<3
Every now and again I play some Power Cube on Arena. Power Cube isn’t my favourite Cube, but lets be fair, it’s a fun Cube. It is reasonably well designed plus I’ve played it a lot so I’m comfortable with it. I win more than I loose on Arena so I can always just keep drafting. It’s fun, easy and accesable. And people don’t like to draft what I do like to draft.
The other day I did one such draft. I picked up some strong red cards in the beginning and at the end of booster one got the feeling green was open. Booster 2 it was even more clear green was open so I moved in and somewhere late I got you, Environmental Scientist, quite late. And I was really happy with you, I love cards like you.
Civic Wayfinder is one of my favourite Magic cards of all time. Back in 2008 Charles Gindy won Pro Tour Hollywood with 4 copies of Civic Wayfinder in this the Rock deck. The consistency Civic Wayfinder offered a deck that revolves around being consistant always amazed me. It was at that moment I fell in love with the Civic Wayfinder type cards in Magic and when I saw you during spoiler season, I immediately fell in love with you, Environmental Scientist. You were one of the best uncommons of your draft set, no suprise there. And I love that you made it into Power Cube. The 17 lands data on you in MTGA isn’t that bad even. You have the same winrate as some true Power Cube bangers like: Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Skullclamp and Grim Monolith.
I sent my Arena draft with you in it to my spike friends. I still had to make 3 cuts and asked their opinions. They all agreed I should cut you, Environmental Scientist. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to them. One of the things I think almost everyone can improve on is building their manabases. Frank Karsten has provided us with an easy tool to calculate your manabase accordingly and cards like you play a huge role. In the later stages of the game of this draft deck I was going to need 2 green or 2 red. And you actually need 11 sources to cast those cards consistently on turn 4, 12 on turn 3. And I had a bunch of early ramp, so being able to find that second red source usually mattered a lot. Because my manabase only offered 9 red sources from the lands alone*. And then I’m not even talking about the fact that I could go down to 15 lands because of a card like you. You made my deck so much more consistent and I think there is so much power in that consistency. I love you for it.
With love,
Hanjo
*My friend Brent would probably not agree with that ‘9 red sources’ statement. I had 2 fetch lands that could fetch up a Bayou, Badlands or Ziatora’s Proving Ground as duals. I splashed black and had 8 sources in my lands alone without a Swamp, so there was no need for the Swamp. But that did mean that a lot of the time I would fetch up a Bayou, which makes a fetchland not a full red source. He would probably argue I had 8,5 red source on my lands alone. I listen to Brent, he is a very smart person. I learn a lot from him on how to approach Magic.
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