For what it's worth, I think both Diamond and Chrome are important cards to the black Stax archetype. If you want to push Braids/Smokestack/Smallpox/etc in your black section, you need to provide more colored ramp than just Dark Ritual. Since Cabal Ritual really isn't good enough, the next best place to get that colored ramp is from the two moxen that tap for colored mana. Sure, other fast mana is good for the deck, but since the color requirements are so high (for cards like Necropotence and Geralf's Messenger), you really need the ramp for the deck to be colored.
I mention it because I don't necessarily think it's obvious that Chrome Mox is an important part of that deck, but it is.
I've been trying to figure out cases where Chrome is better, and other than the two examples I cited (no imprint or not casting it), I can't find any. Could you explain it to me? I really want to learn why.
One case where it's a lot better is during deck construction where you can cut a basic land for it instead of a spell. Upgrading a basic land is huge, upgrading a cube spell is just OK.
One case where it's a lot better is during deck construction where you can cut a basic land for it instead of a spell. Upgrading a basic land is huge, upgrading a cube spell is just OK.
But when the card is actually cast, it takes up the basic land slot AND a spell slot. Both cards do. The difference, is that the Diamond allowed me to remove the worst card in my deck to play it, whereas the Chrome eats the worst card in my hand. And sometimes not even then, because the colored mana the card produces is important, forcing me to pitch a much higher quality card than the one I excluded from the decklist to play the Diamond.
Whenever both cards are in play, I get better value from the Diamond. I excluded a lower quality gas spell to play it, it fixes every color of mana, and the card lost to the Diamond can be retrieved.
I can't think of many situations where the Chrome is better unless A) I don't actually imprint something on it, or B) I don't actually cast it. Once it has cost me a spell slot and a land slot to resolve, I'd rather have the Diamond.
Quote from eidolon »
If I am not mistaken, you even have stated to pick this card over a regular Mox.
P1P1, probably. It depends on what I can anticipate wheeling and what color the ABU Mox is, but a lot of the time, yes.
Diamond has always performed but Chrome has always been underwhelming. I don't have the exact reason, but it just is. I will still run it for a while, but it is definitely cut-able if people in my group do not like it.
I play Chrome in my legacy deck, where there are redundant spells and a low land count, and it can possibly give me a t1 Bob/Stoneforge. In cube these are not really common occurrences as most of your spells are not redundant.
I am currently trying Chrome Mox alongside Mox Diamond to help support the artifact deck with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in UB. They are both role-players in other archetypes. In general, I think the discussion of whether either card is a) powerful in a vacuum or b) more or less powerful than each other is a less important discussion than how the cards function in the cube as a whole. Certain decks want more mana rocks, and if one doesn't include signets, I think these are good cards to play. They are interesting, skill-testing, and help out archetypes that are weakened in the move from powered to unpowered.
i think diamond is miles ahead of chrome mox. no effort needed to get any color mana you need, and chrome mox can suffer from "i want to cast this spell but it's the only spell of that color in my hand." diamond is just a free rampant growth for a utopia, basically. chrome mox gives up fixing harder and you lose an actual business spell from your hand. a lot of times chrome mox is just mox crystal + exile a card from your hand, which isn't horrible but sometimes isn't very good either.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I can't think of many situations where the Chrome is better unless A) I don't actually imprint something on it, or B) I don't actually cast it. Once it has cost me a spell slot and a land slot to resolve, I'd rather have the Diamond.
During deck construction and draft it's better because it takes up a land slot so you're removing a basic land from your deck to play it instead of a cube spell. I'm not saying that one card is better than the other just that if you're looking to improve your mana base during draft Chrome Mox is a lot better.
Design wise, I think that a card that can give me an additional mana and acceleration if I have spells in hand and allows me to cut a land so I don't get flooded is more valuable than a card that gives me additional mana only when I already have lands in hand, but forces me to reduce the number of spells in my deck.
I agree with this. You just have to get over the mental hurdle of losing a card for the ramp, and then you're fine. I will say that Diamond is usually more fun for me to play because I'm playing it in deck styles that I enjoy playing, abusing the graveyard and playing with lands, but Chrome is so much better for aggro decks it isn't funny.
Plus, there's always something painful about opening that 2 land Diamond hand with a 3drop in it, and just hoping you draw another land so you can play your 3drop on turn 2. When you don't draw that land, it sucks so bad to be holding your ramp spell and know it's not going to do anything for you.
During deck construction and draft it's better because it takes up a land slot so you're removing a basic land from your deck to play it instead of a cube spell. I'm not saying that one card is better than the other just that if you're looking to improve your mana base during draft Chrome Mox is a lot better.
Only if you plan on casting the card. And if you cast it, Diamond would do a strictly better job fixing, by taking up the same number/type of cards as Chrome would to resolve (one spell and one land) and the quality of the removed spell would be lower for the Diamond, and the lost land can be recovered because it's only discarded, not exiled.
Quote from Jeff »
Plus, there's always something painful about opening that 2 land Diamond hand with a 3drop in it, and just hoping you draw another land so you can play your 3drop on turn 2. When you don't draw that land, it sucks so bad to be holding your ramp spell and know it's not going to do anything for you.
But if you have 2 lands and a Diamond, you'd only have 1 land and a Chrome, and you'd still need to topdeck another mana source to play that 3-drop. You don't lose overall mana sources with Diamond vs Chrome, because they don't compete for the same slot during construction.
Only if you plan on casting the card. And if you cast it, Diamond would do a strictly better job fixing, by taking up the same number/type of cards as Chrome would to resolve (one spell and one land) and the quality of the removed spell would be lower for the Diamond, and the lost land can be recovered because it's only discarded, not exiled.
Right, at the cost of a spell slot instead of a land slot which is very important.
Right, at the cost of a spell slot instead of a land slot which is very important.
Both cards take up both slots. Assuming you actually cast the moxen.
The difference is, you get to remove the worst spell in your deck to include the Diamond. You have to pitch a spell from your hand to play the Chrome, which is much worse, because the quality of the lost card is higher in the Chrome's case.
Both cards take up both slots. Assuming you actually cast the moxen.
They really don't they just 2 for 1 you in a similar manner. They certainly don't take up 2 slots and they're not in betweens like Signets.
So in the case of Chrome Mox, when you add it to your deck, you get to play it over a basic. This is a significant upgrade for most decks. Mox Diamond takes up a spell slot so it can't be added in over a basic, you need to cut a spell for it. There will be many decks that will benefit more from Chrome Mox than Mox Diamond as a result. That would be a case of Chrome Mox being better than Mox Diamond and I didn't have to cast either one. You can draw comparisons between the cards and how they play out during gameplay but that's about as useful as comparing Tropical Island to Trygon Predator.
They really don't they just 2 for 1 you in a similar manner. They certainly don't take up 2 slots and they're not in betweens like Signets.
So in the case of Chrome Mox, when you add it to your deck, you get to play it over a basic. This is a significant upgrade for most decks. Mox Diamond takes up a spell slot so it can't be added in over a basic, you need to cut a spell for it. There will be many decks that will benefit more from Chrome Mox than Mox Diamond as a result. That would be a case of Chrome Mox being better than Mox Diamond and I didn't have to cast either one. You can draw comparisons between the cards and how they play out during gameplay but that's about as useful as comparing Tropical Island to Trygon Predator.
Once the card is cast, you've lost a spell slot from your deck and a land slot from your deck. Always and forever.
Chrome Mox is easier to find a cut for during construction, and more painful to cast.
Assuming that you actually cast the card with the intention of tapping it for mana, it has cost you both a spell and a land.
But I haven't cast the card, we're still drafting.
Okay. sure. But I assume you want to eventually play the card and tap it for mana, right? Once you do, it's worse than Mox Diamond.
I've said multiple times before, Chrome has the advantage of being a better card when it's in your deck/hand. Because you have the option of never playing it, which keeps your land count lower and gas count higher. Which can be great in a lot of situations. However, once the cards are in play, I've lost a spell and a land from my deck, and I get a strictly better effect from the Diamond.
Okay. sure. But I assume you want to eventually play the card and tap it for mana, right? Once you do, it's worse than Mox Diamond.
Sure but that's hardly relevant to this discussion. One is a land, one is a spell. So if you see them both in a pack you take the one that will help your deck more. Sometimes this is Chrome Mox, sometimes it's Mox Diamond but it depends on what your deck needs and how many playables you have. You can blindly pick Mox Diamond over Chrome Mox every time you see the 2 in the same pack but I find that highly questionable because the cards fill completely different roles.
Quote from wtwlf »
I've said multiple times before, Chrome has the advantage of being a better card when it's in your deck/hand. Because you have the option of never playing it, which keeps your land count lower and gas count higher. Which can be great in a lot of situations. However, once the cards are in play, I've lost a spell and a land from my deck, and I get a strictly better effect from the Diamond.
Chrome Mox has the advantage of being a land. The cards are hardly comparable as a result. You're focusing way to much on what happens when you cast these cards and not enough on what role these cards play.
I could but there wouldn't a point because the cards fill very different roles.
No, don't give up on me! There's definitely a point! I'd love to see some of the examples of Chrome Mox being better once they're both in play. That's the point of this whole exercise. I want examples. I need examples to understand.
I understand the cards draft and build differently. I already explained multiple times that there are cases where the Chrome Mox isn't played where it's better than Diamond. It's a better card when floating around in your deck or when it's in your hand because it didn't cost you a spell (yet). There are also corner cases where it's cast and nothing is imprinted on it where it's better too. I get all that, I really do.
But what I'm most interested in is how the cards perform once they're cast. If I play Diamond (spell) and pitch a Land, I'm down a land slot and a spell slot, and I'm +1 on my mana (in terms of tempo, not overall sources). If I play Chrome (land) and pitch a Spell, I'm down a land slot and a spell slot, and I'm +1 on my mana (in terms of tempo, not overall sources). But the Diamond fixes all 5 colors, the pitched card can be retrieved and the spell I lost was a lower quality than the one lost to Chrome. So I can't see a case where they're in play producing mana where I'd rather have the Chrome. I want to hear examples in this case of when the Chrome is better, because I want to learn. There must be something major I'm missing here that I want somebody (anybody) to point out so I can "get it". Besides the corner case of pumping my opponent's Tarmogoyf, which is a drawback of Diamond I can live with.
There are some fairly narrow examples of when Chrome is equal to Diamond once it is in your hand, namely when the card you imprint is dead, and you don't need multiple colors of mana going forward.
But really, the big advantage of Chrome Mox (and don't mistake the word big here...it is a much worse cube card than Mox Diamond) is that it allows you to cut a card on the spot, as opposed to during deck construction. This is occasionally a hindrance, but is often a boon. Cards don't have static value, and while you might have thought you'd need that (insert awesome card) it turns out you don't, due to (insert circumstance). This isn't possible when you are cutting a spell to make room for Mox Diamond. You have the entire deck to choose from (as opposed to just your hand) but you are just guessing about what the most frequent circumstance will be.
When Diamond is in play, it's better than Chrome Mox. The reason Chrome Mox is good is because there are decks that want the colored mana acceleration but don't want to get to a ton of mana eventually. Those decks don't want the deck construction restraints of Mox Diamond, which require the deck to have enough mana to make Diamond good.
Most of my aggro decks want to play 15 or 16 lands. Most that have Chrome get to play only 15, and they get to accelerate. Those decks like Chrome because they're willing to give up a card in order to play a 2 drop on turn 1 or a 3drop on turn 2. Most of those aggro decks couldn't play Mox Diamond, because they never want more than 4 lands in play at all, so they don't want to play enough lands that Diamond would be good, becuase in the games where they don't draw Diamond they're more likely to flood.
That's what it comes down to. In my aggro decks, in games where I DON'T draw a moxen, I don't want to flood. Deck construction with Diamond leads to that, whereas deck construction with Chrome does not. So sure, Diamond is better when in play because of all the reasons you list, but that doesn't make it playable in my RB aggro deck that only runs 15 lands. That's why Chrome is good. Not because it's "better than diamond", but because it fills a role diamond can't, which is giving colored ramp to nongreen aggro decks.
TBut really, the big advantage of Chrome Mox (and don't mistake the word big here...it is a much worse cube card than Mox Diamond) is that it allows you to cut a card on the spot, as opposed to during deck construction.
Also This. A thousand times this, very well articulated. Against the big control deck you can imprint a creature removal spell that wouldn't kill any creatures they run, against the aggro mirror where the board is full of stuff you can imprint the Armageddon that you'll never get the board advantage to play, and when you draw all three of your 4 drops in your opener you can pitch one so that you play the others earlier.
It's all ridiculous corner case stuff that never comes up so if anything I think it actually takes away from the discussion. Anyhow if you really need to know the 3 I thought of were
1. Deathrite Shaman - If you opponent plays this guy turn 1 on the play your Mox Diamond isn't looking so good.
2. Sewer Nemesis - You wouldn't want to give this guy a free pump.
3. Time Spiral - By the time I'm casting 6 mana spells I don't want to be drawing more land. This shuffles the land you pitched to Mox Diamond back in.
If we expand this to non cube cards I could add some more but really this just proves that there are possible cases where the land pitch is worse than imprinting a card would be and says nothing about 1 card being better/worse than the other.
I'm comparing these cards not so much to each other as I am comparing them to what I'm cutting out of my deck. If I'm light on playables and we're in pack 3 I'm much happier with Mox Diamond because it's helping me fill out my deck. If I'm heavy on playables Chrome Mox becomes more appealing because it helps me get more use out of my manabase. So comparing the cards during draft and deck construction is much easier because they're competing for different slots, the one that is more valuable depends on what your deck needs at the time. Once you reach the actual game comparing them is really awkward because they fill different roles. I've purposely been avoiding discussion how they play out in game because to me it's like comparing Diregraf Ghoul and Volrath's Stronghold, there's just no good that can come from it.
Also as JeffDerek pointed out they tend to go in different decks which is a whole other can of worms.
With Chrome Mox you have the option to remove cards that you can't cast yet or that are no longer relevant. This might even mean imprinting a 1 drop on turn 1, since you now are able to simply can skip that part of your curve.
When you use Mox Diamond, you don't have that kind of flexibility - you will always lose a card that would have been useful for you this or the next turn.
With Mox Diamond you have the option to discard lands that you can't play yet (you can only play one a turn after all) or that are not relevant (because you already have a sufficiency of that colour of mana). This might even mean discarding an ETB tapped land on turn 1, since you want to stay on curve starting at two mana.
When you use Chrome Mox, you don't have that kind of flexibility - you will always lose a spell that was good enough to make it into a Cube deck.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
...you will always lose a spell that was good enough to make it into a Cube deck.
More importantly, you always lose one of the cards that were important enough to the deck to be one of the final 22 cards. Not just good cards, but important ones. And if you ranked the cards from #1 to #22 by how good they were, you never know what quality spell will have to be pitched to get the Chrome active. You could be lucky and have #22 be in your hand to pitch. Or you could be unlucky where the least important remaining spell in your hand is either the wrong color, colorless (because you can't exile any colorless cards to turn it on) or have it be one of the intrinsically super-powered cards in your deck. Losing spell #23 is always the better choice, especially when you factor in the colorless cards in your deck that can't be pitched to it.
Regardless of what I exile, I get better fixing from the Diamond. I so often get stuck with situations where the card I want to pitch to the Chrome doesn't match the color that I need to cast the spell with, and vice versa. I don't have to make that decision with the Diamond, because I always get exactly the color mana I need.
With Chrome Mox you have the option to remove cards that you can't cast yet or that are no longer relevant. This might even mean imprinting a 1 drop on turn 1, since you now are able to simply can skip that part of your curve.
When you use Mox Diamond, you don't have that kind of flexibility - you will always lose a card that would have been useful for you this or the next turn.
Indeed. This is an interesting concept, and one I hadn't really thought of before. I'm usually not keen on pitching cards early in the curve, but there is definitely truth in this. I'll be watching for the Chrome Mox plays and see how often the pitched card increases the quality of the curve vs a mirrored Mox Diamond hand. Very cool.
Thanks for posting this. This is what I was hoping to delve up with the discussions about the cards. I love this forum.
Quote from Donald »
It's all ridiculous corner case stuff that never comes up so if anything I think it actually takes away from the discussion.
Fair enough. That's what I assumed, so I was just wondering if there were any legitimate examples of where Chrome would be the better card once cast, and it doesn't look like there are.
I mention it because I don't necessarily think it's obvious that Chrome Mox is an important part of that deck, but it is.
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One case where it's a lot better is during deck construction where you can cut a basic land for it instead of a spell. Upgrading a basic land is huge, upgrading a cube spell is just OK.
But when the card is actually cast, it takes up the basic land slot AND a spell slot. Both cards do. The difference, is that the Diamond allowed me to remove the worst card in my deck to play it, whereas the Chrome eats the worst card in my hand. And sometimes not even then, because the colored mana the card produces is important, forcing me to pitch a much higher quality card than the one I excluded from the decklist to play the Diamond.
Whenever both cards are in play, I get better value from the Diamond. I excluded a lower quality gas spell to play it, it fixes every color of mana, and the card lost to the Diamond can be retrieved.
I can't think of many situations where the Chrome is better unless A) I don't actually imprint something on it, or B) I don't actually cast it. Once it has cost me a spell slot and a land slot to resolve, I'd rather have the Diamond.
P1P1, probably. It depends on what I can anticipate wheeling and what color the ABU Mox is, but a lot of the time, yes.
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I play Chrome in my legacy deck, where there are redundant spells and a low land count, and it can possibly give me a t1 Bob/Stoneforge. In cube these are not really common occurrences as most of your spells are not redundant.
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During deck construction and draft it's better because it takes up a land slot so you're removing a basic land from your deck to play it instead of a cube spell. I'm not saying that one card is better than the other just that if you're looking to improve your mana base during draft Chrome Mox is a lot better.
I agree with this. You just have to get over the mental hurdle of losing a card for the ramp, and then you're fine. I will say that Diamond is usually more fun for me to play because I'm playing it in deck styles that I enjoy playing, abusing the graveyard and playing with lands, but Chrome is so much better for aggro decks it isn't funny.
Plus, there's always something painful about opening that 2 land Diamond hand with a 3drop in it, and just hoping you draw another land so you can play your 3drop on turn 2. When you don't draw that land, it sucks so bad to be holding your ramp spell and know it's not going to do anything for you.
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Only if you plan on casting the card. And if you cast it, Diamond would do a strictly better job fixing, by taking up the same number/type of cards as Chrome would to resolve (one spell and one land) and the quality of the removed spell would be lower for the Diamond, and the lost land can be recovered because it's only discarded, not exiled.
But if you have 2 lands and a Diamond, you'd only have 1 land and a Chrome, and you'd still need to topdeck another mana source to play that 3-drop. You don't lose overall mana sources with Diamond vs Chrome, because they don't compete for the same slot during construction.
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Right, at the cost of a spell slot instead of a land slot which is very important.
Both cards take up both slots. Assuming you actually cast the moxen.
The difference is, you get to remove the worst spell in your deck to include the Diamond. You have to pitch a spell from your hand to play the Chrome, which is much worse, because the quality of the lost card is higher in the Chrome's case.
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They really don't they just 2 for 1 you in a similar manner. They certainly don't take up 2 slots and they're not in betweens like Signets.
So in the case of Chrome Mox, when you add it to your deck, you get to play it over a basic. This is a significant upgrade for most decks. Mox Diamond takes up a spell slot so it can't be added in over a basic, you need to cut a spell for it. There will be many decks that will benefit more from Chrome Mox than Mox Diamond as a result. That would be a case of Chrome Mox being better than Mox Diamond and I didn't have to cast either one. You can draw comparisons between the cards and how they play out during gameplay but that's about as useful as comparing Tropical Island to Trygon Predator.
Once the card is cast, you've lost a spell slot from your deck and a land slot from your deck. Always and forever.
Chrome Mox is easier to find a cut for during construction, and more painful to cast.
Assuming that you actually cast the card with the intention of tapping it for mana, it has cost you both a spell and a land.
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But I haven't cast the card, we're still drafting.
Okay. sure. But I assume you want to eventually play the card and tap it for mana, right? Once you do, it's worse than Mox Diamond.
I've said multiple times before, Chrome has the advantage of being a better card when it's in your deck/hand. Because you have the option of never playing it, which keeps your land count lower and gas count higher. Which can be great in a lot of situations. However, once the cards are in play, I've lost a spell and a land from my deck, and I get a strictly better effect from the Diamond.
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Sure but that's hardly relevant to this discussion. One is a land, one is a spell. So if you see them both in a pack you take the one that will help your deck more. Sometimes this is Chrome Mox, sometimes it's Mox Diamond but it depends on what your deck needs and how many playables you have. You can blindly pick Mox Diamond over Chrome Mox every time you see the 2 in the same pack but I find that highly questionable because the cards fill completely different roles.
Chrome Mox has the advantage of being a land. The cards are hardly comparable as a result. You're focusing way to much on what happens when you cast these cards and not enough on what role these cards play.
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I could but there wouldn't a point because the cards fill very different roles.
No, don't give up on me! There's definitely a point! I'd love to see some of the examples of Chrome Mox being better once they're both in play. That's the point of this whole exercise. I want examples. I need examples to understand.
I understand the cards draft and build differently. I already explained multiple times that there are cases where the Chrome Mox isn't played where it's better than Diamond. It's a better card when floating around in your deck or when it's in your hand because it didn't cost you a spell (yet). There are also corner cases where it's cast and nothing is imprinted on it where it's better too. I get all that, I really do.
But what I'm most interested in is how the cards perform once they're cast. If I play Diamond (spell) and pitch a Land, I'm down a land slot and a spell slot, and I'm +1 on my mana (in terms of tempo, not overall sources). If I play Chrome (land) and pitch a Spell, I'm down a land slot and a spell slot, and I'm +1 on my mana (in terms of tempo, not overall sources). But the Diamond fixes all 5 colors, the pitched card can be retrieved and the spell I lost was a lower quality than the one lost to Chrome. So I can't see a case where they're in play producing mana where I'd rather have the Chrome. I want to hear examples in this case of when the Chrome is better, because I want to learn. There must be something major I'm missing here that I want somebody (anybody) to point out so I can "get it". Besides the corner case of pumping my opponent's Tarmogoyf, which is a drawback of Diamond I can live with.
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But really, the big advantage of Chrome Mox (and don't mistake the word big here...it is a much worse cube card than Mox Diamond) is that it allows you to cut a card on the spot, as opposed to during deck construction. This is occasionally a hindrance, but is often a boon. Cards don't have static value, and while you might have thought you'd need that (insert awesome card) it turns out you don't, due to (insert circumstance). This isn't possible when you are cutting a spell to make room for Mox Diamond. You have the entire deck to choose from (as opposed to just your hand) but you are just guessing about what the most frequent circumstance will be.
Most of my aggro decks want to play 15 or 16 lands. Most that have Chrome get to play only 15, and they get to accelerate. Those decks like Chrome because they're willing to give up a card in order to play a 2 drop on turn 1 or a 3drop on turn 2. Most of those aggro decks couldn't play Mox Diamond, because they never want more than 4 lands in play at all, so they don't want to play enough lands that Diamond would be good, becuase in the games where they don't draw Diamond they're more likely to flood.
That's what it comes down to. In my aggro decks, in games where I DON'T draw a moxen, I don't want to flood. Deck construction with Diamond leads to that, whereas deck construction with Chrome does not. So sure, Diamond is better when in play because of all the reasons you list, but that doesn't make it playable in my RB aggro deck that only runs 15 lands. That's why Chrome is good. Not because it's "better than diamond", but because it fills a role diamond can't, which is giving colored ramp to nongreen aggro decks.
Also This. A thousand times this, very well articulated. Against the big control deck you can imprint a creature removal spell that wouldn't kill any creatures they run, against the aggro mirror where the board is full of stuff you can imprint the Armageddon that you'll never get the board advantage to play, and when you draw all three of your 4 drops in your opener you can pitch one so that you play the others earlier.
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It's all ridiculous corner case stuff that never comes up so if anything I think it actually takes away from the discussion. Anyhow if you really need to know the 3 I thought of were
1. Deathrite Shaman - If you opponent plays this guy turn 1 on the play your Mox Diamond isn't looking so good.
2. Sewer Nemesis - You wouldn't want to give this guy a free pump.
3. Time Spiral - By the time I'm casting 6 mana spells I don't want to be drawing more land. This shuffles the land you pitched to Mox Diamond back in.
If we expand this to non cube cards I could add some more but really this just proves that there are possible cases where the land pitch is worse than imprinting a card would be and says nothing about 1 card being better/worse than the other.
I'm comparing these cards not so much to each other as I am comparing them to what I'm cutting out of my deck. If I'm light on playables and we're in pack 3 I'm much happier with Mox Diamond because it's helping me fill out my deck. If I'm heavy on playables Chrome Mox becomes more appealing because it helps me get more use out of my manabase. So comparing the cards during draft and deck construction is much easier because they're competing for different slots, the one that is more valuable depends on what your deck needs at the time. Once you reach the actual game comparing them is really awkward because they fill different roles. I've purposely been avoiding discussion how they play out in game because to me it's like comparing Diregraf Ghoul and Volrath's Stronghold, there's just no good that can come from it.
Also as JeffDerek pointed out they tend to go in different decks which is a whole other can of worms.
With Mox Diamond you have the option to discard lands that you can't play yet (you can only play one a turn after all) or that are not relevant (because you already have a sufficiency of that colour of mana). This might even mean discarding an ETB tapped land on turn 1, since you want to stay on curve starting at two mana.
When you use Chrome Mox, you don't have that kind of flexibility - you will always lose a spell that was good enough to make it into a Cube deck.
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More importantly, you always lose one of the cards that were important enough to the deck to be one of the final 22 cards. Not just good cards, but important ones. And if you ranked the cards from #1 to #22 by how good they were, you never know what quality spell will have to be pitched to get the Chrome active. You could be lucky and have #22 be in your hand to pitch. Or you could be unlucky where the least important remaining spell in your hand is either the wrong color, colorless (because you can't exile any colorless cards to turn it on) or have it be one of the intrinsically super-powered cards in your deck. Losing spell #23 is always the better choice, especially when you factor in the colorless cards in your deck that can't be pitched to it.
Regardless of what I exile, I get better fixing from the Diamond. I so often get stuck with situations where the card I want to pitch to the Chrome doesn't match the color that I need to cast the spell with, and vice versa. I don't have to make that decision with the Diamond, because I always get exactly the color mana I need.
Indeed. This is an interesting concept, and one I hadn't really thought of before. I'm usually not keen on pitching cards early in the curve, but there is definitely truth in this. I'll be watching for the Chrome Mox plays and see how often the pitched card increases the quality of the curve vs a mirrored Mox Diamond hand. Very cool.
Thanks for posting this. This is what I was hoping to delve up with the discussions about the cards. I love this forum.
Fair enough. That's what I assumed, so I was just wondering if there were any legitimate examples of where Chrome would be the better card once cast, and it doesn't look like there are.
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