Without really being able to argue for it, I just feel that cutting a color removes part of what makes magic into magic. I wouldn't be as excited to play a 4-colored cube.
General Ixlan Spoiler
- Thread starter Chris Taylor
- Start date
That's the objection my group had to it. I didn't push it because I totally get it - my interest was purely as a designer. But from a drafting experience, it would improve things mechanically. For the same reason limited environments are almost always much better when they are focused on a set number of color combinations. The draft experience gets watered down the more color combinations you try to make viable. It's the primary reason I fully rejected the colorless section thing. Adding a 6th color just makes this situation worse.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Why not? I rearranged the color wheel in my cube (to WBURG), and only support the new allied guilds. I devoted 8 slots to each of the five guilds, excluding lands, at 450, so there's a little bit more of any given guild than in a cube with regular color distribution. Besides that the five shards that can be formed by overlapping each of the guilds are supported, with 3 cards in each guild. Picking a three color card also gives you a free triland. For example, picking Cruel Ultimatum gives you a free Crumbling Necropolis. The end result is that people are more inclined to go into three colors, or at least two, and because there's only five supported color pairs, the chance that two players are in the same colors are much, much higher.
So, it's a format that varies pretty substantially from the standard, yet my regulars don't seem to mind at all. It's just a different puzzle to crack, but they enjoy drafting and playing my cube. Oh, and I even run customs as well!
I don't know about your playgroup, but I bet I could get mine to draft a cube without white!
At least once, and if the cube is any good, they'll come back. Because drafting is fun!
Well I agree that it feels wrong to reduce the number of colors because Magic has always been 5 colors.
But now Magic is 6 colors and some people only have 5 in their Cube.
Just wanted to point that out even though I'm also NOT cutting white It was just an idea I wanted to share with you all.
There are other downsides than just 'It feels wrong because Magic is 5/6 colors." and I value them quite high as well. Too many people will be fightning over the same colors if you ask me.
But now Magic is 6 colors and some people only have 5 in their Cube.
Just wanted to point that out even though I'm also NOT cutting white
It was just an idea I wanted to share with you all.There are other downsides than just 'It feels wrong because Magic is 5/6 colors." and I value them quite high as well. Too many people will be fightning over the same colors if you ask me.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think that's one of the biggest draws of cutting a color actually. Don't forget that your colors will be deeper as well (because you're freeing up room for the colors you're not cutting), so they can actually support more drafters.
You might be correct but I remember reading a study ten years ago where there were only 4 colors/races and it was a bit of trouble for the designer because too many people wanted the same colors of cards. He described the design of the game much like a 5/6 player draft.
I guess I could test it out simply by cutting all the white for a single tournament with no second thought or changes behind the decision
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
[...] I'm not really surprised at your dismissive attitude to white. I do agree that it is not the most interesting color, but that is a personal opinion, and one that not every player shares
As someone who personally loves white, this whole conversation has me aghast, tbh
Lol
Personally I would cut green (if I was forced to cut a color). Ramp, if the format needs it, can be supported with artifacts, and pretty much all of the other things green does other colors can do. It's the color that easiest to replace I feel. In any case, it has to be either white or green, doesn't it, considering that those two colors have such an immense overlap in mechanics.
I think finding each colors truly unique place in a format is 50%, maybe more, of the fun for me. Figuring out that green really wanted to be the color focused around lands specifically (a specialty I still strive to fine tune) has really opened up my color wheel, I think. Taking away a color would seem to me almost like a horrendous.... cheat even, and would take away a lot of the richness the color pie has.
Lol
Personally I would cut green (if I was forced to cut a color). Ramp, if the format needs it, can be supported with artifacts, and pretty much all of the other things green does other colors can do. It's the color that easiest to replace I feel. In any case, it has to be either white or green, doesn't it, considering that those two colors have such an immense overlap in mechanics.
I agree!
Interesting. I do the same with my cube (maybe not as much as you do?) but I have also cut most colorless ramp from the cube in order to make ramping a 'almost only green thing'. I am going to take a look at your blog if you don't mind
Of course, please do! Note that it's less about making green ramp, though that is there, as it is about focusing on lands as an overall resource. This includes getting a critical mass of lands into hand, discarding them, sacrificing them, ensuring lands drops, and so on. It's a more defensive, long-game-take on it.
From Ixalan, this is why I'm excited about Merfolk Branchwalker, as it nails virtually every theme I'm trying to do in green.
From Ixalan, this is why I'm excited about Merfolk Branchwalker, as it nails virtually every theme I'm trying to do in green.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
All my artifact ramp starts at three mana, whereas green gets the two mana ramp spells. So green decks, who also have access to artifact mana, will have both more ramp options and cheaper ones than nongreen decks. I do think ramp decks are cool, in particular the Wildfire ramp decks, and green has a lot of nonramp cards that are dear to my heart anyway, so I don't think I'll ever cut a color from my cube, but as a thought experiment this is a really cool concept, and I'ld love to play such a cube just to experience it
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
So, I was playtesting the changes to my cube, and I don't know what happened, but I apparently C17 and Ixalan turned Naya from the most boring shard (to me) to a shard I bloody enjoy playing!
Curse of Opulence <3 Makeshift Munitions I thought it would be a downgrade from Goblin Bombardment, and it kinda is, but being able to throw artifacts at your opponents is sweet. Rith was suggested by a friend, and it plays much better than I thought. As a bonus it's originally from the set I first started playing Magic with! And oh, Savage Stomp plus the enrage dinosaurs, so much value! Flame Jab as well I want more dinosaurs with enrage! I want more fight effects to trigger enrage! Wizards, print some more good enrage cards next set plz!
In other news, Wildfire is awesome again!
So, there's a few customs in this list, but my goodness do I love playing this deck! I was thinking of cutting the Wildfires from my cube, but with Ripjaw Raptor spoiled I went the other direction and put in more support. I've replaced some creature based ramp with spell based ramp, and upped the number of creatures that can live through a Wildfire slightly. Pyre Hound, for example, is suh-weet in this build, it takes only one other instant or sorcery to grow it out of Wildfire range! Qasali Slingers is the perfect replacement for Acidic Slime in this deck as well, my custom even happened to be a cat all along, I was delighted to find out in the middle of a game. I never thought its creature type would end up mattering, but it did
Customs (Tinderwood Copse appears twice in both lists):
Can't wait for the 30th, cause who knows, maybe I'll be able to rock a sweet deck that resembles one of the above!
Naya Beats
 | | | | |
| ||||
| ||||
Curse of Opulence <3 Makeshift Munitions
I thought it would be a downgrade from Goblin Bombardment, and it kinda is, but being able to throw artifacts at your opponents is sweet. Rith was suggested by a friend, and it plays much better than I thought. As a bonus it's originally from the set I first started playing Magic with! And oh, Savage Stomp plus the enrage dinosaurs, so much value! Flame Jab as well I want more dinosaurs with enrage! I want more fight effects to trigger enrage! Wizards, print some more good enrage cards next set plz! In other news, Wildfire is awesome again!
Temur Wildfire
| | | | | |
| |||||
So, there's a few customs in this list, but my goodness do I love playing this deck! I was thinking of cutting the Wildfires from my cube, but with Ripjaw Raptor spoiled I went the other direction and put in more support. I've replaced some creature based ramp with spell based ramp, and upped the number of creatures that can live through a Wildfire slightly. Pyre Hound, for example, is suh-weet in this build, it takes only one other instant or sorcery to grow it out of Wildfire range! Qasali Slingers is the perfect replacement for Acidic Slime in this deck as well, my custom even happened to be a cat all along, I was delighted to find out in the middle of a game. I never thought its creature type would end up mattering, but it did
Customs (Tinderwood Copse appears twice in both lists):
Can't wait for the 30th, cause who knows, maybe I'll be able to rock a sweet deck that resembles one of the above!
With all these cheap white vampires with lifelink, is it time to revisit the lifegain triggers matter theme?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Preliminary testing has me enthousiastic about:
All of these made the final cut, as well as
Still on the fence about
Woooooow! This is awesome! This cycle is officially great
I had Legion's Landing in my prerelease pool and I liked it a lot more than I expected. It's very slow, and can be a bit difficult to flip, but if you can get it started it works on its own to give you more time to make more vampires. There were a couple of games I made 10+ vampires with it. It was also a great combo with Deathless Ancient as although my deck didn't have a ton of vampires I rarely ran out of fuel to bring it back over and over. I'm still not convinced it's cube-worthy at my power level but I've upgraded it from "no chance" to "maybe worth testing".
Chris Taylor
Contributor
The 2/3? Espouse to me a bitAll of these made the final cut, as well as
Still on the fence about
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You mean Ranging Raptors? I've included a bit more fight cards in my cube, honestly I'm hoping for more good enrage cards in
next set! Anyway, the card is pretty satisfying. People are loathe to give you free mana ramp, so blocking it is quite agonizing. Where it really shines is in combination with fight cards, ping effects (one of my favorites is pinging it with leftover damage from Monstrous Onslaught), and of course the double Wildfire in my cube.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Thats actually a really good point. I've been running some of the army in a can zombie creating sorceries, and thats enough to provide the critical mass for tribal synergies. I've also found that the case with artifact token makers and metalcraft or other mechanics that care about critical mass. Shifting away from card slot sub-type to creature type token maker takes a lot of the stress off of the colored sections, which than don't need to be warped around a particular creature type, and can just have that density contained in a few good sub-type token makers.
The W/B go-wide/sacrifice aggro/midrange strategy has already been there for eons, so attack triggers on small bodies already work pretty well for it, and there are quite a few vampire token makers to choose from, existing at varying power levels. With both this and zombies you have a broadly workable plan, and than a few army in a can makers coupled with independently reasonable lords can give it a bit more focus. It even ties in with red, giving you a mardu angle. This might not be as far fetched as it seems.
I drafted with this card on release day, and it performed very, very well. Eating a creature on ETB and following up with eating a non-creature on attack is great game. Decent body, useful and impactful effect: definitely giving this card a spin. I was hesitant, but it plays well enough to warrant. I may actually take this opportunity to go:
Kitchen Finks
to
Sunscourge Champion in white
deathgorge scavenger in green
Give me the same style of effect in both green and white with a net increase in interesting things going on.
Overall the set was pretty fun to draft. It's a brutally fast environment. I don't think there was a single 2-1 match the entire night, just obliteration one way or the other. Take that as you will. I wish explore had been pushed like 10% farther. It seems like such a great generic mechanic, but only really one card got there in power level (Branchwalker), and that's filler at best, tbh.
I really like Deathgorge Scavenger, but I'm not sure if I can squeeze it in next to my Loaming Shaman in the 3 slot. I see Deathgorge as a fair alternative to Scavenging Ooze which is mows downs graveyards a little too efficiently for my tastes.
The stats bump is actually the main reason I want to bring it in. I'm lacking in aggressive bodies in that slot...everything is very midrange. It's more to do with not wanting to cut any of my other 3s to make room for it:
It'd probably need to be either Excavator or Courser. I'm probably overly supporting Lands Matter in green as it is. Manglehorn may seem like a weak link, but it scratches a lot of itches.
It'd probably need to be either Excavator or Courser. I'm probably overly supporting Lands Matter in green as it is. Manglehorn may seem like a weak link, but it scratches a lot of itches.
I cut Tireless Tracker for being, tbph, too good. I wouldn't cut Courser for much of anything. I can see the reason for hesitation; that green section is very solid already. I feel it's outclassed largely by Tireless Tracker (so is loaming Shaman, imo), so Tracker is my first choice to broaden the interest of the section, but I can totally understand enjoying the value TT brings.