I know this isn't a commonly done thing around here, but I'm tinkering with a playset of custom mana rocks to replace the moxen in my cube. I run an unpowered/semi powered 540 and have been messing with the moxen because I love the artifact deck to death, but I've found that moxen are waaaay too strong in unpowered unless I include other pieces of power and fast mana (Sol Ring and Crypt/Vault). My group isn't really into the higher frequency of blowouts that power brings but nobody wants to see the artifact deck leave the cube. Thus, custom mana rocks.
I tinkered with 1 CMC, color producing rocks that etb tapped, but these favored midrange and control decks and were basically useless for aggro. I tried 1 CMC etb untapped rocks, but these felt a tad too strong for my group. My current, and best, iteration is as follows:
Ruby Shard1
Artifact
As Ruby Shard enters the battlefield you may pay 3 life. If you don't Ruby Shard enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: Add R.
The life tax allows aggressive decks to still cast a 1 drop on curve and those decks tend not to care about a bolt in the face, while midrange and control decks have to decide if they want to eat the damage. These rocks have felt pretty good in testing and don't feel over the top for an unpowered environment but are still very strong and tend to be high picks for most decks.
What do you guys think? Does the balance feel right? Has anyone experimented with custom rocks like this before?
If I were to decide to make custom cards like these, I would run them in conjunction with moxen, not replace them. The less power you have, the more oppressive it is when it shows up, and those cards would be 'power' in the cube sense. I haven't done anything like this, but making something that's worse than a moxen but undoubtedly much better than a signet doesn't seem balanced for an unpowered cube.
I agree about power, but I wouldn't count the custom rocks I have listed above as "power." The point of the exercise is to make a set of rocks that are more powerful than the typical 2 cmc rock, but less powerful than ultra fast mana.
We've found the artifact deck simply isn't very viable when the cheapest rocks available are 2 CMC signets and stuff, but the moxen tend to make the archetype a bit OP vs other archetypes and we just don't love power for our cube. In our limited testing so far it doesn't seem like these rocks are too far above the typical unpowered ramp effect to be unbalancing. They pretty much provide the same effect as a mana dork with haste (if you pay the damage tax) as they cost 1 mana so you can't just ramp for free. If you play them tapped they have the same effect in your mana as a 2 cmc ETB untapped rock. You spend 1 mana this turn to go up 1 mana next turn and for the rest of the game.
They're much better than 2 mana rocks since I can start taking advantage of the ramp from t2 going forward, and potentially still use the mana on the first turn.
Have you tried The Antiquities War? That card has been really good in the artifact deck, letting you draw into more stones and then have an alt win con. In the recent invitational we did on xmage my deck had TAW and it was amazing.
These cards seem fine to be honest. They're obviously quite good, and probably too good in a traditional unpowered cube, but 3 life is a real drawback and they're worse than traditional moxen. They're going to be stronger than pretty much everything, but then again, so are the moxen in powered so I think it's fine.
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My Cubes - The Busted Cube. A fully functional, almost 100% custom cube. The project started out by asking "What if other colors got cards on the power level of Mana Drain,Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk?" Draft and enjoy!
I like the idea but with the card you suggested I think salmo pretty much nailed it. If that cycle is the only fast mana in the cube they would cause the same blow out rate as the power. Its not really the moxen themselves causing the blow out rate as buch as it is the frequency they show up, which you kind of hinted at when you mentioned adding sol, crypt, vault to balance.
So What I'm getting at is if you just substitute bad moxes for moxes your cube will be equally as imbalanced. but if you put bad moxes WITH real moxes the weight goes away because practically everyone will have fast mana.
and In closing I think the best way to "balance" a mox and still have it be a home run is to make it cost 1 and enter tapped.
I tinkered with 1 CMC, color producing rocks that etb tapped, but these favored midrange and control decks and were basically useless for aggro. I tried 1 CMC etb untapped rocks, but these felt a tad too strong for my group. My current, and best, iteration is as follows:
Ruby Shard 1
Artifact
As Ruby Shard enters the battlefield you may pay 3 life. If you don't Ruby Shard enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: Add R.
The life tax allows aggressive decks to still cast a 1 drop on curve and those decks tend not to care about a bolt in the face, while midrange and control decks have to decide if they want to eat the damage. These rocks have felt pretty good in testing and don't feel over the top for an unpowered environment but are still very strong and tend to be high picks for most decks.
What do you guys think? Does the balance feel right? Has anyone experimented with custom rocks like this before?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
We've found the artifact deck simply isn't very viable when the cheapest rocks available are 2 CMC signets and stuff, but the moxen tend to make the archetype a bit OP vs other archetypes and we just don't love power for our cube. In our limited testing so far it doesn't seem like these rocks are too far above the typical unpowered ramp effect to be unbalancing. They pretty much provide the same effect as a mana dork with haste (if you pay the damage tax) as they cost 1 mana so you can't just ramp for free. If you play them tapped they have the same effect in your mana as a 2 cmc ETB untapped rock. You spend 1 mana this turn to go up 1 mana next turn and for the rest of the game.
Have you tried The Antiquities War? That card has been really good in the artifact deck, letting you draw into more stones and then have an alt win con. In the recent invitational we did on xmage my deck had TAW and it was amazing.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
I haven't even considered the antiquities war, but it seems very interesting. I'll have to see if I can find room for it.
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
So What I'm getting at is if you just substitute bad moxes for moxes your cube will be equally as imbalanced. but if you put bad moxes WITH real moxes the weight goes away because practically everyone will have fast mana.
and In closing I think the best way to "balance" a mox and still have it be a home run is to make it cost 1 and enter tapped.