Very interesting. Cards like Karakas will make all of my white decks but I dont want to give it a spot in my white section. I disagree with adding any fixing lands, though.
It's funny because the other day we drafted my friend's cube, and I took the Karakas at some point... I boarded it in my URBgw Sneak Attack deck at least one game as my opponent had Bribery and I was running Emrakul, Obzedat, and so forth.
I always love interesting variants, and this may well be a great tool for smaller cubes to use to keep interesting lands in the draft and provide an even more constructed feel to it.
Drafting all the lands in a separate pool is an interesting option. But I really enjoy the dynamic of having to decide between that great gas spell or that important land when I'm drafting, and I don't want to remove those tough and interesting decisions.
I think these weird additions to cube draft is unnecessary. If I at some point are bored with cube drafting I might try some of these ideas, but I'm currently on my 10th year straight of cube drafting at least once every two weeks, and aren't bored yet.
If you want to draft these lands increase your cube size and include them in your cube. People should be able to get 23 playables anyway.
He really needs to stop being categorized as a cube guy and just be considered a customized draft format guy since he is slowly moving further away from anything resembling a cube.
I think it is worthwhile to think about how more utility lands can make the Cube in such a way that the overall experience is only affected in a positive way. Personally, I don't like separate land drafting. What I might do is cut boosters down to 14 cards and one utility land, like Dragon's Maze boosters only that my lands would explicitly not be fixing lands. I would cut my Cube to 420 cards and have a separate 30 cards utility land section.
And there would be all utility lands such as Strip Mine et al.? Or just color related?
That is the point I have to decide on before I can implement the changes (well, that and a few cuts).
Option 1 is to leave only fixing lands in the 420 and move all the other lands.
Option 2 is to have some vague definition like "lands that you are really excited to open go in the 420, all other non-fixing lands go in the new 30 land section".
Option 1 is easier and option 2 is a bit silly, but I'm not sure that I want first-pick material in the utility land section.
Basically, you make a smaller pool of specialized utility lands, add some weaker fixing lands, and then you draft from that pool in between packs. The article states the reasoning and how it all works better than I would summarize in this post, so I won't go into it too much.
What appeals to me though is being able to run some more narrow and interesting utility lands that simply aren't strong enough to be part of the cube itself. Cards like Halimar Depths, cards I'd love to have in my decks but that simply don't justify watering down the draft.
Anyway, seems like a really cool idea. I really like nonbasic lands and having ways to play more of them is appealing. Thoughts?
In addition to what eidolon232 says, I think that this method would disadvantage aggro. Aggro would be competing with midrange and control decks for the good lands within the draft, but there are relatively few aggro lands in the additional lands that are suggested in the article, and those there are aren't much cop.
Moreover, this is additional faff in the draft. You would have to explain the system to new players, set out these lands for the mini-rotisserie, and sort them from your decks afterwards. Can't be bothered, because I am a lazy egg.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I don't like the idea of giving the players access to utility lands that are about the power level of basics or relatively narrow. The good ones would be getting picked in regular drafts anyway without any special rules. In a regular draft, you get to balance out the different depth of the colors (and color pairs) regarding non-basics by exchanging the bad "placeholder lands" with spells.
Basically openly displaying your colors and selecting them in advance would remove a big portion of the fun and skill involved in drafting for me.
In addition to what eidolon232 says, I think that this method would disadvantage aggro. Aggro would be competing with midrange and control decks for the good lands within the draft, but there are relatively few aggro lands in the additional lands that are suggested in the article, and those there are aren't much cop.
Moreover, this is additional faff in the draft. You would have to explain the system to new players, set out these lands for the mini-rotisserie, and sort them from your decks afterwards. Can't be bothered, because I am a lazy egg.
I don't believe there's much to be said after this; I agree with these gentlemens' perspective about this issue. In a personal note, I would like to add that for me, Cube is, and always be, a limited format. This, and other gimmicks (like having 4 Birthing Pods in your list, for instance), feel to me like attempts make Cube a constructed-like format. I'm sure they have their merits, but if wanted to play a durdle-y constructed format, I would play Legacy/Vintage/EDH; I'd rather have Cube feel like a Limited format.
Back when we were testing out the classic cube we drafted the lands separately from the non-land cards for a few drafts, and it wrecked the importance of prioritizing lands/spells during the draft. Was not a fan.
Moreover, this is additional faff in the draft. You would have to explain the system to new players, set out these lands for the mini-rotisserie, and sort them from your decks afterwards. Can't be bothered, because I am a lazy egg.
This is why I have never tried it.
I am still interested in finding a way to play more utility lands. I tried it with a land slot for booster packs (14 cards from the Cube, 1 card from the utility land pile), but that is not what I am looking for either. That utility card often looks ridiculous among the other cards in a Cube booster pack. My reasoning was that you don't need 15 card packs anyway in order to get enough playables, which is true, but that 15th card could be some interesting, narrow card instead that helps support niche archetypes, so the opportunity cost to including utility lands in boosters is too high. It is also too unlikely that all the stars align for one of the narrow utility lands to actually see play (it has to be in the draft pool in the first place, there has to be someone drafting the deck it is good in and the player drafting said deck has to get the utility land at a point in the draft where he can afford to pick it).
Now what I currently am trying to figure out is a way to have utility lands in the pile with the basic lands (you would get as many utility lands as you want from the utility land pile, of course still with the singleton rule for your deck, but the same land could be played by more than one player). This is where another very important observation was made by Humpty:
In addition to what eidolon232 says, I think that this method would disadvantage aggro. Aggro would be competing with midrange and control decks for the good lands within the draft, but there are relatively few aggro lands in the additional lands that are suggested in the article, and those there are aren't much cop.
I do not want to disadvantage aggro. I want to provide cool, interesting deck building options by adding some of the narrower utility lands. Those lands often come with a drawback, otherwise they would be in the Cube anyway, so the opportunity cost of playing it over a basic land is non-zero; that cost has to be high enough for lands I make available "for free" (the utility lands in the basic land pile). If that cost is not high enough, every deck would just slam all utility land of its color. I'm not sure I want all my white cube decks packing Karakas or all my green (and maybe even non-green if they can get away with a colorless source) decks Pendelhaven. Even cards with a high drawback but also a high power level would not be good to give away for free (Shelldock Isle, Ghitu Encampment). I can see it working for narrow enough cards with a high enough drawback and a small enough upside (Dryad Arbor, Moorland Haunt).
As you can see, the "free utility lands" idea probably is not the solution I am looking for either. I can play the powerful lands like Shelldock Isle and Ghitu Encampment in the Cube and offer narrow cards like Dryad Arbor and Moorland Haunt for free, but who wants Pendelhaven in their booster pack? Who would not add a free Karakas to their white deck?
Back when we were testing out the classic cube we drafted the lands separately from the non-land cards for a few drafts, and it wrecked the importance of prioritizing lands/spells during the draft. Was not a fan.
I agree with that. I never did separate land drafts, but back when I had more fixing lands in my Cube you could just pick your non-land card and most of the time wheel your fixing land. That meant almost no prioritizing lands/spells, and I was not a fan.
The author of the article has an unusual cube which plays into this somewhat. He actually runs 4 copies of Wasteland in his 360 list, I think as a way to try and punish those who get carried away with non-basics (basically every other deck at the table will be featuring wasteland).
So taking your "free utility land" concept Konfusius, what if everyone also got wasteland as an option? I know that sounds crazy extreme (who isn't going to run it if it's free?!!??!). But that might not be as broken as you might think. In some formats (legacy/vintage) I would guess most/all decks run it, so where's the issue in cube? It also provides lot of incentive for mono and dual colored decks since you know everyone will have one wasteland to punish you for making nonbasicland.dec
Having wastelands running around in every deck would certainly change things quite a bit. But it would do a couple of things I would really like:
1. Add a balance to the game warping effects of some really annoying and powerful lands (maze of ith, library for those that run it, etc).
2. Penalize the 5 color goodstuff.dec players. Anything that encourages more focused decks (even mono colored decks), I'm personally a fan of.
I don't actually think wasteland punishes players that are responsible with their mana bases. It's a well designed card I think.
Where "Wasteland for everyone" might be problematic though is that it would potentially over power cards that get lands back (LFTL and crucible) as you'd know that you would automatically get to combo those with wasteland (to potentially devastating effects). But again, it is really only broken against the guy with 15 non-basics in his deck . Personally, I have no issue with that. Basic lands are tech. 1
I might propose this whole idea to my group next time we meet (whenever that ends up being). I think it would add an interesting dynamic. Not sure this will last (or even fly), but I'm open to trying different things.
Yes sure, go ahead and test it! I am interested in how it does for you.
My main issue with having so many Wastelands floating around is just flavor, I am willing to stretch the Cube singleton run a bit if that means I can play more utility land, but I imagine giving away free Wastelands shatters the rule rather than stretching it...
With the holidays, I don't expect I'll be playing until the new year at the earliest. My group is basically all married guys with families, so this time a year is hard.
I'll propose the idea at our next session. If there's interest and it goes well, I'll report back. Still not sure I want to break the singleton rule either, but I can see the benefit with wasteland to keep non-basics in check.
There are certain aspects of the cube that would work better if we did break the singleton rule. It certainly would open up a lot of other possibilities, not just with wasteland but with archetypes that don't work without multiples. That's a different discussion altogether though.
The way I play with Eric's modern cube is that many man lands and super sweet utility lands are either included in standard fixing sections or multicoloured card sections of his cube. These are usually the super sweetest and things that go in tonnes of places like mutavault.
The fixing in his cube is super sweet too 20 fetches 20 shocks make for an environment where your mana can be relied upon if you invest in it even for super sweet legacy style multicolour aggro decks.
Things in the ultility land draft are things like moaning well and much of the innistrad spell land cycle (the ones not sweet enough to be considered for a multicoloured section slot) 10 pain lands (painful stuff when you are relying on a lot of shocks and fetches) and 5 colour fixing like gemstone mine and city of brass.
I think each colour has a bunch of okay monocolour lands too like flagstones or windbrusk. In modern cube with a super low curve the availability of hideaway lands in the land draft has been something of a very interesting metagame factor. I've been digging it so far but those 4 tec edges feel like they are going to become more relevant some day and be something very interesting to learn from.
Rest assured, though some players feel comfortable leaving much of their fixing to the land draft, they are usually in for a lot rockier of a wake up call than the others who acknowledge the tension between premium basic land type style fixing and sweet spells. The tension hasn't gone away, there are just more interesting questions thrown into there.
Man I'm really starting to think of bothering them into including things like land grant and other weird sorta-land stuff in this section. But maybe that's even too progressive for my peers.
Thanks a lot. I'm really going to try and sell this on my group. I think it's a wonderful idea.
So you are running multiple copies of technotic edge in the utility draft? Is that in addition to multiple wastelands in the main cube draft (I know Jason runs 4 wastelands).
His land section breaks his modern rule with onslaught fetchlands but beyond that they are all modern legal cards or the sweetest of commander cards. It's easist to imagine as 20 shocks, 20 fetches, 4 dual-man-lands, horizon canopy and 5 filter lands I think. I think there are other ones that are considered super sweet enough to be spells like wolf run and treetop village but the modern rider keeps a lot of the classic wonders from being a question. It's amazing how much impact the little things make but boy have I been trounced by tec edges before.
Including mana disruption in your cube / land draft becomes a much tougher question you have to consider when designing a format when things like wasteland, port and strip mine are on the table. Those cards are totally in the spell cube section of just about any vintage/rare cube id make though. Definitely deserving of making tough decisions over and something you want to be thoughtful with the availability of.
You could just make your cube into legacy by making all the cards low cost and high impact and give everyone super access to strip mine like lands but I probz wouldn't. I like that Jason has set it up so the availability of the strip effects in his cube feel sorta even and something you can / will have to count on.
If you are trying to sell players on it, just confront them with it! Also build in little strategies into your cube that incentivize always having access to some zany utility lands. It's not too big of a stretch to think of.
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Very interesting. Cards like Karakas will make all of my white decks but I dont want to give it a spot in my white section. I disagree with adding any fixing lands, though.
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If you want to draft these lands increase your cube size and include them in your cube. People should be able to get 23 playables anyway.
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Option 1 is to leave only fixing lands in the 420 and move all the other lands.
Option 2 is to have some vague definition like "lands that you are really excited to open go in the 420, all other non-fixing lands go in the new 30 land section".
Option 1 is easier and option 2 is a bit silly, but I'm not sure that I want first-pick material in the utility land section.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/cube-design-utility-land-draft/
Basically, you make a smaller pool of specialized utility lands, add some weaker fixing lands, and then you draft from that pool in between packs. The article states the reasoning and how it all works better than I would summarize in this post, so I won't go into it too much.
What appeals to me though is being able to run some more narrow and interesting utility lands that simply aren't strong enough to be part of the cube itself. Cards like Halimar Depths, cards I'd love to have in my decks but that simply don't justify watering down the draft.
Anyway, seems like a really cool idea. I really like nonbasic lands and having ways to play more of them is appealing. Thoughts?
Duplicate threads merged.
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http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Moreover, this is additional faff in the draft. You would have to explain the system to new players, set out these lands for the mini-rotisserie, and sort them from your decks afterwards. Can't be bothered, because I am a lazy egg.
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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I don't believe there's much to be said after this; I agree with these gentlemens' perspective about this issue. In a personal note, I would like to add that for me, Cube is, and always be, a limited format. This, and other gimmicks (like having 4 Birthing Pods in your list, for instance), feel to me like attempts make Cube a constructed-like format. I'm sure they have their merits, but if wanted to play a durdle-y constructed format, I would play Legacy/Vintage/EDH; I'd rather have Cube feel like a Limited format.
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http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
This is why I have never tried it.
I am still interested in finding a way to play more utility lands. I tried it with a land slot for booster packs (14 cards from the Cube, 1 card from the utility land pile), but that is not what I am looking for either. That utility card often looks ridiculous among the other cards in a Cube booster pack. My reasoning was that you don't need 15 card packs anyway in order to get enough playables, which is true, but that 15th card could be some interesting, narrow card instead that helps support niche archetypes, so the opportunity cost to including utility lands in boosters is too high. It is also too unlikely that all the stars align for one of the narrow utility lands to actually see play (it has to be in the draft pool in the first place, there has to be someone drafting the deck it is good in and the player drafting said deck has to get the utility land at a point in the draft where he can afford to pick it).
Now what I currently am trying to figure out is a way to have utility lands in the pile with the basic lands (you would get as many utility lands as you want from the utility land pile, of course still with the singleton rule for your deck, but the same land could be played by more than one player). This is where another very important observation was made by Humpty:
I do not want to disadvantage aggro. I want to provide cool, interesting deck building options by adding some of the narrower utility lands. Those lands often come with a drawback, otherwise they would be in the Cube anyway, so the opportunity cost of playing it over a basic land is non-zero; that cost has to be high enough for lands I make available "for free" (the utility lands in the basic land pile). If that cost is not high enough, every deck would just slam all utility land of its color. I'm not sure I want all my white cube decks packing Karakas or all my green (and maybe even non-green if they can get away with a colorless source) decks Pendelhaven. Even cards with a high drawback but also a high power level would not be good to give away for free (Shelldock Isle, Ghitu Encampment). I can see it working for narrow enough cards with a high enough drawback and a small enough upside (Dryad Arbor, Moorland Haunt).
As you can see, the "free utility lands" idea probably is not the solution I am looking for either. I can play the powerful lands like Shelldock Isle and Ghitu Encampment in the Cube and offer narrow cards like Dryad Arbor and Moorland Haunt for free, but who wants Pendelhaven in their booster pack? Who would not add a free Karakas to their white deck?
I agree with that. I never did separate land drafts, but back when I had more fixing lands in my Cube you could just pick your non-land card and most of the time wheel your fixing land. That meant almost no prioritizing lands/spells, and I was not a fan.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
So taking your "free utility land" concept Konfusius, what if everyone also got wasteland as an option? I know that sounds crazy extreme (who isn't going to run it if it's free?!!??!). But that might not be as broken as you might think. In some formats (legacy/vintage) I would guess most/all decks run it, so where's the issue in cube? It also provides lot of incentive for mono and dual colored decks since you know everyone will have one wasteland to punish you for making nonbasicland.dec
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
1. Add a balance to the game warping effects of some really annoying and powerful lands (maze of ith, library for those that run it, etc).
2. Penalize the 5 color goodstuff.dec players. Anything that encourages more focused decks (even mono colored decks), I'm personally a fan of.
I don't actually think wasteland punishes players that are responsible with their mana bases. It's a well designed card I think.
Where "Wasteland for everyone" might be problematic though is that it would potentially over power cards that get lands back (LFTL and crucible) as you'd know that you would automatically get to combo those with wasteland (to potentially devastating effects). But again, it is really only broken against the guy with 15 non-basics in his deck . Personally, I have no issue with that. Basic lands are tech. 1
I might propose this whole idea to my group next time we meet (whenever that ends up being). I think it would add an interesting dynamic. Not sure this will last (or even fly), but I'm open to trying different things.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
My main issue with having so many Wastelands floating around is just flavor, I am willing to stretch the Cube singleton run a bit if that means I can play more utility land, but I imagine giving away free Wastelands shatters the rule rather than stretching it...
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
I'll propose the idea at our next session. If there's interest and it goes well, I'll report back. Still not sure I want to break the singleton rule either, but I can see the benefit with wasteland to keep non-basics in check.
There are certain aspects of the cube that would work better if we did break the singleton rule. It certainly would open up a lot of other possibilities, not just with wasteland but with archetypes that don't work without multiples. That's a different discussion altogether though.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
The fixing in his cube is super sweet too 20 fetches 20 shocks make for an environment where your mana can be relied upon if you invest in it even for super sweet legacy style multicolour aggro decks.
Things in the ultility land draft are things like moaning well and much of the innistrad spell land cycle (the ones not sweet enough to be considered for a multicoloured section slot) 10 pain lands (painful stuff when you are relying on a lot of shocks and fetches) and 5 colour fixing like gemstone mine and city of brass.
I think each colour has a bunch of okay monocolour lands too like flagstones or windbrusk. In modern cube with a super low curve the availability of hideaway lands in the land draft has been something of a very interesting metagame factor. I've been digging it so far but those 4 tec edges feel like they are going to become more relevant some day and be something very interesting to learn from.
Rest assured, though some players feel comfortable leaving much of their fixing to the land draft, they are usually in for a lot rockier of a wake up call than the others who acknowledge the tension between premium basic land type style fixing and sweet spells. The tension hasn't gone away, there are just more interesting questions thrown into there.
Man I'm really starting to think of bothering them into including things like land grant and other weird sorta-land stuff in this section. But maybe that's even too progressive for my peers.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
So you are running multiple copies of technotic edge in the utility draft? Is that in addition to multiple wastelands in the main cube draft (I know Jason runs 4 wastelands).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
His land section breaks his modern rule with onslaught fetchlands but beyond that they are all modern legal cards or the sweetest of commander cards. It's easist to imagine as 20 shocks, 20 fetches, 4 dual-man-lands, horizon canopy and 5 filter lands I think. I think there are other ones that are considered super sweet enough to be spells like wolf run and treetop village but the modern rider keeps a lot of the classic wonders from being a question. It's amazing how much impact the little things make but boy have I been trounced by tec edges before.
Including mana disruption in your cube / land draft becomes a much tougher question you have to consider when designing a format when things like wasteland, port and strip mine are on the table. Those cards are totally in the spell cube section of just about any vintage/rare cube id make though. Definitely deserving of making tough decisions over and something you want to be thoughtful with the availability of.
You could just make your cube into legacy by making all the cards low cost and high impact and give everyone super access to strip mine like lands but I probz wouldn't. I like that Jason has set it up so the availability of the strip effects in his cube feel sorta even and something you can / will have to count on.
If you are trying to sell players on it, just confront them with it! Also build in little strategies into your cube that incentivize always having access to some zany utility lands. It's not too big of a stretch to think of.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!