MTG Salvation

Hello All,

I'm back to cubing more regularly again and have been cutting the cube down a lot. I got it to 405 cards and have been thinking that I should really cut it to 360, the main loss (or the reason I stopped at 405) is that the 4th guild land isn't needed at 360 so the manlands would be leaving. This is a bit sad as we really enjoy them and they've sudden;y begun to be drafted and activated a lot more often.

Way back when I started with a 360 cube Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit were good enough to run as part of the 3 card spell section where the lands are dual, shock and fetch, is this still the case? I'm guessing so as essentially every deck in those colours would like another fixer which is also a win-con but the guild spells are way deeper than they were 9 years ago.

There's also a crazy idea of cutting duals (means lands have drawbacks) or shocks (more powerful), but that feels like it'll make mana bases a lot worse as fetches are going to be getting basics a lot more often.

I did a search of 360 card cube on Cube Cobra but they vary wildly and searching for 360 cubes on here gives an invalid search term error. I added in powered since that gets powered and unpowered results but there's not many 360s and a lot of the threads seem quite outdated since the advent of cube tutor and cube cobra. As such I felt a new thread was justified.

Thanks.

I think it's pretty reasonable to run 4 cycles of dual lands at 360 (maybe with trimming some of the less powerful 5c lands like Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse).

These are the two manlands I would definitely run at 360, even over Mishra's Factory and Mutavault. I think from a power level perspective, they are only slightly below Hallowed Fountain and Watery Grave.

Everyone has a different approach. For me at 360, I have a total of 8 guild slots for each guild, which includes both lands like Polluted Delta and Creeping Tar Pit as well as non-lands like Dimir Signet and Baleful Strix.

There's no hard split - usually it ends up being 4 non-lands and 4-lands, but for Radkos for example I only have 3 lands because I think the 5th best Rakdos non-land card is more impressive than the 4th best Radkos land.

Furthermore, I don't think you need to run complete cycles, especially at a small size like 360. A great example is the Canopy lands - these are really good in aggressive color combinations like Boros, so I run Sunbaked Canyon at 360. However, I'd probably rather have a Zagoth Triome over a Nurturing Peatland, even if putting a tri land in a guild slot is cheating a little bit.

Running all 5 Triomes, or all 6 Canopy lands, at 360 is probably suboptimal. Certainly, running all 10 manlands in very sub-optimal - Lumbering Falls just can't compete for a slot the same way Creeping Tar Pit and Celestial Colonnade can.

Here is my take on this issue:

For any cube, the best three lands are always Fetch - Dual - Shock. Its safe to say its almost never wrong to include all 30 lands in a cube regardless of size.

Then the other lands - Temple (I'm a strong proponent of scry lands), pain, manlands, fast lands are all good land options. You can justify any combination of these lands as the 4th or 5th land cycle; They're great in aggro, midrange, control etc. Even if you are wrong, you're not wrong by much. I would just play with any set and enjoy drafting that thinking about which of the land cycles to include.

I wouldn't cut ABUR-duals/shocks for manlands. I do run four cycles of dual lands at 360, though. I don't run any of the manlands, but I think ABURs, Fetches, Shocks, and Manlands are a good choice if running four cycles. I think it's also reasonable if you wanted to run a mix of lands for the fourth cycle - Tarpit and Colonnade, maybe some Canopy lands, some cycle lands, check lands, whatever you feel is the best for that color pair. Or run zero manlands, that's what I'm doing. You could also even run Tarpit and Colonnade in a spell slot instead of a land slot, though in addition to having the best manlands, Azorius and Dimir also have the best multi-color spells, so maybe that's not as reasonable.

I didn't vote because you need an option for "have 4 land cycles." At 360 having 40 fixing lands is completely reasonable, and the 4th option is very good for most guilds.

I also run 4 dual land cycles at 360, I just run a bit less 5 color fixing lands/artifacts to compensate. The 4th dual land cycle I leave open for an interesting/best land slot that makes sense for that color combination. Right now that's usually between either manlands in the colors that have good ones or horizon lands for colors that they exist in. Once they release the remaining ones, horizons will likely be my default 4th land until they print something obviously better for a certain color combination (like UW/UB manlands are, in my opinion).

Quote from jamis »

I wouldn't cut ABUR-duals/shocks for manlands. I do run four cycles of dual lands at 360, though. I don't run any of the manlands, but I think ABURs, Fetches, Shocks, and Manlands are a good choice if running four cycles. I think it's also reasonable if you wanted to run a mix of lands for the fourth cycle - Tarpit and Colonnade, maybe some Canopy lands, some cycle lands, check lands, whatever you feel is the best for that color pair. Or run zero manlands, that's what I'm doing. You could also even run Tarpit and Colonnade in a spell slot instead of a land slot, though in addition to having the best manlands, Azorius and Dimir also have the best multi-color spells, so maybe that's not as reasonable.

I haven't been a big fan of manlands. But I decided not to put too much effort into weighing which land cycle is more ideal.

My 4th slot for lands is also flexible. I run manlands in 8 and canopy lands in 2, and I think canopy lands are also totally defend able over manlands in Simic, Golgari, and rakdos.

I think the Horizon lands are more than defensible in every color combination. Drawing cards off your lands is a bonkers thing to be able to do.

If only Rakdos had a Canopy land.

Hopefully they make the rest of the Canopies soon. I'd probably play the RG and RB ones over any other land for the 4th guild land. However, WU and UB probably would still be manlands for me. So 2 manlands, 8 canopies.

Quote from asmallcat »

I didn't vote because you need an option for "have 4 land cycles." At 360 having 40 fixing lands is completely reasonable, and the 4th option is very good for most guilds.

Here was me thinking I had my bases covered and I missed this one. Would be tough finding cuts for another 10 lands but I may look into that once I've got the rest of the changes drafted. I've added that as an option.

Thanks for the reminder about canopy lands, I've never ran any of them as Horizon Canopy never really appealed and was expensive, but they'd make the addition of Wrenn and Six even better and I'd probably want Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator back in, they got cut a while ago as they didn't do enough unless it was in stax, or strip locking.

Quote from Cythare »

If only Rakdos had a Canopy land.

Oh right lol. For a minute there I lived in a logical world where that cycle was complete ans thought "why haven't I replaced lavalclaw with the canopy land yet?"

Quote from Zephyr259 »

Thanks for the reminder about canopy lands, I've never ran any of them as Horizon Canopy never really appealed and was expensive, but they'd make the addition of Wrenn and Six even better and I'd probably want Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator back in, they got cut a while ago as they didn't do enough unless it was in stax, or strip locking.

You don't need anything around the canopy lands to make them good. Being able to get an extra card when you're flooding is SO GOOD, and there's lots of decks who don't care about the life loss.

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from Cythare »

If only Rakdos had a Canopy land.

Oh right lol. For a minute there I lived in a logical world where that cycle was complete ans thought "why haven't I replaced lavalclaw with the canopy land yet?"

It's not like this is the only incomplete cycle. There are other cycles I also wish were complete, but in terms of high-profile ones, this is probably the highest one still left. I'd love me some enemy cycling duals and tangolands, and even though they aren't lands that I see very often, I really want the SOI land cycle to be complete. I really like that cycle, and I can't really explain why.

Quote from Cythare »

If only Rakdos had a Canopy land.

I've actually been considering creating custom cards to complete the cycle.

If it's okay to post a link to a tweet, here's a link to my post where I share my custom images for the rest of the Horizon cycle: https://twitter.com/wtwlf123/status/1280221376687661056

Quote from Cythare »

It's not like this is the only incomplete cycle. There are other cycles I also wish were complete, but in terms of high-profile ones, this is probably the highest one still left. I'd love me some enemy cycling duals and tangolands, and even though they aren't lands that I see very often, I really want the SOI land cycle to be complete. I really like that cycle, and I can't really explain why.

I thought they had said at some point they were gonna stop doing incomplete land cycles, but either I'm remembering wrong or they abandoned that completely.

Also, if the Triome cycle isn't completed in the near future, that will surpass Canopy lands as the most obvious incomplete cycle IMO. Although Canopy does have the distinction of being a 6/10 cycle.

They may have said that, but that could be interpreted to mean that moving forward, they'll only do complete cycles, not that they'll go back and fill in old ones. And even if they do fill in some of them, they definitely won't do all of them - I'm assuming no one's losing sleep over the incomplete Lava Tubes cycle.

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from Cythare »

It's not like this is the only incomplete cycle. There are other cycles I also wish were complete, but in terms of high-profile ones, this is probably the highest one still left. I'd love me some enemy cycling duals and tangolands, and even though they aren't lands that I see very often, I really want the SOI land cycle to be complete. I really like that cycle, and I can't really explain why.

I thought they had said at some point they were gonna stop doing incomplete land cycles, but either I'm remembering wrong or they abandoned that completely.

Also, if the Triome cycle isn't completed in the near future, that will surpass Canopy lands as the most obvious incomplete cycle IMO. Although Canopy does have the distinction of being a 6/10 cycle.

I've read an article on how they wanted to focus more towards Allied Color pairs over the enemy color pairs.

Its nice flavor wise, but I think its just really bad for deck building.

What I have done is kept tarpit and collonade, but cut hallowed fountain and watery grave. Its worked great for me. As long as you are running underground sea and tundra so you still have a fetchable dual, this is what I would reccomend.

I have a 180 modern cube, 2 duals for each guild. In UW, Celestial Colonnade and Mystic Gate. In UB, Creeping Tar Pit and Sunken Ruins.

At 360 I run a 4th cycle of lands, with Horizon-lands and manlands for UW, UB, BR and RG. Colonnade and Tar Pit are great, and I would definitely play them in spell slots if I cut the 4th lands.

I think it is still good in small cubes. They are great land/creatures, especially in control decks