run:

To Splash Or Not To Splash?​

It's possible to splash for anything that has 1 or 2 colored pips, regardless of what those pips are. However, committing to a five color pile means that you're forced to develop your mana in one very specific way, which also just so happens to be one of the slower curves. In practical terms, though? We can have a much bigger gold section than most cubes without too many problems, and our archetypes should probably include more colors rather than less.

Ramp? I Hardly Knew 'Er!​

Since there aren't any lands in your deck and you're capped out at 5 lands, land-based ramp, landfall, and land destruction are all off the table. In fact, it's probably for the best if ramp is kept to the bare minimum, since a large part of the format's identity is bound up in the 5 very specific lands that everyone gets and the sequencing decisions that they produce. I might make an exception for Greenside Watcher, since it has an interesting interaction with Basilisk's Gate... but that's pretty much it.

Also, like, you can guarantee yourself a 3-drop on T2, a 4-drop on T3, and a 5-drop on T5, so it's not like you really need to worry about mana.

What's Our Curve Like?​

Due to the guaranteed mana, we don't really want to run anything at MV 6+, but we can be way heavier on the 4s and 5s than we normally could. Which is honestly kinda nice for a Timmy-ish format. That said, thanks to Basilisk's Gate, we have a colorless Sorcery-speed Mammoth Growth sitting in our hands at all times. This really powers up our 1- and 2-drops, since we can effectively always sequence them with another card. As a result, our 3s, 4s, and 5s should probably sit at the higher end of our power band to compensate for that.

The Dawn of Gate Tribal?​

I'm going to level with you... as weird as it seems, this format probably won't be running very many gate-tribal cards. Now, that might seem weird, but the issue is that a lot of them either tutor up gates (which doesn't work, since the decks don't have lands in them), care about gates entering the battlefield (which will happen at most twice for both of the cards that do), or cost 6+ mana.

Of the remaining cards, they're mostly lackluster (Opal Lake Gatekeeper is a 2/4 visionary for ) or absolutely bonkers (Gatebreaker Ram is a 4/4 vigilance trampler on T2 that can swing in as a 10/10 vigilance trampler by T4), with very little middle ground. As a result, we're unfortunately going to have to save our gate synergies for our mana base.

Beyond The Gates​

The fact that I used Gates for this has more to do with Basilisk's Gate than anything else — this general idea should work with any pile of lands that offers interesting sequencing decisions. Gates just happen to offer:

*) Three tap-lands, which help make ordering important.
*) A wide array of colors (two duals, a gold land, and a Reflecting Pool)
*) A cheap-ish mana sink that doesn't require sacrificing the land.

 

[LadyMapi]

My apologies if this seems particularly ramble-y. I got this in my head and posted it instead of sleeping, so it's probably full of phrasing that only makes sense to me.

 

[Brad]

I wonder how interesting it might be to cut the Gateway Plaza and run cards in the draft that have intense color costs. Give players less flexible mana and more meaningful choices in which lands they want. Something like the Invoke cycle can only be cast off Basilisk Gate plus four gates of the same color, for example. Overall, I dislike starting with a guaranteed turn one land of any color.

Plaza could swap for Reflecting Pool if the 3 life is too useful.

I find Heap Gate's capability to exceed five mana rather interesting. It would take some saving up, but maybe I could cast Cruel Ultimatum... Perhaps a Draw Go style deck with Heap Gate EOT emerges.

There's probably room to consider a pool of utility lands in place of Basilisk Gate. Something like the Innistrad utilities comes to mind. Almost like having a land commander. Maybe I choose Grim Backwoods, Reflecting Pool, BG land, WB land... and some 5th land that makes it interesting. (I don't know what the fifth land should be. I don't want to let players choose three lands because that allows them to choose five colors.) Once I'm on Abzan Backwoods, I can draft an Abzan sac deck and maybe I end up losing to Stensia Bloodhall aggro-midrange. Something like that could add variety to the format.

 

[blacksmithy]

this manabase, powered vintage spell list

 

[Karshtakavaar]

I'm super invested in this, and of the presented options really like the chaos approach of any two guildgates.

I had a think about it when you first posted it and had some musings on supporting like, Workshop Weenie/Affinity (Or whatever colourless artifact aggro deck, my entire thought process is "t1 Steel Overseer is sweeet") as well as having maybe colourless mana rocks at cmc 2 to encourage the Basilisk+Harmony opener, so you can run stuff like Stonecoil Serpent or something.

Now I'm looking at it again, I'm a little sad this doesn't get to 'cause that would open up another gameplan of splashing all the single-pip stuff and getting to play sweet shit like Chamber Sentry - which is why I would consider Thran Portal, as it lets you do both 5c control but also punishes it by a: being a monocolour painland and b: letting aggressive decks get a double-pipped 2-drop out on t1. I think in this hypothetical, the Portal amplifies the interesting tension present in the mana mechanic magic has - Are you going to go for t1 Ash Zealot, or can you hold out against that play and try to pop off with Etched Monstrosity?

I agree with Brad about intense colour costs - triple pipped spells seem like a great incentive to avoid playing three colour piles, but both Plazas together kinda kills that. Heap Gate taxes it, and also lets you have a ramp archetype, so I think that's kinda cool. Admittedly, Thran Portal only punishes it rather than preventing it so w/e

I kind of feel like the specific 5 gates you want are going to have to be built around the archetypes/pool you intend to build, and very much sets the tone of the whole exercise, so even in the absence of a pool that design goal needs to be firmly set?
I think Heap+Portal+Plaza+2x identical Guildgate is what I'd gravitate towards myself - I suspect it's the most "open" to different decks, could do double and triple pipped spells that don't want to be delayed a turn or two, allows for WUBRG, allows for spells that cost more than 5 (Probably only ones that have 'kickers' or alternative costs though, not sure the Ultimatums are where I'd want to be).
That said, as a consequence doesn't prevent anything, only mildly punishes greed (Monocolour painland + taxland, need a treasure to make WUBRG), and the only big reward is double pipped spells on t1 - which happens to be a huge disincentive for the double colourless line which I would also like to see rewarded somehow (Somehow I doubt Spatial Contortion or Warping Wail would do it for anyone )

this manabase, powered vintage spell list

I have cast Time Walk off a scuffed to hell Guildgate when borrowing an EDH deck. The Time Walk was a glorified Explore. For a Boros Guildgate. There is no feeling more powerful. For this reason alone, the pool must contain a Time Walk and all Azorius Guildgates must be dragged on concrete and lightly dog-eared before going into the storage box that all may experience trancendence. It has been decreed.

 

[LadyMapi]

It feels super obvious to me in retrospect, but one tweak that tightens up the mana considerably is to swap Gateway Plaza for Transguild Promenade (because we want our taxland to be on theme). Then you'd still have a gold land for splashing, but Plaza of Harmony would still be limited to the colors you picked. It would also mean that anyone who didn't go all color-greedy would be able to get away with never playing their tempo-negative gold land, which is intriguing.

It would substantially slow down the Basilisk's + Promenade start, though, since you'd need to take T2 "off" to play a Guildgate and turn on your Plaza of Harmony. That might actually be enough to nuke that sequence of lands entirely — going 0→2→4 when everyone else is playing their 3-drops on T2 doesn't seem like a good plan of action.

What if we went with something like...

Basilisk + Promenade + Plaza + Portal + Guildgate?

Then you'd basically have three curves:

Fast: Portal + Basilisk → Plaza →Guildgate (Promenade optional). Goes 2→3→3→4, but locks you into a single color on T1 and T2.
Medium: Portal + Guildgate →Plaza → Basilisk (Promenade optional). Goes 1→3→4, but gives you access to all of your "main" colors by T2.
Slow: Basilisk + Promenade → Portal → Plaza → Guildgate. Goes 0→3→4→4→5, delays your lifegain from Plaza of Harmony until T3, but gives you access to all 5 colors on T2.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, honestly — on the one hand, having a painful fastland in the mana base makes the lifegain from Plaza feel less random, while on the other hand this does remove the "shops" line. I kinda miss having that kind of "screw my life total, I want speed" option.

...

Heap + Plaza + Portal + 2x Guildgate is also reasonably interesting, though I agree that it's probably a bit too permissive. Heap + Portal → Plaza is probably going to be the most common start — it's painful, sure, but you've got perfect gold mana on T2...

And I just realized that I never properly explained my reasoning for why I went with the Tax!Gate instead of the Filter!Gate. It boils down to opportunity cost — both lands turn your Plaza of Harmony into a perfect gold land (assuming, of course, that you don't sway Gateway Plaza out for Transguild Promenade), but the Tax!Gate acts more like a mana dork than a land in terms of what it does to your curve, and I feel like that's a worthwhile thing to keep in mind.

(I'll admit that I'm a bit biased against Heap Gate because the Capitalism Cube has consumed most of my desire to mess around with treasures as a design space. That said, I'm somewhat intrigued by Hall of Tagsin, so I might just be a hypocrite).

 

[Karshtakavaar]

I quite like the Basilisk + Promenade + Plaza + Portal + Guildgate idea even though it turns off wubrg and invalidates the shops start for the simple cosmetic reason of "Not double guildgate" - It feels cleaner to hand someone four lands and say "Pick one of these" than it does to hand them three and say "Pick 2 but they have to (Be the same/share a colour/be different/whatever other condition)", plus it does present those interesting sequencing puzzles. Kinda sucks that I can't see a way to reward both shops start and aiming for wubrg

I've started toying around with potential pools and the list of colourless threats is both smaller than I'd hoped and super broad in power level - and way less of a slam dunk when your opponent can start with CC threats or answers on t1, so I'm falling out of love with it a bit. That and Heap Gate plus Arcbound Ravager feels a little dumb, but no Heap Gate means no wubrg so something has to give. Unless you go for the tax effects from vintage shops, which could be cool maybe? That said, playing slower lines involving Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst, maybe some Thalia's or w/e is just fine with a Portal+Basilisk start. Might be fun.

 

[blacksmithy]

4c decks are fun, if i’m reading the set of lands correctly i can still build around Omnath or Breya or do 4c Gifts Reanimator in this cube

 

[LadyMapi]

I'm alright with 4c decks being a thing, honestly.

That said, blacksmithy, how the heck are you building around 4C Omnath in a cube where you only have 5 lands total? Are you that in love with the idea of a 4/4 visionary for that will give you 4 life if you sequence properly?

---

But yeah, just for reference purposes, if you set your Portal on Mountain and use Azorius Guildgate, this is what your mana looks like with each sequence (using for "mana of any color"):

Fast: → → or → or .
Medium: → or → or .
Slow: → → → or → or
Tepid*: → → or → or

If you swap the Basilisk's Gate for a Heap Gate, it looks like:

Fast: → → → .
Medium: → or →.
Slow: → → → →
Tepid: → → or →

Sequencing!

* (Tepid is Portal + Promenade → Guildgate → Plaza → Basilisk).

 

[blacksmithy]

Are you that in love with the idea of a 4/4 visionary for

…are you not?????

 

[LadyMapi]

…are you not?????

Not enough to deal with that much trinket text.

EDIT: Actually, this raises an interesting question — how many land drops do you need to be able to make before a landfall card is "worth it"? Like, is cube all-star Tireless Tracker worth running if you're getting at most two clues out of it?

There's also the question of how many cards you should have in your library, and how many cards you draw at the start of the game...

 

[blacksmithy]

i fully expect Villain to kill my landfall critter within 1-2 turn cycles, so if i can play a land and force that, im happy. if i can play a fetch and immediately crack it, they either kill it or i basically win.
EDIT: if i play Tracker on curve, i either don’t have a better play, im holding Force of Will, or i have a sick turn 4 that i wanna bait out removal in advance of

 

[Karshtakavaar]

But yeah, just for reference purposes, if you set your Portal on Mountain and use Azorius Guildgate, this is what your mana looks like with each sequence (using for "mana of any color"):

Fast: → → or → or .
Medium: → or → or .
Slow: → → → or → or
Tepid*: → → or → or

If you swap the Basilisk's Gate for a Heap Gate, it looks like:

Fast: → → → .
Medium: → or →.
Slow: → → → →
Tepid: → → or →

Sequencing!

* (Tepid is Portal + Promenade → Guildgate → Plaza → Basilisk).

I'd like to add "Committed": Portal + Plaza → Basilisk → Guildgate:

Committed: → → as Fast

or you swap the Guildgate and Basilisk gate to get your t1 development and still be able to cast CCC cards reasonably fast:

Committed: → →

You lose out on 3 life and are tapping a painland every turn, so there's got to be cards that make that worth it, but I think that's pretty doable. Swiftspear+Goblin Guide sounds like a good enough reason to me. Triple pipped creatures, there have been a fair few of those that are good. Could even do suicide black plus Death's Shadow and Shadow of Mortality to reward the life-loss/skipping the life gain? Probably too cute.

Heap also allowing for stored mana on t1 is potentially an interesting line - Heap+Portal into Plaza gives you a huge turn 2 and then stifles your development, but you can use those 'off' turns to make treasures to build up for the next haymaker. Not advocating for it, just saying adding Heap Gate massively multiplies the complexity of tracking available mana.

Haymakers: → or (or +treasure, or +treasure) -> probably another off turn, leaving 2 up for interaction and a treasure -> too many possibilities to list.

On the draw you eat a ton of damage, but you get to drop some massive stabilizer pretty quick, and you get your 3 life off Plaza to make up for the t1 painland. Slowrolling into a t3 Fumigate, then holding mana up on 4 to set up for an even bigger 5 would be sweet. Would probably invalidate a lot of other lines and really restricts the sorts of artifact synergies you could include in the list though.


I kind of like the idea of including effects to punish the decks that hold their Plaza to help the faster lines be worth it, but I think only Skullcrack is fast enough on the draw and not getting your t1 dudes doesn't seem worth it. Stigma Lasher does seem like a solid creature against those decks on the play though.

There's also the question of how many cards you should have in your library, and how many cards you draw at the start of the game...

5 card opener 20 card library is what I've been messing about with in my head/on cubecobra. Like, it's not a format you'll play to death, the lost variance from a small card pool and deck size is irrelevant compared to the increase in consistency and fun for the tiny pool of games I expect would be played, and it seems like it's about rewarding the sequencing puzzles anyway. Plus less cards to build the pool, 'cause I'm leaning towards duplicate sealed myself.

 

[LadyMapi]

Sadly, Heap's ability to make treasure actually costs — you need to tap Heap and another Gate, and then pay on top of that. As a result, the Haymaker sequence isn't actually possible (unlike the "committed" line, which I didn't see — good shout!).

As for punishing the Plaza line... Kavu Predator seems like another decent choice. Or, to approach it from a different angle...

 

[Karshtakavaar]

Sadly, Heap's ability to make treasure actually costs — you need to tap Heap and another Gate, and then pay on top of that.

I can read I promise :c
Actually makes me like Heap Gate slightly more? Changes the line to:
Heap + Promenade → Portal → Plaza → Guildgate
for when you feel the need for
Greed: → +treasure → or (Or save treasures and pretend you took the Slow line) → too many possibilities to list.

Still get that t3 Fumigate but you really pay for it, no option for the t2 haymaker invalidating the fast line. It is super telegraphed given that the sequencing decisions happen after mulligans. Sort of like the Tron line I guess.

Oh this I live very much; that's cool as. I love that it actively rewards playing your Plaza early as well. It's a shame Park Heights Maverick is the only other playable Dethrone card besides Marchesa. Scourge costs 6 so it's out and Dack's Duplicate is only okay. Maybe Marchesa's Smuggler as a 2 that can pretend to be a 5? Marchesa's triggered ability is abuseable as hell so the rest of the pool would have to be tailored a bit I suspect.

I also like the Kavu, can't believe I forgot about him. Punishing Fire is a near miss sadly. Trying to think of other effects while my brain refuses to move past Tainted Remedy.



Edit:

That said, blacksmithy, how the heck are you building around 4C Omnath in a cube where you only have 5 lands total? Are you that in love with the idea of a 4/4 visionary for that will give you 4 life if you sequence properly?

…are you not?????

Ultragreed: Heap + Promenade → Portal+Treasure → Omnath+Plaza → Guildgate.
Bam, Omnath value. 8 whole life!

In all seriousness, I'd slam Saskia in this cube. And Breya but that goes without saying.

 

[alvoi]

EDIT: Actually, this raises an interesting question — how many land drops do you need to be able to make before a landfall card is "worth it"? Like, is cube all-star Tireless Tracker worth running if you're getting at most two clues out of it?

Turn 1 Elvish Spirit Guide + Tinder Wall + Desperate Ritual + Manamorphosis and I can play Tireless Tracker and have all my 5 land drops

 

[LadyMapi]

I appreciate your hustle, but I'm not sure that extra fast mana would fit with what the cube's doing.

I don't have time to elaborate on it right now, but I wonder if this cube wants some stuff that bounces lands? Part of me is envisioning a control deck built around Soratami Savant, and giggling a bit.

Actually, that brings up another thought — due to your number of lands capping out quite low, Mana Leak effects probably end up being more desirable than hard counters.

 

[Karshtakavaar]

I mean, UG trampolines sounds fun to me. I do wonder about how much fun it'd be for other people.
Jaddi Offshoot, Grazing Gladeheart, Soratami Savant, Plaza of Harmony, Vapor Snare sounds like some people's idea of hell

 

[LadyMapi]

Reusing Lands For Fun And Profit - Some Examples​

The main trick here is that you're trying to reuse Plaza of Harmony's ETB or your utility gate's activated ability.

Tazeem Raptor, Tragic Lesson, and Devour In Flames all share one key feature — they get absolutely super-charged once you've hit the "land cap", when they essentially cost less and give you 3 life.

Daze and Quirion Ranger both reward you for setting your Thran Portal on a particular land type, and have the interesting side effect of tempting you to cap out at 3 lands instead of 4 or 5 (since otherwise Portal won't ETB untapped when you replay it). Is that a good thing? I don't know.

Wayward Guide-Beast and Slab Hammer are notable because hoo boy do they offer nice targets for Basilisk's Gate — they both offer a nice way to loop your Plaza while simultaneously giving you a big lad to swing in with.

Finally, Greenside Watcher is honestly the only land untapper I actually like for this cube, simply because it can only untap Portal, your Guildgate, and your utility gate — letting it untap Promenade or Plaza would make it a gold mana dork, when I think it's more interesting as a 2-3 color mana dork that also potentially gives you two activations of your utility gate in a single turn.

---

I was going to make this part of a larger post about different fun ways to interact with the mana base (including different ways to simulate land destruction — pro tip: Moonbow Illusionist is hilariously disruptive in conjunction with this particular set of lands), but I ran out of steam.

I will, however, leave you with a few cards that probably shouldn't find their way into a Gate Format cube:

 

[blacksmithy]

gush
deprive

also fun

 

[Rusje]

Reusing Lands For Fun And Profit - Some Examples​

The main trick here is that you're trying to reuse Plaza of Harmony's ETB or your utility gate's activated ability.

Tazeem Raptor, Tragic Lesson, and Devour In Flames all share one key feature — they get absolutely super-charged once you've hit the "land cap", when they essentially cost less and give you 3 life.

Daze and Quirion Ranger both reward you for setting your Thran Portal on a particular land type, and have the interesting side effect of tempting you to cap out at 3 lands instead of 4 or 5 (since otherwise Portal won't ETB untapped when you replay it). Is that a good thing? I don't know.

Wayward Guide-Beast and Slab Hammer are notable because hoo boy do they offer nice targets for Basilisk's Gate — they both offer a nice way to loop your Plaza while simultaneously giving you a big lad to swing in with.

Finally, Greenside Watcher is honestly the only land untapper I actually like for this cube, simply because it can only untap Portal, your Guildgate, and your utility gate — letting it untap Promenade or Plaza would make it a gold mana dork, when I think it's more interesting as a 2-3 color mana dork that also potentially gives you two activations of your utility gate in a single turn.

---

I was going to make this part of a larger post about different fun ways to interact with the mana base (including different ways to simulate land destruction — pro tip: Moonbow Illusionist is hilariously disruptive in conjunction with this particular set of lands), but I ran out of steam.

I will, however, leave you with a few cards that probably shouldn't find their way into a Gate Format cube:

What about

They are probably much stronger since each player caps at 5 mana?

 

[LadyMapi]

gush

Gush unfortunately wants you to have two Islands to bounce, which isn't something that the mana base can normally do. Like, you could have it in the cube, but it'd be as an A+B combo piece instead of a generically good draw spell.

Deprive is a decent shout, though.

What about

They are probably much stronger since each player caps at 5 mana?

I'm honestly a little unsure about both of them? I'd definitely need to test Slow Motion, because I'm not entirely sure about how the play patterns would shake out.

Ghost Prison, on the other hand, seems like it'd be most interesting in the Heap Gate version of the cube. In the Basilisk's Gate version, it feels like it'd mostly just be "choose one: attack with two creatures, attack with one creature and hold up mana for spells, or attack with one creature and Gate-pump it", whereas Heap Gate adds the minigame of holding back for a few turns, building up mana, and then slamming your creatures into villain.

Looking for other cards that have interesting "tax" abilities, I stumbled on a few that seem particularly interesting (I ended up skipping over blue, because a lot of the ones that I felt were kinda cool, like Rishadan Cutpurse, had a lot of potential to be kinda toxic in this kind of format. Or, you know, they were soft counters):



Oppressive Rays is an interesting card because it's just harsh enough to serve as a Pacifism+. Like, sometimes villain will be willing to pay the , but that's such a huge loss in tempo that you win either way. It's also a big enough cost that villain basically has to choose between doing stuff with the creature or doing stuff with their utility gate, which is kinda neat.

Carrionette is sweet because it's an open threat that sits in your graveyard and goes "hey, keep open or lose your best creature", in a way that makes it very clear when your shields are down.

Quenchable Fire and Mtenda Lion are on this list because I look at them and I feel only regret. Having a powerful early play that tempts villain to assign their Thran Portal the wrong color is interesting, if nothing else... but, sadly, neither of these cards are powerful enough to do that. Maybe if Quenchable Fire cost ?

Wild Might is honestly kinda perfect for the Basilisk's Gate version of this cube, if only because it's a combat trick that villain has to play around once they know about it.

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I feel like the Basilisk's Gate version of this cube is going to sit in the weird spot where sorcery-speed removal can be cheap but instant-speed removal has to be expensive, if only because we don't want "I tap three lands to pump one of my dorks" to be a sucker's bet.

 

[Rusje]

In my urza block cube slow motion becomes:
Pay 2 every turn. If you do not, you sacrifice this creature and your remaining best creature receives this tax from next turn on.

Slow motions power is primarily that it inevitable. Why it is palatable is that often players end up with more than 5 mana. In your gate idea, mana is even more scarce since paying 2 may prevent you, just like the prison, from doing a lot.
Prison is probably weaker than the locomotion since you can choose to not attack and play something for 5. If you want to do that with an active slow motion you lose that creature.

 

[LadyMapi]

So, nearly a year later...

Lost Caves of Ixalan has given us another land subtype (get hyped!), and it's a pretty interesting one. Caves! And the question that came to my mind is whether or not there's potential for a Gate Format-esque mana-base, with sequencing and everything.

My first idea is to build around this core:



You've got a late-game one-shot cascade/draw, a late-game creature land, and a land-focused Sol land. Nice! Now, the real question is what the other two lands should be? The only idea I have is give people Promising Vein and Volatile Fault and a few basics that they can search up, but I feel like that risks people actually playing basics, which kinda defeats the point?

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Is your goal to have people with 17 cave manabases? The payoff for that has to be pretty high for people to want to do it if they have a basic landbox, but you can just make a desert cube if you want to force people into that situation