I don't think Azcanta is particularly difficult to find in cube, especially with all of the graveyard synergies available these days. The filtering on the front side is minor, but the ramp and card selection on the back side is pretty useful. Like yesterday's card, it can provide something for a control deck to do on a turn they don't need to counter something, but it can also be useful for a combo deck to find an important non-creature spell, such as Upheaval or Tinker.
Have you ever had anything destroyed due to water damage? How bad was it?
This card is really, really good. Repeatable card selection engine, fuels the graveyard, interacts well with Brainstorm, Jace, Top, Rack and Library, can be an insane card advantage engine that can break stalled games and control mirrors wide open, AND it's blue ramp. It's really just a fantastic card, and I recommend it for cubes of pretty much every size.
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
It shows how broken the Dredge mechanic is when you consider how unplayable Life from the Loam would be without it. If you can support it with fetches, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, etc., then it's an incredibly useful engine piece. Without those, I don't think it's good enough, which makes it quite a very expensive card to run, despite the fact that Loam itself is only about $15.
Is there a card or archtype you would like to be able to run in your cube but can't because of price?
I love Loam, and I'm constantly finding new cool things to do with it. Works well in Braids/Stax decks, it pairs nicely with cards with discard costs, and it can chain Wasteland effects, fetchlands or even keep you in threats by recurring manlands. And the dredge not only fuels itself, but can fill the graveyard with other useful cards as well.
I really want to give Life from the Loam a shot, I have been really enjoying Ramunap Excavator and LftL seems to play into the same space. Dredge also seems useful as a way to get some cards into the yard, not enough on its own but the whole card feels like it wouldn't be enough on its own but the sum of all its moving parts as well as the synergy with stripmine, wasteland and fetches make it do enough to get it in.
I'm on a pretty restrictive budget at the minute so any large archetype is beyond me at the minute. I would like to add Life from the Loam but it's slightly outside my single card price range at the minute. Storm would be fun to try for a while but it would be a big expensive overhaul for something that I don't think I would keep around too long.
Life from the Loam is one of my favorite cards. A few years back, I played this BGRw Loam Pox deck in Modern, and it felt so good always having a grip full of cards to pitch to Zombie Infestation, Conflagrate, Faithless Looting, trigger Bloodghast, and Ghost Quarter recursion. It was so slow and grindy, and since building the cube I've become a huge fan of playing tempo, so I've since moved on in Modern.
That's part of what I love about cube: I can play my favorite cards for a few games, then move on for a while, then come back, and always find new interactions.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Life from the loam is a card that I dont run despite knowing it has lots of cube applications. Loam decks aren't a type of deck I enjoy playing and it has always seemed a bit janky to me despite its success in both constructed and cube environments.
Maybe one day i will put it in but for now i dont feel like im missing it.
Trying to have a completely foiled modern border cube has been my main restriction on cost. there are some cards where the only modern border foil version is just too expensive. the judge survival of the fittest ($450), demonic tutor ($350), and wheel of fortune ($300) are three big ones that come to mind. Was very sad when i couldnt get a modern border foil demonic tutor from Masters 25.
Not a lot of people have been playing Life from the Loam, so I recently tossed in Titania, Protector of Argoth to see if that would maybe incentivize people people, along with fastbond/crucible/ramunap/courser/oracle/etc.
I cut Life from the Loam when I cut Gifts Ungiven, which is unfortunate because there were other archetypes that used Loam, but not enough for me to justify keeping it. If I ran Strip Mine, then Loam would be an auto-include, but if I ran Strip Mine, I'd also probably be more excited about trying to fit Gifts Ungiven back in, as well.
Nykthos could be interesting to include as a way to reward mono-colored strategies that aren't RDW, especially in an environment like Cube where it is often very easy to splash extra colors for powerful cards. I don't run it personally because the setup cost is very real, but does anyone else have much experience with it in Cube?
Do you try to encourage midrange and/or control decks that splash multiple colors for powerful bombs in your cube or have you made design decisions to try and keep such decks to a minimum in your environment?
It always feels like it wont generate a ton of mana in cube, I need 4 mana symbols before I am up any mana and even then it doesn't fix colours. It is a fun card for commander but I don't think I would cube it unless I wanted to push mono-colour decks harder.
I like splashing in my misrange/control decks. My lands and fixing are good enough that if a drafter wants to splash a colour they can usually pick up a few sources.
While Clever Impersonator is a very flexible Clone, I'm not sure there are a ton of non-creature, non-land permanents worth copying in cube, but I suppose you can always tick down a planeswalker, then copy it and get a second activation. What do you guys like doing with Clever Impersonator?
What do you think humanity's greatest obstacle to enlightenment is?
Clever Impersonator is good, I think it is my favorite of the clones I have run, it is just so flexible and (almost) never without a target. it can be a bit bad against some decks where you are overpaying but the ability to copy the biggest threat or most useful non-land on the board is a pretty big deal. Being a 0 power creature in the yard also has its advantages for various reanimation spells. Definitely not a staple but I am pretty happy with it.
I also really like the thought of my creature becoming a sword and then beating someone with it.
I'd say the drive/need to acquire wealth hold us back. When you can justify predatory business practices and generally selfish behavior as necessary to make money and make a return for shareholders I think it has a generally bad effect on society. No level of profit is ever enough and the people at the bottom are usually one ones who lose out in order to maxamise profits. A lot of good people can't do the things they love because it's not economically viable and so much stress in life comes from not having enough money. It's a bit of a cliche but greed is the root of all evil. I'm not advocating full on Communism, but a little less greed would do humanity a world of good.
I liked it a lot more in concept than practice. Very rarely was it copying my opponent's JTMS or SoFaI, I would generally rather have the flexibility of Stunt Devil or the mana cost of Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph.
MTGS was giving me some trouble yesterday when I tried to update, which is why I missed yesterday, unfortunately. If I miss a day, that's typically the reason. Anyway, on to today's card!
Innocent Blood is a great answer to early reanimation strategies, and is also an option for Pauper cubes. Still, there are several non-symmetrical edicts at two mana, which might more generally useful.
Do you like zombie stories? What's your favorite one?
I quite like Innocent Blood, it's one of the few edicts (Do or Die being the other) that I run and I like it because it's cheap and the decks that run it don't mind it being symmetrical. I think the fact I end up using my cube for 3 player gives it a little power buff.
Not a zombie story fan, I have the first walking dead compendium I plan to read at some stage though so maybe that will change things.
Innocent Blood is a decent card for creature-light control decks to help combat early pressure, but I'd rather just stick to the two good Edicts and run something else instead.
Chromatic Lantern can be great at helping cast cards you're splashing for, but relying on it too hard can make it difficult to cast those spells in the games you don't draw it. In Cube, I imagine that this is a fancy Manalith a significant portion of the time.
Which line of text on a card in your cube most often goes ignored?
Lantern is super overrated, or at least was. It's a weird card in that you either have a deck with tons of fixing and it's not needed, or you don't and it's the card holding that deck together. Was a fan, no longer a fan. Fancy manalith is apt.
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 list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
Search for Azcanta
I don't think Azcanta is particularly difficult to find in cube, especially with all of the graveyard synergies available these days. The filtering on the front side is minor, but the ramp and card selection on the back side is pretty useful. Like yesterday's card, it can provide something for a control deck to do on a turn they don't need to counter something, but it can also be useful for a combo deck to find an important non-creature spell, such as Upheaval or Tinker.
Have you ever had anything destroyed due to water damage? How bad was it?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
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!
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Life from the Loam
It shows how broken the Dredge mechanic is when you consider how unplayable Life from the Loam would be without it. If you can support it with fetches, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, etc., then it's an incredibly useful engine piece. Without those, I don't think it's good enough, which makes it quite a very expensive card to run, despite the fact that Loam itself is only about $15.
Is there a card or archtype you would like to be able to run in your cube but can't because of price?
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!
I'm on a pretty restrictive budget at the minute so any large archetype is beyond me at the minute. I would like to add Life from the Loam but it's slightly outside my single card price range at the minute. Storm would be fun to try for a while but it would be a big expensive overhaul for something that I don't think I would keep around too long.
That's part of what I love about cube: I can play my favorite cards for a few games, then move on for a while, then come back, and always find new interactions.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Maybe one day i will put it in but for now i dont feel like im missing it.
Trying to have a completely foiled modern border cube has been my main restriction on cost. there are some cards where the only modern border foil version is just too expensive. the judge survival of the fittest ($450), demonic tutor ($350), and wheel of fortune ($300) are three big ones that come to mind. Was very sad when i couldnt get a modern border foil demonic tutor from Masters 25.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
[180 classic cube]
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Nykthos could be interesting to include as a way to reward mono-colored strategies that aren't RDW, especially in an environment like Cube where it is often very easy to splash extra colors for powerful cards. I don't run it personally because the setup cost is very real, but does anyone else have much experience with it in Cube?
Do you try to encourage midrange and/or control decks that splash multiple colors for powerful bombs in your cube or have you made design decisions to try and keep such decks to a minimum in your environment?
I like splashing in my misrange/control decks. My lands and fixing are good enough that if a drafter wants to splash a colour they can usually pick up a few sources.
Clever Impersonator
While Clever Impersonator is a very flexible Clone, I'm not sure there are a ton of non-creature, non-land permanents worth copying in cube, but I suppose you can always tick down a planeswalker, then copy it and get a second activation. What do you guys like doing with Clever Impersonator?
What do you think humanity's greatest obstacle to enlightenment is?
I also really like the thought of my creature becoming a sword and then beating someone with it.
I'd say the drive/need to acquire wealth hold us back. When you can justify predatory business practices and generally selfish behavior as necessary to make money and make a return for shareholders I think it has a generally bad effect on society. No level of profit is ever enough and the people at the bottom are usually one ones who lose out in order to maxamise profits. A lot of good people can't do the things they love because it's not economically viable and so much stress in life comes from not having enough money. It's a bit of a cliche but greed is the root of all evil. I'm not advocating full on Communism, but a little less greed would do humanity a world of good.
Innocent Blood
Innocent Blood is a great answer to early reanimation strategies, and is also an option for Pauper cubes. Still, there are several non-symmetrical edicts at two mana, which might more generally useful.
Do you like zombie stories? What's your favorite one?
Not a zombie story fan, I have the first walking dead compendium I plan to read at some stage though so maybe that will change things.
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!
Chromatic Lantern
Chromatic Lantern can be great at helping cast cards you're splashing for, but relying on it too hard can make it difficult to cast those spells in the games you don't draw it. In Cube, I imagine that this is a fancy Manalith a significant portion of the time.
Which line of text on a card in your cube most often goes ignored?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic