1. I run 0 signets, for a couple of reasons one I wanted the fixing to be greens thing and I wanted the space for a colourless archetype and there just wasn't room for the critical mass of artifact creatures to make it work if I had signets.
2. My colourless section stops at 4 then two high mana cost cards (ramp/reanimate targets)
3. Annihilator seemed fine actually, I mean it ends the game fast but you were going to die fast to an 8/8 anyway just makes it harder if you draw the answer a few turns later. I have a lot of tokens in my cube so there is basically aways fodder for it.
Putting limits on the number of different types of colourless cards in your cube is a surefire way to run into problems when you want to cram all ten Signets in. Does anyone actually not run the perfect set of ten, out of interest?
Apparently, CMC5 is an utter land of desolation when it comes to decent Peasant-legal colourless cards. I was looking at Lurking Automaton and... er... crickets.
Annihilator and/or Skullclamp... they're both totally busted. Yea or nay in your cube?
1) I don't run any signets. When the average deck is two color, any given signet only has a 10% chance of matching your deck, and I don't want to waste ten slots on that kind of fixing.
2) Never noticed the cmc5 thing before, but it's true. That's fine, though, as there are lots of good things cmc1-3 and then some real bombs above cmc6.
3) I run both Annihilator and Skullclamp in my cube and haven't had any problems. I don't ban any cards for power reasons, so I'm running Sol Ring, Loxodon Warhammer, Skullclamp, and a few other cards I've seen people ban. I try to run answers instead of banning things.
1. I have 3 signets I think and they are slotted into the guild sections atm.
2. yea 5 is a hard spot for artifacts. I support artifacts as a deck in my cube and I've just left 5 and 6 empty because its not worth the subpar cards.
3.I play both but have been easing in artifact removal and that has helped the skullclamp issue. Im almost to the point I may try Sol ring again.
Signets just end up instant picks, because it's pretty much always correct to take a signet, no matter what your colors are. I don't want that kind of pick in my packs, so I don't run any.
I run only the blue, nongreen signets, so Azorius, Dimir, and Izzet, as support for Ux control. I don't find them to be "instant picks" (you're not accelerating into anything as broken as in normal cube), but they're definitely strong.
I don't run skullclamp. I'm assuming by annihilator you mean the mechanic? I run Artisan of Kozilek and it hasn't been an issue (it rarely gets played actually).
1. ... Im almost to the point I may try Sol ring again.
@ FunkyDragon, I like your mentality. Sol Ring (I think?) is the only card that I keep out of my cube. How has Sol Ring been for you? Gimme the deets.
@Ulka, Depending on what FD says, I may also be at a point to throw it in. I've never had Sol Ring in my cube cuz nobody else has it in their cube for power reasons, so I'm curious.
I can't imagine what good Sol Ring adds to the cube?
I mean, I could (barely) follow an argument that it is fair because it is bad late game so there is some risk/reward to playing it (similar to Library of Alexandria), and cubes can have answers to it.
But still? Do games ever end, and both players are happy that Sol Ring was part of the game?
EDIT: Oh, and I do not run signets, but I have considered running the blue ones. I also want to limit ramp and fixing outside of green, but it's not set in stone. Still, that's where I'm at at the moment.
While I run Library of Alexandria and all the rest, Sol Ring is where I draw the line because it is too fast to just be corrected with 'answers' and provides more or less unconditional raw power (unlike the equipments / curses which still require creatures to function and LoA which requires hand size manipulation).
By the way, people have been speculating on non-Rare planeswalkers for War of the Spark. Without knowing more, yay or nay as a CU/be designer?
I don't run any signets as they tend to hurt synergy in deck building. Most decks have plenty of options for more interesting 2 drops.
I haven't run the annihilator Eldrazi for a while, but they were always fair cards.
I tend to not play any cards that can win the game with minimal investment; I find those cards go against the more limited nature of peasant. Skullclamp fits mostly into this category, and Sol Ring 100% does.
Maybe on C/U walkers. They would need to done differently from typical walkers for me to consider them, as they're hard to interact/have synergy with. Stuff like no ultimate or no plus abilities and a focus on flexibility would be interesting.
I'm excited to see the uncommon walkers if we get them. I've considered the walkers from the intro decks before so Im interested to see what they come up with.
@ FunkyDragon, I like your mentality. Sol Ring (I think?) is the only card that I keep out of my cube. How has Sol Ring been for you? Gimme the deets.
Never had a problem with it, and I've even seeded it in our last couple drafts. Personally, I think the card is overstated as a bogeyman. In Commander, I've built around 90 decks and only included it in 2 of them. And peasant cube doesn't have nearly as many disgusting things as Commander that it can ramp into.
Is it the most efficient mana ramp in the format? Sure. But it has a few drawbacks, too.
1) It costs a card. Smallest drawback, but you're losing a card from your hand that does not directly lower the opponent's life, draw you into a win-condition, or stop that opponent from killing you. You could have 100 Sol Rings on the board, and you still need a win condition to cast.
2) It's colorless mana, so no fixing colors, no ramping into turn 2 Frilled Mystic, no playing both a WB and another even monocolored card on turn 2.
3) It needs to be dropped in the first couple of turns to be trully effective and is a terrible top deck in the late game.
What's the worst-case, most broken scenario you can come up with?
- Turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Loxodon Warhammer or Untethered Express? Still need a creature to equip or crew, so neither of those do anything until turn 3 or 4, by which time the opponent may have a kill spell or artifact removal, and even if they don't the game isn't over yet.
- Someone casts Pelakka Wurm on turn 5 instead of turn 7? They're in green - they were probably going to do that anyway. Or maybe a non-green player gets to drop his bombs around the same turn as the green player - sounds like balance to me. Granted, if the green player uses a turn 1 Sol Ring to cast Cultivate and Llanowar Elves on turn 2, they can play turn 3 with seven mana, but that requires several very specific cards in their opening/early hand, and you have ideally included several forms of removal or theft that can eliminate or even reverse the threat for much less than what they paid.
I'd be interested to hear from people who have played Sol Ring - have you ever had actual feel-bads with it in peasant cube?
I can't imagine what good Sol Ring adds to the cube?
I mean, I could (barely) follow an argument that it is fair because it is bad late game so there is some risk/reward to playing it (similar to Library of Alexandria), and cubes can have answers to it.
To me, it adds about the same as Rampant Growth and Cultivate but without thinning your deck to increase the odds of drawing non-land threats. Maybe it's more like Llanowar Elves that isn't affected by summoning sickness but also can't block in a pinch. It is ramp and can let you drop your threats earier, but it shines as an early drop and is a horrible top deck late game - just like any other ramp card.
But still? Do games ever end, and both players are happy that Sol Ring was part of the game?
They've never been unhappy about it - obviously, the person who pulls it is happy, but I've never had any complaints from the person who played against it.
By the way, people have been speculating on non-Rare planeswalkers for War of the Spark. Without knowing more, yay or nay as a CU/be designer?
A definite maybe from me. Obviously it depends on the cards, but I have no inherent prejudice against walkers if they are actually printed at uncommon. I think it's safe to say that any uncommon walkers would be around Tibalt's power range rather than Jace, the Mind-Sculptor's. And honestly, I don't think Tibalt is good enough - I wouldn't even consider him for my cube if they downgraded his rarity today.
Maybe on C/U walkers. They would need to done differently from typical walkers for me to consider them, as they're hard to interact/have synergy with. Stuff like no ultimate or no plus abilities and a focus on flexibility would be interesting.
Agree that they would have to be toned down from the average walker, but I completely disagree on them being hard to interact with. I play superfriends in commmander, and it is really hard to keep walkers alive, even with a vast array of board wipes, Humility, and cards specially chosen to make walkers viable. Blue can Counterspell, red can Lightning Bolt, and all colors can attack them directly - white and blue can fly over any blockers, red and black can kill potential blockers, and green can just trample through.
Probably my only concern with running walkers is that then we actually have to worry about errata on burn spells and explaining why some cards can target the planeswalker while others can't, despite the exact same wording printed on the physical card.
Is it the most efficient mana ramp in the format? Sure. But it has a few drawbacks, too.
1) It costs a card. Smallest drawback, but you're losing a card from your hand that does not directly lower the opponent's life, draw you into a win-condition, or stop that opponent from killing you. You could have 100 Sol Rings on the board, and you still need a win condition to cast.
2) It's colorless mana, so no fixing colors, no ramping into turn 2 Frilled Mystic, no playing both a WB and another even monocolored card on turn 2.
3) It needs to be dropped in the first couple of turns to be trully effective and is a terrible top deck in the late game.
1) Sol Ring nets you a card, similar to a karoo. You can simply operate on fewer lands.
2) True, but that's hardly a drawback, just something it doesn't do. It does take up a colour source if it takes a land slot, but a single source is not a major deal. If need be it can take up a spell slot.
3) It's taking up a land slot most of the time, so you aren't top decking any worse than before. And 2 mana is significantly more than 1 when considering any type of mana sink. It also gives mana when you play it, making it less awkward than other forms of ramp.
Basically all ramp fails 1 and 3, but gives fixing (2). Sol Ring does the opposite, so it's not really comparable to other types of ramp, even if it provided the same amount of mana.
Or maybe a non-green player gets to drop his bombs around the same turn as the green player - sounds like balance to me
But the green player built their deck around that; the Sol Ring deck didn't. The Sol Ring deck even gets to play to the board while the green deck is ramping.
Granted, if the green player uses a turn 1 Sol Ring to cast Cultivate and Llanowar Elves on turn 2, they can play turn 3 with seven mana, but that requires several very specific cards in their opening/early hand
A turn 4 Pelakka Wurm (not t3, but still silly) is fairly trivial with a Sol Ring. Compare Sol Ring -> Ramp -> 4/5/6 drop -> Pelakka to Elf -> ramp -> ramp + 2/3 drop -> Pelakka. The Sol Ring draw needs to devote less slots and has a higher chance of happening, gets a 4/5/6 drop instead of a 2/3 drop, and can only be interacted with through artifact destruction/counters. They are barely even in the same ballpark.
Agree that they would have to be toned down from the average walker, but I completely disagree on them being hard to interact with. I play superfriends in commmander, and it is really hard to keep walkers alive, even with a vast array of board wipes.
C/Ube has board stalls and defender's advantage is very significant; attacking a walker would often be detrimental if blocks are possible, and getting back lost value is difficult. This is not true in Commander.
I can see the argument that it's much harder to end the game quickly, as our expensive cards don't kill as quickly as in powered cube.
I'm not going to argue whether Sol Ring should be in someone's C/Ube, but many of these arguments make Sol Ring sound like a fair card. It isn't.
1) Sol Ring nets you a card, similar to a karoo. You can simply operate on fewer lands.
2) True, but that's hardly a drawback, just something it doesn't do. It does take up a colour source if it takes a land slot, but a single source is not a major deal. If need be it can take up a spell slot.
3) It's taking up a land slot most of the time, so you aren't top decking any worse than before. And 2 mana is significantly more than 1 when considering any type of mana sink. It also gives mana when you play it, making it less awkward than other forms of ramp.
Basically all ramp fails 1 and 3, but gives fixing (2). Sol Ring does the opposite, so it's not really comparable to other types of ramp, even if it provided the same amount of mana.
It's definitely a matter of personal taste whether someone will like it in their cube or not. I'd recommend people try it and see; I'd be willing to bet that if everyone here forced it into their next draft there would be very few, if any, problems. I'll agree that it can certainly fuel an explosive early turn under the right conditions, but I just don't think it warrants the stigma it has acquired.
As for your counterpoints, sure, it could take up a land slot, and that might work out for you. That also runs the risk of falling flat if your opponent removes the Sol Ring and you miss a land drop because you didn't run enough. My cube has over 15 cards that can target to destroy or exile it (many as early as turn 2 or 3). And that doesn't even count removal for whatever it ramps out.
Does anyone actually not run the perfect set of ten, out of interest?
I'm not running the full set of ten. Selesnya, Gruul, Boros, and Golgari missed the cut for me at 360. Those pairs specifically just didn't seem like they had the archetypes that would want mana rocks very often. The colorless options felt better to me since, if a Golgari deck wanted access to a mana rock it'd have it, but the decks that would be more likely to want that rock would still have access to one that had a better up side than just being an off color rock.
I'm also at 360, so my slots for these types of things are limited and sacrifices had to be made. If I were to go up to 450, it's possible I'd be more willing to include the rest or at least some of the missing Signets. I've also thought about trying out Dimir Keyrune. It seems like exactly what a UB control deck would want.
Apparently, CMC5 is an utter land of desolation when it comes to decent Peasant-legal colourless cards. I was looking at Lurking Automaton and... er... crickets.
I just checked my spreadsheet from the MTGS Average Cube project I did last year and Lurking Automaton is the only colorless five drop creature that anyone was running. It was in just two out of the 27 lists I polled. One person was running Strandwalker which kind of counts, but that's still not great.
If you're willing to use online only rarity, you could look at Thopter Squadron. I feel like that card was good at some point somewhere? Maybe?
Annihilator and/or Skullclamp... they're both totally busted. Yea or nay in your cube?
This really just comes down to personal preference and how high you want to push the power level of your cube. Annihilator is probably fine no matter the answer there. Unless you're routinely seeing turn two Eldrazi, they shouldn't be any more oppressive than other powerful finishers. Skullclamp can be a point of contention, though. I tend to be on the side of it's not as powerful as everyone claims. Don't get me wrong. The card is bananas. But you have to make the card bananas. If you just add it into your Boros aggro deck for value, it'll net you some value and be really good, but not broken. If you build around it with lots of tokens and ways to abuse it, then it really starts to show its power level. Because I see it as a card that can be either of those things, I don't think it's too busted for peasant. It's powerful, for sure, but not ban worthy.
I don't cross the Sol Ring/Library line, though. Those two cards are honorary P9 to me. These are cards are at a level where they're often debated which one of them is the actual best card in a powered cube. It's probably correct to take either of them over Black Lotus. That type of power level just breaks the spirit of peasant for me, so I can't see adding cards of that caliber to a peasant list.
What's the worst-case, most broken scenario you can come up with?
- Turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Loxodon Warhammer or Untethered Express? Still need a creature to equip or crew, so neither of those do anything until turn 3 or 4, by which time the opponent may have a kill spell or artifact removal, and even if they don't the game isn't over yet.
- Someone casts Pelakka Wurm on turn 5 instead of turn 7? They're in green - they were probably going to do that anyway. Or maybe a non-green player gets to drop his bombs around the same turn as the green player - sounds like balance to me. Granted, if the green player uses a turn 1 Sol Ring to cast Cultivate and Llanowar Elves on turn 2, they can play turn 3 with seven mana, but that requires several very specific cards in their opening/early hand, and you have ideally included several forms of removal or theft that can eliminate or even reverse the threat for much less than what they paid.
So, just to comment on this: those are not the worst case scenarios. The worst case scenario is someone being two turns ahead the curve while continuing to play on curve beyond there. Assuming a first turn Sol Ring, that might consists of Turn 2 Bloodbraid Elf, Turn 3 Ridgescale Tusker, and so on. Midrange rather than the broken colourless equipment or hyper ramp targets are the main issue.
What's the worst-case, most broken scenario you can come up with?
- Turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Loxodon Warhammer or Untethered Express? Still need a creature to equip or crew, so neither of those do anything until turn 3 or 4, by which time the opponent may have a kill spell or artifact removal, and even if they don't the game isn't over yet.
- Someone casts Pelakka Wurm on turn 5 instead of turn 7? They're in green - they were probably going to do that anyway. Or maybe a non-green player gets to drop his bombs around the same turn as the green player - sounds like balance to me. Granted, if the green player uses a turn 1 Sol Ring to cast Cultivate and Llanowar Elves on turn 2, they can play turn 3 with seven mana, but that requires several very specific cards in their opening/early hand, and you have ideally included several forms of removal or theft that can eliminate or even reverse the threat for much less than what they paid.
So, just to comment on this: those are not the worst case scenarios. The worst case scenario is someone being two turns ahead the curve while continuing to play on curve beyond there. Assuming a first turn Sol Ring, that might consists of Turn 2 Bloodbraid Elf, Turn 3 Ridgescale Tusker, and so on. Midrange rather than the broken colourless equipment or hyper ramp targets are the main issue.
Good point. That would be worse than the examples I gave. And if the Bloodbraid cascaded into a 3 power creature like Keldon Marauders or Kraul Harpooner, you could smack for 3 damage on turn 2 and another 8 damage on turn 3, which probably enures a kill on turn 4 or 5, depending on blockers. That probably is worst-case scenario. But not every card in your deck is midrange; you'll have plenty of one drops that don't benefit at all from Sol Ring and actually compete with it for being cast, and you'll have bombs that come out earlier but still take time to set up. I agree it could be problematic, but how often? What are the odds of the perfect storm vs all the other games where it doesn't make as big a difference?
In Commander, I've built around 90 decks and only included [Sol Ring] in 2 of them.
Not a commander expert but.. that can't possibly be correct?
That is correct. My arguments in this thread apply to Commander as well, plus you have the additional issue of multiplayer politics. Appearing as the threat on turn 1-2 can backfire when you have three opponents all looking for who to target/attack and what to remove (lots of artifact removal in Commander). That type of thinking doesn't apply to duels, but it's an extra layer you have to deal with in multiplayer.
But not every card in your deck is midrange; you'll have plenty of one drops that don't benefit at all from Sol Ring and actually compete with it for being cast, and you'll have bombs that come out earlier but still take time to set up. I agree it could be problematic, but how often? What are the odds of the perfect storm vs all the other games where it doesn't make as big a difference?
I would take issue with the thought that you have "plenty" of one drops in the way that compete with it being cast. Not even just because 1 drops are not as plentiful or general purpose to have a ton in mkst decks, but I have to bend over backwards to imagine a scenario where any other 1 drop gets cast on turn 1 over sol ring, other than mother of runes. Or reckless waif if youre on the play.
Youd need a hand of like... 1 drop, 2 drop, 4 lands and sol ring otherwise.
In addition, sol ring still lets you cast mid game 1 drops by paying for the other spells around it on that turn.
/
We havent really covered this, but it really does put you more than 2 turns ahead. Getting to your 5th land doesnt happen on average on turn 5, but getting to your 3rd land does happen on average by turn 3. So in many cases it's actually bumped you three or maybe more turns ahead.
And the extremely rare case where someone actually has a timely removal spell for sol ring is certainly overshadowed by the very likely case that you get stuck on lands and sol ring singlehandedly bails you out.
/
The average length of a game of magic is probably around a point where you get to see 16 to 18 cards in a deck (using mtggoldfishes old limited data, and pushing the average turn counter a little to account for better aggro decks in cube), but in reality the last one or two cards players draw in a game often don't have the abilty to have a meaningful impact on a game. So I would just round down to 16 potentially meaningful-cards-seen as a comfortable average in any random game.
If sol ring is available for a turn one play (in the top 7.5 cards) is as big a deal as many of us are saying, which I agree with, then you have a 47% chance of having sol ring manhandle the course of a game when it's drawn. Well over 50% if it's still very impactful if drawn on turn 2 or 3 (which I agree with, since it puts you ahead one turn on any turn you draw it and have a land to play).
/
All this to say, Sol ring is never sniffing my peasant cube again. I dont even want it in any of my other cubes.
As for signets, I dont think green has much of an issue being good in my cube, and more mana means more good games of magic, so I include some handful of the blue ones.
I dont think they're automatically high picks at all, but since they can be reasonably run if all you need is one color off of it I dont think they dilute the pool too much either.
You'll have to wait for War of the Spark previews in April to see the new cards, but each booster pack will contain a planeswalker so you should have no trouble getting your hands on them when the set is released.
I just realised... If War of the Spark is going to be super-PW heavy, they will almost certainly need to balance that out with some good aggro to avoid games getting bogged. Maybe we'll get more good 1-drops in red, green, and blue. Even black and white would not mind some more interesting options.
I used to play the Boros Signet, as a hybrid card. It was fine but wasn't picked very highly, since Boros tends to struggle in my cube. I don't want to have the other ones because it makes just drafting five colours pile even more attractive.
Skullclamp I have tried a couple of times, and I don't really like it. Yes, it boosts up aggro a bit, but it also makes midrange and control better at drawing their decks. Which is why it'll probably remain where it is, on the banlist.
I might consider planeswalkers, if they're good enough. I imagine they'd probably play out a bit like Sagas that can be attacked so might only get 1 activation. But I feel like they'd add an interesting new dimension to the cube, since the only direct way of dealing with them would be in red (because of burn spells), and blue because of counterspells and bounce (not really dealing with it, but setting it back a few turns). Oh yeah and obviously white can remove them because of Oblivion Ring and co. That said, I think there'll be another O-ring variant in this set, just to be able to deal with the copious amounts of PWs in limited.
I'm not convinced we'll get planeswalkers. They might just do a planeswalker spot in the pack. But I am curious about what uncommon planeswalkers would look like.
My concern with planeswalkers is interaction. I dislike the mini-game of "kill the planeswalker" that often ensues once they're played and the interactive cards we'll get in the set are likely to be too niche or too bad for us.
My imagination may be a bit limited, but wouldn't it be hard to have a planeswalker in every pack if they aren't at uncommon?
If there are 36 rare and mythic walkers, and one in every pack that would mean that there is something going on with the rare slot, otherwise you would never get any non-planeswalker rares/mythics. I guess there could be "an intervening if clause", so if your regular rare/mythic isn't a planeswalker, then a basic or common slot is swapped out with a random walker.
Another workaround could be a specific rarity class.. so you'd have "PW-mythic", "PW-uncommon", etc, with a PW slot in each pack. But I wonder if I didn't read somewhere that it wasn't like that. Or perhaps they only said "we haven't said how we will do it yet".
But Mark Rosewater did say that we should expect different kinds of planeswalkers:
War of the Spark, by definition, can’t just be planeswalkers the way we’ve always done them. The challenge of the design was rethinking a lot of things including what tools were available to us.
War of the Spark is not going to be planeswalker status quo, but then innovation seldom is.
There will also be PW-synergies. From a Peasant perspective, the value of this set will hinge a lot on whether you would want to include any planeswalkers, as if they are too good/bad for Peasant, or if you as a cube-designer decide that they don't fit in your cube, then there will be a lot of PW-synergies which will be completely useless.
Furthermore, if they do put planeswalkers at uncommon, it is likely that they want them to be powerful, being the focus of the set and all, limiting how much power is left to spread around to the other uncommons.
2. My colourless section stops at 4 then two high mana cost cards (ramp/reanimate targets)
3. Annihilator seemed fine actually, I mean it ends the game fast but you were going to die fast to an 8/8 anyway just makes it harder if you draw the answer a few turns later. I have a lot of tokens in my cube so there is basically aways fodder for it.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
2) Never noticed the cmc5 thing before, but it's true. That's fine, though, as there are lots of good things cmc1-3 and then some real bombs above cmc6.
3) I run both Annihilator and Skullclamp in my cube and haven't had any problems. I don't ban any cards for power reasons, so I'm running Sol Ring, Loxodon Warhammer, Skullclamp, and a few other cards I've seen people ban. I try to run answers instead of banning things.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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2. yea 5 is a hard spot for artifacts. I support artifacts as a deck in my cube and I've just left 5 and 6 empty because its not worth the subpar cards.
3.I play both but have been easing in artifact removal and that has helped the skullclamp issue. Im almost to the point I may try Sol ring again.
I don't run skullclamp. I'm assuming by annihilator you mean the mechanic? I run Artisan of Kozilek and it hasn't been an issue (it rarely gets played actually).
@Ulka, Depending on what FD says, I may also be at a point to throw it in. I've never had Sol Ring in my cube cuz nobody else has it in their cube for power reasons, so I'm curious.
I mean, I could (barely) follow an argument that it is fair because it is bad late game so there is some risk/reward to playing it (similar to Library of Alexandria), and cubes can have answers to it.
But still? Do games ever end, and both players are happy that Sol Ring was part of the game?
EDIT: Oh, and I do not run signets, but I have considered running the blue ones. I also want to limit ramp and fixing outside of green, but it's not set in stone. Still, that's where I'm at at the moment.
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By the way, people have been speculating on non-Rare planeswalkers for War of the Spark. Without knowing more, yay or nay as a CU/be designer?
I haven't run the annihilator Eldrazi for a while, but they were always fair cards.
I tend to not play any cards that can win the game with minimal investment; I find those cards go against the more limited nature of peasant. Skullclamp fits mostly into this category, and Sol Ring 100% does.
Maybe on C/U walkers. They would need to done differently from typical walkers for me to consider them, as they're hard to interact/have synergy with. Stuff like no ultimate or no plus abilities and a focus on flexibility would be interesting.
Is it the most efficient mana ramp in the format? Sure. But it has a few drawbacks, too.
1) It costs a card. Smallest drawback, but you're losing a card from your hand that does not directly lower the opponent's life, draw you into a win-condition, or stop that opponent from killing you. You could have 100 Sol Rings on the board, and you still need a win condition to cast.
2) It's colorless mana, so no fixing colors, no ramping into turn 2 Frilled Mystic, no playing both a WB and another even monocolored card on turn 2.
3) It needs to be dropped in the first couple of turns to be trully effective and is a terrible top deck in the late game.
What's the worst-case, most broken scenario you can come up with?
- Turn 1 Sol Ring into a turn 2 Loxodon Warhammer or Untethered Express? Still need a creature to equip or crew, so neither of those do anything until turn 3 or 4, by which time the opponent may have a kill spell or artifact removal, and even if they don't the game isn't over yet.
- Someone casts Pelakka Wurm on turn 5 instead of turn 7? They're in green - they were probably going to do that anyway. Or maybe a non-green player gets to drop his bombs around the same turn as the green player - sounds like balance to me. Granted, if the green player uses a turn 1 Sol Ring to cast Cultivate and Llanowar Elves on turn 2, they can play turn 3 with seven mana, but that requires several very specific cards in their opening/early hand, and you have ideally included several forms of removal or theft that can eliminate or even reverse the threat for much less than what they paid.
I'd be interested to hear from people who have played Sol Ring - have you ever had actual feel-bads with it in peasant cube?To me, it adds about the same as Rampant Growth and Cultivate but without thinning your deck to increase the odds of drawing non-land threats. Maybe it's more like Llanowar Elves that isn't affected by summoning sickness but also can't block in a pinch. It is ramp and can let you drop your threats earier, but it shines as an early drop and is a horrible top deck late game - just like any other ramp card.They've never been unhappy about it - obviously, the person who pulls it is happy, but I've never had any complaints from the person who played against it.A definite maybe from me. Obviously it depends on the cards, but I have no inherent prejudice against walkers if they are actually printed at uncommon. I think it's safe to say that any uncommon walkers would be around Tibalt's power range rather than Jace, the Mind-Sculptor's. And honestly, I don't think Tibalt is good enough - I wouldn't even consider him for my cube if they downgraded his rarity today.
Agree that they would have to be toned down from the average walker, but I completely disagree on them being hard to interact with. I play superfriends in commmander, and it is really hard to keep walkers alive, even with a vast array of board wipes, Humility, and cards specially chosen to make walkers viable. Blue can Counterspell, red can Lightning Bolt, and all colors can attack them directly - white and blue can fly over any blockers, red and black can kill potential blockers, and green can just trample through.
Probably my only concern with running walkers is that then we actually have to worry about errata on burn spells and explaining why some cards can target the planeswalker while others can't, despite the exact same wording printed on the physical card.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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I'm not going to argue whether Sol Ring should be in someone's C/Ube, but many of these arguments make Sol Ring sound like a fair card. It isn't.
1) Sol Ring nets you a card, similar to a karoo. You can simply operate on fewer lands.
2) True, but that's hardly a drawback, just something it doesn't do. It does take up a colour source if it takes a land slot, but a single source is not a major deal. If need be it can take up a spell slot.
3) It's taking up a land slot most of the time, so you aren't top decking any worse than before. And 2 mana is significantly more than 1 when considering any type of mana sink. It also gives mana when you play it, making it less awkward than other forms of ramp.
Basically all ramp fails 1 and 3, but gives fixing (2). Sol Ring does the opposite, so it's not really comparable to other types of ramp, even if it provided the same amount of mana.
But the green player built their deck around that; the Sol Ring deck didn't. The Sol Ring deck even gets to play to the board while the green deck is ramping.
A turn 4 Pelakka Wurm (not t3, but still silly) is fairly trivial with a Sol Ring. Compare Sol Ring -> Ramp -> 4/5/6 drop -> Pelakka to Elf -> ramp -> ramp + 2/3 drop -> Pelakka. The Sol Ring draw needs to devote less slots and has a higher chance of happening, gets a 4/5/6 drop instead of a 2/3 drop, and can only be interacted with through artifact destruction/counters. They are barely even in the same ballpark.
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C/Ube has board stalls and defender's advantage is very significant; attacking a walker would often be detrimental if blocks are possible, and getting back lost value is difficult. This is not true in Commander.
As for your counterpoints, sure, it could take up a land slot, and that might work out for you. That also runs the risk of falling flat if your opponent removes the Sol Ring and you miss a land drop because you didn't run enough. My cube has over 15 cards that can target to destroy or exile it (many as early as turn 2 or 3). And that doesn't even count removal for whatever it ramps out.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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I'm not running the full set of ten. Selesnya, Gruul, Boros, and Golgari missed the cut for me at 360. Those pairs specifically just didn't seem like they had the archetypes that would want mana rocks very often. The colorless options felt better to me since, if a Golgari deck wanted access to a mana rock it'd have it, but the decks that would be more likely to want that rock would still have access to one that had a better up side than just being an off color rock.
I'm also at 360, so my slots for these types of things are limited and sacrifices had to be made. If I were to go up to 450, it's possible I'd be more willing to include the rest or at least some of the missing Signets. I've also thought about trying out Dimir Keyrune. It seems like exactly what a UB control deck would want.
I just checked my spreadsheet from the MTGS Average Cube project I did last year and Lurking Automaton is the only colorless five drop creature that anyone was running. It was in just two out of the 27 lists I polled. One person was running Strandwalker which kind of counts, but that's still not great.
If you're willing to use online only rarity, you could look at Thopter Squadron. I feel like that card was good at some point somewhere? Maybe?
This really just comes down to personal preference and how high you want to push the power level of your cube. Annihilator is probably fine no matter the answer there. Unless you're routinely seeing turn two Eldrazi, they shouldn't be any more oppressive than other powerful finishers. Skullclamp can be a point of contention, though. I tend to be on the side of it's not as powerful as everyone claims. Don't get me wrong. The card is bananas. But you have to make the card bananas. If you just add it into your Boros aggro deck for value, it'll net you some value and be really good, but not broken. If you build around it with lots of tokens and ways to abuse it, then it really starts to show its power level. Because I see it as a card that can be either of those things, I don't think it's too busted for peasant. It's powerful, for sure, but not ban worthy.
I don't cross the Sol Ring/Library line, though. Those two cards are honorary P9 to me. These are cards are at a level where they're often debated which one of them is the actual best card in a powered cube. It's probably correct to take either of them over Black Lotus. That type of power level just breaks the spirit of peasant for me, so I can't see adding cards of that caliber to a peasant list.
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So, just to comment on this: those are not the worst case scenarios. The worst case scenario is someone being two turns ahead the curve while continuing to play on curve beyond there. Assuming a first turn Sol Ring, that might consists of Turn 2 Bloodbraid Elf, Turn 3 Ridgescale Tusker, and so on. Midrange rather than the broken colourless equipment or hyper ramp targets are the main issue.
Not a commander expert but.. that can't possibly be correct?
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That is correct. My arguments in this thread apply to Commander as well, plus you have the additional issue of multiplayer politics. Appearing as the threat on turn 1-2 can backfire when you have three opponents all looking for who to target/attack and what to remove (lots of artifact removal in Commander). That type of thinking doesn't apply to duels, but it's an extra layer you have to deal with in multiplayer.
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I would take issue with the thought that you have "plenty" of one drops in the way that compete with it being cast. Not even just because 1 drops are not as plentiful or general purpose to have a ton in mkst decks, but I have to bend over backwards to imagine a scenario where any other 1 drop gets cast on turn 1 over sol ring, other than mother of runes. Or reckless waif if youre on the play.
Youd need a hand of like... 1 drop, 2 drop, 4 lands and sol ring otherwise.
In addition, sol ring still lets you cast mid game 1 drops by paying for the other spells around it on that turn.
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We havent really covered this, but it really does put you more than 2 turns ahead. Getting to your 5th land doesnt happen on average on turn 5, but getting to your 3rd land does happen on average by turn 3. So in many cases it's actually bumped you three or maybe more turns ahead.
And the extremely rare case where someone actually has a timely removal spell for sol ring is certainly overshadowed by the very likely case that you get stuck on lands and sol ring singlehandedly bails you out.
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The average length of a game of magic is probably around a point where you get to see 16 to 18 cards in a deck (using mtggoldfishes old limited data, and pushing the average turn counter a little to account for better aggro decks in cube), but in reality the last one or two cards players draw in a game often don't have the abilty to have a meaningful impact on a game. So I would just round down to 16 potentially meaningful-cards-seen as a comfortable average in any random game.
If sol ring is available for a turn one play (in the top 7.5 cards) is as big a deal as many of us are saying, which I agree with, then you have a 47% chance of having sol ring manhandle the course of a game when it's drawn. Well over 50% if it's still very impactful if drawn on turn 2 or 3 (which I agree with, since it puts you ahead one turn on any turn you draw it and have a land to play).
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All this to say, Sol ring is never sniffing my peasant cube again. I dont even want it in any of my other cubes.
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I dont think they're automatically high picks at all, but since they can be reasonably run if all you need is one color off of it I dont think they dilute the pool too much either.
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https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/closer-look-stained-glass-planeswalkers-2019-03-08
On the subject of Sol Ring, I agree that it makes midrange just busted. The problem wouldn't be t2 Untethered Express or Loxodon Warhammer, but the t2 Flametongue Kavu/Ravenous Chupacabra. Or a t2 Charging Monstrosaur (or any other 5-drop, really), if you factor in cards like Mind Stone. Sol Ring is never, ever getting in my cube.
Skullclamp I have tried a couple of times, and I don't really like it. Yes, it boosts up aggro a bit, but it also makes midrange and control better at drawing their decks. Which is why it'll probably remain where it is, on the banlist.
I might consider planeswalkers, if they're good enough. I imagine they'd probably play out a bit like Sagas that can be attacked so might only get 1 activation. But I feel like they'd add an interesting new dimension to the cube, since the only direct way of dealing with them would be in red (because of burn spells), and blue because of counterspells and bounce (not really dealing with it, but setting it back a few turns). Oh yeah and obviously white can remove them because of Oblivion Ring and co. That said, I think there'll be another O-ring variant in this set, just to be able to deal with the copious amounts of PWs in limited.
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My concern with planeswalkers is interaction. I dislike the mini-game of "kill the planeswalker" that often ensues once they're played and the interactive cards we'll get in the set are likely to be too niche or too bad for us.
If there are 36 rare and mythic walkers, and one in every pack that would mean that there is something going on with the rare slot, otherwise you would never get any non-planeswalker rares/mythics. I guess there could be "an intervening if clause", so if your regular rare/mythic isn't a planeswalker, then a basic or common slot is swapped out with a random walker.
Another workaround could be a specific rarity class.. so you'd have "PW-mythic", "PW-uncommon", etc, with a PW slot in each pack. But I wonder if I didn't read somewhere that it wasn't like that. Or perhaps they only said "we haven't said how we will do it yet".
But Mark Rosewater did say that we should expect different kinds of planeswalkers:
There will also be PW-synergies. From a Peasant perspective, the value of this set will hinge a lot on whether you would want to include any planeswalkers, as if they are too good/bad for Peasant, or if you as a cube-designer decide that they don't fit in your cube, then there will be a lot of PW-synergies which will be completely useless.
Furthermore, if they do put planeswalkers at uncommon, it is likely that they want them to be powerful, being the focus of the set and all, limiting how much power is left to spread around to the other uncommons.
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One per pack in their own slot
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
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