Crucible of Worlds didn't work for us (was only ever a two card combo with Strip Mine), and Ramunap Excavator has been on the chopping block for a long time and only recently saw some significant play. I don't think Wren is better than those two cards.
With Blast Zone, a new fetch and 5 new Horizon lands they are better than ever, but I am still unlikely to play Wren before Crucible.
This is EXACTLY how I feel about Wren and the state of “land recursion” cards after this set.
Whereas for us, Crucible/Excavator and Loam are among the most highly sought-after cards in the cube as synergistic build-around engine cards, and I'm stoked to have another repeatable loam engine strapped to a 2cc pinger. Between all the lands with great abilities, lands that become recursive threats, sacrifice engines, mass-LD and discard outlets, there are a boatload of cube cards that can push these kinds of cards to game-warping effect. I think this walker will be absolutely stellar.
The thing about Loam/Crucible support is that it's just slightly more than throwing those cards in your cube. Here are some things that I include that are busted in half in the loam decks and playable elsewhere:
Firestorm
Forbid
Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows
Any repeatable looting effect (e.g. Dack Fayden)
Hermit Druid
Knight of the Reliquary
Vraska, Golgari Queen
Smokestacks + Braids
Fastbond (ew)
There are so many subtle/small interactions that I think if your cube group isn't intimately familiar with them, then the deck doesn't come together when it should. That's what I think cube is about! Finding the best way to support the widest array of archetypes without taking away from the core of the cube. It's subtle changes like Vraska, Golgari Queen over Abrupt Decay and Punishing Fire over a random burn spell that lets you have your cake and eat it too IMO.
The thing about Loam/Crucible support is that it's just slightly more than throwing those cards in your cube. Here are some things that I include that are busted in half in the loam decks and playable elsewhere:
Firestorm
Forbid
Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows
Any repeatable looting effect (e.g. Dack Fayden)
Hermit Druid
Knight of the Reliquary
Vraska, Golgari Queen
Smokestacks + Braids
Fastbond (ew)
There are so many subtle/small interactions that I think if your cube group isn't intimately familiar with them, then the deck doesn't come together when it should. That's what I think cube is about! Finding the best way to support the widest array of archetypes without taking away from the core of the cube. It's subtle changes like Vraska, Golgari Queen over Abrupt Decay and Punishing Fire over a random burn spell that lets you have your cake and eat it too IMO.
Of all those i only run Stax/Braids/Dack. I want to support the lands matter theme more but most of the other cards listed there don't excite me and i have Cubed with most of them. I think I need to bring Life from the Loam back as well with all the recent changes.
All that being said this new Walker does excite me. At 540 we have three legit ways to bring back lands repeatedly so I need to explore this space more as a Cube designer.
I couldn't quite get life from the loam to work without a strip mine... though I do love the card in theory and WANT it to be good. These new canopy lands and wren and six may give me pause to revisit it.
Bazaar of baghdad is another card that works great with loam.
crucible/ramunap on the other hand, while still somewhat narrow, enables some very cool build arounds as well as the fastbond combo. Definitely a large portion of it's use is with breaking strip mine or with fastbond combo, but I have seen plenty of wildfire/stax/armageddon/value builds without a strip mine or a fastbond.
I highly recommend not to play cards that are only good as a part of a specific two card combo like Punishing Fire, especially in a large cube.
I pretty strongly disagree with this. Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch are also quite bad without Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Grove of the Burnwillows is a phenomenal land that will always see play. Punishing Fire will often end up in sideboards without access to Grove, but that is no different than Pestermite in your sideboard. And I'd argue that Punishing Fire comes out of the sideboard in more matches than Pestermite does. Cube is all about drafting a deck that maximizes all its resources and does something intrinsically powerful. Seeding combinations of cards that can take over a game is a powerful tool to have as a cube designer. And when it costs exactly one slot because the other side of the combo is a land, you bet I'm including it in my cube!
I do agree that this approach gets worse the larger the cube, but sizes between 360 and 540 can easily this. Everybody designs their cube differently, and it's okay not to want to include combos or cards that feel too narrow. But a strong statement that suggests it is incorrect to do so is something I felt the need to respond to in depth. I've had Punishing Fire + Grove in my cube for the last year, and it is nowhere close to getting cut. My group loves it and I think it gives the lands archetype that's being discussed here more depth.
I pretty strongly disagree with this. Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch are also quite bad without Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Grove of the Burnwillows is a phenomenal land that will always see play. Punishing Fire will often end up in sideboards without access to Grove, but that is no different than Pestermite in your sideboard. And I'd argue that Punishing Fire comes out of the sideboard in more matches than Pestermite does. Cube is all about drafting a deck that maximizes all its resources and does something intrinsically powerful. Seeding combinations of cards that can take over a game is a powerful tool to have as a cube designer. And when it costs exactly one slot because the other side of the combo is a land, you bet I'm including it in my cube!
I do agree that this approach gets worse the larger the cube, but sizes between 360 and 540 can easily this. Everybody designs their cube differently, and it's okay not to want to include combos or cards that feel too narrow. But a strong statement that suggests it is incorrect to do so is something I felt the need to respond to in depth. I've had Punishing Fire + Grove in my cube for the last year, and it is nowhere close to getting cut. My group loves it and I think it gives the lands archetype that's being discussed here more depth.
I also strongly disagree with this suggestion, hence why I commented, so the differing opinion could also be heard I actually play Grove of the Burnwillows. I've tried Punishing Fire years ago and cut it not too long after. Having a card only see play once every few drafts, always in the same way, and then see the combo assemble once every few games with that deck is just not worth the cube spot and the trouble. A card like this is also not interesting during the draft. If you have Grove, you take him highly. Otherwise, this is the sort of card that always tables. It also sucks if you commit a pick to it then never see Grove, either because someone else took it, cut it, or it was never even in the draft portion of the cube to begin with. Depending on the playgroup, at some table players could be actively cutting a piece to prevent the combo, especially if they see it often.
Pestermite and Kiki are not a good analogy in my opinion because there is redundancy for both effects. Even better, there are such effects in different colors, allowing you to spread and not see the exact same thing over and over. This combo has consistency and has diversity. However, even that combo I would currently recommend against in a large cube. It might get there as we get more playable versions of this effect.
In any case, I feel there are either design errors or player errors if Crucible is not working in your cube - to me it's a clear 360 staple.
Fetchland density plays a huge role here. Crucible is a better card in a smaller cube, unless you play double fetches.
How has this played out in larger cubes (600+) that support the loam/crucible archetype? In theory it should play out just fine but hoping to see how actual testing has gone.
Card's been sweet. Good card advantage, and the pinging effect has been good at both picking off small targets and adding additional damage to your burn spells and combat math to trade up with bigger targets. It's been fantastic value for 2 mana.
I was drafting monogreen last night and ran into this guy in my second pack--decided right than and there to go Gruul. (Almost Temur) Wasn't disappointed.
Grabbed a bunch of fetch lands and managed to get a Fiery Islet online. Squeaked him out on turn 1, let's go..
Over the course of the game I pinged once and recurred the Islet 4-5 times and it felt awesome. It always came in handy. Once I got a Bolt in my graveyard someone finally decided to go after him so I didn't get to live the dream. Can't wait to try this guy out again!
This is EXACTLY how I feel about Wren and the state of “land recursion” cards after this set.
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There are so many subtle/small interactions that I think if your cube group isn't intimately familiar with them, then the deck doesn't come together when it should. That's what I think cube is about! Finding the best way to support the widest array of archetypes without taking away from the core of the cube. It's subtle changes like Vraska, Golgari Queen over Abrupt Decay and Punishing Fire over a random burn spell that lets you have your cake and eat it too IMO.
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Of all those i only run Stax/Braids/Dack. I want to support the lands matter theme more but most of the other cards listed there don't excite me and i have Cubed with most of them. I think I need to bring Life from the Loam back as well with all the recent changes.
All that being said this new Walker does excite me. At 540 we have three legit ways to bring back lands repeatedly so I need to explore this space more as a Cube designer.
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
Bazaar of baghdad is another card that works great with loam.
crucible/ramunap on the other hand, while still somewhat narrow, enables some very cool build arounds as well as the fastbond combo. Definitely a large portion of it's use is with breaking strip mine or with fastbond combo, but I have seen plenty of wildfire/stax/armageddon/value builds without a strip mine or a fastbond.
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I pretty strongly disagree with this. Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch are also quite bad without Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Grove of the Burnwillows is a phenomenal land that will always see play. Punishing Fire will often end up in sideboards without access to Grove, but that is no different than Pestermite in your sideboard. And I'd argue that Punishing Fire comes out of the sideboard in more matches than Pestermite does. Cube is all about drafting a deck that maximizes all its resources and does something intrinsically powerful. Seeding combinations of cards that can take over a game is a powerful tool to have as a cube designer. And when it costs exactly one slot because the other side of the combo is a land, you bet I'm including it in my cube!
I do agree that this approach gets worse the larger the cube, but sizes between 360 and 540 can easily this. Everybody designs their cube differently, and it's okay not to want to include combos or cards that feel too narrow. But a strong statement that suggests it is incorrect to do so is something I felt the need to respond to in depth. I've had Punishing Fire + Grove in my cube for the last year, and it is nowhere close to getting cut. My group loves it and I think it gives the lands archetype that's being discussed here more depth.
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However, I would stop somewhat short of claiming it is better than Crucible - it certainly has the potential, but time will tell.
In any case, I feel there are either design errors or player errors if Crucible is not working in your cube - to me it's a clear 360 staple.
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I also strongly disagree with this suggestion, hence why I commented, so the differing opinion could also be heard I actually play Grove of the Burnwillows. I've tried Punishing Fire years ago and cut it not too long after. Having a card only see play once every few drafts, always in the same way, and then see the combo assemble once every few games with that deck is just not worth the cube spot and the trouble. A card like this is also not interesting during the draft. If you have Grove, you take him highly. Otherwise, this is the sort of card that always tables. It also sucks if you commit a pick to it then never see Grove, either because someone else took it, cut it, or it was never even in the draft portion of the cube to begin with. Depending on the playgroup, at some table players could be actively cutting a piece to prevent the combo, especially if they see it often.
Pestermite and Kiki are not a good analogy in my opinion because there is redundancy for both effects. Even better, there are such effects in different colors, allowing you to spread and not see the exact same thing over and over. This combo has consistency and has diversity. However, even that combo I would currently recommend against in a large cube. It might get there as we get more playable versions of this effect.
Fetchland density plays a huge role here. Crucible is a better card in a smaller cube, unless you play double fetches.
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Grabbed a bunch of fetch lands and managed to get a Fiery Islet online. Squeaked him out on turn 1, let's go..
Over the course of the game I pinged once and recurred the Islet 4-5 times and it felt awesome. It always came in handy. Once I got a Bolt in my graveyard someone finally decided to go after him so I didn't get to live the dream. Can't wait to try this guy out again!
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