For those who are running rare lands: what is your experience with the new Zendikar Lands? I fell that their design fits perfectly in a peasant cube environment power-level-wise?
The flip lands are actually a perfect example of why I switched to just using my judgment on what rare lands to include as opposed to strict rarity. Because they are non-abusable, low upside, consistency machines... which are put at rare to sell packs.
I assume they would be perfect fits, if not slightly underpowered, because that is what they seem to me in my limited experience.
I played uncommon duals when I started my C/Ube. The more I read opinions, the more I liked the idea to help aggro with better lands that entered untapped. So I changed Gates and Gainlands.
First, I tried with full cycles: Painlands and Checklands for everybody, also Prismatic vista and Fabled Passage. There are still Vivids and now Thriving lands instead of Trilands, but aggro had untapped lands, at least.
Games were good for aggro, but I like to read and read about the format, what I should run to improve my decks, learning about what matters or not if you play aggro, midrange or control, and finally, I recently changed my lands again. And the solution was to give each guild the appropriated land. Control had good options to cast Counterspell on T2 with a Painland, but will suffer against aggro with those pesky lifes to pay the colored mana. Also, a Checkland doesn't help too much if your first land was a Painland, for example.
So I gave each deck better lands for what the guild does. For example, all guilds now have shocklands. You may decide to play them tapped or untapped, so you are taking decisions, what is good and fun. And for control decks this only represents two lifes IF THEY WANT and not 3, 4 lifes if that was a Painland. Now Checklnds have more sense, but I opted to give my Blue (control) decks, also Temples and Bicycle lands from Amonkhet. You know, they enter tapped but you gain the opportunity to filter some draws, more decisions for colors that doesn't matter if they are a bit slow but gain some advantage later. And if it's late game you even can cycle them (Fetid Pools) to draw another thing. I don't have an izzet Bicycle land so I play with the UR canopy, Fiery Islet. Izzet plays midrange, tempo oriented, so you can change that land for a card if you need gas.
Boros and Rakdos have only lands to play fast. Well, shocklands, fastlands and canopy or painlands.
And midrange decks play with some mix, sometimes Temples, bicycles, checklands, even bouncelands in green...
I need more drafts to test these changes, because the pandemia doesn't allow me to play so much, but I think these lands should be a good addition for the games. I don't have a designer vision where I only have to play with uncommon tapped lands for cohesive / aesthetic reasons with a grey symbol on them.
I play Peasant for budget reasons, and many of these rare lands are proxies, to test them. Some fastlands and shocks are really expensive, but temples, painlands and bicycles not so much. I started with a Pauper cube but the lack of good payoffs in my guilds made me migrate to Peasant and I'm so happy with this change that I didn't look back. So, why not improve my decks with better lands when Wizards is making many of them Rares for monetary reasons?? I have it clear.
The flip lands are actually a perfect example of why I switched to just using my judgment on what rare lands to include as opposed to strict rarity. Because they are non-abusable, low upside, consistency machines... which are put at rare to sell packs.
I looked at your list and I am patricularly interested in your experience with the Castles from TOE.
I played uncommon duals when I started my C/Ube. The more I read opinions, the more I liked the idea to help aggro with better lands that entered untapped. So I changed Gates and Gainlands.
First, I tried with full cycles: Painlands and Checklands for everybody, also Prismatic vista and Fabled Passage. There are still Vivids and now Thriving lands instead of Trilands, but aggro had untapped lands, at least.
Games were good for aggro, but I like to read and read about the format, what I should run to improve my decks, learning about what matters or not if you play aggro, midrange or control, and finally, I recently changed my lands again. And the solution was to give each guild the appropriated land. Control had good options to cast Counterspell on T2 with a Painland, but will suffer against aggro with those pesky lifes to pay the colored mana. Also, a Checkland doesn't help too much if your first land was a Painland, for example.
So I gave each deck better lands for what the guild does. For example, all guilds now have shocklands. You may decide to play them tapped or untapped, so you are taking decisions, what is good and fun. And for control decks this only represents two lifes IF THEY WANT and not 3, 4 lifes if that was a Painland. Now Checklnds have more sense, but I opted to give my Blue (control) decks, also Temples and Bicycle lands from Amonkhet. You know, they enter tapped but you gain the opportunity to filter some draws, more decisions for colors that doesn't matter if they are a bit slow but gain some advantage later. And if it's late game you even can cycle them (Fetid Pools) to draw another thing. I don't have an izzet Bicycle land so I play with the UR canopy, Fiery Islet. Izzet plays midrange, tempo oriented, so you can change that land for a card if you need gas.
Boros and Rakdos have only lands to play fast. Well, shocklands, fastlands and canopy or painlands.
And midrange decks play with some mix, sometimes Temples, bicycles, checklands, even bouncelands in green...
I need more drafts to test these changes, because the pandemia doesn't allow me to play so much, but I think these lands should be a good addition for the games. I don't have a designer vision where I only have to play with uncommon tapped lands for cohesive / aesthetic reasons with a grey symbol on them.
I play Peasant for budget reasons, and many of these rare lands are proxies, to test them. Some fastlands and shocks are really expensive, but temples, painlands and bicycles not so much. I started with a Pauper cube but the lack of good payoffs in my guilds made me migrate to Peasant and I'm so happy with this change that I didn't look back. So, why not improve my decks with better lands when Wizards is making many of them Rares for monetary reasons?? I have it clear.
Thank you for this detailed post. I like your pragmatic way of thinking and design.
I am also currently trying a different distribution for rare land fixing that gives different guilds different duals but still feels symetrical (which I really like). I mentioned this in the discussion thread but might as well post it here as well.
When experimenting with rare land fixing I first tried a combination of ABU duals, shock duals and fetch but this made the land fixing feel way too "rare" and not in the spirit of a peasant cube imho. After that I settled for pain, check and ABU duals. This was still a huge improvement over peasant land fixing while still keeping true to the spirit of it (again imho).
Unfortunately, the painlands are odd. While Battlefield Forge is great and got picked often, Yavimaya Coast or Adarkar Wastes were more often than not not even picked by the person in those colors. This got me thinking about replacing the painlands with shockduals. This would make the checklands better in three color decks as well. However, I am afraid that this might again feel like no longer "peasant". Although the "ABU duals, shock duals and checks" idea is still on the table I came across another idea which I want to try first:
Some color combination want different things than others, but I didn't like breaking symmetry in land fixing. The idea I found circumvents this "problem" while still giving color combinations different fixing. Each color will get a certain dual and these will pair with all other colors. So:
W/x: Checklands
U/x: Scry lands
B/x: Filterlands
R/x: Painlands
G/x: Manlands
This will create 20 slots to replace all but the ABU duals and still confirm to my arbitrary sense of symmetry. Although I am not completely happy (the checklands for W/x are more like a stand-in), let's see how this goes.
Done a few grid drafts now (so 1v1) and so far I liked it but I'll need a lot more games before I am sure. I
So far they haven't been much more powerful than Treetop Village. If you look at the once I added (the green ones) and compare them to Village: Stirring Wildwood: Pay {W} for +0/+1 and reach instead of trample. Lumbering Falls: Pay {1}{U} for hexproof instead of trample. Hissing Quagmire: Pay {B} for -1/-1 and deathtouch instead of trample. Raging Ravine: Pay {1}{R} for a +1/+1 counter when attacking instead of trample.
Keep in mind that I made this change recently and haven't tested them all that much but most seems like a sidegrade to Village (on the creature part; on the fixing part there definitely an upgrade).
Also, I must admit that I initially felt the same way and thought they might be too strong, but then I saw Leelue having them in his cube (without any kind of meaningful land destruction) and he has a lower powerlevel environment than most of us. He might have some more insight in the manlands as he seems to have them in his cube longer then I have.
I suffer from cantfindagroupitis like most of us do, but in what little playing I've managed to do only Creeping Tarpit has shown itself to be spooky. All the other ones are just above average cards that add a play pattern to the cube. Arbor's comparisons to Treetop village holds true.
I wanted the new colorless one but it wasn't until.... this conversation that I learned that its price is low enough for me to want to buy it.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/djredpeasant
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
I assume they would be perfect fits, if not slightly underpowered, because that is what they seem to me in my limited experience.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
First, I tried with full cycles: Painlands and Checklands for everybody, also Prismatic vista and Fabled Passage. There are still Vivids and now Thriving lands instead of Trilands, but aggro had untapped lands, at least.
Games were good for aggro, but I like to read and read about the format, what I should run to improve my decks, learning about what matters or not if you play aggro, midrange or control, and finally, I recently changed my lands again. And the solution was to give each guild the appropriated land. Control had good options to cast Counterspell on T2 with a Painland, but will suffer against aggro with those pesky lifes to pay the colored mana. Also, a Checkland doesn't help too much if your first land was a Painland, for example.
So I gave each deck better lands for what the guild does. For example, all guilds now have shocklands. You may decide to play them tapped or untapped, so you are taking decisions, what is good and fun. And for control decks this only represents two lifes IF THEY WANT and not 3, 4 lifes if that was a Painland. Now Checklnds have more sense, but I opted to give my Blue (control) decks, also Temples and Bicycle lands from Amonkhet. You know, they enter tapped but you gain the opportunity to filter some draws, more decisions for colors that doesn't matter if they are a bit slow but gain some advantage later. And if it's late game you even can cycle them (Fetid Pools) to draw another thing. I don't have an izzet Bicycle land so I play with the UR canopy, Fiery Islet. Izzet plays midrange, tempo oriented, so you can change that land for a card if you need gas.
Boros and Rakdos have only lands to play fast. Well, shocklands, fastlands and canopy or painlands.
And midrange decks play with some mix, sometimes Temples, bicycles, checklands, even bouncelands in green...
I need more drafts to test these changes, because the pandemia doesn't allow me to play so much, but I think these lands should be a good addition for the games. I don't have a designer vision where I only have to play with uncommon tapped lands for cohesive / aesthetic reasons with a grey symbol on them.
I play Peasant for budget reasons, and many of these rare lands are proxies, to test them. Some fastlands and shocks are really expensive, but temples, painlands and bicycles not so much. I started with a Pauper cube but the lack of good payoffs in my guilds made me migrate to Peasant and I'm so happy with this change that I didn't look back. So, why not improve my decks with better lands when Wizards is making many of them Rares for monetary reasons?? I have it clear.
My Omniscience Draft Cube[/b]
My Commander Cube
My Pai Gow Cube
My Two-Headed Giant Cube
I looked at your list and I am patricularly interested in your experience with the Castles from TOE.
Thank you for this detailed post. I like your pragmatic way of thinking and design.
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
Unfortunately, the painlands are odd. While Battlefield Forge is great and got picked often, Yavimaya Coast or Adarkar Wastes were more often than not not even picked by the person in those colors. This got me thinking about replacing the painlands with shockduals. This would make the checklands better in three color decks as well. However, I am afraid that this might again feel like no longer "peasant". Although the "ABU duals, shock duals and checks" idea is still on the table I came across another idea which I want to try first:
Some color combination want different things than others, but I didn't like breaking symmetry in land fixing. The idea I found circumvents this "problem" while still giving color combinations different fixing. Each color will get a certain dual and these will pair with all other colors. So:
W/x: Checklands
U/x: Scry lands
B/x: Filterlands
R/x: Painlands
G/x: Manlands
This will create 20 slots to replace all but the ABU duals and still confirm to my arbitrary sense of symmetry. Although I am not completely happy (the checklands for W/x are more like a stand-in), let's see how this goes.
Done a few grid drafts now (so 1v1) and so far I liked it but I'll need a lot more games before I am sure. I
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
Stirring Wildwood: Pay {W} for +0/+1 and reach instead of trample.
Lumbering Falls: Pay {1}{U} for hexproof instead of trample.
Hissing Quagmire: Pay {B} for -1/-1 and deathtouch instead of trample.
Raging Ravine: Pay {1}{R} for a +1/+1 counter when attacking instead of trample.
Keep in mind that I made this change recently and haven't tested them all that much but most seems like a sidegrade to Village (on the creature part; on the fixing part there definitely an upgrade).
Also, I must admit that I initially felt the same way and thought they might be too strong, but then I saw Leelue having them in his cube (without any kind of meaningful land destruction) and he has a lower powerlevel environment than most of us. He might have some more insight in the manlands as he seems to have them in his cube longer then I have.
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
I wanted the new colorless one but it wasn't until.... this conversation that I learned that its price is low enough for me to want to buy it.
Generally, I assume our discrepancy can weed out the problem lands. Gavony township? Definitely not ok. Oran-rief the vastwood? Strong but narrow at least. Nesting grounds? Seems fine until kitchen finks turns into an indestructible 3 power creature attached to serrated arrows.
[EDIT] oh I just noticed that oran-rief also has unpleasant synergy with the finks. Hm..
Looks like I found my cut for ulvenwald captive.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article