If you're running a Selsenya tokens deck, this card can slip in well enough. Outside of that, it's essentially a green 5/5 defender for 3CMC, which is probably too underpowered for smaller, powered cubes.
For those with larger cubes this is a tough include to find a cut for. Only real reason to include it is it's fantastic, on point flavour.
I'm not the best of cubers, and small cubes you'd be looking more for wtwlf123's and Steve-Man's style of cubes as an example to learn from.
What I can do is list an example of the archetypes I see in cubes of all themes, sizes and power levels. I hope it helps in some small way in balancing the archetypes of your cube, as well as finding any that may overlap across multiple colours. (I can't remember archetype names well, so may list by mechanical name).
Weenie (Small, cheap creatures. Go wide. Anthem effects).
+1/+1 Counters (Various creatures that gain counters).
Tokens (Weenie using token generating cards).
Lifegain (Absurd life gain strategies capped with Felidar Sovereign type cards).
Blink (Exile to return spells with ETB creatures).
Skies (Flying creatures and anthems).
Combo (Any combo lock (soft/hard) achieved with 2 or more cards).
Control (Counterspells, bounce cards, card draw, Upheaval)
Merfolk (Various merfolk and merfolk synergies)
Artifacts (Varous artifact synergy cards).
Skies (Flyers and anthems).
Spells Matter (Storm, Prowess, '# of Instants/sorceries').
Reanimator (Self-discard, self-mill, reanimation spells and big creatures).
Discard/Rack Attack (Davriel, The Rack, and enough discard to mind bleach a dragon).
Aggro (Black value creatures, removal).
Red Deck Wins (The best of Red).
Artifacts (Saheeli'senginewelder)
Goblins (Dance, magic dance, ...)
Tokens (Tokens and anthems)
Spells matter (Storm, Prowess, Spellgorger Weird)
Elves (Lorwyn Block)
Ramp (Land search, fatties)
Skies
Artifacts
Vampires
Tokens
Life Tax (Lifegain with sap life effects)
Zombies
Mill
Reanimation
Artifacts
Spells Matter
Blink 'n' Burn
Aristocrats
Aggro
Madness/Hellbent
Graveyard Matters
Artistocrats
Elves
Saprolings
Aggro
+1/+1 Counters
Aggro
+1/+1 Counters
Skies
Artifacts
Tokens
Elves
Tokens
+1/+1 Counters
Lifegain
Merfolk
+1/+1 Counters
Card Advantage King (Ramp + card draw)
With the recent influx of new hybrid cards from War of the Spark and Modern Horizons, including the hybrid planeswalkers and Nature's Chant, my group has done much discussion on how redo the hybrid's within our (rather large) cube.
Originally we split guild sections to have X number of hybrid cards, X number of split cards, X number of mono-cards with off colour abilities and X number of 'gold' cards. This suited us as not all guilds had great hybrids or gold cards, and with the larger cube size, we could afford larger guild sections (I didn't make these rules). But over time different people want to pull the cube in different directions, and with this more regimented structure it's artifiically limiting what can be included.
As such, my group has decided to omit hybrid cards, split cards and cards with off colour abilities from guild considerations at all, placing them in colour slots as if they were mono cards. While this may give clear preference to certain colour combinations, with our larger cube size and easy to draft deck archetypes, we believe it would make the cube more fun overall, giving people more overall options in the draft. I would personally hypothesis that as more hybrid and off colour ability cards are created, many people will start to slot hybrid cards into their mono sections, with Nature's Chant commonly replacing Disenchant, cards like Dryad Militant in green for cubes with green aggro, Judge's Familiar in some blue sections, or even Turn To Mist in white sections that have blink decks.
The most notable Hybrid cards I can recommend from The Nonsense based on their use and the decks they're normally used in are:
Mercy Killing - Sac Outlet - Token decks, Warrior decks and Green overrun decks have all used this card to surprising effect, though caveats of situational use are there.
Slitherhead - Pump, Ability Trigger, Combo - Dredge, Graft and Ramp have all used this, as it can add +1 counters to an Incubation Druid if it dies turn 1 or 2 or provide sneaky boosts that are easily forgotten about by the opponent. Useless to powered, small cubes, but considerable for more unorthodox cubes.
Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner - Draw Engine, Combo - She plays nice for green as ramp boost or psuedo vigilance, but blue has also enjoyed her for combo.
Well I love the changelings and having them back is a huge win for those who like tribal decks, and an increase in them helps many formats where some more obscure tribes have just a few to little pieces to make them work.
However, my gripe is the slivers: sure, the 'art' design is back to normal, but Wizards has failed to correct the thing that made a lot of people truly unhappy with the last set of slivers, the design change from ''all'' to ''you control''. And while they argued it was easy to distinguish because they're two different types of slivers as shown by the latter's anthropomorphic design, these slivers have the textbox design of the latter with the art design of the former.
Lots of cool choices for slivers in this set, but I'll be using non of them because they're not the slivers I know and love, they're just the modern, unliked ones with art from the old type stuck over the top, meaning they'll play just like 'tribe #473', with all the same problems and loss of uniqueness that the modern slivers have.
End rant, more changelings please, and more low cost angels. Honestly, outside of the botched slivers, this set is pretty good for most people. Like that knight gets totally broken if you've a changeling in play, which I find totally hilarious.
My main problem was a lack of overlap between archetypes. Not sure if I'm too used to nonsense's easily overlapping archetypes, but this felt like there was a cluster of cards focused purely on supporting their one type of deck, rather than having wider application. Made it hard to find good mid-range and aggro cards not tied to a linear theme.
Curve wasn't too bad though, but there was little mana-fixing to encourage shards/wedges or goodstuff, which combined with the aforementioned, made signalling difficult and forced me into a deck type.
Don't normally post in this forum much, but my group proxied this in the Nonsense to test it as we've a dedicated W/U artifact shell for it to slide into. What we found was:
Without the artifact deck: Essentially an expensive wall that generates a blue Llanowar Elves. While people could use it's 5 cost ability they'd normally have better cards to play, and it obviously has the risk factor of hitting a land as much as an Kederekt Leviathan. Was ok, but non-artifact players quickly passed on it alot.
With the artifact deck: Hahahaha. This guy gets pretty funny if you've got plenty of tokens kicking about. Essentially works like the golem creating cards, with a mana sink to funnel excess mana into at the end of your opponent's turn, which while hitting a land can be awful, dropping a Darksteel Forge or Scourglass can be hilarious. However, it didn't do much proactively outside of that, and if it gets nuked off the board it's done little other than make a golem.
I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone not running an artifact deck of some type, and even then, I don't think it would replace Whirler Rogue in it. It's more like a mid-tier piece for artifact deck, or a flashy blocked outside of it. He does really like the Shaeeli cards though... just saying
I don't want it to be a 4 pack draft, so to ensure that there are enough cards when two people are in the same colour, I think I need to have a lot of hybrid.
If I lean on hybrid cards that have a lot of mana symbols, it makes it harder to just play all the good multicolour things. Divinity of Pride is going to be good in monoblack and monowhite, and could be played if someone wanted to play black and white, but it would be really bad in a deck that was trying to play any other colours. You aren't playing Divinity of Pride and Deus of Calamity in a Red-Black deck.
During Shadowmoor block, there was A LOT of hybrid. WOTC supposed it would encourage mono-colour decks. It did the opposite. With so much hybrid, people just took 'the best' cards, then smashed basics together from 3-4 colours, as they'd almost always have something they could play with the varied mana. And it wasn't uncommon to see draft decks with cards like those two smashed together.
Hybrid has long been one of my favourite game elements since it's inclusion, but it's a very double edged sword. Not only is there is colour pie philosophy to consider when designing cards, but also it's game play impact.
A more accurate statement based on yours would be, 'I need hybrid cards with a lot of mana symbols'. Those cards are great at the top end of the curve for the mono-colour experiment, but too many smaller hybrid cards on the curve before and people will go multi-colour.
Running some numbers in my head.
360 cards. Let's say I have 10 lands.
That leaves 70 cards per colour.
Or... if I have 5 hybrids for each colour pair... it is more like 80 cards per colour.
Obviously, this needs testing. I just feel like the better starting point is more hybrid cards and to tone it down if that really causes people to play multicolour.
I would need to make sure that there aren't a lot of cards that are easily splashable. You are not likely to play Goblin Chainwhirler and Benalish Marshal in the same deck, even if you have a Nobilis of War. For this reason I think the cube could support a lot of hybrid cards without making multicolour viable.
It's entirely fair to start high and chip away, that's a totally fair argument and I'm all for practical testing, as we can't truly know who is right until it's constructed and tested. However, I can assure you I would run both Marshal and Chainwhirler in the same deck if I got a Nobilis of War, and would be aiming for that deck with the goal of using easier to play (hybrid would allow this) cards to replace them.
I mention this because Boros Aggro is pretty popular in cubes that support it, even the Nonsense in my sig supports iterations of it.
I've decided to compile a temporary list on CubeTutor of all the suggested cards from all parties, so I can more easily see the curves and structure in a literal sense so I can offer more card suggestions and observations when I'm around. This is a very curious project to me, as I enjoy the unique, and think such projects can be great community learning experiences for everyone who joins in.
I too would also be willing to nominate time to testing your cube alike JinxedIdol, as I wholeheartedly support the idea of community collaboration across Magic's various formats. Thank you for providing this oppourtunity to engage with a unique project Dunharrow.
I am just trying to figure out how I make it draftable by 8 people if I only make 5 archetypes. It feels like 2 people would draft unopposed alone in their colours, which is not ideal.
So I am trying to figure out how to make additional archetypes that can be drafted. Do I go with thinks like Wilt-Leaf Liege? I am really unsure, which is why I am here for help. I am afraid of making 2-colour archetypes and then ruining the point of the whole thing.
That's why I said it was a thought experiment. If it works, it should be repeatable. You want multiple deckarchetypes in each colour that overlap 'within' the colour, but not with other colours. For example, White Weenie, White Tokens, Soldiers, +1/+1 counters and Flying Matters all easily overlap within white, but can also be their own decks. Likewise green can do Elves, Beasts, Ramp, Aggro, Pod? (I think it's called Pod). Red has goblins and burn off the top of my head.
Plus, the idea was to test if it's doable to build the archetypes in monocolour so it's easier to figure out which archetypes could easily be supported in mono-cube without having too much accidental overlap with other colours.
The user before did list many good suggestions for Chroma/Devotion like cards. These are a good way of encouraging rather than forcing players to draft monocolour. Similarly, there is likely to be cases where people really need to draft a two colour deck, so when they do it should still be manageable.
The two main reasons I see people go for multicolour decks in cube, psychologically speaking, is a desire to play ''all the best'' cards, mixed with what is often a high level of access to manafixing. Naturally this varies from cube to cube, but the player profiles that WOTC uses do come into draft, and understanding them does help: Make your big curve toppers look splashy for Johnny, include a handful of fun/unique/qwerky cards for Timmy, and then drop some powerful pieces along the curves for Spike.
I'd say make a draft cube with what you know you want in it on something like CubeTutor, test it, see where things get nudged into multicolour, and figure out if there is a regular number of mono-colour decks per average in say, 5 drafts, and if not, which cards really pull people across colours. Plus 50 fun points if you do it in person for more group-involved fun.
The best advice I can give you as an individual is too look at the draft enviroments of Theros block and Shadowmoor block.
Theros has Devotion, which encourages monocolour play. Shadowmoor has a lot of hybrid which... doesn't encourage monocolour play.
Removing much manafixing will, naturally, force players to play with a more colour identity mindset. Similarly, putting in cards with 4-6 hybrid mana as their costs will encourage people to diversify in an attempt to more easily play those cards.
You need a better mix of hard mana cards and hybrid cards. The big splashes should be the top end, feature pieces. For instance, Benalish Marshal encourages more monocolour play than Hearthfire Hobgoblin does, simply for the fact one can only be cast with white, while the other encourages me to seek red cards too.
To really reward players, you'd be looking for 'Chroma' cards, both figuratively and literally. That and Devotion both reward monocolour play. Incidently mana fixing such as Seething Song can also encourage monocolour play in the correct enviroment.
Similarly, it's also worthwhile to minimise the overlap of deck archetypes between colours, which is a little odd as it's the exact opposite of what you normally want to do. So pick five themes/archetypes you want, and then try to build each in monoclour. That's a good thought experiment for testing and figuring out how to make this cube work.
Speaking of which, test regularly. Smaller, tested changes are much better than sweeping, speculative changes, as when something doesn't work it's a lot easier to figure out why.
I wish you all the best of luck, and am sure someone more experienced with Cube may be able to be more useful than me
Urza is basically the Batman of the MTG franchise, with the same caveats, story templating, moral ambiquity and everything else that people adore about DC's 'Dark Knight'.
Whereas - as a former veteran moderator myself - I can see you are just trying to do your job, exactly what kind of illegal activity is when a store, by accident, sells a novel before it shall be available?
How different it is from people opening and leaking cards they opened a week and a half before they are allowed to?
It's not like the guy stole it from the printing facility.
To shed some light on the issue from a UK standpoint: Certain products can place stores into an NDA style contract on distribution for selected works that would give out spoiler-like details for a product or brand. This is normally used for media franchises releasing movies, books, comics, etc that conclude their main storylines, and may extend to ancillary products such as toys, posters, clothing. etc etc.
These contracts place the stores themselves (or parent/holding companies) into a position of fault if they should be found as the source of any leaks they could not reasonably prevent. Selling a piece of time-sensitive merchandise in defiance of contract terms would be a breach of contract as it could be reasonably prevented, and if identified the company at fault could be open to a huge law suit - that they'd likely lose - with costs equal to whatever damage a judge decides has been done to the retail expectations of WOTC.
The way this would effect MTGS is that they would be considered as a conspirator at worse and in violation of copyright law at best if they allow discussion to take place on elements based on that particular story leak. Because of the nature of the incident, MTGS main holders would be liable for a lawsuit against them - which they'd likely lose - if they are unable to show they've taken every reasonable measure to prevent further spreading of the information. And because there is no way to verify that a persons comments are not based on the leaks, anything making specific comments has to be treated as if it is, and thus removed. Once the book is on public sale, MTGS would be under no obligation to limit the spread of information contained within.
Lastly, and correct me if this has been confirmed either way, but has anyone found out wether this is a genuine purchase or a store employee who's manufactured a receipt from the till? I don't mean to be rude or accusatory, but my Danganronpa sense of logic is buzzing, so being objective here I feel compelled to ask and find out either way.
I hope I've helped with peoples understandings of the legal mechanics, and if not... well, You're Welcome xD!!
Ha, hahaha. Nicol Bolas now has his own Black Order. What a guy.
That's also a pretty good use of resources, especially on a psychological level. And could lead to some pretty sweet Kaiju fights.
Outside of that, it's also highly amusing to me because I love Ravnica, and having it torn to pieces like this is such a great chance to rework it without some of it's problems: that, and literal gods stomping the paruns present delights me <3
I love everything about the flavour of these cards. I love the design of these cards. I don't appreciate the counterfiet nature of these cards.
But if they are real in the end, or even close to designs we may see, I'd still be pleased, as this is WOTC's Endgame, with similar results, and really needs to not drop the ball at the final hour.
For those with larger cubes this is a tough include to find a cut for. Only real reason to include it is it's fantastic, on point flavour.
What I can do is list an example of the archetypes I see in cubes of all themes, sizes and power levels. I hope it helps in some small way in balancing the archetypes of your cube, as well as finding any that may overlap across multiple colours. (I can't remember archetype names well, so may list by mechanical name).
Weenie (Small, cheap creatures. Go wide. Anthem effects).
+1/+1 Counters (Various creatures that gain counters).
Tokens (Weenie using token generating cards).
Lifegain (Absurd life gain strategies capped with Felidar Sovereign type cards).
Blink (Exile to return spells with ETB creatures).
Skies (Flying creatures and anthems).
Combo (Any combo lock (soft/hard) achieved with 2 or more cards).
Control (Counterspells, bounce cards, card draw, Upheaval)
Merfolk (Various merfolk and merfolk synergies)
Artifacts (Varous artifact synergy cards).
Skies (Flyers and anthems).
Spells Matter (Storm, Prowess, '# of Instants/sorceries').
Reanimator (Self-discard, self-mill, reanimation spells and big creatures).
Discard/Rack Attack (Davriel, The Rack, and enough discard to mind bleach a dragon).
Aggro (Black value creatures, removal).
Red Deck Wins (The best of Red).
Artifacts (Saheeli's engine welder)
Goblins (Dance, magic dance, ...)
Tokens (Tokens and anthems)
Spells matter (Storm, Prowess, Spellgorger Weird)
Elves (Lorwyn Block)
Ramp (Land search, fatties)
Skies
Artifacts
Vampires
Tokens
Life Tax (Lifegain with sap life effects)
Zombies
Mill
Reanimation
Artifacts
Spells Matter
Blink 'n' Burn
Aristocrats
Aggro
Madness/Hellbent
Graveyard Matters
Artistocrats
Elves
Saprolings
Aggro
+1/+1 Counters
Aggro
+1/+1 Counters
Skies
Artifacts
Tokens
Elves
Tokens
+1/+1 Counters
Lifegain
Merfolk
+1/+1 Counters
Card Advantage King (Ramp + card draw)
Originally we split guild sections to have X number of hybrid cards, X number of split cards, X number of mono-cards with off colour abilities and X number of 'gold' cards. This suited us as not all guilds had great hybrids or gold cards, and with the larger cube size, we could afford larger guild sections (I didn't make these rules). But over time different people want to pull the cube in different directions, and with this more regimented structure it's artifiically limiting what can be included.
As such, my group has decided to omit hybrid cards, split cards and cards with off colour abilities from guild considerations at all, placing them in colour slots as if they were mono cards. While this may give clear preference to certain colour combinations, with our larger cube size and easy to draft deck archetypes, we believe it would make the cube more fun overall, giving people more overall options in the draft. I would personally hypothesis that as more hybrid and off colour ability cards are created, many people will start to slot hybrid cards into their mono sections, with Nature's Chant commonly replacing Disenchant, cards like Dryad Militant in green for cubes with green aggro, Judge's Familiar in some blue sections, or even Turn To Mist in white sections that have blink decks.
The most notable Hybrid cards I can recommend from The Nonsense based on their use and the decks they're normally used in are:
Dovin, Hand of Control: General Use - Tempo, Artifact
Inkfathom Infiltrator/Deathcult Rogue - General Evasion - Black Aggro, Tempo Blue
Ashiok, Dream Render - Disruption - Control Decks
Footlight Fiend/Rakdos Cackler - Aggro 1 drop - Aggro decks using Red or Black
Mercy Killing - Sac Outlet - Token decks, Warrior decks and Green overrun decks have all used this card to surprising effect, though caveats of situational use are there.
Slitherhead - Pump, Ability Trigger, Combo - Dredge, Graft and Ramp have all used this, as it can add +1 counters to an Incubation Druid if it dies turn 1 or 2 or provide sneaky boosts that are easily forgotten about by the opponent. Useless to powered, small cubes, but considerable for more unorthodox cubes.
Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner - Draw Engine, Combo - She plays nice for green as ramp boost or psuedo vigilance, but blue has also enjoyed her for combo.
However, my gripe is the slivers: sure, the 'art' design is back to normal, but Wizards has failed to correct the thing that made a lot of people truly unhappy with the last set of slivers, the design change from ''all'' to ''you control''. And while they argued it was easy to distinguish because they're two different types of slivers as shown by the latter's anthropomorphic design, these slivers have the textbox design of the latter with the art design of the former.
Lots of cool choices for slivers in this set, but I'll be using non of them because they're not the slivers I know and love, they're just the modern, unliked ones with art from the old type stuck over the top, meaning they'll play just like 'tribe #473', with all the same problems and loss of uniqueness that the modern slivers have.
End rant, more changelings please, and more low cost angels. Honestly, outside of the botched slivers, this set is pretty good for most people. Like that knight gets totally broken if you've a changeling in play, which I find totally hilarious.
My main problem was a lack of overlap between archetypes. Not sure if I'm too used to nonsense's easily overlapping archetypes, but this felt like there was a cluster of cards focused purely on supporting their one type of deck, rather than having wider application. Made it hard to find good mid-range and aggro cards not tied to a linear theme.
Curve wasn't too bad though, but there was little mana-fixing to encourage shards/wedges or goodstuff, which combined with the aforementioned, made signalling difficult and forced me into a deck type.
Without the artifact deck: Essentially an expensive wall that generates a blue Llanowar Elves. While people could use it's 5 cost ability they'd normally have better cards to play, and it obviously has the risk factor of hitting a land as much as an Kederekt Leviathan. Was ok, but non-artifact players quickly passed on it alot.
With the artifact deck: Hahahaha. This guy gets pretty funny if you've got plenty of tokens kicking about. Essentially works like the golem creating cards, with a mana sink to funnel excess mana into at the end of your opponent's turn, which while hitting a land can be awful, dropping a Darksteel Forge or Scourglass can be hilarious. However, it didn't do much proactively outside of that, and if it gets nuked off the board it's done little other than make a golem.
I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone not running an artifact deck of some type, and even then, I don't think it would replace Whirler Rogue in it. It's more like a mid-tier piece for artifact deck, or a flashy blocked outside of it. He does really like the Shaeeli cards though... just saying
During Shadowmoor block, there was A LOT of hybrid. WOTC supposed it would encourage mono-colour decks. It did the opposite. With so much hybrid, people just took 'the best' cards, then smashed basics together from 3-4 colours, as they'd almost always have something they could play with the varied mana. And it wasn't uncommon to see draft decks with cards like those two smashed together.
Hybrid has long been one of my favourite game elements since it's inclusion, but it's a very double edged sword. Not only is there is colour pie philosophy to consider when designing cards, but also it's game play impact.
A more accurate statement based on yours would be, 'I need hybrid cards with a lot of mana symbols'. Those cards are great at the top end of the curve for the mono-colour experiment, but too many smaller hybrid cards on the curve before and people will go multi-colour.
It's entirely fair to start high and chip away, that's a totally fair argument and I'm all for practical testing, as we can't truly know who is right until it's constructed and tested. However, I can assure you I would run both Marshal and Chainwhirler in the same deck if I got a Nobilis of War, and would be aiming for that deck with the goal of using easier to play (hybrid would allow this) cards to replace them.
I mention this because Boros Aggro is pretty popular in cubes that support it, even the Nonsense in my sig supports iterations of it.
I've decided to compile a temporary list on CubeTutor of all the suggested cards from all parties, so I can more easily see the curves and structure in a literal sense so I can offer more card suggestions and observations when I'm around. This is a very curious project to me, as I enjoy the unique, and think such projects can be great community learning experiences for everyone who joins in.
I too would also be willing to nominate time to testing your cube alike JinxedIdol, as I wholeheartedly support the idea of community collaboration across Magic's various formats. Thank you for providing this oppourtunity to engage with a unique project Dunharrow.
That's why I said it was a thought experiment. If it works, it should be repeatable. You want multiple deckarchetypes in each colour that overlap 'within' the colour, but not with other colours. For example, White Weenie, White Tokens, Soldiers, +1/+1 counters and Flying Matters all easily overlap within white, but can also be their own decks. Likewise green can do Elves, Beasts, Ramp, Aggro, Pod? (I think it's called Pod). Red has goblins and burn off the top of my head.
Plus, the idea was to test if it's doable to build the archetypes in monocolour so it's easier to figure out which archetypes could easily be supported in mono-cube without having too much accidental overlap with other colours.
The user before did list many good suggestions for Chroma/Devotion like cards. These are a good way of encouraging rather than forcing players to draft monocolour. Similarly, there is likely to be cases where people really need to draft a two colour deck, so when they do it should still be manageable.
The two main reasons I see people go for multicolour decks in cube, psychologically speaking, is a desire to play ''all the best'' cards, mixed with what is often a high level of access to manafixing. Naturally this varies from cube to cube, but the player profiles that WOTC uses do come into draft, and understanding them does help: Make your big curve toppers look splashy for Johnny, include a handful of fun/unique/qwerky cards for Timmy, and then drop some powerful pieces along the curves for Spike.
I'd say make a draft cube with what you know you want in it on something like CubeTutor, test it, see where things get nudged into multicolour, and figure out if there is a regular number of mono-colour decks per average in say, 5 drafts, and if not, which cards really pull people across colours. Plus 50 fun points if you do it in person for more group-involved fun.
Theros has Devotion, which encourages monocolour play. Shadowmoor has a lot of hybrid which... doesn't encourage monocolour play.
Removing much manafixing will, naturally, force players to play with a more colour identity mindset. Similarly, putting in cards with 4-6 hybrid mana as their costs will encourage people to diversify in an attempt to more easily play those cards.
You need a better mix of hard mana cards and hybrid cards. The big splashes should be the top end, feature pieces. For instance, Benalish Marshal encourages more monocolour play than Hearthfire Hobgoblin does, simply for the fact one can only be cast with white, while the other encourages me to seek red cards too.
To really reward players, you'd be looking for 'Chroma' cards, both figuratively and literally. That and Devotion both reward monocolour play. Incidently mana fixing such as Seething Song can also encourage monocolour play in the correct enviroment.
Similarly, it's also worthwhile to minimise the overlap of deck archetypes between colours, which is a little odd as it's the exact opposite of what you normally want to do. So pick five themes/archetypes you want, and then try to build each in monoclour. That's a good thought experiment for testing and figuring out how to make this cube work.
Speaking of which, test regularly. Smaller, tested changes are much better than sweeping, speculative changes, as when something doesn't work it's a lot easier to figure out why.
I wish you all the best of luck, and am sure someone more experienced with Cube may be able to be more useful than me
Urza is basically the Batman of the MTG franchise, with the same caveats, story templating, moral ambiquity and everything else that people adore about DC's 'Dark Knight'.
Fin.
To shed some light on the issue from a UK standpoint: Certain products can place stores into an NDA style contract on distribution for selected works that would give out spoiler-like details for a product or brand. This is normally used for media franchises releasing movies, books, comics, etc that conclude their main storylines, and may extend to ancillary products such as toys, posters, clothing. etc etc.
These contracts place the stores themselves (or parent/holding companies) into a position of fault if they should be found as the source of any leaks they could not reasonably prevent. Selling a piece of time-sensitive merchandise in defiance of contract terms would be a breach of contract as it could be reasonably prevented, and if identified the company at fault could be open to a huge law suit - that they'd likely lose - with costs equal to whatever damage a judge decides has been done to the retail expectations of WOTC.
The way this would effect MTGS is that they would be considered as a conspirator at worse and in violation of copyright law at best if they allow discussion to take place on elements based on that particular story leak. Because of the nature of the incident, MTGS main holders would be liable for a lawsuit against them - which they'd likely lose - if they are unable to show they've taken every reasonable measure to prevent further spreading of the information. And because there is no way to verify that a persons comments are not based on the leaks, anything making specific comments has to be treated as if it is, and thus removed. Once the book is on public sale, MTGS would be under no obligation to limit the spread of information contained within.
Lastly, and correct me if this has been confirmed either way, but has anyone found out wether this is a genuine purchase or a store employee who's manufactured a receipt from the till? I don't mean to be rude or accusatory, but my Danganronpa sense of logic is buzzing, so being objective here I feel compelled to ask and find out either way.
I hope I've helped with peoples understandings of the legal mechanics, and if not... well, You're Welcome xD!!
Ha, hahaha. Nicol Bolas now has his own Black Order. What a guy.
That's also a pretty good use of resources, especially on a psychological level. And could lead to some pretty sweet Kaiju fights.
Outside of that, it's also highly amusing to me because I love Ravnica, and having it torn to pieces like this is such a great chance to rework it without some of it's problems: that, and literal gods stomping the paruns present delights me <3
But if they are real in the end, or even close to designs we may see, I'd still be pleased, as this is WOTC's Endgame, with similar results, and really needs to not drop the ball at the final hour.