The Cube According to Gatherer, Part 21 – The Cube Can Legally Purchase Alcohol

 

In the United States you can buy a gun, join the military, smoke cancer sticks, marry, be convicted as an adult, vote, get a tattoo, donate your organs, and watch an R-rated movie by age 18.  All at the same time, if you want.  But you can’t buy alcohol until you turn 21.  It’s a weird Puritanical contract we maintain.  When you turn 18, the government treats you like an adult… unless you want to be a fun adult.  No fun until twenty-one.

The final age restriction I can think of is that you can’t become the President until you hit the minimum age of 35.  I guess the power and responsibility of the presidency is waaaaay too much fun for a young adult to handle.  This checks out.  I’m not even 34 anymore, but if I became President, I’m sure the words most associated with my term of office would be “The Presidential Hot Tub” (or maybe ‘Hot Tub One’.)  If we committed the grave mistake of electing a Millennial to become President, I’m sure national avocado toast yields would be impressive.  But nothing would get accomplished, since the only headline news media would post for the next four years would be “Are Millennials killing executive mandate? Number eight will shock you!”

I dwell on this because the According to Gatherer Cube is now the ripe age of 21, and can party like the rest of you maniacs.  Like any proud poppa, I want to take my kid out for a coming-of-age drink.  But momma Gatherer raises mean and ungrateful bastards who are too cool to hang out with their progenitor.  Just look at the sort of cards this cube dumps on me:

 

 

Centaur Vinecrasher is swingier than a pendulum.  It’s a perfect choice for the Commander sets, since the power of this card is a reflection of the power of your deck.  Are you choking on sac lands like Misty Rainforest?  Then Vinecrasher might be a reliable 5/5 trampler for four mana, which Regrows itself whenever you crack a sac.  Does your opponent also play sac lands?  Is this a four player game with each player packing at least twelve sac?  Boom Shakalak!

Alternatively, if your deck is cobbled from sparse bits and pieces you happen to have lying around, then your stubborn lands might insist on remaining on the battlefield and providing mana.  Even with occasional self-mill, Vinecrasher is unlikely to provide more power than Nessian Courser.  That makes this rare incredibly difficult to balance, since it only breaks when you’re already broken.  It’s a development nightmare: hence, Wizards shoved it into Commander.  Let the casuals figure it out among themselves.

I’m glad Wizards printed this, because I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what alchemical combination of symbols magically equal a fair cost.  Oh wait.  I forgot to explain what we’re doing in the introduction.  Hi!  I’m John-Michael and welcome to the Cube, According to Gatherer.  I get a random card from Gatherer, put it in the cube, design a card to accompany it, then getting another random card, then design, then gather, then design.  Cook until done.

So far, there’s only been a handful of cards added to the cube that let you sacrifice lands.  But a number of cards in blue and black mill.  Given enough games, someone’s bound to accept the gift of the Sultai, thus wrecking the competition.  Let’s help them, shall we?

 

 

The set could use another ‘mill all’ card, and my notes tell me we need a blue ‘trick’ (my notes also say I could use a hard counter in blue.  But there are plenty of Countermand variations in normal Magic already.  We don’t need yet another one with a forced twist.)

I settled on mutual sliming.  Why the ooze theme?  Originally, this card cost and gave a -3/-0 // +0/+3 bonus to mimic Agony Warp and Martial Glory.  But that didn’t solve mono-blue’s continued lack of a combat trick.  So instead, this.  That said, if Gatherer never gives me a green-blue gold card to work with, I might re-inject the ooze with green.

Moving on!  The next random card from Gatherer is…

 

 

Oh boy.  Merfolk of the Pearl Trident.

Up to this point, I did not feel the need to veto something because it was too weak.  In fact, Gatherer put a number of notoriously weak cards in this cube, and I rolled with them.  Sea Serpent says hello, by the way.

If Merfolk of the Pearl Trident appeared ten or so logs ago, I would’ve designed around him.  The obvious choice would be to craft pieces which locked together into a fast Merfolk deck.  Pearl Trident would still be a bad card, but at least there would be a reason to pick him up late (Unfortunately, Wizards never bothered to make Pearl Trident a warrior or a soldier, so Merfolk is the only tribal option.)

I could instead give bonuses to vanilla creatures.  But the sporadic vanilla creatures in this cube aren’t settled in one color.  They’re spread throughout the cube.  A deck like that would need to play defense in the early game for a powerful mid-late game.  Merfolk of the Pearl Trident would be a poor choice even in that deck.

Alternatively, I could print a number of cards which called out the Merfolk of the Pearl Trident by name.  I still could, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m already doing that with underpowerhouse Aven Envoy.  It’s a cute way to give new life to a notoriously awkward card.  But calling out Pearl Trident by name on a few cards dilutes the specialness of calling out Aven Envoy.  Maybe I’d be okay with this if the two cards didn’t share the same exact casting costs or if this happened early enough that there was plenty of space to build around both cards. But no and no, so nah.

We’re three-fifths of the way into a cube jam-packed with mechanics.  I ain’t got no space to work a new mechanical branch until I finish some of the existing ones.  And if I design no cards around Merfolk of the Pearl Trident, then it’s a placeholder for nothing.  The card isn’t strictly vanilla.  It comes with a bonus ability which reads “It appears you accidentally shuffled your sideboard into your library.  Good luck!”

Let’s try this again.  Abracadabra!

 

 

Peer Through Depths.  That’s more like it.  It’s not the best, but it do.  It even ticks off another ‘Splice onto Arcane’ box.  And it’s double plus good because the Arcane deck already hiding in the cube leans ‘sorcery tribal’.  I could use more Arcane sorceries.  Let’s make one.

 

 

I went to design a Arcane sorcery, but my notes still tell me I need a hard counter in blue.  How do you make a counterspell that’s also a sorcery?  You know, without cheating and writing out the words “play only in response to another player playing a summon creature or a sorcery” as per Mystic Denial?  You add a cycling trigger and… yes, okay!  I know about Mystic Denial already!  Geez, you can stop it with the whole “Wizards already made one in ’97.”

In hindsight, I forgot to make this match Kamigawa arcane spirit flavor.  But I like the name/art/flavor combo it currently features.  Can ancient Egyptian magic count as Arcane as well?  Amonkhet had the opportunity, so I guess the answer is ‘no’.

Alright, Gatherer.  Make like Captain Falcon and show me your moves!

 

 

Oh!  I don’t think I’ve seen Raving Dead before.  I also don’t think I’ve seen a card with more Timmy sensibility hotness in my life.  Goes in a zombie deck?  Check.  Attacks a player at random?  Check.  Big splashy ability that will be underestimated by non-casuals at a kitchen table because no matter how ‘powerful’ a creature is, if it doesn’t fundamentally alter the board then six mana is too expensive for any tournament caliber deck?  Check.  Doesn’t mind letting your opponent do all the thinking in regards to blocking, but makes certain it’s bad for that random opponent no matter what they choose?  Check, check, and check.

Raving Dead is a single card combo.  I’d say ‘you just put it on the table, then attack’ but the second part isn’t even an option.  The Dead attacks with or without your help.  I don’t need to design cards around this card; I’ll take the free pass.  That said, we already got a tribal zombie theme going on.  And I’m due to add another brain nibbler right about now.

 

If we want enough zombie tribal, we might as well slip a second lord into the cube.  I like the indestructible Spirit tokens we created last week, so I designed another card to interact with them.  Oh, and I could use more cards with Masquerade.  Masquerade isn’t necessarily Black, but there’s a card with Masquerade in the other four colors, so why not Zoidberg?  The unceasing revenants of past wrong souls could be anyone.  It may not be a perfect mechanical color pie fit, but the faceless horror of the undead at least matches the flavor of Black.

Enough dungeon dressing.  Kicking down the door, both parties roll perception at an advantage.  In the center of a rotunda, squats…

 

 

Living Wish!  Great!  Here’s a card with incredible potential power and reach, but is limited by a player’s creativity and skill.  Remember, we’re playing Limited.  Our wishes are restricted to only the cards you draft, which aren’t already in your deck.  Sure, you could first pick a bomb and shove it in your sideboard to wish for at your leisure… but wouldn’t it make more sense to leave the wish in your sideboard and the bomb in your deck?

That doesn’t mean wishes don’t have their uses in limited.  But they’re better at granting access to a wide range of abilities and casting costs to choose from, even if those abilities and costs are tied to mediocre creatures.  The overall variety at one’s disposal will often be better than an efficient beater with a locked in cost.  Oh, and Living Wish also acts as an overcosted Lay of the Land.  Again, not exciting.  But neither is basic landcycling.  It doesn’t matter because it gets the job done.

I love wishes.  I designed a number of them for my custom sets.  There’s a very large untapped vein of potential in hiding cards in your sideboard for later use.  In fact, had I not flubbed up stage two of the Great Designer Search 3, I probably would have snuck this card into one of my challenges.

 

 

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s pretend Rampant Growth is still seeing print.  I know it’s been deemed too powerful for the current Standard, but costing Lateral Growth an inefficient confuses the argument.

The question for Lateral Growth is ‘Why?’.  If Rampant Growth exists and sees use, then why Lateral Growth?

The simple answer is, “to prevent unneeded shuffling.”  Zac Hill once referred to shuffling as “Magic’s ‘IRL’ version of a video game’s loading screen.”  If you could minimize loading screen time in a video game, without taking anything away from the play experience, wouldn’t you? Lateral Growth let’s you prep a small pile of basic lands to the side, instead of mid-game rifling through your deck, shuffling, then presenting.  It also features less words, which cuts down on perceived complexity, and lends more space for flavor text.

There’s also a deckbuilding advantage to running Lateral Growth.  You don’t need to chunk your deck up with off-color basic lands.  Lateral Growth lets you play a five color deck running nothing but Forest.  Admittedly, those basic lands chunk up your sideboard.  Which means this card may be a poor choice for a constructed tournament compared to Rampant, since swapping three Forests out of your deck is probably less volatile towards your ability to win a tournament than killing three cards in your sideboard.

That’s okay.  Wizards doesn’t only print cards for constructed tournament players.  Sometimes they print for casual play.  And at many kitchen tables “outside the game” means your entire collection, making the number of sideboard slots a moot argument.  I should point out that Lateral isn’t intend to replace Rampant Growth.  I’m only arguing that it’s worth seeing print for the people who would like to use it as an alternative.  And if the card became popular, more Growth-Wish cards could see print later.

But I’m not putting Lateral Growth in this cube.  Not only is Living Wish overlapping its identity, but so doesn’t Untamed Wilds, which was added in Log 20.  If I want to add a Growth-Wish, I need something more unique.

What if we don’t restrict ourselves to fetching one land?  After all, Rule 135 of the DCI Floor Rules states:

In Draft tournaments […] extra lands are allowed for sideboards, and players may add basic lands to their sideboards any time between games.

That means we can print something like this:

 

 

By his lonesome, Rurdun will only fetch one land. But there’s a potential to fetch many more.  That’s why I added a ‘win the game’ condition to Rurdun.  I didn’t want players to feel like they needed more than 20 lands in their sideboard, even if they stumbled upon some sort of near-infinite life combo.  As a bonus, the shorter Lateral Growth text doesn’t feel crammed next to a third block of win condition text.

While this card will never be played in any online format, I didn’t like the idea of ‘you win the game’ triggers constantly activating on the upkeep for no reason, or whenever a land entered the battlefield.  So now it triggers when a land enters the battlefield and you control twenty or more land.  I don’t know.  It doesn’t sound like a grand epiphany now.  But it took me a while to figure out how to not force annoying interactions with an imaginary card in a format of which it will never be played.

Now Gatherer!  Sing for me my angel of music!  Sing!

 

 

Tariel, Reckoner of Souls? Okay, I can dig it.  I’m ambivalent about how I was comfortable with my cycle of ally wedge cards, only to be fed an enemy wedge late in the process.  But you don’t draft a cube of random cards to ‘get comfortable’.  I can squeeze around a wedge.

Tariel reminds me that we could always use another incidental mill card.  And a black mill card would match Tariel.  I came up with this:

 

 

While I was thinking about what kind of card I wanted to design, I was also thinking about how too many of the ‘gain 3 or more life’ trigger cards gained exactly three life.  I want a few more variable life gain cards, so players don’t feel like I’m hitting them over the head with the theme. I originally designed a ‘drain library’ card, that milled and gained life for X.  Then I designed three hundred Millstones which got me nowhere.  I should put a Millstone in the cube, since mill is a mechanic that Blue, Black and Green share, and now Tariel is tossing it to the other two colors.  But I guess that will come later.

Anyhow, I somehow started thinking about turning Drain Library into a two mode charm.  Which reminded me that I never finished the ‘Choose one or more’ charm cycle.  So I made the abilities communal, and added a Death Denied-like mode.  But… if you only chose to gain X life… that breaks the color pie.  So I removed the life gain and added sacrifice and resurrect modes instead.

Though, now that I think of it, there’s another interesting card buried in there.  Something about choosing the mode you want to drain, but always gaining the life.  Another time, I guess.

One last task before I leave.  It’s time to add a token creature.  Looking at my file, it looks like Juice the Drones needs  Drones.

 

 

Is it lazy to use the same artwork? I mean… those are the drones that we’re juicing. If we’re going to slap juicy drones on the table, it might as well be these, right?

Oh, wait!  I don’t need to.  These bots were designed by Johnny Klein for the Hex TCG.  And he made another illustration with a Teferi’s Puzzle Box color scheme to go with it.

 

This is an awkward creature token, since the set already includes Servo creature tokens thanks to Countless Gears Renegade.  Even though Juice came first, Gatherer chose the Renegade, and it would be silly for me to veto the Renegade because I like drones.  I’ll probably end up consolidating the tokens, artwork, and card name of Juice the [Servos] in the end.  For now, though, I’ll enjoy my diligent drone.

That wraps things up for today. Check out Episode 22 here.  Or you can always check out the According to Gatherer Archives. Or check out the online spoiler for the entire set! See you guys soon!