Zendikar Chapter 1 - Worldwake
(479 Card Cube)
Blog Posts (5)
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The cube all in all is very evenly distributed.
Creature count is at 51% except White (at 58%).
Landfalls (at 9 per colour) is evenly distributed across all colours as are:
Kickers, Multikickers, Allies, Traps, Landfall instants and Zendikons.
Exceptions are pump allies which are about double represented in W and G.
The other exception is Novablast worm which is G/W and the only true multicoloured card and very powerful board wipe.
Lastly White is the only colour wihtout a planeswalker.

The cube has also an atypical high land count (twice that of a colour) to accomodate the two-for-one effect of landfall.

Introduction
Worldwake is a fast format, swinging from nowhere, landfall creatures that want to attack after land play, kickers and multikickers and so fourth, so don't forget that 0/4 defender.
Lands matter in Worldwake, and the lands themselves may become alive and swing.
White is represented by Kor who synergizes with equipment.
Blue is represented by merfolk with a control theme.
Black is represented by vampires who gets bloodthirsty whenever the opponent is down to 10 life.
Red is represented by goblin who swings at haste or unblockable.
Green is represented by elfs with mana and ramp.
Then across all colours are allies who synergizes with other allies, the multicolour is weakly within allied colours, WU, UB, BR, RG and GW. The only true multicolour creature is the Novablast wurm that destroys everything but herself when entering.
W, Kor and equipment
Life gain has an alternate wincon in Felidars soverign
Defenders
U, counters
B, Vampires
R, burn and mountains matter
G, Elfs and forests matter

The defining mechanic of the set is Landfall. This is an ability that triggersyou whenever you play a land, so it’s a very straightforward mechanic. It rewards you for playing 18 lands, and sometimes you’re really just hoping to topdeck a land in the late game. The majority of the creatures with Landfall get +2/+2 until end of turn whenever you play a land. This is critical to understanding the set. So many of your creatures are small and unable to block well, but they become powerful and evasive whenever you play a land.

The set features four Planeswalkers in Sorin Markov, Chandra Ablaze, Jace the living Guildpacts and Nissa Revane.

Another mechanic in the set are Traps. These are all instants with subtype trap, and they have an upfront mana cost, but you can play them for a severe reduction if your opponent meets something that satisfies a certain requirement. 2 traps against its enemy colour and additional tutors and hooser in blue.

The “Maps” part of the set is focused around enchantments that are Quests. These cards get quest counters from doing different in game actions, and they’ll come with some kind of powerful ability when you manage to turn them on. All the colors have some of these, and they aren’t a defining mechanic in the same way as some of these other mechanics, but they are very flavorful, and many of them have landfall based triggers, which means that they give you yet another way to pay you back for drawing lands in the late game. It also means that virtually every deck has maindeck playable enchantments that are high impact

The keyword Kicker returns that allows the player to pay an optional cost when casting a spell to achieve an additional effect
It also features the new keyword Intimidate which functions like and replaces fear as it makes a creature with intimidate unblockable except for artifact creatures and creatures that share a color with the intimidating creature.

Another key part of this block is the creature type Ally. These Allies are significantly different from the ones in Battle for Zendikar. Each of these creatures has an enter the battlefield ability, and many of them put a +1/+1 counter on themselves. However, they also trigger that ability whenever you play another ally. Umara Raptor is an example of a key common ally. It comes down as a 3 mana 2/2 flyer, but every subsequent ally gives it another +1/+1 counter. Cramming a bunch of allies into your deck is powerful because they compound together so heavily, similar to playing slivers in other formats. With that said, the format is too fast to make dedicated five color ally decks worth playing. White and Green utilizes Ally synergies slightly higher.

"When Lands Attack" was a major theme of Worldwake. The set has a cycle of dual manlands: Lands that can produce one mana of either of two allied colors and can be activated (for one mana of each of those colors and an amount of unspecified mana) to become an Elemental creature until end of turn. These lands come into play tapped. The set also contained a cycle of Zendikons, auras that turn lands into creatures.

Worldwake introduced Multikicker, a variant of Kicker. This variation allowed for the kicker cost to be paid multiple times, with the effect repeated for each time it was paid.

A plane with powerful sources of mana, which flows differently there. Its riches in mana and other wealth has made it a destination for Planeswalkers to explore and exploit. The promise of this is also enough to lure in various local explorers and adventurers.
Zendikar's landscape is constantly shifting and changing. This process is called The Roil. It makes settlements very scarce and only few outposts of civilization are present.
The plane consists of seven continents: Akoum, Bala Ged, Guul Draz, Murasa, Ondu, Sejiri, and Tazeem.
Another geogaphical feature to be noted are the large, floating polyhedron-shaped stones called hedrons that litter the landscape. For a long while, nobody was sure what they were but their gravity-defying existence hinted at the strange properties of gravity and mana on the plane. These ancient, rune-carved monoliths are strewn across Zendikar. Up to ten miles long, some of these stones drift in the sky; others are buried in the ground, some whole, some broken.
Trap-riddled ruins can be found on every continent. Mysterious glyphs hint at truths long forgotten. Unspeakable monsters lurk in the quiet of these hidden monuments of a forgotten past. The ruins still emanate power, and both planeswalkers and local explorers will undergo great peril to reap their rewards.
The plane is inhabited among others by goblins, elves, merfolk, humans and vampires. It is also the home of the Kor(who have been abducted to other planes from Zendikar). Other races that can be found on Zendikar are angels, ogres, minotaurs and giants. A reptilian race of questionable sapience, known as the Surrakar, dwelled exclusively on Zendikar but now seem to be extinct. Assorted wildlife, ranging from insects to beasts also dwell on the plane, posing another threat for explorers not to be eaten or killed by. Some of them, like the Gomazoa have adapted to the flying topography. These look just like the regular floating rocks.
The meeting of Vol, Nalaar and Beleren in the Eye of Ugin chamber loosened the bonds that kept an ancient threat in torpor, and they rose to feed on the life of Zendikar again.

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