#45 - How To Play All 5 Colours In Cube

In this episode we discuss the art of playing every colour in cube, along with how to draft it, build your deck, and what awesome pay offs you get to play.

Timecodes
00:01:20 - How to play 5 colours in cube
01:17:17 - What have we been playing

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Chapters

• 1:41 How to play 5 colours in cube
• 1:17:38 What have we been playing

Transcript

0:23

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host Dan Burden on this institute with MTG. And as always I'm joined by my co-host James. How's it going man? Are you well, happy new year. I'm well I'm well. Moving is completed. We have a new flat. We have. It's a new. Yeah, it's good time. Real awesome. Yes, yes, you give out. I'll be honest. I've had quite a nice, relaxing time off in between Christmas and New Year. Yeah, you've, you've moved house and have been fairly busy. So well done with all that. Glad you're all settled now. Yeah, I'm so done with DIY, man. It's it's horrendous and not good to that I was moving the magic collection. Was that like like I like I've moved myself when I moved out move friends before and like, there was one friend who literally had like a sack of magic cards. It's so it's so disorganized. It's it's I think that's, there's just so many deck boxes full of. Yes, but selections of cards, like a third of an old standard deck and two thirds of a modern deck in 2019. You know, it's like, no need to in effect. Yeah, yeah, moving can be stressful. But yeah, I'm glad the player balls are okay. That's the best. Yeah. This is we will not be doing a podcast on how to organize your magic collection because I'm I'm not a model to follow. That isn't reasonable. No, but we have an awesome episode for, for everyone today. Today we're gonna be talking about how to play all five colors in cube. This is one that, I'll be honest, James, if there was, if I could define you as an archetype, I think, I'm not gonna say a greedy man on bass, but like, a splashing for some powerful cards is something I think of when I think of you. And, Yeah, I think this is going to be a fun episode because I think I'm going to learn something from this as well, because I've seen you pull together some very awesome and cool decks using this kind of strategy. So, James, you don't want to get kind of give us a bit, give us a bit of an introduction of what we're going to be talking about today when we talk about, playing all five colors and cube for sure. So, we can oxide for deep dive sort of things in the past where we're focusing on a more sort of close knit, well-defined archetype. So like the animator, a white weenie, this isn't that up, because five color decks can do a million different things and cube, and we certainly aren't going to be able to list them all exhaustively. What this is going to be, I hope, is a general approach to drafting multicolor decks, which I think applies pretty well in the majority of of fairly typical cubes. And obviously, given guides for going to break down is often the more sort of niche with black cubes. But, I think this is going to be at a, at a pretty strapping, multicolored decks that should, they should be pretty applicable. And ice cubes. So definitely, I think before we kind of jump into things, I think it's worth going cleaning up. But when we say five color, it's not we're not running like in our 17 land manor base. We're not running like three of every basic. We are being good here. We are drafting our lands and and and to an extent, it's it's not like a full five gallon manor base. It is. It's another way of describing the same, sort of like the art of splashing, would you say? Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, there's certainly attacks where you get to the point where you are like legit five color, but that's pretty bad. But mostly what happens is you have like 1 to 2 base colors, and that's where your cheap cards are concentrated and you splash everything else, and obviously it's not like this guide only applies if you're playing the full five. Like obviously a bunch time you end up like two and two splashes. So like all the three color with one splash or whatever. But yeah, this is kind of, how it casts a lot of good spells across a wide variety of colors. Awesome, awesome. So let's jump into this. I guess a good base to start, James, is why do you want to draft or why draft five colors? Why you draft all these colors? Why draft your lands? Why are we doing this? So I think for me, the biggest draw to, playing a lot of colors is that most cubes you play will have some call, like a power out layer. So like a card that is gives you way more than you expect to get for that mana cost in the cube that you are playing. Statues like Vintage Cube as an example. Which you can do a lot for just because that is a cube that people know and understand. And therefore the examples make sense. Not not because that's the idea of cube. It applies to achieve Fancy Cube as an example, because like mints can do cards like Psychic Flower for failing us. These are so far above for the comfortable things you could get enough color space of these like to walk for competition and power level VI. It's not. It's not a small upgrade above, I thought, sure, why you might play a game otherwise. It's like night and day. Unless unless everyone is going to take these cards early in the first pop, you know, you're not going to get, like one take five minutes. Can do unless your table is do doing some things wrong. But, because people are going to see it and move it. But in pack three, while the people can't cast, it's going to be, you know, if I can open it up, looking forward to me and mana pace and pass it along and you can very easily get like pantry pick, take 4 or 5, even mints can do and that's a lot of it. Of all you get from playing playing off colors because you get to play all the busted cards. You see, outside of obviously things that I like triple the triple pips or whatever, not they can play. But, you get to play way more of the busted cards and everyone else, and you don't really care what colors of cards you open. You just need them to be powerful. And, that that can be a very, a very great place to be. If you have a nice fingers, even if you end up with like one of two base colors, you often don't need to pick those colors until very late in the draft, which is really powerful, right? Because you spent your early picks on the busted splash of all powerful cards on fixing cheap and faction, which can go in any regardless of what your base color is. You can play those cards, and then later in the draft, when it's really clear that, green is the open color, you can play, then have been as your base color for turns out of red is open, then that can be your base color, but you don't have to commit to those things early because all your early picks are going to be caused to end up in your deck and make it meaningfully better. Like nice, no matter where you end up. Just to clarify that, when you say your your early picks, are you referring to just like picks like like the first pack just highly prioritizing lands? Is that kind of what you mean by that? Yes. I mean, it's always places to how you end up, have I? It's not like, you know, going into the draft saying that I'm going to be 4 or 5 colors in this draft. But often what you do is you take it, take, say, a patch land early because that sounds great. And then you see another faction, you then you get, oh, you see something splash roll and you maybe like moving around the between the colors and, if it's but if you're just prioritizing the fixing, then you're in a nice spot because if two of those colors are really open, then you just move into them. But if if you're not getting that incredibly strong signal, you can just keep taking, fixing, taking powerful cards and, and you end up in a really good place where you're able to cast the powerful cards you already have and take advantage of once you see later. No. Fantastic. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can definitely see. The one reason that this archetype is going to be strong is that you're just more, more likely to just be playing the cards you've drafted, because, the lines are going to make your deck and then you're playing a bunch of bosses afterwards. That's awesome. We will, we will jump into like, the how in a bit more detail in a moment. But I'm assuming they can't all be great. James. There must be some downsides to just spending the first couple of picks. Just picking lines. So I'm assuming like like like you might be parsing some powerful spells. What, what are the downsides, James, of drafting a lot of colors specifically and drafting your lines early. Yeah. For sure. So I see yeah, you're spending those. You're spending some high picks of land. Clear. You shouldn't be taking the lands over busted spells. You should. Because for busted spells of why you're here. But you should be taking like that. Sun's really highly your buff. What you take over effects. Should be very, very high. And, Yeah, you're prioritizing the good fixing over the, like, the solid playable cards. But, yeah, that certainly has some downsides. Like if you end up full on five color light, not just minor splashes like, yo, you, you are legitimately playing all the colors, you probably gonna end up wanting to play some level of each in of like five basics. The issue is you only get to draft 45 cards, so that means that, yeah, you only get to leave ten cards in your sideboard. So obviously a you basically don't have a sideboard, right? But it's just not going to be an option for you. And B, you kind of just can't afford to mess on that many packs. If you see too many now, you can manage that because, yeah, you can cast off a spell. So it's it's much harder for you to mess on on parts that you still do. You get to be able to pack this all like combo cards. And you know, I want ups, but you can't use, right? Oh, I guess as well, to an extent also just kind of slightly harder to cast because like ideally in your deck, you're not going for it for like double pip spells, but like that could be one of the things that you get stung by. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. It's a great point. Like for, as for the sort of deck where like, especially the cheap cards that a double pips value on stay away from like counterspell, for example. Very powerful card. Generally I'm not that interested if I'm playing a lot of colors, unless I'm like very much base blue splashing everything else. And then the other issue you can run into is you're going to have quite a lot of lands that come into play. Top. Yeah, you can manage this like you're obviously you're prioritizing tap lands higher and then you're also very heavily prioritizing like one manner interaction is great. Right. Because that lets you it makes your tap fans feel okay. Like if you go tap lands into tap land, bolt your guy up, that's actually fine. You've not following that path. Paint. Yeah. Whereas if you go tap land into tap land, then my first balance play on ten feet, that's kind of a disaster. Yeah, it doesn't really matter what speed of the cube that is. To tap 2 to 3 tap lands in a row is kind of just like, that's kind of good games no matter what you're doing. But, Yeah. So, so so just just on that as well. I'm like, we are assuming when you are doing this strategy, the cube is balanced. There is a good mix of aggro, tempo, control combo, that kind of stuff. If it is a faster leaning cube to say, I'm assuming that that this is potentially a archetype that is going to not be as strong as a cube where things are more balanced. Is that fair? Yeah. I mean, if if everything's like aggro with like eight, 112 creatures, then you might be in trouble. Like, I mean, it depends. Hopefully if I like tools that let you catch up from there and, you get and you got to play the tools that you see. If but yeah, if you blousy, bounce and scoot and pay for the fact though, that, yeah, I probably shouldn't play tap buttons in your deck and, you know, just play 1 to 2 colors and and be fire with fire. But, it can be the nice thing about playing a lot, because it's that you do get access to the tools that you see to, to fight for aggro stuff. Like, this can be attack sweepers work fairly well, but also just like that, that one minor interaction again, it's it's really crucial. Half but yeah, generally what you really want to play against for like midrange decks of pure colors. Right. Because you're just going to have higher quality and then a longer game, you're just going to power them. Yes. This seems like the definition of being one step slower, but one step more powerful than like every other deck. They're basically the same, like like like the epitome of that. Cool. So, what would you say a five, a typical five ish or a heavily slashing deck look like? James? I mean, I'm assuming this has changed over the last couple of years with printings with with things like trigrams, with more cards, like, like you mentioned, like Minsk and bow like for their lingo, kind of powerful cards that are like single minor pips but two different colors. And I'm going to like how how is this that look like James? What would you say. Yeah, yeah I see like it's it's very different. Like basically like what these decks look like sort of three Modern Horizons is, is a completely different. Yeah. Because how five Clear Decks used to play in, in powerful cubes was they got access, all the way into action and card form. They just played out of control decks. Right? You to like it, have swords and mana drain and, real power classrooms and stuff. And you, you deal with that really fat, and then you'd cast, like. And now there's a report on one of these and cards and and go from there and you keep playing like a bunch of talismans and stuff. Right. That's not really for why it works anymore. Because it used to be that the the power of our lives we were talking about with, like, mana trade and stuff. Right now. It's not that really. It's. Yeah, it's a minsky and psychic fog. It's it's very shifted towards threat being that attacks. So we've gone very much from like conceal spell, kill the old guy, play a card to spell, play a 15 turn game to like, you know, your dude spell. Pass your thing. Here's my can be your dad is is really more the approach you're trying to take a lot of the time in in these very powerful teams with the five color decks now I mean, I mean, the thing you just sort of Kildare dude play your threat to win the game. That used to be three different cards. Now that you now you've just described Minsk combo. Yeah. Just describe like okay or something like that. Yeah. What if instead of playing a card to a style, my card goes forward for failing us and you're already dead? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm also assuming kind of like like like, yo, we haven't really touched on the initiative yet, but I'm assuming the initiative is really good in these type of archetypes as well, because all the good ones are only a single pip, which from what we've discussed, they fit in really well. And also, I mean, the first stage of the initiative is find a land. I'm assuming the initiative is very strong in these kind of decks. I'd say yes, it is, but you have to be careful. You have a very powerful, a very small, the downside is you have to be very well set up to keep the initiative, because often the thing is, like, you're not going to have as many creatures as be very aggressive that, okay. So if you like, if you can't kill that guy and you lose the initiative, it can be quite difficult to get it back. Obviously this is it gets way better if you have, like, hasty threats to follow with up. Which which you certainly can have access to that. You can definitely end up in spots where it's like you lose the initiative. Because I had, like, a Hazel and you didn't expect it or whatever, and then you're just looking at it like, yeah, I can kill you guys forever, but I can't actually take it back, and you can kill my guy and might be in trouble. So I say, yes, it's great, but you have to be confident that you have enough of a cheap interaction or enough threats to take the initiative back. But you you actually want to be be fighting that fight, you know, sometimes you can get to the end of a draft lucky attack and be like, is the initiative actually something I want to be in this game? You know, maybe not. And it also depends as well on like which initiative that you're talking about, something like, say, Wild Card Psycho, which really helps you protect the initiative as well as guessing it is, it's very right here, where something maybe like under Mountain Adventure can be a little less. So that's that's just a dude on the ground, right. And if they if they have a way to get around that, then, and they can take the initiative back to me. One of the things I want to touch on in terms of how a level is that to an extent, this, as a, as a archetype, as it were, this kind of deck can, in theory appear in any how a level of cube if the lands are good enough, because effectively you're playing the best cards in multiple colors. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're in a pop, a cube, if you're in a legacy cube or a vintage cube, you're just going to adjust to whatever the best things are. I'm assuming James like, yeah, as you mentioned, but kind of like specific like like like is it fetch lands and like fetch all jewels are like a must for this, this archetype to exist. And that I guess when once I flexible jewels. I don't just mean about jewels, I do mean like like you could have, like, surveil lands or check lands in there as well. Kind of like is, is that kind of combination of just being able to have one land find your splash be. Is that the key to including this archetype in a cube? I think it's certainly one of them. If if you don't have patches and fetch molecules, then it might be harder to get than the fixing just with lands you might be looking at going into like talismans or things like prophetic things, all of all the stuff with, vamp and or whatever as to what you're fixing. I think if you want to get value of land just lands. I mean, obviously it depends on how the cube is built, but I'd say it's going to be much harder if you, if you don't have access to it, like of a possibility at least of, like thatch lands and factual tools or tomes that's there. And I'm also assuming it's kind of it's hard the way, the way you described potentially getting into this archetype of early taking some it is, interaction or that is not being an exciting card and taking like doing the bread and butter, taking a fetch land, that kind of stuff that's harder to fall into, as it were. In a cube without those kind of things, because it's like to an extent, I'm like like, like I can rationalize myself taking a fetch land over a, like a mid power level threat, but like taking a signet or a mid power level threat in like a more budget cube, that's a bit trickier, I think, is I kind of have to say, yeah, for sure, for sure. The, the things as well, like the getting the fixing is kind of only half the puzzle. Like what it also needs to be worth your while to play all these colors you need. You need those really powerful cards to splash and, it can also be a thing in some lower power level cubes. Definitely not all, but some of them, it's like, that just kind of isn't worth the squeeze. Because yeah, I could see that maybe in like in like peasant or poor, but just because they don't tend to pin like, like they probably don't print that many. But like tricolor comments like I can think of like like like maybe in like cons or like new campaign, like actual three sets, but just generally you don't see them as much as, like they like. But but generally a lot of sets will have like a cool three color row and that kind of stuff. So just yeah, card pool might be an issue when it comes to the lower power level cubes as the sound that the, it's yeah, there's not as many powerful gold cards, but there's also in some cubes, it's just the whole power level of the cube is much flatter. Right. Okay. Right, right, right, right. It's specifically the outliers we're talking about that makes it worthwhile. Right? Exactly. Because a lot of an upside of drafting, the stack. Right. It's not just that you get to play, the gold cards. It's also like if you see an orchestra master, you get to take it and you get to see an ancestral vehicle. You got to take it like it's it's having those those wheel outliers, some of the power. And, if you're in a cube where the power level is just pretty flat, then, there's kind of just a few of reasons to do this. Because you'd be better off just taking solid good cards and more prioritizing, like synergy. And that's the thing, like if, if a lot of the power level available in the cube is really wrapped up in, in like synergy decks that exist in sort of two color paths, then a five color deck is much less appealing, like, because, yeah, it's can be hard to access phase synergies that come together. You really want those, like cards that work on their own, right? Like the, you know, what is the psychic fog? Ask if you absolutely nothing. It needs you to be able to cast it. And, a lot of what you're trying to do with this deck is here with like, six most powerful cards. I saw this draft. I took all of them so I can cast all. And like, I'm just going to see some of them in all of my games. And that is a lot of what my game plan is around. So my goal is to not be dead and cast all of these cards. It doesn't make sense that it's clicking because, yeah, because yeah, in low power level cubes, I got ones that kind of more time to replicate the experience of like booster draft. It is more about the two rocket types and yeah. Yeah like like in when I built my cube I was trying to balance things and I have like I cut power outliers like mentioned to the initiative for delaying this because they just go to an extent. This deck that we are talking about here just kind of took over my my cube. It is one like like like a nya mush of skin before dialing this comics up. Just one. Everything was so long and yeah, yeah, it it makes sense in my in my environment because it was like those were the most powerful cards in their in Power Cube. You are also fighting against things like, like boxing and but time walking, that kind of stuff. But like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can say just being able to just cost the most powerful cards. Yeah. I, I have lived it, James. I can say that. Yeah. It's a very strong. Yeah, very strong thing to be doing. Just touching on just, just coming back to something that you mentioned earlier in terms of going back to kind of like what the typical deck will look like. We touched on base color earlier. In terms of often you're likely to start off drafting one color and then kind of with the fixing, you're able to kind of splash into multiple colors, and that's when you end up in those other colors. Like is that when I think of being one color splashing the rest, I do think green is green. Normally the like center archetype to this. Like like like like like do you think you need like your Birds of Paradise just to help with this archetype? Or could you be like base white and splashing some of the colors if the fixing was good enough, say with like talisman. So I was like this and like of like, where do you kind of fall in like base colors? James basically I find for in a lot of cubes now you're pretty much able to get all the fixing you want out of your land. I don't think you need to be in those cubes like base green in order for this deck to work. The the base green version certainly can be powerful. It's the only version that's really interested in Mana Docks because, Yeah, the you know, obviously, if you're base anything else, your humanity is only good on certain. Right? So, but and also don't splash your fixing on special things. So. Yeah. For Vale, but yeah. No, I the thing is with the green decks, like, I find the base green five color dark, it can be strong, but it plays out very, very differently from the others because it does not really give you access to cheap interaction at all. Right. Okay. Which basically every other color does. Right. To a certain extent. So for the base screenshot, I found to be like actually the most aggressive, like even more than a base red five color type, because you're not really trying to deal with that that much. You're very much like, I have ten green sources. Here's my noble hierarchy. Here's my feet up I go from there was my sort of default playing these deck is like, I'm gonna I'm play like a couple of interactive spells in the early game, not be too far behind, then start casting my haymakers. Right. I, I find that you can you can get bad just just off balance in a lot of cubes. And which I think is a big difference between most cubes and like, most best to draft environments, right. Like. Yeah. And then based you draft, you really have to be base green for the five color tech to work because that's where you find value fixing. But a lot of cubes now just have enough fixing. But you you can make this type work of just once, especially if the cube has statues fetches. Unbelievable. And these decks like, if you have access to a couple of patches, your goal should very much be for all of my factors, get all of my colors. And that's that's normally pretty achievable. Yeah. So one of the things with like the base green stuff is like like it doesn't just have access to like, man, I don't fly by the barracks. It also has access to cause like ramp and growth or like if you're in a slower cube, maybe like cultivate kind of like cars that can chew to land from the deck. I'm assuming maybe the ones that get non-basic lands, aren't it? But like maybe it's something like FA seek. Is that something you would consider in, in a five to the deck if you were doing the like if green ended up being being your base color? Yeah, for sure. In fact, it's a very powerful fix if you can get back on green as your base color. And the very nice thing about the, the land searching fixes, right? Is that they just can't get them moved. It can be quite awkward if you're really relying on, like, pest Paradise for your fixing and, and then just bolt it and you're looking at your, you know, wide variety of, castles in your hand. So, yeah, for the fast, it's very good. But also like Sylvan Caryatid, Loki falls into that category. Right. Because because they can't kill it. But yeah, I, I like fussy again. You have to be base green. You want like 9 or 10 green sources. But yeah, it's a, it's a powerful card. I would not as in some version of these decks, you're not going to have so many basics that you want to play cultivate like but and have this kind of sometimes even applies to stuff like evolving wilds like sometimes I have like two black cards and I don't want to have to play a swamp, you know, which can make stuff like evolve. And while it's a better life, like, I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't take them off. And while it's like, if you take it and you make it work, but it is, sometimes it costs if you're relying on ways to search out basic specifically, but you, then you do have to put those basics in your deck. What about the other colors being your base color? Like like how does like white and red and black and blue go as your base colors? You. Yeah, I mean it is. And actually most of these work like that I find works surprisingly well because, it, because you get the, you get all your busted bad free drops, right? And you get cheap interaction in the form of then spells, which is deals with a lot of the stuff that is going to really punish you for playing your tap plans. Right. And then and you get things like, Max, Fable of America, this treasure making is is increasingly prominent. That helps cast your cards. Generally, if a base red deck is looking to be a bit more assertive, it's not for, you know, you're maybe not going to be as deep in all five of the colors, but you're going to have like, solid red base and then you're splashing the, splashing the best cards you see in other colors. Right. I've, I found that to be a pretty effective strategy. I kind of like big red strategies that people think of. But instead of your top hand being like some medium dragon, because that's like, you opened your top ten days essay. Wild cat. And and you've got an orchestra masters, and you've got a, you know, you've, you've got access to all the best cards, you see. Right. You get a parallax wave, you get you get what you need to fill out the top of your curve. And you end up as sort of you have a bit of an early aggro plan, and then you have then you can really outperform later as well which, which, which kind of works out pretty well I find. Yeah. Another tries. Yeah I guess read as well. I, I also just got a bunch of really good just like and like aggressive but engine cards I'm thinking like into and Lily at the can bus just like hits your opponent in the face and give you card advantage as well. Like exactly the to the when your two top is also good. Like this stack really likes that right. And and does a lot of that. Also vomiting can be quite nice because however, like you felt the amount of ice you do occasionally just have have hands with a stack, but that that can look kind of silly, right? Yeah, yeah. Look at your opening hand. The most double like cards and no planes. So having a bit of vomiting to say you can get out of that can be pretty nice as well. Yeah. Then blue is, I think, kind of plays in kind of the opposite way, a bit more of a classic five color attack, right where your you're surviving the early game, counting that cards and the upside of blue as a base and your five codex. You just see so many cards I like it is not a meme that divination is fixing and pretext. That's really, well, like, to a certain extent you can get away with a lot to your sources if you have the colors, if you have like a ponder and a preordained and you just see a lot of cards, right, you're going to find your colors. Yeah. If you're splashing stuff that you don't need immediately, then by by ten, 4 or 5, you know, normally because I think that divination can be fixing, but it's not a land drop. So for don't keep like, oh, it's send a one lander that kind of stuff. Maybe ancestral in a one lander, I'll give you. But like as long as a, as long as the one that is blue. Yeah. That's a salad. That's right. I guess it's just kind of bring us on to a good question. It's kind of like, in an ideal world, what is our mana base looking like in this? Say we are a as we have just got. It's kind of like we are. I primarily aim one color deck, but we were trying to splash at least a card in each kind of say, let's, let's say we're mono white as an example, but we're trying to splash like a chaos to file. I guess to file it an open. Okay. But let's just go like that is our spread along with a few other, like, minor splashes. I kind of stuff like, like, so, like to get that five gallon mana base working. What are we looking at? It's kind of like, how many basics do you think we're going to be running of our main color? How many jewel dual land like like ideally here. How many fetches and how many sources of each are we roughly going to have? Because I think that we kind of like help, kind of like inform people of like what, what to look out for when drafting as well, because you need to be making sure that your that you're generating the manners, the manner requirements that your deck needs. Yeah for sure. So I mean generally for it to be once you put all this effort and guessing a ton on basics, you're going to have a decent chunk of cards outside your your main card. But the main thing is, all the cards that you absolutely need to cast in the early game are going to be in that base color, right? And everything that isn't in that base color is at least decent in the mid game. So that means now it looks like it's quite different between different cubes where the mid game starts. Right. Like in a pop cube. That might because it's a lot slower. That might mean I want to have all my colors by ten five in a power cube. Really, if the mid game starts at turn three, I think, yes. So so it does kind of if a cube is faster, you actually kind of need to be a little bit better. But for but yeah, you're so you want to be able to have because you always want to have access to that base color in the very early game. So you probably want like minimum ten sources. Obviously those aren't all going to be basics for I mean, when you really get there, you tend to have like five, five, five, six in your deck total. But that can be a bit of a, a trade off. It sort of depends how many, tap plants you get, like how much of that you can get away with. But yeah, you, you want to have that like 9 to 10 sources of your, your base color and then the source of your full color is going to depend a bit on, on how many cards you have in that color and how prep intensive they are. But, yeah. Then you want to be able to, like, reliably have all of your colors. But like when you get into mid game and make sense against that. So and so so so we're counting lands as color sources of any source they can fetch for. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Which is. Yeah. And it's a good point that I saying I have a little strand that can get a black is not kind of as much of a black source as Swan. Right. Because because sometimes you didn't get black sometimes, sometimes when you do that, that's land you need to get a different color and like a black card placement and you can have your black. So but I'm generally looking for like Sam playing free black cards. I want to have like a, I say like a deuce eight black sources because definitely eight because like eight things that can make a black mana. That they might some of them might be face flatlands, which sometimes get, things. That means if I have a black card in my opener, I'm going to be able to play in a way where I normally have access to black and plus sometimes I'll draw a black card later. That hopefully even if I do something else, by the time I 12th that black card, I'll, I'll had, I'll have John of a black source. Right. So let me talk through these. This is why you really very sketches are so crucial, and they're such high picks because getting them basically has five color plans most of the time. But that is really how you make these numbers work, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's at least when you're counting when your base is in front of you, being able to say this one like that should just count for so many different colors effectively. It's kind of like it's that's what gets you to that 910 number of each color. Way easier is like doing it with yeah it's my fetches because like they can fetch the colors of manner that you need I guess. And I one of the things that I've really found important is like when you're playing it as well. Oh, before you play it. But one thing I found really important with this is before you play your game, work out like, oh, just have a mental note of what fetches can get. What? Or like like if you're splashing like like how are you getting your splashes into play with those fetch lines. Because say you only have open say all your fetch can get all of your colors. That's not that's valuable. So what do I say? I'm trying to say. Basically, if only some of your fetches can get some of your colors, if you use those fetches to get other colors, you might not be able to get the like. If you use the fetches that that can get your black source early to not get your black source. Then later in the game you're going to be having to like to draw it, which is not the point is that git. So there might be times where you might need to like going into duel, like go and get a try, early and maybe take a turn off to set yourself up for the rest of the game so you're not. So you're not relying on drawing your splash colors. That's not like I'm assuming James Brown would be waiting to draw lands here. We want to be fetching for them and being proactive with it. Exactly, exactly. And that's, I mean, it's the other thing like is you really if you're playing with fetch fans, you need to really paying attention during the draft about, yes. Which lands you need to take in order to enable those fetches. Like, you don't want to be in the spot where you get to the end of the draft and realize that, like two of your fetch lands don't get two of your main colors. And if only, taken for sake off, try. That was the love. The thing that is altogether, you know. Yeah, that's kind of the thing with homes, is that it's it's also more just a, quality of life increase because it's just more you just more like to hit it off of any factions and. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that's going to be easier on Mitko because you see your, your cards in front of you in person. In theory, you're not going to be like, get in person. Depends on the type of cute. Like most casual play group, you'll find looking at your picks in between. But just like having like I generally have my manor base at a separate portion to the. I have my pile of cards and I have my manor base to want like the front of the back, just so I know roughly what I'm working with, especially if you're kind of like thinking of if you've taken some lands early. Working out what you can smash is also going to be important. If you're like like like like like like you can take all the like all the lands at the start. But if you don't have the colors to take like, like to make them an offer, that means combo, then you probably shouldn't take it. If you have all that, like if you can make all colors apart from red, then it's going to be like that. Then you're in that position that everyone else is in. It's harder to take it if you can't cast it. Basically. Yeah, for sure, for sure. For the nice thing about if you're if you, it's better to be in the spot where you have to fetches enough jewels and they fly around right. Because if you have like three fetches that often there's just like one time and it suddenly solves all your problems. Right. If it's for right one, and it is something. Yeah. You pay much even if you're not looking at your picks, know your cards between each pick. Look at then at the end of each pack and, it's one of the things you want to be thinking about is what colors to be fetches. Guess at the moment. Because if you, you know, if you find that you have a flooded strand that doesn't fetch green and I, would at foothills that doesn't have that blue, then realize when you see that breeding pool in the next pack that that's actually a very important land for me. That's way more important than some other cool land that I may or may not need. Like if in that scenario of the breeding pool is, you know, normally I think about it as a true land sort of adds one more colored source to your deck, like replacing a forest with a breeding pool. One more source of a color that if you have the two factions that are getting it, it's kind of adding like four more sources, right? It's, it's night and day. And then the other thing you want to be thinking about is what of the cards you were splashing? Because it. So I think like the archetypal thing for a is of these fashionable cards. Right. Is something like for failing us because for failing us just gets better and better the longer the game goes on. Like, like I would play a for failing us of three sources if I had to like, but like if I had three white cells in my deck, I would probably still play for failing us because even if I don't get ever until 1010, if I've survived until 1010 for failing, guess will win me the game. Like, whereas something that is valid needs to be coming down a bit earlier to be powerful. That's going to require you a lot more sources. And it's, you want to keep that sort of sliding scale in mind. Cool. So I think that kind of is a good example of what a five color deck looks like. But to actually get it, we have to draft it. So James, let's talk about how you actually draft the five color cube. Oh I like that because I'm I'm assuming is not as straightforward as just drafting every land you see under the sun. And I'd like I also, I guess get the pot is kind of like is is how we're getting into it in the first place. Because in theory, if we're taking lands early, it's because it hasn't been anything else exciting that we're kind of after. Kind of like like when you end up in these Jack James, kind of like, how are you generally getting there? So I think there's a few ways I'm pretty happy taking fetches first, first or second pick. If there's there's nothing else super exciting for me. I think if anyone ever asks what was your first pick and it was a fetch land, no one's like, oh, you've you messed up there. Like everyone's kind of like, yeah, okay. Fair. Yeah, exactly. Because the thing is, the fetch land is not just good in the domain deck, right? It's it's good everywhere. Like the fact that fetches like, each fetch fetches all but one of the triumphs. Like you're just very likely to end up with that fetch in your deck. So they're good at effects for that reason, but at their best in the stack. So, yeah, one way is I just take some fetches early. Another way is like, say, pack one, pick one. You take a psychic block, like great platform, pick one. Very powerful card set. And you go to pack two, and there's the best blue and black card. So, like, solid but pretty unexciting. You know, maybe there's like, a cult epiphany and a dress and a, whatever, miss calc, you know, something's slightly unexciting. And then there's also a mint to hang out there, like, or maybe even the black has to be bad, you know, like, but I would advocate for taking them instantly in that spot because, and, you know, I'm not saying you're lucky it's playing off of those colors in that scenario. What you're saying is this crack go a lot of different directions from here. If the if blue and black are really open, then I'll play the psychic folk and I'll ignore this mint skin and I'll abandon my skin thing. That's fine fitting. Green will open a blue bloom. Black out and I'll. I'll play the mint skin blue and abandon the psychic fog. But another way you can go is there's not one incredibly open line for you. But you see some good fixing in the land to go in quite late in your pot. And then you move into this, this five color space. So and often the way you, when you kind of gone to that right is when it gets like pack six, pack seven and like the try I'm still there and you're just seeing the lands really late, like sometimes get through them. But like, I can't feel like everyone else is in like these two colorway decks. So I'm just going to see a lot more land because other people won't be prioritizing them that highly. Because that's because the thing is, to make your mana base work for this. Like we need a lot of non basics and we can't be using all of our very high picks on them because we need to take the powerful cards. So we do need to get some fixing kind of late. So yeah. When can we I'm like speculating early and then when I start getting the lands really late, that's when I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I can actually be like, 4 or 5 color deck draft. You know? Yeah, that makes sense because like, like I and in draft, we are generally told to stay open for as long as possible. And I drafting your lands is one of the better ways of doing that. And so so I kind of 20 and this kind of almost feels like the you're just I'm not going to say prolonging the commitment if that makes sense. But kind of like you're effectively you're not being like wowed by it, but like it's not like you're saying like a card that pulls you into a deck. Like you're not saying, like, I don't I don't know what like Tinker came into my mind, but it's like, it's not like you're seeing a cool, powerful card or like a series of signs that like a specific like deck that you like is open, for example, like you're not saying like every animate come through, you're not saying, yeah, sneak attack, that kind of stuff. I feel like you're nothing's really kind of getting like it's taking your fancy, basically, and kind of you're just using those opportunities to get to garner effectively payables by drafting lands. Yeah. Yeah for sure, for sure. And it's I think that, delaying the commitment thing is a lot of why this powerful vibe. Because, there's also the scenario if like, you know, you you think sometimes you think you have a lane and that lane isn't open by, like, you first pick for failing us. You second pick comment. You're like, VI, I'm bad. Why this deck is going to be busted and then place closed. Just type invite sometimes the person past your comment because May opens Black Lotus and then they and then they boot. That's why I mean and you're just not seeing those boss cards. And from that point, you can never try desperately to hang on to your comment and for failing us and have a lot of really questionable cards in your deck and fine play pass. Or you can abandon base cards and play some other colors, but you can come on open, or you can take a bunch of fixing, be like based some other colors, do a lot of splashing, and you still get to have the two best cards you've seen in your deck. So that's that's certainly another way you can you can end up that, you know, and then when you're and I'm assuming, James, that can be a risk if you're just taking lands that, you might not have enough creatures or spells or effects to actually kind of play magic, because the way is the way I'm going to phrase that. Yeah, it's the things I've got to pay attention. Yeah. Kind of like. Yeah. So at what point are you starting to pay attention to that? Is it like off the pack one or like I like when realistically do you need to start thinking, right, okay. The fixing is as good as it can be at this point. Unless there is like specifically like a try I might need. I'm just taking playable at this point. Yeah. I mean, it's something you want to pay attention to all the way through the draft. You know, you don't want to be getting to the end of pack to where I think you have amazing, incredible amount of base in the world and 12 playable spells because is just putting a lot of pressure on Ben. Every pack in pack three, you've got to be able to take two cards basically, like you've got a wheel, something you have almost every pack. And that's pretty tough. So yeah, you it's something you just need to be aware of. It's like how many lands by taken. How many spells by taken. There's, because like where you end up by is, it's like I took these powerful cards that got me into it, and I took these lands so I can cast Maul, and that's great. And like that, like, five best cards in my deck were amazing. And I can cast everything very consistently. But like the five worst cards in my deck are so unbelievably bad that like, my bottom Sam really compensate for, you know, so yeah, you've got to pay attention to it through the draft. You've got to always have that balance in mind of, of how many, how many spells they take and how many tables do I have versus how does my model look? I will say like it's more of okay, even in other decks to go into, pack three with not that much with fewer payables. Right. Like in a normal like if I was drafting borders and I was going into pack three with like 14 playable spells, that would be a crisis. That would be that would be horrendous. I don't think I'm getting better. If my manor base is incredible, I can cast everything. And I have 14 spells, gang and pack, three. I mean, it's fewer than I'd like, but nine? I can get nine. That means I need to, like, get a spell out of every pack, and then we'll we'll one of two things like. That's that's fine. I think as we kind of touched on with in theory pack three is when you're getting hooked up. Exactly. That's when in theory, things are things are paying off the most because you, you will have your lands in theory. Yeah. You've eaten your veg first. I know how I often I mean off the map and cube like the very standard thing is draft a load of broken spells or draft what are what you think is a cool deck? Look your picks off the pack two when you have like one fetch land and it's like, well, balls, I need to grab some that says I kind of like it does kind of flip in terms of like you're being rewarded for taking your lands early. Everyone else, in theory, is more like to give you cards. They either know they can't cast or or can't pick because they need to take their lands. So yeah, the show from my experience with this game is kind of like I've I've generally found and let me know if this is true. You're kind of like casting a spell with two different picks is often easier than casting a spell with two of the same pair. So I'm kind of thinking, like casting a fractured identity can often be easier than casting a palace jailer. Yeah, yeah, it's way easier because, partly because the South fetches work that you want. You'll what? You're deciding which lands you're fetching, you're prioritizing having one of each. Basically, like before. Yeah. Generally before you're looking to have doubles. Because that's just gonna give you access to the charity of cards in your deck. Isn't isn't it's not true that, like, you should never play double cards and in these backs, like, yeah, if I. Yeah, if I see a parallax wave, I'm gonna try and make it work, you know? But, you've got to be very wary and you've got to be got to be disciplined. Sometimes you you see a blazer and you look at your look at the lands you have available as it's just like like I just don't have that many of a green cards. So I don't want to have to play so many green sources in my deck, make this double green card work, and I don't have a fair amount of fixing. I would need to like the double green for free so I'm going to pass this really powerful double green card. And especially double pip cards that you want to have earlier of the game. Big things like Counterspell, like it's generally just not something you invest in the stack like, man Mannerly great. Counterspell. No thank you. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I guess it's, is is there a thing of that? Although if it is your primary color, it's I guess I would consider it if it's in my primary color and it's like a four, five, six drop. Again, not the two drop, but like, if it's like, like we're not splashing for double pips at any point, are we. Yeah. I mean for wet splashes always. You know, it's a lot of context, right. Because. Yes. These decks success, satisfaction some of them are very much like this one, this color. And then I'm splashing everything else at all my splashes way better. Sometimes your man is just insane, right? Sometimes you have, like, four patch lands a bunch of times and you kind of feel like you. That's the thing. And at that point, yeah, you can, like, sometimes you don't. You barely have a base color, right? Sometimes you're just like, I think I'm going to bail scale my colors early enough. Sure, some of them are going to be tapped. I'm going to play like cheap interaction of all these different colors. And I'll be like, okay, I don't want early double tap stuff, but I think I can play, you know, I think I can focus on one player. So let's plowshares on two and then like I'm going to have double blue on for, you know, like the in general. Yeah. Yeah. You want to be pretty heavily biased away from double tap cards. Yeah. That's right. That's very reasonable. It's something in general I am just really doing in magic anyway. I just find casting my spells much more like, yeah, yeah, it just just being less greedy with the amount of aces in general is something that I've just tried to do. Just because I like casting my spells and I like playing magic rather than short spells, I can't cast. I think one thing I've noticed with people who sort of a lot of people come to cubes and these detract, right? And very often in this draft you're playing with like A98 mana base because there just isn't any, isn't there, that's fixing. And people sort of take away from that, that a nine, eight mana base is like, okay, and you can cast a spell for. No, it really isn't like, yeah, you can't you it's so much it's an endless like dupe you have for fixing. You should really try for your Manaphy play more consistent than that. And, Yeah, double pipes make that a lot more difficult. Actually, quick question on this. And actually this might go actually in the deck building part, but and in these type of decks, James, how many lands are we playing. Because I'll be honest with you, if I'm playing a cube, my base line nowadays is 16 bands. Just because. We have the we have the ability to drop catch lands and shock lands and this kind of stuff. So in theory, our manner is better than the Split Manor base we kind of touched on earlier, but like in these type of decks where you need to be hitting your colors much more consistently, how many lands traditionally would you be running in a deck like this? There's wanting to splash all that's wanting to play all the colors. Basically. And the thing is, like, even though even if your colors are very good and you could get away with fewer often, you know, you do have a slightly higher curve in these stacks, right? Because a lot of, a lot of the cards you're stretching your mana base four are more towards the top end of your cards, right? So I'd say like my default is 17, but I'm not in any way married to that. And there's a lot of other cards that kind of count as lands, right? Like I'm counting the basic land cycles as lands. I'm counting like once upon a time, as basic, as close to a land, that cause insane. And five color, five white. Because weight is related, every tuber exists in it is very strong. But yeah, I'd say like I have a love default of 17, but I'm not. I'm not opposed to getting to 16, but taking the lands is the eating the vege. It's the, it's eating your greens, the bread and butter. It is good and healthy for you. Let's talk about kind of the payoffs and kind of why we're doing this. So so we mentioned some of these cards. So like things like both Air Lingus mints combo. We're gonna like this. Powerful cards in multiple types of cubes. Like let's chat. Let's chat about some more. Some cards for a bit. James. I card like fractured identity, I think. Sounds perfect for this kind of deck because yeah, it's a it's a card that gets better later in the game. But in theory your opponent has bigger things or has had more time to do their big broken thing. And then that is where fractured identity shines. It's basically you're undoing all the good work your brain does by casting one spell. I'm assuming fresh identity is really strong in this type of environment. Yeah, great place to be. And you know, no double pet. Really powerful card at any stage of the game where you can cast. It gets better as the game goes on and catches you up when you're behind. Yes, like it is. Think often. You played some top lands early. You might fall behind for the fact that identity is so swingy, right? And it's and just works against death. I think. Like, I think when this card first came out, people saw, well, I was like a bit of a control magic. It's so much more than that, right? Because you get the CPS, you're not getting that fired on someone when they, Or the disenchant level of control magic. Yeah, that is great. It's, It's a very good one. Slash. You'll have access to one half mana. And then. All right, I'm. A lot of people are gonna love this card because the artwork is adorable, but this might be my most hated card in all of magic. James, I think you know what I'm gonna talk about that comment. Stellar bloody pop. I truly hate this card, but I know that this card is very good in this type of deck because it is again, it's it's a four manor planeswalker with RNG. With with a roll the dice mechanic attached to it. This is another one that I, that I know is very strong in this type of mechanics, because you don't have to play this on turn four. I mean, you can have that on turn three is gonna be very good. But like it is a slow it is a slower card that you can play late in the game. And all you need to do is roll a six and you win the game. But my experience of it being played against me anyway, I'm assuming this is another good one. James. Yeah. Comments. Great. I kind of agree with you. I think the card's nonsense and, in many ways that it's it's very powerful. If you get it down early and it's unopposed, it will just snowball and when you're game. But even if it comes down later, it has a lot of loyalty. And it's, nicer than spending on what you roll, obviously. And, the spoils defend itself for, for getting something back actually gets much better later in the game because you have more soft graveyards and nothing something is obviously great. So, yeah. Love comment. Again, the card, but you can often get late because, it's a gold card. Not everyone's going to want it and you can really take advantage of that. Nice. And then another cool gold card though, I think. Yeah, this one's definitely got a bit of a resurgence in the last couple of years in, in Fire Covenant. This seems also quite great because this seems as like a good way of catching you up in games. You can you don't need to cast. It's like this isn't a card you want to cast on turn three. Basically, this is kind of the point you're casting toxic deluge, I guess, if that makes sense. But because in two colors, it means you being the greedy color that you're more likely to be able to get it. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's like it is a toxic daily if it doesn't kill your creatures. Right? It's, Yeah. The cards, the cards are really messed up. Obviously. It's, I mean, it's not going to be amazing in every game, but there are so many games of this card. You go from super far behind to winning. And with one spell and the fact it's an instant as well, it means it even beats up on highest creatures very nicely. Yeah. Love, love. Yeah. That's thing like, there's so many cards we could talk about for this action just because, again, it's kind of the best multi-colored cards are the, some of the rewards you get for doing this archetype. But there are also cards that can be added to Q specifically for. Let's talk about if you are trying to help out the three, four, five on the deck. So we're gonna touch on some of them now, one that kind of immediately springs to mind. James. And, and it's also a card that kind of works in parallel with the wanting to run lots of fetch lands and your jack. And that's on that locus of creation. That's the four color non-black on that's the train wreck standard. Probably like 4 or 5 years ago now, got banned in a bunch of things. But, that seems like a fantastic reward for being in multiple colors because it is one of the most powerful, multicolored cards probably ever printed, especially in one on one. Anyway, I'm talking about the eight. That seems like a great reward for this archetype. They're kind of like, effectively, if this is in your cube and you are the deck that is multicolored, running all the colors, no one else is taking this. You are going to get this. Like, what do you think about, that's James. Yeah. When it works. That's very powerful. Yeah. It is. It is really a plant built around in a lot of ways. Like, don't have fat sons, but you can cast it. I guess it's kind of fine. Right? It's at full mana for fall. That tells you a card man will gain you some life, and that's fine. You know, you can run that. But, but the games where you go, like, not play my fat clock, my fat play a five shot all in the same turn. Like, that's that's ridiculous. Right. You got you got nine mana spells. Where else? Out of your out of your five mana. But yeah, they it gets really powerful when you have that chess and, Yeah. And then it's going to keep gaining utilize as the game goes on as well. It's it's one you'll get very, very late because no one else can use it. Like if you see, if you're in this deck and you see an Omni, in the first, in the first few picks of any packet, you'll. Oh, my, certainly not meant to take it. Oh, because you will be lit. Yeah. Let it bear in mind. And then let's actually talk about a mechanic that specifically rewards you for being in multiple colors. And that's domain. We've seen domain a bunch and there's a ton of, there are some very powerful cards in here. There's a lot of very mid draft cards in there with the mind, but there are some very powerful ones. I think the most powerful one that I like the most. Well, two actually, they're both removal spells. It's ley line binding and prismatic ending. Like in this deck you can easily make ley line binding cost a single white. Like I've had this happen on turn two. Being able to like, just make warp like two fetches, get two dry ohms. I can make woo back later. I'm binding, costing a single a single white and answering any non land permanent is kind of wild. It also has flash. So that's that's what. And it's like yeah. And and then and then prismatic ending is just a strong card any like anyway like in a two, three, two the deck has cards get cheaper and more efficient. But in this five color deck where you can make those colors quite easily, it will just scale to the light game. And just like, a very, very solid removal spell. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think for the main cards, I think Lila and bindings, probably the most powerful book just quit trades up on mana. So. Well, like like yeah, you can often have access to it early the late game. You can know when on turn five they play that five shop. You spend one mana delay line binding it and then play affordable play. That's such a huge swing. And you know, it's so different from like, the, of, removal spells really and cube, but let you trade up on of that far and hit everything like not just creatures. That is planeswalker. It hits hearts, bats, enchantments, which means it's just good against stuff, I think, like, even like maybe the old stone deck, like, this is going to be great against every deck. Like, it's like I said, Tinker Deck, it's going to kill that. So if you play against, Enchantress Deck, it's going to blow back keeping, you know, it's, but bindings are very nice reward for being. And then I guess you were talking about you mentioned the word big reaches there. Let's talk about scion of Draco. This is a 12 mana artifact creature dragon that is reducing costs by domain and then gives your creatures a bunch of abilities if certain colors. So again, rewarding you for being in the multicolor deck by being a big top end for that deck. I will be like, I have had this in my queue for a while. I don't think it's really popped off as much as I want it to, and I think that's possibly because this is other trinket like, yes, you can tinker for it, but generally like this really does want the domain deck to be a thing and kind of like like, like this is this is one where I kind of like I think would work better in a, in a, in a queue where people aren't dropping their lands as aggressively, where you can make the domain archetype work. I think this is a very good payoff for that. But like, this is this, this is a payoff that needs to be in that deck. A lot of the other things we've mentioned, because that kind of like you can incidentally take another awesome if you can cast them. This does really need to be a build around basically it is that fair dreams. Yeah for sure. And it's and it's a build around as well. Well you're never moving into a deck full of trickery right? Yes. That's not how it works. But if you're already there, this is a nice thing to get for free because, well, when you when you're really enabling it, right, it's like a two minute full of flier that incidentally gives your other creatures some keywords, which can be good. But, yeah, it's just very efficient when it works. But same. Yeah. It's not it's not obvious that you need to prioritize. Super. I think I guess science is more like it's more like ominous actually isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Cause and during this time, like, you do barely have to me that the and you know, you can't be you can't be like, oh look I splashed a few cards and I theoretically have some land tied to. It's like now you've got to be, like, pretty consistent every game. I'm, I'm assembling this stuff pretty quickly. But, but when you do it, it is powerful because the thing is. So it's not like a two, four, four, five, ten to that often, but two manifold for fire stays powerful until late game. You know, it lets you multi spell very well. Like it lets you deploy a really powerful fat and hold up the counterspell, deploy for that and kill that guy on like ten set 4 or 5 and that is pretty good. But yeah. Not not one. You need to like take highly, but you'll get it for free. And if you really got that on the amount of base, it'll make your. That can be good I think that's. Yeah. Yeah, that's very fair. Let's talk about three. I'm going to clump these together, even though I think one isn't like the others in terms of like aggressive domain cards. We have cause like territorial cartoonish. So we brawler and broad is firebrand. I, I, I kind of like the car view, but that's just because it has abilities when it attacks like it's it's a looter as well as just being like all these cards are basically just a big because or big or can get big because you have multiple colors of land. And that's kind of like cool. But as we've just got it's kind of like like what is firebrand as a one man? It's a two mana, three one in red that you can domain to make it bigger. Cool. I could run that or I could run into, as we've already mentioned, like a card that's just individually strong rather than having to like, like because part of the point of this deck is, is you are able to splash these cards you don't like. If you just want to carve out with an entry into a player, you can as well. Whereas with again, like with these kind of aggro, like everything we've discussed so far doesn't like like if, if I curve out and beat someone down with good static creatures, awesome. But that is not aggro. That is not that is that that's a I think a strong differentiate differentiation there James. Yes, for sure. You you can trap this. That can be like an excessive mid-range stack. Absolutely. That you are not a oh then I could attack basically ever. Yeah. I like the coffee. The like the dollar and the five and I, I don't think I get enough for like high power cubes personally. No, I just find it's like you do all the work and you get that and get, like, such a fellow creature, and it's like, you know, even. But I'm five. I just have access to better cards nevertheless, you know, I think they're perfect for a budget cube proxying, fixing. Yes. Yeah, that sounds great. I think that's. Yeah, that's spot on. Yeah. The coffee I do think is good because you also like the and it's a little bit of graveyard height. Just be white. Be careful that you, you don't have too many of the fixes which don't have types. Right. Do not be actually like I did. Opponents and, a murder cube earlier this season who went like spire plus Canal copper line gods, the Terrace Coffee and and events. Okay. Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I dude, I appreciate you have lots of colors of that of you have dropped. Mistakes have been made. I guess that's. Yeah. That's how you can draft your lands wrong, but. Yeah. Nice. Let's keep it going, though, because. Because those are kind of the domain cards. There's other cool things you can do. I'm going to read this one because I don't think it people will we'll probably know it. But there's a cool interaction that does and that's bring to light. Spring to light is a cool it's three and a Simic for a sorcery with converge. Converge is another mechanic that cares about the number of colors meant to cast it. Boats converge. Search your library for a creature insane or sorcery card with mana value less than or equal to the number of colors of man is meant to cast a spell. Exalt that card and shuffle. You may cast a card without paying its mana cost, so that's a nice little tutor. Again, if you're kind of one thing we haven't touched on too much, but like if you are in five colors and there's a bunch of combos running around a cube, you are able to splash for different combo pieces. That kind of stuff. I mean, Kiki jiggy might be a bit tricky, but like I'm thinking like possessed combos or other kind of creature based combos. You could definitely splash with this and bring to light as a solid tutor for that. But bring to light let's you go and get, Valkyrie God of Lies. But the interaction with this is a little bit weird or not weird. It kind of works how you want it to, because Valkyrie on one side is a one on a white for A21. There's no creature God, but on the other side there's a seven mana planeswalker, and with Bring to light, you can cost the seven mana planeswalker side with Bring to Light. And that's pretty cool. Five man had to go and cheat at a seven mana planeswalker out. If you can put it into play, that's pretty good. That's as you do it. That is also a nice little. It's basically bring to light is a solid card. Valkyrie is a solid card because it on the on its front side. It's effectively a I was gonna say brain magic, but there's nothing more iconic versions of that effect. James. That's magic beans. Yes. There you go. Yeah, yeah, it's a mesmeric thing. It's a it's a deep cabin style of card that it's kind of not the most optimal one, but it's solid. But the fact that you can flip it where it brings like into this planeswalker straight away, that's very powerful is kind of cool. That's a nice little reward for those archetypes. Yeah, I think so. That's a nice one. And and like does some good stuff even without alchemy as well. Like it just gives you access. It gives you more copies of like situational cards in your deck. But you might need like you turned into a three person. You need a suite to allow that. That, yeah. The, the valve key interaction really puts it over top of the show. And then one that was very strong when it first got printed up. Don't make me very strong is not my way of saying it's kind of like it was it was done a lot when it first opened printed. And it does have the potential to be powerful, so powerful that it was banned in commander. And that's Golos Tyler's program. I think the banning commander was was more just homogenous. And five other decks, actually. But just like coalesce is a five man, colorless card that has a Wu bug. And to like the ability to exile the top three cards, if you like. And then you can play them without paying a man, of course. So it's a good reward in those kind of decks. It also touches up a land on ATB by effectively you can reward you for splashing all those colors by letting you cheat all the other big things that you've drafted into play. It is quite expensive. It is a bit slow. Again, this might be more one for the budget type of decks or budget or like legacy kind of power level type of cubes that kind of a bit slower and let you kind of really develop your resources and then do something big and dumb at the end. I probably should actually add this to my treat Yourself cube, which is very much everything. I've just described that. So maybe that's a point. And then another one that I think actually is a bit of a trap for this archetype. And that's never, is it, reborn. This is the Wu bug nip misfit that enters. And you can reveal the top ten cards. Then for each color pair, you can choose one and put them into your hand. That's not that's not the type of reward we want from this card. Like it's it's another restriction kind of one of the like the restriction of this deck is that we have spent draft picks on our lands. We don't want more restrictions on top of that to make other cards work. We don't want to be, I, I drafted this awesome mana base eyedropper and this miss it. Now I need ten, two, cards of each type. Is. That is that fair? James, I, I was I never really got the first round them it reborn, if I'm honest. So I agree for this card. This one isn't quite good enough. And, invite powerful keeps anymore. But I think, really, we had this. You don't have to be hitting like, five cards off. It's every time you play it. Like if you hit two, you play to five minus six, six for 22 cards. And like that's 72 cards, right? Because your gold card. So could it be, you know, so strong you land strong you action. And like five, six, six which for some cards it's just pretty good. But, I do kind of think that they're generally that is not worth the squeeze of, you know, how I feel. My base looks is just not going to always have. We're back on top five. And, yeah, I think I just think fairer for five. So you could be playing, but it's a cool card. And if you're. Yeah, sure. Cube gives you a little bit more time then. And I think it's okay because it's. Yeah, you don't need to be like, I've got 12 gold cards in my deck clapping. You can have six and be fine. I guess it is an ETB as well. So if you cheated, it somehow is a you know what this is? This is the worst attractor and it's quite a lot less in the track. So I'll give you that dice I think I better than a factor. Yeah that's fair. I'm the less you said vibe. The last one on this list I'm assuming you added is tainted pack tainted pact. Question mark. James, talk to me about tainted Back, please. Yeah. This is what I'm trying in my queue. I think it could be quite cool. So for those who don't know, Tainted Pact is one a black for an instant says exile card of your library. You may put that cards into your hand unless it has the same name as another card. Exile this way. Repeat this process until you put a card into your hand or exile two cards with the same name, whichever comes first. So the trick for this card is that if you don't have any cards with the same name in your deck, then you can keep going as long as you want and either use that to cheat on the cards you need, or combine it with something like a faster circle. Next value. Hold lightly. It's kind of like a funky demonic consultation, like, and cube. We don't have multiple spells with the same name. We do on this always have multiple lands of the same name rank, but no stacks will have a bunch of the same basic. And that kind of messes this up. But in a five color deck, it happens fairly frequently, but you don't have more than one of any particular basic, you know, sometimes it might be like, oh, normally I'd play two, but I want to enable this like two for this, I want to enable the sainted pact. So I'll go down to one first. And then if it's good enough, because, but I think it could be cool to have another thing to do if your cool. That is kind of a pay off of a five color deck. I think that would be pretty sweet. I'm trying it out in my cube. Let's see if we'll see if it works. I am loving the five colors that is Oracle and that's how can we get. It's going to be so good. I'm really excited that it's, I'll grant you. It's narrow. It is narrow. I think when it works, obviously. Awesome. Yeah, I think that's I think that's where we're going to end, discussion on, like, like being rewarded for drafting your lands, playing a bunch of colors. But it is it is a very unique style of deck because in theory, your options are limited. Let's see what kind of like you can just play all the good stuff. And that's something that's that's really, really cool. All right, let's move it on to, final topic of the day. And that's what have we been playing. So, last weekend we, we did, your powered cube, James. It went kind of well for me. Very well for you. You beat me in the final. You're going three and omega two and one. I'll talk about my deck first, because it does kind of tie in to this episode a little bit. I effectively had a deck similar to what we are discussing today. I think it was definitely something I, I definitely learned some stuff from today I can apply to my next the next time I do something like this. But the way my deck I basically came together was I got a pick two minutes combo and a pick 3 or 4 like Fractured Identity and then the lands just kept coming round. So despite the fact that those are the colors I've mentioned, I was actually like a base white deck splashing red. So I had some very good removal. I had a path, I had a solitude. I had, late own binding that was regularly one matter, and then it doesn't made a base for this. It came together pretty well, considering that, like, like I was very good in terms of what I was splashing. I think today I was a white deck with a couple of red pips, with my green splash only being and Blue and Morlock and my only blue splash being fractured. Identity. But I had, with a windswept heath in a wooded foothills. I had a plateau, a tropical island, and an enough atrium. I was didn't get mana screwed all day. I think that this was let this was kind of borderline. The Arctic we're talking about today. I was rewarded by casting, by being able to cast my spells, but I wasn't able to go full well. I like like I did see an ominous go round, but I didn't think I could commit fully effectively. Mine was like a light. Mine was like a major energy deck with a light touch of this. I think if I'd committed more and gone more into the lands earlier, I think I could have had a stronger overall deck. But I guess that's something that kind of like, yeah, from having this episode is something I can take to to future, to future drafts. James, do you want to tell the audience what you smushed me with in the final? Yeah, I mean, my deck was free. I really enjoyed playing it. I will also say I opened very well. I had a yeah, I have the laser and and and ancestral. I think it's ancestral packs on deck one later was pack three, I think. Yeah. Based on my draft was I first picked and festival then took only Vectis cards for the remainder of pack one, because that is just what I was being passed. I ended up in a kind of cool, like, Greek sense, the carrying nightmare obsession deck. And it's a ton of fun, actually. So I had a bad place to produce expendable tokens. Had, like a free mana to VAT. I had better blossom, season Pyromancer, all that good stuff. Anarchic bow masters. And then, I had 2 or 3 in fire cal mantles that grief and fury. So nightmare playing Batman out of play was great. Chaos to follow was really peanuts and their stack, that cards just gets better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it? Then, yeah. Had the, the Mayhem Devil as well was like doing a lot of pinging around, in that, in theory, I was just like, oh, like, I could mow down the little features really well. And then opposition, I sort of just about had enough bodies to make that work. And, it's only a couple of fine acrylic fans, super full, like, lock them out of the game, your lands all tapped. And the other key thing, which is it's I mean, I enjoy it. I don't know about anyone else, but, Yeah, the deck played very well. I'll see if it's not that open, so. Well. But, Yeah, I think it, I think it came together and, it's quite a nice build. Yeah, it was very cool. Yeah. It was, it was a very, very cool deck and. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of fun to get, that the first in-person cube of the year? Yeah, I think so. I think it was. Yes. Well, we'll have another one coming up next weekend, so we'll report back on that in our next episode. But that's going to do it for today. Thank you all very much for listening, James. Pleasure as always. Thank you for your insights. There you are. I just going to say that you are the master of the 4 or 5 color. I'm not going to say pile, but the full five color deck that actually synergize is annoyingly well. And I yeah, I appreciate you talking with us today. Yeah. No, I mean, it's not that fans enjoy drafting. I think it's, it's sometimes seen as a bit of a bad guy. Right? Yeah. Just playing all the best cards. But, I think there's actually a lot of nuance to, to how you draft it. And it's, Yeah, I think I find the decks play out really nicely. If you if you get feedback pieces and it's, it's definitely an archetype for people who like, like if you can get it working, you're doing cool and interesting things like that. Other decks just don't have the like. You're combining cards that weren't really designed to be combined together by the person who built the cube. You're just kind of doing the best of all of it. And yeah, yeah, it's really cool when it comes together. I hope you can all give it a go the next time you all cube. But just a reminder, if you made it this far, please give the podcast, a five star review. Give it a thumbs up. Whatever your podcast platform of of choice allows you to give positive affirmation to. That would be wonderful. Tell a friend all that good stuff. Until next time. It's goodbye from me. It's goodbye from James and we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.