If there's one thing I love almost as much as drafting degenerate cube decks, it's drafting cards that improve the consistency of those decks. To me the scry lands are gas, they increase your range of keep-able hands and it feels so good slamming an unwanted land or spell to the bottom, especially when you're trying to find pieces of combos. The ETBT nature is often very irrelevant IMO. I wouldn't run all of them, by design you could have a distribution where the color combination wouldn't care about having mana on turn 1 like Dimir, Izzet, Azorius, Orzhov, even some Golgari or Rakdos decks (that is, ones that are non-aggressive and/or base black).
Personally I even play them in some aggro decks because drawing a bad sequence of cards is a problem I hate more than lacking access to perfect curve mana (which I understand is more about preference than what's necessarily "correct", but I'm talking decks that win with creatures that don't have a lot of 1 drops). Even playing them in mono-black or mono-blue decks with no splash isn't an infrequent occurrence. "Scry 1" doesn't have a power level that jumps off the paper, but when you're able to smooth your draw or keep your borderline hand, you certainly earn more percentage points towards victories than percentages you lose from ETBT. I definitely believe people are wrong to place check lands as higher in priority, in any color combination.
I definitely believe people are wrong to place check lands as higher in priority, in any color combination.
I don't think I agree with that. Although I agree that the Scry Lands are good in Cube (well, at least some of them), they're not necessarily better than the checklands. If you have a midrange-y deck, you need your 4/5/6 drops to pull their weight and having your 5th land be a temple instead of a checkland can be a huge blowout tempo-wise. I agree this is not always the case, and scrying turn 1 when you don't have a play is sweet, but the fact that they ETBT is not to be under-estimated, IMO.
I definitely believe people are wrong to place check lands as higher in priority, in any color combination.
I don't think I agree with that. Although I agree that the Scry Lands are good in Cube (well, at least some of them), they're not necessarily better than the checklands. If you have a midrange-y deck, you need your 4/5/6 drops to pull their weight and having your 5th land be a temple instead of a checkland can be a huge blowout tempo-wise. I agree this is not always the case, and scrying turn 1 when you don't have a play is sweet, but the fact that they ETBT is not to be under-estimated, IMO.
It's not to be underestimated, but neither is the scrying. What would you rather play on turn 1, check land or scry land? Which of the two makes more 2-land 5-spell hands a snap keep? Which goes better in control decks? Which goes better in combo decks? Which of the two is a better late game topdeck? How many games will you lose to ETBT / how many times are you forced to lay down Temple when you need the untapped land? If you can honestly consider those questions and still say check lands are better I don't think there's much more convincing I can attempt. Scry 1 and fixing is so good in so many archetypes and game states, while there aren't that many deck types/color combinations where ETBT matters.
there aren't that many deck types/color combinations where ETBT matters.
I would say this is completely false. The ETBT matters in every deck type and color combination. It's more tolerable in slow control decks, but it's still a pretty crushing drawback. If a land doesn't produce 5 colors of mana or kill my opponent, I don't want it coming into play tapped.
there aren't that many deck types/color combinations where ETBT matters.
I would say this is completely false. The ETBT matters in every deck type and color combination. It's more tolerable in slow control decks, but it's still a pretty crushing drawback.
That is a vehemently aggressive way to look at its drawback. "Crushing" is an extreme hyperbole here, you're probably the only person I've seen that thinks this lowly of lands that don't produce turn 1 mana. I don't recall "crushingly" stumbling on a Temple in any control or combo deck I've ever drafted. Maybe you just had a string of bad experiences with them, and me a string of good ones. I didn't intend "matters", in the sense that I was using it, to completely dismiss the drawback, but with my personal glut of usage in mind, "matters" seems 95% appropriate. In the overwhelming majority of games and decks I've played with them, they haven't negatively impacted the ability to win, and many of those times, they've been the crutch to a hand I would otherwise mulligan.
If a land doesn't produce 5 colors of mana or kill my opponent, I don't want it coming into play tapped.
That's your decision, I'm just trying to point you to their merits because you seem quite content to ignore them.
I played them, and other lands that entered the battlefield tapped, and there are simply too many cases where coming into play tapped is completely terrible. Every color combination in every deck type has things it wants/needs to do on turn 1, and it just gets more important as you're trying to curve out from there. I don't think crushing drawback is hyperbole ...it's really a terrible thing for your lands to do.
And it's not just the T1 mana you miss out on with the Temples (unlike the Checklands, which thankfully don't keep you off your T3 or T4 mana when it's absolutely critical that they come into play untapped). They (the Temples) always enter the battlefield tapped, which is near inexcusable in this format. Unless of course, I can use them to kill my opponent. Then the drawback is palatable, despite still being really rough.
The land coming into play tapped resulted in me having to mulligan it away more often than the scry would save it. But maybe it's only my group that curves out with regularity. The werewolf mechanic didn't work well for us either, because we're playing spells every turn.
I would (and did, actually) run Painlands over any of the ETBT land options (except manlands) in every combination. And it solved a ton of mana problems. Having a land always immediately tap for mana is an incredibly important thing for it to do.
I can't say I'm in complete agreement with wtwlf here, but I do somewhat agree. For the most part, I want my lands to hit play untapped and be ready to go right then. There are times that playing your 3 or 4 drop one turn later can be quite detrimental, so the benefit needs to offset that setback. Scrying for one just isn't really all that impressive in the grand scheme of things. I would play the Scry lands, but I would mostly only want them in enemy colors and even then that's only because we don't really have any better options there. If we had enemy versions of the Zendikar gain 1 life lands, I may even run those over the Scry versions.
I like the Scry lands, in general, more than the M10/INN checklands or whatever they're called.
The checklands are decent in mid-range combinations, but aren't as good in control or combo decks where the Scry really shines. There's almost always a turn in my first five where I play a land or have an extra mana where I'm not really doing anything, and the scry is very valuable in those situations.
The checklands I feel are good, but never really as exciting or impactful when it comes down to it. I'd really only want them in a mid-range combination where I don't have a ton of early game plays that the dual colors matter.
Both are bad in aggro, although the checklands have an advantage there because you could go mountain into boros checkland and be fine. As long as you have a shock, fetch, dual, or basic, they're fine as a turn 2-4 land drop. It's really unfortunate when you just have a checkland + port/strip/waste/mutavault, etc, but the Scry Lands are just worse there.
I think they're very comparable in terms of power level depending on the type of deck you want to build, but I give a substantial preference to the Scry lands because I'm actually happy to draft/build my deck with a Scry land, and I'm usually much more happy when I actually play it in the decks that enjoy them.
They aren't better than the filterlands unfortunately. Scry 1 is fine in standard but way to underpowered for cube, it just isn't enough. They're fine cards but they're just competing with lands far superior.
I wasn't so much advocating for the Checks over the Scrys, only that I would't consider either until I've exhausted all my options that don't ETBT. Which basically just consists of Pains at this point. Once you're down to nothing but options that always ETBT, the Temples are some of the better lands for several of the color combinations.
Poison lands would have been really interesting, actually. In multiples, they can really add up, especially if they don't have an option to produce a colorless.
And they would've been risky enough for their immediate respective constructed format, added some opportunity cost to some infect decks in modern, and had little to no impact in the eternal formats. I think it would've been a sweet design, and probably safe to print. Oh well.
Ya, they said for this last block they didn't want to use poison as a drawback. Maybe they'll be willing to expand into that design space in the future.
Ya, they said for this last block they didn't want to use poison as a drawback. Maybe they'll be willing to expand into that design space in the future.
By infect lands, I assume you're referring to the same template as painlands. I don't think I really like that idea from a design perspective... against infect decks, your manabase hoses you way too seriously, and against non-infect decks, they're either overpowered (Cube, some eternal formats) or impossible to construct an acceptable manabase with (standard, block). Basically, I think it's too swingy to make a full cycle of lands out of.
I really like the idea of a singleton Grand Coliseum-style infect land, however. For cube, it would basically be an upgraded version of the Alara lands. Doesn't solve the ETB tapped annoyances, but you'd need to do some serious balancing work to smooth that out anyway.
Re: Scrylands, I think I've decided that their value really comes down to how you construct your cube. If you're combo and control heavy, support monocolored aggressive decks, and operate more along synergy lines than individual power level, these lands can be wonderful. On the other hand, if you prioritize decks with demanding curves, multicolor aggressive decks, and an environment where every card needs to be able to stand alone, ETB becomes too problematic. They're good cards worthy of cube slots, but only in the right environment.
I agree with wtwlf that entering the battlefield tapped is a huge drawback for a land (which is why I rate Checklands higher than Temples). I disagree that it is a "crushing drawback" for slower decks though. Slower decks run more lands than faster decks and don't have to curve out perfectly, so you usually can drop a Temple in a turn where you don't need all your mana. If you need all your mana, you usually can play another land. Slower decks also run very few (if any) 1-cost cards that they really want to cast on turn one, so a Temple in the starting hand is usually free for slower midrange, ramp and control decks.
It has to be said that Temples are clearly out of the running for smaller cubes. I only included the Temples when I went up to six dual land cycles for my 600 cards cube. Anyone who runs less than five or six cycles (and isn't on a budgetary restriction) shouldn't consider them. The enemy Temples are also a lot more interesting than the allied ones, because we already have five strong allied etbt duals from Worldwake.
One thing to consider is what kind of draft dynamics you want to have in your cube. All decks love duals that etb untapped, so it seems best to only include those lands. However, this makes each dual land a very high pick for every deck. If you include one etb tapped cycle however, then half the decks that run those colors wouldn't pick them high at all. This means that the slower decks can rely on tabling them, pick spells over them and still have a good chance to get a dual for their color combination later. I think that this makes the draft a little bit more interesting.
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If we had enemy versions of the Zendikar gain 1 life lands, I may even run those over the Scry versions.
There is no way that 1 life is better than scry 1. Even 2 life is worse than scry 1.
Think they are unplayable in agro, and pretty sweet in slower decks with gaps in their curves (hard to imagine a slower deck without a gap).
One key to deck building with them is to lean on the side of playing too many lands than too few lands.
Increases the chance you have the choice between playing a scry land or a non scry land, fitting the scry land into the gap in the curve where you don't need to hit the land drop perfectly.
The more you are forced to play the scry land, the worse the ETB tapped drawback becomes.
One of the biggest issues with ramp decks in cube, and why I generally don't like to draft them , are their consistency.
A few scry lands are exactly what these decks want.
If I'm playing blue in these decks, I value preordain extremely highly for this reason.
If Im playing red, I try to sneak in a faithless looting, or a magma jet (assuming I think my opponents will have targets).
I'm frequently having trouble consistently curving into 4 drops - I'm wondering if Temples are worth a second shot. I think a 1-drop is very important, but I don't think its reasonable to expect hands to 1 drop into 2 drop into 3 drop into 4 drop - I'm anticipating playing the temple on turns 2/3 to scry into your 4th land and not as your first land.
What do other people think?
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I'm frequently having trouble consistently curving into 4 drops - I'm wondering if Temples are worth a second shot. I think a 1-drop is very important, but I don't think its reasonable to expect hands to 1 drop into 2 drop into 3 drop into 4 drop - I'm anticipating playing the temple on turns 2/3 to scry into your 4th land and not as your first land.
I think adding five temples (enemy color or allied color but not both sets) can be rather okay. You really don't want to overload a cube with scrylands, but some decks really like them.
I play a few tri color aggressive decks and I've found mana consistency/ curve to be a serious problem.
I like 3-4 Temples in my 9th cycle land lands, but my play group riots.
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Personally I even play them in some aggro decks because drawing a bad sequence of cards is a problem I hate more than lacking access to perfect curve mana (which I understand is more about preference than what's necessarily "correct", but I'm talking decks that win with creatures that don't have a lot of 1 drops). Even playing them in mono-black or mono-blue decks with no splash isn't an infrequent occurrence. "Scry 1" doesn't have a power level that jumps off the paper, but when you're able to smooth your draw or keep your borderline hand, you certainly earn more percentage points towards victories than percentages you lose from ETBT. I definitely believe people are wrong to place check lands as higher in priority, in any color combination.
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It's not to be underestimated, but neither is the scrying. What would you rather play on turn 1, check land or scry land? Which of the two makes more 2-land 5-spell hands a snap keep? Which goes better in control decks? Which goes better in combo decks? Which of the two is a better late game topdeck? How many games will you lose to ETBT / how many times are you forced to lay down Temple when you need the untapped land? If you can honestly consider those questions and still say check lands are better I don't think there's much more convincing I can attempt. Scry 1 and fixing is so good in so many archetypes and game states, while there aren't that many deck types/color combinations where ETBT matters.
I would say this is completely false. The ETBT matters in every deck type and color combination. It's more tolerable in slow control decks, but it's still a pretty crushing drawback. If a land doesn't produce 5 colors of mana or kill my opponent, I don't want it coming into play tapped.
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That is a vehemently aggressive way to look at its drawback. "Crushing" is an extreme hyperbole here, you're probably the only person I've seen that thinks this lowly of lands that don't produce turn 1 mana. I don't recall "crushingly" stumbling on a Temple in any control or combo deck I've ever drafted. Maybe you just had a string of bad experiences with them, and me a string of good ones. I didn't intend "matters", in the sense that I was using it, to completely dismiss the drawback, but with my personal glut of usage in mind, "matters" seems 95% appropriate. In the overwhelming majority of games and decks I've played with them, they haven't negatively impacted the ability to win, and many of those times, they've been the crutch to a hand I would otherwise mulligan.
That's your decision, I'm just trying to point you to their merits because you seem quite content to ignore them.
And it's not just the T1 mana you miss out on with the Temples (unlike the Checklands, which thankfully don't keep you off your T3 or T4 mana when it's absolutely critical that they come into play untapped). They (the Temples) always enter the battlefield tapped, which is near inexcusable in this format. Unless of course, I can use them to kill my opponent. Then the drawback is palatable, despite still being really rough.
The land coming into play tapped resulted in me having to mulligan it away more often than the scry would save it. But maybe it's only my group that curves out with regularity. The werewolf mechanic didn't work well for us either, because we're playing spells every turn.
I would (and did, actually) run Painlands over any of the ETBT land options (except manlands) in every combination. And it solved a ton of mana problems. Having a land always immediately tap for mana is an incredibly important thing for it to do.
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The checklands are decent in mid-range combinations, but aren't as good in control or combo decks where the Scry really shines. There's almost always a turn in my first five where I play a land or have an extra mana where I'm not really doing anything, and the scry is very valuable in those situations.
The checklands I feel are good, but never really as exciting or impactful when it comes down to it. I'd really only want them in a mid-range combination where I don't have a ton of early game plays that the dual colors matter.
Both are bad in aggro, although the checklands have an advantage there because you could go mountain into boros checkland and be fine. As long as you have a shock, fetch, dual, or basic, they're fine as a turn 2-4 land drop. It's really unfortunate when you just have a checkland + port/strip/waste/mutavault, etc, but the Scry Lands are just worse there.
I think they're very comparable in terms of power level depending on the type of deck you want to build, but I give a substantial preference to the Scry lands because I'm actually happy to draft/build my deck with a Scry land, and I'm usually much more happy when I actually play it in the decks that enjoy them.
Just my two cents.
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By infect lands, I assume you're referring to the same template as painlands. I don't think I really like that idea from a design perspective... against infect decks, your manabase hoses you way too seriously, and against non-infect decks, they're either overpowered (Cube, some eternal formats) or impossible to construct an acceptable manabase with (standard, block). Basically, I think it's too swingy to make a full cycle of lands out of.
I really like the idea of a singleton Grand Coliseum-style infect land, however. For cube, it would basically be an upgraded version of the Alara lands. Doesn't solve the ETB tapped annoyances, but you'd need to do some serious balancing work to smooth that out anyway.
Re: Scrylands, I think I've decided that their value really comes down to how you construct your cube. If you're combo and control heavy, support monocolored aggressive decks, and operate more along synergy lines than individual power level, these lands can be wonderful. On the other hand, if you prioritize decks with demanding curves, multicolor aggressive decks, and an environment where every card needs to be able to stand alone, ETB becomes too problematic. They're good cards worthy of cube slots, but only in the right environment.
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It has to be said that Temples are clearly out of the running for smaller cubes. I only included the Temples when I went up to six dual land cycles for my 600 cards cube. Anyone who runs less than five or six cycles (and isn't on a budgetary restriction) shouldn't consider them. The enemy Temples are also a lot more interesting than the allied ones, because we already have five strong allied etbt duals from Worldwake.
One thing to consider is what kind of draft dynamics you want to have in your cube. All decks love duals that etb untapped, so it seems best to only include those lands. However, this makes each dual land a very high pick for every deck. If you include one etb tapped cycle however, then half the decks that run those colors wouldn't pick them high at all. This means that the slower decks can rely on tabling them, pick spells over them and still have a good chance to get a dual for their color combination later. I think that this makes the draft a little bit more interesting.
There is no way that 1 life is better than scry 1. Even 2 life is worse than scry 1.
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One key to deck building with them is to lean on the side of playing too many lands than too few lands.
Increases the chance you have the choice between playing a scry land or a non scry land, fitting the scry land into the gap in the curve where you don't need to hit the land drop perfectly.
The more you are forced to play the scry land, the worse the ETB tapped drawback becomes.
One of the biggest issues with ramp decks in cube, and why I generally don't like to draft them , are their consistency.
A few scry lands are exactly what these decks want.
If I'm playing blue in these decks, I value preordain extremely highly for this reason.
If Im playing red, I try to sneak in a faithless looting, or a magma jet (assuming I think my opponents will have targets).
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I've found aggressive decks are very different from 5 years ago and are relying more on 3-4 drops - Rabblemaster variants/ Palace Jailer, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Armageddon, Hazoret the Fervent etc.
I'm frequently having trouble consistently curving into 4 drops - I'm wondering if Temples are worth a second shot. I think a 1-drop is very important, but I don't think its reasonable to expect hands to 1 drop into 2 drop into 3 drop into 4 drop - I'm anticipating playing the temple on turns 2/3 to scry into your 4th land and not as your first land.
What do other people think?
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It might be worth trying something like Sandstone Needle / City of Traitors maybe?
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I like 3-4 Temples in my 9th cycle land lands, but my play group riots.
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