General Mana Base Brainstorm Thread

[Chris Taylor]

Chris Taylor pointed out that for Cube, we don't necessarily have to abide by the "can't be strictly better" rule they follow for land design because all our good nonbasics have the additional line "this costs you a pick and is not a spell". Lotta folks run ABU duals yaknow?

Plus some of the baloney downsides they've used aren't real and the land is absolutely better than a basic.

Yeah basically this. Nobody's straight picking a swamp.

Also, since theres probably like at most 5 cards in your cube that actually require , I want these to be useful when those aren't in the draft

 

[ahadabans]

Chris Taylor pointed out that for Cube, we don't necessarily have to abide by the "can't be strictly better" rule they follow for land design because all our good nonbasics have the additional line "this costs you a pick and is not a spell". Lotta folks run ABU duals yaknow?

Plus some of the baloney downsides they've used aren't real and the land is absolutely better than a basic.

We certainly don't, but it feels like bad design to me is all. To be fair, I really dislike cards that are unconditionally better than other cards. I won't run Lighting Bolt for this reason because it makes so many other burn spells look retarded. I do understand wanting a better flying man (say with prowess perhaps) - that feels like fixing a card that was simply not playable to begin with (mistakes happen). But doing this with lands is just undermining what the original bar was for basic lands. On that note, I find the original duals an abomination. Shock lands is what a dual land is supposed to look like. If you want two color mana from a single land, you have to take that with a drawback (even if the drawback can be mitigated or is not that bad - it's still a drawback). My 2 cents only.

 

[Ferritovore]

Oh that was already Taylor in the first place. Well now my sentence structure is all awkward. All the other recent posts were onderzeeboot! Impostor!

 

[sigh]

Those don't even ETB tapped??? OMG

Are you not bothered by how awful Swamp looks next to Abandoned Fen?

Gonna echo Ferret here, and say that cube design as a whole can sometimes have problems with this when it comes to customs. It being pushed is exactly the point! . You are spending one of your 45 picks on a swamp+.

Still mulling around with ideas around blasted landscape. That card is elegant. I like what onderzeeboot is saying above. You getta free BL with your colorless dood pick?

EDIT: I'd be perfectly happy with them even without the scry text, tbh.

 

[ahadabans]

I'll try to be more constructed here.

What if you had the choice of ETB tapped or take 2 life on those lands? I just can't deal with them being unconditionally better than basics. It's hurts my eyes.

Also, if you had a plot of land that good (like better than every other similar plot of land), why on earth would it be abandoned? If you insist on them being unconditionally better, rename them to something like "Fertile" or something similar.

 

[Ferritovore]

Shock lands have a somewhat meaningful drawback. 90% of the time you're getting way more in the exchange... but Fetches really just feel like freebies to me. Especially if you make any use out of the shuffle effect at all. 1 life for the land of my choice, AND a shuffle? I will never not pay that.

 

[sigh]

Fetchable Waste-Land

This land is all basic land types.
As long as ~ is on the battlefield, it loses all basic land types.
: Add to your mana pool.


--------

Templating aside, this would be an interesting catch-all for any color wanting to splash into , if your cube runs fetchlands.

 

[ahadabans]

Fetch lands are more powerful than basic lands. It's not the power level that is the problem though. There are times the life loss matters. I agree it's worth the effect but it's still not unconditionally better than a basic. They do different things so it's honestly hard to really talk about them together in the same way you can with abandoned lands and basics. Fetches also do mechanically valuable things for the game. They fix better than any other card and so play a vital role - and if you don't know my stance on mana in Magic, IMO its the weakest link in the whole game so anything that helps make that less clunky is a good thing.

Those trying to solve for <> , I don't think you need to go this far with it (custom lands that tap for <>). Just run wastes in your basic land piles. Get pains/filters into your fixing cycles. ULD is already helping you since all colorless lands are now fixing for your <> splash. People should need to be making the mana sacrifice if they want to splash <> in exactly the same way they would if they wanted to splash white for O-ring or whatever. Evolving Wilds and Wayfarer's Bauble suddenly look more appealing and you may add those cards to your cube. It just feels like people are trying to make it so they can splash for <> cards with zero mana considerations (through incidental non-basics). Why do you even want to do that?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'll try to be more constructed here.

What if you had the choice of ETB tapped or take 2 life on those lands? I just can't deal with them being unconditionally better than basics. It's hurts my eyes.

Also, if you had a plot of land that good (like better than every other similar plot of land), why on earth would it be abandoned? If you insist on them being unconditionally better, rename them to something like "Fertile" or something similar.

They're not unconditionally better, because you can't Rampant Growth for them! There, did that help? I get what you're saying though, it's kind of an unwritten rule that nothing can be strictly better than a basic land, even though I deliberately broke that rule for my suggestion on the previous page as well.

 

[quanta]

What about some weird drawback that plays up the colorless aspect like "When abandoned fen enters the battlefield, tap all swamps you control and all black mana in your mana pool becomes colorless, Scry 1."

Probably too bizarre and wordy but eh.

 

[ahadabans]

I like the shock land drawback a lot. If you can afford to ETB tapped, there is no life loss. If you need the card, 2 life is not insignificant.

I guess my issue with those lands is that they are insanely strong. They make the original duals look bad. Swap out <> for B on the island. Would you print that? It's an island that taps for U or B at no cost whatsoever. And it scry's when it ETB too? It's ridiculous.

<> is not fundamentally different from B in a cube supporting colorless matters cards. The only difference is when you splash B, you have 50 cards to choose from instead of 5 or however many <> cards guys are running. But again, all your colorless lands are technically fixing lands, so there is already a build in benefit in making <> your splash.

 

[Chriskool]

When does mana-fixing transition from being "something to reduce the variance in a drafted deck" to "something that enables a drafter to play splash cards as their heart desires"? In Modern Masters, the vivid cycle (Vivid Marsh, etc) combined with basic land cyclers (Fiery Fall, etc.) and Search for Tomorrow/Kodama's Reach to facilitate some very colorful decks: 3-4 colors to splash removal, card draw, bombs (you name it). In a recent draft of Jason's cube, I splashed a Brainstorm, Thought Scour and Man-o'-War in my beatdown deck without much thought and without playing a basic island. These decks didn't have their core mana strengthened by fixing in their environments; they could only exist through the fixing.

Have any of you tracked how your mana fixing package has changed and how the drafted decks have changed with changes to the fixing package? I really want to start playing with a lot of THS Block Temples (Temple of Epiphany, etc., and maybe 15-20 total) as they are great as mono-colored lands in many decks, but I am wary of crossing the line from mana fixing to crazy mana enablement.

 

[Jason Waddell]

We certainly don't, but it feels like bad design to me is all. To be fair, I really dislike cards that are unconditionally better than other cards. I won't run Lighting Bolt for this reason because it makes so many other burn spells look retarded. I do understand wanting a better flying man (say with prowess perhaps) - that feels like fixing a card that was simply not playable to begin with (mistakes happen). But doing this with lands is just undermining what the original bar was for basic lands. On that note, I find the original duals an abomination. Shock lands is what a dual land is supposed to look like. If you want two color mana from a single land, you have to take that with a drawback (even if the drawback can be mitigated or is not that bad - it's still a drawback). My 2 cents only.

I find this really curious. Why don't you want to have unconditionally better cards?

 

[sigh]

When does mana-fixing transition from being "something to reduce the variance in a drafted deck" to "something that enables a drafter to play splash cards as their heart desires"? In Modern Masters, the vivid cycle (Vivid Marsh, etc) combined with basic land cyclers (Fiery Fall, etc.) and Search for Tomorrow/Kodama's Reach to facilitate some very colorful decks: 3-4 colors to splash removal, card draw, bombs (you name it). In a recent draft of Jason's cube, I splashed a Brainstorm, Thought Scour and Man-o'-War in my beatdown deck without much thought and without playing a basic island. These decks didn't have their core mana strengthened by fixing in their environments; they could only exist through the fixing.

Have any of you tracked how your mana fixing package has changed and how the drafted decks have changed with changes to the fixing package? I really want to start playing with a lot of THS Block Temples (Temple of Epiphany, etc., and maybe 15-20 total) as they are great as mono-colored lands in many decks, but I am wary of crossing the line from mana fixing to crazy mana enablement.

I guess the first question I have is, is there a drawback to "crazy mana enablement"? What exactly is wrong with a UWgb control deck, or whatever? If the splashes are synergistic and meaningful, I don't see the harm. Moving to the main body of question, I think the large numbers of fetches in this type of environment do facilitate "interesting" splashes. I'm more and more of the idea that the cards actually define your splash more than your fixing. If you are trying to splash into a grasp of darkness or something else, it won't be easy breezy. If the card is ultimate price, though, the splashes end up being a lot easier.

My mana fixing package has slowly but steadily gotten larger, and utility lands decreased basically in step (no ULD). If anything, decks that want to stick to 2 colors seem better at doing that because the fixing for their combo is in higher quantity. Fetches, interestingly, seem to help with this too. You can get that temple garden, and then focus on getting your 4 fetches that can find it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I find this really curious. Why don't you want to have unconditionally better cards?

Because the basic lands set a baseline for power level? If you could just print things that were unconditionally better than the current baseline, the next new card has to better again to impress. This makes power creep inevitable, and power creep is not necessarily healthy for a game.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Because the basic lands set a baseline for power level? If you could just print things that were unconditionally better than the current baseline, the next new card has to better again to impress. This makes power creep inevitable, and power creep is not necessarily healthy for a game.

I'm not actually talking about power creep at all. I just mean like, in the abstract, you create a game that provides tools to the players. Some of the tools are strictly superior to others. I see this as fine.

There's always some cost to them. I'm not saying I like Chris' design, but the pick here is an actual cost.

Maybe it's just me playing a bunch of Halo lately, but I don't mind that there is some baseline (your starting weapons) and some weapons that are strictly superior. As long as the resulting play dynamic is enjoyable I don't see the problem.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Fair enough, but I think it's a good rule of thumb to have lands not be unconditionally better than basic lands. There is a reason I didn't include the original ABU duals in my cube. I agree there's some wiggle room though.

 

[Chriskool]

I guess the first question I have is, is there a drawback to "crazy mana enablement"? [...] I'm more and more of the idea that the cards actually define your splash more than your fixing. If you are trying to splash into a grasp of darkness or something else, it won't be easy breezy. If the card is ultimate price, though, the splashes end up being a lot easier. [...] Fetches, interestingly, seem to help with this too. You can get that temple garden, and then focus on getting your 4 fetches that can find it.

I find "crazy mana enablement" to skew the drafting portion; drafters don't have to work as hard to build their powerful bashing (maybe controlling too!) machine of a deck. It's personal preference, I suppose.

You're totally right about cards mana costs defining the splash. It's too bad that I am not ready to enter into custom card design, as fiddling with mana costs seems much easier than finding new cards to change the dynamics of splashing/mana in a format!

I find fetches to work both ways. Sure, a two-color combination has 7 fetches that can find their dual land, but 4 fetches also find each splash dual. Fetch combinations also become more playable as the number of colors a deck is playing increases. Lastly, a two-color deck has to be more cognizant of its picks to achieve the appropriate power level while a deck easily drafting fixers can find itself in a situation to just grab whatever and make it work to achieve a fairly powerful deck.

I'll check out your cube today and hopefully will come back with more insight.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I find fetches to work both ways. Sure, a two-color combination has 7 fetches that can find their dual land, but 4 fetches also find each splash dual. Fetch combinations also become more playable as the number of colors a deck is playing increases.

The issue is that regular duals grow at a much faster rate.

Duals:
2 color: 1/10
3 color: 3/10
4: color: 6/10

Fetches:
2 color: 7/10
3 color: 9/10
4 color: 10/10

We're talking a 43% increase instead of a 500% increase.

 

[sigh]

I find "crazy mana enablement" to skew the drafting portion; drafters don't have to work as hard to build their powerful bashing (maybe controlling too!) machine of a deck. It's personal preference, I suppose.

You're totally right about cards mana costs defining the splash. It's too bad that I am not ready to enter into custom card design, as fiddling with mana costs seems much easier than finding new cards to change the dynamics of splashing/mana in a format!

I find fetches to work both ways. Sure, a two-color combination has 7 fetches that can find their dual land, but 4 fetches also find each splash dual. Fetch combinations also become more playable as the number of colors a deck is playing increases. Lastly, a two-color deck has to be more cognizant of its picks to achieve the appropriate power level while a deck easily drafting fixers can find itself in a situation to just grab whatever and make it work to achieve a fairly powerful deck.

I'll check out your cube today and hopefully will come back with more insight.

Basically all of this is perfectly valid. Fun thing about MtG is how varied the play styles and approaches are. Even simple switches inside cards that exist can cut down on splashing. The removal example is actually a perfectly fine trade from price to grasp.

As my post touched on, I agree 100% that fetches work both ways. Testament to their power and worth.

I guess it comes down to, why are drafters of a format splashing? If there aren't good tools inside colors, then splashing may happen. If there are just powerful cards in a vacuum, maybe above power level, they will be splashed for. I think a perfect example of this is thragtusk. One ? Ya gotta be kiddin me. Vorapede, on the other hand, is very powerful, but rewards sticking to green, and isn't super splashable. Just some examples/thoughts. I'll just say now that my cube like any is dealing with working kinks out. Sutff like Inferno Titan fits into the "gee, better splash for this sucker" category.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'll admit the shockland similar version might be a better choice if you want to curtail the mana in your enviornment AND you have a ULD.

The opportunity cost for new benalia (Lol Benal) in actual draft is really high: it's a tempo loss, and a pick you could be making, and it also doesn't fix your mana, or provide you with an on board ability like wasteland, mutavault or gavony township would. Maybe I'm just being blind to my own enviornment here, but I don't think scry 1 is so insane I'd play godless shrine in a WR deck.

 

[vennythekid]

I'll admit the shockland similar version might be a better choice if you want to curtail the mana in your enviornment AND you have a ULD.

The opportunity cost for new benalia (Lol Benal) in actual draft is really high: it's a tempo loss, and a pick you could be making, and it also doesn't fix your mana, or provide you with an on board ability like wasteland, mutavault or gavony township would. Maybe I'm just being blind to my own enviornment here, but I don't think scry 1 is so insane I'd play godless shrine in a WR deck.

During the time Theros was in Standard, mono-black decks routinely played off-colored Temples because the scry effect was that powerful. In a deck that could curve Thoughseize > Pack Rat. Granted, the environment was on average slower than many of our Cubes, so that might have been a factor.

 

[Chris Taylor]

During the time Theros was in Standard, mono-black decks routinely played off-colored Temples because the scry effect was that powerful. In a deck that could curve Thoughseize > Pack Rat. Granted, the environment was on average slower than many of our Cubes, so that might have been a factor.

That, and spending a pick isn't an issue in standard.

 

[blacksmithy]

So i hate to derail a topic (lol) but i've been thinking about a manabase for a cube that really emphasizes lands-y archetypes. This would be a cube that runs cards like Gift of Estates, Halimar Tidecaller, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Countryside Crusher, and Scapeshift.
So far it seems like it'd want fetch, tango, and manlands. Maybe bounce-scrylands too? How many would be too many here?

 

[Chriskool]

That, and spending a pick isn't an issue in standard.

The beauty of two-color New Benalias is that they color-fix part of the time while scrying full-time. Sure, they often won't be top picks in a pack, but I find them to be nice speculative fixing in an almost-mono-colored deck or a two-color deck with decent fixing, speculative fixing that can still be played as a mediocre Serum Visions ('replaces' self by being a land, scry card isn't drawn, etc.), in addition to being fixing when the cards for the color combination have already been drafted. Also, the fact that they provide colored mana for two colors makes them much more desirable to the average drafter at a table even if they don't plan on using the second color of mana.

I loved Temple of Malady when I played Jason's cube and the Temple I drafted when safra and I grid drafted. With your cube's heavy use of and powerful, low-cmc customs, I concede that Temples may be a lot weaker. though, if I were drafting mono white/black/red, I'd rather see a Temple lap than a WWK/BFZ creature land.