Do finishers have to be so boring?

[Jason Waddell]

This is pretty much just a risk/reward question. Do you consider "win the game" finishers like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine to be an appropriate prize for getting to 6 mana? If you included a lower power card would players even put them in their deck given the speed of, say, my cube? Are these cards a necessary evil?

[Eric Chan]

Grave Titan is exactly the one remaining card in my cube I've marked as "watch". Six mana isn't difficult target to hit for a green ramp deck that's streamlined.

The entire Titan cycle, alongside honorary titans Wurmcoil Engine and Consecrated Sphinx, has allowed slower decks to thrive by simply playing a stalling game until they can drop their bomb. Board control and finesse aren't really required of control decks anymore; just staying about water, even if barely, will suffice. For that reason, I'm considering how some alternatives might play out that would force drafters to focus on having a real plan. Massacre Wurm in place of Grave Titan, and..  <something?> in place of Inferno Titan.

Your cube in particular is really fast, so I don't know if Grave Titan is as powerful as it is in regular cubes. It's pretty much unstoppable here, save for wrath effects, burn to the face, or rival Titans.

[worstshacona]

Wurmcoil Engine is one of the worst cards ever printed.  Being able to deck a finisher of such a high quality without even committing to a color is just offensive.  I would never run this card for any purpose other then raw power.

Finishers serve an important role for a specific deck type.  If you lower the quality of your finishers, then obviously those decks are weaker.  They certainly need something to win the game.  If getting to six mana gets you Ink Eyes or Necropolis Regent instead of Grave Titan, I think it is safe to assume that those decks are going to lose more often.

Would you also be looking to curtail some of the more efficient aggro finishers like Armageddon and Sulfuric Vortex?

I personally don't mind the Sphinxes of Jwar Island of the world.  They don't seem boring to me.  I don't mind getting them as my prize.  If you were to take them out, I think you'd have to do some recalibration.

[Jason Waddell]

Well, Armageddon has been out of my cube for several drafts now and I don't mind it being gone. I considered Cataclysm for a while but, while powerful, nobody really had the balls to actually play it. Maybe that's player inexperience. 

Massacre Wurm has been really fun. Last draft I spent Turn 5 casting and flashing back Lingering Souls, only for my opponent to untap and drop the Wurm. I mentioned this in another thread, but as of this weekend I'm running Mikaeus the Unhallowed. Should be great with the new machine gun / birthing pod shenanigans. A finisher with syngergy! Wow. 

Sphinx of Jwar Isle has been a good finisher. Somehow the ability is really useful too. 

Of the Titans, Sun and Inferno are my favorite design-wise. Sun Titan has some cute interactions, and Inferno is my "anchor" card that helps tell people "you should be playing red control". 

Sulfuric Vortex is one I've had my eye on. People do win through it / destroy it / counter it, and it's one of the more unique clocks in the cube world. 


Blue finishers... Consecrated Sphinx is a little ludicrous, but if they kill it after untapping it was just an expensive Mulldrifter. I really don't know about Meloku. It's been in my list forever, and I like the design, but it's not winning many games here. Are there some fun blue finishers I'm missing?

[Jason Waddell]

Oh, and I really like Primeval Titan lately. But that's due to one of my own (yet undisclosed) design gimmicks I'm testing. If I get in the mood I'll make a thread about it. 

[FlowerSunRain]

I've run Cataclysm since it was printed and love it.  Its not strictly a finisher like Armageddon though.  Its very, very different and the advent of Planeswalkers has only made it even more intriguing.  This card does work in a lot of different decks and requires careful attention to sculpt the gamestate to where it is awesome.  I will never run Balance, but I also will probably never cut Cataclysm.  However, it doesn't neatly support any specific archetype, so I could see not running it.

Isn't Massacre Wurm a win the game finisher more often then not? 

I've ran Dead Mike on and off.  He seems awesome, but he never seems to make the main deck.  I think he would be an excellent alternative to Grave Titan, I just haven't made him work, most likely because I don't support any combos that use him.  6 mana semi-evasive superanthem is an awesomely awkward effect.  I think he'll slot in for a while again soon.

I run Rainbow Efreet and Morphling as a blue finishers and they both get played.  Rainbow efreet has little advantages that make it legitmately useful (plays nice with sweepers, can be run out early to block in an emergency).  Morphling is basically filler, I don't recommend it unless you've got nostalgia.

[Jason Waddell]

I'm missing some lingo here, I don't know which card is "Dead Mike". 

I like your suggestions, but feel they might not quite hit the mark. Even though I am not as a general rule trying to power maximize, I need finishers with a sufficiently strong effect in an environment where I've got 1-mana 4/5s and Wastelands running around. There is an argument for powering down the entire experience, but that's not really where I'm at. 

At a certain point we have to accept that cards of a certain cost should almost literally win the game. A 9-mana card or whatever needs to be worth the investment otherwise people will just pass. 

Considering our games can reach the speed of Modern / Legacy games, and that these cards don't make the cut in those formats because of cost, is it okay to just accept some Grave Titan caliber cards as the reward for surviving? I can't just nerf my 6-drops and have them be worse than my 5-drops, etc. I'm just trying to find how much of a middleground or alternative there is between cascading nerfs along the whole spectrum to only have "interesting" cards, and accepting big thoughtless game-enders. The power of my 6-drops has to provide an interesting dynamic relative to the strength of a format as a whole, and these "boring" cards might be necessary for lack of alternatives. 

Massacre Wurm can win, but he's also just a 5-toughness vanilla dude (on one body) after his ETB effect. Very possible to alpha strike through him or kill it via burn+combat damage. 

[FlowerSunRain]

Dead Mike is Mikaeus the Unhallowed. I have no idea how to pronounce Mikaeus, so I just say Mike.  And, unlike the Lunarch, he's dead.

I'm pretty sure you are just going to have to grin and bear the Grave Titans of the world.  If you want creature control finishers and a ridiculous power level, they are basically all you've got.

Also run Crater Hellion.  Everyone loves Crater Hellion.  If you want another red finisher that is.  I prefer him to inferno titan, but not because he's better (though sometimes he is much, much better).

[Jason Waddell]

Geez, and here I was thinking I was showing my ignorance by not knowing. You mentioned it so casually as if it were just part of the day to day Magic lexicon. I do like the name though. 

Yeah, power level is a tricky mistress. Anyways, here's hoping Wizards prints some more exciting and less blunt finishers. 

[Eric Chan]

I'm okay with 8 and 9 mana spells having a game-winning effect on the board. Nine is not an easy amount of mana to reach unless you're actively trying to do so, whereas six is something that every blue mage will stumble upon with a modicum of skill.

Hmmm, I just might have to give Sphinx of the Jwar Isle another shot. I always found him a bit boring - and not boring as in grossly overpowered and game-ending.

Massacre Wurm wasn't actually as powerful as I thought he'd be in the first go-round that we had him. As Jason alluded to, he's a great answer to tokens, which is an archetype that can easily dominate the field when left unchecked, as spot removal won't do the trick. At the same time, sometimes he gets brick walled pretty hard by decks that are going bigger.

On a related note, I cut Lightning Greaves after our last draft. It's a piece of equipment that only boosts the midrange deck (read: goes on a Titan and smashes your face). I figure Grave Daddy T and Prime Time don't need need any more juice.

[Calvin Chan]

Yes, I completely agree that in fast or extremely tuned cubes, the majority of 6+ drops just don't cut it nowadays with the increased power level of middle drops (like huntmaster and olivia).  Especially in faster cubes, I find that high drops need to have a large effect on board to actually reward you for getting to 6+ mana, since playing a huge guy doesn't help fight an onslaught of small bodies.

[Eric Chan]

I'm doing it. I'm taking all the Titans out of my cube.

Well, except Sun Titan. Poor old Sun Titan. There, there. Your time in the..  ahem..  sun.. isn't over yet.

I'm going through a "depowering" of my list. (It's different than a deflowering. Trust me.) The main culprits I want to excise are:

1. Overpowered bombs. Cards that have the reminder text, "Answer me within two turns, or the game is over". Instead of cube games constantly revolving around one unbalanced, unanswerable threat - Jitte, Elspeth, Grave Titan, Inferno Titan, Wolfir Silverheart - I want to open up the floor to archetypes based on synergy. The guys who drafted with a plan, and took their 12th sorcery spell to power up their Delver and Runechanter's Pike, shouldn't just lose to Wurmcoil Engine. Less durdly, midrangy, multicolor, good stuff, all bomb decks. More shenanigans decks.

2. Efficient, universal removal. Actual Modern has made creatures with a cmc > 3 more or less extinct, because you run afoul of Path, Dismember, and (especially) Lightning Bolt, and all your hard work is undone for 1 mana. I'm finding my cube has a similar conundrum. You can just hoard all the cheap removal - hello, Go for the Throat and Terminate - then assemble an assortment of nameless riff raff, and plow your way to victory. Not a whole lot of finesse required. If the biggest bombs are coming off the market, the best removal can hit the bench, too.

It's an experiment. But I'm hoping it leads to better gameplay overall.

The full ban list is visible at the top of my cube list:

http://deckstats.net/decks/2561/9487-modern-cube/en

[Jason Waddell]

RIP Jace. I don't have the heart to pull him just yet. It's also a really fun card to play with (and often against), unlike say Wurmcoil Engine or Consecrated Sphinx. 

I wish Mirran Crusader didn't have protection. 

I'm interested in hearing how it plays out for you. We've been discussing various cube evolutions, and I'm always really excited to hear back from various designer's experiments. 

[Jason Waddell]

Also, just a petty gripe: I don't really like the term "ban list" here. I don't really have a replacement, but it evokes the notion of the hard-and-fast rules for cube construction notion. I know you don't mean it that way, and if anybody has a term for "common powerful cards removed to improve the quality of gameplay" I would love to hear it. 

[FlowerSunRain]

I am similarly petty.  There are, what, 13,000 or so magic cards?  Unless you are a running a ~13,000 card cube with no duplicates, there are going to be some cards you don't play.  I don't see the value of specifically naming certain cards you don't play "banned".  What's the difference between banning a card and just not including it?  Either way amounts to exactly the same effect: you can't draft the card and put it in your cube deck.  I don't think we need a new term for not including certain cards to improve gameplay.  That's the fundamental element of cube design.  One shouldn't need to specifically justify not running Jace, the Mind Sculptor any more then not running One with Nothing.

[Jason Waddell]

While it's true that you don't need to specifically name a card, the motivation for doing so is primarily cultural. There was a time in my cube design when I was so engrossed in the "power-maximization" culture that I would see a list, notice it was missing some good cards, and dismiss it as "suboptimal". The attitude is so pervasive that it's hard not to feel the need to say "no guys, I know these are good cards, but I choose not to run them". 

It also provides an easy touchstone for somebody digesting your list for the first time. Instead of having to go through the entire thing and identifying the missing "good cards" by process of exclusion (which is very memory intensive / requires comparing to a "regular" list to even identify), I can see that list and immediately know the ballpark of their design. It's not perfect, but I do consider it to be a useful bit of information. It gives you an opening glimpse into their design philosophy, and is an informative albeit limited shortcut. 

[Dom Harvey]

I can definitely sympathize with this. Going back to Chapin's Mulldrifter vs. Baneslayer Angel classification system, I find Mulldrifters are much more interesting in general; that said, Baneslayers are fine if the tools are there to keep them in check. BSA itself, Wolfir Silverheart, and so on are all pretty harmless IMO; ultimately, they're just large animals. The problem with Titans (and to a lesser extent Consecrated Sphinx, Wurmcoil Engine) is that they're hybrid Mulldrifter-Baneslayers that win the game left unchecked and still have an impact on the game even if removed. 

Huntmaster is a great example of a card that's powerful but in an interesting way and which leads to challenging board positions, so I'm surprised to see it cut. I think Primeval Titan is fine to keep as it's by far the weakest Titan in Cube (the best you can do with it is like Shelldock Isle + manland, which isn't too exciting); Sun Titan is one of the strongest, but requires other pieces to work so I can understand keeping it.

[FlowerSunRain]

I guess I just think back to all the energy wasted on the "powered vs unpowered" distinction with a sign of wasted opportunity.  The dramatically overstated relevance of this decision (and the misguided projections regarding the person who makes that decision) is such a waste of time.  Nevermind the completely arbitrary nature of the label itself.  The issue with the banned list is that it perpetuates the argument that certain cards "should" be run and if they aren't, there needs to be a "reason".  Its completely backwards of what we should be striving for (picking a goal for the cube, then picking the cards that best fit that goal).

Making a banned list just seems to be feeling guilty for committing a cubing wrong and as such needing to justify your wrongful behavior.

[Peter Angell]

The term I prefer to use is "intentional exclusions" and I recommend pairing it with an explanation of why individual (or groups of) cards are on the list.

It's very hard for me to take in any list of magic cards and "get" all the interactions (unless it's a straightforward decklist), so I find it's very helpful if there is a "primer" of sorts to pair off with any cube, and I think that's a good place to talk about what's in versus what's out.

Baneslayer toes the line as far as being compared against the Titans.  It has a longer window to be interacted with before it's first impact on the game (until their next combat step), but if it makes it that far, the lifelink has significant impact even if answered two turns later.

As a point of conversation, I view Green first and White second as colors most "deserving" of big-bomby-fatties.  Would like to hear more about why Prime-Time was cut.  Along the same lines, I see Keiga and Kokoshu still in, and those both seem like great finishers that still have an impact if answered.  I know the line has to be drawn somewhere, and the big guys have got to do something useful as well as opposed to just being big and dumb.  I guess ultimately I'd like to hear more about how all the changes end up playing.

On Saturday, April 6, 2013 10:05:11 AM UTC-4, Jason Waddell wrote:

[Jason Waddell]

I definitely sympathize, FlowerSunRain. We definitely don't want to feed into the past mistakes and pointless arguments, but I wonder if there isn't some middle ground. Like, currently I am not running Elspeth. The only way for somebody to realize that is to look at all my white four drops, think, "what are the common white four drops" and realize it's not there. I know this can be applied to any card, as you say, so I'm not going to claim the argument holds a lot of water. 

The fact remains, cubes are big lists. Even 360 cards is a lot of cards. Shortcuts are useful, and help to form a frame of reference. I find it useful to be able to look at Eric's list and say "ah, these are the cards on the top end of the power spectrum he's left out". The argument isn't really symmetrical either, as there are ~20 cards on the top end he's cut and thousands on the lower end of the power spectrum missing. 

That said, I've been sporadically working on a side cube project where most of the cards are of a much lower power level, and such a list would be utterly pointless and silly. 


I completely agree that the "unpowered vs powered" bit was completely overblown, and, like you say, for so many of the wrong reasons. However I do still think taxonomy serves a useful role. Particularly here, I am very interested in what cards Eric has removed, and when applicable, why. I am wrestling with a lot of the same things currently, and would love to hear more opinions about which cards people are worried about, and then apply some of that perspective to my own cube design. I don't want to waste a lot of time arguing over what to call it, but I do want to learn from his experience. 

[Jason Waddell]

Another lesson I've learned from David Sirlin's writings is that you shouldn't feel too much need to justify any one design decision, especially when you are still in the process. If you have some instinct that says to cut a card for whatever reason, just follow it. No formal logic needed. All that logic and argument can get in the way of your instincts. So Eric, if we start pestering you with questions, feel free to give a simple "I thought the environment might be better without it." :)

[Peter Angell]

"Just because," or "gut feeling" or "I wanted to do something different" or "I don't think it's fun" certainly are valid reasons to in/exclude something (and fun trumps all).  I ask because I hope there's a more nuanced answer, and if I don't understand the logic/reasoning I might follow up with additional questions so either A) I fully understand what's going on, or B) Whoever I'm asking sees it in a new light and reconsiders their assumptions.  This is my process of how I think through design problems at work, and anything else that I am interested in the logistics of.  Sometimes I'll understand and simply not agree, and for cube design, that's OK (and bound to happen).

That said, the other golden rule is that theory and talk pale in comparison to actual testing, particularly at this stage in the process, so I'm often going to ask about the results.  I've lost count of the number of times I thought I had a genius idea...then checked the results.

[Jason Waddell]

Certainly. Sirlin's argument (if I recall) was that often you'll have some subconscious instinct about design that you haven't yet understood at a conscious level. If you try to let the rational conscious kick in too early, it can override and keep you away from your best revelations. 

That's not to say you shouldn't be able to explain it eventually. One thing I've really experienced through the act of writing articles is that the process of writing really sharpens your reasoning, and as you said, questioning (from yourself or others) often helps to see things in a new light. But indeed, when there is more nuance there, it can be really great to hear it and discuss it. 

[Eric Chan]

Wow, some great replies! You guys honestly knock it out of the park day in, day out. It's clear everybody has pretty strong feelings about this subject. I think I definitely hit a nerve, too. I hope don't miss addressing anyone who had comments about specific cards, or about my use of terminology in general.

Yeah, so. Ban list. Jason pretty much hit the nail on the head for why I call the list of cards I exclude for being busted "banned" - it's a cultural thing. While all of us on this forum strive for good cube design, and are open-minded enough to break down walls to do so, the notion of cube still carries a number of connotations among the Magic playing public at large. That is to say - singleton, and all the best cards from throughout Magic's history. Themed cubes are exempt from these expectations, as are peasant & pauper lists, but by and large, if you bring a so-called normal cube out to a bunch of hungry drafters, they'll expect all the usual trimmings. Telling someone that a card is banned quickly communicates the idea that the card is format warping and detracts from the overall quality of gameplay, in much fewer words. Indeed, it's something I regularly tell my playgroup - "yep, I banned Jitte" - and I've found my players get it when I use this terminology. I mean, it's one thing to cut Chittering Rats because all of my players have been poking fun at it. It's another thing to ban Lingering Souls because of the frustration it's caused.

I recognize it's not a perfect word. In a perfect world, I'd prefer something a little softer and less harsh. At the same time, the word ban carries a lot of ingrained meaning from its use in Constructed formats, which transitions smoothly over to the cube format when it's used for roughly the same purpose. Everybody understands what it means to ban something, and I admit I like the strong message that I'm sending by banishing a card to the ban list. So until Magic lingo catches up with evolving cube design, it's a word I think I'll continue to use, if only because of its pervasiveness in Magic culture.

[Eric Chan]

To move onto some individual cards and the reasoning for banning them:

• Mirran Crusader. Man, I hate protection. If there's a swingier, more non-interactive mechanic than this, I've love to know. And you know what's worse than protection? Double protection! Gee, that makes for some fun and interactive games. You're red and blue, so you can handle my double striker without issue, but too bad for Charlie over here with his G/B ramp deck. Going to luck sack my way to victory!

I've slowly been purging my cube of protection, and I've been pleased with the results. The only remaining offenders now are the Swords, and they get a pass - if barely - because I like the pressure that they allow aggro decks to exert on control decks, who otherwise wouldn't bat an eyelash over equipment. Still, the swords are under careful watch.

• Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This guy actually hasn't ruined many games of Magic at all, and has been pleasantly fair and interactive. Like Jason says, Jace has a really high fun factor, and isn't nearly as frustrating as most of the cards I'm purging. He still allows both sides to play a real game of Magic. Right now, I'm only pulling him for precautionary reasons, as I'm pushing a light reanimator theme, and his incidental bounce ability is concerning for decks trying to cheat out fatties. But he's at the top of the list of cards I'm willing to reintegrate.

• Primeval Titan. All of the titans are really dangerous, I've found, and are capable of winning by themselves when left unchecked. Prime Time might not be the big bully of the schoolyard that he was when he could nab Valakuts and Eldrazi Temples, but drawing two cards a turn, even if they happen to be lands, isn't an ability to be regarded lightly. Green ramp decks here tend to be hungry for mana, and whether it's powering out 10 mana Genesis Waves, or just animating Raging Ravines, Primeval Titan giving them an all-you-can-eat buffet sets off alarms. I've found that sometimes just the 6/6 trampling body is enough to give an opponent fits. As far as the keywords on the cycle of titans goes, pseudo-evasion is one of the stronger ones.
  

Interestingly, the Kamigawa dragons like Kokusho and Keiga have been a little underpowered, if anything. A 5/5 dragon for 6 mana doesn't turn too many heads anymore, and even though they have splashy death triggers, savvy opponents can time the trigger to be of minimal impact to them. As someone who likes the dragon cycle more than most, I know I've been frustrated that my dragon is still sitting on the board alive, when I'd rather it be binned so I can reap the rewards. They should improve in this iteration of cube, but I think they're pretty inoffensive as far as power level goes.

• Wolfir Silverheart. This cut makes me sad, because as Dom mentioned, he's the ultimate large animal - a dork that just attacks and blocks. But with me axing some of the strongest removal, that forces opponents to play fair, and rumble in the combat zone with an 8/8 and his 6/6 buddy. Too many people are going to get pasted this way, so even though Silverheart is the definition of a fair card, he still ends games too quickly for my liking.

Good call on Baneslayer, though. I'd forgotten how dominant she was when she was first introduced to the world back in 2009. And then how quickly she was eclipsed a year later by the titans. With them gone, she might become queen bee again, so I'll have to keep an eye on her.

• Huntmaster of the Fells. I'm afraid I have to cop out here, and confess that he's not really banned, so much as cut to make room for other Gruul cards. Kessig Wolf Run has the midrange / control slot locked down, and I wanted to open up space for an aggressive card. With only three slots devoted to each colour pair, there isn't a whole lot of room, so the transforming werewolf gets the squeeze this time. A lot less controversial than I made it sound, I know.

Phew. I hope I didn't miss anything. Unfortunately, it looks like I might not cube for another month or so, so the results of this experiment will take a while to pan out.

[FlowerSunRain]

Is my group the only one that has felt that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is completely unfun and made games dreadful?  The thing I dislike most about him is that he's a liar.  He often lets you think you are still playing Magic when the game is actually over.  You just might not know it until five turns later once the Jace player has accumulated an indomitable position.  He was the most hated card in the cube, a position shared with capsize.  The difference, though, was that capsize requires 6 mana every turn.  Jace requires 4 mana once.

I think you make good points on Miran Crusader.  I like having a legit doublestriker around, but double protection is lame.  Maybe I will marker over "Protection from Black" and leave it at that.  Having one protection from green dude in the cube seems fine, but he makes the third pro-black, which seems needless.

[Jason Waddell]

I so wish there was a Mirran Crusader card with no protection. Maybe I'll just double-up on Silverblade for now. Protection has ruined so many otherwise good games of Magic. P.S. the swords are on their last legs in my cube. Might be cutting down to 0 soon. If I wanted to help aggro these are some of the least effective ways to do so in my (admittedly very fast) cube. 

Jace to me is much less offensive than token producing Planeswalkers. Often times you have to dance around to create a position to drop him on the board, or simply pay 2UU for Brainstorm + Gain 2 life. 

There's a Planeswalker test I've been toying with in my head. The "3 + 2" test. Basically, if you have an empty board and they have a 3 power and 2 power dude on the table, do you take over by dropping the planeswalker? With Jace, the answer is no. You can brainstorm and he dies. You can bounce the 3 power guy and he dies. Fateseal and he dies. 

With Elspeth or Sorin, the answer is yes. You create a token, chump block the 3 power guy and repeat. You only lose 1 net loyalty counter per turn (+1 on your turn, -2 on their turn), and you buy so much time. Dropping an Elspeth or Sorin when behind is often game-winning, but dropping a Jace when behind is often a little futile. Overall, Jace has been a huge net positive fun wise. People love to first pick him, they love to play with him, and his board impact is less suffocating than many other planeswalkers. 

[FlowerSunRain]

I get that.  However, what I think we found so infuriating about Jace is not what he does when you are behind, but what he does when you are even or ahead.

I mean, we want to have cards that let you back into the game when you are ahead.  If they didn't exist, every game would be a snowball fest.  Granted, the cards that help you get back into the game should have some limits on their applicability or else they can easily become infuriating.  Ajani Vengant crosses this line for me.  This isn't what Jace does, though.

Jace just provides an immense amount of advantage as long as he is on the board, completely out of bounds for his cost and level of vulnerability.  He makes any game you are winning completely unwinnable for your opponent in only a couple activations if your deck isn't complete junk.  And on top of that, he makes any even game unwinnable for your opponent if left on the board for any appreciable amount of time.  Cards that seal games so well shouldn't also provide the means for gaining an advantage in the first place.  At least not for 4 mana.  Armageddon and Nether Void can seal the game, but they don't really contribute to creating a winning game state.  Desolation Angel does it, but costs 7.  Jace does in a way that no other card does.  And we hate him for it.

I mean, we really WANTED to like the card, he seemed like an interesting card to play.  I think I would play him at 2uuu.

[Vince Pinton]

Thought I should join this conversation with a couple of things that went through my head as I read through this thread:

I don't think either Wurmcoil or Grave Titan are boring cards, just like I think most of the cards discussed in this thread so far aren't usually boring or problematic at all. In fact, I could even steal a game where my opponent dropped both Wurmcoil and Consecrated Sphinx without needing to resort to an endless combo. What really makes these cards unfun is getting to a boardstate where these are the only cards that really matter.

What most cubes seems to be missing (and this conversation also) is figuring ways to interact with these cards while not hindering the aggro game plan, because, let's face it: Building aggro decks is hard because the great cards for trumping control bombs are also usually good AGAINST aggro. It's pretty easy to cut a Titan and call it a day, but the real prize is figuring out how to pay them and let them be just good instead of backbreaking, because once you get to this point, you are safe to try out whatever power-creeped 6-drops comes your way.

One interesting direction for the inclusion of these cards is to play aggro-friendly removal. Probably cards along the lines of Vendetta or Reprisal. It is something that both aggro and control wants, but the price is steeper for control as it is presumably already under pressure (not sure if great, have to be tested).

Going after the "get-there" cards is also one other way of balancing this out. Taking Eric's list as an example, I could see a problem of him running any powerful bombish card anywhere near blue, because with about 16 counters and about 8 other creatures that proactively stall the game, he sure would see these cards very often. Most of these stallers could be slots for entire new archetypes or simply just cards that don't stall the game enough. Innaction Injunction is one of those cards that gives control just a bit of time, but not enough to trump aggro if accompanied by any other removal spell. Vapor Snag (which is a favorite of mine and Eric also runs) is also great as it is so much more effective in aggro/tempo that it might as well be snagged before the fat-finishers guy. Also, since we are okay with breaking singleton, there are some interesting strategies that we could try to push that would compensate for the control bloat in these slots, like mill, self-mill, or maybe even merfolk tribal (multiple Silvergill Adept seems fun).

As you might have guessed by now, a pet peeve of mine is people complaining about cards their cube can't handle. Mostly because can't-handle-ness is usually subjective. If the cube presents affordable answers to a given card but players can't recognize it, then there is something wrong with the players and not the cube (as in they might not be mature enough to understand their picks and deck design decisions). BG decks can't handle Mirran Crusader (sorry for taking you as example again, Eric), then there might be something wrong with the player as there is plenty of edicts and wrath effects in black to make this possible. Did that player prioritize his picks correctly? Did he sideboarded accordingly? It is important that the cube contains enough answers, but it is not the cube designer's responsability if drafts are poorly played.

I also was going to post a mini-rant about most posts here regard regular (I'll call power-themed) cube decisions and tie in to some analysis of what is cube design based on David Sirlin's writings (as I saw that Jason is also a fan), but the post got so absurdly huge that I'll have to revise it to see if I actually make any sense before posting it. I'll end this post now before it gets any more entangled and come back later with my humongous post :)

tl;dr version:

• Add proactive answers before cutting bombs

• Go for the get-there cards before going for the bombs

• Make sure the players know what they are doing against a card before you cut it

• Cut some counters Eric! And add Perilous Myr because it is a barrel full of fun with legs.

PS: I did cut two cards based on my cube not being able to handle them already (Moat and Abyss). I felt they were both unnecessary tools for control (which already has enough toys) and were countering strategies that could never fit answers to both these cards and whatever else would come after. If those were finishers by themsenves, I don't think I woul

[Eric Chan]

But.. but but.. my counters suck. :(

I've actually been adding more counterspells, because the ones I have are so low impact. Dissipate, Logic Knot, and Delay are worlds away from Force of Will, Daze, and Counterspell. Because of my Rune Snag experiment, I don't even run Mana Leak anymore.

Blue was actually at a point where counters just didn't matter, which in turn was threatening to make the whole colour irrelevant. I'm trying to reverse that trend so that blue can feel like it's playing in the big leagues again.

I ran Perilous Myr for a good year or so, actually. While I liked it, it was mostly used by control as a roadblock against aggro, as sort of a colourless Arc Trail. So I purged it to give the weenie decks a boost.

[FlowerSunRain]

If cutting the titan and calling it a day solves the problem, why not do that?  There is nothing intrinsically more awesome about Grave Titan as opposed to Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni.

If all we wanted to do was play more powerful cards, we all own markers.  We can cross out mana symbols, changes 3s to 4s (or 5s!)  and cross out drawbacks.  The reason I don't want  to run Jace, the Mindsculptor is exactly the same reason I don't run a 4 damage lightning bolt: I don't like how it effects how my cube plays.

It has nothing to do with what the cube "can handle" (I don't even know what that means).  It has to do with what you want out of the cube.  I (and I think many of the other designers here) are not asking "can I design my cube to include this card", but rather, "do I want to?"

I mean, "adding more proactive answers" requires a fundamental shift in how the cube plays.  It should NOT go without saying that such a shift will be an intrinsic improvement.  Furthermore, you can't stretch your cube design to cover every angle.  If you want to include a card like Serra Angel, should you be including more proactive answers to Baneslayer Angel?  It would seem this approach would make Serra Angel completely useless (rather then merely outclassed) and ruin the point of running it in the first place.

In the end, if you like how your cube plays, but a specific card is causing a problem, you should cut the specific card.  If you don't like how your cube plays, and a specific card is causing a problem, you should rework your cube before deciding to cut the specific card.

[FlowerSunRain]

We all draw a line somewhere.  We should not be questioning what the right place to draw the line is, but rather, where to draw the line to get us to the place we want to be.

[Eric Chan]

It's funny. This whole discussion mirrors that of when Jace, the Mind Sculptor was legal in Zendikar/Scars Standard. People who were in favour of keeping him around in the format wrote up lengthy treatises detailing all the ways you could answer a Jace. And their lists certainly weren't wrong. You could pack your deck full of specific countermeasures to ensure that you could handle a Jace, if that's what it came down to.

In the end, though, people who went into great depth to show that you could fight Jace weren't asking the right questions about the format. It wasn't a matter of, "Are there enough anti-Jace cards available for players to use?" Rather, the actual question people needed to think about was, "Is the presence of Jace healthy for the format as a whole?"

Bringing the discussion over to cube, it's one thing to haphazardly toss in a handful of answers to an overpowered bomb, and call it a day, washing your hands clean of the problem as a cube designer. It's another to ensure that the draft format support a healthy range of archetypes, that players feel empowered to draft cohesive, synergistic decks without packing specific, narrow answers for otherwise unbeatable cards they might or might not face on the day.

[FlowerSunRain]

Let's not be rude.  You needn't "haphazardly toss in answers".  You would instead carefully consider the answers.  There is no reason to assume that the cube designer would not.

But otherwise I agree.  I don't feel the need to change my cube to fit Jace, the Mind Sculptor any more then I feel the need to change it for Fungusaur.  I like both the cards, they just aren't the right ones for my cube.

[Jason Waddell]

Interesting discussions! My arguments largely line up with FlowerSunRain's here, so I'm not going to rehash too much. 

As far as Jace, I'm happy to chalk it up to difference in environments. After all, he was much less problematic when Bloodbraid was around then after rotation. I've had a lot of unfun Jace experiences in Zendikar/Scars standard, and far fewer in my cube. However, I'm certainly not going to call him (or any other card) a staple, and perfectly understand if others cut him for whatever reason. 

[Vince Pinton]

Hmm. I think you got the point the other way around FlowerSunRain. You are pretty much trowing the same argument as "why don't you run 3 thoughtseizes and 2 duress instead?" and that is not where I wanted to go. When I say that we should strive to look for ways to include powerful cards in our cubes, it is because it is more fun for us, as designers, to learn how to get a point where powerful cards are not overwhelming than to just say "I don't want to play this anymore". Cube, just like most formats in Magic, is a lot of things for a lot of people, and for me, I tend to see my Cube as an exercise in balance and, as I said before, just pulling cards out because they are powerful is unfun because it is the easy way out. If I come here to a community that has been trying vanguard stuff with their own cubes and say "go for the easy way", I'm doing it wrong because it won't help anyone.

When I say to add more proactive answers, what I mean is to add more cards that help other strategies to overcome a given problem without hindering their own game plan. To do this, you have to be aware of how the cards play out and what strategies need to thrive or not. As I said, a finisher is only problematic if left unchecked. Jason hit the nail in the head when he said that Jace wasn't as powerful when Bloodbraid was around and when he analysed planeswalkers because Jace as a card can only thrive in an environment that can't put enough pressure early. If we start moving our cubes in a more aggressove direction, we might as well include Jace in because he will be good but not backbreaking. Other way to do this is to add main-deckable sideboard cards, like Despise, Viridian Zealot, Thrun, Dauntless Escort or Hero of Oxid Ridge. This way you make sure that the right decks are packing answers to common problems without hurting their game plan and not needing to wait until game two to have an answer.

All of the time people are saying "this is not what I want in my cube", but what is it that you want? I'll take Eric again as an example (sorry, man): What is it that you want your counters to do then? What direction do you want to pull your blue or your cube as a whole? We, as designers, should strive to understand and to learn to communicate what do we want from our cubes and what are our obstacles. Eric said that he took out Perilous Myr because it was hindering aggro, and that is a great step in this direction. The next question is: Was this the only thing that was troubling aggro? Did I put enough good support picks for weenie players?

In this matter, what are the intrinsic differences between Grave Titan and Ink-Eyes? That's very simple: They hardly fit in the same role. The decks that support them are fundamentally different (barring probably a few midrange goodstuff decks that would play both). Do you think Grave Titan is boring? Then what qualities should a finisher have for you? What skills should it test the player in to be an interesting card? Grave Titan itself is a card that rewards players for getting to a board state that it alone matters, where it's controller has taken out all opposing bombs. It is also a great card to try and flip around games where the player might have been losing board position (which is where he is the most interesting card). Swinging games that are on the brink is a very cool experience, so to make sure that this is the role that Gravy is playing, we have to make sure that other decks can get board position before Titan in online, and we have to make sure that he is not unchecked once in play. If there is not enough time to get board position, are we pushing ramp too much? Do we have more removal than we should have? Are players paying enough attention to their picks and leaving all removal to the titan player?

To sum it up, I'll answer the original question in the thread:

Q: Do you consider "win the game" finishers like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine to be an appropriate prize for getting to 6 mana?

A: In my cube, yes, I think so. It's not hard to play these cards, but the game is usually about 70% done when the 6th land comes into play and the decks playing this finishers either is playing control and had a rough time getting there, or was playing ramp and had pretty much no threat until now and the other deck hasn't spent his removal. In a faster environment I could see these being less powerful than Massacre Wurm, mostly because Wurm takes down every chance your opponent has of taking the game back by being a wrath/burn on a stick, while the titans still leave enough space for evasive creatures or other tricks to seal the game.

[FlowerSunRain]

It's also fun for us, as designers to get to the point where weak cards are not underwhelming rather then to just say, "This card sucks, uncubable."

The point is we can't include all the cards.  Whenever we add in a card, we have to eliminate some other card.  Not including any given card is not an admission of defeat, its an unavoidable fact of cube design.  I don't think anyone is less of person because they won't completely gut there cube so the Fungusaur can flourish in it.  Not including a card isn't the easy way out.  Its the only way out.  There is no card that is intrinsically "better for cube" then any other.  A cube is truly the sum of its parts and in certain summations, Jace, the Mind Sculptor/Grave Titan/Fungusaur just don't fit.

[Dom Harvey]

Don't have much to add to the theory discussion, but as for specific finishers: Prime Speaker Zegana is the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's amazingly strong, but requires setup and a colour commitment and can't just be jammed by any control deck that knew it could rely on getting some dumb animal to win the game with 10th+ pick.

[tomc...@gmail.com]

On Monday, April 8, 2013 9:07:07 PM UTC-7, Dom Harvey wrote:

Don't have much to add to the theory discussion, but as for specific finishers: Prime Speaker Zegana is the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's amazingly strong, but requires setup and a colour commitment and can't just be jammed by any control deck that knew it could rely on getting some dumb animal to win the game with 10th+ pick.

I actually just swapped Simic Sky Swallower out for Prime Speaker Zegana for exactly that reason. SSS might be a "fair" finisher for a UG ramp or reanimation deck, but Prime Speaker is a far more interesting card to draft around and play. It's much less of a do-you-have-that-one-card-that-will-save-you-or-not game experience, and the fewer of those in the cube, the better.

[Eric Chan]

For as bad as the set was for cube, I think that the Gatecrash guild leaders are pretty interesting, actually. With the Titans packed up and shipped out, I've been looking for alternatives, and both Aurelia and Niv-Mizzet caught my eye. Aurelia seems like a powerful Overrun-type effect for aggro and midrange decks, while Niv-Mizzet looks like an excellent control finisher, equal parts Olivia Voldaren and Sphinx's Revelation.

Obzedat is probably the most powerful of the guild leaders in a vacuum, but I'm not sure if that's the effect that Orzhov cube decks are looking for. It's also really hard to compete with the likes of Lingering Souls, and in most cubes, Vindicate. I hadn't considered Zegana at all, but now that I think about it, most U/G decks have a assortment of bodies of various sizes, and she'd arguably fit in better than Simic Sky Swallower.

I guess I see why Borborygmos is still so mad, though. He may have a couple of memorable catchphrases, but nobody ever wants to cube with him. We all keep chatting away at the water cooler, holding our various brewed beverages, pretending we don't see him.

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, there are plenty of fun splashy expensive (mana-wise) rares that come out each set that I would love to include, but I would have to rework my entire cube from the ground up. My current design (20 fetches, triple Steppe Lynx) places certain requirements on the strength of the finishers. Perhaps someday I'll start a new cube project at a slightly (or dramatically) lower power level. 

[tomc...@gmail.com]

I originally lowered the power level of my cube for budget reasons, but now it's more philosophical. There are a huge range of cards out there that can't really be considered for most cubes, since they have a threshold of playability that is simply too high for many of the most interesting cards to cross. I've been actively trying to throttle back on the power level of my cube for this reason. If I want to keep pet cards like Mindslaver and Chaos Warp and Havengul Lich in, I'm not going to be able to run many of the cards in a standard unpowered list. In fact, I recently made a cube mostly from the cards I had cut from my main cube, and it's every bit as much fun to draft despite being quite rough.

I highly recommend building a low-power cube...

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

why would finishers have to be boring? don't we have a huge selection of appropriately-powerful 6+-drops? :)

i think grave titan is pushing it and wurmcoil should definitely not be in. almost everything else is fair game. (reanimation targets -- griselbrand is out, iona is a maybe, everything else is fine)

big list below. my favorites are baloths, angel of despair, angel of serenity:

Borborygmos Enraged

Empyrial Archangel

Spitting Image

Sun Titan

Angel of Serenity

Frost Titan

Tidespout Tyrant

Angel of Despair

Sheoldred, Whispering One

Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni

Kokusho, the Evening Star

Inferno Titan

Rampaging Baloths

Yosei, the Morning Star

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Reya Dawnbringer

Adarkar Valkyrie

Keiga, the Tide Star

Scion of Darkness

Broodmate Dragon

Dragon Broodmother

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

[Eric Chan]

What do people think about Karn Liberated? Is it Wurmcoil Engine - borderline broken without requiring any colour commitment - or is it fair & interesting?

[Nathan Weizenbaum]

I love Karn, but I'm also fine with high-power low-commitment cards. If you don't run Wurmcoil engine, I don't think running Karn makes much sense, unless seven mana is difficult to reach in a timely manner in your cube.

[FlowerSunRain]

I don't run Karn for the same reason I don't run Wurmcoil Engine.  I also recently removed Myr Battlesphere, but part of the motivation on that was so that I could run tinker.  Before all the mecha-gozillas started getting printed, Tinker was still a very good card, but I couldn't justify running it with the Battlesphere around.  Battlesphere was less offensive then Wurmcoil for sure, but I think tinker is the more fun card.

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

"I love Karn, but I'm also fine with high-power low-commitment cards." Nathan I know we talked about this the other day after you murdered me at GTC draft, but I don't recall much of what was said. Can you tell me again why you and your group enjoy Karn, Wurmcoil, Swords, Jitte, etc. and their high-power low-commitment bros? 

(The way I look at it, they are rarely passed, making drafting duller and more variant; then, in-game, they're insane to the point where they often ruin interesting positions. It's similar to the argument against bombs -- SOM block sucked because you had to win the bomb-cracking lottery and then you had to draw their bombs, to the point where sweet mechanics like Metalcraft were rendered less important. Bombs help Wizards sell cards, though, and there's no such argument in Cube.)

Haha, I hope that didn't come off as too didactic. I really am interested in why your play-group likes them, as presumably you've tried to Cube without colorless bombs before

[Eric Chan]

As always, you guys are right. I'm not sure if it's the badass Jason Chan artwork, or the fact that a colorless planeswalker is so unique, but I love me some Karn. It's just that..  he's not good for the cube. Sorry to see ya go, buddy. Who knows, maybe you'll be back someday.

Not to derail the original topic too far off track, but while we're on the topic of non-committal colourless cards: how do you guys feel about Solemn Simulacrum? Fine durdly dude, or too much value for too little work?

[Nathan Weizenbaum]

There are a few reasons I'm okay with high-power low-commitment cards. I could go arbitrarily deep on the issue, but I'll try to keep it brief here, especially since this thread is mostly focused on finishers.

First, any draft environment of any sort of complexity is going to have first-picks. A flat power level is impossible to achieve and would be boring even if it worked. Removing the highest-power cards will lower the overall power level of the cube -- something that may be desirable -- but they'll be replaced by other, less-powerful cards that are now very powerful first picks. If you think there aren't any automatic first-picks in your cube, I suspect your card evaluation is incorrect[1].

It's possible to have a cube, of course, where your highest-power cards are not also low-commitment. Which brings me to my second reason: these cards tend to have answers. My friends and I recognized in the first few drafts of the earliest version of my cube that Swords were the best thing you could be doing, and we reacted by adding a relatively high density of artifact removal to the cube. I enjoy the dynamic this adds of trying to pick up artifact hate during the draft portion, and balancing that against the less-narrow needs of your deck. The Swords, Karn, and Wurmcoil are regularly beaten in my cube.

That's not to say that they're not extremely powerful, of course. Just having Sword of Fire and Ice in your pool is likely to increase your win percentage by a reasonable amount. This is the third reason: opening bombs is exciting. It's fun to crack your pack and see Umezawa's Jitte. One of our drafters just lives to slam Karn down on the table. It feels good to have a mediocre deck going and leaf through pack three only to see Batterskull at the end of it. These are experiences I value.

Are these experiences worth the experience of playing against these powerhouses, though? I think they are; in fact I think the experience of playing against them is net positive. The fourth reason I include these cards is that when you play against and defeat one of them, you feel awesome[2]. It's the old principle of variance: overcoming bad beats is fun. These cards are good for my cube for the same reason that mana screw is good for Magic[3].

The final reason I like these cards is also isomorphic to an argument for mana screw. People of many different skill levels draft my cube. I'm not interested in it being a barometer for who is the best magic player at the table; I want it to be fun for everyone. I want people to come back for more. This won't happen if bad players always lose. Having obviously high-power cards that slot into anyone's decks gives those players an opportunity to occasionally boost their win percentage without having to draft highly synergistic decks.

That pretty much sums it up. That was less brief than I'd intended, but a whole lot briefer than it could have been. I hope it goes some way towards explaining my design philosophy in this case.

[1] Cube is so complex that everyone's card evaluation is incorrect all the time, but it's possible to approximate correctness, especially with well-bounded questions like "what pool of cards would I first-pick over anything else".

[2] This is something that's specific to cards that feel very powerful. Something I don't like about powered cubes is that when your opponent plays a turn one Mox, there's no upside to playing against it. Whether you win or lose, it feels like you played normal Magic. Resource advantages like this are almost invisible. This is the root of WOTC's move to make cards that look good be good.

[3] I am entirely in the R&D camp when it comes to mana screw and variance in general being good for Magic. Perhaps this will give you insight into my philosophy.

[Eric Chan]

Nathan, who are you and how are you so awesome

No, but seriously, excellent post. I mean, exemplary. While I personally have been steering my cube away from that direction, I understand why someone would support a lot of powerful colorless cards, too. If I could extrapolate your argument further, I think I begin to see why people who run powered cubes love them as much as they do. Sometimes, people aren't after the tightest, most skill-intensive, synergy-rewarding environments; they just want the biggest, tallest, most outrageous stories.

[FlowerSunRain]

Some days I just want to take out all the aggro cards and anything resembling synergy and just fill the cube with giant, awesome monsters. 

I still wouldn't run Wurmcoil Engine though.  I hate that card.

[Jason Waddell]

Alright, on the subject of Karn. I realize the speed of my environment might make things different, but, no commitment? He costs 7 mana, which takes a fairly considerably degree of commitment to get to. My cube only runs 4 spells that cost 7 or more, and a pretty low density of acceleration. To get Karn on the table requires some commitment. You have to build a deck that can ramp that high while staying alive. 

Even then, Karn doesn't win the game on the spot. People beat Karn. And when they win with him it's usually pretty awesome too. I could see there being frustration if your environment had lots of Grim Monolith style cards. Karn hitting the board on Turn 6 or whatever is acceptable in my opinion. All told, Karn has been a huge net positive in the fun department. It's big, splashy, memorable, and hasn't produced miserable games. 

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

awesome, thanks for taking the time to post this. here we go...

-take a look at my list (http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/cmls-cube-is-awesome/ with discussion somewhere on the group page). there's a power curve (obviously trop > breeding pool) and there are a bunch of cards you'd feel great first-picking, a few of which (survival, 4x hawk, mizz mortars) might even be 'automatic' in a highly competitive event. but there's not many of these cards, and they're not all that much better than the cube's 'worst' cards. 

this is a conscious design choice; i try to take out cards that just take over games. no mercy and recurring nightmare were the worst offenders, though phyrexian arena and (most recently) glare of subdual deserve honorable mention. you say flat power level would be boring and you might be right, but then you say that i do have a power curve, and i say of course i do -- it's just a shallow power curve. 

-building on this: you wrote 'any draft format of complexity has a power curve' and i agree, but why must it be so steep? Notably, AVR and SOM sucked due in large part to this, while older draft formats with fewer and lamer bombs (RGD, OTJ, IPA) have aged very well. there's a point where power reduces complexity, and while i'm sure you'd agree sol ring and mana crypt are far past that point, i feel that swords of x&y, karn, and wurmcoil are past it too. complex? you pick them and draw them and cast them; that's the antithesis of complex. or the opponent does, which is also bad. when you open these cards you may not feel like playing with them, but are you gonna pass them? the only thing worse than winning a game with balance would be losing to it. 

ok, i'm on a roll here. now that i've tried to keep it brief and failed, i think we might want to make another thread! finishing up:

-re. your density of artifact removal, i like the dynamic between 'sweet card' and 'sweet answer' and think it's one of the signs of a healthy cube. that being said, there's only so many cards in mtg that deal with artifacts and are also good. so to achieve a high density you have to start including tripe like hearth kami, nantuko vigilante and their friends in addition to the putrefies, wickerboughs, and qpms of the world. a considerable RPS dynamic is present here (the spy closes the loop by killing the general!) but the other effect is to steepen the power curve even further -- not only are swords at the top, but now goblin pikers are at the bottom! then the games are less "did he draw it?" than they are "did he draw it? i hope i draw it or he doesn't draw it" -- an improvement, but a small improvement in my mind. (analogously, there should be strong sideboard options available for every deck against every deck, but they should be more interesting and more beatable than 'guy that has pro-my deck's colors.' cf. modern hate cards?)

-i agree that power level and fun are positively correlated up to a point, and though i suspect your cube's power level is past that point, it is a matter of taste and who the hell am i to tell your play-group what they enjoy. however! i disagree that cutting oppressive cards necessarily makes other cards equally oppressive. otherwise, why ban cards in legacy? yeah, my obsessive cube nanny-stating is more like modern - i admit it! but modern is weird and diverse precisely because glimpse and blossom and vision are banned. ditto legacy and survival and mystical tutor. including strong cards is, in a vacuum, something to be pursued, but it's not an end in and of itself. (for more on this, check out my post, INSIDER HEARSAY: why the modo cube blows)

--THE BIG FINISH--

i only have a few more questions about the rest:

what happens when you leaf through p3p1 and there is no batterskull -- and maybe your deck is mediocre mainly because you whiffed on bombs? do the games where your URx deck beats a SoFI compensate for the ones where they equipped and you scoop? variance is good for magic, but isn't mana-screw as a necessary evil still an evil? is it necessary to compensate for discrepancies in play-skill by dumbing cube down?

what it comes down to is this. i don't think bombs are exciting -- quite the opposite -- but who the hell would i be to tell you and your playgroup that they should hate bombs (even if they should)? after all, maybe it 'just works.' i do encourage you to try cutting them, though. the added complexity that comes from not having these cards is not the tedious complexity of suspend or LLM-era activated abilities or baroque and inelegant rules, but the rewarding complexity that keeps us playing this game.

we have all the important things in common. i think we agree the entire point of this group is to explore what is possible and help everyone find the most enjoyable cube design for them. like you, i've done a number of cube drafts with swords, jitte, batterskull, upheaval. my rotating playgroup also has a broad range of skill, with ptq winners at the top and my dad at the bottom. we now draft without those bombs, and we like it that way. games lost to a single card aren't fun. they tell me to take out glare and nightmare and i listen and we have long, interactive, interesting games. sure, good players are supposed to lose at cube, but they shouldn't lose because they couldn't answer a bomb, or got color-screwed, or opened poorly, or all the other stupid reasons people lose games of Magic -- they should lose because they punt! and punt epically! sure, "bombs or not" could be a matter of taste, but matters of taste must be disputed. how else to broaden? how else to improve cube? otherwise, what are we here for?

best, CML

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

er, ok, i should come right out and say it (and i don't mean this to sound mean). all the dissonant reasoning above makes me believe that you or your playgroup haven't even tried cube without these cards. it seems more likely that you went from end to means rather than vice-versa, i.e. put in the cards and justified them, and that if swords were not standard cube fare then they would not have been included. if you're on this group, though, surely you think your play-group is worthy of more respect than the contemptuous bone max mccall throws the masses on modo?

On Friday, March 15, 2013 10:42:23 AM UTC-7, Jason Waddell wrote:

This is pretty much just a risk/reward question. Do you consider "win the game" finishers like Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine to be an appropriate prize for getting to 6 mana? If you included a lower power card would players even put them in their deck given the speed of, say, my cube? Are these cards a necessary evil?

[Jason Waddell]

Hi Chris. So, I won't deny that my cube started as a fairly standard "power maximization" cube and evolved from there. I continue to iterate away from this mentality, but the origins of my cube design carry some baggage. I also don't think I'm really an exception in this regard. There aren't really any templates for prominent successful cubes that approach things from another angle. Even most peasant and pauper cubes I see are jamming the most powerful cards they can find subject to rarity restrictions. 

I don't know how familiar you are with my list, but a lot of these "mindless bombs" have been making their way out. But it's a pretty intertwined process. Like, I sped up aggro to be able to deal with these things and balance the archetypes. Now, you look at a format like Modern, are any of these decks even playing Wurmcoil (barring Tron) and Grave Titan? Nope. Would they play the weaker Ink-Eyes? Nope. We can't really reduce it to "good card" "bad card", as the demands on a 6-drop are a function of the environment. 

There's a very real threat of making control underpowered by neutering its finishers. I've trimmed some cards (bye bye Wurmcoil) and kept others (Grave Titan). Swords aren't even very good in my cube, they cost way too much tempo. But I don't think there's a blanket statement you can make that Swords should not be in any cube. It's all about context. 

Perhaps a better question is this. Let me set it up with a David Sirlin quote: 

"I think of a game as a topological landscape with lots of hills and peaks that represent different tactics/strategies/characters. The higher the peak, the more effective that strategy is. Over time, players explore this landscape, discover more and more the hills and peaks, and climb to higher locations on the known hills and peaks. Players can’t really add height to these peaks; they are only exploring what’s there. The problem is, when you reach the base of a new peak (say, the rock ball trap peak), it can be very hard to know that the pinnacle isn’t very high. It might be really difficult to climb (lots of nuances to learn to do the trap), but in the end, the effectiveness of the tactic is low compared to the monstrous mountains that are out there. You have reached a local maximum, and would do better to exploring for new mountains.

In other words, playing to win involves exploring. It involves trying several different approaches in a game to see which you are best at, which other players are best at, and which you think will end up being the most effective in the end."

What I'm saying is, on the general "mountain" that I'm on, many of these cards are needed to let control keep up with the aggro archetypes I have constructed. Perhaps there are small tweaks to be made, and I could get some percentage points improvement towards the "fun" local maximum. Perhaps the more interesting question is whether I should be on another mountain entirely? This peak might not be reachable via gradual iteration, but by starting over in some other design space. Say, a lower-powered space that can accommodate less blunt finishers. But getting there isn't a matter of just changing my finishers. I have to change my aggro decks, my density and speed of removal, the cost of my sweepers, etc. If your entire set has been built around a specific power level, nerfing one area can do more harm than good. 

On the whole I'm pretty happy with my cube's dynamic though. The quality of games is very high these days. 

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

hey jason,

yep, agreed that it's standard to start with balance n friends, no point in denying that. if this group can't change the starting point for standard cube design, i hope it can at least present an alternative for people interested in trying something different.

i like the modern analogy but as hard as we try to support aggro and speed up the format, we should bear in mind that it's slower than constructed which makes more expensive cards more powerful. let's take x spells, for example. in ISD draft Devil's Play is the nuts. in cube it's very, very good. in standard it's barely playable. in modern and legacy it's not etc. so it follows a slight nerf on powerful 6's in cube is probably in order. while wurmcoil is maybe the only 6 i exclude from cube based on power, my objections to that card tend more towards your descriptive ones like 'non-interactive,' 'no decisions,' 'mindless,' 'boring' etc. ditto swords / b'skull / jitte.

i agree that making control neutered is a real possibility. for one draft i took out a bunch of fatties and the reanimator and control players were not happy. so neither was i! it was the worst cube draft i'd done in months. then i remembered what made cube sweet, listened to the feedback, and tossed back in some fun ones. to new mountains!

i apologize for overreaching above. i shouldn't say that swords ought to be out of every cube. i will say that they shouldn't be in nearly as many cubes as they are. (hence the group.)

i love the mountain metaphor and agree with the entire concept of winning as exploration, as well as the thought that there are many mountains not worth climbing. by having interesting thoughts about how to design and improve cube over trash like the modo one, surely we're winning in a big way (even if we don't change the broader status quo one scintilla).

try some of my favorite fatties above and see how they work!

best, CML

[Jason Waddell]

I'll definitely give some other finishers a spin. Recently I've been playing with Massacre Wurm and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, and they've been pretty fun. Both require some degree of set-up / boardstate to flourish. 

I do agree that changing the starting point would be beneficial. Well, at the very least, changing the way people think about the starting point. When I first cubed, it really felt like there was only one philosophy available. If you didn't have Grave Titan, you were a "bad designer". If one of your 10 counterspells wasn't one of the top 10 (or so) counterspells, you were a "bad designer". It wasn't always stated explicitly, but it was there. It underpinned all the dialogue. It even underpinned the critique of the MODO cube (Bonesplitter is missing, bad designers!). So much time spent on card evaluation and so little on design philosophies. 

It would be great if more often a new cuber could come into the world and, not for budget reasons, says "I don't need my cube to be as powerful as possible".

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

yep. 

vaguely related tangent: i always think it's funny when EDH players talk about cards that are 'really strong' -- as if they have a clue. i'm sure it's the same reason casual players get butt-hurt all the time too -- because they DON'T want to be accountable. they don't want to feel dumb. they don't want to lose. and if they do lose, it better be attributable to a broken and unfun general, that bomb the moron opened in cube, or mana-screw -- anything but their own mistakes. 

there's some larger point here about how it's absurd to judge if you don't want to be judged, how casual formats are usually more problematic than sanctioned ones, how varying definitions of fun necessitate some objective standard, and so on, but i'll just say that the reason i play mtg is to think about and discuss the ideas and principles behind design and creativity and psychology and economics and logic and game theory, and that if i wasn't coming up with sweet decks (NOT EDH) and cube ideas and articles then it would be a waste of time. (ok, real-talk: i also like to ruin the weekends of nerds who think they're original but haven't had a novel thought since kindergarten)

[Jason Waddell]

Well, that ties into one of the core tenets of design that people don't seem to get. Just because you power maximize as a player doesn't mean you power maximize as a designer. I'm not going to throw a fit because Wizards didn't include Inferno Titan as a 6-drop in Gatecrash. The goal is to design a place that's fun to maximize in. Far too many cubers seem to have trouble separating those two ideas. 

I have many many thoughts on EDH and I don't think any of them are positive. All the local games end with people complaining about something. They can't agree on what the point of the activity is. 

Chris, I don't know if you're already familiar, but this is a must-read: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html 
It's exceptionally relevant to EDH. It also has nothing to do with design. 

EDIT: Not to dig at all EDH players, just the ones who spend all their time complaining about things being "cheap". An arms race doesn't end in the middle. 

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

i love the article, by watching an edh game you'd think the point of mtg was to feel superior to someone, anyone (in the same way poor people are the most racist here in america)!

i'm plagiarizing your comment on 'arms race', there's got to be some constraint somewhere.

i am glad EDH players exist, if you thought cubers traded for bad, weird, obscure cards...

On Saturday, April 13, 2013 11:56:50 PM UTC-7, Jason Waddell wrote:

Well, that ties into one of the core tenets of design that people don't seem to get. Just because you power maximize as a player doesn't mean you power maximize as a designer. I'm not going to throw a fit because Wizards didn't include Inferno Titan as a 6-drop in Gatecrash. The goal is to design a place that's fun to maximize in. Far too many cubers seem to have trouble separating those two ideas. 

I have many many thoughts on EDH and I don't think any of them are positive. All the local games end with people complaining about something. They can't agree on what the point of the activity is. 

Chris, I don't know if you're already familiar, but this is a must-read: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html 
It's exceptionally relevant to EDH. It also has nothing to do with design. 

EDIT: Not to dig at all EDH players, just the ones who spend all their time complaining about things being "cheap". An arms race doesn't end in the middle. 

[Eric Chan]

That's the most cogent argument I've heard in favour of Karn, yet. Seven mana is a lot more than six, in practice - in anything other than green decks, it can represent an additional two turns.

I love your comment in the other thread about feeling apologetic when you win with Wurmcoil; that mirrors exactly my feelings. I don't feel the same pangs of guilt when I jam Karn in my deck, though, cause I know I need an actual plan to survive until I hit seven mana. So he's going right back in the cube now. Hurray!

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

true, 7 ≠ 6 (though it's not the 2+ extra turns it is in limited, plan accordingly!) for some reason making a norn or big angel seems more kosher, though. karn can just be so hopeless to fight.

my cube probably needs 7's and 8's in green and red. suggestions? (for big red dudes especially beyond inferno titan)

the apologetic thing is brilliant, it never happens in competitive play but illustrates the duress and hypocrisy of 'casual' play

[Jason Waddell]

I think it's also tied to the coolness factor. Some cards are splashy and fun, or require some context (i.e. gamestate, deck) to succeed. Wurmcoil has none of those. Wurmcoil brings very little joy to me as the caster, and a lot of frustration to my opponent. Karn makes everyone smile when it hits the table (in my cube, at least).

[Dom Harvey]

I think my earlier comment got deleted, but in any case: I actually don't mind Wurmcoil. It fits nicely into the themes I want to support, as sacrifice effects work well both with and against it, it forces opponents to prioritize certain types of removal (stuff that exiles, bounce), it provides valuable help to any artifact subtheme you try to boost, and I like that it's available to all colours.

For 7s/8s in R/G:

Bogardan Hellkite, Form of the Dragon, Akroma Angel of Fury

Avenger of Zendikar, Krosan Tusker, Woodfall Primus, Gaea's Revenge, Hunting Pack, Pelakka Wurm,

Protean Hulk, Tooth and Nail, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastodon, Woodfall Primus

[Jason Waddell]

Not to sound argumentative, but I'm a little skeptical of that logic. Like, imagine if the designers of RTR had said:
"We don't mind Pack Rat. It fits nicely with the scavenge theme, encourages opponents to prioritize low-cost removal, synergizes with the other rats in the block, and is splashable so that almost any deck can play it if they want."

I agree that Wurmcoil Engine has some nice properties in the abstract, but its blunt power level has resulted in a lot of really unfun games. 

But I also don't know how far logic can be taken to justify the inclusion / exclusion of individual cards. My counterarguments are admittedly a little fuzzy. It's mostly from personal experience. I feel that any nice synergistic properties it has are far eclipsed by the game-ruining power level. I don't need to be working sacrifice or artifact subthemes to win with Wurmcoil. 

Chris, I didn't quite understand your comment. I'll clarify on my end though. I feel apologetic towards my opponent anytime I win with cards/plays that feel undeserving of a victory. This feeling is particularly accentuated by limited formats. In constructed, you choose what to show up to the table with. If you want to gamble with a deck that can't beat my Splinter Twin combo (or whatever), that's your choice. But you didn't choose to get hopelessly wrecked by Pack Rat or some SOM bomb. And it's not like I'm not going to pass these cards when I open them. No, in those cases the negative emotion shifts to the designer. I'm sorry the environment's designer didn't think we were worthy of a good game of Magic. Well, usually it's an oversight. I'm not going to assume malicious intent.  

As far as competitive vs. casual, to me it doesn't matter if it's at the PT or in a casual draft. I'm going to make the same play in either place, and feel the same way too. Probably worse at the PT even. 

[Jason Waddell]

Dom: I think I would like it a lot more if the raw power to synergy ratio were more balanced. Say, a 4/4 that split into 2/2's. Maybe at a different cost (5?). All the things you mention that are good about the card would also be good about a card with slightly lower power level. 

On Monday, April 15, 2013 4:06:02 PM UTC+2, Jason Waddell wrote:

Not to sound argumentative, but I'm a little skeptical of that logic. Like, imagine if the designers of RTR had said:
"We don't mind Pack Rat. It fits nicely with the scavenge theme, encourages opponents to prioritize low-cost removal, synergizes with the other rats in the block, and is splashable so that almost any deck can play it if they want."

Like, I agree that it has some nice properties in the abstract, but its blunt power level has resulted in a lot of really unfun games. 

But I also don't know how far logic can be taken to justify the inclusion / exclusion of individual cards. My counterarguments are admittedly a little fuzzy. It's mostly from personal experience. I feel that any nice synergistic properties it has are far eclipsed by the game-ruining power level. I don't need to be working sacrifice or artifact subthemes to win with Wurmcoil. 

Chris, I didn't quite understand your comment. I'll clarify on my end though. I feel apologetic towards my opponent anytime I win with cards/plays that feel undeserving of a victory. This feeling is particularly accentuated by limited formats. In constructed, you choose what to show up to the table with. If you want to gamble with a deck that can't beat my Splinter Twin combo (or whatever), that's your choice. But you didn't choose to get hopelessly wrecked by Pack Rat or some SOM bomb. And it's not like I'm not going to pass these cards when I open them. No, in those cases the negative emotion shifts to the designer. I'm sorry the environment's designer didn't think we were worthy of a good game of Magic. Well, usually it's an oversight. I'm not going to assume malicious intent.  

As far as competitive vs. casual, to me it doesn't matter if it's at the PT or in a casual draft. I'm going to make the same play in either place, and feel the same way too. Probably worse at the PT even. 

On Monday, April 15, 2013 1:21:24 PM UTC+2, Dom Harvey wrote:

[Eric Chan]

Jason, have we got the card for you! Mitotic Slime, anyone? :P Then again, the reason that card was unplayable was because it lacked the deathtouch, the lifelink, and the colorless casting cost. You know, anything good.

We had Bogardan Hellkite for a while at the very beginning, at it was pretty decent. Now that I've cut Inferno Titan, I'm back in the market for big red finishers. It's kind of appalling how barren that landscape is. Like, Chandra Ablaze? Ugh. Thanks, but no thanks.

Karn has definitely been more cool for us than game breaking. I can't recall any games he's ruined for us, and the nice part is that you can still interact with him even after he's eaten a permanent by attacking him. While I'll almost never pass a Wurmcoil Engine p1p1, there are lots of times I'll let Karn go for something smaller and sweeter. Karn is unquestionably pretty powerful in the green decks here, but he's a lot sketchier in something like U/W control.

Elesh Norn was a way bigger problem for us. Sweeping your board once is one thing; making all your future draws worthless is quite another. Most times she was a non-interactive, game-ending bomb that required an immediate removal spell in order to return to your regular scheduled programming. I haven't really played too much with RTR cards yet, but I'm hoping Angel of Serenity will be more interactive and interesting.

[Jason Waddell]

I am very seriously considering Conquering Manticore in the big red slot. It has pseudo-haste that can act as removal in combination w/ sacrifice outlets, and has evasion afterwards. 

I might actually consider the slime though. It's an Arc Lightning for 7 when combined with Goblin Bombardment or Blasting Station. 

pew pew pew

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

jason: re. logic i agree -- anyone could make an ironclad argument that is internally coherent and rhetorically brilliant for anything (say, the inclusion of pack rat in RTR limited), and they'd still be completely wrong and missing the point entirely. this would be due to weighting the variables incorrectly, failing to test and react to testing, lacking a broader context, a disingenuous definition of fun etc. together, i call these failures 'bad taste,' and they're applicable to books, music, all creative stuff, i guess.

fuzzy? of course it's fuzzy. mtg and poker and capitalism and all good games are about fuzzy math. if the math were precise and logic reigned supreme, it would be easy and boring and devoid of interest.

apology: i'm with you 100%, what i meant to suggest with my comment is that if you make a nice legal standard deck you needn't feel guilty for blas acting to dome them for 13 and drain them for 7, for example. avoiding the guilt factor is a very high priority for wizards right now (and maybe it should be), which is one way you could rationalize 'lotus bloom should be banned in modern.' of course there's tension between 'no unfun games / formats are not intrinsically playable' and 'banning cards is abstractly a negative / modern shouldn't be like EDH / who are we to say what's fun' but at least competitive play with its ban-lists and metagames and vigorous constrained optimizations acknowledges this complexity, whereas in EDH it's all quite arbitrary. to take the point further, cube isn't intrinsically playable either and i agree that it's on the designer to cut cards that feel bad to play against, bad to play with, bad to pass, bad to pick etc. i don't think pack rat was malicious intent but wizards does miss shit e.g. "oh deceiver exarch and splinter twin are in the same standard format" -- pretending they're infallible would be the beginning of the end of mtg (and yet the corporate mentality of wotc and big hive mind of most magic players indulges this bad cognitive bias, even while the game ought to root it out). this discussion is really interesting!

final point (feeling worse at the PT): maybe part of the reason wotc is reluctant to dump more cash prizes into mtg -- even though it would pay for itself several times over almost instantly -- is that if they make a bad design error, they want the stakes to be lower. i.e. it's ok for someone to win $20K extra due to 'cracking a pack rat' (metaphorically) but $200K? it would subject them to too much scrutiny, and then it would be hard for them to be right all the time...

On Monday, April 15, 2013 7:06:02 AM UTC-7, Jason Waddell wrote:

Not to sound argumentative, but I'm a little skeptical of that logic. Like, imagine if the designers of RTR had said:
"We don't mind Pack Rat. It fits nicely with the scavenge theme, encourages opponents to prioritize low-cost removal, synergizes with the other rats in the block, and is splashable so that almost any deck can play it if they want."

Like, I agree that it has some nice properties in the abstract, but its blunt power level has resulted in a lot of really unfun games. 

But I also don't know how far logic can be taken to justify the inclusion / exclusion of individual cards. My counterarguments are admittedly a little fuzzy. It's mostly from personal experience. I feel that any nice synergistic properties it has are far eclipsed by the game-ruining power level. I don't need to be working sacrifice or artifact subthemes to win with Wurmcoil. 

Chris, I didn't quite understand your comment. I'll clarify on my end though. I feel apologetic towards my opponent anytime I win with cards/plays that feel undeserving of a victory. This feeling is particularly accentuated by limited formats. In constructed, you choose what to show up to the table with. If you want to gamble with a deck that can't beat my Splinter Twin combo (or whatever), that's your choice. But you didn't choose to get hopelessly wrecked by Pack Rat or some SOM bomb. And it's not like I'm not going to pass these cards when I open them. No, in those cases the negative emotion shifts to the designer. I'm sorry the environment's designer didn't think we were worthy of a good game of Magic. Well, usually it's an oversight. I'm not going to assume malicious intent.  

As far as competitive vs. casual, to me it doesn't matter if it's at the PT or in a casual draft. I'm going to make the same play in either place, and feel the same way too. Probably worse at the PT even. 

On Monday, April 15, 2013 1:21:24 PM UTC+2, Dom Harvey wrote:

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

also thanks everyone for the red fatties suggestion, i'm gonna try form and hellkite and see how they go

jason: if you're running conscripts then i think it'd be tough to justify manticore as well, but it is pretty good. inferno titan is an interesting fatty in that it's so powerful unanswered but also weak to removal (contrast with grave titan, woodfall primus, angel of despair). it fills a nice functionality hole and i think it's all kinds of fun

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, I really love Inferno Titan. Adding the Manticore would probably be in addition to, not instead of. I imagine it won't quite work, but I am going to test it. Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong about a card. 

[Jason Waddell]

Just wanted to clarify (my tone might have not been clear earlier), I'm not trying to put you (or anyone else) down. Just sharing my opinions on Wurmcoil, which happen to contrast with yours. :)

That's a pretty good and comprehensive list of finishers there Dom. On a personal note, thanks for not listing Hornet Queen. Am I alone in feeling that Hornet Queen's frustration to joy ratio lies close to 0? 

On Monday, April 15, 2013 1:21:24 PM UTC+2, Dom Harvey wrote:

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

it's all good in the hood. who the hell would i be if i ripped other people's ideas while finding mine infallible? (well, most magic players, but let's not go there)

i don't hate hornet queen as much as everyone else but i dont like it either

[FlowerSunRain]

I like Hornet Queen.  I probably wouldn't like her if I ran Natural Order or Eureka.

[Dom Harvey]

I actually forgot about Hornet Queen. I was even going to put a shoutout to your hatred of it when I listed it!

Love the idea of Mitotic Slime.

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

i love mitotic slime! what a tasteful card!

the bummer is there's steep competition at cmc5 for green. thornling, genesis, silverheart, acidic slime, deranged hermit off the top of my head

[Eric Chan]

Form of the Dragon sounds interesting. From anyone who's played it before: tell me more. Do you usually win with it after untapping? Or just get zapped for five to the face, and die?