To Pahntizle, how important is it for playability/drafting that the fetch lands come into play untapped? Reason i am asking is that for people who are bent on following the singleton rule, the Mirage fetchlands are there for the allied cycle.
There is also the Panoramas but they cannot fetch duals, which makes them significantly worse. But they still do later fixing and enable landfall.
I don't intend to steer away from the main topic, but I just want to know exactly the benefits of the duplicate cycle of fetches. Is it the speed of fixing and interaction with duals? Or is the possibility of landfall or late game (slow) fixing good enough? That way we can determine if the Mirage fetches or the Panoramas can serve the same purpose.
Thanks
Konfusius really nailed it, but I'll reiterate for clarity. The reason this works so well is because I was able to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1) Decrease the amount of fixing lands in my cube (I went from 5 dedicated slots per color pair to 4)
2) Maintain the quality of fixing within decks (it appears to have gone up ever so slightly, but not so much that splashing a third color is too easy)
3) Make sure all lands appealed to all archetypes roughly similarly
The second you start adding tap lands or bounce lands or pain lands, you end up back where I started, having to add "throw" lands at the problem of fixing, and ending up with the worst lands tabling and even being drafted last in a given pack.
As soon as you add lands that enter the battlefield tapped, aggro is no longer interested, the lands are less contested and can be picked up later by the slower decks.
With the exception of manlands, that is. Lands that double as threats are just fine for aggro's plan.
With the exception of manlands, that is. Lands that double as threats are just fine for aggro's plan.
That is right, thanks for pointing that out!
I think what a second set of fetches does for Cube is great, but I'm not ready to drop the singleton rule for that and it is highly unlikely that we will ever get functional reprints of fetchlands.
What I can realistically hope for in the relatively near future is the completion of the man land cycle with enemy man lands and the printing of the Horizon Canopy cycle. I think both turning into a threat and turning into a card are high enough upsides that those lands make a very good impression even compared to duals with basic land types and fetchlands.
I wouldn't hold your breath for a Horizon Canopy cycle. If they made one, I would guess that the activated abilities on all the lands would have to be different. I can't imagine them ever wanting a constructed environment where half of the resources in your deck can cantrip.
However, completing the Scars duals for the enemy side and/or Enemy manlands would solve any remaining "fixing woes" for 450-540 cubes. Personally, I don't have a problem with fixing in my 450 at all, but enemy Scars/enemy Manlands would still be very welcome.
I wouldn't hold your breath for a Horizon Canopy cycle. If they made one, I would guess that the activated abilities on all the lands would have to be different. I can't imagine them ever wanting a constructed environment where half of the resources in your deck can cantrip.
However, completing the Scars duals for the enemy side and/or Enemy manlands would solve any remaining "fixing woes" for 450-540 cubes. Personally, I don't have a problem with fixing in my 450 at all, but enemy Scars/enemy Manlands would still be very welcome.
I fear you are right about the Horizon Canopy cycle, but I would like it a lot.
Printing the enemy part of one of the other two cycles would do it as well, that is right. It is mainly the fourth enemy land that is rather 'bad' compared to what allied color pairs get as fixing.
I haven't read any of the previous three pages, but I just want to add I enjoy having a limited quantity of dual lands because it forces people to pick lands highly and it cuts down on 5 color durdle mid-range control decks.
I haven't read any of the previous three pages, but I just want to add I enjoy having a limited quantity of dual lands because it forces people to pick lands highly and it cuts down on 5 color durdle mid-range control decks.
Reading the previous posts, you might see that we have cut down the total amount of fixing lands, and the overall quality of fixing in the cube has remained consistent. "5 color durdle mid-range control decks" have shown up exactly zero times.
I've found that good and plentiful manafixing improves the drafting experience, as players can consider stretching out into splash colours instead of just taking the best card in whichever colour pair they're locked into. I simply don't recognize the worry about '5 color durdle mid-range control decks' being too good or easy to draft. Maybe in 2009 that would have been true, but there's enough good disruption, LD, and the like as well as a lot of strong proactive cards that don't fit well in those decks. It hasn't been a powerful strategy in my Cube for a long time.
Indeed. I'm not sure why people think a 540 card cube with 4 sets of duals/fetches is somehow a fixing-fest, when 360 card cubes run 3 sets with ease.
Konfusius really nailed it, but I'll reiterate for clarity. The reason this works so well is because I was able to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1) Decrease the amount of fixing lands in my cube (I went from 5 dedicated slots per color pair to 4)
2) Maintain the quality of fixing within decks (it appears to have gone up ever so slightly, but not so much that splashing a third color is too easy)
3) Make sure all lands appealed to all archetypes roughly similarly
The second you start adding tap lands or bounce lands or pain lands, you end up back where I started, having to add "throw" lands at the problem of fixing, and ending up with the worst lands tabling and even being drafted last in a given pack.
Yeah I can see the motivation behind it. And I think its really great, given your results. I tend to see lands/mana fixing as simply enablers of spells (well, literally they are). What I mean is,i see duals as simply lands, and I think they should be treated closer to basics than business spells, or lands with abilities.
The reason I am considering cheaper alternatives is for budget reasons. So now breaking the singleton rule is not an option yet.
Yeah I can see the motivation behind it. And I think its really great, given your results. I tend to see lands/mana fixing as simply enablers of spells (well, literally they are). What I mean is,i see duals as simply lands, and I think they should be treated closer to basics than business spells, or lands with abilities.
The reason I am considering cheaper alternatives is for budget reasons. So now breaking the singleton rule is not an option yet.
Well, the other option is to draft lands differently or separately, which could certainly work in a budget environment. There are other threads with some pretty cool ideas, and making access to fixing equal (or more equal) is certainly intriguing. Personally, I like the draft struggle between lands and spells, and thus came up with this solution.
Konfusius really nailed it, but I'll reiterate for clarity. The reason this works so well is because I was able to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1) Decrease the amount of fixing lands in my cube (I went from 5 dedicated slots per color pair to 4)
2) Maintain the quality of fixing within decks (it appears to have gone up ever so slightly, but not so much that splashing a third color is too easy)
3) Make sure all lands appealed to all archetypes roughly similarly
The second you start adding tap lands or bounce lands or pain lands, you end up back where I started, having to add "throw" lands at the problem of fixing, and ending up with the worst lands tabling and even being drafted last in a given pack.
I can understand points 2) and 3), but how does doubling up allow fewer fixing lands? I run a similar number of fixing lands in my 450 cube (I notice that you have cards like manlands and Horizon Canopy in addition) which probably allows for easier splashing of a third colour, but we don't have the "problem" of lots of four and five colour decks. I like having lots of lands, as more of your picks will reach the 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
I can understand points 2) and 3), but how does doubling up allow fewer fixing lands? I run a similar number of fixing lands in my 450 cube (I notice that you have cards like manlands and Horizon Canopy in addition) which probably allows for easier splashing of a third colour, but we don't have the "problem" of lots of four and five colour decks. I like having lots of lands, as more of your picks will reach the deck.
I'm a bit confused by the question, so forgive me if I repeat myself. Previously we ran 5 dedicated slots for fixing per color. Doubling up on fetch lands allowed us to cut down to 4 a pair. The handful of lands in the flex section (like canopy) were always there, so that didn't change. It allowed us to cut fixers like bounce lands and pain lands, that not only could be only used in that specific color pair, but also came with some (at least mild) archetype restrictions. Going to more flexible lands allows you to run less and get more.
You like having lots of lands? Then this is probably not for you. I personally disliked all the unusable or mediocre fixing that was being shipped around the table, and wanted to create a fixing environment more akin to a 360 draft, where nearly every land that passes through you has some value, both to you and others. I was tired of playing the "did my color lands make it into this draft pool?" game.
I think I get what you mean. If I'm running a BR aggro deck, and I've already got myself a Badlands, then I can pick up any one of 14 fetchlands that are in the cube to act as a second copy. In a singleton cube I'd be wanting any of seven fetchlands, plus the solitary Blackcleave Cliffs (or whatever). Similarly I'm more likely to be able to link off-colour duals, e.g. a Volcanic Island, if there are twice as many Polluted Deltas. If more of the lands are relevant, you don't need so many.
I can understand what you are doing, and why you are doing it. A Blackcleave Cliffs is useless in a draft if nobody is playing that colour combination. But there will be dead non-land cards as well. A staple like Wrath of God could be last picked if nobody is playing white control. Gold cards are often dead if nobody is in that colour pair. I guess that doesn't bother me. Nor does it bother me that a drafter can sometimes get lucky and receive late fixing if he is the only drafter in that colour pair.
"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 nailed it there Humpty. I get the rationale for doing this and think it's a cool idea. But I don't want to shell out for more fetches, and I like the singleton nature of drafts. I do often wonder what a cube with no singleton rule would look like after optimisation. I guess there would be a lot of copies of the best of each creature/spell in each slot.
I want to do this, but my play group is too traditionalist..
I slightly break the singleton rule for functionally equivalent portal cards I dont own, and can tell it irrationally bothers some people.
I love what fetches do to cards like brainstorm, scroll rack, landfall, crucible of worlds, knight of the reliquary, deathrite shaman.
Think it increases strategic interaction more than any other land,
nor do I think having two sets of fetches would allow everyone just to go off and draft all powerful cards in different colors.
I have no problem with having 2 color + splash strategies be easy to support, much like a constructed deck.
Why are people suggesting running more wasteland variants if you do this?
Wasteland is LESS good against this system (less duals + more fetches),
If you have a dual land + fetch in your deck, your fetch gets the dual land, removing a dual land from your deck.
If you had 2 dual lands, you simply can just draw both..
I guess if you aren't lowering your fixing count, then manabases are going to be easier to achieve and hence more people are going to stretch them out..
Increasing the value of land death.
Cards like aven mindscensor and stifle become cubable I believe.
When you wasteland the dual that they spent a fetch to grab, you take out a higher percentage of the fixing in their deck with a single LD spell. When you wasteland a Battlefield Forge, they can still draw and play their Plateau to give them the fixing they want. When you remove the Plateau they grabbed with their fetchland, they can't draw into the fixing they want/need anymore.
With a higher concentration of better quality fixing, the importance of having answers to that caliber of fixing goes up.
Konfusius really nailed it, but I'll reiterate for clarity. The reason this works so well is because I was able to achieve three goals simultaneously:
1) Decrease the amount of fixing lands in my cube (I went from 5 dedicated slots per color pair to 4)
2) Maintain the quality of fixing within decks (it appears to have gone up ever so slightly, but not so much that splashing a third color is too easy)
3) Make sure all lands appealed to all archetypes roughly similarly
The second you start adding tap lands or bounce lands or pain lands, you end up back where I started, having to add "throw" lands at the problem of fixing, and ending up with the worst lands tabling and even being drafted last in a given pack.
With the exception of manlands, that is. Lands that double as threats are just fine for aggro's plan.
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I think what a second set of fetches does for Cube is great, but I'm not ready to drop the singleton rule for that and it is highly unlikely that we will ever get functional reprints of fetchlands.
What I can realistically hope for in the relatively near future is the completion of the man land cycle with enemy man lands and the printing of the Horizon Canopy cycle. I think both turning into a threat and turning into a card are high enough upsides that those lands make a very good impression even compared to duals with basic land types and fetchlands.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
However, completing the Scars duals for the enemy side and/or Enemy manlands would solve any remaining "fixing woes" for 450-540 cubes. Personally, I don't have a problem with fixing in my 450 at all, but enemy Scars/enemy Manlands would still be very welcome.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Printing the enemy part of one of the other two cycles would do it as well, that is right. It is mainly the fourth enemy land that is rather 'bad' compared to what allied color pairs get as fixing.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Depending on what the other 1, :symtap:, sac abilities were on the potential Canopy cycle, several of them could still be damn sweet.
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Reading the previous posts, you might see that we have cut down the total amount of fixing lands, and the overall quality of fixing in the cube has remained consistent. "5 color durdle mid-range control decks" have shown up exactly zero times.
Indeed. I'm not sure why people think a 540 card cube with 4 sets of duals/fetches is somehow a fixing-fest, when 360 card cubes run 3 sets with ease.
Yeah I can see the motivation behind it. And I think its really great, given your results. I tend to see lands/mana fixing as simply enablers of spells (well, literally they are). What I mean is,i see duals as simply lands, and I think they should be treated closer to basics than business spells, or lands with abilities.
The reason I am considering cheaper alternatives is for budget reasons. So now breaking the singleton rule is not an option yet.
And I would never dip below that number
Well, the other option is to draft lands differently or separately, which could certainly work in a budget environment. There are other threads with some pretty cool ideas, and making access to fixing equal (or more equal) is certainly intriguing. Personally, I like the draft struggle between lands and spells, and thus came up with this solution.
Exactly. The whole reason this idea came about was because I remembered my 360 drafts so fondly, when it came to lands.
I can understand points 2) and 3), but how does doubling up allow fewer fixing lands? I run a similar number of fixing lands in my 450 cube (I notice that you have cards like manlands and Horizon Canopy in addition) which probably allows for easier splashing of a third colour, but we don't have the "problem" of lots of four and five colour decks. I like having lots of lands, as more of your picks will reach the deck.
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"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
I'm a bit confused by the question, so forgive me if I repeat myself. Previously we ran 5 dedicated slots for fixing per color. Doubling up on fetch lands allowed us to cut down to 4 a pair. The handful of lands in the flex section (like canopy) were always there, so that didn't change. It allowed us to cut fixers like bounce lands and pain lands, that not only could be only used in that specific color pair, but also came with some (at least mild) archetype restrictions. Going to more flexible lands allows you to run less and get more.
You like having lots of lands? Then this is probably not for you. I personally disliked all the unusable or mediocre fixing that was being shipped around the table, and wanted to create a fixing environment more akin to a 360 draft, where nearly every land that passes through you has some value, both to you and others. I was tired of playing the "did my color lands make it into this draft pool?" game.
I can understand what you are doing, and why you are doing it. A Blackcleave Cliffs is useless in a draft if nobody is playing that colour combination. But there will be dead non-land cards as well. A staple like Wrath of God could be last picked if nobody is playing white control. Gold cards are often dead if nobody is in that colour pair. I guess that doesn't bother me. Nor does it bother me that a drafter can sometimes get lucky and receive late fixing if he is the only drafter in that colour pair.
My 380 Beginners’ Cube on Cube Tutor
"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
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I slightly break the singleton rule for functionally equivalent portal cards I dont own, and can tell it irrationally bothers some people.
I love what fetches do to cards like brainstorm, scroll rack, landfall, crucible of worlds, knight of the reliquary, deathrite shaman.
Think it increases strategic interaction more than any other land,
nor do I think having two sets of fetches would allow everyone just to go off and draft all powerful cards in different colors.
I have no problem with having 2 color + splash strategies be easy to support, much like a constructed deck.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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Wasteland is LESS good against this system (less duals + more fetches),
If you have a dual land + fetch in your deck, your fetch gets the dual land, removing a dual land from your deck.
If you had 2 dual lands, you simply can just draw both..
I guess if you aren't lowering your fixing count, then manabases are going to be easier to achieve and hence more people are going to stretch them out..
Increasing the value of land death.
Cards like aven mindscensor and stifle become cubable I believe.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
With a higher concentration of better quality fixing, the importance of having answers to that caliber of fixing goes up.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg