General Too Many Lands

[Onderzeeboot]

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what brown altar, O mysterious priest, ​

Lead'st thou that mana clawing at the prize,

And all her battlefields with manlands dressed? ​

What little cube by forest or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, ​

Is emptied of real cards, this pious morn?

And, little cube, thy decks for evermore ​

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. ​

 

[Aston]

This is the way the draft ends
This is the way the draft ends
This is the way the draft ends
Not with a basic but a triland

 

[Laz]

If you're anxious for to shine in a mono-coloured line,
as a drafter sans compare,
You must pick up all the creatures with most aggressive features,
and cut lands everywhere.
You must rely upon main phases and dispense with novel crazes of
the counterspell-based win
(The mana doesn't matter if served up on a platter and
fetch-lands serve to thin)
And everyone will say,
As you walk your 3-0 way,
"If mono-red is good enough for him but not good enough for ME,
Why, what a skillful aggressive pilot is this mono-red draftee!"

 

[Onderzeeboot]

There once was a prophet from Hanweir
Who turned his lands into thin air
His methods were mad
But there's much to be said
For more gas in your 3D square

I'm having fun

 

[ahadabans]

Wow. That's a lot of poetry. And some is quite good too.

So has anyone tried proxying up cards which read "fetchland of choice", "shockland of choice", etc? I certainly like the idea of every fixing land being playable in every deck, because that would absolutely cut down the number of required land slots.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wow. That's a lot of poetry. And some is quite good too.

Well, some of it is (almost completely) Keats, so there's that Laz's adaptation of one of the songs in the Patience opera is impressive, to say the least. There's barely the skeleton of the original poem left!

So has anyone tried proxying up cards which read "fetchland of choice", "shockland of choice", etc? I certainly like the idea of every fixing land being playable in every deck, because that would absolutely cut down the number of required land slots.

To the best of my knowledge, Jason's ULD Temple of Choice and Aoret's free fetches come closest. I don't think anyone really tried out wildcards in the draft itself so far? There's been talk of it a few times before though, so maybe I missed it?

 

[Dom Harvey]

I've gone way over the line with in-draft handouts before (I once had a combo slant to my Cube where you could take Enduring Ideal and be given a bunch of enchantments, Prismatic Omen would give you Valakut + Emeria, etc) but I don't think stapling lands to spells is bad as long as you avoid people taking the land with no intention of casting the spell.

This might just be the way I want to design Cubes but, once you have the foundations in place, adding more fixing often does more to create increase deck/play diversity than adding marginal cards or trying to fill in new archetypes. This is especially true when there are tough mana requirements or support for a deck is spread across 2+ colours. With extra fixing, my Zombies deck can properly support red cards all the way up the curve while still casting Bloodghast/Geralf's Messenger reliably, or I can splash Prized Amalgam and Phantasmal Image on one side while also playing the Collected Company and Rancor I picked up. If my Cube supports a UR spells deck and a UW spells deck, adding more fixing lets me build a similar but distinct UWR spells deck...

I was going to suggest the 'shockland of choice' idea but fell asleep and woke up to find ahadabans had done it first. It ensures greater access to fixing for everyone while avoiding the complaint of not forcing a choice between fixing and spells. You could make it more granular: maybe you pick up a 'blue shockland' ticket instead of a 'shockland' ticket, but blue shockland gets to choose first.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

but I don't think stapling lands to spells is bad as long as you avoid people taking the land with no intention of casting the spell.

That does worry me; you're not really reducing land density so much as redistributing it by turning certain picks into de facto modal picks.

I can see that working, but you would either have to have:

1. An EDHesque honor system in place. This seems fine for small insular groups where you know everyone's personality, and its unlikely there is much player turnover.
2. Fully embrace the concept of modal picks (which is kind of an interesting thought experiment).

 

[Chriskool]

I've drafted four cubes with "free" cards:

Two with ULDs. With minor fixing lands included, the Rochester component at the end felt a little imbalanced (when my deck was feigning for another fixer, and I was late in the pick order). It didn't really change the "cube-ness" of the experience.

Artifact cube with 3 free artifact lands per deck. The addition was so negligible for the average deck that it was more of a squad pick for Trinket Mage or affinity decks. This felt similar to the "additions to the basic land box" and didn't really change the cube experience for me.

Powered cube with some squad picks. This felt the least cube-like to me, as a few picks could flesh out an entire part of a deck's curve. Certain squads, like Delver of Secrets, Demigod of Revenge or Priest of Titania, drastically changed the drafting process. It didn't feel completely like drafting as I know it, but it wasn't far from cube, for sure.

The worst parts of the additional cards have been (1) explaining the difference to new players and (2) hoping players consider how the addition of free cards changes the main draft.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Let's say we slide down the scale a little here.

Let's say we cut a cycle of lands from our list to throw in the Vivids cycle (freeing up 5 slots for more flexible cards in the process).

Is this an acceptable way to scale down land counts in cube?

I ask primarily because ETB tapped is a huge drawback to aggressive decks. My aggro decks are usually either aggro-control or aggro-combo, really, so they're happy to play scrylands with some smart sequencing to keep them drawing gas. But vivids? I'm worried that they might not be doing enough for more aggressive strategies. Then again, as 5c fixing, maybe that's perfectly fair. Aggro decks thrive in environments where removal is curated and they can punish slower decks (ie, decks playing Vivids?) with a sleeker, more aggressive manabase..

Thoughts?

 

[Mad Prophet]

Let's say we cut a cycle of lands from our list to throw in the Vivids cycle (freeing up 5 slots for more flexible cards in the process).

Is this an acceptable way to scale down land counts in cube?

I ask primarily because ETB tapped is a huge drawback to aggressive decks.

This is a real concern. The vivids are certainly a step in the right direction, but etbt lands heavily favor slow decks. I advocate a mix of versatile fixers like the vivids and faster fixers like mana confluence, cavern of souls, and tendo ice bridge. Spells like manamorphose, chromatic star, and Preordain are also quietly great fixers, and can really help pick up some of the slack .

 

[Tzenmoroth]

The last time I had Vivid lands in my cube, 5 color Christmas land happened when someone drafted 17 fixing lands. I don't think I trust vivids anymore but maybe that's just me. Its not like a bunch of Confluences are going to enable Cryptic, Cloudthresher and Cruel in the same deck though so I think that's a lot safer.

I've been thinking about this thread though and I do like the idea of designing a mana base that prevents excessive fixing and requires less fixing and has all the fixing be on color so I've been thinking about doing something like:

-40 duals
+8 Mana Confluence/City of Brass
+8 Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds
+8 Aether Hub/Tendo Ice Bridge (Side note: I love Energy )
+8 Gemstone Mine
+8 Spells (like 3 colorless, 1 each color or like whatever)

My main cube is already far too dedicated to expeditions traditional color fixing so I'll have to find another cube to try something like this with. I'm not sure how much I would actually like it but I want to at least try it.

 

[Mad Prophet]

The last time I had Vivid lands in my cube, 5 color Christmas land happened when someone drafted 17 fixing lands. I don't think I trust vivids anymore

Sounds like far Too Many Lands to me...

gemstone mine is an interesting one. I may try it out

 

[Chris Taylor]

/ignores Rasmus's boring, rational question

I have just thought of the perfectest, awesomest fixing land for all of you! This is mana fixing that encourages sticking to two colors, that can be used by aggro decks and control decks alike, and that even has cool "It's coming!" rattlesnake style play to it!

View attachment 1148

I just wanna mention, holy crap is this powerful, but MAN do I want it

 

[vennythekid]

Maybe only allow the rainbow activation as long as there's something exiled with it. Once you cast the spell, the colored mana should disappear.

 

[vennythekid]

I know this is off topic now, but that land gave me an idea:

2
Mind-Trip Stone
Artifact
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile the top card of your library.
T: Add 1 mana of any of the exiled card's colors to your mana pool.
1, T, Sacrifice ~: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. Until end of turn, you may cast cards exiled with ~.

Or his big brother:

5
Guilded Hedron Archives
Artifact
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile the top 3 cards of your library.
T: Add 2 mana in any combination of any of the exiled card's colors to your mana pool.
2, T, Sacrifice ~: Add 2 mana of any color to your mana pool. Until end of turn, you may cast cards exiled with ~.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Maybe only allow the rainbow activation as long as there's something exiled with it. Once you cast the spell, the colored mana should disappear.

I thought that was how it worked already

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Maybe only allow the rainbow activation as long as there's something exiled with it. Once you cast the spell, the colored mana should disappear.

That is exactly how it works with the current wording. Maybe I should add reminder text, you're not the first one here who is confused. Compare, for example, to Mimic Vat, where it's abundantly clear that you can't make a copy of cards that are no longer exiled, i.e. no longer imprinted. Anyway, once you cast the exiled card, the land only taps for colorless.

 

[vennythekid]

That is exactly how it works with the current wording. Maybe I should add reminder text, you're not the first one here who is confused. Compare, for example, to Mimic Vat, where it's abundantly clear that you can't make a copy of cards that are no longer exiled, i.e. no longer imprinted. Anyway, once you cast the exiled card, the land only taps for colorless.

You're correct. I just didn't read it correctly

 

[Jason Waddell]

I've been kind of sitting this thread out, but I think most of you know where I stand on this issue.

Cube has long been the home of "constructed quality cards, limited quality manabases". I play a ton of lands, and an ULD. Yet, drafting is still chock-full of choices. In the two forum-drafts we've done, fixing has been in extremely short supply for my seats, and I've had to limit myself to two-color decks. Both of which 3-0'd.

The traditional limited set has 14-card packs, so at the very least those can be lands. If you're running 45 lands in your 360, then 24 of those come from the "15th" slot, and you're looking at 21 more lands in a draft pod. I'm guessing most of you are running a healthy number of gold cards, so by design standards we're already running sets with some sort of multicolor emphasis. There's a reason multicolor emphasis sets print plentiful fixing at common.

45 lands among 8 players comes to 5.5 lands per drafter. Scale that to a 60-card deck and you're looking at the equivalent of like, 8 non-basics for a constructed deck. Fewer if any of those lands end up in sideboards.

I don't know how aggressively you're talking about trimming your land section, but you're going to notice the difference between 45 and 25 lands far more than the difference between 315 spells and 335 spells. Marginally increased design space, "in theory". In practice, less fixing means fewer colors played, and less room for sweet multicolor brews. If you're limiting your players to two-color decks based on a paucity of fixing, you're going to give your format a reduction in deck-diversity.

Regarding some "fetchland of choice" mechanic, I'd like to point out that 2-color decks can already play 70% of fetchlands, and 3-color decks can play 90%. I don't think such an implementation does a lot, other than allowing players to fetch basics more often if needed.

 

[ahadabans]

Maybe not "fetch land of choice" since they are flexible already. But what about "shock land of choice" (or other dual)?

 

[Diakonov]

Maybe not "fetch land of choice" since they are flexible already. But what about "shock land of choice" (or other dual)?

"Shock land of choice" seems like it would be an extremely high pick. Personally, I like the tension that specific shock lands provide since they enable the fetches so well and are still solid on their own.

Perhaps "battle land of choice"? That way they still enable the fetches without being very strong independently.

 

[sigh]

I agree with diakonov. One of the great features of how the shock and fetch mana base works is that the more narrow shocks have a higher chance of wheeling to you, so you can pick fetches higher, and pick up the shock a little later. The other way just makes it harder to ever get shocklands and fetches in good quantity because the pick quality is closer together (both high). Getting a fetch and shock in a pack is easy normally, cuz you can pick fetch, usually wheel shock. With "pick your own", youll never see it again. Seems to have the opposite effect as desired, in that you have to value fixing even higher, or you'll be starved out of it by everyone else.

All just conjecture and theorizing

 

[vennythekid]

I agree with diakonov. One of the great features of how the shock and fetch mana base works is that the more narrow shocks have a higher chance of wheeling to you, so you can pick fetches higher, and pick up the shock a little later. The other way just makes it harder to ever get shocklands and fetches in good quantity because the pick quality is closer together (both high). Getting a fetch and shock in a pack is easy normally, cuz you can pick fetch, usually wheel shock. With "pick your own", youll never see it again. Seems to have the opposite effect as desired, in that you have to value fixing even higher, or you'll be starved out of it by everyone else.

All just conjecture and theorizing

I disagree with this, actually. I think on-color shocks are much higher priority than their corresponding fetchlands. Reason being if you have an on-color shock, then all fetches containing one of those colors (there are a lot more of these) become much stronger for fixing your base colors. There are 8 green fetches but only 2 Overgrown Tomb, for example.

 

[Mad Prophet]

I agree with diakonov. One of the great features of how the shock and fetch mana base works is that the more narrow shocks have a higher chance of wheeling to you, so you can pick fetches higher, and pick up the shock a little later.

This seems backwards to me. I find that I'm forced to slam any applicable shock and try to wheel the fetches, because if I miss out on my Watery Grave then all these Ux fetches do nothing.

I disagree with this, actually. I think on-color shocks are much higher priority than their corresponding fetchlands. Reason being if you have an on-color shock, then all fetches containing one of those colors (there are a lot more of these) become much stronger for fixing your base colors. There are 8 green fetches but only 2 Overgrown Tomb, for example.

This is spot on.