The Kirin from Kamigawa open up some weird options. Frankly, I think Bounteous Kirin is too expensive to be useful at 7 mana. The others, though, kind of give way to strategies if you're able to trigger them a few times in a row.
Celestial Kirin boggles my mind. It seems likely to be its own speed bump, but it's a very unique control effect outside of that. There's also the weird notion of Arcane Adaptation or Conspiracy turning a 0-mana creature into an Armageddon if you have board control. On top of its weirdness, a 3/3 flyer for 4 mana is a fair deal.
Cloudhoof Kirin is pretty straightforward. You get to mill stuff and you get an Air Elemental which could kill your opponent before you can mill them. But in most cases it doesn't hurt to have a second kind of clock. I like the idea of giving Spirits reach through mill, but it feels weird if it's the only enabler.
Infernal Kirin disrupts hands. If you're on the play, you could march all over your opponent's curve. That's kind of living the dream, but it seems brutal and pretty rewarding for committintg to a tribe. I like it. What's more, He Who Hungers has a lot going on and Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse is a slugger who joins in on this tribal hand disruption.
Skyfire Kirin is weird. Unless the rules have changed since I last played, Threaten effects don't do much if they don't also give the creature haste (like Threaten does)... so you need to pair this with a sacrifice outlet for it to really be meaningful. I dunno, I don't like this one.
I'm starting to sort out my thoughts on a tribal cube, and Spirits is one of the tribes I'm considering. Without talking too much about said cube, the gist is that I'm hoping to mainly have tribes that have powerful creatures in every color, rather than focusing on tribes in individual colors or pairs. To explore that space, I'm going to try to evaluate some of the "five-color tribes"--starting with Spirits.
Here are some of my findings based on a lot of digging around on magiccards.info:
There are tons of ways to create spirit tokens. These are almost always 1/1 white Spirit tokens with Flying, but Kamigawa had quite a few 1/1 colorless Spirits without flying. A lot of cards that are solidly represented, even in cubes which strive to play the most powerful cards in all of Magic, make spirit tokens.
Quite a few Spirit type cards are present in a lot of cubes, which gives the suggestion that there are a number of powerful Spirits that could be contested by players who aren't invested in Spirit tribal. Geist of Saint Traft and the Spirit dragons come to mind off the top of my head, along with Karmic Guide.
Kodama's Reach is the only strongly represented Arcane spell, which a lot of tribal cards from Kamigawa care about. If we dig deeper, using cubetutor.com, we can find there's a number of "borderline" cards ranging from the decent Otherworldly Journey to the sketchy Hideous Laughter that get played in some cubes.
"Lords" for spirits include the exceptional Drogskol Captain, which gives the team Hexproof, and depending on how strict you are with your definition there's also the likes of Kodama of the South Tree which is a respectable 4/4 for 4 on its own, Long-Forgotten Gohei, and Rattlechains, which definitely stretches the title.
From the looks of it, Spirits are not a tribe that has the same level of power as other tribes with long-term support like Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, or Zombies, but it seems like they might have enough relevant tribal effects alongside individually powerful cards to make them a consideration as a "five-color tribe."
Edit: There are 108 White Spirits, 80 Blue Spirits, 93 Black Spirits, 43 Red Spirits, abd 67 Green Spirits.
Thanks for the links, Salmo. I had glanced through those before making my post! It's unlikely I will holler at UsmanTheRad on Twitter, as I have never used that service before and am not too interested in it.
That said, for better or worse, I've kind of lost interest in this project for the time being as I'm enjoying thinking about a tribal cube a lot more. Part of it is just how much easier it is to manage and share (I can just use Cube Tutor, I don't need to work through something like MSE), but also I'm kind of feeling like I'm taking a unique approach to it at the moment. I'll probably be making a thread about it soon, I'm sure my initial list will need a lot of tuning and tweaking.
I appreciate your criticism, Prid3. And, Kain123, I didn't mean to suggest that Scroll Rack generates card advantage on its own--I was saying that it can be used to guarantee Scrying Sheets gives +1 card. Other cards (like Sensei's Divining Top) can do this, but it's a reasonably fair way of consistently setting that up.
So, my response to the fair points against this idea is that--first and foremost--this is a "Timmy" plan.
- I recognize that playing non-Plains in my deck is a "nombo" with Emeria, the Sky Ruin. I'm taking for granted that games this deck wins will be long enough that, even with several non-Plains in play, I'll still probably have seven Plains in play. Maybe that is way too far down the line to be sensible, but cards like Solemn Simulacrum can help me accelerate the number of Plains I put onto the battlefield.
- I will say I'm not married to only using these "tribal" lands to cast the dragons, having mana rocks makes functional sense. I'm also not married to Scrying Sheets, it's just a pet card and I like to jam it into decks and cubes when I can.
- Going the Devotion route is an interesting suggestion, amicdeep. Still, I'm foolishly enamored with the idea of casting off-color dragons. Maybe it could make sense to combine both ideas.
- If not White, would "Monogreen" or "Monoblue" Dragons seem like a more sensible deck concept? Still intending to cast off-color dragons.
I was kicking around the idea of building a casual tribal deck. After reading an article on Wizards about tribal decks, I ended up giving a Dragon deck some thought and ended up here. I want to build a "Monowhite Control" deck that uses the likes of Cavern of Souls and Unclaimed Territory to cast off-color Dragons.
Why exactly? I'm just charmed with the idea, really. I used to play Monowhite Control in the Coldsnap, Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Shadowmoor Standard and really liked it, so I picked white as my starting point. So, I'm trying to figure out a few aspects of the deck.
1. How do I maintain card advantage?
- I am super charmed by Scrying Sheets, and Scroll Rack is an easy way to rig it. That's a slow and steady stream of +1's, provided I have the mana left over before my turn to get it. Is there a MWC play style that plays around leaving mana open instead of doing Sorcery haymakers like Wrath of God all the time?
- If I'm doing graveyard shenanigans with Bladewing the Risen or Emeria, the Sky Ruin, I need to figure out a way to actually loot or at least discard cards to help make that reliable. (I like the card Trading Post, but its discard to gain life is sort of underwhelming.)
- Not sure where else to look in MWC for card advantage.
2. What Dragons am I casting?
- This will come down to personal preference, I know. But here are some thoughts!
- Bogardan Hellkite has flash, if I'm trying to do things on other people's turns.
- Deathbringer Regent is a board wipe... but I am in the color of board wipes.
- Dragonlord Silumgar is just a cool one that I like.
- Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund helps me Evangelize all the dragons to my side. Is this flavorful?
- Scourge of Valkas helps gun people down a la Bogardan Hellkite.
- As mentioned earlier, Bladewing the Risen is an option.
3. What Flavor of MWC will I play?
- I don't play a whole lot of casual Magic or multiplayer, so I'm not sure what version of MWC suits this sphere of Magic.
- I'd assume a Ghostly Prison-based defense is the best way to handle pressure from aggressive decks in multiplayer. Ensnaring Bridge?
- I really like nonbasic lands, whether it's something like Mistveil Plains or Emeria, the Sky Ruin, or even Mouth of Ronom.
It's been a while since I've played Magic or even owned Magic cards. And, I left the US so it's unlikely I physically play magic with anyone in the near future. But, for some reason I got possessed with the idea to start exploring this design space. I figured I might as well fool around with it and perhaps do a digital mock-up at some point along the way.
I had a hard time digging up the original sources of the idea, but I'll take care to update this post and refer back to them if you kind folks can help me find them.
Anyways, the "Split Cube" is a cube that's comprised of custom "split" cards like Fire // Ice. The twist is that they're custom-made pairs of existing magic cards, one common example (I think from the first person to develop around this idea) is Squee, Goblin Nabob // Terramorphic Expanse. Each person's approach to this will of course depend on their preferences, some people want cards to be "either-or" where an Aggro player and a Combo player are fighting over the same cards in the draft, while others focus on "synergy" designs like Squee and Terramorphic Expanse, and there are even folks who want to pair Elite Vanguard and Goblin Guide to make a guaranteed solid one-drop for aggro.
As someone who leans towards the Johnny-Timmy side of things, I'm personally hoping to create a more convoluted and synergistic, but still interactive form of Magic. I want to give Spike busted tools for making combo-y, fast aggressive decks with a Vengevine but have Tempo and Control options that can actually withstand that kind of pressure. Custom-making split cards from existing singletons allows for fundamentally warping the way cards behave because we can stitch together mechanics like Cycling and Madness, among others.
The purpose of this thread is currently pretty general, I'm trying to gauge (and hopefully stoke) interest in this idea and open up some discussion. Here are some personal opinions and ideas I have about the "Split Cube," let's have some back-and-forth!
I believe split cards should have no more than one side be a permanent. Once two or three cards in play have multiple permanent "modes", it starts to become a pretty big headache tracking what's what. I'd rather avoid that altogether than try to come up with a solution like using paperclips or whatever else.
I also believe that, in general, cards should have "one color identity." What I mean by that is if one half of a card is green, the other half should be green. This makes numerically organizing and tracking the cube a lot simpler, and it puts some level of constraint on the hugely open-ended design space. Multicolor cards, I think, should have the same color identity on both sides. (Therefore, Momentary Blink is White/Blue, and Resounding Scream is Blue/Black/Red.)
This puts artifacts in an awkward place. There is a very limited selection of colorless Instants and Sorcery. I'm not sure how to reconcile this for artifacts that don't have a colored color identity. (Mox Ruby is effectively red, so it can have a red Instant/Sorcery on the other half.)
Some cards seem like they could create interesting opportunities for synergy if they did break either my only one permanent per card rule or my color identity rule. Squee being paired with Terramorphic being one example...
These cards each have one color in their color identity, and don't directly benefit from having different color identities on their other halves, but they have a pretty simple and fun recursion mechanic that encourages you to start picking different cards. The cards themselves are pretty generally weak, and you'd probably never want to cast them, but the recursion trigger should be pretty easy to hit if you're accommodating it. IF these cards were to be included as a cycle, what should their other halves be?
Celestial Kirin boggles my mind. It seems likely to be its own speed bump, but it's a very unique control effect outside of that. There's also the weird notion of Arcane Adaptation or Conspiracy turning a 0-mana creature into an Armageddon if you have board control. On top of its weirdness, a 3/3 flyer for 4 mana is a fair deal.
(Mill Spirits: Cloudhoof Kirin, Dreamborn Muse, Enigma Eidolon, Mindshrieker, Shriekgeist. Not exactly an all-star lineup.)
Cloudhoof Kirin is pretty straightforward. You get to mill stuff and you get an Air Elemental which could kill your opponent before you can mill them. But in most cases it doesn't hurt to have a second kind of clock. I like the idea of giving Spirits reach through mill, but it feels weird if it's the only enabler.
Infernal Kirin disrupts hands. If you're on the play, you could march all over your opponent's curve. That's kind of living the dream, but it seems brutal and pretty rewarding for committintg to a tribe. I like it. What's more, He Who Hungers has a lot going on and Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse is a slugger who joins in on this tribal hand disruption.
Skyfire Kirin is weird. Unless the rules have changed since I last played, Threaten effects don't do much if they don't also give the creature haste (like Threaten does)... so you need to pair this with a sacrifice outlet for it to really be meaningful. I dunno, I don't like this one.
I'm starting to sort out my thoughts on a tribal cube, and Spirits is one of the tribes I'm considering. Without talking too much about said cube, the gist is that I'm hoping to mainly have tribes that have powerful creatures in every color, rather than focusing on tribes in individual colors or pairs. To explore that space, I'm going to try to evaluate some of the "five-color tribes"--starting with Spirits.
Here are some of my findings based on a lot of digging around on magiccards.info:
"Lords" for spirits include the exceptional Drogskol Captain, which gives the team Hexproof, and depending on how strict you are with your definition there's also the likes of Kodama of the South Tree which is a respectable 4/4 for 4 on its own, Long-Forgotten Gohei, and Rattlechains, which definitely stretches the title.
As far as cards that trigger off of spirits, there's Drogskol Cavalry, who seems too high-costed to have much impact, Mausoleum Wanderer, who probably isn't explosive enough in limited, and Nebelgast Herald. There's also the cycle of "-Onna" cards from Kamigawa, Haru-Onna, Kemuri-Onna, Kiri-Onna, Nikko-Onna, and Yuki-Onna.
From the looks of it, Spirits are not a tribe that has the same level of power as other tribes with long-term support like Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, or Zombies, but it seems like they might have enough relevant tribal effects alongside individually powerful cards to make them a consideration as a "five-color tribe."
Edit: There are 108 White Spirits, 80 Blue Spirits, 93 Black Spirits, 43 Red Spirits, abd 67 Green Spirits.
What do you think?
That said, for better or worse, I've kind of lost interest in this project for the time being as I'm enjoying thinking about a tribal cube a lot more. Part of it is just how much easier it is to manage and share (I can just use Cube Tutor, I don't need to work through something like MSE), but also I'm kind of feeling like I'm taking a unique approach to it at the moment. I'll probably be making a thread about it soon, I'm sure my initial list will need a lot of tuning and tweaking.
So, my response to the fair points against this idea is that--first and foremost--this is a "Timmy" plan.
- I recognize that playing non-Plains in my deck is a "nombo" with Emeria, the Sky Ruin. I'm taking for granted that games this deck wins will be long enough that, even with several non-Plains in play, I'll still probably have seven Plains in play. Maybe that is way too far down the line to be sensible, but cards like Solemn Simulacrum can help me accelerate the number of Plains I put onto the battlefield.
- I will say I'm not married to only using these "tribal" lands to cast the dragons, having mana rocks makes functional sense. I'm also not married to Scrying Sheets, it's just a pet card and I like to jam it into decks and cubes when I can.
- Going the Devotion route is an interesting suggestion, amicdeep. Still, I'm foolishly enamored with the idea of casting off-color dragons. Maybe it could make sense to combine both ideas.
- If not White, would "Monogreen" or "Monoblue" Dragons seem like a more sensible deck concept? Still intending to cast off-color dragons.
Thanks for the feedback.
I was kicking around the idea of building a casual tribal deck. After reading an article on Wizards about tribal decks, I ended up giving a Dragon deck some thought and ended up here. I want to build a "Monowhite Control" deck that uses the likes of Cavern of Souls and Unclaimed Territory to cast off-color Dragons.
Why exactly? I'm just charmed with the idea, really. I used to play Monowhite Control in the Coldsnap, Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Shadowmoor Standard and really liked it, so I picked white as my starting point. So, I'm trying to figure out a few aspects of the deck.
1. How do I maintain card advantage?
- I am super charmed by Scrying Sheets, and Scroll Rack is an easy way to rig it. That's a slow and steady stream of +1's, provided I have the mana left over before my turn to get it. Is there a MWC play style that plays around leaving mana open instead of doing Sorcery haymakers like Wrath of God all the time?
- If I'm doing graveyard shenanigans with Bladewing the Risen or Emeria, the Sky Ruin, I need to figure out a way to actually loot or at least discard cards to help make that reliable. (I like the card Trading Post, but its discard to gain life is sort of underwhelming.)
- Not sure where else to look in MWC for card advantage.
2. What Dragons am I casting?
- This will come down to personal preference, I know. But here are some thoughts!
- Bogardan Hellkite has flash, if I'm trying to do things on other people's turns.
- Deathbringer Regent is a board wipe... but I am in the color of board wipes.
- Dragonlord Silumgar is just a cool one that I like.
- Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund helps me Evangelize all the dragons to my side. Is this flavorful?
- Scourge of Valkas helps gun people down a la Bogardan Hellkite.
- As mentioned earlier, Bladewing the Risen is an option.
3. What Flavor of MWC will I play?
- I don't play a whole lot of casual Magic or multiplayer, so I'm not sure what version of MWC suits this sphere of Magic.
- I'd assume a Ghostly Prison-based defense is the best way to handle pressure from aggressive decks in multiplayer. Ensnaring Bridge?
- I really like nonbasic lands, whether it's something like Mistveil Plains or Emeria, the Sky Ruin, or even Mouth of Ronom.
It's been a while since I've played Magic or even owned Magic cards. And, I left the US so it's unlikely I physically play magic with anyone in the near future. But, for some reason I got possessed with the idea to start exploring this design space. I figured I might as well fool around with it and perhaps do a digital mock-up at some point along the way.
I had a hard time digging up the original sources of the idea, but I'll take care to update this post and refer back to them if you kind folks can help me find them.
Anyways, the "Split Cube" is a cube that's comprised of custom "split" cards like Fire // Ice. The twist is that they're custom-made pairs of existing magic cards, one common example (I think from the first person to develop around this idea) is Squee, Goblin Nabob // Terramorphic Expanse. Each person's approach to this will of course depend on their preferences, some people want cards to be "either-or" where an Aggro player and a Combo player are fighting over the same cards in the draft, while others focus on "synergy" designs like Squee and Terramorphic Expanse, and there are even folks who want to pair Elite Vanguard and Goblin Guide to make a guaranteed solid one-drop for aggro.
As someone who leans towards the Johnny-Timmy side of things, I'm personally hoping to create a more convoluted and synergistic, but still interactive form of Magic. I want to give Spike busted tools for making combo-y, fast aggressive decks with a Vengevine but have Tempo and Control options that can actually withstand that kind of pressure. Custom-making split cards from existing singletons allows for fundamentally warping the way cards behave because we can stitch together mechanics like Cycling and Madness, among others.
The purpose of this thread is currently pretty general, I'm trying to gauge (and hopefully stoke) interest in this idea and open up some discussion. Here are some personal opinions and ideas I have about the "Split Cube," let's have some back-and-forth!
Another example, and my first crack at a open-ended "one-half" suggestion is the Eidolons from Dissension. Aurora Eidolon, Enigma Eidolon, Entropic Eidolon, Sandstorm Eidolon, and Verdant Eidolon.
These cards each have one color in their color identity, and don't directly benefit from having different color identities on their other halves, but they have a pretty simple and fun recursion mechanic that encourages you to start picking different cards. The cards themselves are pretty generally weak, and you'd probably never want to cast them, but the recursion trigger should be pretty easy to hit if you're accommodating it. IF these cards were to be included as a cycle, what should their other halves be?