I was reading a WtWlf post about the pathway lands and I began thinking about how much I would love this land A) once I've established my colors and B) not in place of a playable spell. This led me to contemplate an experimental change to cube drafting where Lands would be drafted separately after spells are drafted. Has anyone experimented with something like this? Have people discussed this idea elsewhere on these or other forums?
I think it would help people to obtain lands in their color alignment or more in line with their strategy without having to sacrifice picks or missing a useful land because it showed up well before you established your color alignment. Ultimately it would smooth out everyone's land base more efficiently than if these cards are part of the initial draft.
One counterpoint might be that certain lands greatly influence the spells you might draft - e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, or Fetchlands, and therefore drafting lands afterwards would significantly impact the viability of these archetypes. Also, some people might find the tension between drafting cards that smooth out your land base and a playable spell to be a positive one. What are your thoughts?
In my opinion, drafting lands together with the rest of the pool puts more emphasis on the draft as a whole, which I like. I don't think I'd ever want to draft the lands seperately. Sure, sometimes you get unlucky and none of the lands you want show up, but if it happens all the time people simply need to improve their drafting.
I've toyed with this idea in my head many times as a cube manager.
I like the idea of being able to include more fun, but ultimately low-impact, utility lands, and the only real way to do that is a separate land draft.
On the other hand, making sure your mana is good while drafting is a fundamental part of the format, and having a separate lands draft kills that.
In the end, drafting is far and away my favorite way to play magic, having lands in packs with spells increases the decision space during the draft, and I don't wanna mess with the formula that makes drafting so great in the first place. So I've never actually done the separate land packs, and probably never will, but I certainly won't fault those who do. I will say I can see it having some unintended consequences on your drafts, though.
A friend's cube does a separate land draft at the end. Lands that do something other than just provide a single mana are in the main draft though (manlands, academy, etc.) It is fun every once in a while but it really skews things. There is no need to be disciplined during the main draft. 5 color control is easy. He uses the tri-lands in addition to all the duals/shocks/fetches and others. Might be different if they aren't all included.
- Suppose your have a two color or tri color deck, you can have a pretty good 82%/ 75% consistency with just basics already. This is assuming the Tri color deck starts its curve at 2 as tri color decks are usually midrange/ control and the spells only require a mana of a single color. This is very good numbers already for limited, without considering Dual lands.
- Two color decks can achieve constructed level consistency with just 2 additional lands (Or Talisman/ Signets). Tri color decks required closer to 6-7. If you don;t anticipate on playing stuff like Cryptic command in Grixis Control or Sinkhole in mardu aggro, drafting only 3-5 dual lands in these colors is already pretty good at keeping your archetype consistent.
Suppose I'm drafting a Mardu Aristocrats deck, I have this in mind:
- 4-5 Dual lands
- 3-4 Sacrifice Payoffs
- 3-4 Sacrifice Outlets
There should be a curve of roughly:
4 1-drops
4 2-drops
4 3-drops
4 4-drops
I find once you have a rough idea of the curve distribution/ removal, payoffs etc/ number of lands, it becomes much easier and these addon changes aren't really needed.
- Another point is I find some guilds would benefit from additional dual lands, while others do not. One example is Dimir. I added Sunken Hollow and Fetid Pools as additional fixing and cut two guild cards because this archetype would like additional islands for Vedalken Shackles, High Tide, Counterspell, Cryptic Command and often this is splashed inside a tri or 4 color shell. (And the options in this guild a bit subpar)
Similarly, some tri color pairs are rewarded with a tri land rather than a tri spell for similar reasons. I find these surgical adjustments have made a huge difference and changes like drafting lands separately aren't really needed.
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I think it would help people to obtain lands in their color alignment or more in line with their strategy without having to sacrifice picks or missing a useful land because it showed up well before you established your color alignment. Ultimately it would smooth out everyone's land base more efficiently than if these cards are part of the initial draft.
One counterpoint might be that certain lands greatly influence the spells you might draft - e.g. Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, or Fetchlands, and therefore drafting lands afterwards would significantly impact the viability of these archetypes. Also, some people might find the tension between drafting cards that smooth out your land base and a playable spell to be a positive one. What are your thoughts?
I like the idea of being able to include more fun, but ultimately low-impact, utility lands, and the only real way to do that is a separate land draft.
On the other hand, making sure your mana is good while drafting is a fundamental part of the format, and having a separate lands draft kills that.
In the end, drafting is far and away my favorite way to play magic, having lands in packs with spells increases the decision space during the draft, and I don't wanna mess with the formula that makes drafting so great in the first place. So I've never actually done the separate land packs, and probably never will, but I certainly won't fault those who do. I will say I can see it having some unintended consequences on your drafts, though.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
- Suppose your have a two color or tri color deck, you can have a pretty good 82%/ 75% consistency with just basics already. This is assuming the Tri color deck starts its curve at 2 as tri color decks are usually midrange/ control and the spells only require a mana of a single color. This is very good numbers already for limited, without considering Dual lands.
- Two color decks can achieve constructed level consistency with just 2 additional lands (Or Talisman/ Signets). Tri color decks required closer to 6-7. If you don;t anticipate on playing stuff like Cryptic command in Grixis Control or Sinkhole in mardu aggro, drafting only 3-5 dual lands in these colors is already pretty good at keeping your archetype consistent.
Suppose I'm drafting a Mardu Aristocrats deck, I have this in mind:
- 4-5 Dual lands
- 3-4 Sacrifice Payoffs
- 3-4 Sacrifice Outlets
There should be a curve of roughly:
4 1-drops
4 2-drops
4 3-drops
4 4-drops
I find once you have a rough idea of the curve distribution/ removal, payoffs etc/ number of lands, it becomes much easier and these addon changes aren't really needed.
- Another point is I find some guilds would benefit from additional dual lands, while others do not. One example is Dimir. I added Sunken Hollow and Fetid Pools as additional fixing and cut two guild cards because this archetype would like additional islands for Vedalken Shackles, High Tide, Counterspell, Cryptic Command and often this is splashed inside a tri or 4 color shell. (And the options in this guild a bit subpar)
Similarly, some tri color pairs are rewarded with a tri land rather than a tri spell for similar reasons. I find these surgical adjustments have made a huge difference and changes like drafting lands separately aren't really needed.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i