Just want to clarify that the unfortunately double entendre'd pain land only works with the lands that deal damage to you, not ones that you pay 1 life for. So City of Brass works but Mana Confluence doesn't.
I also think it's too powerful and counter play existing isn't enough to make that balanced. It gives the ancient tomb decks another set of lands that allows it to reach 4 mana on T2. I know that is beside the point for you because you're interested in powering up weaker cards but I think this would have a real chance to push Painter Decks back to that frame despite Urza's Saga cutting down on City of Traitors usage for them.
Agree with Morphling. They're both too good to not run it just sucks how much of a pinch there is on black slots at 360. Fwiw I think Inkwell doesn't cut it in 360 powered anymore. And I agree Griselbrand is the best. Archon is close but griselbrand being able to draw you into a second reanimation/sneak attack right away is too good.
I guess that just highlights the spectrum thing to me if you go from 7-8 1 drops and transfer 3-4 of those to 2 drops but everything else the same that is a just a midrange deck. Also this might just be my playgroup but that was never how aggro decks were built in my cohort. We always had curves and not just piles of one drops. Mostly because I didn't build the cube in a way where you could just play only one drops unless no one else was aggro and you played 2 colors.
Also I think it's clear to me this is just a difference in classification between us. I never considered the 2016 aristocrats deck aggro and I definitely didn't consider death's shadow in modern aggro (at least back in the Kommand days, it has evolved since then). Disruptive counterspell and discard aggro is one of my favorite archetypes to play but is so hard to support in cube because it is much more about the cheap disruption than the threats themselves. We recently had an Esper deck 3-0 that had Brimaz and Adeleline as it's main win cons backed up by a ton of disruption and card draw. I don't know how you're supposed to classify a deck like that. Is it control with a cheap finisher? Is it midrange because that's where it's curve sat? Or is it aggro because it played protect the threat? I don't have the exact list but it had Lotus, a mox, 2 1 mana discard spells, mana drain, forces of will and negatioin, JVP, snapcaster, preordain, baleful strix, and night's whisper. It's a sweet deck but I'm still not sure how I'd classify it.
It was a bit late last night and I just wanted to put my thoughts down, but this is how I feel myself and other drafters should approach cube design:
- The "normal" cube deck should no longer be expected midrange deck of majority 2-3 CMC costs, with 3-4 4 CMC costs and curve into 1-2 6-7 bombs. It should be more lower curved with roughly 0.5 CMC decrease and a cut of high CMC spells unless there is sufficient fast mana/ cheat etc.
- We should move away from the days of curve into 6 drop grave titan etc. and move to more undercosted threats. (Not sure if Karn, Thran Dynamo, Glided Lotus etc are on the their last days).
I think this may be a difference of environment but this does not match what I experience as normal at all. I think maybe that we have reached a point where 360 is a completely different animal to any other size. Aggro is struggling because the potency of of 3/4 mana threats being so completely absurd now. Even with the much stronger level of aggro creature midrange powerhouses like 3 mana daretti, Grist, and Oko have made it hard for aggro to keep up. Even without wraths there are so many threats that stabilize a board while being a massive value engine is just making it very hard for aggro that doesn't have all the goodies.
As a result of the middle of the curve being so strong and so good at stabilizing over the top threats are starting to go at a premium for control and "unfair" win conditions are hotly contested. Sneak attack, reanimate, storm, channel/super ramp, and stax are all super viable and perform better against aggro than I'd like but I'm also not going to intentionally weaken strong and fun archetypes I like.
The only thing I could do to dilute this power is to force aggro support in more heavily but at 360 it would mean cutting archetypes I want to support. If I want non graveyard recursive black aggro I would need to cut either stax or reanimator support and I'm not willing to do that. If I want to support green aggro it would mean cutting super ramp which I am interested in but at such a small size I would be downgrading an already weak color.
I don't have comprehensive stats I can look to but I do know that the best performers have consistently been whichever lane is open at the table. Which more than balance across different plans is an indicator of health to me.
Guild slots are always tight. Definitely doesn't beat out fractured identity for the top slot but it's right there with the azorious teferi's for 2nd and 3rd. Will have to test.
and all the flavors of BX aggro aren't going to touch it.
This is probably the biggest difference of opinion on the card actually. I don't support black aggro unless it's graveyard/sac oriented which generally would be at least interested in this. My entire black section is heavily graveyard focused so this is something I would splash for. As always it really depends upon the make up of your color sections. For me this seems like a slam dunk since Notion Thief is almost always an anti control sideboard card or a splash in UR wheels.dec.
I might try this out, but yeah white 3's are so insane it will be hard to stick. I think I might try it in for welcoming vampire but I suspect it's worse.
The only thing I might add is adding a set specific mechanic to the batch like Historic did with Saga's. Otherwise that seems like a perfect match of flavor and mechanics.
If you wanted more abilities in the batch you could bring dash back and use Dash (not sure if this works as I don't know the comprehensive rules but it's a great fit for flavor and maybe could work in your hypothetical set).
To clarify a few things. Infect was a huge success. It's only problem is that it's on the strong side and they prefer to have new things be strong. It's highly polarizing meaning it scores 1,2 and 9, and 10 instead of 4, 5, or 6.
Also, Waste isn't a type at all, not just not a basic type. The card waste has no land type. Which is the problem. They didn't want a sixth basic land type and couldn't make a basic land with a type that wasn't basic. So no waste type.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarifications. Still think it should have been a type but I get why they don't want to do it. Just think they should have when they decided to make it a basic.
I think this is likely excellent. I have been wanting to include more flexible graveyard hate that isn't dead against the field and this seems sweet. Slower but similar to Lion Sash and Scooze but dodges creature removal. Probably not a staple because colorless is so tight but I think it's really good.
I think this will be better than it looks. We talk about how bad werewolves are because of how often the day trigger happens organically and this with 1 trigger for a counter is a great deal imo.
This seems like it could be a fun grouping for a'la historic was in dominaria. I guess the next step would be you need a set where this is relevant and probably a faction to play it off against.
As to your actual request if hexproof was still evergreen it would be the hardest for me to decide upon. It has been depicted in different ways at different times but mostly struck me as agile. But of the current ones I think Flash, Haste, and flying are the ones you want so I think the mechanic is good to go as is you just need a reason for it to exist in your context just like historic needed a reason to exist.
edit: fwiw I agree that vigilance doesn't convey speed to me and always felt it felt weird on Samut. I do think double strike feels agile but first strike doesn't and splitting them feels weird.
After that Mana Leak > Remand > Miscalculation > Lose Focus then I'd probably put Jwari Disruption or Memory Lapse 5th but it's close.
I also think it's too powerful and counter play existing isn't enough to make that balanced. It gives the ancient tomb decks another set of lands that allows it to reach 4 mana on T2. I know that is beside the point for you because you're interested in powering up weaker cards but I think this would have a real chance to push Painter Decks back to that frame despite Urza's Saga cutting down on City of Traitors usage for them.
Also I think it's clear to me this is just a difference in classification between us. I never considered the 2016 aristocrats deck aggro and I definitely didn't consider death's shadow in modern aggro (at least back in the Kommand days, it has evolved since then). Disruptive counterspell and discard aggro is one of my favorite archetypes to play but is so hard to support in cube because it is much more about the cheap disruption than the threats themselves. We recently had an Esper deck 3-0 that had Brimaz and Adeleline as it's main win cons backed up by a ton of disruption and card draw. I don't know how you're supposed to classify a deck like that. Is it control with a cheap finisher? Is it midrange because that's where it's curve sat? Or is it aggro because it played protect the threat? I don't have the exact list but it had Lotus, a mox, 2 1 mana discard spells, mana drain, forces of will and negatioin, JVP, snapcaster, preordain, baleful strix, and night's whisper. It's a sweet deck but I'm still not sure how I'd classify it.
I think this may be a difference of environment but this does not match what I experience as normal at all. I think maybe that we have reached a point where 360 is a completely different animal to any other size. Aggro is struggling because the potency of of 3/4 mana threats being so completely absurd now. Even with the much stronger level of aggro creature midrange powerhouses like 3 mana daretti, Grist, and Oko have made it hard for aggro to keep up. Even without wraths there are so many threats that stabilize a board while being a massive value engine is just making it very hard for aggro that doesn't have all the goodies.
As a result of the middle of the curve being so strong and so good at stabilizing over the top threats are starting to go at a premium for control and "unfair" win conditions are hotly contested. Sneak attack, reanimate, storm, channel/super ramp, and stax are all super viable and perform better against aggro than I'd like but I'm also not going to intentionally weaken strong and fun archetypes I like.
The only thing I could do to dilute this power is to force aggro support in more heavily but at 360 it would mean cutting archetypes I want to support. If I want non graveyard recursive black aggro I would need to cut either stax or reanimator support and I'm not willing to do that. If I want to support green aggro it would mean cutting super ramp which I am interested in but at such a small size I would be downgrading an already weak color.
I don't have comprehensive stats I can look to but I do know that the best performers have consistently been whichever lane is open at the table. Which more than balance across different plans is an indicator of health to me.
This is probably the biggest difference of opinion on the card actually. I don't support black aggro unless it's graveyard/sac oriented which generally would be at least interested in this. My entire black section is heavily graveyard focused so this is something I would splash for. As always it really depends upon the make up of your color sections. For me this seems like a slam dunk since Notion Thief is almost always an anti control sideboard card or a splash in UR wheels.dec.
If you wanted more abilities in the batch you could bring dash back and use Dash (not sure if this works as I don't know the comprehensive rules but it's a great fit for flavor and maybe could work in your hypothetical set).
I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarifications. Still think it should have been a type but I get why they don't want to do it. Just think they should have when they decided to make it a basic.
As to your actual request if hexproof was still evergreen it would be the hardest for me to decide upon. It has been depicted in different ways at different times but mostly struck me as agile. But of the current ones I think Flash, Haste, and flying are the ones you want so I think the mechanic is good to go as is you just need a reason for it to exist in your context just like historic needed a reason to exist.
edit: fwiw I agree that vigilance doesn't convey speed to me and always felt it felt weird on Samut. I do think double strike feels agile but first strike doesn't and splitting them feels weird.