Pokemon MTG Cube

So I was struggling with my two options of changing Ground to RB or leaving it as GW and all of the compromises that would come with that decision, when I had a realization: If there are going to be sacrifices with either choice, why not make a new choice? I have a recurring mechanic that Maro calls “threshold 1″ which checks whether you control “another Rock or Ground permanent”, and then provides a bonus if you do. I didn’t include Steel in the check because of text space and because Steel always felt like the odd man out of Ground and Rock. It was added a generation after, and the Gen 1 Rock types Geodude, Rhyhorn, and Onix were all Rock and Ground, so the two types almost felt connected, like part of the same whole.

My mechanic which checked whether you had a “Rock or Ground permanent” is a reference to the video game abilities which trigger when a Sandstorm is active. Since I didn’t want a whole mechanic around checking whether you managed to both draft and play 1 card out of 720, I expanded it to checking for any permanent of the proper type. Then, because Ground creatures had the effect as often as Rock, I added “or Ground” for the above reasons, and so GW decks wouldn’t be incentivized to always splash Red or Black.

Anyway, long story short, this showed me that I was treating Rock and Ground as separate as Ghost and Bug when that really isn’t the case, they share a ton of overlap. This meant that by loosening my restrictions a little, I could create Rock and Ground cards which are primarily RB or GW, but occasionally flip into the other type’s colors. Since the main mechanics check for Ground or Rock, it shouldn’t even affect deckbuilding that much.

The images above show my current versions of each card, after the “Ground/Rock Epiphany”, Ground was in fact changed primarily to RB (Rakdos) and Rock was changed to GW (Selesnya). Sandstorm still seemed better in RB due to direct damage feeling like the best translation of the effect. Mudsdale also felt better in GW, since a bunch of +1/+1 counters didn’t fit RB as well.

Landorus actually has the same effect as before, but makes much more sense in RB. Groudon is now no longer an “exception” but fits normally into Red. Regirock stays in RB to complete the cycle with the other Regi’s. The starter cycle of Infernape, Torterra, and Empoleon used to be monocolored creatures with activated for RG, GW, and 1U, but getting +1/+1 didn’t work mechanically for RB, so I changed each of the starters to be costed for their dual types, and activate for their monotypes.

Finally, Lunatone and Solrock. These two became complex because Psychic and Rock originally overlapped in Grixis. While the new shake-up seemed problematic for that balance, I think it actually worked out for the best. They both used to have “next turn” effects that had memory issues, so I changed them to exert effects instead, which I’ve used on several other creatures to represent a time delay or recharging. I also solved the “direct damage with a Grass effect” problem by having Solrock punch the other creatures with its power, which is a bit of a bend but not as bad as dealing the damage directly.

Groudon is the primary Legendary Ground creature, but it must be Red for both Ruby flavor and its Fire boosting effect. For this reason, it never goes in a Ground deck. Also, Magnitude is great as a Red X spell which deals damage to each creature without flying. In the games, this is a Ground attack, but since the cube currently has Ground as a Green-White archetype, the spell can’t be tribal and just has to be a tribeless Red spell.

Next is the Flying issue. Green can damage and destroy flying creatures, while Red more often damages any creature or “all creatures without flying.” In the Pokemon games, Ground attacks can’t damage Flying Pokemon, and Rock attacks are super effective. If lined up directly with the games, the Cube should have Rock in Green and Ground in Red. Also, Brock is a protagonist to most people but currently in the Black-aligned tribe, while Giovanni is an antagonist in every sense, yet currently in the White-aligned tribe. As Giovanni is a criminal, and all about amassing power, a swap of these two character’s colors would make sense.

While those are compelling reasons to make the switch, there are a few problems in the cube, the reasons I haven’t committed to the change yet. Torterra currently is a mono-Green creature with GW activation, in a cycle with a mono-Red creature with RG activation (Infernape), and a mono-Blue creature (Empoleon) with 1U activation. After the change, it would have to be either Gruul or Golgari, so this would be awkward balance.

Sandstorm could no longer deal damage as a Green/White enchantment, so the flavor would likely change to either -1/-1 counters (very powerful on a shroud enchantment) or +1/+1 counters on the protected types, also fairly strong and a little weaker in flavor. Why is the Sandstorm strengthening the natives more and more?

Finally, this change would cause Regirock to mess up its own cycle the most of all. Currently, Regirock in RB, Regice in UW, Registeel in Colorless and Regigigas in Green make a perfect cycle. With this change, the cycle would be UW, GW, G, and C. Registeel could accommodate the changes a little, by becoming R as Steel has some affinity there, but then we’d still have a double overlap in W even if Regigigas the giant natural land-shaper changed to mono-Black.

Frisk and Thief both affected artifacts on the battlefield before, but I realized that once an artifact resolves, Black usually can’t affect it in current Magic. So I came up with these versions instead, which I like much more. Frisk has a kind of built-in cycling effect that makes it either a narrower Duress or a Gitaxian Probe as consolation. Thief is basically a specific Praetor’s Grasp, inspired by Thada Adel.

Perish Song is the cube’s Wrath of God effect, and the only way to get rid some of the creatures with Shroud, or that can’t take noncombat damage. It was originally White, but between the art and the effect, Orzhov felt like the way to go. Plus the Ghost archetype doesn’t have as many creatures as others, so it relies on spells and tokens a lot, and has death triggers which this spell can take advantage of.

This last cycle shows that I should have called this “Tribeless Spell Week” because you don’t cast Lands, but it’s not too bad. Plus I believe each of these were covered during their tribe’s week except Safari Zone. Or they would have, except I changed the types!! So these were first an homage to Gen 1 locations. During Water week I noted that it didn’t feel fair for what was then the Seafoam Islands to make a Water creature in the mono-Blue archetype, and I was on to something when I changed it to Dratini.

So I actually looked at what color-pairs would want these lands, and the balance was way off. So where I have ended up now is changing each of the cards to an important location in a game (two gen I, two gen III, and one gen V) and now I’ve covered the color pairs equally. I still have an homage to Gen 1, with Power Plant creating a Pikachu! I finally found a way to get the most iconic Pokemon into the cube without making an unevolved card.

As you should certainly know by now, the cube includes tons of references to real Magic cards and Lingering Spirits is one of the most direct. Lingering Souls is a very strong Magic card, so I did cost up the flashback a little bit to try to balance it (and to match the others), but I think the fact these tokens can’t usually blocks balances it enough. Haze is in here to “eliminate all stat changes” like in the games, and taking off +1/+1 counters is one of Black’s cube themes. Blue has plenty of “messing with counters” effects, so the flashback makes sense, and fitting together in Psychic is perfect.

So here is, in my opinion, the biggest color-pie break I made: A Red spell that can destroy enchantments. Now to be fair, this is a very Red way to do it. Smashing an equipment on it however, is squarely in current Red’s color pie so no worries there, although destroying a Mega Equipment is a very strong effect. You smack the creature so hard it knocks the enchanting effect right off of it. Hex isn’t one of my favorites, and while I like the effect fine, I could see replacing the card once Ultra Sun/Moon give me new effects to create.

Rapid Spin is supposed to do the same thing it does in the games, get rid of any Spikes effects currently cursing you. But, since Spikes effects are only 4 cards in 720, we needed a way to make the effect a little more relevant, so it also spins all the negative auras off your Pokemon. Still, this isn’t a huge portion of the card effects, so I gave it a rare instance of Cycling, just so it isn’t a dead card in hand.

Magnitude was originally Earthquake, but that’s already a Magic card name, and as Earthquake it did a static 4 damage. While thinking of how I could change the name, I came across the fact that Magnitude did random damage, and how do we often represent scaling effects in Magic? With X mana! So the light bulb went off, and now Magnitude is one of my favorite interpretations of a Pokemon effect. Plus you get to name your X value by saying “Magnitude 6!” and shaking the table, so that’s fun. Also I like to call the flashback damage the aftershocks.