MTG Salvation

Though it is an intrinsic part of Magic the Gathering, the mana system can be a bit frustrating when you are mana screwed or flood out. I'm looking to discuss what sorts of mechanics are out there that are especially good when you are manascrewed or flooded and the best cards with these mechanics. I'm talking about things like Cycling, Kicker, Morph, Strive, Suspend, Level Up, etc. Basically good mana sinks or ways to still operate even when your mana is tight. Some of these sorts of cards are already Cube staples but I'm sure there are good (or at least interesting) cards I and others have missed. Any cards, well known or not, in particular y'all really enjoy?

Cycling and Scry are your best friends.

If you are conspiracy enabled, Backup Plan is fantastic for making sure your opening grip has the correct number of lands. It's one of the better conspiracies.

The new morphs are good at all stages, if you're screwed you get a body for 2. If you're out of color you get a body for 3 colorless. If you're flooded you get a body and an effect. Fuse is in the same vein as Kicker but you get to choose which effect you want.

Aether Vial is pretty good for maintaining a board while land screwed, but you really need to drop it early for it to matter.

Modal cards like Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter are personal favorites that fall into this category. Edge of Autumn is a card that I think doesn't see enough play that would fit here as well. Horizon Canopy too.

All blocks have mechanics that adress you are looking for. in a nutshell:

Mana screw: scry, cycling, morph, hybrid mana, and of course mana ramp and fixing. Card draw and Looting.

mana flood: Entwine, buyback, multi/kicker, fuse, X spells, level up.

As taladel mentioned, midal mechanics such as suspend and evoke help too.

In cube though, you dont need much of these, as most spells ate already agressively costed and the mana fixing is premium as well.

It really hard to prevent flooding. It's part of the game. I guess like what some have mentioned, scry effects, fetching (thinning), or any type of library manipulation does help.

When you flood out, you tend to have too many lands to actually play them all, so instead of mana sinks, I would focus on looters like Looter il-Kor and Bonded Fetch and stuff like Compulsive Research. Having extra lands to pitch turns loot into undercosted draw. Really though, if you have mana troubles in cube, odds are you didn't shuffle enough or your deck is not built correctly. The probabilities of mana issues in a well built, well shuffled 40 are tiny.

Yea, but your solution only solves the blue aspect. I think mitigating land flooding should go beyond blue.

I'm a fan of Scry-lands (Temple of Epiphany) and/or the Ravnica Bouncelands (Simic Growth Chamber) as easy ways to help your mana without using nonland cards; also Horizon Canopy was mentioned earlier. Being ably to scry away or into more lands, or having a bounceland that serves as 2 land drops & a form of card advantage helps out, and in most cubes there's some contention for 4th guild land (Dual, Shock, Fetch, ???) so in guilds without strong Manlands or similar I like them.

Handling mana flood is yet another reason that I really like a lot of the flexible new tri-brids from FRF (Soulfire Grand Master, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, Tasigur, The Golden Fang, etc), cards with activated abilities like these guys really help, esp Soulfire Grand Master since she's so cheap & good if you're short mana as well. Similar to things like Figure of Destiny, low-drop level up guys that were already mentioned, stuff like that. A lot of reanimator enablers like Faithless Looting help pitch unwanted lands as well.

Including these cards is all very well, but people will draft and build decks with the goal of getting the best (most powerfull) deck. That means accepting the risk of mana flood if that gives you access to better cards.

Not saying that what you are trying to do is a bad idea, just that you will be lowering your power level or that these cards will not get played if people have more powerful alternatives.

Here's a list of mana sinks and draw filtering cards I run that might be helpful to you.

• Secure the Wastes
  
• Entreat the Angels
  
• Spear of Heliod
  
• Soulfire Grand Master
  
• Azure Mage
  
• Looter il-Kor
  
• Aetherling
  
• Into the Roil
  
• See Beyond
  
• Forbid
  
• Thirst for Knowledge
  
• Condescend
  
• Repeal
  
• Compulsive Research
  
• Upheaval
  
• Reassembling Skeleton
  
• Brutal Hordechief
  
• Tasigur, the Golden Fang
  
• Black Sun's Zenith
  
• Whip of Erebos
  
• Chandra Pyromaster's zero ability
  
• Lightning Berserker
  
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
  
• Countryside Crusher
  
• Siege-Gang Commander
  
• Inferno Titan
  
• Burst Lightning
  
• Firebolt
  
• Fireblast
  
• Faithless Looting
  
• Mizzium Mortars
  
• Bonfire of the Damned
  
• Tormenting Voice
  
• Earthquake
  
• Rolling Earthquake
  
• Courser of Kruphix
  
• Rampaging Baloths
  
• Avenger of Zendikar
  
• Terastodon (blow up your own lands)
  
• Sylvan Library
  
• Sphinx's Revelation
  
• Figure of Destiny
  
• Warden of the First Tree
  
• Crystal Ball
  
• Any of the Masticores
  
• Manlands

Abundance!

Honestly, one of the best things you can do is add more fetch lands to your cube. I really resisted that but it does so much for you. I underestimated the impact. It fixes mana and it thins your deck simultaneously. They really are vital IMO.

If you don't want to break singleton, you can run the ETB tapped versions although they might not be good enough depending on the power level of your cube. Terramorphic Expanse / Evolving Wilds are solid as well (though too slow for aggro IMO).

EDIT: On the subject of breaking singleton... there is a middle ground option that might be more palatable for some. Only run multiples if there are different versions in print. That's really not far off from running functional reprints if you think about it. Evolving wilds has 5 different artworks attached to it for example (if you include the two promos).

I think blue for the most part handles itself pretty well when it comes to flooding/screw.

As for the other colors, what needs to be done can't be simply saying "more draw" because it simply doesn't exist (or too few, too weak). What is available, is tapping on to the strengths of each color, and how Wizards actually sets them apart when it comes to dealing with screw/flood.

White is obviously the weakest when it comes to card selection. How I think Wizards seeks to eliminate screw/flood is with mana sinks. For example, white, along with red is best at going wide. Tokens are best paired with equipment. Equipment is one of the best mana sinks out there. Look out for value white cards.

My solution for white is its version of card draw: making tokens, putting counters. But more of the former. Cards like Cloudgoat Ranger, Spectral Procession, Lingering Souls give a lot of mileage, and in many respects it's better than Divination (Card draw). I tend to focus more on tokens when it comes to White.