A little background: I'm in the process of overhauling my cube list and shopping for new cards, and I've been searching for a new theme (or set of subthemes) to lend some coherence to my draft environment. Since I mostly play head-to-head formats (Winchester, grid drafting, sealed deck) it's rather difficult to support niche archetypes like storm or tribal decks that depend on the drafter collecting a critical mass of the right cards.
One thing I've noticed during my matches is a tendency for my opponents to play their lands immediately even during a board stall when they gain nothing by doing so -- they don't even think about holding onto them to bluff a combat trick or play around discard effects. Since I often use my cube as a teaching tool for friends who don't have much limited-format experience, I thought it might be fun to cube more cards that reward players who use their lands thoughtfully to grind out extra value.
This isn't a narrow deck archetype so much as a broad mechanical thread that should get woven into many different aggro, midrange, and control decks. Think back to Zendikar/Worldwake limited, where every deck had some kind of land-based shenanigans between the landfall, Zendikons, utility lands, and manlands in that format. That's what I'm shooting for here.
The major mechanics I'm looking at are landfall, Zendikons, retrace, spellshapers (frequently used to discard extra lands for value), land sacrifice costs, utility lands, cycling lands, and land destruction/mana screw. Many of these cards show up in pauper lists already. I'm looking for feedback on what I'm already considering for my lands-matter theme, and card suggestions that I may have overlooked.
Naturally, green's deep bullpen of other land-fetching effects also help to keep the landfall triggers flowing. The utility lands squeeze extra value out of landfall triggers, especially during later turns when the mana isn't needed so much and ETBT clauses are less problematic. After landfalls have been triggered, the Zendikons turn an excess land on the battlefield into a mana-efficient body -- a hasty body if there's an untapped land to spare after casting the Aura.
I like how the cards which reward you for discarding lands (or possibly other cards in the case of spellshapers, but mostly lands in practice) kind of work against the landfall package. A drafter may not want both types of cards in his or her forty. On the other hand, land-sac effects work quite well with landfall -- they give players something to do with all that excess land they've already played.
Of course, if a cube environment pays this much attention to lands, then it almost HAS to include a little land destruction for thematic reasons. I don't think we'll see a dedicated LD deck come together very often in Winchester or sealed-deck play, but those formats do feature a lot of 3-color decks with sketchy mana bases -- which creates real blowout potential for judiciously applied mana screw. And blowing up a Zendikon is just funny. But I have no idea how many of these are worth including at 360:
I think simply adding some solid, highly playable mana "sinks" solves the problems you mention without sacrificing playability - it gives decks something to do late game while teaching people about how they can use lands after turn 5. Some (non-green) cards you didn't list that are definitely worth considering are:
I like including mana sink and land sacrifice cards over most of the land discard and retrace effects because the two work against each other and there are more sink/sacrifice effects than discard effects. Things like Undertaker and Waterfront Bouncer are still really good, though.
In your landfall package, some of the additional landfall and support cards that aren't played already aren't played simply because they're overcosted or situational. Cutting more playable cards simply for a landfall theme doesn't change that. For instance, I wouldn't consider Rest for the Weary anywhere near playable and I would probably only consider Hagra Crocodile or Guardian Zendikon if I were already short on playables. I'm also not sure there's enough landfall for the theme to really be noticeable - part of what I remember about drafting landfall cards in Zendikar block were decks with things like double Steppe Lynx and double Plated Geopede and that just doesn't happen in singleton cubes.
About land destruction ... I'm just not a fan. The only cards I really like are Aftershock, Boomerang, and Capsize because while they can be used for LD, they're reasonably costed and are normally used for something other thna LD. Outside of the pretty small chance of blowing up a Zendikon or blowing out the person who tried making a 4-5 color deck, almost all of the targeted LD we have available just costs too much and/or doesn't do enough to be worth it when most decks are two (maybe splashing three) colors. There's perhaps one non-basic land that's really worth killing off (Desert), we don't need LD to keep control decks in check, our games go long enough anyway that LD is mostly just really annoying, and we don't have powerhouses like Wildfire and Plow Under that make LD archetypes decent in other cubes.
Isn't that the opposite of what he wants to do? He's trying to teach people to not blindly play lands without a purpose. Instead save them as a bluff for a combat trick, removal, or counterspell or use save them for use with Retrace or a Spellshaper creature.
Yeah, it doesn't teach them explicitly to hold back lands, but especially when there aren't too many really good Retrace effects, making up the difference in extra mana sinks at least teaches people that there can be a legitimate purpose to playing your 6th or 7th land in their aggro decks, which is a valid way to address the problem. Also, even though discard costs and mana sinks tend to compete against each other, having a balance of both probably teaches people even more - they get exposed to more ways of getting value out of their extra lands and how they interact.
Wow, great discussion with some good points guys. Looking over my provisional list that I've been working on over at cubetutor.com, I really don't think I have room for very many LD cards anyway, so I'll just try out those few that have other uses. Like I said, I'm not looking to make old-fashioned land-denial decks a thing... but in a cube that stresses the importance of land, it seems only fitting that players should occasionally get to blow one of them up. Making a player ask herself questions like: "Should I use this Aftershock to destroy his Rupture Spire now, or save it for a later threat?" is in keeping with my desire to make players think harder about land.
Arguably you could think of including both type of cards - cards that benefit keeping lands and cards that benefit playing them all. That makes players start thinking about when it's worth dumping lands onto the battlefield rather than keeping them, and forces them to be aware and make those decisions, which I think would be more valuable than simply teaching them to hold back lands.
Dawnglare Invoker (and most of the other Invokers) are definitely worth looking into for the former.
Discard always makes people realize they should've held back lands!
Arguably you could think of including both type of cards - cards that benefit keeping lands and cards that benefit playing them all. That makes players start thinking about when it's worth dumping lands onto the battlefield rather than keeping them, and forces them to be aware and make those decisions, which I think would be more valuable than simply teaching them to hold back lands.
As usual, Lanxal cuts straight to the beating heart of the matter.
Dawnglare Invoker (and most of the other Invokers) are definitely worth looking into for the former.
Huh. I had been planning to trim some excess removal spells anyway, which might make board stalls more common. And invokers are pretty good for breaking those. I wonder if I could mix and match from ROE and Legions to create a playable cycle? I love cycles.
The ROE invokers look superior in general, but Smokespew's repeatable -3/-3 looks like it could break board stalls much faster than the Bloodrite Invoker could win them. If I just wanted to win a board stall with burn to the dome, Flamewave does it so much better. And I think my new red section will have enough alpha-strike tech already that it shouldn't need the Lavafume Invoker to get there. But I might have to keep the black and red ROE guys in my reserve binder just in case my initial evaluation proves wrong.
Discard always makes people realize they should've held back lands!
Indeed.
So do looters. Besides the obvious options, weren't you running Soratami Cloudskater for a while, Lanxal? I'm surprised I didn't see it before: the activation cost of her ability is an engine for retrace, landfall, AND repeating ETB triggers with the common Zen-lands, while the ability itself is still useful enough on its own when you need to draw gas out of a flood. And like Looter il-Kor, she carries equipment into the red zone pretty well too.
There are several other common moonfolk with return-a-land activation costs: Soratami Rainshaper and Soratami Mirror-Guard appear to have the most draft potential. On the spell side of blue there's Deprive, Daze, and Gush. In green there's Quirion Ranger, of course, who we all know and love. Are there any other return-a-land activation costs at common that I've overlooked?
I like where this cube theme is going.
**********************
PS: I just found Shard Volley and Thunderclap as extra land-sac outlets for red. This theme just keeps getting crazier. I think I'm going to dub this new incarnation of my cube the BLM Edition when it's done. (That's the Bureau of Land Management for any non-Americans who were wondering.)
PPS: More finds with sacrifice or return-a-land costs...
Troubled Healer: duh. Its merits have been discussed enough in the main pauper thread.
Also, Walking Atlas and Sakura-Tribe Scout for setting up two landfalls in one turn, an instant landfall on your opponent's turn, or flashing in something evil like Desert or Quicksand.
You're missing the 2G treefolk 1/3 guy from lorwyn.
Battlewand Oak? Neat; never noticed him before. The proto-landfall ability is certainly cool from an historian's viewpoint, but I don't like how it only triggers on forest drops. The tribal pump is useless since I won't run nearly enough treefolk to trigger it often. (Currently I don't run any.)
Frankly I'd rather run Snapping Creeper as my second 2G landfall critter. I hear that 2/3 vigilant creatures are pretty good against aggro bears.
PS:Sporemound. If there's a pauper cube where it belongs, it's gonna be the BLM Box.
One thing I have had some success with recently has been Fa'adiyah Seer. My cube is normally drafted as 6 or 8, or played as sealed deck, and with the traditional 17/23 (or even 18/22) split the Seer offers a great pseudo-draw engine. Since it appears non threatening, it is less likely to attract a bolt than a proper looter, and green card draw at common isn't traditionally that great to begin with. Additionally, played in a recursion/graveyard draft (Golgari or Junk quite notable) it can serve double duty as a way to fill your graveyard, hit your land drops, and thin your deck. Everyone else's mileage may vary, and finding a cut at green 2 drop might be hard for some, but I think it could be worth testing in cubes that care more about lands, or are wanting to support graveyard strategies.
Nice find on Fa'adiyah Seer. My 2-drop section is a little packed right now, but I'll definitely pick up a copy of her for my reserve binder. Seems good as a threshold enabler too, which I may explore at a later date.
What do people think of Skygames and Hostile Realm? Land auras that push through combat damage seem pretty cool for aggro and midrange decks, and definitely in keeping with the land-management theme. They're like repeatable versions of Soaring Seacliff and Smoldering Spires, which were both fine in ZZW limited (and will also see play in my cube).
PS:Early Frost seems like a pretty brutal tempo play during the early-to-mid game. Don't know that I like it enough to cube right now, but I'll keep it in mind for future updates.
A little background: I'm in the process of overhauling my cube list and shopping for new cards, and I've been searching for a new theme (or set of subthemes) to lend some coherence to my draft environment. Since I mostly play head-to-head formats (Winchester, grid drafting, sealed deck) it's rather difficult to support niche archetypes like storm or tribal decks that depend on the drafter collecting a critical mass of the right cards.
One thing I've noticed during my matches is a tendency for my opponents to play their lands immediately even during a board stall when they gain nothing by doing so -- they don't even think about holding onto them to bluff a combat trick or play around discard effects. Since I often use my cube as a teaching tool for friends who don't have much limited-format experience, I thought it might be fun to cube more cards that reward players who use their lands thoughtfully to grind out extra value.
This isn't a narrow deck archetype so much as a broad mechanical thread that should get woven into many different aggro, midrange, and control decks. Think back to Zendikar/Worldwake limited, where every deck had some kind of land-based shenanigans between the landfall, Zendikons, utility lands, and manlands in that format. That's what I'm shooting for here.
The major mechanics I'm looking at are landfall, Zendikons, retrace, spellshapers (frequently used to discard extra lands for value), land sacrifice costs, utility lands, cycling lands, and land destruction/mana screw. Many of these cards show up in pauper lists already. I'm looking for feedback on what I'm already considering for my lands-matter theme, and card suggestions that I may have overlooked.
1 Calcite Snapper
1 Fledgling Griffin
1 Grazing Gladehart
1 Hagra Crocodile
1 Plated Geopede
1 Steppe Lynx
1 Surrakar Marauder
1 Windrider Eel
Notable Noncreatures
1 Adventuring Gear
1 Groundswell
1 Ior Ruin Expedition
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Searing Blaze
1 Soul Stair Expedition
1 Zektar Shrine Expedition
1 Dreamscape Artist
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Harrow
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
5 Panoramas
Zendikon Auras
1 Corrupted Zendikon
1 Crusher Zendikon
1 Guardian Zendikon
1 Vastwood Zendikon
1 Wind Zendikon
1 Desert
1 Halimar Depths
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Quicksand
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Teetering Peaks
1 Turntimber Grove
Naturally, green's deep bullpen of other land-fetching effects also help to keep the landfall triggers flowing. The utility lands squeeze extra value out of landfall triggers, especially during later turns when the mana isn't needed so much and ETBT clauses are less problematic. After landfalls have been triggered, the Zendikons turn an excess land on the battlefield into a mana-efficient body -- a hasty body if there's an untapped land to spare after casting the Aura.
1 Cenn's Enlistment
1 Flame Jab
1 Monstrify
1 Oona's Grace
1 Raven's Crime
1 Syphon Life
Land Sacrifice Cost
1 Arcane Spyglass
1 Bog Down
1 Fault Riders
1 Magma Burst
1 Pollen Remedy
1 Raze
1 Rushing River
1 Scythe Tiger
1 Deepwood Drummer
1 Firefright Mage
1 Icatian Crier
1 Undertaker
1 Waterfront Bouncer
Cycling Lands
1 Barren Moor
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Tranquil Thicket
I like how the cards which reward you for discarding lands (or possibly other cards in the case of spellshapers, but mostly lands in practice) kind of work against the landfall package. A drafter may not want both types of cards in his or her forty. On the other hand, land-sac effects work quite well with landfall -- they give players something to do with all that excess land they've already played.
Of course, if a cube environment pays this much attention to lands, then it almost HAS to include a little land destruction for thematic reasons. I don't think we'll see a dedicated LD deck come together very often in Winchester or sealed-deck play, but those formats do feature a lot of 3-color decks with sketchy mana bases -- which creates real blowout potential for judiciously applied mana screw. And blowing up a Zendikon is just funny. But I have no idea how many of these are worth including at 360:
1 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Reap and Sow
Red
1 Aftershock
1 Lay Waste
1 Molten Rain
1 Raze
1 Stone Rain
1 Befoul
1 Choking Sands
1 Contaminated Ground
1 Desecrated Earth
1 Rancid Earth
1 Sinkhole
Blue
1 Boomerang
1 Capsize
1 Regress
1 Convincing Mirage
1 Spreading Seas
1 Frenzied Tilling
1 Temporal Spring
1 Wrecking Ball
Hybrid
1 Drain the Well
1 Poison the Well
What do you folks think?
1 Dawnglare Invoker
1 Knight of Cliffhaven
1 Zealous Inquisitor
1 Halimar Wavewatch
1 Fireblast
1 Rock Slide
1 Fireball
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Disintegrate
1 Lava Burst
I like including mana sink and land sacrifice cards over most of the land discard and retrace effects because the two work against each other and there are more sink/sacrifice effects than discard effects. Things like Undertaker and Waterfront Bouncer are still really good, though.
In your landfall package, some of the additional landfall and support cards that aren't played already aren't played simply because they're overcosted or situational. Cutting more playable cards simply for a landfall theme doesn't change that. For instance, I wouldn't consider Rest for the Weary anywhere near playable and I would probably only consider Hagra Crocodile or Guardian Zendikon if I were already short on playables. I'm also not sure there's enough landfall for the theme to really be noticeable - part of what I remember about drafting landfall cards in Zendikar block were decks with things like double Steppe Lynx and double Plated Geopede and that just doesn't happen in singleton cubes.
About land destruction ... I'm just not a fan. The only cards I really like are Aftershock, Boomerang, and Capsize because while they can be used for LD, they're reasonably costed and are normally used for something other thna LD. Outside of the pretty small chance of blowing up a Zendikon or blowing out the person who tried making a 4-5 color deck, almost all of the targeted LD we have available just costs too much and/or doesn't do enough to be worth it when most decks are two (maybe splashing three) colors. There's perhaps one non-basic land that's really worth killing off (Desert), we don't need LD to keep control decks in check, our games go long enough anyway that LD is mostly just really annoying, and we don't have powerhouses like Wildfire and Plow Under that make LD archetypes decent in other cubes.
Yeah, it doesn't teach them explicitly to hold back lands, but especially when there aren't too many really good Retrace effects, making up the difference in extra mana sinks at least teaches people that there can be a legitimate purpose to playing your 6th or 7th land in their aggro decks, which is a valid way to address the problem. Also, even though discard costs and mana sinks tend to compete against each other, having a balance of both probably teaches people even more - they get exposed to more ways of getting value out of their extra lands and how they interact.
Dawnglare Invoker (and most of the other Invokers) are definitely worth looking into for the former.
Discard always makes people realize they should've held back lands!
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
As usual, Lanxal cuts straight to the beating heart of the matter.
Huh. I had been planning to trim some excess removal spells anyway, which might make board stalls more common. And invokers are pretty good for breaking those. I wonder if I could mix and match from ROE and Legions to create a playable cycle? I love cycles.
1 Wildheart Invoker
1 Dawnglare Invoker
1 Frostwind Invoker
1 Smokespew Invoker
1 Flamewave Invoker
The ROE invokers look superior in general, but Smokespew's repeatable -3/-3 looks like it could break board stalls much faster than the Bloodrite Invoker could win them. If I just wanted to win a board stall with burn to the dome, Flamewave does it so much better. And I think my new red section will have enough alpha-strike tech already that it shouldn't need the Lavafume Invoker to get there. But I might have to keep the black and red ROE guys in my reserve binder just in case my initial evaluation proves wrong.
Indeed.
So do looters. Besides the obvious options, weren't you running Soratami Cloudskater for a while, Lanxal? I'm surprised I didn't see it before: the activation cost of her ability is an engine for retrace, landfall, AND repeating ETB triggers with the common Zen-lands, while the ability itself is still useful enough on its own when you need to draw gas out of a flood. And like Looter il-Kor, she carries equipment into the red zone pretty well too.
There are several other common moonfolk with return-a-land activation costs: Soratami Rainshaper and Soratami Mirror-Guard appear to have the most draft potential. On the spell side of blue there's Deprive, Daze, and Gush. In green there's Quirion Ranger, of course, who we all know and love. Are there any other return-a-land activation costs at common that I've overlooked?
I like where this cube theme is going.
**********************
PS: I just found Shard Volley and Thunderclap as extra land-sac outlets for red. This theme just keeps getting crazier. I think I'm going to dub this new incarnation of my cube the BLM Edition when it's done. (That's the Bureau of Land Management for any non-Americans who were wondering.)
PPS: More finds with sacrifice or return-a-land costs...
Also, Walking Atlas and Sakura-Tribe Scout for setting up two landfalls in one turn, an instant landfall on your opponent's turn, or flashing in something evil like Desert or Quicksand.
Battlewand Oak? Neat; never noticed him before. The proto-landfall ability is certainly cool from an historian's viewpoint, but I don't like how it only triggers on forest drops. The tribal pump is useless since I won't run nearly enough treefolk to trigger it often. (Currently I don't run any.)
Frankly I'd rather run Snapping Creeper as my second 2G landfall critter. I hear that 2/3 vigilant creatures are pretty good against aggro bears.
PS: Sporemound. If there's a pauper cube where it belongs, it's gonna be the BLM Box.
What do people think of Skygames and Hostile Realm? Land auras that push through combat damage seem pretty cool for aggro and midrange decks, and definitely in keeping with the land-management theme. They're like repeatable versions of Soaring Seacliff and Smoldering Spires, which were both fine in ZZW limited (and will also see play in my cube).
PS: Early Frost seems like a pretty brutal tempo play during the early-to-mid game. Don't know that I like it enough to cube right now, but I'll keep it in mind for future updates.