MTG Salvation

I have found that running lands in cube tends to "water down" the packs; In most situations you'd much rather have another one or two cards rather than seeing a land (Outside of those with interesting effects, manlands, etc)

In my cube, I have cut my lands down to:

Mishra's Factory
Blinkmoth Nexus
Maze of Ith
Vesuva
Kor Haven
Heart of Yavimaya - Yavimaya Hollow (Oops, listed wrong land accidentally)
Volrath's Stronghold
Kher Keep
Treetop Village
Celestial Colonnade
Karakas
Faerie Conclave
Strip Mine
... and some others.

In short, I removed all lands that only produce mana. This cuts my lands section down to approximately 20 cards.

The obvious downside is that its slightly harder to draft multicolored (3+ color) decks. It's definitely not impossible though - Especially with artifacts to help you out (Coalition Relic, Darksteel Ingot, etc).

Has anyone else tried this, or thought of it? Do you find it makes the cube more fun, or less fun to draft overall?

I love nonbasic lands and mana producers, and I'll scoop them up whenever I see them. Mana fixing doesn't "water-down" the packs, IMO... in fact, I think it makes the drafts smoother and the decks better. I think a good nonbasic land suite in the cube may be the most important factor to healthy cube drafting.

Edit: Also, Vesuva, Heart of Yavimaya and Kher Keep are all pretty meh, IMO. There are some sick nonbasic lands out there... and those aren't some of them (especially if you're only using 20 nonbasic lands for the entire cube).

Quote from DerBK

when i am drafting 45 nonland cards, i am going to run only 22 to 24 of them. Having some of the drafted cards slot into the manabase of the decks makes all the decks more powerful.

This is really important to remember. ANY WU fixing land is more important to your draft than the 24th white or blue card that doesn't make the cut.

While too much manafixing can be a bad thing, too little can be as well as in a format without adequate land manafixing, creating multicolor decks can be really difficult. Manafixing lands are also easily amongst the best cards of all time as well.

I think cutting manafixing is detrimental to the experience. It makes splashing for those 1 or 2 key cards too difficult. Personally, I run color-specific lands in color, a couple sets of fixers, a couple rainbows (e.g. City of Brass), and the staple effect lands (Library, Strip Mine, etc.)

I second the sentiment that many of the lands you list sound underwhelming, specifically: Vesuva, Yavimaya Hollow, Kher Keep, Karakas.

Quote from DerBK

I'll be honest here: I think this idea is horrible.

Powerful decks require powerful manabases. Losing to colorscrew is not fun and not part of the cube experience.

Also, when i am drafting 45 nonland cards, i am going to run only 22 to 24 of them. Having some of the drafted cards slot into the manabase of the decks makes all the decks more powerful.

Finally, weighing manafixing against action cards in draft is a skilltester and an important part of drafting.


I don't see a single advantage in cutting down on the number of lands. Terrible idea, sorry to be so blunt.

This. All of this. All of this squared. The duals, shocks, fetches, and karoos are really powerful, enabling splashes and smoothing out your mana. I'm much rather have Underground Sea than a suboptimal blue or black card. I'd also rather have Underground Sea if I'm runing UW and splashing for Vindicate or Diabolic Edict.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from aquaone

I think cutting manafixing is detrimental to the experience. It makes splashing for those 1 or 2 key cards too difficult. Personally, I run color-specific lands in color, a couple sets of fixers, a couple rainbows (e.g. City of Brass), and the staple effect lands (Library, Strip Mine, etc.)

I second the sentiment that many of the lands you list sound underwhelming, specifically: Vesuva, Yavimaya Hollow, Kher Keep, Karakas.

I quite like Vesuva and I could see where Karakas might be useful if you have enough legends. It really doesn't hurt very much to run it, so there's only the opportunity cost of having it in your packs. If I had one I might well add it to my cube.

Quote from kcolloran

It really doesn't hurt very much to run it, so there's only the opportunity cost of having it in your packs.

And the cost of having it in the cube over a different better card.

Quote from wtwlf123

And the cost of having it in the cube over a different better card.

Ahh... see I would just add it as another land. I don't have my lands set to an exact number.

Quote from kcolloran

Ahh... see I would just add it as another land. I don't have my lands set to an exact number.

You still face the same problem. You're putting that into the cube instead of something else. That something else would be better for the cube, the draft and the deck.

I'm going to quote from my article on this here website:

Lands are possibly the single most important part of a good Cube deck, and they need to be valued as such not only in construction, but in drafting as well.

If Shards of Alara block drafting has taught us anything, it is that you have to make sure you can cast your spells by investing thought and picks into your mana base. Even if you have a mono-colored deck, you can benefit greatly from having non-basics in your deck. If I had to pinpoint the least fun part of Magic in general, it would be mana/color screw. Personally, I like to avoid that part of this game as much as possible! For those who would argue that lands are "only mana," 26 of my 66 lands also have a function other than tapping for mana leaving only 40 of them (or 8% of the Cube), as "vanilla" lands.

-AA

Quote from wtwlf123

You still face the same problem. You're putting that into the cube instead of something else. That something else would be better for the cube, the draft and the deck.

No, my cube is growing by 1 card. Only the second of those three is true. Karakas is pretty much going to be better for white decks then a plains. Yes, any draft that it ends up in you might end up with something better. But it's not a big deal. Occassionaly I feel bad when Pendelhaven comes up, but not especially so.

Yeah, even if it's just in as a X1st land, it's ultimately going to just wheel around the table and is taking up the slot in packs of something that's just rather suboptimal. It's like running the artifact lands (well, not as bad) in that they're "safe" picks but the benefit of running them is outweighed by them being in the pack, taking up the slot of something that would be better, as it'll likely wheel around the table as a low pick.

[wow, I'm awfully argumentative today! ]

Quote from kcolloran

No, my cube is growing by 1 card. Only the second of those three is true. Karakas is pretty much going to be better for white decks then a plains. Yes, any draft that it ends up in you might end up with something better. But it's not a big deal. Occassionaly I feel bad when Pendelhaven comes up, but not especially so.

My point is that a 500 card cube without it is better off than a 501 card cube with it. Urborg is better than Swamp, and Hammerheim is better than Mountain, but neither belong in the cube.

Quote from Antknee42 »

Lands are possibly the single most important part of a good Cube deck, and they need to be valued as such not only in construction, but in drafting as well.

Words of wisdom.

Quote from wtwlf123

My point is that a 500 card cube without it is better off than a 501 card cube with it. Urborg is better than Swamp, and Hammerheim is better than Mountain, but neither belong in the cube.

I understand your point, I just think Karakas might be good enough to make it.

Quote from kcolloran

I understand your point, I just think Karakas might be good enough to make it.

I played it for quite a while (in my classic cube back in the day), and I assure you it isn't. It's too inconsistent. I don't want to include a card in my deck (or my cube for that matter) that I have to pray will be better than a Plains. Especially now that M10 killed stacked damage. It was cool when I could "trade" my legend with my opponent's creature and then bounce it in response... but no more. The only thing it's good enough with now is Venser. But I'm not keen on 2-card cube combos that have otherwise useless pieces.

Quote from wtwlf123

I played it for quite a while (in my classic cube back in the day), and I assure you it isn't. It's too inconsistent. I don't want to include a card in my deck (or my cube for that matter) that I have to pray will be better than a Plains. Especially now that M10 killed stacked damage. It was cool when I could "trade" my legend with my opponent's creature and then bounce it in response... but no more. The only thing it's good enough with now is Venser. But I'm not keen on 2-card cube combos that have otherwise useless pieces.

Why do you have to pray it will be better? I suppose it depends on how much basic land search you have and how much non-basic LD you have, but if you offered me a 1 for 1 swap of a plains for a Karakas I don't think there's a single deck where I'd pass it up. It only comboes with Venser maybe, but bouncing your opponents Yosei or Akroma or whatever is good enough considering it comes at no cost. It's only the opportunity cost of having it in your cube.

As others have said, you draft 45 cards but only play 22-24 of them. Because the card quality in cube draft is so high, I think that having lots of lands makes for more interesting drafting choices, since you often have 30+ playables and only 15 cards sitting in your sideboard.

Otherwise you end up only trying to draft the top 10 or 15 cards for you deck, knowing that it's almost impossible to not have enough 'filler' to round out your deck with.

if you offered me a 1 for 1 swap of a plains for a Karakas I don't think there's a single deck where I'd pass it up

Where your opponent has alot of nonbasic hate?

Quote from kcolloran

It's only the opportunity cost of having it in your cube.

And that's a lot.

Quote from Neradox »

And the question is (i think so at least) if you want to spend a slot in a booster for a "plains".

I sure don't.

Seems like I'm one of the fews that agree with what the starter of this threat thinks. All the duals, rainbow, whatever-lands are great cards but in addition with artifact colour fixing it is too easy to draft 5c-good-stuff-deck (ok, I admitt, I want to push 2 or monocolour decks and keep people away from multicolour shenanigans or crazy splashes, unless you play green). Additionally, the colour fixing lands dilute greens strenght of manafixing (I desperately want to push green, because it's always like "ah, no one drafts green" and then someone jumps onto it to profit from it, but almost never is someone starting to draft green in the beginning.

To sum up why the colourfixing lands are inappropriate for my personal cube taste:

-dilute packs
-allow crazy splashes or even 5c-good-stuff (that's individual preference)
-inflation of colour fixing removes one of the defining abilities of green by giving it to every colour (therefore, I also don't run the signets/talismans)

My cube runs 70 nonbasics. That's three sets of two color lands, the vivids, the shard lands, all ten fetches, a few rainbows, some one color lands, and some utility stuff. The other night we had a six man and I drafted a mono green midrange deck. Having multicolor lands in your cube doesn't hinder mono color decks. Not having them hinders multicolor decks. You just have to find a balance somewhere.

If you don't want to fill your packs up with nonbasics, then don't run a ton of nonbasics. My nonbasic section is just as large as the rest of my cube sections. If that's too much for you, and 5CC is dominating, then cut out vivids and tri color lands. There's really no need to punish the rest of the decks because of one dominant deck.

Quote from Don D

Seems like I'm one of the fews that agree with what the starter of this threat thinks. All the duals, rainbow, whatever-lands are great cards but in addition with artifact colour fixing it is too easy to draft 5c-good-stuff-deck (ok, I admitt, I want to push 2 or monocolour decks and keep people away from multicolour shenanigans or crazy splashes, unless you play green). Additionally, the colour fixing lands dilute greens strenght of manafixing (I desperately want to push green, because it's always like "ah, no one drafts green" and then someone jumps onto it to profit from it, but almost never is someone starting to draft green in the beginning.

To sum up why the colourfixing lands are inappropriate for my personal cube taste:

-dilute packs
-allow crazy splashes or even 5c-good-stuff (that's individual preference)
-inflation of colour fixing removes one of the defining abilities of green by giving it to every colour (therefore, I also don't run the signets/talismans)

Having the fixing provides the opportunities for aggressive decks to go two-color and still play spells at the appropriate time. If you build your cube so that aggressive decks (mostly of the two-colored variety, though with the occasional mono-colored or three-colored) are viable, then you NEED good fixing. Just hoping to raw dog the turn 1 Sarcomancy into Plated Geopede or turn 1 Savannah Lions into turn 2 Qasali Pridemage off of basics on a consistant basis is just wishful thinking on your part.

Just look up the last forum cube draft Pringlesman hosted to see a two-color midrange deck that would have fallen apart had we not had on-color fetches and duals to support it's plays in the first few turns. Generally, the content of your cube will decide whether the 5cc "good-stuff" decks are worth drafting consistantly, rather than an excess of good mana-fixing being the cause. If you open a pack and it's got a number of aggressive support cards, or cards which lend themselves more towards single or double colored decks by way of having difficult casting costs, then you will find that despite having a good amount of fixing, your drafts will be fairly balanced and will play far better overall because all the decks can now play their spells at the intended times due to having correct mana.

Quote from Don D

Seems like I'm one of the fews that agree with what the starter of this threat thinks. All the duals, rainbow, whatever-lands are great cards but in addition with artifact colour fixing it is too easy to draft 5c-good-stuff-deck (ok, I admitt, I want to push 2 or monocolour decks and keep people away from multicolour shenanigans or crazy splashes, unless you play green). Additionally, the colour fixing lands dilute greens strenght of manafixing (I desperately want to push green, because it's always like "ah, no one drafts green" and then someone jumps onto it to profit from it, but almost never is someone starting to draft green in the beginning.

To sum up why the colourfixing lands are inappropriate for my personal cube taste:

-dilute packs
-allow crazy splashes or even 5c-good-stuff (that's individual preference)
-inflation of colour fixing removes one of the defining abilities of green by giving it to every colour (therefore, I also don't run the signets/talismans)

I run fixing lands in my cube, and green is a powerful highly drafted color, aggro is prominent, and 4-5 color control decks are rare and weaker than 1-3 color aggro and mid-range decks anyways. Green's weakness and 4-5 color control being better than aggro has nothing to do with the lands... it's the rest of the cube that's ruining those archetypes, sorry to say.

Like I said "Seems like I'm one of the fews that agree with what the starter of this threat thinks."

The main point is personal preference. My cube (I have to update my posted cube) has no multicolour cards (few hybrids and split cards are in their "main" colour) because they are too situational picks or lead to crazy splashes and that's something I want to prevent (like I said, personal preference). Everyone has played drafts with multiple different blocks with their specific flavour to experience different draft/sealed environments. If you liked Alara or the other multicolour blocks the most, go for it, push the multicolour and manafixing as far as you can. For my personal taste of MTG these blocks were the exceptions and not the rule of how MTG is played, therefore I don't want to push multicolour strategies. The dual lands, which would reflect the limited environment of ravnica/guildpact/dissension, are too situational picks (remember these drafts) and that's something I want to prevent (again personal preference).

You can't really compare cube draft to any other drafting format. Including dual lands and gold cards doesn't make cube draft anything like Ravnica block draft.