Card/Deck Mana rocks / Colourless mana fixing

[FlowerSunRain]

I'm still happy with my 0 mana rock format, so I have little to add. Constricting the mana curve and adding low cost cards that slow decks can use against the faster decks has made for more interesting games then allowing people to "brute force" out high cost cards. Environments with Signets and Signet-like cards have a very different philosophy then those that don't. Its superior, imo, to the Grim Monolith style cards because the ramp is comes at a more predictable pace and it providing mana fixing which as we all know is awesome. I think running all the signets is a good option if you want to open those doors: its not a color specific design decision, its a decision that effects EVERYTHING.

 

[CML]

Super thread necro, go!

A post on Twitter recently got me to thinking - is it time to include some hot signet action? Control could use a boost around here, and one of the cornerstones of a strong control deck is solid fixing via mana rocks.

I currently run


Would those be better off as this batch of non-green signets? (Mostly because green has plenty of better ramp to lean on)


Or - all ten signets?
Or - only blue signets?
Or - stick with zero signets?

unless green is BEASTING your format i would not make such an imbalancing change

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm not dropping rocks all together because of wildfire, but I'm loving the all colourless rocks . needing WW ffor a turn 3 wrath really seems to be making it hard enough without being impossible

 

[Tom]

I used to run all the signets. Then I started hanging around here. Now i run the stuff you guys run .

I will add that I don't use any colorless rocks because fixing is really important to me.

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, I will say that Everflowing Chalice has been underwhelming. Maybe doubling up on, say, Prismatic Lens is the way to go?

 

[CML]

I'm not dropping rocks all together because of wildfire, but I'm loving the all colourless rocks . needing WW ffor a turn 3 wrath really seems to be making it hard enough without being impossible

i don't understand the appeal of wildfire. who's with me

 

[Diakonov]

I'm always looking for other dimensions to add to red besides aggro, so wildfire is a go in my book.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Doesn't it have this kind of exodia-feel of the moment you pull it off, ususually your opponent will just concede so what is the point of a cool splashy wincon that no one even wants to play against? I mean I hated seeing a thragtusk help a sloppy player get back into the game on the back of a really pushed card, but at least I wanted to play another round of little weenies and get my revenge for people with bigger wallets, wildfire just completely shuts off any hope of recouping.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

i don't understand the appeal of wildfire. who's with me

It's not in my cube, that's for sure. (Crater Hellion takes the six mana sweeper spot ).

I'm always looking for other dimensions to add to red besides aggro, so wildfire is a go in my book.

Red provides great support for the human tribe.
Red provides great support for the sacrifice theme.
Red provides (certainly since commander 2014) great support for artifacts matter theme.
Red provides great support for the spells matter theme.
Red provides great support for the +1/+1 counters theme.

It's perfectly versatile in my cube! Some people just want to see the world burn though, and red is there for them too!

 

[anotak]

monored control is p neat

 

[CML]

I'm always looking for other dimensions to add to red besides aggro, so wildfire is a go in my book.

yeah but with all the slots you need and the games it creates, there's no way it's worth it, is there?

 

[Diakonov]

Red provides great support for the human tribe.
Red provides great support for the sacrifice theme.
Red provides (certainly since commander 2014) great support for artifacts matter theme.
Red provides great support for the spells matter theme.
Red provides great support for the +1/+1 counters theme.

It's perfectly versatile in my cube! Some people just want to see the world burn though, and red is there for them too!

Human tribe, spells matter, and +1/+1 counter themes exist in my cube but are slightly narrow, so you have to really be gunning for it to get more than some minor synergies. Obviously you could say that's my own fault, but I'm super wary of having too many slots for a somewhat specific theme. It's fun to see something like that come together sometimes, but usually I hope to see people get creative and edge out the small synergies that they can find.

The artifacts matter theme is relatively black and white in my cube, though. The sacrifice theme is super relevant also, and quite broad in appeal, so that in particular has been a major success for changing how people look at red in my cube.

So, yes, these have all been great innovations...but I WANT MOAR

yeah but with all the slots you need and the games it creates, there's no way it's worth it, is there?

How many slots does it really take? Five-toughness guys, ramp and planeswalkers are largely there already.

The games part is just a personal preference thing. It's certainly not an unfair card, and if you're going to lose to it, at least it will happen quickly.

 

[CML]

i dunno i guess i could just throw it in again and see what happens. i always liked armageddon but my playgroup is a bunch of bitches about it

 

[Onderzeeboot]

i dunno i guess i could just throw it in again and see what happens. i always liked armageddon but my playgroup is a bunch of bitches about it

Hmm... I should probably find space for Armageddon, I have a black-bordered portal version lying around somewhere and not using that anywhere seems a bit of a shame

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah, I will say that Everflowing Chalice has been underwhelming. Maybe doubling up on, say, Prismatic Lens is the way to go?

Everflowing chalice is shit if you only every play rocks on T2, and never proliferate anything. I do also have 2 prismatic lens as well though.

It's not in my cube, that's for sure. (Crater Hellion takes the six mana sweeper spot ).
Red provides great support for the human tribe.
Red provides great support for the sacrifice theme.
Red provides (certainly since commander 2014) great support for artifacts matter theme.
Red provides great support for the spells matter theme.
Red provides great support for the +1/+1 counters theme.

It's perfectly versatile in my cube! Some people just want to see the world burn though, and red is there for them too!

Aggro
Aggro
Fuck artifacts matter, UB Tezzeret is about the only fun artifact based card I've ever seen
Aggro
Aggro (Or durdley Ion Storm variants)

i don't understand the appeal of wildfire. who's with me

Enough people have lost post their wildfire, enough people have used it as just a wrath or a soft 'geddon, and any way of stitching enough burn spells together to make a "control" deck just ends up being RDW most of the time.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Aggro
Aggro
Fuck artifacts matter, UB Tezzeret is about the only fun artifact based card I've ever seen
Aggro
Aggro (Or durdley Ion Storm variants)

Aggro
Aggro/Control (depends really, Smokestack builds with Mogg War Marshal and the like can hardly be classified as core aggro)
Are you kidding? Goblin Welder is the sweetest card ever!
Combo
Aggro/Midrange

I don't think you're being honest here. You can call everything that's red but not Wildfire aggro, but that doesn't mean it's true. The decks mentioned above play out very differently in most cases.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm not so sure.

• Red Humans we agree on.
• I feel that the red sacrifice support typically goes more aggro than you're letting on: Mogg war marshal is one thing, but the other red sacrifice cards that come to mind feel very agressive to me: Goblin Bombardment, Chandra's Phoenix, Goblin Rabblemaster. Pyreheart wolf works in both but is about attacking, and TukTuk feels the same way in my eyes. I think smokestack is more the thing here, which matters less for red.
• Goblin Welder seems like he does a fair recurring nightmare impression with more restrictive targets (Meaning an impression of a fair recurring nightmare, not a decent impression of the existing recurring nightmare) but the other cards people bandy about like tinker, trash for treasure (and his new planeswalker bro) and Ensoul Artifact rub me the wrong way. These cards (Much like show and tell and reanimate) are designed to be doing things way outside of fair. Restricting their targets can bring them in line with other things in your cube, but you have to be careful the drafter is getting rewarded enough for their efforts of drafting a deck where many of their cards do little outside of their respective combinations. Am I missing some artifact matters cards that might be generating some appeal? Welder and Tezzeret seems like a loose justification for a theme, especially given how many artifacts it takes.
• Spells Matter Combo: This one confuses me. When I think of spells matter cards I think of Young Pyromancer, Guttersnipe, Prowress Creatures, and Runechanter's Pike. Maybe you mean storm? This is probably a measure of semeantics and implementation, but while I do think the interesting and fair storm implementations are red (Empty the warrens for 6-8 goblins, or grapeshot as an arc lightning/forked bolt variant with a high upside), I wouldn't really call them combo. Or if I would call them combo, I wouldn't call them red because they're reaching for cards like brain freeze, palinchron, tendrils of agony, frantic search, snap/cloud of faeries, impulse, demonic tutor, or even deeper with things like rude awakening and heartbeat of spring.
• I think Ion Storm is the only midrange card red has that has to do with +1/+1 counters, while the rest are more like rakdos cackler, gore-house chainwalker, war-name aspirant, volt charge, stromkirk noble etc.

They all play differently sure, but if all those things involve getting on the board early, attacking, and forcing the opponent onto the back foot, aren't they aggro?

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

There's no arguing that wildfire brings a different element to red. For me personally I don't think it's fun, but if you and your group like it why not? At least you have to draft a deck around it.

Armageddon though, I'm much less forgiving about that. Lets play a splashable spell where you just need a better board advantage or a curve that let's you come back easily. Makes it hard to interact and play your spells, urgh urgh.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I've found that when your cube shows some restraints with its other colors, red can be pretty dynamic. It has some good dig options, spot removalburn spells, and mass removal.

In most cubes blue overpowers every other color in terms of dig/card advantage, and creatures have high enough toughness where red's spot removal and sweeper effects aren't consistent compared with what black or white can do. It kind of forces the color into a more aggressive role, with one of the only red control cards really capable of passing muster being wildfire.

Over here, I deliberately have less card draw effects across colors, flashback is a major source of card advantage (which red has a lot of), and creatures in general start out with low toughness, so red has a much wider aggro-control spectrum to inhabit. However, I'm aware that’s the exception, not the rule for how most cube environments are built.

 

[Eric Chan]

My main issue with Wildfire is that you need to devote a lot of space to mana rocks to support the deck, because you can count on U/x control nabbing some number of them every draft. I think the number somebody came up with is 12 in a 450 - or was it 14? I forget - which is a higher density than I'm comfortable running. I have 6 in 360 right now, which feels about right for my environment.

 

[James Stevenson]

I'm thinking about running 2 or 3 spheres of the the suns for Ion Storm.

 

[CML]

My main issue with Wildfire is that you need to devote a lot of space to mana rocks to support the deck, because you can count on U/x control nabbing some number of them every draft. I think the number somebody came up with is 12 in a 450 - or was it 14? I forget - which is a higher density than I'm comfortable running. I have 6 in 360 right now, which feels about right for my environment.

yeah this is way more articulate than my beef, which is essentially the same. nobody ever picked it in my cube and i have no interest in loading up on more rocks, and though i am pretty attached to the 5 or so I have maybe I shouldn't be.

 

[Laz]

I played Wildfire last night in a GR much-many-ramp-spells deck. Who needs rocks when you can just go Prime Time -> Wildfire?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

That honestly does sound like a fun wildfire deck variant to play. I bet there was a little gotcha moment where maybe your opponent thought youd fetch some stupid lands and go to town and you just blow everything up?

 

[anotak]

http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/non-blue-control-in-cube.378/