1)Changing all the rules of card number/ratio/hand size is an other topic then landless. Going 3/40-50 doesn't make the transition easier since most will have playsets of 4 already in their decks. Doesn't really lower the complexity either. A lower hand size is related though since the game becomes more complex, but that's part of the goal. Deckbuilding rules that would make it easier is to have no sideboard, then you can use your deck+sb and add a few cards.
2)Color identity is a better rule in most cases I think. Showing a colored card for colorless seems to be the way to go too. This makes multicolor cards good enabler for artifacts though. You could just repeatedly use artifacts to get any land and not showing much. Maybe make channeling with artifacts follow the rules of the revealed card. That way if you want fast multicolor lands from artifacts you have to show a different monocolor each time. Using cards in play instead of revealing (if you want) needs to be tested too.
3)I like these multicolor channel rules. 3-5 color might be overkill since they are already not too easy to cast. I have no better idea though.
4)I also dislike selective removal. But, in normal MtG, when you search for a land card you usually are already removing a card you don't want to draw. And library ramping/fixing will be much less needed with 2.0 rules. It doesn't need to be nerfed further. If anything, both of these aspects cancel out nicely. If you don't like shuffling then that's an other topic, there is no additionnal shuffle in 2.0 so it is non-issue.
There are other issues that came to my attention. First, spell density is much greater in 2.0. Of course, the goal is to avoid mana flood, but is it really mana flood to have 3-4 lands. RedDeckWin doesn't need that many, and is REALLY strong, considering you can play 7-10 spells that deal 2-3 damage and win. Just look at starting hands with this. Having 2-3 lands guaranteed might be a bit too strong.
Also a made a list of cards that will or could be problematic, there aren't that many. I probably missed a few ones but I was pretty thorough.
Landmill (grind):
Balustrade Spy
Consuming Aberration
Destroy the Evidence
Mind Funeral
Mind Grind
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
Undercity Informer
Cards that get broken good without lands:
Goblin Guide (2/2 haste that reveal all draws of opponent, for 1)
Grindstone (auto win vs mono color)
Trepanation Blade (+toomuch/+0)
Abundance (reorder library)
Chandra, Pyromaster
Domri Rade
Garruk, Caller of Beasts
Goblin Charbelcher
Rally the Horde
Seismic Assault (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Land's Edge (same)
Lightning Storm
Manabond (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Explorer's Scope (it can always be a land)
Into the Wilds (same)
Druidic Satchel (same)
Clear the Land(same)
Cards to check out, might be too good:
*Oona, Queen of the Fae (pretty much 6 to create 5 fairies vs mono, each turn)
*Epic Experiment
Duskmantle Seer
*Jace's Mindseeker
*Oracle of Mul Daya
Mindshrieker
Sanity Grinding
Undead Alchemist
*Delver of Secrets
Skyward Eye Prophets
Augur of Bolas
Avenging Druid (possible sick combo with Laboratory Maniac)
Hermit Druid (same as above)
Baneful Omen
Beast Hunt
Bioplasm
Bloodline Shaman
Brass Herald
Borborygmos Enraged (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Brilliant Ultimatum
Call of the Wild
Call to the Kindred
Counterbalance
Descendants' Path
Enshrined Memories
Galvanoth
Genesis Wave
Lurking Predators
Sages of the Anima
Uncovered Clues
Vampire Nocturnus
Vigean Intuition
Zoologist
Trade Routes (not so good with 1 per turn)
Compulsive Research
Nantuko Cultivator (becomes pretty good with unlimited channeling)
Rise/Fall (becomes hymn to Tourach unless you channel preemptively)
Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant
Scorched Earth
Cards that change but are still mostly unplayable:
Cellar Door
Cerebral Eruption
Coerced Confession
Game Preserve
Helm of Obedience
Infernal Genesis
Ink Dissolver
Knowledge Pool
Paroxysm
Shapeshifter's Marrow
Thought Dissector
Aerial Caravan
Heed the Mists
Loafing Giant
Some cards such as Reweave would allow you to get that 1 and in your deck, but tutors are usually easier.
Many of these cards have problems with channeling from the top of the library into play. Maybe limit channeling to search effects.
Also some cards get really good when you channel lands as you see fit (good retrace, Manabond , etc). Maybe limit channel to the number of lands you can play each turn.
Turn 3: Green god of trampling
Turn 4: This and attack with a 6/6
This will happen all the time. Depending on how good devotion is, this giant will either be a mono G staple or a good sideboard card. Also makes the devotion land a great turn 5 monstrous enabler.
I've just learned about the Duel Masters/Kaijudo thing recently and this made me realize how easy it is to fix the mana system of Magic. Converting cards to mana also offers great choices. I'm glad to find a thread about it on the great MTG Salvation forums. Channeling resolves the issue with bouncing lands back to hand, one less problem.
About limited: limited is very abuse-proof. It's about doing best with what you have, considering the rules. This means you can throw pretty much anything at limited and have a fun time in a great metagame. Magic 2.0 is no exception. I will focus on constructed since limited can handle itself. (Limited works, the end)
Landless Magic would change the game in a few ways: -Less luck. Considered a great thing by many, Mark Rosewater offer a different angle here. It's a matter of taste. I'd personally prefer lower luck then now.
-More choices. Also means more complexity and analysis. Also a matter of taste. More choices can be overwhelming and lead to a more involved game. This variant is then much less laid back then usual MtG. It's also more challenging and offer a higher skill cap. I like that. Normal MTG can be heavy at times but I think many could handle more, especially with less probability calculations. Hand size of 6 can help lower the complexity if needed.
-Different card value. If rules changes, many cards behave differently. Just look at the changes to combat damage, legend rules and mana burn. Just look at Ravenous Baloth. Cards have a certain balance and ideally you don't want to change this too much. Some card might have to get banned or houseruled but you want this to be isolated cases and not wildly all cards of a type for instance. There are many possibilities for multicolored card and artifact to prevent huge balance swings that would render a type useless or overpowered. This will be discussed further.
-Broken cards. Some cards especially care about out of play land cards. Playing without lands will break these cards. Many won't be playable anymore or will need a banhammer.
-Mana curve. Many comments point out that having a guaranteed land each turn makes high cost cards better. I would argue that having a guaranteed spell each turn makes weenies much better. Getting to 7 mana with 6 non-land cards to protect yourself from 2 creatures per turn from the opponent is close to impossible. I know, I play green ramp all the time and lose. Right now, the metagame favors midrange decks: too many land for big spell can leave you mana screwed and too few lands in aggro can make you mulligan to oblivion. It's hard to predict the outcome of landless magic but I think having control of your curve will make more deck idea viable.
-More space for spells and recycling . We need to keep the 4/60 or 3/40 ratio of copies per deck to make bombs not too likely to be drawn. This means that instead of playing 4 copies of 9 cards (36 spells) you have to play at least 15 different cards. This is significantly more. But you don't have to play all these new spells, a good portion of drawn card will be used as land. Since removing lands gives about 24 new card and a sideboard is made of 15 occasionally played cards, I suggest that the sideboard is eliminated and part of the main deck, still leaving 9 more cards to be played. Sideboard cards will be prime candidates as lands and 15 out of 60 is still fewer "dead" draws then usual. Aggro decks that don't play as many lands might want to include less then 15 matchup specific cards and control decks might play more. Overall, more flexibility. Keeping current sideboard rules is an option but you can see that cards with more specific uses more easily find home in landless deck, rendering them not as important to preserve an healthy metagame. As an added bonus, it leaves space for lands in a 75 cards box. Perfect!
-Mana Fixing/Color shortage. It's already easy enough to run decks with 3 colors of mana. More mana options (because old options still exist) will make it even easier. It'll only be a problem of priorities rather then waiting for the lucky draw. Mana fixing cards will lose value, but more importantly, gold cards will be even easier to play. 5 color control will probably be a force to fear but will still have to deal with some mana problems, which is only normal considering you aren't supposed to have access to every color.
BALANCE
The suggested rule is:
Each card in hand can be traded for basic land card of it's color at sorcery speed.
This makes colorless cards a bit better (colorless mana land), monocolored cards good (normal basic land) and multicolor cards even better ([U]choice [/U]of normal basic land).
You might see a trend here. Gold cards are easier to play, but also offer more mana options(++). Artifact card on the other hand have always been easy to play and give you bad mana options (--). Since we can't really change the part about how easy they are to play, let's change how they provide mana.
Better artifact option: Make artifacts give better, existing colorless lands. Lands that give 1 but also have an added perk such as: Shimmering Grotto (1,T: Any color), Henge of Ramos or School of the Unseen (2, T: Any color, worst), Archaeological Dig, Crystal Vein or Darksteel Citadel. Finding which one is right and preserve a balanced playstyle for artifacts is a matter of testing. Crystal Vein is my favorite since it's even more colorless. Make artifact give basic lands of the color of a card in hand and/or in play. This seems pretty good, gives you choices, almost always better then a monocolored card.
Worst gold card options: Random land among the colors. Still almost strictly better then monocolored. And I don't like random. Basic land comes into play tapped. You choose one of the color, but it ETB tapped. Can only work if gold cards are limited to channel a land and play it immediately, which is fine by me. Also means no searching of the library to put lands in hand, maybe even in play.
Channel //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[%22enters%20the%20battlefield%20tapped.%22">&type=+[%22Land%22]&rarity=|[U]&set=|[%22invasion%22]"]Taplands or other not so good multilands. This is still pretty good. Too good. And you'd need to have all these types of land in your playkit.
Overall, I think the system can work pretty well by only breaking a few cards. The channeling rules for non-monocolor cards needs tweaking (playtest) and some additionnal rules will probably be needed for some mechanics and edge cases.
Not to mention the double bloodrush. Rampager, Slaugtherhorn and Wasteland Viper are all good targets, especially at instant speed. I'd put at least 1 in the deck for the mindgames. Once your opponent know you play this they have to be extra carefull when there's dangerous stuff in the GY.
Edit: I though you said Ambush Viper, this one is also quite nasty with 4 mana open if they attack.
I've been having good luck with 1 Phantasmagorian and 1 Cabal Therapy, rather than 2 Cabal Therapy and Bridge from Below. I like it because it requires less deck space.
I'm not sold about Phantasmagorian. You need 3 cards left in your hand and that seems unlikely.
If you have a Narco in your hand you still can't Cabal the opponent.
Have to wait T2 to go off with 4 mana+mill+combo+other on the play.
Removal is harder to deal with.
You can't do Cabal twice to see+discard.
I think having 1 less cantrip is worth it. It might be a good option in a deck with chancellors instead of cantrips, but the recent addition of Wordly Tutor makes cantrips that much better.
I'll wait a bit to get the shocks, shipping costs to Canada counters the discount that I'd get on tcgplayer compared to my lgs =(
I live in Canada too and the best place I found to buy cards is eBay, especially for Standard legal cards in large quantities. You'll pay around 20% less when buying playsets and shipping can be really cheap with some sellers. Many sellers offer full common/uncommon playsets for around 25$ with about 20$ shipping and free shipping for rare playsets. Bidding can be a bit of an hassle but is usually cheaper and auctions end all the time for all recent cards.
I can see a lot of benefit of adding Living Wish as a tutor and sideboard fetcher, to add more versatility and protection. This deck is turning into one freaky ANT/Belcher/Breakfast combo though..
Chalice of the void: Don't sweat it, it's not played that much. It's only important when it tips the balance for 2 cards that achieve the same goal (Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox are just too good)
Wild Cantor&Summoner's Pact: Don't worry about the possible lost from Pact, if the combo fizzles you lose anyway (you just used up all your cards for nothing). The only time it matters is if you're playing a noob that counters your first mana spell. A slight fizzle like Spirit Guide+Spirit Guide(from Pact)+Manamorphose hoping for the draw you need might be more fatal too. Anyway, point is that Pact is 99% of the time a free Mana(guide) or filter(Cantor), unless you change to wincon to something like Emrakul that requires an other upkeep. I would not play less then 4. Cantor would be a 1 of unless you really need more filter. Playing 1 gives you 5 filters and 2 is 6 filters so it's not really worth it unless 6-7 is the critical amount of fixing you need. Manamorphose fixes for for free though and 9 mana filters looks good.
Living Wish, Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond: These 3 come together. LED is good at 2 things: Using a tutor or activating Informer (where it acts as a 1 colorless). Since it's usable half the time I'd only cut 2 mana for 4 LED. Living wish and Infernal tutor acts similar: They get the miller. Wish can't get lands (2 mana for 1) and tutor can't get mana either (no hand anymore). Wish work with green but uses the SB. These tutors are dead cards if you don't draw LED or A LOT of mana(60% of the time T0 and 50% T2) and LED isn't good mana by itself so I don't think it's really worthwhile to play it considering that's 8-12 cards (with or without wish).
It's almost copy-pasted from an article I found (don't remember). 3 Cabal Therapy+BfB helps hardcast it before comboing off and might be a surprise for the opponent before the last part of the combo. The SB combat hate by transforming into Doomsday->Shelldock->Emrakul or Charbelcher.
[DECK] Chrome Mox
Your best mana source. It helps you filter your combo finishers from your hand into the graveyard. Most of them also help you get the color you need to play the remaining cards in hand. Weak against Chalice of the Void
I'm pretty sure Chrome Mox doesn't let you discard.
Your list seems much more resilient but thats because you often won't have mana. Only Lotus Petal+Mox won't be enough primary mana. Elvish+Simian+Pact+Wild Cantor looks like the next best thing.
This deck concept looks too fragile in my opinion:
-You have about 10% chance of mull to oblivion because you need a Grindstone to win (tutors an cantrips help this)
-You'll be mana short for a turn 1-2 kill about 10% of the time too (you need black mana+ritual pretty often). This is why about 30 cards are mana, no less.
-Force of will, stifle, chalice of the void, discard and grave hate all means game over (countered by FoW and Pact of Negation and somewhat by Therapy)
So yes, you can win maybe over 50% of game t1 in the right matchup, but you have about 10 slots left for cantrips, resilience, redundancy and mana fix. You just need to have a few bad draws or have a countermagic matchup and you lose because you have no plan B.
I didn't include a sorcery bounce top because that will be drawn in the draw step. Notice that you can uptap and use bounce in response to Duskmantle trigger.
These card can help you ensure your opponent doesn't just get a free land draw while Index can reorder to help you draw lands or cheap spells with Duskmantle Seer.
Griptide and Totally Lost seem quite unplayable but Dimir Charm can be useful to counter against control decks and kill the aggro. Index and Vanishment have a nice synergy so including both could be possible.
That was a crazy first prerelease experience. Picked Simic and went 3-1 (thanks to Gruul Swines) before battling the luckiest guy ever. Just listen to this:
The guy got Gideon and a foil Domri. From the same 15 cards pack.
He picked Dimir but lost his first best of 3 with Dimir splashed white for Guideon. He then realized his Boros and Grull pool was pretty nice and proceeded to steamroll everyone in the competition 2-0 with both of his planeswalkers. Domri draw+removal is good, but Gideon is complete nuts in limited.
I was pretty proud being the first deck able to go 1-2 against this monstrosity (with help of Metropolis Sprite+ Forced Adaptation, a very good combo when you've got islands). I had to go anyway, so it wasn't too much of a disappointment to lose against him.
Also keep in mind that some players are explicitly looking for budget cubes.
I know I do. Cubes are a very good way to be able to play diversified Magic games with a quite limited number of cards, especially if you want to play with friends who don't own any. This also means that you only need to invest once in a cube and update it with 4-5 new cards once in a while, which is quite economical, unlike regular Magic, where if you want some variation you've got to get yourself a new 200$ deck or trade a lot.
That why to me a budget cube seems to be the best way to be able to play with 2-8 friends at once, have balanced, diversified and fun games for a low price.
There are a few lists without rares and/or uncommons that achieve this but many rare cards are also good and cheap. I hope more budget lists like this pop up so that budget Magic playgroups have more information on building their own cube.
2)Color identity is a better rule in most cases I think. Showing a colored card for colorless seems to be the way to go too. This makes multicolor cards good enabler for artifacts though. You could just repeatedly use artifacts to get any land and not showing much. Maybe make channeling with artifacts follow the rules of the revealed card. That way if you want fast multicolor lands from artifacts you have to show a different monocolor each time. Using cards in play instead of revealing (if you want) needs to be tested too.
3)I like these multicolor channel rules. 3-5 color might be overkill since they are already not too easy to cast. I have no better idea though.
4)I also dislike selective removal. But, in normal MtG, when you search for a land card you usually are already removing a card you don't want to draw. And library ramping/fixing will be much less needed with 2.0 rules. It doesn't need to be nerfed further. If anything, both of these aspects cancel out nicely. If you don't like shuffling then that's an other topic, there is no additionnal shuffle in 2.0 so it is non-issue.
There are other issues that came to my attention. First, spell density is much greater in 2.0. Of course, the goal is to avoid mana flood, but is it really mana flood to have 3-4 lands. RedDeckWin doesn't need that many, and is REALLY strong, considering you can play 7-10 spells that deal 2-3 damage and win. Just look at starting hands with this. Having 2-3 lands guaranteed might be a bit too strong.
Also a made a list of cards that will or could be problematic, there aren't that many. I probably missed a few ones but I was pretty thorough.
Visual list
Landmill (grind):
Balustrade Spy
Consuming Aberration
Destroy the Evidence
Mind Funeral
Mind Grind
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
Undercity Informer
Cards that get broken good without lands:
Goblin Guide (2/2 haste that reveal all draws of opponent, for 1)
Grindstone (auto win vs mono color)
Trepanation Blade (+toomuch/+0)
Abundance (reorder library)
Chandra, Pyromaster
Domri Rade
Garruk, Caller of Beasts
Goblin Charbelcher
Rally the Horde
Seismic Assault (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Land's Edge (same)
Lightning Storm
Manabond (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Explorer's Scope (it can always be a land)
Into the Wilds (same)
Druidic Satchel (same)
Clear the Land(same)
Cards to check out, might be too good:
*Oona, Queen of the Fae (pretty much 6 to create 5 fairies vs mono, each turn)
*Epic Experiment
Duskmantle Seer
*Jace's Mindseeker
*Oracle of Mul Daya
Mindshrieker
Sanity Grinding
Undead Alchemist
*Delver of Secrets
Skyward Eye Prophets
Augur of Bolas
Avenging Druid (possible sick combo with Laboratory Maniac)
Hermit Druid (same as above)
Baneful Omen
Beast Hunt
Bioplasm
Bloodline Shaman
Brass Herald
Borborygmos Enraged (fixed with limited 1 per turn)
Brilliant Ultimatum
Call of the Wild
Call to the Kindred
Counterbalance
Descendants' Path
Enshrined Memories
Galvanoth
Genesis Wave
Lurking Predators
Sages of the Anima
Uncovered Clues
Vampire Nocturnus
Vigean Intuition
Zoologist
Trade Routes (not so good with 1 per turn)
Compulsive Research
Nantuko Cultivator (becomes pretty good with unlimited channeling)
Rise/Fall (becomes hymn to Tourach unless you channel preemptively)
Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant
Scorched Earth
//gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[kinship">"]Kinship in general
//gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[retrace">"]Retrace in general
Cards that change but are still mostly unplayable:
Cellar Door
Cerebral Eruption
Coerced Confession
Game Preserve
Helm of Obedience
Infernal Genesis
Ink Dissolver
Knowledge Pool
Paroxysm
Shapeshifter's Marrow
Thought Dissector
Aerial Caravan
Heed the Mists
Loafing Giant
Some cards such as Reweave would allow you to get that 1 and in your deck, but tutors are usually easier.
Many of these cards have problems with channeling from the top of the library into play. Maybe limit channeling to search effects.
Also some cards get really good when you channel lands as you see fit (good retrace, Manabond , etc). Maybe limit channel to the number of lands you can play each turn.
Turn 4: This and attack with a 6/6
This will happen all the time. Depending on how good devotion is, this giant will either be a mono G staple or a good sideboard card. Also makes the devotion land a great turn 5 monstrous enabler.
About limited: limited is very abuse-proof. It's about doing best with what you have, considering the rules. This means you can throw pretty much anything at limited and have a fun time in a great metagame. Magic 2.0 is no exception. I will focus on constructed since limited can handle itself. (Limited works, the end)
Landless Magic would change the game in a few ways:
-Less luck. Considered a great thing by many, Mark Rosewater offer a different angle here. It's a matter of taste. I'd personally prefer lower luck then now.
-More choices. Also means more complexity and analysis. Also a matter of taste. More choices can be overwhelming and lead to a more involved game. This variant is then much less laid back then usual MtG. It's also more challenging and offer a higher skill cap. I like that. Normal MTG can be heavy at times but I think many could handle more, especially with less probability calculations. Hand size of 6 can help lower the complexity if needed.
-Different card value. If rules changes, many cards behave differently. Just look at the changes to combat damage, legend rules and mana burn. Just look at Ravenous Baloth. Cards have a certain balance and ideally you don't want to change this too much. Some card might have to get banned or houseruled but you want this to be isolated cases and not wildly all cards of a type for instance. There are many possibilities for multicolored card and artifact to prevent huge balance swings that would render a type useless or overpowered. This will be discussed further.
-Broken cards. Some cards especially care about out of play land cards. Playing without lands will break these cards. Many won't be playable anymore or will need a banhammer.
-Mana curve. Many comments point out that having a guaranteed land each turn makes high cost cards better. I would argue that having a guaranteed spell each turn makes weenies much better. Getting to 7 mana with 6 non-land cards to protect yourself from 2 creatures per turn from the opponent is close to impossible. I know, I play green ramp all the time and lose. Right now, the metagame favors midrange decks: too many land for big spell can leave you mana screwed and too few lands in aggro can make you mulligan to oblivion. It's hard to predict the outcome of landless magic but I think having control of your curve will make more deck idea viable.
-More space for spells and recycling . We need to keep the 4/60 or 3/40 ratio of copies per deck to make bombs not too likely to be drawn. This means that instead of playing 4 copies of 9 cards (36 spells) you have to play at least 15 different cards. This is significantly more. But you don't have to play all these new spells, a good portion of drawn card will be used as land. Since removing lands gives about 24 new card and a sideboard is made of 15 occasionally played cards, I suggest that the sideboard is eliminated and part of the main deck, still leaving 9 more cards to be played. Sideboard cards will be prime candidates as lands and 15 out of 60 is still fewer "dead" draws then usual. Aggro decks that don't play as many lands might want to include less then 15 matchup specific cards and control decks might play more. Overall, more flexibility. Keeping current sideboard rules is an option but you can see that cards with more specific uses more easily find home in landless deck, rendering them not as important to preserve an healthy metagame. As an added bonus, it leaves space for lands in a 75 cards box. Perfect!
-Mana Fixing/Color shortage. It's already easy enough to run decks with 3 colors of mana. More mana options (because old options still exist) will make it even easier. It'll only be a problem of priorities rather then waiting for the lucky draw. Mana fixing cards will lose value, but more importantly, gold cards will be even easier to play. 5 color control will probably be a force to fear but will still have to deal with some mana problems, which is only normal considering you aren't supposed to have access to every color.
BALANCE
The suggested rule is:
Each card in hand can be traded for basic land card of it's color at sorcery speed.
This makes colorless cards a bit better (colorless mana land), monocolored cards good (normal basic land) and multicolor cards even better ([U]choice [/U]of normal basic land).
You might see a trend here. Gold cards are easier to play, but also offer more mana options(++). Artifact card on the other hand have always been easy to play and give you bad mana options (--). Since we can't really change the part about how easy they are to play, let's change how they provide mana.
Better artifact option:
Make artifacts give better, existing colorless lands. Lands that give 1 but also have an added perk such as: Shimmering Grotto (1,T: Any color), Henge of Ramos or School of the Unseen (2, T: Any color, worst), Archaeological Dig, Crystal Vein or Darksteel Citadel. Finding which one is right and preserve a balanced playstyle for artifacts is a matter of testing. Crystal Vein is my favorite since it's even more colorless.
Make artifact give basic lands of the color of a card in hand and/or in play. This seems pretty good, gives you choices, almost always better then a monocolored card.
Worst gold card options:
Random land among the colors. Still almost strictly better then monocolored. And I don't like random.
Basic land comes into play tapped. You choose one of the color, but it ETB tapped. Can only work if gold cards are limited to channel a land and play it immediately, which is fine by me. Also means no searching of the library to put lands in hand, maybe even in play.
Channel //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[%22enters%20the%20battlefield%20tapped.%22">&type=+[%22Land%22]&rarity=|[U]&set=|[%22invasion%22]"]Taplands or other not so good multilands. This is still pretty good. Too good. And you'd need to have all these types of land in your playkit.
Overall, I think the system can work pretty well by only breaking a few cards. The channeling rules for non-monocolor cards needs tweaking (playtest) and some additionnal rules will probably be needed for some mechanics and edge cases.
I look forward to try it. Long live Channeling!
Not to mention the double bloodrush. Rampager, Slaugtherhorn and Wasteland Viper are all good targets, especially at instant speed. I'd put at least 1 in the deck for the mindgames. Once your opponent know you play this they have to be extra carefull when there's dangerous stuff in the GY.
Edit: I though you said Ambush Viper, this one is also quite nasty with 4 mana open if they attack.
I'm not sold about Phantasmagorian. You need 3 cards left in your hand and that seems unlikely.
If you have a Narco in your hand you still can't Cabal the opponent.
Have to wait T2 to go off with 4 mana+mill+combo+other on the play.
Removal is harder to deal with.
You can't do Cabal twice to see+discard.
I think having 1 less cantrip is worth it. It might be a good option in a deck with chancellors instead of cantrips, but the recent addition of Wordly Tutor makes cantrips that much better.
I live in Canada too and the best place I found to buy cards is eBay, especially for Standard legal cards in large quantities. You'll pay around 20% less when buying playsets and shipping can be really cheap with some sellers. Many sellers offer full common/uncommon playsets for around 25$ with about 20$ shipping and free shipping for rare playsets. Bidding can be a bit of an hassle but is usually cheaper and auctions end all the time for all recent cards.
Chalice of the void: Don't sweat it, it's not played that much. It's only important when it tips the balance for 2 cards that achieve the same goal (Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox are just too good)
Wild Cantor&Summoner's Pact: Don't worry about the possible lost from Pact, if the combo fizzles you lose anyway (you just used up all your cards for nothing). The only time it matters is if you're playing a noob that counters your first mana spell. A slight fizzle like Spirit Guide+Spirit Guide(from Pact)+Manamorphose hoping for the draw you need might be more fatal too. Anyway, point is that Pact is 99% of the time a free Mana(guide) or filter(Cantor), unless you change to wincon to something like Emrakul that requires an other upkeep. I would not play less then 4. Cantor would be a 1 of unless you really need more filter. Playing 1 gives you 5 filters and 2 is 6 filters so it's not really worth it unless 6-7 is the critical amount of fixing you need. Manamorphose fixes for for free though and 9 mana filters looks good.
Living Wish, Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond: These 3 come together. LED is good at 2 things: Using a tutor or activating Informer (where it acts as a 1 colorless). Since it's usable half the time I'd only cut 2 mana for 4 LED. Living wish and Infernal tutor acts similar: They get the miller. Wish can't get lands (2 mana for 1) and tutor can't get mana either (no hand anymore). Wish work with green but uses the SB. These tutors are dead cards if you don't draw LED or A LOT of mana(60% of the time T0 and 50% T2) and LED isn't good mana by itself so I don't think it's really worthwhile to play it considering that's 8-12 cards (with or without wish).
Here is the list I'm optimizing:
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
//Secondary Mana
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Grim Monolith
//Mana fixing
4 Manamorphose
1 Wild Cantor
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
//Win
4 Narcomoeba
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
//Disruption
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Bridge from Below
//Free card
2 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Doomsday
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Recross the Paths
1 Infernal Contract
1 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
It's almost copy-pasted from an article I found (don't remember). 3 Cabal Therapy+BfB helps hardcast it before comboing off and might be a surprise for the opponent before the last part of the combo. The SB combat hate by transforming into Doomsday->Shelldock->Emrakul or Charbelcher.
I'm pretty sure Chrome Mox doesn't let you discard.
Your list seems much more resilient but thats because you often won't have mana. Only Lotus Petal+Mox won't be enough primary mana. Elvish+Simian+Pact+Wild Cantor looks like the next best thing.
This deck concept looks too fragile in my opinion:
-You have about 10% chance of mull to oblivion because you need a Grindstone to win (tutors an cantrips help this)
-You'll be mana short for a turn 1-2 kill about 10% of the time too (you need black mana+ritual pretty often). This is why about 30 cards are mana, no less.
-Force of will, stifle, chalice of the void, discard and grave hate all means game over (countered by FoW and Pact of Negation and somewhat by Therapy)
So yes, you can win maybe over 50% of game t1 in the right matchup, but you have about 10 slots left for cantrips, resilience, redundancy and mana fix. You just need to have a few bad draws or have a countermagic matchup and you lose because you have no plan B.
I didn't include a sorcery bounce top because that will be drawn in the draw step. Notice that you can uptap and use bounce in response to Duskmantle trigger.
These card can help you ensure your opponent doesn't just get a free land draw while Index can reorder to help you draw lands or cheap spells with Duskmantle Seer.
Griptide and Totally Lost seem quite unplayable but Dimir Charm can be useful to counter against control decks and kill the aggro. Index and Vanishment have a nice synergy so including both could be possible.
The guy got Gideon and a foil Domri. From the same 15 cards pack.
He picked Dimir but lost his first best of 3 with Dimir splashed white for Guideon. He then realized his Boros and Grull pool was pretty nice and proceeded to steamroll everyone in the competition 2-0 with both of his planeswalkers. Domri draw+removal is good, but Gideon is complete nuts in limited.
I was pretty proud being the first deck able to go 1-2 against this monstrosity (with help of Metropolis Sprite+ Forced Adaptation, a very good combo when you've got islands). I had to go anyway, so it wasn't too much of a disappointment to lose against him.
I know I do. Cubes are a very good way to be able to play diversified Magic games with a quite limited number of cards, especially if you want to play with friends who don't own any. This also means that you only need to invest once in a cube and update it with 4-5 new cards once in a while, which is quite economical, unlike regular Magic, where if you want some variation you've got to get yourself a new 200$ deck or trade a lot.
That why to me a budget cube seems to be the best way to be able to play with 2-8 friends at once, have balanced, diversified and fun games for a low price.
There are a few lists without rares and/or uncommons that achieve this but many rare cards are also good and cheap. I hope more budget lists like this pop up so that budget Magic playgroups have more information on building their own cube.