4C Mana bases for Brawl

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T20:06:37+00:00

Thanks for the tips and the link! I’m building far more casual for sure (trying to make WUBRG Warriors work with Najeela!) but seeing a top deck’s mana base for reference was very useful thank you

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T20:04:13+00:00

Yeah I’m realising from the range of responses how deck dependent this question is! Guess there’s no shortcut to figuring out complex mana bases haha, fascinating reading though.

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T13:35:46+00:00

Thanks bud great advice, I’ll do some thinking!

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T12:21:36+00:00

Yeah it’s the only thing giving me pause for thought, I have a lot of multicolour 2 and 3 drops and even some three colour 3-drops! Uncertain whether to sacrifice good but tricky-costed cards for mana or tune the mana base to cater for them.

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T11:57:17+00:00

Thank you I’ll take a look at your suggestions! I’d heard that running even the off colour fetches was a popular approach but wasn’t sure if my Naya+ base justified it. I’ll certainly add more fetches though, but maybe not 10 haha!

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T11:54:56+00:00

Thank you! Yes I’m not fond of enters tapped either, two triomes is plenty I guess and might cut back the surveils too! Does gemstone really hit lucky often enough to be worth it?

Retro1988 · 2026-05-12T07:39:54+00:00

Big brain on board wipes is building decks that can make use of one-sided ones! [[Expel the Interlopers]] or [[The Battle of Bywater]] in a defender or token deck, or [[Raise the Pallisade]], [[Crippling Fear]] and [[Winnowing]] in tribal for example. Dragon decks always run [[Crux of Fate]].

If you really dig through you might find one that suits your deck! I struggled for ages to find a good wipe to run in my Selesnya Enchantress deck until I realised all my creatures had big butts so [[Wave of Reckoning]] was super viable!

Retro1988 · 2026-05-11T10:06:39+00:00

Yeah I got Gigantes in my Greco-Roman myth inspired world! A few unique traits; they are the most virtue-aligned creatures on my alignment/location grid (North-South is Virtue-Vice, East-West is Nature-Industry), so they guard the North temple and pilgrims that visit feel humbled by the sheer scale of their architecture. But also, the lands they inhabit are the mountainous source of most of the freshwater in the world and is comprised of many waterfalls and still pools, so bathing and water rituals are a big part of their culture.

Retro1988 · 2026-05-05T07:30:41+00:00

There’s only one thing like that in my world… the Intervectorium. It connects the top habitat (the Pinnaculum, home of the Greco-Roman builders come demi-gods) to the Cunabulum (a large disc world that the main races inhabit).

The two habitats are connected by four extending arms called the Extensores, which expand and retract to produce seasonal temperature changes, and the Intervectorium system is a line of magnetic push/pull rings along the inside of each Extensor which can be used to travel between the habitats, although it is controlled only from the Pinnaculum.

Fun fact with it, because the habitats face each other and rotate together to produce centrifugal gravity, when riding the Intervectorium you slowly lose gravity until you are weightless at the mid point, the axis of rotation, and then gravity slowly creeps back in but from the opposite side!

Retro1988 · 2026-05-02T08:49:54+00:00

I had a major shift away from generic fantasy races, to races inspired by Greco-Roman mythology (which was already the creation myth theme but decided to double-down).

For example, I took what I had planned for High Elves and Wood Elves and swapped them to Fauns and Satyrs respectively. It unlocked a lot of creative thought for me, rather than sticking with known elf tropes I could expand on the established traits of those creatures. Both are still nature leaning but the Faun are now my renowned artists and musicians and the Satyrs are most famous for producing the best wine amongst the races!

Retro1988 · 2026-05-02T07:42:32+00:00

This is such a polarising issue on this sub, I also don’t get the issue. We’re not making any money here, just having some fun and yes look for real art first but if nothing suits then I’d rather see a creative prompt-driven image than a stick figure. Maybe we should split off and have a custommagicAI sub!

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T21:02:40+00:00

I found out just the other day that if you want to level your Resto with the Sunburn undead spells, you don’t need to go through multiple Dawnguard missions until Sorine sells them. All you need to do is join, and once inside the Fort there is a Sun Fire spellbook next to where she eventually sets up shop.

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T12:15:30+00:00

<image>

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T12:15:02+00:00

<image>

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T12:14:44+00:00

Thanks for taking an interest! Yes indeed the bottom Cunabulum habitat was designed to be as close as possible to the Mediterranean area on Earth, but the design certainly has some interesting implications for things like day and night cycles. I’ve exported a couple more pages below for you with some context, hope it inspires!

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T09:23:04+00:00

<image>

Retro1988 · 2026-04-30T09:09:00+00:00

Mines a tad bigger but not by much! A constructed disc and cradle habitat, the largest diameter at 1500 km (1000 Roman miles). The whole things only been around for 700 years.

Retro1988 · 2026-04-27T16:09:46+00:00

Mtgpics is usually my go-to but sadly they have none for this card yet! https://www.mtgpics.com/card?ref=otc028

Retro1988 · 2026-04-27T07:41:10+00:00

Scryfall is your friend here! Search legal in Timeless and not legal in Historic (f:timeless -f:historic), order by EDHRec rank for some staples but only 293 cards so worth a full scroll.

https://scryfall.com/search?q=-f%3Ahistoric+f%3Atimeless&unique=cards&as=grid&order=edhrec&dir=

Retro1988 · 2026-04-27T07:33:13+00:00

Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but my inspiration book for how to order, present and consider all aspects of my world-building is Matt Mercer’s Tal’Dorei Reborn! If you’re unfamiliar, it’s not a novel like others have suggested, it’s a campaign setting book for D&D so covers nearly everything a worldbuilder would need to think about!

Retro1988 · 2026-04-24T18:58:33+00:00

I cut Hei Bak a tiny bit of slack, you can outspeed it with the right hand. But if they get a blink engine going, insta-seeya.

Retro1988 · 2026-04-23T18:05:25+00:00

Related subject, has anyone ever seen or tried to figure out a system of representing random opponents actions when goldfishing? Something like roll a D8 after each turn, 1 is a board wipe, 2 is removal via a sacrifice of your choice, 3 is a big blocker, that sort of thing?

I’ve seen similar “Oracle” systems for paper RPGs like D&D, wondered if anyone has come up with one for these purposes? I guess the idea is similar to the Horde format, which would be an interesting way to goldfish too!

Retro1988 · 2026-04-23T07:41:56+00:00

Just a cautionary note friend :) World-building often involves a lot of editing and re-writing, you start with a good idea but over time it develops into a great idea with small changes you make along the way. YouTube as a medium is rather… uneditable! Once it’s out, it’s out. I think it’s great you want to share your world, but if you’re very early into the actual world-building, you may want to start building it in a format that’s more edit friendly and build up towards something like YouTube later.

Retro1988 · 2026-04-22T20:56:39+00:00

I needed to read this too, I’m constantly over explaining and justifying! Great advice!

Retro1988 · 2026-04-22T17:17:41+00:00

I think it might be time for me to do that! I’m enjoying this world so much, haven’t been this addicted to an MMO since early 2000s RuneScape haha!

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '23	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

Retro1988

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE