For my previous build (snapshot here: https://imgur.com/5w1fevE), I wanted to focus on two-color archetypes and attempted to fill in as needed. I started with a template cube, and built a catalogue of cards to fill it, and for the most part I chose the most interactive and re-playable cards. This created a muddy, but also...hard-to-digest environment (that said, it was my first PLAYABLE environment that didn't just degenerate into t1 losses). My focus on establishing two-color archetypes hid a lot of what is great about the format. Almost all of the feedback I received was that the environment was indecipherable as is (ouch). MY biggest problem was that some decks were just better, and with enough hard-to-run cards, variety was low to nada.
So let's approach it from a different direction.
Starting with what we know about the format, and how can that inform my card choices?
- Players Need All of Their Lands
- No Land or "Any-Permanent" Destruction, No More Blind Mill or Discard without it ending the game.
- The Clock is Different (the game has no end)
- Aggro decks shouldn't have be able to outpace lategame payoffs. Boards need to be playable after the cards have been played, or draws will never work.
- Many Cards End their Usefulness in Exile
- Graveyard Effects are metered to this, but return from exile is a win-condition effect.
- Draw makes low-curve (aggro) decks faster, and matter less to high-cmc (late game) decks.
- 3-4CMC draw does not matter, cantrips/cycling/draw+effect is stronger on Lower CMC cards.
- Scry is an aggro effect, and allows for consistency in late game decks.
- Mulligans are orders of magnitude more consistent than 30-card deck drafts (~300x more)
- Decks can run fewer lands and still hit gas.
- Aggro strategies are simply more available when needed
- Midrange strategies are available when needed.
- Lands have a limit, but mana doesn't.
- Using the 40% heuristic of standard, decks run 6 lands. Mulligans can pull that number easily down to 5 with just basic lands and no fixing. Curves mutate in favor of 1 and 2 drops, and shy away from 5+.
- Cards like Braid of Fire, Storage Lands, etc make a lot out of very little.
- Deck End is inevitable, and the deck will never be larger than 15 cards.
- LabMan et.al. lets a player win without...well, any strategy. Deck size effects are similar, so be cautious.
- Recursion extends the live of decks, and makes many decks playable. Recursion is fallible, and can be broken.
- Shuffle-into-library effects, recur from graveyard, flashback, all play a role.
- Re-castable spells are what enable late-game plays. They must be supported.
- I need to be extremely careful about what effects I choose to include.
- Removal and Deactivation needs to be intentional.
- Removal should have threatening targets, and should come at a fair price.
- Effects that limit lines of play need to be susceptible to removal.
- Magic was not designed for this.
- Enabling this might require some card editing. CMCs, effects, etc. No Card is Immutable.
For this next build I am radically restructuring, and taking a new approach. Stripping back to just the color-defining threats (and lands), I want to know how and when my games end, and work backwards from there.