This looks like a solid land, especially while we're waiting for to get access to its Horizon Land.
Mount Doom always enters untapped and fixes mana well, and it's built to be solid in aggressive decks. It provides reach when you can get the opponent's life total low, and without having to enter the red zone. Plus, the big activated ability looks like it could be really fun in some decks, especially those that feature Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, since that card both tutors for Mount Doom and provides the legendary artifact fodder to fuel it.
This may not be a forever inclusion for some cubes, but it makes for a great placeholder until Wizards' completes the cycle of Horizon Canopy lands. It's also a cool and flavorful design for those folks that are also LotR fans and like the UB flavor. I like it.
This ain't bad. Can't say I like this more than something like Sulfurous Springs which is generally better for non aggro / Golos decks. Outside of Golos shells, the last ability is going to be flavor text most of the time. The only legendary artifacts I'm currently running are Jitte / Esika's Chariot / Eater of Virtue / Shadowspear.
I love that it gives you a bit of reach and doesn't ETB tapped, but I don't know if I like the downside for non-aggro decks. At least with sulfurous springs you can get colorless mana without pain, and while the pathway (the rakdos land I run until we get a horizon land) forces you to pick right away it's pain free forever, which makes it great in 2-color decks or 3 color decks with great mana bases. City of Brass and Mana Confluence have beat into me the lesson that paying a life for every mana you get is a very, very real cost. If I'm playing this in Grixis Control or something and it's my only red source, I'm gonna be bummed that I spotted my opponent a free lightning bolt in most games.
This is far and away the best rakdos land we have for aggro decks after the obvious first 3, but I don't know if that makes up for the downside it has in other decks.
The last ability is basically flavor text. I'd be shocked if it got activated in 1/100 games, and even more shocked if it was actually the difference between winning and losing in 1/10 games where it was activated.
I like it more for variety and flavour than power level.
If I’m including the “one ring” , activating this is a huge achievement/flavour win.
As an agressive land, I think it’s marginally better than a pain land, but it’s significantly worse outside of agro if you have no legendary artifacts.
I played a lot of ramunap ruins back in standard and that did twice the damage output that this does. Using my experience with that land as an analogy for how useful the ability might be.
Obviously this option is all gravy if there’s no downside, but from my experience with the canopy lands, not having the option to make colourless for no damage is a real cost.
Agro mirrors are common enough and damage from an early canopy lands adds up.
overall I’d guess it’s reallllly close in power to a RB painland, but this is wayyy more cool.
If I include the one ring, I’ll definitely include this.
Black/Red isn't the more aggressive deck enough of the time that this is worse than a generic painland... but it's so cool, I want to test it anyways. The One Ring is going in so the achievement will be possible.
I like this as filler for the Horizon land. At 630, I'm running 9 lands per guild, and this is probably the 8th or 9th best land (it's at least better than Haunted Ridge, and probably better than Dragonskull Summit).
Is there a reason this fell out of favor? It seems pretty good for aggressive Black-Red Decks.
If you look at the CubeCobra numbers, I don't think this was ever "in favor" at all. Mount Doom is in less than 900 cubes while things like Sulfurous Springs / Blackclave Cliffs are in over 10k cubes. Personally I've always liked those two lands much more than Mount Doom.
I like this over Sulfurous Springs. I don't get to Cube as much as I used to but I have seen its second ability win multiple games. I've never seen the final ability get activated.
I run it and I like it. I'm not if confident it deserves a slot on power level (gun to my head, it doesnt), but I am confident it's 95-99% there.
The interactions and uniqueness push it over the top for me.
I've activated the second ability sacrificing a mox opal and it was a game winning play, felt pretty sweet.
This looks like a solid land, especially while we're waiting for to get access to its Horizon Land.
Mount Doom always enters untapped and fixes mana well, and it's built to be solid in aggressive decks. It provides reach when you can get the opponent's life total low, and without having to enter the red zone. Plus, the big activated ability looks like it could be really fun in some decks, especially those that feature Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, since that card both tutors for Mount Doom and provides the legendary artifact fodder to fuel it.
This may not be a forever inclusion for some cubes, but it makes for a great placeholder until Wizards' completes the cycle of Horizon Canopy lands. It's also a cool and flavorful design for those folks that are also LotR fans and like the UB flavor. I like it.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
This is far and away the best rakdos land we have for aggro decks after the obvious first 3, but I don't know if that makes up for the downside it has in other decks.
The last ability is basically flavor text. I'd be shocked if it got activated in 1/100 games, and even more shocked if it was actually the difference between winning and losing in 1/10 games where it was activated.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
If I’m including the “one ring” , activating this is a huge achievement/flavour win.
As an agressive land, I think it’s marginally better than a pain land, but it’s significantly worse outside of agro if you have no legendary artifacts.
I played a lot of ramunap ruins back in standard and that did twice the damage output that this does. Using my experience with that land as an analogy for how useful the ability might be.
Obviously this option is all gravy if there’s no downside, but from my experience with the canopy lands, not having the option to make colourless for no damage is a real cost.
Agro mirrors are common enough and damage from an early canopy lands adds up.
overall I’d guess it’s reallllly close in power to a RB painland, but this is wayyy more cool.
If I include the one ring, I’ll definitely include this.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
If you look at the CubeCobra numbers, I don't think this was ever "in favor" at all. Mount Doom is in less than 900 cubes while things like Sulfurous Springs / Blackclave Cliffs are in over 10k cubes. Personally I've always liked those two lands much more than Mount Doom.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
The interactions and uniqueness push it over the top for me.
I've activated the second ability sacrificing a mox opal and it was a game winning play, felt pretty sweet.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg