General Mana sinks

japahn

japahn

I've found that my black and green sections only had 5/52 = 9.6% and 6/52 = 11.5% of mana sinks, respectively. I've improved a lot on white (10/52), blue (7/52 + card draw) and red (10/52), but those two colors lagged behind.

In general, mana sinks are great to increase player agency and make games more dynamic, and essential in environments that constrain value.

Thanks to LadyMapi for testing my cube and making me take a new look at this aspect.

What are your favorite mana sinks?
 
sigh

sigh

Are you considering flashback spells and similar in the general category of mana sinks? I've found, at least in my GY themed environments, that flashback, self-reanimation, etc. often supplant the need for "traditional" mana sinks a la jade mage. There ends up being limited opportunity to fiddle with the repeated effect since there is such a high density of castable spell options or other similar effects

So I would rank this extremely highly on my list of "mana sinks"
 
japahn

japahn

Sure, I'm open to a loose interpretation of manasink. There's a gray area, but I'm more interested in finding cards that solve the problem (avoiding topdecking, leave no lands untapped) than discussing where the line is.
 
ravnic

ravnic



I don't know if you count stuff like Equipment or Morphs as mana sinks, so I didn't include them here (except Shapeshifter, whou you can unmorph every turn), but I have over 20 of each. And I still had a hard time limiting myself to 4/per color here, which probably means I have enough mana sinks. It's a very interesting revelation to me, as I never thought about it, but I think one of the factors that makes my cube the most fun to me is, that you always have stuff to do and decisions to make, even late in the game.
 
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Nanonox

Nanonox

Here are all the ones I have in my cube or that I am considering. I am pretty liberal in my definition of mana sink:




I would also consider the MDFC from Zendikar Rising as you can usually play one or two instead of lands and they help having gas in the late game. Not sure if that would help with what you are describing though.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

No I just listed my green ones since that was one of the colors japahn was interested in. I'll get around to black eventually.

But seeing my wording, it was definitely badly phrased.
 
japahn

japahn

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm considering these for the next update:



Knight of the Ebon Legion is nice, I had removed it to reduce the speed of the cube but I swap it from another aggro creature. I've run Cage of Hands a very long time ago and it was fine. The rest is new to my cube.
 
B

blacksmithy

My definition is a little loose but…
Clue tokens are definitely top of list. Also
Sevinne’s Reclamation
Sea Gate Stormcaller
Nullpriest of Oblivion
Skyclave Shade
Woe Strider
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Cling to Dust
Phoenix of Ash
Firebolt
Kaleidoscorch
Warden of the First Tree
Dragonsguard Elite
Jolrael
Life from the Loam
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
Radha, Heart of Keld
Blast Zone
Buried Ruin
Any Creature Land
 
SirFunchalot

SirFunchalot

I'm probably forgetting some, but I think these are all of the cards in my unpowered cube with that act as mana sinks 169 cards (cube is 512 cards).

I think smoothing effects and value generation are hugely important factors for why I like modern era magic designs and high power formats, it is so nice to have consistent access to ways to spend mana without having to result to playing expensive high cards which come with an inherent high opportunity cost.


Inzerva, Master of Insights
The Legend of Arena

 
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