I hope it's just a coincidence or a joke, TNN would be incredibly frustrating to play against, that thing can only be answered by non-damage sweepers, which means only UW or Tron have ways to deal with it, GDS can yank it out of your hand before it hits the board but is nearly helpless against a topdecked one, and to make it even worse, it's blue of all freaking colors, so any deck that plays it will probably have counter backup for its nearly unkillable attacker and immortal blocker. I can't see any upsides of bringing TNN to Modern to be honest, there has to be another way to help Fish decks without bringing that pest in, leave it for multiplayer where it belongs.
Arguably. TNN's clock is much slower than the speed most modern decks go in competitive lately.
In regard of True Name Nemesis, today the MTG distributer of the Netherlands sent all its LGS stores the official announcement they could now pre-order Modern Horizons. This mail came paired with a layout containing (slightly different?) art of, you guessed it, True Name Nemesis.
For something to do country-wide and internally from distributers, that seems either a very double-edged troll/joke, or a genuine upcoming reprint.
Yeah my planning was to give at least some cards to just add some singleton value, but only 10 at max (1 for each archetype.), like Hardened Scales, Favorable Winds and Annointed Procession.
As well for Sacrifice outlets, how about Vampiric rites? I think white/black would fit quite good in an Aristocrat theme.
Today I ordered some cards in as well that I was still missing, cards like Archangel of Invention (tokens/counters/flying), Wingmate roc (flying/tokens), Archangel Avacyn (flying/aristocrat theme), Elenda the Dusk Rose (aristocrat theme) and Hanweir Militia Captain (tokens/aristocrat theme)
I think white/red would be a good choice for something with equipment tho, which in turn can simply bleed out in artifacts as well. But there aren't many WR cards beside Weapons Trainer that do anything with equipment in WR, it's more just aggro. I might as well just turn it into 'tactics aggro', aggro with arrays of abilities like First Strike, Double Strike, Menace... things to proc Path of Mettle, and creatures like Sky Tyrant.
Red that sounds like quite some good ideas for sure :). I'm curious though what white stuff would be useful for Sacrifice, I guess white would be more the Reanimation part? This is what I had in mind for what's possible to do:
I'm primarily looking for Archetype ideas, what theme/mechanic to use for each color. Flying is a pretty solid color already for W/B, but that's about it, the rest is either split among colors or doesn't have a solid archetype at all.
And at one point I don't really fancy waiting all the way until end 2018 either.
So after a failed attempt on my Tribal cube, I started to put that cube project into cold storage for a while, and start with a cube with cards that are much more accessible, and with less power spikes; Frontier (Officially, yeah I know M15 is a frontier set too, but I choose to only run cards from KTK and onwards.)
At the moment, this is my cube; http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/104000
But the cube has several glaring problems... I have way, way too much multicolor and colorless cards (in my opinion), and the cube runs hardly any guild archetypes, which is the next step I want to build into.
So here is my concern... I don't know what archetypes most guild colors could run, or what cards would be best to put in there. What archetypes should I run, or should it include some tribals (considering Ixalan gave a big nod to Tribal support.)
About Temur Elves, the big problem is that there's hardly to no Elves that are solely blue or red. In fact, I'm more sold on Abzan elves because there are a CRAPLOAD of White, WG, BG and Black elves that hold a strong independence value on their own. But this in turn leaves me with the dubious choice what Temur would be then.
Next to that, the next step I gotta take is card selection, and when I have very, very broad card categories, I'm completely blown away by what to even pick.
I'll write down here some cards what I had in mind of to run for the tribals I had named above, maybe so I can give over some of the ideas I had with it:
But that's a bit of a problem though. Lords tend to be either broken or severely underpowered. Death baron, i.e., it's a nice support for both Wizard and Zombies... but it doesn't affect himself and contributes nothing to Wizards, and for Zombies it just goes beyond insane (As if +1/+1 wasn't enough, they'll also get deathtouch which, as zombies token generator, gets ridicillious.)
Warriors has pretty much been a *shrug* for me. There are a lot of good Warrior cards that supply for black-assisted aggro, most goblins are warriors too (or soldiers), it fills the slot to name 'black/red' best.
Druids and Clerics aren't there for the big slam wins. Technically these don't need to have lords (even though, the 'class' lords will only be like 1 or 2), because their whole role serves support value. Clerics are things like lifesteal, protection, etc. Think of Mother of Runes, a must-have in white humans. But she's a Human Cleric. In these cases if one would really want to build a strong synergy with clerics, I'd love to let them get that chance, so give the beast a name(?). Likewise for druids, their purpose is one thing; ramp. (Beside for some standalones like Sylvan Advocate.) Nearly all mana dorks are druids, and a cube that runs with tribals - aka, a much higher creature vs noncreature ratio - needs mana dorks.
It's most definetly true that the 5 monocolored tribes you mentioned are very strong...
BUT, there is a big problem. If I only have five tribes, that means at least two people (if drafting with the minimal 6) will be fighting each other and end up with 'meh' decks, while the other 4 ace it with little competition.
SO, instead, and sure this might be starting to overcomplicate things... What if I base mono-colored off Race, and multicolored off Profession?
White humans
Green Elves
Blue Merfolk
Black Zombies (Or vampires, depending which got the most support.)
Red Goblins
White/Blue soldiers
Blue/Red wizards
Blue/Black rogues
White/Black clerics
White/Red artificers
White/Green knights (This enables BOTH Knight of the Reliquary AND Wilt-leaf Liege)
Red/Green werewolves
Blue/Green druids
Green/Black shamans
Red/Black warriors
The important thing to note is: I especially DON'T want to let the tribals run too much through tribal supports/lords. I want tribals to be available as option by providing several cards that boosts any creature type (adaptive automaton, unclaimed territory, metallic mimic, door of destinies, conqueror's banner, etc), but that people can still draft just fine outside drafting tribal.
But for real, I value your input a lot. I'm still new to this and it's a complicated task, so your insight into this is invalueable.
But I still need to know/get some feedback if the current list is something people can live into, and perhaps if they know some themes (like Sets/blocks) that would fit best in them.
I.E., Evolve (Mutant, RCoG + RTR) goes well with Outlast (DTR) and Fabricate (KLD).
Energy maybe not so much solely 'energy', but more in, 'counters' that aren't +1/+1 counters (-1/-1, wither, NO INFECT)
(Races)
WG Human (+Werewolf?)
WB Vampires
UB Faeries
BR Goblins
BG Elves
(Extra)
Golem + Myr (Colorless)
Ally (all) *I'm gonna try it anyway, for those creative enough to figure a way. I couldn't find any other idea for WG and I found that Human/WW has many crossovers with Warriors, Druids and Mutant <I believe it contains Mutant since Eldritch Moon? Or it was Horror.>
Actually, I just had a fantastic idea. Mutants comes with the Evolve ability a lot. Since I want people to be able to draft the cube without tribals too (like, following a certain theme), I'd recon smashing in a Warriors - Outlast, with Mutants - Evolve would do very well.
I have drawn an incredible lot of insight from your post so far! The idea of having 5 Unfriendly-color classes and 5 friendly-color races is a very good separation.
The goal that I had drawn - and I'm sorry I had forgotten to write that - is that even though it's a tribal cube, I want to let cards have a strong 'Independence Value'. I will only jam in like 1 or 2 lords per tribe (with 3 colorless ones and a joker one on white), so you don't 'have' to draft your tribe. You can easily just slam with Green-Red 'whatever' without mandatorily following Werewolves, so to say. TL:DR, I want people to be able to draft like they normally would, but that going tribal is a widely available option too.
That having said, this would make me need to look at what tribals will fit with each color.
Arguably. TNN's clock is much slower than the speed most modern decks go in competitive lately.
For something to do country-wide and internally from distributers, that seems either a very double-edged troll/joke, or a genuine upcoming reprint.
Yeah my planning was to give at least some cards to just add some singleton value, but only 10 at max (1 for each archetype.), like Hardened Scales, Favorable Winds and Annointed Procession.
As well for Sacrifice outlets, how about Vampiric rites? I think white/black would fit quite good in an Aristocrat theme.
Today I ordered some cards in as well that I was still missing, cards like Archangel of Invention (tokens/counters/flying), Wingmate roc (flying/tokens), Archangel Avacyn (flying/aristocrat theme), Elenda the Dusk Rose (aristocrat theme) and Hanweir Militia Captain (tokens/aristocrat theme)
I think white/red would be a good choice for something with equipment tho, which in turn can simply bleed out in artifacts as well. But there aren't many WR cards beside Weapons Trainer that do anything with equipment in WR, it's more just aggro. I might as well just turn it into 'tactics aggro', aggro with arrays of abilities like First Strike, Double Strike, Menace... things to proc Path of Mettle, and creatures like Sky Tyrant.
Azorius Tempo // Flyers
Selesnya Tokens // Counters
Orzov Sac'n'reanimate // Aristrocrats/life-matters // tokens
Boros tactical aggro // Enhancers (equipment/aura's)
Dimir Control // Artifacts
Rakdos reckless aggro // Discard
Golgari Counters // tokens // Dredge/Delerium
Simic on-hit // Control
Izzet Artifacts // Instants/Sorceries
Gruul Aggro // Ramp/'go big'
And at one point I don't really fancy waiting all the way until end 2018 either.
So after a failed attempt on my Tribal cube, I started to put that cube project into cold storage for a while, and start with a cube with cards that are much more accessible, and with less power spikes; Frontier (Officially, yeah I know M15 is a frontier set too, but I choose to only run cards from KTK and onwards.)
At the moment, this is my cube; http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/104000
But the cube has several glaring problems... I have way, way too much multicolor and colorless cards (in my opinion), and the cube runs hardly any guild archetypes, which is the next step I want to build into.
So here is my concern... I don't know what archetypes most guild colors could run, or what cards would be best to put in there. What archetypes should I run, or should it include some tribals (considering Ixalan gave a big nod to Tribal support.)
Next to that, the next step I gotta take is card selection, and when I have very, very broad card categories, I'm completely blown away by what to even pick.
I'll write down here some cards what I had in mind of to run for the tribals I had named above, maybe so I can give over some of the ideas I had with it:
Knights:
Knight Examplar (Lord)
Knight of the Reliquary
Wilt-leaf Liege, Crosses over with Elves
Puresteel Paladin, Crosses over with Artificers and Soldiers
Stillmoon Cavalier
Fiendslayer Paladin
Jackknight, Crosses over with Artificers (Yeah, I know, Unstable. BUT, it's a perfect 2 mana 1-drop that'll always say; "Whenever an artifact enters, put a +1/+1 counter on this.)"
Soldiers:
Captain of the Watch (lord)
Daxos of Meletis
Preeminent Captain
Ranger of Eos
Recruiter of the Guard
Thalia's Lieutenant (Human lord)
Champion of the Parish
Porcelain Legionaire (Crosses over with Artificers)
Warriors:
Khenra Charioteer
Rubblebelt raiders
Target Minotaur (Crosses over with Wizards) (Unstable, but still a dead-normal 2-mana 2/1 Prowess.)
Voltaic Brawler (Crosses over with most other GRB cards)
Goblin Rabblemaster
Greenwheel Liberator
Radha, Heir to Keld
Warfire Javelineer (Crosses over with Wizards)
Champion of Rhonas
Tuskguard Captain
Clerics:
Mother of Runes
Skirsdag High Priest
Fiend Hunter
Leonin Relic Warder
Kalastria Healer
Sin Collector
Marven Fein, Dusk Apostle
Auriok Champion
Artificers:
Aether Chaser
Pia Nalaar
Jor Kadeen (Crosses over with Warriors)
Flamewright
Ghirapur Gearcrafter
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Relic Seeker (Crosses over with Soldiers)
Stone Haven Outfitter
Blade Splicer
Sensor Splicer
Stoneforge Mystic
Toolcraft Examplar
Reckless Fireweaver
If desired I could update the list further for the other tribals, but these were the kind of cards I were looking at that I drew inspiration of.
Warriors has pretty much been a *shrug* for me. There are a lot of good Warrior cards that supply for black-assisted aggro, most goblins are warriors too (or soldiers), it fills the slot to name 'black/red' best.
Druids and Clerics aren't there for the big slam wins. Technically these don't need to have lords (even though, the 'class' lords will only be like 1 or 2), because their whole role serves support value. Clerics are things like lifesteal, protection, etc. Think of Mother of Runes, a must-have in white humans. But she's a Human Cleric. In these cases if one would really want to build a strong synergy with clerics, I'd love to let them get that chance, so give the beast a name(?). Likewise for druids, their purpose is one thing; ramp. (Beside for some standalones like Sylvan Advocate.) Nearly all mana dorks are druids, and a cube that runs with tribals - aka, a much higher creature vs noncreature ratio - needs mana dorks.
The idea is something like this:
40 White Human cards + 2 nonhuman Knight/Soldier/Artificer/Cleric + 1 Mirror Entity + 16 noncreature cards
36 Blue Merfolk cards + 2 nonmerfolk Druid/Soldier/Rogue/Wizard + 5 clone cards + 16 noncreature cards
35 Red Goblin cards +2 nongoblin Warrior/Artificer/Wizard/(?Red/Black?) + 1 Terraen Mauler + 21 noncreature cards
41 Black Zombie cards +2 nonzombie (?Red/black?)/Rogue/Cleric/Shaman + 16 noncreature cards
41 Green Elf cards +2 nonelf druid/shaman/knight/warrior + 16 noncreature cards (total 65)
Multicolor:
5 WU Soldiers + 3 WU 'value' cards
5 WG Knights + 3 WG 'value' cards
5 WB Clerics + 3 WB 'value' cards
5 WR Artificers + 3 WR 'value' cards
5 UR Wizards + 3 UR 'value' cards
5 UB Rogues + 3 UB 'value' cards
5 UG Druids + 3 UG 'value' cards
5 GB Shamans + 3 GB 'value' cards
5 GR Warriors + 3 GR 'value' cards
5 RB ??? + 3 RB 'value' cards
Colorless: 15 colorless Myr cards + 10 tribal support cards + 15 value colorless cards.
Also, tbh: I'd love to drop in a Sword of Dungeons and Dragons xD. The fact this cube runs Clerics and Rogues makes me say yes so hard xD.
BUT, there is a big problem. If I only have five tribes, that means at least two people (if drafting with the minimal 6) will be fighting each other and end up with 'meh' decks, while the other 4 ace it with little competition.
SO, instead, and sure this might be starting to overcomplicate things... What if I base mono-colored off Race, and multicolored off Profession?
White humans
Green Elves
Blue Merfolk
Black Zombies (Or vampires, depending which got the most support.)
Red Goblins
White/Blue soldiers
Blue/Red wizards
Blue/Black rogues
White/Black clerics
White/Red artificers
White/Green knights (This enables BOTH Knight of the Reliquary AND Wilt-leaf Liege)
Red/Green werewolves
Blue/Green druids
Green/Black shamans
Red/Black warriors
The important thing to note is: I especially DON'T want to let the tribals run too much through tribal supports/lords. I want tribals to be available as option by providing several cards that boosts any creature type (adaptive automaton, unclaimed territory, metallic mimic, door of destinies, conqueror's banner, etc), but that people can still draft just fine outside drafting tribal.
But for real, I value your input a lot. I'm still new to this and it's a complicated task, so your insight into this is invalueable.
But I still need to know/get some feedback if the current list is something people can live into, and perhaps if they know some themes (like Sets/blocks) that would fit best in them.
I.E., Evolve (Mutant, RCoG + RTR) goes well with Outlast (DTR) and Fabricate (KLD).
Energy maybe not so much solely 'energy', but more in, 'counters' that aren't +1/+1 counters (-1/-1, wither, NO INFECT)
Themes:
RGUB Energy
BGUW Counters
UGWR Tokens
RUBW Artifacts
RBGW (??)
Tribals:
(Classes)
RG Druids
GU Mutants
UR Wizards
UW Soldiers
WR Artificers
(Races)
WG Human (+Werewolf?)
WB Vampires
UB Faeries
BR Goblins
BG Elves
(Extra)
Golem + Myr (Colorless)
Ally (all) *I'm gonna try it anyway, for those creative enough to figure a way. I couldn't find any other idea for WG and I found that Human/WW has many crossovers with Warriors, Druids and Mutant <I believe it contains Mutant since Eldritch Moon? Or it was Horror.>
Actually, I just had a fantastic idea. Mutants comes with the Evolve ability a lot. Since I want people to be able to draft the cube without tribals too (like, following a certain theme), I'd recon smashing in a Warriors - Outlast, with Mutants - Evolve would do very well.
For professions, I yesterday was also thinking for the Artificer as a possibility for Red/Blue, Blue/White or White/Red.
The goal that I had drawn - and I'm sorry I had forgotten to write that - is that even though it's a tribal cube, I want to let cards have a strong 'Independence Value'. I will only jam in like 1 or 2 lords per tribe (with 3 colorless ones and a joker one on white), so you don't 'have' to draft your tribe. You can easily just slam with Green-Red 'whatever' without mandatorily following Werewolves, so to say. TL:DR, I want people to be able to draft like they normally would, but that going tribal is a widely available option too.
That having said, this would make me need to look at what tribals will fit with each color.
(Normal)
Red-Green - ??
Green-White - ??
White-Blue - Spirits?
Blue-Black - Faeries
Black-Red - Goblins
Red-White Soldiers
White-Black Warriors
Black-green ??
green-blue ??
blue-red Wizards
(Reversed)
Red-Green - ??
Green-White - Knights
White-Blue - Soldiers
Blue-Black - Rogues
Black-Red - Warriors
Red-White - Humans
White-Black - ??
Black-green - Elves
green-blue - Merfolk
blue-red - ??
Also, I hadn't anticipated the idea of 5-color humans. That is a great idea to do rather than Allies.