So, on many occasions, I've become inspired to make "themed" cubes. Often, themed cubes run into the problem of not having enough support through currently printed cards.
Examples include Tribal cubes and Infect cubes. Goblins, Elves, and so on all have powerful cards, but the power level of these cards (especially in limited) tend to vary a lot, and hinge on synergy. Every color has some amount of creatures with infect, but not really enough to make an "infect cube" with 360 cards.
What is your opinion of designing and proxying custom cards to help flesh out and empower cubes which are trying to create a specific, thematic limited environment?
Some examples:
More changelings for tribal cubes (Perhaps a Woodland Changeling in every color)
More and more interesting lords for tribes, specifically catered to limited.
More fodder tribal creatures, potentially augmented with classes to encourage a "class" subtheme.
More creatures that interact with tribes.
More open-ended tribal cards like Shared Triumph and Adaptive Automaton.
My problem with tribes is that you can't really build a fully tribal environment unless WotC has already built the tribal environment you want. I mean, there are cross synergies between recurring tribes, but they aren't balanced across blocks.
But some tribes don't have any support across blocks. White in particular gets a new tribe every week: humans, kithkin, giants, birds, rebels, spirits... Not to mention that white is good at tribal interactions, where blue and green are more individualistic in creature designs. The way this is combated in tribal block design is to make the colors homogeneous; blue gets an illusion lord or flier lord, green gets a beast lord or elf lord, etc. Tribal cubes devolve into "pick a color, pick the lord -- doesn't matter which if the set is balanced." It's fairly boring, in my opinion.
Theme cubes sound like they'd be fun, but the best normal limited formats have supported tribal decks as well as non-tribal decks. Innistrad had some tribal synergies, but it also had mill, reanimator, spider spawning, etc. RoE had merfolk and eldrazi, but it also had defenders, levelers, enchantments, and other off-tribal strategies. If feel like tribal works best when you have to work to get into it, not when it's handed to you on a platter -- when you are forced to pick a color and a tribe.
With that said, I think a good theme cube is hard to design. So when I see a theme cube that 'needs something more' I tend to think it needs better design, not new on-theme cards. (Unless you want Lizard Specter tribal or something, where you obviously need more tribal support. Infect falls into this category.)
I agree with most of your issues with tribal cubes.
There are currently a few cards that help stop the "pick a color, pick a lord" (or I imagine some people look at it the other way around), I have already mentioned Shared Triumph and Adaptive Automaton. I could envision a blue 1U enchantment that gives a chosen creature type flying, for example.
It's not like you can't include quality cards like Thragtusk, Devil's Play, or Wrath of God in a tribal cube. You just want to focus on including tribal cards, and then augment it with some staple cards. Restoration Angel seems like it could potentially be even spicier in a tribal cube.
I don't want to sound argumentative, but I think that infect cubes objectively need more on-theme cards. There are only 67 cards with the word infect in their rules text. In Scars of Mirrodin block draft, you could have several Rot Wolf in your draft deck. Without including duplicates, you can't do that in a cube draft.
I'm not a huge fan of using custom cards in cubes. A lot of the time in practice they're too strong, too weak, or too different to how you envisioned. Also, some players feel that winning with or being beaten by a custom card is a bit cheap.
Using multiple copies of certain cards, on the other hand, is a great way to balance themed cubes. Particularly with tribal cubes, it really helps out a lot of strategies. You can manipulate the numbers to make Snakes as strong and streamlined as Elves. This also allows you to use underplayed tribes that only have a few support cards; this makes the cube environment a whole lot more interesting than "Elves vs Goblins vs Zombies".
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I remember there was a cube somewhere where a guy would pit little stickers that said "Rebel" on some of the creatures in his cube, to interact with other rebels like Amrou Scout.
The results were, I think, "That is really cool and exciting, but it's a little frustrating until you learn what to expect."
Dunno if that adds anything here, I got reminded of it thinking about Humpty_Dumpty's suggestion.
A prominent example of customized cube is Brandon Sanderson's customized cube, which they use on an episode of Command Zone. He added in support for scarecrow tribal. Seemed pretty fun and worked okay. It was a commander draft tho, and they don't actually explain the process of drafting a commander.
Examples include Tribal cubes and Infect cubes. Goblins, Elves, and so on all have powerful cards, but the power level of these cards (especially in limited) tend to vary a lot, and hinge on synergy. Every color has some amount of creatures with infect, but not really enough to make an "infect cube" with 360 cards.
What is your opinion of designing and proxying custom cards to help flesh out and empower cubes which are trying to create a specific, thematic limited environment?
Some examples:
More changelings for tribal cubes (Perhaps a Woodland Changeling in every color)
More and more interesting lords for tribes, specifically catered to limited.
More fodder tribal creatures, potentially augmented with classes to encourage a "class" subtheme.
More creatures that interact with tribes.
More open-ended tribal cards like Shared Triumph and Adaptive Automaton.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
But some tribes don't have any support across blocks. White in particular gets a new tribe every week: humans, kithkin, giants, birds, rebels, spirits... Not to mention that white is good at tribal interactions, where blue and green are more individualistic in creature designs. The way this is combated in tribal block design is to make the colors homogeneous; blue gets an illusion lord or flier lord, green gets a beast lord or elf lord, etc. Tribal cubes devolve into "pick a color, pick the lord -- doesn't matter which if the set is balanced." It's fairly boring, in my opinion.
Theme cubes sound like they'd be fun, but the best normal limited formats have supported tribal decks as well as non-tribal decks. Innistrad had some tribal synergies, but it also had mill, reanimator, spider spawning, etc. RoE had merfolk and eldrazi, but it also had defenders, levelers, enchantments, and other off-tribal strategies. If feel like tribal works best when you have to work to get into it, not when it's handed to you on a platter -- when you are forced to pick a color and a tribe.
With that said, I think a good theme cube is hard to design. So when I see a theme cube that 'needs something more' I tend to think it needs better design, not new on-theme cards. (Unless you want Lizard Specter tribal or something, where you obviously need more tribal support. Infect falls into this category.)
There are currently a few cards that help stop the "pick a color, pick a lord" (or I imagine some people look at it the other way around), I have already mentioned Shared Triumph and Adaptive Automaton. I could envision a blue 1U enchantment that gives a chosen creature type flying, for example.
It's not like you can't include quality cards like Thragtusk, Devil's Play, or Wrath of God in a tribal cube. You just want to focus on including tribal cards, and then augment it with some staple cards. Restoration Angel seems like it could potentially be even spicier in a tribal cube.
I don't want to sound argumentative, but I think that infect cubes objectively need more on-theme cards. There are only 67 cards with the word infect in their rules text. In Scars of Mirrodin block draft, you could have several Rot Wolf in your draft deck. Without including duplicates, you can't do that in a cube draft.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
Using multiple copies of certain cards, on the other hand, is a great way to balance themed cubes. Particularly with tribal cubes, it really helps out a lot of strategies. You can manipulate the numbers to make Snakes as strong and streamlined as Elves. This also allows you to use underplayed tribes that only have a few support cards; this makes the cube environment a whole lot more interesting than "Elves vs Goblins vs Zombies".
A middle route that I wouldn't mind too much would be to "errata" creature types on existing cards to increase tribal interactions.
My 380 Beginners’ Cube on Cube Tutor
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
This is interesting to me. What about turning cards (not necessarily creatures) into changelings?
Anyone of you folks (all of you :P) who are against custom cards more okay with Humpty's suggestions?
What about fully shifting a lord's types? First example that came to my mind was Lovissa Coldeyes, but that's actually a bad example.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
The results were, I think, "That is really cool and exciting, but it's a little frustrating until you learn what to expect."
Dunno if that adds anything here, I got reminded of it thinking about Humpty_Dumpty's suggestion.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
A prominent example of customized cube is Brandon Sanderson's customized cube, which they use on an episode of Command Zone. He added in support for scarecrow tribal. Seemed pretty fun and worked okay. It was a commander draft tho, and they don't actually explain the process of drafting a commander.