How I Approach Cube

[FlowerSunRain]

One of the most depressing things about discussing cube design is that if you are not interested in maximizing power and enabling powerful archetypes, then you miss a lot of the conversation.  As such, I'd like to take a minute to talk about cube goals by speaking about my goals.  Hopefully doing so will help give some context to my comments and give you a little guidance when helping me.

The reason I began to play cube was because I liked limited Magic, but it had some issues.  Mirage x3, Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight and Tempest x3 were all lots of fun.  However, many of the cards were just garbage, which isn't particularly fun.  A few of the cards were just plain better, which wasn't fun.  And I had to keep buying packs to keep playing, which is really not fun.  Making cube fixed all these issues: no more filler cards, no more OMGFIRSTPICKWIN cards and no more paying $10 per player jut to sit down at the table.

What I liked most about the format is that success is based on improvisation, on reading the specific pool of cards that is available and on getting functionality out of marginal choices.

So, from this a couple of things should be very clear about what I need from a cube:

1)  It must be large so that the card pool varies from draft to draft
2)  The cards required to make decks of consistent, powerful archetypes must be diffuse enough that they can't be fully drafted without needing to play subpar cards
3)  It must contain cards that have a variable amount of value
4)  It must not contain cards that simply invalidate choices

When I briefly described this to someone, they called my cube a "pile of random cards".  I suppose it might sound like it, but it very much isn't.  I've cubed with piles of random cards and it usually isn't pretty.

In short, I want the fun playstyle of oldschool limited without having to play with limited filler and game ruining bombs.

[Jason Waddell]

Hey FSR (is it okay for me to call you FSR?), that sounds really interesting. Do you have a list I can look at for inspiration?

Also, I'm a little unclear from your OP. Would you like us to chime in with our core goals as well? Or would you prefer we talk about your particular goals? Either sounds great to me. 

[FlowerSunRain]

I just thought I would put this information out there so people know where I'm coming from.  I'd be happy to follow any conversation about your goals.

I'll see about putting a written list together.  I'm in the middle of an overhaul right now, though.

[Eric Chan]

Your objective #4 is a good one, and something that I'm trying simultaneously fulfill by purging cards from my cube at the moment.

You railed on Wurmcoil Engine in one of the threads. Are there any other cards that you feel fall under this category?

For me, I'm keeping a watch on Phyrexian Metamorph. A 3-mana colorless clone is usable by nearly any deck, and is too much of an automatic, non-committal choice early in the draft for my liking.

[Rob Dennis]

I do like this kind of post if only to help put some of your other posts in perspective. An example is me seeing your thread about combat tricks, and in order to provide good feedback, I need to get out of the mindset of my own cube.

this post would benefit from a written list just so we had a few concrete examples of the kinds of things you're already happy with.

[FlowerSunRain]

Some other cards I really don't like like are:

Fast mana:  The usual suspects are all here.  Moxes, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Grim Monolith.  Needs to cost something significant, because its a significant effect.

Balance:  Wrath of God costs 4.  While this card can be trickier to use then wrath, it also does a lot of other stuff and only costs 2. 

Strip Mine: Unrestricted land destruction for blue and white?  I don't like this card at all.

Ancestral Recall:  Unconditional card advantage costing 1 mana is not reasonable

Time Walk:  The ultimate non-committal card.  Needing to reach 2 mana is not a real opportunity cost for this card's upside.

Demonic Tutor:  Not nearly as bad as time walk, but I don't like it.  I think it should cost 3.

Mana Drain:  Its fast mana and on top of that its a card I play anyway.

Land Tax:  Unlike Ancestral Recall, its conditional, but unlike Ancestral Recall, its recursive.  This doesn't seem to be what one mana effects are supposed to do.

[Jason Waddell]

Thoughts on Armageddon, Skullclamp, Entreat the Angels and Mind Twist? These are some of the biggest culprits ruining games in my cube these days. I have been thinking of adding another Brainstorm, really can't justify it with Entreat around. I do feel, however, that Terminus is an acceptable Miracle effect that is an alternative to Balance, requires set up and does something significantly different than normal Wraths. 

One of the thing R&D talks about is using CC cards (with double color requirements) to ensure that the decks that need that effect actually get them. With Armageddon, very often I will be playing another color combination, see the card and without thinking be like "I guess I'm playing white too." Not great for the draft dynamic. 

Balance is so easy to use. Basically, if you're playing control, you turn your worst cards into your hand into free spot removal spells. So, if they have 3 creatures, you pay 1W and 3 cards (including Balance) to kill all of them. Meanwhile, they had to pay a lot more than 1W for those creatures they put on board. That's with no set up whatsoever. Costing 2 mana also means it's pretty much immune to mana denial effects, which aggro decks rely on to prolong the early game. 

Demonic Tutor is much more reasonable without the presence of totally bonkers spells. It can be a really fun card to cast in normal decks in relatively normal board states. 

Land Tax is a strange card. It's in my cube, but it's not really promoting any strategies or anything. If somebody asked me why it was there, I wouldn't really have an answer for them. 

This is something I'm currently struggling with. In my early cubing I felt real pressure to power maximize, but I've seen firsthand that leads to some terrible results. This is also one of the double-edged swords of cube design. Yesterday one of my drafters told me that his friend wouldn't come to draft because cubing is just "lame stuff like Tinker + Blightsteel". However, "awesome cards" is a legitimate selling point that gets people in the door the first time. Some people who haven't cubed are a bit disappointed if they hear I don't support Eldrazi or Storm or whatever. But chances are, if I did, they wouldn't stick around for long anyways. It's a major motivation of my writing, to help shape a Magic community that thinks about cubes differently than what the existing narratives have provided. 

The truth is there aren't really many good examples out there. We're on the frontier, and I'm making a ton of design mistakes. It's expensive too! Not the most fun to shell out for a card like Entreat the Angels, only to find out a couple drafts in that it does nothing but randomly ruin games. 

[Dom Harvey]

I don't mind the one-shot fast mana like Grim Monolith or Mana Vault so much, but Sol Ring/Mana Crypt are definitely obnoxious. For some reason I have no problem with Balance despite excluding Recall and Time Walk, even though Balance is often more splashy. Land Tax is situational and doesn't actually advance the board at all, so I'm fine with it being very good when it is.

[Jason Waddell]

One thing you see in a lot of Wizards articles is that they'll mention some card or mechanic they think of, and "put in on the shelf". They have the discipline to say "not yet". Sometimes I get the feeling that Land Tax is one of those cards. I agree that it isn't at all gamebreaking, and it is a cool card. It's just not really doing anything for my set at the moment. 

[FlowerSunRain]

I despise Skullclamp and Jitte.  Skullclamp is probably my second most hated card after Balance.  These two do so much for basically no commitment, they really don't belong.

I find Mind Twist overly efficient.  I run Stupor, so, yeah, Mind Twist doesn't make the cut.

I have no problem with Armageddon.  Granted, it would be better at 2WW, but I like the card.  It finishes off games for a fair cost and gamestate requirement.  The card is well liked.  I also don't run all of the tier 1 mana fixing, so splashing isn't as easy as it might be in other cubes (but its still probably too easy to splash).

I haven't has any problem with the miracle cards.  They are splashy, inconsistent, powerful and fun.  The number of cards that can combo with them is extremely small, which is good.  Entreat is the type of card that plays very differently and we find it fun in small doses.

[FlowerSunRain]

Balance is the card I hate more then any other.  I don't mind dark ritual and seething song, but I find mana vault in particular to be too flexible to be interesting.

[FlowerSunRain]

I did a large amount of research this weekend, but I didn't get time to actually finish the latest version of my cube.  I really need a day off.  Anyway, between card orders and picking up cards from my friend, I SHOULD have a list assembled by next weekend.  Now when I'll get that typed up will remain a mystery.

Some highlights:

*I am going to have a separate extra lands section as inspired by Mr. Waddell.
*I am going to have at least 7 custom cards.
*In spite of all of my arguing about the right to include multiples, my list isn't going to have any.

However, I'd like some feedback on a couple of the trickier choices.  Here is the first:

Bend or Break vs. Tectonic Break vs. Manabarbs

I like each coloring getting a powerful mama-disruption card.  Black has Nether Void, white has Armageddon, blue has Mana Vortex and Green has Plow Under.  Which one of these is the most interesting effect for red?

[Jason Waddell]

Manabarbs is certainly the most unique of the three you mentioned, and is pretty iconic. Other red suggestions if you're looking for mass land destruction are Boom / Bust and Thoughts of Ruin. 

EDIT: Oh, and don't burn out! If you need some time off from intensive cube thinking/discussion, give yourself a break! I know we had threads burning pretty hard when we first started the group, but there's only so much 12 people can realistically sustain. Looking forward to seeing your list, but no need to rush it out! :)

[Eric Chan]

I vote Manabarbs, too. I'm pretty fond of that card, even though I've probably had it backfire on me just as often as not. It just does so much damage to opponents who are unprepared.

Boom // Bust came to mind when I looked up Tectonic Break, too. It gets marginally better if you run any cascade cards.

[FlowerSunRain]

I have basically finalized my changes and typed up more then half my cube!

[Hannes Versmissen]

I'm looking forward !

Op maandag 1 april 2013 20:16:01 UTC+2 schreef FlowerSunRain het volgende:

[FlowerSunRain]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/dfhgdf/

and

http://deckstats.net/decks/2770/9017-cube/en

Commentary to follow

[FlowerSunRain]

Apologies for no commentary.

Anyway: note to self:

Firespout.

[Christopher Morris-Lent]

i like firespout a lot. sweepers should be imo varied in their function. so like wrath / damnation but also mizz mortars, firespout, cyclonic rift, bsz, or whatever you like the most. i also switch in and out a lot