Future consideration is a series of articles that analyzes cards that I am considering adding to my cube. Each post offers an in-depth look at why the card might be cube worthy.
Our first look at cards for future consideration is taking a look at the artifact Lightning Greaves. This is a cheap artifact that can be equipped for free and provides the equiped creature with both shroud and haste.
This card was actually recommended to me by a friend of mine. After looking into it I have to agree that it fills a need in my cube. Currently there are only a handful of of equipment cards in my deck and even fewer creatures with shroud. With Red, Black, and White being very removal heavy, I feel that there needs to more protection from removal without adding many more protection from color cards. The added bonus of this being an artifact is that all decks can benefit from the card.
Apart from it filling a need in my cube, when you evaluate the card on it's own it seems very under-costed for the bonuses it provides. Haste and Shroud are both abilities that are very heavily seated in the Magic color pie. Being able to add these abilities to any deck for a cheap casting cost and free equip cost this card makes itself a great candidate for any cube. I will be picking up a copy of this card next time I order singles for sure.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Crafting Your Cube: Mana Fixing
Today we are going to take a look at mana fixing and how I addressed it when crafting my cube. While there is quite a bit of color fixing in green and some in other colors as well today we are going to only look only at the non-color specific versions of fixing in my cube. If you wish to view the contents of my cube links are available on the side navigation to the full listings.
Below is a list of the current color fixers in my cube:
Mirage CIPT fetch land cycle
Bad River - swamp/island
Flood Plain - island/plains
Grasslands - plains/forest
Mountain Valley - forest/mountain
Rocky Tar Pit - mountain/swamps
Lorwyn vivid land cycle - 2 time mana fixer
Vivid Meadow
Vivid Crag
Vivid Creek
Vivid Grove
Vivid Marsh
Other Lands
Gemstone Caverns - Luck based but works better in a 40 card deck
Shimmering Grotto - mana fixing at the cost of tapping an extra land
Reflecting Pool - Helps fix issues where you need multiple of one type of mana
City of Brass - Fixing at the cost of life
Artifacts
Lotus Petal - One use fixing and acceleration
Expedition Map - Fetch the land you need
Elsewhere Flask - Fix to one color while removing all others
Prismatic Lens - Shimmering Grotto the artifact
Compared to most cubes, this is very limited color fixing. Many other cubes run as many as 30 mana fixing lands alone. They use the full cycles of rare pain, fetch, shock, and duel lands, etc. While in the future I plan on adding the cycle of 10 pain lands to my cube (once I get the five I am missing that is), one of my design goals of my cube was to make sure that people wouldn't be able to splash color using non-basic lands/artifacts alone. To complete this goal I started out with a small amount of color fixing to err on the side of caution. I plan on building on this foundation as I grow my cube beyond 360 cards however.
The correct amount of fixing for your cube is really a matter of preference of you and your other players. The more fixers you have the easier it is to splash colors for powerful spells and the more powerful the drafted decks will be. Finding a good balance may take a few drafts so feel free to experiment to find the amount that works for you. Keep in mind that most of the cards I have included in my cube are some of the weakest fixers that you can include.
Have any experience creating a mana base for a cube? Let us know what lands/cycles you have used in your cube in the comments.
Below is a list of the current color fixers in my cube:
Mirage CIPT fetch land cycle
Bad River - swamp/island
Flood Plain - island/plains
Grasslands - plains/forest
Mountain Valley - forest/mountain
Rocky Tar Pit - mountain/swamps
Lorwyn vivid land cycle - 2 time mana fixer
Vivid Meadow
Vivid Crag
Vivid Creek
Vivid Grove
Vivid Marsh
Other Lands
Gemstone Caverns - Luck based but works better in a 40 card deck
Shimmering Grotto - mana fixing at the cost of tapping an extra land
Reflecting Pool - Helps fix issues where you need multiple of one type of mana
City of Brass - Fixing at the cost of life
Artifacts
Lotus Petal - One use fixing and acceleration
Expedition Map - Fetch the land you need
Elsewhere Flask - Fix to one color while removing all others
Prismatic Lens - Shimmering Grotto the artifact
Compared to most cubes, this is very limited color fixing. Many other cubes run as many as 30 mana fixing lands alone. They use the full cycles of rare pain, fetch, shock, and duel lands, etc. While in the future I plan on adding the cycle of 10 pain lands to my cube (once I get the five I am missing that is), one of my design goals of my cube was to make sure that people wouldn't be able to splash color using non-basic lands/artifacts alone. To complete this goal I started out with a small amount of color fixing to err on the side of caution. I plan on building on this foundation as I grow my cube beyond 360 cards however.
The correct amount of fixing for your cube is really a matter of preference of you and your other players. The more fixers you have the easier it is to splash colors for powerful spells and the more powerful the drafted decks will be. Finding a good balance may take a few drafts so feel free to experiment to find the amount that works for you. Keep in mind that most of the cards I have included in my cube are some of the weakest fixers that you can include.
Have any experience creating a mana base for a cube? Let us know what lands/cycles you have used in your cube in the comments.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Publishing Schedule
Hello Mana Workshop Readers. The flow of articles has felt a little disjointed as things have been getting started. I have taken some of the content that I have written and the ideas for columns that I have and laid out a basic publishing schedule for the site to follow. Next week will be a test run of this so everything is subject to change during or after that. The schedule is as follows.
Cube Mondays
Crafting your Cube - A series that looks at design consideration and attacking issues that exist when creating a cube (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Future Consideration - Card Analysis on cards that I am considering for my personal cube (available at 12:01 PM central time).
Budget Tuesday
Budget Alternatives - A series that searches for cheap replacements for overpriced cards. This week we take a look at the mighty Baneslayer Angel (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Open Topic Wednesday
Open Topic Article - This week I will be reviewing the recently released sliver premium deck (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Designer Magic Thursday
Card Doctor - A series of articles where I try to 'fix' overcosted cards to be more viable (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Custom Magic - A post with a custom designed magic card for you every week (available at 12:01 PM central time)
Johny Friday
Deck list - A weekly deck list for any number of random formats. This week we will be looking at EDH slivers (available at 12:01 AM central time)
No Tagline Saturday
Card Synergy - A look at potential card combos spanning the full card set of magic (available at 12:01 AM central time)
Roundup Sunday
Weekly Roundup - A look at the best articles from other Magic blogs (available at 12:01 AM ventral time...notice a pattern?).
Phew! That is a lot of content for one person to write. This week is going to be a trial run to see if this schedule is too demanding for me. I am making good progress on the articles so I expect to be able to finish everything this week. If I need to I will adjust the amount of content in future weeks and try to give myself at least one day off. Please leave words of encouragement or any feedback that you might have in the comments.
Cube Mondays
Crafting your Cube - A series that looks at design consideration and attacking issues that exist when creating a cube (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Future Consideration - Card Analysis on cards that I am considering for my personal cube (available at 12:01 PM central time).
Budget Tuesday
Budget Alternatives - A series that searches for cheap replacements for overpriced cards. This week we take a look at the mighty Baneslayer Angel (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Open Topic Wednesday
Open Topic Article - This week I will be reviewing the recently released sliver premium deck (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Designer Magic Thursday
Card Doctor - A series of articles where I try to 'fix' overcosted cards to be more viable (available at 12:01 AM central time).
Custom Magic - A post with a custom designed magic card for you every week (available at 12:01 PM central time)
Johny Friday
Deck list - A weekly deck list for any number of random formats. This week we will be looking at EDH slivers (available at 12:01 AM central time)
No Tagline Saturday
Card Synergy - A look at potential card combos spanning the full card set of magic (available at 12:01 AM central time)
Roundup Sunday
Weekly Roundup - A look at the best articles from other Magic blogs (available at 12:01 AM ventral time...notice a pattern?).
Phew! That is a lot of content for one person to write. This week is going to be a trial run to see if this schedule is too demanding for me. I am making good progress on the articles so I expect to be able to finish everything this week. If I need to I will adjust the amount of content in future weeks and try to give myself at least one day off. Please leave words of encouragement or any feedback that you might have in the comments.
Crafting Your Cube: Guidelines
There are many things to take into consideration when you are coming up with the list for your cube. Before I started picking out any of my favorite cards to put into my cube list I wanted to have a lay down some guidelines to help me come up with my list.
1) All cards are legal
I knew that I didn't want to limit myself in anyway when constructing my cube. Some people like to create block, pauper, or even standard cubes. As I stated in a previous post, part of the reason why I created a cube was to make the most of my old favorite cards while still playing on an even playing ground with any other people I was playing with. I decided I wanted to take this one step further and not worry about any card banned/restriction statuses. All cards were fair game.
2) No Proxies
Many players proxy powerful cards such as the power nine in order to be able to draft some of the most powerful cards that have ever been printed. Personally I made the decision to only work with cards that I already had. Again, This was largely motivated by the desire to be playing with my favorite cards more so than trying to lower the power of card pool. That being said, I would gladly play those cards and many others if I had them.
Not using proxies also allows me to gradually buy singles in the deck and will allow me to keep growing my cube. Some people might not want to put down the money for more expensive cards and I completely understand that. It is really just an issue of personal preference.
3) Drafted Decks with Constructed Power Level
I was looking for a power level closer to a constructed type 2 deck rather than the usual power level of a drafted deck. This again is really a personal preference. For my first cube I really wanted to make things as powerful as I could while still following guideline #2.
I have also toyed around with the idea of making a cube made up of what I feel the worst cards in the game are. It would certainly be much cheaper than getting some of the cards I plan to acquire in the future, but this did not align itself with my original goals of making my cube so if I plan on ever using bad cards it will be for a separate cube entirely.
So with these guidelines in place I took the plunge and started selecting my cards. The first pick seemed like an easy enough choice to me. It was the first card that ever got me excited about playing blue: Man-O'-War
1) All cards are legal
I knew that I didn't want to limit myself in anyway when constructing my cube. Some people like to create block, pauper, or even standard cubes. As I stated in a previous post, part of the reason why I created a cube was to make the most of my old favorite cards while still playing on an even playing ground with any other people I was playing with. I decided I wanted to take this one step further and not worry about any card banned/restriction statuses. All cards were fair game.
2) No Proxies
Many players proxy powerful cards such as the power nine in order to be able to draft some of the most powerful cards that have ever been printed. Personally I made the decision to only work with cards that I already had. Again, This was largely motivated by the desire to be playing with my favorite cards more so than trying to lower the power of card pool. That being said, I would gladly play those cards and many others if I had them.
Not using proxies also allows me to gradually buy singles in the deck and will allow me to keep growing my cube. Some people might not want to put down the money for more expensive cards and I completely understand that. It is really just an issue of personal preference.
3) Drafted Decks with Constructed Power Level
I was looking for a power level closer to a constructed type 2 deck rather than the usual power level of a drafted deck. This again is really a personal preference. For my first cube I really wanted to make things as powerful as I could while still following guideline #2.
I have also toyed around with the idea of making a cube made up of what I feel the worst cards in the game are. It would certainly be much cheaper than getting some of the cards I plan to acquire in the future, but this did not align itself with my original goals of making my cube so if I plan on ever using bad cards it will be for a separate cube entirely.
So with these guidelines in place I took the plunge and started selecting my cards. The first pick seemed like an easy enough choice to me. It was the first card that ever got me excited about playing blue: Man-O'-War
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Weekly Roundup - 11/22 - 11/29
Weekly Roundup is a weekly overview (or roundup) of interesting articles that have been posted in the magic blogosphere...other than the awesome ones posted here of course.
General
A Magic Journey - Wizards.com
I generally am only really a fan of the R & D and design articles that are posted on the official magic website but this article instantly took me back in time to the being a forth grader playing Magic on the playground during recess. I think this might actually be my favorite Magic article of all time. It hooked me in for the ride and was very well written.
Why Design Magic Cards? - Mananation.com
An interesting look at designing magic cards and the effects that custom cards have on various formats. I had never really thought beyond the effect a card would have on constructed. As someone who enjoys designing cards it makes sense to me that drafting would be the fairest way to introduce a new card to help mitigate balance issues. I highly recommend this article for anyone who is interested in R & D.
Secondary Market
Baneslayer Angel - The Perfect Storm - Mananation.com
I am not very into the secondary market. I don't really speculate much on cards in the new sets and I generally don't even buy a huge amount of singles other that when I am trying to build a tribal deck of some sort. I really only go as far as thinking about how much money I would need to spend to reacquire my playset of Cursed Scrolls and Sliver Queens that I sold off when my interest in Magic was waning when I was in high school. This article really sucked me in and got me thinking about all the factors that ultimately create high prices on chase rares, only to have the bottoms fall out on them once they go out of rotation in standard (unless the card is named Sliver Queen it seems...).
EDH
Derfington’s Corner: Playing with Fire – Jaya Ballard - I Got 99 Problems But a General Ain’t One
A great look at making a mono red EHD deck. The article explains and justifies the reason for the cards in deck and includes a link to a proper decklist at the end. I really prefer having a deck explained to me before I get caught up in looking at the list and trying to figuring out the reason for card choices on my own. Great read. Can't Recommend it myself.
The Sliver Hive - mtg deck source
I seems that I not the only one who came up with the idea of turning the new premium sliver deck into an EDH deck. Unfortunately, I am still working on my list as it will be the first EDH deck I have made in a very long time. Fortunately, mtg deck source does a good job of adapting the deck to EDH and chances are does a better job overall that I have so far. Expect to see my deck list on the subject in the coming week.
Other Formats
The Stack and Back - wizards.com
A look at an interesting alternative format where players share a common deck. The mechanics of it reminded of a little bit of a simplified form of Mental Magic, a format I haven't played since tempest. I might give this one a try sometime and then keep the deck set aside for Mental Magic play as well.
General
A Magic Journey - Wizards.com
I generally am only really a fan of the R & D and design articles that are posted on the official magic website but this article instantly took me back in time to the being a forth grader playing Magic on the playground during recess. I think this might actually be my favorite Magic article of all time. It hooked me in for the ride and was very well written.
Why Design Magic Cards? - Mananation.com
An interesting look at designing magic cards and the effects that custom cards have on various formats. I had never really thought beyond the effect a card would have on constructed. As someone who enjoys designing cards it makes sense to me that drafting would be the fairest way to introduce a new card to help mitigate balance issues. I highly recommend this article for anyone who is interested in R & D.
Secondary Market
Baneslayer Angel - The Perfect Storm - Mananation.com
I am not very into the secondary market. I don't really speculate much on cards in the new sets and I generally don't even buy a huge amount of singles other that when I am trying to build a tribal deck of some sort. I really only go as far as thinking about how much money I would need to spend to reacquire my playset of Cursed Scrolls and Sliver Queens that I sold off when my interest in Magic was waning when I was in high school. This article really sucked me in and got me thinking about all the factors that ultimately create high prices on chase rares, only to have the bottoms fall out on them once they go out of rotation in standard (unless the card is named Sliver Queen it seems...).
EDH
Derfington’s Corner: Playing with Fire – Jaya Ballard - I Got 99 Problems But a General Ain’t One
A great look at making a mono red EHD deck. The article explains and justifies the reason for the cards in deck and includes a link to a proper decklist at the end. I really prefer having a deck explained to me before I get caught up in looking at the list and trying to figuring out the reason for card choices on my own. Great read. Can't Recommend it myself.
The Sliver Hive - mtg deck source
I seems that I not the only one who came up with the idea of turning the new premium sliver deck into an EDH deck. Unfortunately, I am still working on my list as it will be the first EDH deck I have made in a very long time. Fortunately, mtg deck source does a good job of adapting the deck to EDH and chances are does a better job overall that I have so far. Expect to see my deck list on the subject in the coming week.
Other Formats
The Stack and Back - wizards.com
A look at an interesting alternative format where players share a common deck. The mechanics of it reminded of a little bit of a simplified form of Mental Magic, a format I haven't played since tempest. I might give this one a try sometime and then keep the deck set aside for Mental Magic play as well.
Cube Synergy: Crucible of Worlds
When I was creating first creating my cube I started by only really thinking about the power level of the individual cards and not thinking much about synergy. While it is important to think about the strength of a given card when you are trying to create either a cube or a deck, some cards do not become truly powerful until until you combined them with other cards.
A good example of this is the card Crucible of Worlds. When I first evaluated the card I was looking at it mostly as a anti-land destruction card and put it into my maybe pile as it did not seem like it would add much to my cube. When I was finalizing the cube I came across the card again and couldn't believe that I almost passed it up.
Crucible of Worlds becomes much more powerful when you combine it with fetch lands. this card combo allows you to thin your deck of lands and fix any mana issues you might have as well. If that weren't enough, if you have a creature with a landfall ability in place you can keep bringing your fetch lands back every turn to continue to trigger landfall. Imagine the number of tokens that you can get in play if you had a Rampaging Baloths in the battlefield.
This card becomes even more disgusting though when it is combined with Strip Mine or Wasteland. This simple 2 card combo gives you renewable land destruction every turn. In the case of Strip Mine you can completely land lock your opponent or in the best case destroy their lands completely if they do not continue to drop them.
While Crucible of Worlds alone might not be powerful enough to justify a first pick from a pack over some of the more powerful stand alone cards in a cube, the Johnie in me will still be tempted to pick it every time for some of the tricks that I might be able to build as I draft my deck.
A good example of this is the card Crucible of Worlds. When I first evaluated the card I was looking at it mostly as a anti-land destruction card and put it into my maybe pile as it did not seem like it would add much to my cube. When I was finalizing the cube I came across the card again and couldn't believe that I almost passed it up.
Crucible of Worlds becomes much more powerful when you combine it with fetch lands. this card combo allows you to thin your deck of lands and fix any mana issues you might have as well. If that weren't enough, if you have a creature with a landfall ability in place you can keep bringing your fetch lands back every turn to continue to trigger landfall. Imagine the number of tokens that you can get in play if you had a Rampaging Baloths in the battlefield.
This card becomes even more disgusting though when it is combined with Strip Mine or Wasteland. This simple 2 card combo gives you renewable land destruction every turn. In the case of Strip Mine you can completely land lock your opponent or in the best case destroy their lands completely if they do not continue to drop them.
While Crucible of Worlds alone might not be powerful enough to justify a first pick from a pack over some of the more powerful stand alone cards in a cube, the Johnie in me will still be tempted to pick it every time for some of the tricks that I might be able to build as I draft my deck.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Berserko's Cube
The Call of the Cube
I got pulled into Magic again by drafting shadowmoor with a few friends about a year ago. After a few drafts I caught the Magic bug all over again. I tried to get back into competitive play and even when to a few tournaments. Things went much better than I thought they would. I used a friend of mine's elf deck and ended up pulling 17th out of 50 with a deck I had never played before. I really had missed the game.
Overall my experience rejoining the competitive magic world ended up with me spending money on a few boxes and finding that the competitive environment has devolved into most people playing buying singles for decks that they have found online. The game moved too quickly for me now. It seemed that new sets were constantly being released and I did not want to be constantly sinking money into the game or take the trill away that come from opening packs. At this point I stopped playing again and missed the entire Alara block. Standard was no longer the environment for me.
Looking at my collection again, I was left once again with the thoughts of what to do. I no longer enjoyed standard due to having to shell out big money to stay competitive and felt like my collection was incomplete if I only had one or two copies of a good card instead of a full playset. I did enjoy drafting but what is the point of paying for cards that I am only going to use once if that is the only type of magic that I play? I needed a solution that would allow me to get the most out of my old cards and enable me to play cards that I only had one copy of to the fullest. Fortunately, I found cube drafting.
The basic idea behind cube drafting is to create a pool of cards to use for a draft. As such, the minimum card pool should be set to 360 cards to be able to support an 8 player draft. Typically, the cube also only uses one copy of each card. The cube draft format seemed to solve all of my main issues I had with the game. I could use my `one-of`s, I got the same style of gameplay that I enjoyed from drafting, and I could use my full collection of cards. Cube drafting would also allow me and my friends to play games at a power level above that of a normal draft by being able to choose which cards would be drafted ahead of time.
I have spent the last week going through my collection and assembling some of the best cards and limited bombs and with the help of the donations of a stack of cards from a friend of mine I was able to complete my first draft of the cube. I broke down the cards for my cube in the following way:
52 cards of each color (260 total cards)
50 gold/hybrid cards (5 of each 2 color combination)
50 Artifacts/land (some fixing and some colorless lands)
I will post a full card list for the cube soon. For those who are interested in learning more about cube drafting, I found cubedrafting.com to be a great resource in coming up with good ideas for cards to use. Between the site owner's cube and the threads on their forum I was able to include and remove a few cards from my initial list based off of the other cube owner's experiences. Expect more posts on the subject as the play testing begins.
Overall my experience rejoining the competitive magic world ended up with me spending money on a few boxes and finding that the competitive environment has devolved into most people playing buying singles for decks that they have found online. The game moved too quickly for me now. It seemed that new sets were constantly being released and I did not want to be constantly sinking money into the game or take the trill away that come from opening packs. At this point I stopped playing again and missed the entire Alara block. Standard was no longer the environment for me.
Looking at my collection again, I was left once again with the thoughts of what to do. I no longer enjoyed standard due to having to shell out big money to stay competitive and felt like my collection was incomplete if I only had one or two copies of a good card instead of a full playset. I did enjoy drafting but what is the point of paying for cards that I am only going to use once if that is the only type of magic that I play? I needed a solution that would allow me to get the most out of my old cards and enable me to play cards that I only had one copy of to the fullest. Fortunately, I found cube drafting.
The basic idea behind cube drafting is to create a pool of cards to use for a draft. As such, the minimum card pool should be set to 360 cards to be able to support an 8 player draft. Typically, the cube also only uses one copy of each card. The cube draft format seemed to solve all of my main issues I had with the game. I could use my `one-of`s, I got the same style of gameplay that I enjoyed from drafting, and I could use my full collection of cards. Cube drafting would also allow me and my friends to play games at a power level above that of a normal draft by being able to choose which cards would be drafted ahead of time.
I have spent the last week going through my collection and assembling some of the best cards and limited bombs and with the help of the donations of a stack of cards from a friend of mine I was able to complete my first draft of the cube. I broke down the cards for my cube in the following way:
52 cards of each color (260 total cards)
50 gold/hybrid cards (5 of each 2 color combination)
50 Artifacts/land (some fixing and some colorless lands)
I will post a full card list for the cube soon. For those who are interested in learning more about cube drafting, I found cubedrafting.com to be a great resource in coming up with good ideas for cards to use. Between the site owner's cube and the threads on their forum I was able to include and remove a few cards from my initial list based off of the other cube owner's experiences. Expect more posts on the subject as the play testing begins.
Welcome to Mana Workshop
Welcome to the newest blog on the MTG block. Mana Workshop is a site that will host articles about cards analysis, synergy, combos, and alternate game types including cube drafting and Elder Dragon Highlander.
The plan is to provide content that is interesting to player types of all skill levels. Chances are this will not be the blog to follow if you are hoping for coverage of the pro tours and professional magic. While the site will take a look at cards in standard, new sets, and cover the rumor season of upcoming sets, there are no plans to limit the content to such a narrow scope.
Thanks for visiting and stay tuned for new content coming soon.
The plan is to provide content that is interesting to player types of all skill levels. Chances are this will not be the blog to follow if you are hoping for coverage of the pro tours and professional magic. While the site will take a look at cards in standard, new sets, and cover the rumor season of upcoming sets, there are no plans to limit the content to such a narrow scope.
Thanks for visiting and stay tuned for new content coming soon.
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