Card/Deck Wishing Well

Aston · Sep 17, 2015

Although they're a super cool design, the wishes have never really taken off in cube. You need a pretty specific deck where the flexibility of one card turning into two or three from your sideboard is worth the tempo loss of spending 2-3 mana up front. In addition, do you really want to leave these cards you're wishing for out of your deck in the first place? Generally what you want to be wishing for are narrow but powerful cards for a particular situation, and these kinds of cards tend not to be worth including in a cube list.

Could it be possible therefore to design a "wish binder", separate from the main cube, that you are allowed to wish from? In this case, Burning Wish can run duty as a storm finisher via Tendrils of Agony or Empty the Warrens, a build-around sweeper as Wildfire, or allow completely new archetypes by fetching Doomsday, Ill-Gotten Gains or Worldfire.

I think the design of the binder would have to be pretty limited, with perhaps only 5-6 cards per colour maximum, but it can allow for narrow cards to be included without ending up being 15-pick filler most of the time. If you run Living Wish, perhaps allowing players to wish from the Utility Land Draft as well as the binder could also work.

I would like to try this, but I am coming up a bit short on interesting targets to wish for, particularly as far as creatures go (Doran? Soulflayer? Yavimaya Enchantress?), so any suggestions would be welcome.

Onderzeeboot · Sep 17, 2015

This sounds like an awesome idea for experienced players, but be aware that this will multiply the options a player has by quite a lot. That means slower drafting, slower playing, etc. Especially with less experienced players! I would therefore put much more restrictions on what cards you can get. Really, four target per wish or so ought to be enough to keep open your options.

I would go with a removal spell, a build around me card or two, and a card advantage option, probably in the colors of the wish itself if possible, to prevent analysis paralysis.

safra · Sep 17, 2015

If you go with a "wish binder", it might be worth having labeled pages and multiples of one or two wishes floating around the environment. Glittering I think could be really cool actually and I'd want that to be one of them if limiting the number of wishes. Then people would be able to Burning Wish, grab an above-the-curve spell from the Burning Wish page of the binder, and then cast it. I'd be excited with iconic spells like Bolt, powerful effects like wraths and card advantage spells, and maybe some flashy undraftable gold critters. Just a thought - I'm really excited if you can get a wish package to work!

(e: thinking about it more i also like the idea of 'retiring' wishes, especially if there's more than one deck with access to the wish binder)
VVV
yep!

Aston · Sep 17, 2015

Retiring wishes, you mean that once something is wished for it's removed from the binder for the rest of the session?

Goldenpineapple · Sep 17, 2015

Here's a super-deep thread to browse as well.

Onderzeeboot · Sep 17, 2015

Those cards can be a bit better than usual as well, because you are paying extra mana up front anyway. For example:

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Grillo_Parlante · Sep 17, 2015

Just pillage the new set and be the first to run an "exile matters" theme.

safra · Sep 17, 2015

Aston said:
Retiring wishes, you mean that once something is wished for it's removed from the binder for the rest of the session?

yeah, like it's actually something you're wishing for and you can't make the same wish twice

idk i haven't really thought it through but i like the idea that someone eventually has to make a subpar wish, or they get a wish and have to figure out what to wish for to get out of a jam. i don't like the idea that you could get 'wished out' of removal to grab so you'd need number of options, probably twice as many as if you're not 'retiring' wishes. i wanted some way to balance against glass-cannon wishboard toolbox decks that would feel strange and magical and that's what came to me.