My thing with Ingot Chewer is casting it straight-up seems like a tall task for a minimal reward. There will of course be times where it's great because some artifacts need to die, but 6 mana for a 3/3 Manic Vandal is a lot.
I get that the power of these cards are in their flexibility, but the 2nd half isn't flexible enough for me for the reward to really want to run Ingot Chewer. That being said, I'm way more inclined to run IC in a larger powered cube.
5-mana, but your point stands. I am no longer running it in my 540 powered but am always wanting to get him back in there. As a 1 mana artifact kill that can be a 3/3 too when he is cast late or top-decked he is really good.
My thing with Ingot Chewer is casting it straight-up seems like a tall task for a minimal reward. There will of course be times where it's great because some artifacts need to die, but 6 mana for a 3/3 Manic Vandal is a lot.
I get that the power of these cards are in their flexibility, but the 2nd half isn't flexible enough for me for the reward to really want to run Ingot Chewer. That being said, I'm way more inclined to run IC in a larger powered cube.
5-mana, but your point stands. I am no longer running it in my 540 powered but am always wanting to get him back in there. As a 1 mana artifact kill that can be a 3/3 too when he is cast late or top-decked he is really good.
For sure. I think his stock really goes up the more and more you support the 'powered', whether that's a full set of signets and such up to the actual power. The more you need to consistently kill an artifact for R, the better chewer is.
Strictly much, much worse than Sol Ring, but ramping ahead by 2 off a single card is still an incredibly powerful effect. So much so that this "fixed" version of Sol Ring makes Cube Tutor 360, and I've seen it on plenty of powered cube lists. Considering how many better mana rocks are available for powered cube environments I don't know if this is a staple for powered cubes, but if you run an unpowered cube and you want to support ramp Worn Powerstone is a must unless you're cutting it for power concerns. I've first picked this card in quite few drafts.
This card has been printed 4 times, all with the same art, so the only real aesthetic choices here are frame and expansion symbol. It's never been printed in foil, so the original Urza's Saga printing is as pimp as you're going to get with Worn Powerstone without getting an alter. The art on this card is particularly beautiful and unusual, and Henry G. Higginbotham's art has only been featured in 4 cards in the history of Magic, all printed in Urza's Saga. It's a shame no other Magic cards feature his art, and I'm tempted to say it's because he's upset at Wizards for misspelling his name, but he has done other art for WoTC that's been featured on Dungeons and Dragons covers. He also has done a series of Myr sculptures.
Here's a word on the style of Mr. Higginbotham's art from his web site:
Here's an overview of some of the cards I created for the Magic: The Gathering card game. Many people have confused the art in these cards for 3D-computer graphics or from 3D animations. As you can see from the Worn Powerstone -- Detail or Claw of Gix - Back, they are, in fact, sculptures. These sculptures were then photographed, modestly tweaked in an image editing app (e.g. the lens flares) then incorporated into the page layout software.
I think Worn Powerstone is great. One of the things I'm trying to do with my cube right now is push colorless ramp towards generating colorless mana and I can't see cutting this any time soon.
That's fascinating to hear about the art. Photographed sculpture is a really cool medium for artifacts and I agree, it's too bad he hasn't done more art.
A definite staple and one of the best mana rocks for an unpowered cubes (probably second to Grim Monolith). This is always in consideration for a first pick.
That's really cool about the sculpture art, I really wish they'd do more of those. MTG art has gotten too CG and it really bums me out. I think every old artifact art looks best with the old frame because the artist probably had that frame in mind while making the art / choosing the colors. I always think that old artifact art mixed with the new frames look weird, a lot of the time it's brown clashing with silver.
I never knew that about the sculpture art. Things that make you go, 'hmm.' As to it's power level, yeah, it's really good. Easily one of the best colorless ramp cards available. And I agree with steve_man about old artifacts on the new silver frame. The older art usually just clashes. The same goes for new artifacts reprinted in promos with the old frame using the same art. I'm just not a fan.
Yeah, that's some incredible art. Voltaic Key and Worn Powerstone are some of my favorites because they stood out so much as photo-realistic, yet still capture that look of ancient artifacts that are somehow kept in working order. I always thought it was just airbrush with photoshop effects layered in, but this revelation adds a whole new dimension (literally!) to the work
His Dungeons & Dragons cover art also blew me away at the time, especially now that I see they were real book covers
I feel this way too, I started playing in 97 and wasn't a fan of the change to the border/frame, one exception though I feel is Sword of Light and Shadow promo, I think that looks great in the old frame.
I agree. I like both the original Sword promos on the old frame. That art just seems to work somehow. I didn't, however, like the Sword of Feast and Famine promo they did in the old frame. I wish they had just done new art for that one and did an old frame promo with art by Mark Zug.
Play Misty for me! It's pretty uncontroversial that Misty Rainforest like all of the fetch lands printed in Zendikar and Onslaught are stone cold cube staples, and because it's part of a cycle of 10 cards with a virtually identical function I'm just going to discuss this cycle as a whole now and ignore any fetches that show up again unless someone can give me a good reason to do otherwise.
This community voted the entire cycle #6 in the latest Power Rankings for lands, placing them above even ABU duals and behind only City of Brass and Mana Confluence in terms of mana-fixing lands. Fetch lands are so useful as mana fixers that some cube managers break singleton to run multiple cycles. I've even first picked fetch lands in color pairs I prefer to play, and I don't think I've ever seen any fetch land come back to me on the wheel in a draft. Cube drafters who know what they're doing want as many of these as they can use in their decks. Yet, as good as they are, I've yet to hear of any complaints about power concerns regarding fetches, and even some Peasant cube designers break rarity in order to include them. Again, I don't expect any of this to be controversial, but since I don't plan to discuss this cycle again on this thread I think it might be helpful to newer cube designers/Magic players who might not be familiar with fetch lands from eternal formats to summarize the reasons why fetch lands do so much for Cube and Cube decks. I'd like this to be as comprehensive as possible, so please let me know if I've missed anything:
Unlike the Mirage fetches, the Panoramas and Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse they enter the battlefield untapped and can let you use the mana from any of (at least) two basic land types the turn you play it with no tempo loss and the fairly trivial cost of a single point of life.
The real power of fetches comes from the lack of the word "basic". This means that Misty Rainforest can also bring non-basic Forests and Islands into play including ABU duals, shock lands, and BFZ duals. If you have enough different basic types represented on these lands in your deck, a single fetch land can let you get a mana source for any of the 5 colors.
Fetch lands help fill graveyards, which fuel Delve and manycardsthatbenefit from stuff being in the 'yard.
Using fetch lands improves a deck's overall card quality by removing lands from the deck, increasing the chance of drawing gas in the later game. This improvement in card quality is not huge for any single fetch land, but every little bit counts and this effect adds up in multiples. Even mono-colored aggro decks with no interest in splashing for a 2nd color might run an on-color fetch or two to reduce the odds of running out of gas in the later game.
Getting to shuffle your deck mid-game is often helpful, giving you the chance to draw cards Scried to the bottom in the early game, or getting rid of unwanted topdecks left there by library manipulation cards like Ponder or Sylvan Library, or revealed by cards like Courser of Kruphix.
Fetch lands synergize well with Landfall abilities, allowing you to get two Landfall triggers in a single turn, or even taking advantage of getting a Landfall trigger at instant speed.
I can only think of two reasons not to run fetches. One is the price, as they're in very high demand in every Constructed format in which they are legal, particularly at the competitive level. The price is particularly high for the enemy-colored Zendikar fetches, and blue fetches are even pricier, so Misty Rainforest is pricier than most at $58 TCG mid right now. The other is that the additional shuffling that comes from fetch lands can make games take longer.
The lush jungle landscapes depicted on both versions of Misty Rainforest are lovely, so aesthetically I don't think you can go wrong with either version.
I don't think they would ever do that, especially since you can print the fetches in any set with their ambiguous names. Otherwise we would've seen that in KTK. I doubt they would do it in a supplemental product too.
Funny story, my brothers and I bought 2 Zendikar boxes at release just for fun. Zero fetchlands in two boxes. I didn't even know they printed enemy fetchlands until after. Actually, it's not funny. It was pretty sad. In hindsight, we had two boxes which didn't have any BIG money cards in them. My one bro got an Oracle of Mul Daya, but aside from that, there wasn't much.
If you got them, run them. I still don't have any, and probably won't until a reprint brings them down in price, because their price is absolutely absurd.
If you got them, run them. I still don't have any, and probably won't until a reprint brings them down in price, because their price is absolutely absurd.
It's really a shame that WoTC decided not to reprint the Zen fetches in Battle for Zendikar, because that sent the prices through the roof.
It took some time and a lucky windfall, but my weekly retail draft habit got me the entire cycle when KTK came out. On top of just pulling KTK fetches from drafts, I was also able to trade off excess KTK fetches I pulled for 3 of the Zendikar fetches while they were worth a bit less because people were expecting a reprint in BFZ. My Marsh Flats, though, arrived in the mail looking like this:
I was also lucky enough to pull a foil Dack Fayden and sell it for a good price, which paid for the remaining two and some other cube staples.
There's no cheap or easy way to get the Zendikar fetches anymore, but KTK fetches are about as cheap as they're ever going to be right now, since rotation is holding down the price. Also, if you really want to save a few bucks, you can always get the gold-bordered World Championship editions of Bloodstained Mire and Flooded Strand.
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I never draft this card because I don't like the risk that comes with playing Auras or relying on a fairly easy to disrupt combo to win, but to a lot of Magic players this kind of combo is like catnip. I brought it in by popular request and not only does someone always try to build a Twin deck, but the recent banning in Modern has made it all the more popular. Even LSV pretty routinely first picks any half of this combo he sees when he drafts the MTGO cubes. Even though it's not really my cup of tea, it's such an easy combo to support that I recommend giving it a shot in your cube.
There's only one art available for Splinter Twin, so the only style points you can get is by running the original modern frame.
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I don't run Village Bell-Ringer, but I do run Restoration Angel since it's good enough on its own. I also have Exarch, Pestermite, Conscripts and Great Oak Guardian. I'm even toying with adding Bounding Krasis. I <3 this archetype so much, and since you're likely playing some amount of blue it's not out of the question to hold up a counterspell when you play your Splinter Twin to mitigate some of the risk.
MM2 is one of the reprint set logos that I actually don't mind at all. For whatever reason I find it aesthetically pleasing and don't mind seeing it on cards in my cube. That's not the case with things like some of the duel decks for example. I'm not sure why.
I always liked Splinter Twin in cube since it's a combo archetype where it and a majority of the other pieces are useful outside of infinite combos. It's a very high risk / high reward card that people (especially the younger folk) like to draft since they're very familiar with it in Modern unlike other, much older archtype enablers like Opposition and Recurring Nightmare.
At 540 I'm currently only tuning Kiki / Restoration Angel / Zealous Conscripts. If I were to ever go up to 640, I would definitely add Splinter Twin / Great Oak Guardian and maybe Pestermite. I wouldn't be surprised to see this combo in any sized cube.
I was also pretty happy to see Great Oak Guardian get print since it's great outside of the combo as well. Defitnitly another piece the cube needed to make that archetype viable at a larger size. I'm going to test it out soon to give additional support to Spinter Twin.
With that said, I'm also on the yes side about the twin. I personally like infinite combos and I think this one is well suited for cube. It's not for everyone, but being an has been format staple does help.
While I've never been much for infinite combos, I love twin. It can end a game with one of the infinite enablers, but with how many good ETB value creatures my cube runs, it's rarely a dead card. 187 creatures, fat enablers, burn creatures, all of them still can get a good effect out of Twin without going infinite.
I run and like the splinter combo a lot. There are a lot of ways to interact with it, but I'm OK with it since the pieces aren't that horrible to take up spots.
Question for those of you running this combo: I run Pestermite, Zealous Conscripts, and Restoration Angel (only works with Kiki-Jiki, though) as targets the combo. Is it worth it to find room for Deceiver Exarch as well? The other three see enough play in other decks, but I'm not so sure Exarch would.
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5-mana, but your point stands. I am no longer running it in my 540 powered but am always wanting to get him back in there. As a 1 mana artifact kill that can be a 3/3 too when he is cast late or top-decked he is really good.
For sure. I think his stock really goes up the more and more you support the 'powered', whether that's a full set of signets and such up to the actual power. The more you need to consistently kill an artifact for R, the better chewer is.
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One of the things I know my cube is light on is beneficial green combat tricks, and this kinda helps.
Strictly much, much worse than Sol Ring, but ramping ahead by 2 off a single card is still an incredibly powerful effect. So much so that this "fixed" version of Sol Ring makes Cube Tutor 360, and I've seen it on plenty of powered cube lists. Considering how many better mana rocks are available for powered cube environments I don't know if this is a staple for powered cubes, but if you run an unpowered cube and you want to support ramp Worn Powerstone is a must unless you're cutting it for power concerns. I've first picked this card in quite few drafts.
This card has been printed 4 times, all with the same art, so the only real aesthetic choices here are frame and expansion symbol. It's never been printed in foil, so the original Urza's Saga printing is as pimp as you're going to get with Worn Powerstone without getting an alter. The art on this card is particularly beautiful and unusual, and Henry G. Higginbotham's art has only been featured in 4 cards in the history of Magic, all printed in Urza's Saga. It's a shame no other Magic cards feature his art, and I'm tempted to say it's because he's upset at Wizards for misspelling his name, but he has done other art for WoTC that's been featured on Dungeons and Dragons covers. He also has done a series of Myr sculptures.
Here's a word on the style of Mr. Higginbotham's art from his web site:
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
That's fascinating to hear about the art. Photographed sculpture is a really cool medium for artifacts and I agree, it's too bad he hasn't done more art.
That's really cool about the sculpture art, I really wish they'd do more of those. MTG art has gotten too CG and it really bums me out. I think every old artifact art looks best with the old frame because the artist probably had that frame in mind while making the art / choosing the colors. I always think that old artifact art mixed with the new frames look weird, a lot of the time it's brown clashing with silver.
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But it's one of the best mana rocks available, even if it's a stunted Sol Ring. It's even P1P1 able.
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His Dungeons & Dragons cover art also blew me away at the time, especially now that I see they were real book covers
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I agree. I like both the original Sword promos on the old frame. That art just seems to work somehow. I didn't, however, like the Sword of Feast and Famine promo they did in the old frame. I wish they had just done new art for that one and did an old frame promo with art by Mark Zug.
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Play Misty for me! It's pretty uncontroversial that Misty Rainforest like all of the fetch lands printed in Zendikar and Onslaught are stone cold cube staples, and because it's part of a cycle of 10 cards with a virtually identical function I'm just going to discuss this cycle as a whole now and ignore any fetches that show up again unless someone can give me a good reason to do otherwise.
This community voted the entire cycle #6 in the latest Power Rankings for lands, placing them above even ABU duals and behind only City of Brass and Mana Confluence in terms of mana-fixing lands. Fetch lands are so useful as mana fixers that some cube managers break singleton to run multiple cycles. I've even first picked fetch lands in color pairs I prefer to play, and I don't think I've ever seen any fetch land come back to me on the wheel in a draft. Cube drafters who know what they're doing want as many of these as they can use in their decks. Yet, as good as they are, I've yet to hear of any complaints about power concerns regarding fetches, and even some Peasant cube designers break rarity in order to include them. Again, I don't expect any of this to be controversial, but since I don't plan to discuss this cycle again on this thread I think it might be helpful to newer cube designers/Magic players who might not be familiar with fetch lands from eternal formats to summarize the reasons why fetch lands do so much for Cube and Cube decks. I'd like this to be as comprehensive as possible, so please let me know if I've missed anything:
I can only think of two reasons not to run fetches. One is the price, as they're in very high demand in every Constructed format in which they are legal, particularly at the competitive level. The price is particularly high for the enemy-colored Zendikar fetches, and blue fetches are even pricier, so Misty Rainforest is pricier than most at $58 TCG mid right now. The other is that the additional shuffling that comes from fetch lands can make games take longer.
The lush jungle landscapes depicted on both versions of Misty Rainforest are lovely, so aesthetically I don't think you can go wrong with either version.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
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450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
If you got them, run them. I still don't have any, and probably won't until a reprint brings them down in price, because their price is absolutely absurd.
It's really a shame that WoTC decided not to reprint the Zen fetches in Battle for Zendikar, because that sent the prices through the roof.
It took some time and a lucky windfall, but my weekly retail draft habit got me the entire cycle when KTK came out. On top of just pulling KTK fetches from drafts, I was also able to trade off excess KTK fetches I pulled for 3 of the Zendikar fetches while they were worth a bit less because people were expecting a reprint in BFZ. My Marsh Flats, though, arrived in the mail looking like this:
I was also lucky enough to pull a foil Dack Fayden and sell it for a good price, which paid for the remaining two and some other cube staples.
There's no cheap or easy way to get the Zendikar fetches anymore, but KTK fetches are about as cheap as they're ever going to be right now, since rotation is holding down the price. Also, if you really want to save a few bucks, you can always get the gold-bordered World Championship editions of Bloodstained Mire and Flooded Strand.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
If you're running shocks and BFZ duals, your fetches are probably still better than ABU duals.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
This is the one of the very few beneficial auras that ever makes the cut in most cubes. The main reason to play this card and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, of course, is to use it to make infinite hasty Zealous Conscripts, Pestermites, Deceiver Exarchs, Great Oak Guardians, etc. When the combo doesn't come together, though, any creature with a good ETB or death trigger makes a good backup plan. The sick donkeys who draft my cube have put this on Flametongue Kavu, Shriekmaw, Mulldrifter, Inferno Titan, Grave Titan, and more.
I never draft this card because I don't like the risk that comes with playing Auras or relying on a fairly easy to disrupt combo to win, but to a lot of Magic players this kind of combo is like catnip. I brought it in by popular request and not only does someone always try to build a Twin deck, but the recent banning in Modern has made it all the more popular. Even LSV pretty routinely first picks any half of this combo he sees when he drafts the MTGO cubes. Even though it's not really my cup of tea, it's such an easy combo to support that I recommend giving it a shot in your cube.
There's only one art available for Splinter Twin, so the only style points you can get is by running the original modern frame.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I don't run Village Bell-Ringer, but I do run Restoration Angel since it's good enough on its own. I also have Exarch, Pestermite, Conscripts and Great Oak Guardian. I'm even toying with adding Bounding Krasis. I <3 this archetype so much, and since you're likely playing some amount of blue it's not out of the question to hold up a counterspell when you play your Splinter Twin to mitigate some of the risk.
MM2 is one of the reprint set logos that I actually don't mind at all. For whatever reason I find it aesthetically pleasing and don't mind seeing it on cards in my cube. That's not the case with things like some of the duel decks for example. I'm not sure why.
At 540 I'm currently only tuning Kiki / Restoration Angel / Zealous Conscripts. If I were to ever go up to 640, I would definitely add Splinter Twin / Great Oak Guardian and maybe Pestermite. I wouldn't be surprised to see this combo in any sized cube.
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With that said, I'm also on the yes side about the twin. I personally like infinite combos and I think this one is well suited for cube. It's not for everyone, but being an has been format staple does help.
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