General Mana Sinks

japahn

japahn

One thing I found to happen when an environment becomes slower is that players start passing their turn without using mana for the simple reason that they don't have anything to do. These cards from Aether Revolt have reminded me of a good way to fix this:



What are the mana sinks that have worked for you?

I looked quickly through my cube and I run very few mana sinks, for a 840 card cube:


Plus about 15 manlands, which are the most frequently played sinks.
 
Fulcrum

Fulcrum



I like the 1 drops since they help aggressive decks conserve their gas and helps them not overextend.
I also think these lands are interesting and I guess they saw some play in standard but they might be too slow.

 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Some more from my cube.



Cogwork Assembler is already in my cube, I hope it gets played next weekend, it has been sweet in testing when I got to the late game. The modules are also new. I tried to cut them, then felt I missed two of the three when I was restesting the cube without them, and if you run two, might as well run three and let people live the dream :)
 
japahn

japahn

Did Centaur Glade work for you? It's the mother of all mana sinks, but I don't think anyone ever maindecked it here because 5 mana is so much for zero impact.

I mentioned Cogwork Assembler because it did some work in Aether Revolt, but didn't actually consider it for cube. Is it usable in an environment without a lot of artifacts? 7 mana for a temp 2/3 sounds underwhelming even when you aren't doing anything else with that mana.

Mindshrieker has been interesting for me, and is very strong.
 
shamizy

shamizy



Some are used way more than others, I've only ever activated the Hordechief ability once though it did win me the game shortly afterwards. Aside from these, I've got most of the ZEN and BFZ manlands in the main cube while these are in the ULD:

 
Velrun

Velrun

Very interesting thread. Do you guys think there is a 'correct' amount of mana sinks measured in percentage?
 
sigh

sigh

A few of my favorites:


And a couple of my favorite mechanics that fill the role of "mana sink" well:
Flashback
Dash
Investigate

One thing that comes to mind when I think about mana sinks, is it seems easy to skew the usefulness of mama sinks towards slow decks. So having good ones for aggro seems doubly important, or control, long-game style decks will potentially be able to out-tempo the fast-game deck as their curve peters out. Thinking a little more on it, a mana sink is basically an outlet for virtual card advantage, turning your mana into useful effects without using actual cards from your hand. Maybe mana sinks aren't only an effect of a slower environment, but also to some degree a cause?

I think determining a correct percentage of this effect would be difficult at best. The efficacy of mana sinks and how they affect a formats average game is built right into the format as a whole. I'd say "the faster the format the fewer you can afford", but I'm not certain
 
sigh

sigh

Onderzeeboot said:
I laughed :D

I agree with your observation though!

One other thing I was wondering if card draw should be regarded as a form of mana sink. I mean, if you draw three cards of your Reverse Engineer, you got some fresh spells to spend mana on next turn,
Click to expand...
Stupid autocorrect :p

I think that's part of what makes blue inherintly easy to make overbearing in cube. Raw draw is probably the most efficient mana sink there is, because you can just keep using your mana on more spells.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Level up dudes I think are some of the best because they offer interesting lines of play early.

Truthfully though, best thing I feel you can do is run a lower curve in your cube. I have found most decks not using all their mana generally don't have enough 1 and 2 CC cards. I know they are less flashy but they make most decks play better.

Cycle/Scry/cantrip style cards go a long way too.
 
japahn

japahn

Amonkhet has been great for mana sinks, and I think a good part of why people are liking the draft format are the mana sinks, that rarely let a game go to topdeck lottery.

First the embalm creatures, which are in general pretty good. Then, the aftermaths help a little as well. Last but not least, the gods are all decent sinks:
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

Which of these gods have performed well at your drafts? I still don't have any of them but I find all of them except for Hazoret to look quite useful when being added to my list.
Rhonas might end up being a bit too strong, though.
 
japahn

japahn

I was just celebrating how Amonkhet has shiny new mana sinks, I haven't tried the gods yet.

Rhonas will definitely be strong - perhaps too much. At my power level, all seem playable.
 
ravnic

ravnic

To be fair, it is far from problematic in a lower powered cube. Most peasant cubes have cut it for not being good enough.


And the way this card plays out is pure beauty, like a flower breaking through the ground, a small and slow but inevitable force of nature <3
 
japahn

japahn

It's not that the power level is problematic (it was in Future Sight, but not in cube). It's how (not) fun it is for everyone involved.

If you're under pressure losing, the card is bad and you feel bad about it.

If you're winning, the card make the win more likely and take much more time. Opponent says "please just kill me", you say "hold on for 5 more turns, I need 50 saprolings to win playing around all the cards in the cube".

If the game is a stalemate, Sprout Swarm gives you inevitability, but you need to do math (5 + 4x). Also, you WILL be taking a while, and after a long time you will be ahead, and it will then still take a long time to win, see above.

On the losing side, there is no obvious point where players concede to Sprout Swarm, and you end up spending 20 minutes on a 90-99% losing position, hoping to draw an out while your opponent takes long, durdly turns and scrambles for more objects to represent saprolings with.

Then there is the fact that apart from countermagic, targeted discard and Night of Souls' Betrayal, there is no way to interact with it, so it just feels cheap. Your opponent beat you with one card, you're throwing everything you have at it and you're still losing. You think you're shit, your deck is shit, cube is shit, Sprout Swarm is broken.
 
ravnic

ravnic

That's not entirely true. Yes it's bad when you are about to lose. But when you are already winning, you often can do better turn then producing a few 1/1's EoT.

It is best in games, that are open. But there are like a 100 ways to beat it beyond countermagic and duress even. You can race the opponent with evasion, or you can invest you mana in bigger things. As an opponent, it gives you an interesting challenge, that's what I like about it.

Also, you can run cards that make the Swarm wins come faster. Anthem effects, Overrun or Goblin Bombardement come to my mind. Sprouty has been in my cube for almost 4 years, and I can't remember a single case of " 20 minutes on a 90-99% losing position". Also, having enough Saprolings in your token pile is crucial as a magic player :p
 
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