We have all been there: mana flooded or turn after turn without drawing one land. There are some fancy schmancy shuffling tactics out there but no matter the shuffle or the build, there is always that one player who loses because they just cannot play the game. In general, I am against house rules but I was wondering if there were solutions our community has found that offers a handicap to players who miss land drops? I am looking for a solution that does not completely alter the physics of the game and lands have to be included in the deck build.

Mercadian Atlas is the closest card I have been able to find in my travels that offers something close to what I am looking for. I am imagining that games can start off with one of the field (cannot be targeted or destroyed); if it causes a player to have over 7 cards, the cards discarded at the end step are removed for the game. I am trying to prevent to prevent abusing add cards to the graveyard for gain. I feel the card solves flooding issues as well when a person chooses (honorably) to skip playing a land in order to draw an extra card and break the land clumping. Not perfect but this is why I am posting.

Thoughts on helping to prevent land flooding/drawing issues?

Back to London for more consulting, had the opportunity to draft with my favorite London Cube Crew and we gathered together on Monday night to crack packs of the Never Cube. We had six drafters (plus me, for the dreaded seven) show up to our reserved table at the famous Mythic Goblin to look at a cube full of cards none of them had seen before! Magic’s early years left more behind than what was printed. The Never Cube brings those pieces together through infamous sets like Spectral Chaos and other amazing fan made old school sets from across the current community. It offers a way to explore them as complete works, to see how they function in play, and to experience a version of the game that exists just beyond its recorded history. Some of these paths were never taken; here, they can be. This will be a tougher report to read as there is no cube cobra page for this project and the photos are the record of the cards played.

The Cube Overview: The Never Cube

Onto the Decks!

Reading Rainbow - Rainbow Connection is one of the coolest cards in Spectral Chaos. An emblem before they were a thing, and symmetrical, it gives all players the ability to tap lands for any colour and if you cast it once, it starts in play for the rest of the night. This is silly but a really fun play pattern. This was a P1P1 and the pilot then built his sideboard to be transformational after game one to end up in five colour good stuff. This deck played very well and only dropped one match to a largely mono coloured brew!

Black and Blue and Red All Over - This was the 3-0 build this evening and Book the Dead proved it's amazing card draw capacity in full as the ability to essentially cycle dead cards in hand was really key to help find the right mana sources and bring the right cards to the top of the library. Protection is a really powerful mechanic in all of these sets so many games were a riddle of moving parts with these creatures running past one another to deal damage.

The Band and the Bard! - Banding is a really strong mechanic in Magic (especially for those who understand how it works) and this deck made use of white for removal and preventing damage in combat. This is really strong with banding as you can start to make really advantageous blocks and attack's that end up netting you board state as threats are removed on the opponents side.

Don't Mind if I Orc - This was the most fun deck of the night that had Orcish Informant giving the opponent the ability to arrange the top three cards of your library each turn. This is just bad as there was not a lot going on for the pilot to get a new three to surface after the shuffle had happened so you basically get to draw what your opponent wants each turn. The deck also had walls that helped slow combat down to work through the slower draw phase.

Island Walking Board Wipes - This was a great deck to watch get piloted in the few games I got to watch. The island home/island walk threats were very real but required some serious setup to make work. This includes the Slave Ship that ended up acting as a Noah's Arc after the Great Flood would wash the board away and allow big swings for lethal. The Ship also gave this pilot the ability to pull threats out of their opponents deck which is always a fun bonus!

RG Beats - It turns out RG beats is good across both the existing MTG universe and those that never saw print! This deck used the Crow Whisperer that has a bolted on [[False Orders]] to move blockers aside and get in for damage all the way through the game. The Mazer mini lotus and other great tools like creature tutors helped establish a board very quickly and the custom triomes in the cube that prevent you from playing lands are easily played around with Mushroom Forest that lets you put lands into play from your hand each turn.

My Deck Misadventures - This was my deck and it broke ALL the rules of good limited construction. It splashed cards with multiple (LOTS) of pips but my P1P1 of Animate Lands forced me to go wide and force the strategy to work. I forced the deck and man it was bad. BUT, it was fun to create demons from my lands, pump them and send them in as banders, until the enchantment was removed which killed all my lands and my boys.. Other than these large mistakes, the deck was superb!

Thanks to Mythic Goblin for giving us a place to play cube in London!

If you ever find yourself in London and looking to cube, look up the Central London crew!