I think the Test Subject would probably be very good at 450. Games tend to be a bit slower there and the early blocker can be useful against 2/x guys. Seems like a winner.
Agree, and that was my verdict at 400, even with my quite fast cube. It could be a flop, but it's a massive finisher of sorts with upside, so I'm optimistic. I see dropping this turn four with some backup, and then just throwing tokens on it whenever I have spare mana.
Thanks for posting this, it was a fun read. Blink versus UB seems like it was an epic match.
Biggest take away, that I am the master prognosticator, 0-4 in the first round that takes skill ladies and gentlemen.
Lol, it has been my pleasure to prove you wrong!
Glad you liked the write-up man - it took me long enough
EDIT: forgot to mention, I wasn't playing the deck in question but Faithless Looting looked very useful from where I was sitting. Wasn't flashed back though, not sure if Hicham forgot or just didn't get the opportunity.
Glad you liked the write-up man - it took me long enough
EDIT: forgot to mention, I wasn't playing the deck in question but Faithless Looting looked very useful from where I was sitting. Wasn't flashed back though, not sure if Hicham forgot or just didn't get the opportunity.
I also saw Looting in action against me last night, in a GRb aggro deck, and the three unneeded lands he transformed into business spells probably won him the game. Not exactly surprising, but more confirmation of its value.
Tokens beat Blink 2-0 in the winners' final quite convincingly.
In the run up to the losers' final, the mono-green deck lost very narrowly to the UB control deck while the black aggro deck lost to the Ub Midrange deck. This means the losers' final was a re-match for the 2 UB decks, my deck ended up confirming its superiority.
Interestingly, Ludevic's Test Subject played a major role in getting to and winning the losers' final. That's one beastly 2-drop.
I'll have to pick up a Ludevic's Test Subject to give it a try.
Another card that people ultimately dismissed from Innistrad was Mindshrieker. It's been performing pretty well in my cube so far. Sure, tapping out your mana to pump this guy is not exactly what the usual mono-U deck wants to do, but he has slotted in nicely in various other blue based decks.
I'll have to pick up a Ludevic's Test Subject to give it a try.
Another card that people ultimately dismissed from Innistrad was Mindshrieker. It's been performing pretty well in my cube so far. Sure, tapping out your mana to pump this guy is not exactly what the usual mono-U deck wants to do, but he has slotted in nicely in various other blue based decks.
Thanks for the heads-up, Juju. Mindshrieker is already firmly on my radar as a blue 2-drop that can win games on its own, just like Ludevic's Test Subject. In fact, I put in on the table for the next update already, your comment comes very timely to give my proposal some extra weight. Cheers mate!
It does look better IRL, the pic is a little harsh on the colors
Nice work on the alter. Are you altering cards in your cube now? I kind of liked the way every card was original, nothing fancy. Alters are cool too though. I would love to see a cube where every card had a border extension alter.
Nice work on the alter. Are you altering cards in your cube now? I kind of liked the way every card was original, nothing fancy. Alters are cool too though. I would love to see a cube where every card had a border extension alter.
Thanks Juju. I don't know yet, I've only just dipped my toe in the altering pool. I just wanted to see if I could do it with reasonably good results and whether I'd enjoy it. The first two tries turned out much better than I'd anticipated, it wasn't as time-consuming as I'd feared and I sure am enjoying it, so including altered cards in my cube has certainly become a possibility.
I also *really* like the 'original' look, so what I'm not going to do is fundamentally altering artwork (not that I'd have the necessary skills anyway) or covering up expansion symbols. The border extension alter seems like a nice way to preserve the original look while still pimping up the cube and making it unique.
In case you missed it in the OT thread (and are interested), here's my first alter:Unfortunately, we don't run Doom Blade anymore. Silly me for choosing a card we don't run - but then I didn't think I'd end up with anything remotely pretty, I'd just chosen it because it was a common and it didn't look too difficult to alter. The (not necessarily MtG savvy) people I've shown my altered Doom Blade to so far either thought it was done with a computer or didn't notice the paint job at all, so I'm quite pleased with the result even if it isn't perfect.
This is a small update to slightly adjust from the previous large update, and also to add some experimental cards as a direct result from this discussion started by Konfusius.
This discussion also led to a re-evaluation of our cube categorization. In order to reflect the different deck status of lands and lower the threshold of adding them, Konfusius has chosen to run a separate land section for all lands (that do not take a spell slot). Our cube is categorized according to the color philosopy – 5 sections for cards requiring a single color, a section for cards requiring respectively no colored mana (colorless) or multiple colors (multi-color), and a section for cards that enable multiple colors (fixers). Making a separate land section would cause all kinds of trouble for this philosophy, but to achieve the same end result as Konfusius we opted to balance each color only for cards that take a spell slot, and thus allow (slightly) different amounts of utility lands for color sections. Effectively, there’s no competition between spells and lands anymore even if they’re in the same section: if a land is good enough, it gets a slot; if not, it gets cut (the same as for our colorless and multi-color sections). This way, our categorization system is intact, it is acknowledged that lands are different than spells and the threshold for inclusion is lowered, and color balance should not be significantly impacted.
Concretely, the impact of this change is that blue got one additional card since it had 1 less ‘spell slot’ card than the other colors, and that we could add colored utility lands without needing to cut a card for them in their color.
When re-evaluating lands with the mind set ‘remember: lands don’t take spells slots’, I concluded that manlands are probably the most likely to be of value in the average cube game. Getting a bonus creature will simply always be relevant, which cannot be said about many other utility lands we don't run yet. This is why this update includes so many manlands. Spawning Pool, while obviously not as powerful as Faerie Conclave and Githu Encampment, will be a welcome addition to any black deck that can afford to play an ‘enter the battlefield tapped’ land – basically, any deck that does not have ‘doing as much damage as possible’ as its main strategy.
The extra blue slot as a result of the categorization adjustment went to the Geists. When Innistrad was released we didn’t include it simply because we couldn’t agree on a cut – it was clear that this is blue’s missing spell. I’m not worried about its power level and I’m glad to add a blue creature. Mindshrieker was also on the table as a 2-drop that can finish games on his own, but, yeah, we couldn’t find a cut.
We agreed that Thornling was probably not the best cut in our previous update. We’re bringing it back at the cost of cutting one of the 3-cost ramp spells (Kodama’s Reach, Cultivate, Harrow), which have all been losing stock lately, seeing play less and less. The functional reprint of the trio got the axe.
Nexus offers a free evasive creature to any deck that can afford to run a land that does not produce colored mana – part of the land experiment. Guardian Idol just seems solid – a mana rock that comes with a free sorcery proof bear. Now that it’s on my radar, I find it strange that so few cubes run this card. Jinxed Choker seems to have a lot of potential as a sort of Sulfuric Vortex like effect for any aggro deck that wants it – maybe it’s not as scary as I think it will be, but testing it will show.
The cuts will probably be controversial. Black Vise can do a ton of damage and plays nicely with land destruction and draw 7s, but it has some serious drawbacks: it can also do no damage at all, it misses out on all the synergies that creatures enjoy (anthem effects, equipment, etc) and it has anti-synergy with discard. Finally, you can negate the Vise’s impact just by doing what you want to be doing in the first place – playing your cards. We found that in the average case, it did too little damage to justify the high variance of this card. Decks are just too efficient to take a ton of damage from Black Vise anymore. Yes, if you’re mana screwed you will take a beating from a Vise – but the odds of winning when you’re mana screwed are minimal at best anyway.
Memory Jar has seen very little play for quite a while now, simply failing to make the main deck. We decided to bench the Jar for now.
The Stormbind-Wolf Run swap can be considered part of the land experiment, although I’m quite confident that the Wolf Run should be better in cubes that focus on ramp, and Stormbind in cubes that focus on green aggro. The cut 4-drops failed my vote of confidence in particular – I don’t consider them powerful enough for the multi-color section and both guilds already have a better 4-drop (Murderous Redcap and Bloodbraid Elf). The adds probably won’t raise eye-brows.
Bad manlands are bad. Even though they don't take up a spell slot, they still take up a draft slot that could be dedicated to something worth picking from the pack. If you have a free slot in black, I'd cut Spawning Pool and add in the next best spell you're not playing. Some decks might actually want that card, instead of just replacing a swamp for a SP, which decks I build wouldn't do anyways. I played Tower and Pool in my classic cube, and let me tell you -- they're awful. They're not worth picking from a pack, and the upside doesn't justify them entering the battlefield tapped. If I had a shock land and a creeping tar pit in my pile, I wouldn't even put the Pool in the deck at all. There's only so many lands with drawbacks that you're willing to replace basics with when deckbuilding. Good lands are worth the drawback. Bad ones aren't. Some people feel that card #24 that misses the cut from the deck would be better off as a nonbasic that makes the cut because it's better than a basic. I think that logic is flawed, because no single card is always card #24. The card you're excluding to get Spawning Pool into the cube is more valuable to some black decks out there than the Pool is to any deck it may make the cut in. Running bad cards is bad, no matter how easy they are to get into some decks.
I like the changes for the most part just a couple things.
1. Please let me know how Guardian Idol works for you, I've been meaning to add non signet mana rocks for a while.
2. I'd never noticed before that your guild and fixers are unbalanced. I'm not going to go into whether or not I like that and I'm not trying to start a huge discussion, I just want to know what's your method for how many cards per section? And if on section was bad enough would you give it zero cards (in multicolor not lands).
Obviously, I think more lands is a good thing. I did not have the opportunity to test my newest update, and I agree that Spawning Pool and Forbidding Watchtower are far from exciting, but I am willing to try them and am interested in your results as well.
The cuts are indeed controversial. Black Vise has a really high variance, which is something I don't like to much either. Memory Jar is a card that I often don't want to include in my deck because I'm not sure what I want to accomplish with it, but when I do it typically enables some broken plays and is well worth it. You have a relatively small colorless section, so something has to go. Another option would be to reduce the number of colored cards slightly (this is what I do, I feel I have still enough colored spells).
Blinkmoth Nexus is in our cube a bit longer, and it was good for those decks that can afford to play an additional colorless land. It makes drafting mono colored more desirable, because in a mono colored deck you have more room for colorless lands.
Guardian Idol was really good for us. ETB tapped is not a big deal when you get an additional threat (or blocker, when times are bad) in return.
I started to unbalance my multicolored section as well. You just play the spells you think are good enough. Currently, my only UR spell is Izzet Signet, so that is quite close to zero. But I believe having multicolored spells in your list just so the numbers look balanced does not accomplish anything. The 'bad' cards went late most of the time and were only played when they ended up in the pile of someone already in those colors, and some cards actually did not make it even then. Mono colored cards and colorless cards are really really good these days, so multicolor cards better be amazing
I don't have a problem with any of the spells in my multicolor section. All 3 of the Izzet cards see play with great regularity. Running cubeworthy gold cards and good gold cards aren't mutually exclusive concepts. Especially not at cubes under 500 cards.
Bad manlands are bad. Even though they don't take up a spell slot, they still take up a draft slot that could be dedicated to something worth picking from the pack. If you have a free slot in black, I'd cut Spawning Pool and add in the next best spell you're not playing. Some decks might actually want that card, instead of just replacing a swamp for a SP, which decks I build wouldn't do anyways. I played Tower and Pool in my classic cube, and let me tell you -- they're awful. They're not worth picking from a pack, and the upside doesn't justify them entering the battlefield tapped. If I had a shock land and a creeping tar pit in my pile, I wouldn't even put the Pool in the deck at all. There's only so many lands with drawbacks that you're willing to replace basics with when deckbuilding. Good lands are worth the drawback. Bad ones aren't. Some people feel that card #24 that misses the cut from the deck would be better off as a nonbasic that makes the cut because it's better than a basic. I think that logic is flawed, because no single card is always card #24. The card you're excluding to get Spawning Pool into the cube is more valuable to some black decks out there than the Pool is to any deck it may make the cut in. Running bad cards is bad, no matter how easy they are to get into some decks.
I think you're hugely overstating how 'bad' Spawning Pool and Forbidding Watchtower are. They have very decent defensive value, and if that value comes as an almost-free bonus it's not a bad thing at all to have in a non-aggressive deck. Besides, we are running every single black/white card we want to run, so the manlands don't take the slot of any wanted card in the cube.
I like the changes for the most part just a couple things.
1. Please let me know how Guardian Idol works for you, I've been meaning to add non signet mana rocks for a while.
2. I'd never noticed before that your guild and fixers are unbalanced. I'm not going to go into whether or not I like that and I'm not trying to start a huge discussion, I just want to know what's your method for how many cards per section? And if on section was bad enough would you give it zero cards (in multicolor not lands).
I'll be sure to report on the Idol. Personally, I have a hard time imagining it will be anything but useful. As for how to manage unbalanced sections, it's very simple: is the card good enough for your cube environment? Run it. Is it lacking? Don't run it. It's that simple. Actually, for fixers it's not that simple, but the imbalance in that section is very slight - mostly, the green guilds have 1 less fixer, but green has tons of extra fixing so that doesn't really matter much.
@ Konfusius: thanks for the feedback! I'm impatiently waiting for some reports on your land experiment.
I think you're hugely overstating how 'bad' Spawning Pool and Forbidding Watchtower are.
Well, you can think that, but they're straight awful. I've played them in multiple cube environments, and they're simply not worth a pick.
Quote from Fredo »
Besides, we are running every single black/white card we want to run, so the manlands don't take the slot of any wanted card in the cube.
If you say so. You may be running every card you think you want, but there's probably 50+ cards that would contribute more value to more decks than Spawning Pool/Watchtower. They both play like a bad Kor Haven, if I had to compare them to something worthy of inclusion.
It's okay for us to agree to disagree, which is what we're ultimately going to have to do. I just wanted to provide feedback from someone that's actually seen those cards in cube action. It's just my $0.02, of course.
If you say so. You may be running every card you think you want, but there's probably 50+ cards that would contribute more value to more decks than Spawning Pool/Watchtower. They both play like a bad Kor Haven, if I had to compare them to something worthy of inclusion.
It's okay for us to agree to disagree, which is what we're ultimately going to have to do. I just wanted to provide feedback from someone that's actually seen those cards in cube action. It's just my $0.02, of course.
Yes, of course, and I do appreciate your input, wtwlf - thanks for taking the time to give it. I just have a hard time accepting that a free 1/5 can be such a terrible, terrible thing. Maybe it's the difference in draft method - 2-player winston is vastly different from 8-player Rochester.
It's interesting that you mention Kor Haven, as that's exactly the comparison I'd made - I don't think Forbidding Watchtower is worse though. It can't defend against flyers and shadow creatures, but it does do some things Haven can't (like defending against hexproof/shroud creatures and more importantly, killing aggro creatures) and it has an entire additional dimension in that it can attack and carry a sword. Finally, it has a lower inclusion drawback since it actually produces colored mana. I think they're quite comparable, and Kor Haven has survived every update of our cube to present. Spawning Pool is on a similar level, it's worse against trample but if you're staring down a Blastoderm you'll be glad to have it - also, black doesn't have Kor Haven.
Hicham was sceptical, but during the latest draft he did pick the Watchtower very high (4th card in the pack) in a white-blue control shell. I think that someone whose drafting and deck building skills I respect picking the card high in an actual draft - despite being biased against it - is a good sign.
Besides, we are running every single black/white card we want to run, so the manlands don't take the slot of any wanted card in the cube.
Even if they are not taking up a wanted slot in the cube, I think I would be irritated if I saw the Pool or the Watchtower taking up the slot of a wanted car in my booster when I opened it.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Even if they are not taking up a wanted slot in the cube, I think I would be irritated if I saw the Pool or the Watchtower taking up the slot of a wanted car in my booster when I opened it.
Are you irritated if you see Kor Haven in a booster? Assuming that is not the case since you run it, why do you consider Kor Haven so much more powerful than Forbidding Watchtower?
I consider Watchtower on par with Haven, and considerably better than Wall of Denial. That is why I'm honestly stumped by the hate that these manlands receive.
Both Haven and Watchtower neutralise a single attacker. Haven is better in that it does not come into play tapped, can neutralise creatures with evasion, can neutralise creatures with protection from white, and does not become vulnerable to damage/creature removal. All this, for me, massively outweighs the Watchtower's advantages of producing white mana and being a potential attacker.
Wall of Denial has the advantage that it does not tie up your mana. This is important in allowing my control deck to continue to develop.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Watchtower can also block shroud/hexproof creatures, it can kill their attacker with toughness 1, it only costs 1W to activate and can still tap for W to play Swords to Plowshares or something. Fredo convinced me that Watchtower is closer to Kor Haven than I initially thought, so I am willing to give it a try. But I've seen cube managers complain that Ghitu Encampment is not good enough whereas I think not playing the Encampment is just wrong, so it seems that manlands don't get the same love everywhere.
Coming into play tapped is a big deal. Not every deck can just replace basics with lands that do that. Just because a land is barely better than a basic land for some decks doesn't mean it's good enough for the cube, or that it justifies a pick. If it's in the cube, it could be something else. And there's a lot of something elses that are better than Watchtower and Pool.
I don't play Kor Haven. Nor would I play it at 450. And I think it's far better than Watchtower. Being a land that's an okay blocker against X/1 creature on T3 or later isn't necessarily an amazing thing to be. ETBT is bad. 1 attacking power for 2 mana to activate is bad. There's nothing about that land that makes me wanna include it. And I have played it! In my own cubes! Back when I had the attitude that because it replaces a land means it's good enough. But after playing with it, and realizing that I'd rather have a more powerful card and a Plains for my deck, it got cut. Along with all the other lands that aren't impacting enough on the game.
Quote from Humpty »
Both Haven and Watchtower neutralise a single attacker. Haven is better in that it does not come into play tapped, can neutralise creatures with evasion, can neutralise creatures with protection from white, and does not become vulnerable to damage/creature removal. All this, for me, massively outweighs the Watchtower's advantages of producing white mana and being a potential attacker.
This. Additionally, I can Kor Haven an attacker's damage to 0 and then kill it in combat with one of my other dudes. And it doesn't have to have 1-toughness to die.
..........
But hey, different strokes for different folks. With a different philosophy and different drafting styles/player counts/etc, they could perform quite the opposite for you than they do for us. Having a Spawning Pool as one of your black cards in Winston/Sealed, for example, is a huge drag. In 6-8 person drafts, it doesn't impact things nearly as much. And in rotisserie formats, they're 100% irrelevant.
Watchtower can also block shroud/hexproof creatures, it can kill their attacker with toughness 1, it only costs 1W to activate and can still tap for W to play Swords to Plowshares or something.
Like Konfusius said, the Watchtower does have its upsides as well. You can make any card comparison look not close by glossing over the downsides of one card and ignoring the upsides of the other. In a defensive deck, I think ETBT is a less severe drawback for a land than producing colorless, and especially the fact that the Watchtower can kill weenies is a large upside compared to Kor Haven (I concede that the offensive potential will often not be relevant). Kor Haven is better against midrange and control, but Watchtower defends better against aggro, and that's the match-up where a defensive deck needs the most help.
This is also why Wall of Denial isn't actually a very effective card IMO. As a purely defensive card, its chief role should be helping you survive the early game against aggro, but it doesn't do that very well. You can just ignore it and keep on attacking. It's great against fatties, but it's just not effective against a swarm of small creatures. That's also true of Kor Haven - but then, the wall is a multi-colored spell and the Haven is a single color land, which is a huge difference and the reason why we're running one and not the other. It's quite possible that running both Kor Haven and Watchtower may be too much at 450 though.
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In other news, we drafted with 7 actual people this weekend so I have some more test data to report.
Forbidding Watchtower was in the pool and was played main deck. The guy playing the deck said the ETBT was not a liability and that the 1/5 was relevant several times. All in all, a positive report.
Dungeon Geists got some very positive reports, the guy who had it absolutely loved it.
Guardian Idol was main decked and got a positive report. Just a solid, useful card.
Blinkmoth Nexus was left in the sideboard, the deck's player said he didn't think his mana base was good enough to include it.
Geist of Saint Traft was main decked in a sweet UW tempo deck and was obviously pretty good - I think it's generally accepted that this card's only problem should be finding a deck, not being good once it has done that.
Cards from the February update:
Gravecrawler is a great weenie, not that anyone doubted that. I consider it black's best 1-drop, resilience built into a 2 power 1-drop is just so strong.
Wolfbitten Captive, Strangleroot Geist and Vorapede made it into a green aggressive midrange built. I have no feedback on the werewolf but the undying critters were received very well.
I drafted a solid red/black aggro deck that oddly didn't perform very well and kept losing against the sickest of comebacks despite some really good starts on my part. Of the new cards I had Stromkirk Noble, Faithless Looting and Torch Fiend. The vampire was really good, it made it to 3/3 regularly, one time even to 4/4 and the evasion has been relevant a time or two. Looting was solid, Torch Fiend only came up once but I was happy to have it at that time.
The Talismans continue to please, they're really a step up from signets.
Agree, and that was my verdict at 400, even with my quite fast cube. It could be a flop, but it's a massive finisher of sorts with upside, so I'm optimistic. I see dropping this turn four with some backup, and then just throwing tokens on it whenever I have spare mana.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Biggest take away, that I am the master prognosticator, 0-4 in the first round that takes skill ladies and gentlemen.
Lol, it has been my pleasure to prove you wrong!
Glad you liked the write-up man - it took me long enough
EDIT: forgot to mention, I wasn't playing the deck in question but Faithless Looting looked very useful from where I was sitting. Wasn't flashed back though, not sure if Hicham forgot or just didn't get the opportunity.
I also saw Looting in action against me last night, in a GRb aggro deck, and the three unneeded lands he transformed into business spells probably won him the game. Not exactly surprising, but more confirmation of its value.
My $40 MTGO cube
Draft my cube at Cubetutor!
Tokens beat Blink 2-0 in the winners' final quite convincingly.
In the run up to the losers' final, the mono-green deck lost very narrowly to the UB control deck while the black aggro deck lost to the Ub Midrange deck. This means the losers' final was a re-match for the 2 UB decks, my deck ended up confirming its superiority.
Interestingly, Ludevic's Test Subject played a major role in getting to and winning the losers' final. That's one beastly 2-drop.
Another card that people ultimately dismissed from Innistrad was Mindshrieker. It's been performing pretty well in my cube so far. Sure, tapping out your mana to pump this guy is not exactly what the usual mono-U deck wants to do, but he has slotted in nicely in various other blue based decks.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
Thanks for the heads-up, Juju. Mindshrieker is already firmly on my radar as a blue 2-drop that can win games on its own, just like Ludevic's Test Subject. In fact, I put in on the table for the next update already, your comment comes very timely to give my proposal some extra weight. Cheers mate!
Plated Geopede -> Plated Geopede
It does look better IRL, the pic is a little harsh on the colors
Nice work on the alter. Are you altering cards in your cube now? I kind of liked the way every card was original, nothing fancy. Alters are cool too though. I would love to see a cube where every card had a border extension alter.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
Thanks Juju. I don't know yet, I've only just dipped my toe in the altering pool. I just wanted to see if I could do it with reasonably good results and whether I'd enjoy it. The first two tries turned out much better than I'd anticipated, it wasn't as time-consuming as I'd feared and I sure am enjoying it, so including altered cards in my cube has certainly become a possibility.
I also *really* like the 'original' look, so what I'm not going to do is fundamentally altering artwork (not that I'd have the necessary skills anyway) or covering up expansion symbols. The border extension alter seems like a nice way to preserve the original look while still pimping up the cube and making it unique.
In case you missed it in the OT thread (and are interested), here's my first alter:Unfortunately, we don't run Doom Blade anymore. Silly me for choosing a card we don't run - but then I didn't think I'd end up with anything remotely pretty, I'd just chosen it because it was a common and it didn't look too difficult to alter. The (not necessarily MtG savvy) people I've shown my altered Doom Blade to so far either thought it was done with a computer or didn't notice the paint job at all, so I'm quite pleased with the result even if it isn't perfect.
This discussion also led to a re-evaluation of our cube categorization. In order to reflect the different deck status of lands and lower the threshold of adding them, Konfusius has chosen to run a separate land section for all lands (that do not take a spell slot). Our cube is categorized according to the color philosopy – 5 sections for cards requiring a single color, a section for cards requiring respectively no colored mana (colorless) or multiple colors (multi-color), and a section for cards that enable multiple colors (fixers). Making a separate land section would cause all kinds of trouble for this philosophy, but to achieve the same end result as Konfusius we opted to balance each color only for cards that take a spell slot, and thus allow (slightly) different amounts of utility lands for color sections. Effectively, there’s no competition between spells and lands anymore even if they’re in the same section: if a land is good enough, it gets a slot; if not, it gets cut (the same as for our colorless and multi-color sections). This way, our categorization system is intact, it is acknowledged that lands are different than spells and the threshold for inclusion is lowered, and color balance should not be significantly impacted.
Concretely, the impact of this change is that blue got one additional card since it had 1 less ‘spell slot’ card than the other colors, and that we could add colored utility lands without needing to cut a card for them in their color.
On to the update.
Black
Add Spawning Pool.
When re-evaluating lands with the mind set ‘remember: lands don’t take spells slots’, I concluded that manlands are probably the most likely to be of value in the average cube game. Getting a bonus creature will simply always be relevant, which cannot be said about many other utility lands we don't run yet. This is why this update includes so many manlands. Spawning Pool, while obviously not as powerful as Faerie Conclave and Githu Encampment, will be a welcome addition to any black deck that can afford to play an ‘enter the battlefield tapped’ land – basically, any deck that does not have ‘doing as much damage as possible’ as its main strategy.
Blue
Add Dungeon Geists
The extra blue slot as a result of the categorization adjustment went to the Geists. When Innistrad was released we didn’t include it simply because we couldn’t agree on a cut – it was clear that this is blue’s missing spell. I’m not worried about its power level and I’m glad to add a blue creature. Mindshrieker was also on the table as a 2-drop that can finish games on his own, but, yeah, we couldn’t find a cut.
Green
Add Thornling, cut Cultivate
We agreed that Thornling was probably not the best cut in our previous update. We’re bringing it back at the cost of cutting one of the 3-cost ramp spells (Kodama’s Reach, Cultivate, Harrow), which have all been losing stock lately, seeing play less and less. The functional reprint of the trio got the axe.
Red
No changes.
White
Add Forbidding Watchtower
See comments for Spawning Pool. This card is very similar – a defensive manland likely to find a deck and have an impact on games.
Colorless
Add: Blinkmoth Nexus, Guardian Idol, Jinxed Choker
Cut: Black Vise, Memory Jar
Nexus offers a free evasive creature to any deck that can afford to run a land that does not produce colored mana – part of the land experiment. Guardian Idol just seems solid – a mana rock that comes with a free sorcery proof bear. Now that it’s on my radar, I find it strange that so few cubes run this card. Jinxed Choker seems to have a lot of potential as a sort of Sulfuric Vortex like effect for any aggro deck that wants it – maybe it’s not as scary as I think it will be, but testing it will show.
The cuts will probably be controversial. Black Vise can do a ton of damage and plays nicely with land destruction and draw 7s, but it has some serious drawbacks: it can also do no damage at all, it misses out on all the synergies that creatures enjoy (anthem effects, equipment, etc) and it has anti-synergy with discard. Finally, you can negate the Vise’s impact just by doing what you want to be doing in the first place – playing your cards. We found that in the average case, it did too little damage to justify the high variance of this card. Decks are just too efficient to take a ton of damage from Black Vise anymore. Yes, if you’re mana screwed you will take a beating from a Vise – but the odds of winning when you’re mana screwed are minimal at best anyway.
Memory Jar has seen very little play for quite a while now, simply failing to make the main deck. We decided to bench the Jar for now.
Multi-Color
Add: Kessig Wolf Run, Lingering Souls, Geist of Saint Traft
Cut: Stormbind, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Huntmaster of the Fells
The Stormbind-Wolf Run swap can be considered part of the land experiment, although I’m quite confident that the Wolf Run should be better in cubes that focus on ramp, and Stormbind in cubes that focus on green aggro. The cut 4-drops failed my vote of confidence in particular – I don’t consider them powerful enough for the multi-color section and both guilds already have a better 4-drop (Murderous Redcap and Bloodbraid Elf). The adds probably won’t raise eye-brows.
Fixers
Add Stirring Wildwood
When re-evaluating the lands it became clear to me that this cut was a mistake. Duals that are also manlands are too strong to exclude.
New cube total = 453
t
That’s it! As always, constructive feedback is welcome.
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1. Please let me know how Guardian Idol works for you, I've been meaning to add non signet mana rocks for a while.
2. I'd never noticed before that your guild and fixers are unbalanced. I'm not going to go into whether or not I like that and I'm not trying to start a huge discussion, I just want to know what's your method for how many cards per section? And if on section was bad enough would you give it zero cards (in multicolor not lands).
The cuts are indeed controversial. Black Vise has a really high variance, which is something I don't like to much either. Memory Jar is a card that I often don't want to include in my deck because I'm not sure what I want to accomplish with it, but when I do it typically enables some broken plays and is well worth it. You have a relatively small colorless section, so something has to go. Another option would be to reduce the number of colored cards slightly (this is what I do, I feel I have still enough colored spells).
Blinkmoth Nexus is in our cube a bit longer, and it was good for those decks that can afford to play an additional colorless land. It makes drafting mono colored more desirable, because in a mono colored deck you have more room for colorless lands.
Guardian Idol was really good for us. ETB tapped is not a big deal when you get an additional threat (or blocker, when times are bad) in return.
I started to unbalance my multicolored section as well. You just play the spells you think are good enough. Currently, my only UR spell is Izzet Signet, so that is quite close to zero. But I believe having multicolored spells in your list just so the numbers look balanced does not accomplish anything. The 'bad' cards went late most of the time and were only played when they ended up in the pile of someone already in those colors, and some cards actually did not make it even then. Mono colored cards and colorless cards are really really good these days, so multicolor cards better be amazing
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I'll be sure to report on the Idol. Personally, I have a hard time imagining it will be anything but useful. As for how to manage unbalanced sections, it's very simple: is the card good enough for your cube environment? Run it. Is it lacking? Don't run it. It's that simple. Actually, for fixers it's not that simple, but the imbalance in that section is very slight - mostly, the green guilds have 1 less fixer, but green has tons of extra fixing so that doesn't really matter much.
@ Konfusius: thanks for the feedback! I'm impatiently waiting for some reports on your land experiment.
Well, you can think that, but they're straight awful. I've played them in multiple cube environments, and they're simply not worth a pick.
If you say so. You may be running every card you think you want, but there's probably 50+ cards that would contribute more value to more decks than Spawning Pool/Watchtower. They both play like a bad Kor Haven, if I had to compare them to something worthy of inclusion.
It's okay for us to agree to disagree, which is what we're ultimately going to have to do. I just wanted to provide feedback from someone that's actually seen those cards in cube action. It's just my $0.02, of course.
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Yes, of course, and I do appreciate your input, wtwlf - thanks for taking the time to give it. I just have a hard time accepting that a free 1/5 can be such a terrible, terrible thing. Maybe it's the difference in draft method - 2-player winston is vastly different from 8-player Rochester.
It's interesting that you mention Kor Haven, as that's exactly the comparison I'd made - I don't think Forbidding Watchtower is worse though. It can't defend against flyers and shadow creatures, but it does do some things Haven can't (like defending against hexproof/shroud creatures and more importantly, killing aggro creatures) and it has an entire additional dimension in that it can attack and carry a sword. Finally, it has a lower inclusion drawback since it actually produces colored mana. I think they're quite comparable, and Kor Haven has survived every update of our cube to present. Spawning Pool is on a similar level, it's worse against trample but if you're staring down a Blastoderm you'll be glad to have it - also, black doesn't have Kor Haven.
Hicham was sceptical, but during the latest draft he did pick the Watchtower very high (4th card in the pack) in a white-blue control shell. I think that someone whose drafting and deck building skills I respect picking the card high in an actual draft - despite being biased against it - is a good sign.
Even if they are not taking up a wanted slot in the cube, I think I would be irritated if I saw the Pool or the Watchtower taking up the slot of a wanted car in my booster when I opened it.
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Are you irritated if you see Kor Haven in a booster? Assuming that is not the case since you run it, why do you consider Kor Haven so much more powerful than Forbidding Watchtower?
I consider Watchtower on par with Haven, and considerably better than Wall of Denial. That is why I'm honestly stumped by the hate that these manlands receive.
Wall of Denial has the advantage that it does not tie up your mana. This is important in allowing my control deck to continue to develop.
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I don't play Kor Haven. Nor would I play it at 450. And I think it's far better than Watchtower. Being a land that's an okay blocker against X/1 creature on T3 or later isn't necessarily an amazing thing to be. ETBT is bad. 1 attacking power for 2 mana to activate is bad. There's nothing about that land that makes me wanna include it. And I have played it! In my own cubes! Back when I had the attitude that because it replaces a land means it's good enough. But after playing with it, and realizing that I'd rather have a more powerful card and a Plains for my deck, it got cut. Along with all the other lands that aren't impacting enough on the game.
This. Additionally, I can Kor Haven an attacker's damage to 0 and then kill it in combat with one of my other dudes. And it doesn't have to have 1-toughness to die.
..........
But hey, different strokes for different folks. With a different philosophy and different drafting styles/player counts/etc, they could perform quite the opposite for you than they do for us. Having a Spawning Pool as one of your black cards in Winston/Sealed, for example, is a huge drag. In 6-8 person drafts, it doesn't impact things nearly as much. And in rotisserie formats, they're 100% irrelevant.
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This is also why Wall of Denial isn't actually a very effective card IMO. As a purely defensive card, its chief role should be helping you survive the early game against aggro, but it doesn't do that very well. You can just ignore it and keep on attacking. It's great against fatties, but it's just not effective against a swarm of small creatures. That's also true of Kor Haven - but then, the wall is a multi-colored spell and the Haven is a single color land, which is a huge difference and the reason why we're running one and not the other. It's quite possible that running both Kor Haven and Watchtower may be too much at 450 though.
t
In other news, we drafted with 7 actual people this weekend so I have some more test data to report.
Forbidding Watchtower was in the pool and was played main deck. The guy playing the deck said the ETBT was not a liability and that the 1/5 was relevant several times. All in all, a positive report.
Dungeon Geists got some very positive reports, the guy who had it absolutely loved it.
Guardian Idol was main decked and got a positive report. Just a solid, useful card.
Blinkmoth Nexus was left in the sideboard, the deck's player said he didn't think his mana base was good enough to include it.
Geist of Saint Traft was main decked in a sweet UW tempo deck and was obviously pretty good - I think it's generally accepted that this card's only problem should be finding a deck, not being good once it has done that.
Cards from the February update:
Gravecrawler is a great weenie, not that anyone doubted that. I consider it black's best 1-drop, resilience built into a 2 power 1-drop is just so strong.
Wolfbitten Captive, Strangleroot Geist and Vorapede made it into a green aggressive midrange built. I have no feedback on the werewolf but the undying critters were received very well.
I drafted a solid red/black aggro deck that oddly didn't perform very well and kept losing against the sickest of comebacks despite some really good starts on my part. Of the new cards I had Stromkirk Noble, Faithless Looting and Torch Fiend. The vampire was really good, it made it to 3/3 regularly, one time even to 4/4 and the evasion has been relevant a time or two. Looting was solid, Torch Fiend only came up once but I was happy to have it at that time.
The Talismans continue to please, they're really a step up from signets.
t
Finally, an update on my alters: