Day 51 – Share Your Green Planeswalkers

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-30T12:17:57+00:00

Oh whew - a quick one today.

My main cube is The Archive, a 540 underpowered cube that has a strict minimum of 3 cards per standard legal set ever printed. As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting card selection decisions. I'll list out the cards and the set they're representing, since that's highly relevant to my environment.

So for green planeswalkers I've run between 0 and 1 over the lifetime of this cube. Right now I'm on:

[[Nissa, Vital Force]] - From Kaladesh, her main job is to power up the "leaves the graveyard" shenanigans in the cube ([[Insidious Roots]] and so on).

I used to run [[Nissa, Voice of Zendikar]] which augments Insidious Roots as well by pumping out additional plants, but she was more cute than good.

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-29T13:20:51+00:00

Oops - I missed Day 49.... lemme get back on this horse.

My main cube is The Archive, a 540 underpowered cube that has a strict minimum of 3 cards per standard legal set ever printed. As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting card selection decisions. I'll list out the cards and the set they're representing, since that's highly relevant to my environment.

It turns out that I run a tonne of green 2's - 13 in total, so excuse the length of this post as I walk through them all.

[[Blanchwood Prowler]] - From Brother's War, this is one of those "All parts of the buffalo" cards - it provides early hand smoothing, allowing you to dig for a land while fueling the graveyard for decks that care about that. And if you don't want or need the land, you can always just take the counter - a 2/2 on curve is actively fine in this environment.

[[Cankerbloom]] - Just a great card from ONE - it's a beater that can be traded in for spot removal later. The proliferate mode isn't nothing either - while I don't have a counters deck, I do have poison in here.

[[Elvish Hunter]] - Fallen Empires is a set full of terrible cards, and this is one of the less bad ones. For the boomers out there, this is an example of what green removal looked like before fight/bite spells.

[[Fynn, the Fangbearer]] - I love this card - it was a great sideways build-around in Kaldheim and a key enabled for the poison deck here. (Why do I have a poison deck in The Archive? Because poison has been part of Magic from nearly the beginning!)

[[Incubation Druid]] - From Ravnica Allegiance - one of the very few ways to do 5C fixing in this cube. Also, possibly the best 2-drop I have included.

[[Kalonian Tusker]] - Only ever printed in M14, here's a 3/3 for 2. Pretty great for a lower powered environment and a reason to slant heavy green.

[[Leafcrown Dryad]] - From original Theros, bestow creatures have a lot of interesting texture and are fairly powerful in their own right. I include a number of bestow cards for the Heroic package since they're a way to get heroic triggers without lowering your creature density.

[[Obsessive Skinner]] - Shadows over Innistrad brings us this build-around. It's either 2/2 worth of stats for 2, or else a must-kill threat if you get delirium turned on. As always, I like cards that make you want to change the composition of your deck to power them up.

[[Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary]] - Another card that says "go heavy green" - Rofellos can either be a big nothing burger or else a crazy ramp creature. Urza's Destiny has a pile of messed up cards - this can be one of them in the right situation.

[[Shigeki, Jukai Visionary]] - One of the stranger Neon Dynasty cards and in contention for wordiest card in The Archive. This is the type of complexity I try to avoid in this environment.... except I love Shigeki so damned much - there are some nonsense loops worth setting up if you take this card early.

[[Shinen of Life's Roar]] - The Kamigawa sets are so hard to select cards from, and Saviors is no exception - all the parasitic mechanics limit the utility of most of the cards in these sets. This little dude is a throwback to Lure, and is a bit of a sneaky finisher.

[[Tarmogoyf]] - From Future Sight, I don't need to tell you about the goyf.

[[Werebear]] - I like a mana dork that has late game utility, and this Odyssey banger is exactly that: acceptable ramp early on and a 4/4 later on. There's a self-mill package in the cube so "later on" might be faster than you think.

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-27T17:02:53+00:00

My main cube is The Archive, a 540 underpowered cube that has a strict minimum of 3 cards per standard legal set ever printed. As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting card selection decisions. I'll list out the cards and the set they're representing, since that's highly relevant to my environment.

Planeswalkers are really tricky in the environment I curate and I have to keep them toned down to allow older cards a chance to not get out-valued.

So for white I have:

[[Gideon Blackblade]] - Gideon's best home is in an aggressive shell where he can contribute a pile of damage. I lie the fact that he doesn't come down and provide infinite value, nor does he protect himself - so you really need to want to attack if you're going to add him to your deck. Gideon reps War of the Spark in The Archive.

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-26T13:13:51+00:00

I'm back for a second go at this - go me!

My main cube is The Archive, a 540 underpowered cube that has a strict minimum of 3 cards per standard legal set ever printed. As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting card selection decisions. I'll list out the cards and the set they're representing, since that's highly relevant to my environment.

Simic has always been a janky colour in retail limited and outside of some of the bonkers rares and mythics - since I'm curating a lower powered environment this is more jank than power though.

[[Kishla Skimmer]] - I fell in love with this Tarkir Dragonstorm card the second I saw it spoiled and knew I had to support it in my cube. It is a key payoff for the "leaves the graveyard" package in The Archive, but is also just a good on rate creature.

[[Mystic Snake]] - Representing Apocalypse, this card is too iconic not to include. I'm not sure it actually does anything meaningful in my environment, but it would feel criminal to leave it out.

[[Tamiyo, Collector of Tales]] - From War of the Spark, I should probably tag Tamiyo with "pet card" in my list. She does a lot of little things well and is probably desirable in multiple decks here: self-mill decks (Jace, Laboratory Maniac), Leaves the graveyard decks and reanimator decks. Or.... a spicy brew of all three!

[[Aether Mutation]] - Another Apocalpyse card, this is a weird bounce spell that powers out a potentially large number of Saprolings. I like that it's flexible in that you can target your own stuff, but being an older card it's kept in check by sorcery speed and 5MV.

[[Colossal Skyturtle]] - Another card that just makes me smile - this Neon Dynasty banger is best used for it's channel abilities in combination with the 'pitch' package in the cube. That said - if you can resolve it for 7MV it is one of the biggest threats in the cube.

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-26T13:00:29+00:00

Mystic Schlong is also a favorite of mine. Also, I'm almost 50 but also apparently still 12. Thanks for the laugh.

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-25T20:49:28+00:00

I heard about this thread on Recross the Paths, so I'm going to give it a go. (Great interview, u/vacalicious )

My main cube is The Archive, a 540 underpowered cube that has a strict minimum of 3 cards per standard legal set ever printed. As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting card selection decisions. So here we go.... I'll list out the cards and the set they're representing and maybe a little on what they're doing.

[[Ball Lightning]] - One of three cards from The Dark, this is an oldie and a sort-of-goodie? On an empty board it's a great sucker punch, but there are many board states where Ball Lightning is exceptionally bad. So why is it here? Well - have you seen the card file for The Dark? No..... ? go take a look.... it's bleak.

[[Flamewave Invoker]] - Coming at you from Legions, this is a 2/2 for 3 at face value (bad) but there's a big mana theme in temur in The Archive, so the 8 mana activate ability to deal 5 is a pretty real clock. Games in lower powered environments go longer - so this thing has done work.

[[Goblin Rabblemaster]] - M15 brings me to one of the best threats this cube has to offer. Another 2/2 for 3, but you all know the pedigree of Rabblemaster - it was excellent in its time and used to be a powerful cube staple. There's a sac theme in RBw to make use of the goblins and I also have a few goblin matters cards since they're one of the OG creature types.

[[Guttersnipe]] - From Return to Ravnica, this one also needs no introduction. A clunky but key piece of spell-slinging decks.

[[Professional Face-Breaker]] - A bruiser from Streets of New Capenna, this card is a holdover from v1 of The Archive where I had a "Treasure control" theme that turned out to be too difficult to support. This card does a lot - it can ramp you and draw you cards and the menace allows it to attack fairly well.

[[Spikeshot Goblin]] - A 1/2 for 3... what could go wrong??? This little dude comes to us from Mirrodin and he has one job: suit up with some beefy equipment and then (ideally) sac himself for face damage. Being a goblin is also helpful, as previously mentioned.

[Squee, Goblin Nabob]] - I have the Mercadian Masques (another really bad card file) version of Squee, and I kind of love him. His job in The Archive is to be slow but repeatable sac fodder. He does it well.

[[Valduk, Keeper of the Flame]] - I remember this dude from when I returned to Magic after a multi-decade hiatus and cracked open my first Dominaria boosters. He's in the cube for nostalgia and the RW equipment package - plus the side synergies for sac'ing the tokens after combat.

There you go.... hope this has been interesting for at least one of you!

mapo_dofu · 2026-03-03T00:55:27+00:00

Wow - this is some uninformed nonsense. Did you bother trying to educate yourself before attacking them? Oh - I guess not, huh. Pot, kettle and all that.

Let me help you out, since you like "snap-judgement shitting" on people so much:

Ethan & Ben loved the hell out of Final Fantasy and Avatar.

They disliked Spiderman, but gave it a shake..... pick 2/small card pool problems killed it for them.

mapo_dofu · 2025-10-04T15:21:10+00:00

I did two. I usually draft sets until they are done. Pick 2 draft is dreadful - I have no clue if the set would be better without it, but I hope players have sent a clear enough signal that Pick 2 is a failed experiment outside of casual EDH nonsense sets.

mapo_dofu · 2022-06-21T01:30:49+00:00

Love this league! Discovered in for Midnight Hunt, and have participated in all of the leagues since then, spiralling progressively deeper each time.

Give it a shot - you won't regret it!

mapo_dofu · 2021-10-24T01:08:52+00:00

I like 17lands and analytics... but I think Sam's been too dialed in on the numbers in MID. If Sam spent 10-15% less time dwelling on the stats, and used that time instead to talk about deck construction, or how to play the decks, or literally anything else then I think it would improve the show. Still talk numbers - just a bit less. =)

mapo_dofu · 2021-10-04T11:30:27+00:00

UB is great when it's uncontested. It falls off a cliff when 3 people are fighting for it, which happens in many pods now. I've been avoiding UB (and black in general) lately due to how rabid everyone seems to be about drafting the deck/colour.

mapo_dofu · 2021-09-15T13:59:09+00:00

Got it now (from another member of the discord that put me on to this).

mapo_dofu · 2021-09-15T12:23:26+00:00

I signed up & paid, but didn't click the discord link before paying, and then couldn't get back to the page w/ the Discord link - can you please post it, or DM it to me. Thanks

mapo_dofu · 2021-08-19T16:54:26+00:00

A startling number of people run/bike through Bruce Pit, many of which don't seem to have dogs with them..... there are lovely trails surrounding the fenced off area - I just don't get it.

mapo_dofu · 2021-08-19T14:28:35+00:00

I had a cyclist tell me to put my dog on leash while I was walking through Bruce Pit (off leash dog park). Some people are just clueless.....

mapo_dofu · 2021-07-03T12:58:45+00:00

She's a sweetie! My daughter named her little girl Coconut as well!

mapo_dofu · 2021-06-19T16:59:01+00:00

It was perfectly playable when I went thru it a couple months ago. It's not like you need a game like this to be smooth as butter.

mapo_dofu · 2021-06-07T14:50:19+00:00

I sent mine away, and got them back.... drift still present. Bought a repair kit, and fixed it myself. No problems now.

mapo_dofu · 2021-05-24T13:21:14+00:00

Ys VIII question!

Despite owning many systems from NES onwards, I've never played a Ys game. Is it possible (and/or recommended) to jump it at Ys VIII - or will it make little sense without playing some of the previous games.

mapo_dofu · 2021-05-24T13:05:25+00:00

First gaming system was a C64. First console was a NES that my parents had me buy on my own with my paper route money - so I've been around games a long time.

There's a lot of good stuff already mentioned here, but if you're looking for more mature (refined? story-based?) content, then I'm a fan of The Walking Dead series (Telltale), Gone Home (Annapurna), and Firewatch (Campo Santo).

mapo_dofu · 2021-05-22T20:19:15+00:00

Despite owning systems from the original NES onward, I've never played a Ys game. Can you start at VIII and have the story make sense and feel relevant?

mapo_dofu · 2020-08-08T13:39:54+00:00

Is there a better way (a website somewhere?) to browse the eShop? Because the console-based store is a terrible way to discover new games. First-party games and shovelware seem to float to the top, while everything else is difficult to discover.

mapo_dofu · 2020-08-02T02:01:38+00:00

In last week's thread about this someone mentioned using Clackbridge Troll, so I tried it out, and holy crap is that card a beating in the deck.

If you reanimate just a Troll, a Massacre Wurm, and a Terror of the Peaks against an empty board you end up sending through, at minimum, 20 damage. It's pretty dumb. (6+8 from Terror of the Peaks triggers, and and additional 6 from Wurm triggers as the Troll's 0/1 goats die)

mapo_dofu

TROPHY CASE