I saw a lot of these spells in various lists (e.g. kojiro) and Farseek is maybe the most important card in standard right now, so I wanted to discuss some of these cards and if they are good enough for inclusion or worth a test run.
Farseek:
+ grabs duals
- cant get a basic forest
Explore:
+ basically gets you one turn ahead
+ cycles
- doesnt fix
- land has to be in hand
Edge of Autumn:
+ not a dead card later in the game
- bad if you want to ramp up and have 4 lands in play.
Farseek is a lot stronger then the others. The fact that it can grab duals is very strong in Cube.
We cut it a while ago, but if you choose to run it it would be good enough still. We prefer mana elves and mana rocks for our fixing, but Farseek, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are all still cubable.
Explore and Edge of Autumn look weaker and I would only play these in bigger, slower cubes. I would also run Wood Elves and their friends before these two.
Ya, Farseek and Nature's Lore are my two favorites. But I don't need these as much now that there are several 2cc ramp options that are strapped to bodies.
Nature's Lore/ Three visits are my two favs. But have a much happier home in commander decks that are built to abuse them. Farseek is solid, and all three can easily play the ramp spell role effectively.
Personally I run edge of autumn over all these others...on t5 if you draw it you can still ramp to 6 by playing it then your land...and that is when a lot of cube's bombs start to come into play.
Also, it is a much better top-deck late game than far-seek and it's cycle cost really isn't bad...especially since you can just tap the land for mana before you use it.
Explore I would probably not run since in a hand with two lands and it you are not necessarily guaranteed to get to 3 lands like you are with the other two. However I can see it's merits and perhaps I am just being a bit harsh on it.
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
I really prefer Edge to most of the others. Unlike wtwlf, I haven't replaced my spell ramp with creature ramp because I prefer that my ramp not die to bolt. I play the ones strapped to bodies because they're good too, but sometimes you just want to guarantee the land.
My cube doesn't run the hyper ramp package, and I've literally never had a deck with Edge where I wanted to ramp with it and couldn't. The ability to just tap a land for mana, cycle it away, and cast the card you drew without spending any mana to get to it is huge in the late game when you don't want to draw your ramp spells anymore.
I really prefer Edge to most of the others. Unlike wtwlf, I haven't replaced my spell ramp with creature ramp because I prefer that my ramp not die to bolt. I play the ones strapped to bodies because they're good too, but sometimes you just want to guarantee the land.
My cube doesn't run the hyper ramp package, and I've literally never had a deck with Edge where I wanted to ramp with it and couldn't. The ability to just tap a land for mana, cycle it away, and cast the card you drew without spending any mana to get to it is huge in the late game when you don't want to draw your ramp spells anymore.
You may have just sold me on Edge there!
I've always wanted the cycling ramp spell, because (since the density in my cube is probably too high) flooding is a serious concern in my experience.
Someday I want them to give us a pure cycling one. Maybe Cycling G, but it's recross the paths for basics instead of rampant growth?
The CT Average 360 list shows that Rampant Growth and Farseek are quite popular in cubes, but I don't see them on many lists here. I run a pretty extensive ramp package with all of the 1CMC elves that make green mana, Rofellos, Wall of Roots, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Lotus Cobra, Sylvan Caryatid, as well as Cultivate and Kodama's Reach. I'd assumed the 2CMC sorcery ramp spells weren't really necessary, especially since I'm running the full cycle of Signets, but maybe I'm wrong here? I've even noticed LSV considering Rampant Growth as a first pick when he drafts the MTGO Legacy Cube.
Also, how does everyone feel about Search for Tomorrow? I don't see it on many lists, but 1CMC ramp spells and creatures are really important to ramp packages. Anyone tried this in their cubes?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I'm currently running Search for Tomorrow to help support Wildfire / colorless (to search for a Wastes). The flexibility is really nice, I like it a bit more than Edge of Autumn (which I would run if I had an extra slot).
I like Search for Tomorrow well enough. It's a good deal for 1 mana, and gets you an extra usable land at the same point in the game where you would get use of it from Rampant Growth, just for less mana. And later in the game, it's just as good if not better than Rampant Growth, since the land enters the battlefield untapped, you wind up with three tapped land at the end of either exchange and you'll have immediate access to a new color of mana if you were missing it. So outside of instances where I draw it and cast it exactly on T2, I prefer Search. It's better in my opening hand, and it's better on turns 3+.
Farseek and Edge of Autumn are also both solid. Edge gains value when it can grab Wastes or if you're playing some Loam support cards. Otherwise, Farseek is stronger. And Nature's Lore is great in 2-color green decks with duals. If the duals you're grabbing with it are Forests, Nature's Lore is arguably the best 2cc ramp spell. But for 3+ color decks and fixing double non-green colors, Farseek does a better job.
The CT Average 360 list shows that Rampant Growth and Farseek are quite popular in cubes,
Eh...
Look, like most everyone around here I consider Cubetutor pretty much the best thing to happen to my cube ever. However, it is not perfect.
Its "average cube" lists suffer greatly from the great number of abandoned lists. It doesn't matter if your "cube" is a half-done list you haven't updated in two years, it counts.
Even the Average 720 list has absolutely no BFZ, OGW or SOI card yet. Only now the most played DTK and ORI cards are beginning to appear here.
tl;dr: I don't think CT's Average lists are useful for us.
I know the average cube is far from an ideal cube list, but there are very few cards on CTA 360 I don't consider strong enough to run at 465, and since these are older cards I'm asking about that haven't been eclipsed by better replacements with a similar effect I was wondering if there's something I'm missing by not including any of these ramp spells.
I like Search for Tomorrow well enough. It's a good deal for 1 mana, and gets you an extra usable land at the same point in the game where you would get use of it from Rampant Growth, just for less mana. And later in the game, it's just as good if not better than Rampant Growth, since the land enters the battlefield untapped, you wind up with three tapped land at the end of either exchange and you'll have immediate access to a new color of mana if you were missing it. So outside of instances where I draw it and cast it exactly on T2, I prefer Search. It's better in my opening hand, and it's better on turns 3+.
Having run Search in a few EDH ramp decks, this analysis jibes with my experiences with the card in that format. I'm glad to hear you've been having success with it in cube. Do you think you'd run Search for Tomorrow at 465?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I don't know if I would, but it wouldn't feel out of place, if that makes sense. It's a card that I feel is overall underrated and playing with it in the MODO since they've had it in, like, every iteration has let me play with it enough to know that it is powerful enough for mid-small sized cubes. I like it more than Growth and Farseek, and I think I'm lower on Farseek than most here since a lot of my green decks are heavy green but that's probably my fault more than the card's. Far seek is a tough card to justify for the 23 when you don't have the dual, which sometimes is easier to pick up in theory than in practice, but any solid 2 color deck or any deck with a dual will make it work.
I know the average cube is far from an ideal cube list, but there are very few cards on CTA 360 I don't consider strong enough to run at 465, and since these are older cards I'm asking about that haven't been eclipsed by better replacements with a similar effect I was wondering if there's something I'm missing by not including any of these ramp spells.
I like Search for Tomorrow well enough. It's a good deal for 1 mana, and gets you an extra usable land at the same point in the game where you would get use of it from Rampant Growth, just for less mana. And later in the game, it's just as good if not better than Rampant Growth, since the land enters the battlefield untapped, you wind up with three tapped land at the end of either exchange and you'll have immediate access to a new color of mana if you were missing it. So outside of instances where I draw it and cast it exactly on T2, I prefer Search. It's better in my opening hand, and it's better on turns 3+.
Having run Search in a few EDH ramp decks, this analysis jibes with my experiences with the card in that format. I'm glad to hear you've been having success with it in cube. Do you think you'd run Search for Tomorrow at 465?
The card will see play, and it seems like you like the card so I think you should absolutely include it. That said, since I am the only one having a bad opinion of the card I feel like explaining myself some more could be of interest.
In my experience, Search for Tomorrow was seldom played at the first turn. If you have both that and an elf, you play the elf first. If you have an ETBT land, you usually prefer to play it on the first turn and then your two drop rather than skip it and suspend SfT. We slotted it into the three drop slot of the curve.
Costing one more matters. Not every game you have three mana to play it by turn three. Sometimes you are stuck on two lands and topdeck this. Sometimes you face Thalia. Sometimes you want to play it off of Regrowth when you have four mana. Sometimes you want to recover from an Armageddon as fast as possible. Other times your opponent will use a Condescend. Each case alone is a corner case for sure, but all of them came up in the card's history in my cube and added up. The problem is that it is by far not the best turn one ramp, and by quite a bit worse than the average three mana ramp spell, all it offers is versatility.
It is not a bad card, but I do not think it competes with the two mana ramp cards. Even if we assume it is a slightly better Rampant Growth, I think Farseek, Three Visits, Edge of Autumn and Nature's Lore are better, so while I do not have any experience running a cube that small I think it would be suboptimal.
The problem is that it is by far not the best turn one ramp, and by quite a bit worse than the average three mana ramp spell, all it offers is versatility.
What I like about it, is that it offers T1 ramp to decks that might not want to be playing mana dorks. Decks like Wildfire/'Quake shells, Languish/Deluge/Deed decks, or Oath of Druids decks or decks playing other control cards like Wrath and the like. Sometimes you want land-based ramp (vs creature-based ramp) and there isn't much available to fill that role in the 1cc slot.
The card will see play, and it seems like you like the card so I think you should absolutely include it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not just looking for confirmation of a decision I'd already made to run Search. To be honest, I'm not even sure I need it or any other Rampant Growth variant in my cube. The reason this came up in the first place is that someone on the Cube Cards for Under $2 thread said it "needs" Rampant Growth, Farseek, and Explore. That's when I noticed Rampant Growth and Farseek are on CTA 360, which automatically qualifies it for inclusion on that list as long as the cards are cheap enough.
However, before that I'd assumed I had a pretty complete ramp package, and any 2CMC Rampant Growth variant other than Sakura-Tribe Elder was probably just worse than the elves, mana rocks, and Cultivate/Kodama's Reach I'm already running. Seeing those cards on CTA 360 made me think maybe I'm overlooking them.
That said, since I am the only one having a bad opinion of the card I feel like explaining myself some more could be of interest.
It absolutely was. I'd overlooked how much more mana disruption there is in cube than EDH, which definitely make the hard casting cost of Search a worse than I'd realized.
tl;dr I'm now interested in testing both Search for Tomorrow and Farseek. Now to find two cuts to make room.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
The problem is that it is by far not the best turn one ramp, and by quite a bit worse than the average three mana ramp spell, all it offers is versatility.
What I like about it, is that it offers T1 ramp to decks that might not want to be playing mana dorks. Decks like Wildfire/'Quake shells, Languish/Deluge/Deed decks, or Oath of Druids decks or decks playing other control cards like Wrath and the like. Sometimes you want land-based ramp (vs creature-based ramp) and there isn't much available to fill that role in the 1cc slot.
Excellent point I hadn't considered. When I retry one of those archetype again, I might include SfT with them too
However, before that I'd assumed I had a pretty complete ramp package, and any 2CMC Rampant Growth variant other than Sakura-Tribe Elder was probably just worse than the elves, mana rocks, and Cultivate/Kodama's Reach I'm already running. Seeing those cards on CTA 360 made me think maybe I'm overlooking them.
I saw a lot of these spells in various lists (e.g. kojiro) and Farseek is maybe the most important card in standard right now, so I wanted to discuss some of these cards and if they are good enough for inclusion or worth a test run.
Farseek:
+ grabs duals
- cant get a basic forest
Explore:
+ basically gets you one turn ahead
+ cycles
- doesnt fix
- land has to be in hand
Edge of Autumn:
+ not a dead card later in the game
- bad if you want to ramp up and have 4 lands in play.
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
We cut it a while ago, but if you choose to run it it would be good enough still. We prefer mana elves and mana rocks for our fixing, but Farseek, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are all still cubable.
Explore and Edge of Autumn look weaker and I would only play these in bigger, slower cubes. I would also run Wood Elves and their friends before these two.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Yeah, ok, you might not draft the right duals in cube.
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!
Deckbox tradelist/for sale
Draft my cube on cubetutor!
Check out my blog on Cube Archetypes!
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
Also, it is a much better top-deck late game than far-seek and it's cycle cost really isn't bad...especially since you can just tap the land for mana before you use it.
Explore I would probably not run since in a hand with two lands and it you are not necessarily guaranteed to get to 3 lands like you are with the other two. However I can see it's merits and perhaps I am just being a bit harsh on it.
My cube doesn't run the hyper ramp package, and I've literally never had a deck with Edge where I wanted to ramp with it and couldn't. The ability to just tap a land for mana, cycle it away, and cast the card you drew without spending any mana to get to it is huge in the late game when you don't want to draw your ramp spells anymore.
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
You may have just sold me on Edge there!
I've always wanted the cycling ramp spell, because (since the density in my cube is probably too high) flooding is a serious concern in my experience.
Someday I want them to give us a pure cycling one. Maybe Cycling G, but it's recross the paths for basics instead of rampant growth?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Also, how does everyone feel about Search for Tomorrow? I don't see it on many lists, but 1CMC ramp spells and creatures are really important to ramp packages. Anyone tried this in their cubes?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Could you explain?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I play all the two mana ramp spells listed above and have cut SfT.
I rate them Rampant Growth = Edge of Autumn > Explore > Search for Tomorrow
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
Farseek and Edge of Autumn are also both solid. Edge gains value when it can grab Wastes or if you're playing some Loam support cards. Otherwise, Farseek is stronger. And Nature's Lore is great in 2-color green decks with duals. If the duals you're grabbing with it are Forests, Nature's Lore is arguably the best 2cc ramp spell. But for 3+ color decks and fixing double non-green colors, Farseek does a better job.
I rank them Search For Tomorrow > Edge of Autumn = Farseek > Nature's Lore >> Rampant Growth >> Explore
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!
Eh...
Look, like most everyone around here I consider Cubetutor pretty much the best thing to happen to my cube ever. However, it is not perfect.
Its "average cube" lists suffer greatly from the great number of abandoned lists. It doesn't matter if your "cube" is a half-done list you haven't updated in two years, it counts.
Even the Average 720 list has absolutely no BFZ, OGW or SOI card yet. Only now the most played DTK and ORI cards are beginning to appear here.
tl;dr: I don't think CT's Average lists are useful for us.
Having run Search in a few EDH ramp decks, this analysis jibes with my experiences with the card in that format. I'm glad to hear you've been having success with it in cube. Do you think you'd run Search for Tomorrow at 465?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Probably not. It's a passable spell, but if I had to start making tough cuts, I'd be able to let it go.
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!
The card will see play, and it seems like you like the card so I think you should absolutely include it. That said, since I am the only one having a bad opinion of the card I feel like explaining myself some more could be of interest.
In my experience, Search for Tomorrow was seldom played at the first turn. If you have both that and an elf, you play the elf first. If you have an ETBT land, you usually prefer to play it on the first turn and then your two drop rather than skip it and suspend SfT. We slotted it into the three drop slot of the curve.
Costing one more matters. Not every game you have three mana to play it by turn three. Sometimes you are stuck on two lands and topdeck this. Sometimes you face Thalia. Sometimes you want to play it off of Regrowth when you have four mana. Sometimes you want to recover from an Armageddon as fast as possible. Other times your opponent will use a Condescend. Each case alone is a corner case for sure, but all of them came up in the card's history in my cube and added up. The problem is that it is by far not the best turn one ramp, and by quite a bit worse than the average three mana ramp spell, all it offers is versatility.
It is not a bad card, but I do not think it competes with the two mana ramp cards. Even if we assume it is a slightly better Rampant Growth, I think Farseek, Three Visits, Edge of Autumn and Nature's Lore are better, so while I do not have any experience running a cube that small I think it would be suboptimal.
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
What I like about it, is that it offers T1 ramp to decks that might not want to be playing mana dorks. Decks like Wildfire/'Quake shells, Languish/Deluge/Deed decks, or Oath of Druids decks or decks playing other control cards like Wrath and the like. Sometimes you want land-based ramp (vs creature-based ramp) and there isn't much available to fill that role in the 1cc slot.
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!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not just looking for confirmation of a decision I'd already made to run Search. To be honest, I'm not even sure I need it or any other Rampant Growth variant in my cube. The reason this came up in the first place is that someone on the Cube Cards for Under $2 thread said it "needs" Rampant Growth, Farseek, and Explore. That's when I noticed Rampant Growth and Farseek are on CTA 360, which automatically qualifies it for inclusion on that list as long as the cards are cheap enough.
However, before that I'd assumed I had a pretty complete ramp package, and any 2CMC Rampant Growth variant other than Sakura-Tribe Elder was probably just worse than the elves, mana rocks, and Cultivate/Kodama's Reach I'm already running. Seeing those cards on CTA 360 made me think maybe I'm overlooking them.
It absolutely was. I'd overlooked how much more mana disruption there is in cube than EDH, which definitely make the hard casting cost of Search a worse than I'd realized.
tl;dr I'm now interested in testing both Search for Tomorrow and Farseek. Now to find two cuts to make room.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Excellent point I hadn't considered. When I retry one of those archetype again, I might include SfT with them too
Mana rocks fit more decks, however if I can play both I usually prefer to use land based ramp as it is a lot more resilient, and in general offers more synergy in green (Tireless Tracker, Lotus Cobra, Oracle of Mul Daya, flipwalker nissa, Sylvan Advocate more shuffles for Sylvan Library and Courser of Kruphix)
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022