What is better, more effective or more relevant: running sub-themes in the colored sections of a Cube (like tokens or reanimation, for example), or just running good-stuff cards?
Are cards like Spectral Procession or Animate Dead good enough to run on their own, or should an effort be made to include other cards that synergize with them (like fatties for reanimation-type effects) or that enhance their effect (like anthem-effect for token producers)?
When does a mechanic or type of effect becomes a sub-theme? When 5% of the cards in a section provide this effect? 10%? 20%?
I think it really depends on your group and what your idea of a good format looks like. If you have a very small group (2-4 players), then you're likely not going to be drafting regularly but instead playing another variant format (Winston, Winchester, Sealed). If you regularly have 6 or more players, I personally think playing power over archetype (theme) support is suboptimal.
These days I get less and less excited when I sit down to a random cube and find nothing but the usual players. There's no real incentive to build off-the-wall decks and drafting the same decks over and over again makes the cubing experience boring. Sure, that is some people's idea of a good time, but very few players in the play groups I run with share that sentiment.
A few years ago, I might open a pack that had some tribal card like Goblin Lackey or narrow archetype card like Sneak Attack and think, pssh, this cube is awful. Now, after drafting what could be thousands of drafts with 'normal' lists, I am finding disinterest in first-picking the same cards over and over again. If anything, theme-drafting makes opening that first pack more interesting. I am far more likely to first-pick a card like Dream Halls or Devastating Dreams in an unknown cube than something like Path to Exile or some random dork. Why? Because it's those off-the-wall decks that make cubing memorable. The kind of deck you show your teammates and are met with all the oohs and ahhs you get similar to when you saw your first cube draft deck.
I'm in no way advocating playing suboptimal lists. I'm not saying cut all your Jittes for wacky cards. Just be willing to flex your creative muscles a bit. Does your cube really need certain kinds of aggro or control decks? Do you really want white to have 6 Wrath effects? Does black really need 4 tutors? Does blue really need 20 Counterspells? Try to find ways to keep those 'normal' archetypes viable, but find reasons to make them fun. Give your control decks new kill conditions. Give your weenie decks new disruption. Give your mid-range decks new ways to take advantage of lots of mana. In the end, doing these things doesn't really change the fundamental vision of your cube, but helps to make for a memorable draft experience and will keep your group wanting to draft your cube again in the future.
Trying to mathmaticaly approach this decision is probably a mistake, as variables include cube size, other cards in your cube, and as kojiro correctly explained, standard group size.
Frankly, it's something you have to test from a power, as well as an attitude standpoint. Does your group love raw power, or interaction? Do they want the cube more biased towards drafting enjoyment or playing enjoyment?
I think you can't break away from the aggro-midrange-control scheme in cube, combo is just not viable. What you can do, however, is to make specific aggro decks, specific midrange strategies and specific control styles viable. Token aggro is one possibility, maybe BG grindy rock is cool (somewhat of a midrange archetype), what about prison decks, why not mono black? (Man, I loved myself some mono B in the MTGO cube..) That way, your white-green aggro deck feels different from your black-red one and counterburn is very different from UW control. It's diversity within the archetype that is key here.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
...What you can do, however, is to make specific aggro decks, specific midrange strategies and specific control styles viable. Token aggro is one possibility, maybe BG grindy rock is cool (somewhat of a midrange archetype), what about prison decks, why not mono black? (Man, I loved myself some mono B in the MTGO cube..) That way, your white-green aggro deck feels different from your black-red one and counterburn is very different from UW control. It's diversity within the archetype that is key here.
This is going to be the most important aspect of cube theory for years to come. Previously we battled over trying to find the perfect 360/540/700/etc., and now it's about how the archetypes you push lend themselves to creating the perfect environment.
It's going to drastically change the way we evaluate cards. A card like Restoration Angel has easy applications in many archetypes just on power alone, but how do you evaluate cards like Flickerwisp? Glimmerpoint Stag? At what point do these middle-of-the-road cards go from 'meh' to allstar? When do you start cutting staples to make room for thematic cards which do the same thing but less efficiently in a vacuum? Like I alluded to in my post above, I hope this time comes sooner than later. I can't wait to ask questions like, are you pushing Artifacts, big mana, tempo, or looters/Reanimation when asking about someone's blue section rather than argue the merits of the same staples and vanilla configurations ad nauseum. I believe this is the future of cubing.
This is going to be the most important aspect of cube theory for years to come. Previously we battled over trying to find the perfect 360/540/700/etc., and now it's about how the archetypes you push lend themselves to creating the perfect environment.
It's going to drastically change the way we evaluate cards. A card like Restoration Angel has easy applications in many archetypes just on power alone, but how do you evaluate cards like Flickerwisp? Glimmerpoint Stag? At what point do these middle-of-the-road cards go from 'meh' to allstar? When do you start cutting staples to make room for thematic cards which do the same thing but less efficiently in a vacuum? Like I alluded to in my post above, I hope this time comes sooner than later. I can't wait to ask questions like, are you pushing Artifacts, big mana, tempo, or looters/Reanimation when asking about someone's blue section rather than argue the merits of the same staples and vanilla configurations ad nauseum. I believe this is the future of cubing.
That's a very bright future that you paint, and I'm inclined to believe you.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
This is going to be the most important aspect of cube theory for years to come. Previously we battled over trying to find the perfect 360/540/700/etc., and now it's about how the archetypes you push lend themselves to creating the perfect environment.
It's going to drastically change the way we evaluate cards. A card like Restoration Angel has easy applications in many archetypes just on power alone, but how do you evaluate cards like Flickerwisp? Glimmerpoint Stag? At what point do these middle-of-the-road cards go from 'meh' to allstar? When do you start cutting staples to make room for thematic cards which do the same thing but less efficiently in a vacuum? Like I alluded to in my post above, I hope this time comes sooner than later. I can't wait to ask questions like, are you pushing Artifacts, big mana, tempo, or looters/Reanimation when asking about someone's blue section rather than argue the merits of the same staples and vanilla configurations ad nauseum. I believe this is the future of cubing.
A couple of years ago when I was building my original Cube I spent a fair amount of time online looking at lists from other players. And those lists were wildly different from one another. Some cards were already known as being Cube worthy, but most of what I saw was unique in its own way. Now, being on the verge on building a second Cube and again looking online at different lists, I find that many of them are basically the same, and that differences are often a matter of budget and not design.
One of the worst thing a Commander player wants to hear is: "Which Commander are you playing? Oh, that guy. I have that deck home." As if there was only one way of building a deck with a certain Commander. And Cube right now has a similar feel to it, where it seems like many people are building the Cube and not their Cube.
But at the same time, you have the dedicated enthusiasts reacting to this trend, who are basically saying: "No, Cube building is a personal experience. Understand it and make it your own. Make your Cube your Cube." And I really hope that people listen to this message by digging deeper into the format, and not simply by trying to streamline it.
That being said, topic at hand:
The basic feedback I get here is that sub-themes allow for greater diversity on some level. Would you say that a Cube should use sub-themes from the get go, or build upon its original design, go with the good-stuff early on and build its themes/sub-themes as it goes, through playtesting and the general evolution process that most open Cubes go through?
This is going to be the most important aspect of cube theory for years to come. Previously we battled over trying to find the perfect 360/540/700/etc., and now it's about how the archetypes you push lend themselves to creating the perfect environment.
I've only been into cubing for a couple of years now, and I have definitely seen this trend, as more and more cards get created and there is a certain upper bound to the typical power level of each expansion Wizards creates. They've been pretty consistent overall.
A couple of years ago when I was building my original Cube I spent a fair amount of time online looking at lists from other players. And those lists were wildly different from one another. Some cards were already known as being Cube worthy, but most of what I saw was unique in its own way. Now, being on the verge on building a second Cube and again looking online at different lists, I find that many of them are basically the same, and that differences are often a matter of budget and not design.
One of the worst thing a Commander player wants to hear is: "Which Commander are you playing? Oh, that guy. I have that deck home." As if there was only one way of building a deck with a certain Commander. And Cube right now has a similar feel to it, where it seems like many people are building the Cube and not their Cube.
But at the same time, you have the dedicated enthusiasts reacting to this trend, who are basically saying: "No, Cube building is a personal experience. Understand it and make it your own. Make your Cube your Cube." And I really hope that people listen to this message by digging deeper into the format, and not simply by trying to streamline it.
That being said, topic at hand:
The basic feedback I get here is that sub-themes allow for greater diversity on some level. Would you say that a Cube should use sub-themes from the get go, or build upon its original design, go with the good-stuff early on and build its themes/sub-themes as it goes, through playtesting and the general evolution process that most open Cubes go through?
Getting every subtheme right from the beginning is extremely hard. Furthermore, evaluating if reanimator works, for instance, is a lot harder if the rest of the decks are half-assed blink, ramp or madness decks, if no one actually "works" and sets a standard. Establishing a reasonable aggro-midrange-control environment first gives you a point of reference for subthemes. Also, I love to see cubes evolve.
There is really a "hive mind" kind of vibe here in this community. Practically every list is inspired by other lists, and with tools like eidolon's comparison thread or the Card Evaluation Thread it's easy to recognize and adapt to the norm. Don't get me wrong, not having to test every card by oneself is a huge boon, but the side-effect is, as you said, that cubes resemble each other. Use the power of the hive mind, but don't get trapped in it.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Another reason why cubes might be converging is that playgroups might be getting smaller and thus forcing groups into 2 or 4 man formats which don't favor archetype drafting as much.
I just started cubing, so admittedly I browsed a lot of cubes, the cube comparison thread and essentially copied most of the cards there. For me I see it as a starting point. Building a cube is overwhelmingly hard, and I appreciate the community for the help we are providing for each other.
I expect myself and my playgroup to "evolve" the cube later. There will probebly some niche cards inserted once in a while to support certain archetypes, enable more synergies. I'm guessing most of the bombs will remain, but I expect my cube to evolve differently as with all cubes.
Another reason why cubes might be converging is that playgroups might be getting smaller and thus forcing groups into 2 or 4 man formats which don't favor archetype drafting as much.
This sounds plausible. So far the biggest playgroup I've been able to arrange for my new 360-card Pauper Cube consists of 4 people. I hope to expand that in the future but most of my hobby-shop acquaintances would rather play Standard Constructed or EDH. Winchester drafting with a single friend seems to be the most common action my Cube sees. And it's tough to reliably draft any archetype more specific than, say, RW aggro or UB control when you're not doing a full draft from the standard-sized 360 card Cube. So I can see how we might tend to default to drafting generic good-stuff cards that work well on their own and packing our Cubes with the same.
Of course, if that's the case it may be possible to construct smaller and more focused Cubes that support more exotic archetypes even with 2- or 4-player drafts.
There's plenty of pie for everyone, gentle men and women!
I really like playing the "stock" cube stables. I would love to have a cube that is made up of the cards from the cube comparison thread. I think it's cool that there's this list that everyone has been collectively working on and refining. Let's enjoy the fruit of that labor, and play the most powerful and dynamic limited format ever!
But that's not all! Just because I love playing the "stock" 360 list doesn't mean I have to forgo playing wacky and crazy lists. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's all about having fun, and it doesn't have to be one or the other. One guy in our group has a cube that's mostly older, pre-8th edition cards, and has almost no removal in it. It's really fun and there are always crazy cards and plays.
For my part, I'd eventually like to have the perfect stock list and then a second, smaller cube that has no duplicates from the first list. Pie to go around!
While it is easier to describe what your deck does when you are running a list with many themes, this also means that there are less options for your players, since there are more cards that are only playable together if you also have a subset of cards from the same group.
I couldn't disagree more. There are actually a lot more options for your players if you provide interesting cards and interactions. It's amazing the little synergies you find even in the simple mechanics. Something like Braids, Cabal Minion gets new life breathed into it when, instead of being paired with LD, black gets new ways to clog the board with permanents a la token generators. Survival of the Fittest gets new toys like Flash, Show and Tell, and Sneak Attack which also work with Blink strategies. I could go on and on. Just because a fringe-playable card might table every so often because of its narrowness, doesn't make it bad for the cube. People have played with Tinker for years, for crying out loud.
How do french-vanilla creatures and the same equipment and removal over and over again provide more options? Again, not saying they make for bad decks, they just don't paint the same picture.
On another note, I understand this thread getting less traffic because of spoilers, but it's a shame it's not getting more discussion.
I think you guys are talking about different things. It looks like eidolon is saying "If I'm playing U/W control I have less options because there are random archetype support cards in my colors that don't help me". Kojiro is saying "There's a wider variety of archetypes to choose from making for more diverse decks". And you're both correct. I think in groups that can consistently get 6+ people providing additional archetype support is a great way to spice things up and since people usually go infinite on playables anyways you're not hurting the power of the average deck much. If you find yourself winston drafting a lot you're probably better off running a stock good stuff list to ensure the decks have enough playables.
I look forward to the days when they're not mutually exclusive; and they're slowly getting there. Sub-themes that support themselves within the good-stuff card selections. The more Restoration Angels and cubeworthy ETB creatures we get, the more that blink will surface as a sub-theme in every white section. The same goes with land destruction (maybe one day), reanimation, token support, artifact themes and so on. The cube is an awesome place, and there's a lot you can do with it. To going all in on sub-themes to the point where each drafter will be focused on one particular decktype to blanket goodstuff where all the cards are completely interchangeable. I prefer neither option, and look forward to more cards being printed that suit both maxims.
On another note, I understand this thread getting less traffic because of spoilers, but it's a shame it's not getting more discussion.
This topic is important to me, I just don't have the time right now to post.
I believe a cube should provide a good mix of general purpose cards and powerful but narrow cards. I know that I want to include more support for sub-themes. It is not that easy, though, because at some point the whole thing degenerates to linear strategies.
A discussion of different available themes might be useful. I've got:
Reanimator
Blink
Cheat fatties into play
Turboland
Mill Storm
Monoblack
Monowhite weenie
Tokens
2 Card combo (Tezz & Time Vault for example)
Artifacts matter
Blue tempo
Probably some others that I missed. I'd be interested in hearing from people that do support these archetypes and what cards specifically are important to support them.
Artifacts matter is easy, but it depends on how hard you want to push it. If you want to support affinity, add in lots of the non-tier 1 equipment along with multiples of artifact lands, frogmite, enforcer, and the blue dudes with affinity. For metalcraft its pretty much the same thing. Also Tezz 1 and 2.
Tokens: Any good generator. Doubling season and the newer one from Innistrad. Anthems.
2 card combo: Kiki Jiki.
Monoblack: Anything with lots of Bs in the cost. Cabal Coffers. Lake of the Dead. The other black mana flares. Spells that require you only pay black. The better spectres. The spells that do bad stuff equal to swamps you control. Urborg.
Turboland: Huge amounts of rampant growth effects plus huge fatties that nobody else is going to take, like ulamog or whatever.
Cheat fatties into play: Tooth and nail, green sun, that one in mirage, that one in visions, into the breach, sneak attack, reanimation spells.
Reanimator: Self-mill, entomb, lots of tutors, Buried alive, huge fat dudes, ways to discard from your hand for cheap (putrid imp, wild mongrel, et al). Spells that return dudes to play like necromancy, life/death, reanimate, buried alive, the white ones.
Blink: CITP effects, blink effects.
Mill: The mill card from Rise of Eldrazi.
Monowhite: Shade of Trokair, the remove from time spiral that flashbacks. Honor of the pure. Crusade.
Correct, Donald. I was talking about parasitic subthemes like a Goblin tribal theme that only works with cards in the same category.
A extreme excample would be ninjabob's list : http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=405582
Kojiro is right that having a synergistic deck with many beneficial interactions can be way better than a pile of cards where every one is better in a direct comparison in the vacuum.
If you would build a 5 cards deck out of 10 universally good cards, you have 252 viable decks.
However, if there are 2 3 card subthemes (where you need min 2 for a deck) and 4 universally good cards, you only end up with 44 decks that are good.
I think part of this discussion also includes using slightly less powerful/efficient in the abstract, but more focused (Storm combo) or more open-ended value (like Glimmerpoint Stag), as well as narrower than normal cards that enable strategies that would otherwise never even be a strategy without them in the cube.
For instance, Sneak Attack was brought up. It's fairly narrow at first glance, if you consider it a fattie/combo enabler. But it also supports the same kinds of card that go into blink decks. It essentially gives all of your creatures a very cheap evoke cost. And by removing something like a typical burn spell from your cube, you reduce ever so slightly the amount of burn every deck in the cube can draft, you also open up more deck options. The opportunity cost of removing the burn spell (a "boring" card), theoretically, is overshadowed by the entertainment value you get from being able to play Sneak Attack (a "fun" card) at all.
And even if you have another objectively weaker card in an archetype (like, say, Diabolic Servitude or even Dawn of the Dead), the redundancy they provide and the surrounding support cards dictate the decks you will find in the draft. The idea is that due to the nature of the format, where typically draft more cards than is necessary for a deck anyway, pushing archetypes in certain ways or including narrow cards will shape the metagame that forms around your cube design choices.
Another example shows up in the MTGO cube. "Big Mana" decks that played crazy spells weren't just successful because aggressive strategies were given suboptimal cards (and sure, they definitely were), but also only existed because cards like Dream Halls, Cruel Ultimatum, and Ulamog, the Endless Gyre were in the format to begin with.
Basically, you can make *any* theme in your cube a powerful one with the right support. It doesn't have to be narrow, like supporting Storm combos with rituals. We've already seen different cubes take different approaches to blue (how many creatures do you run in blue? It affects aggro/tempo decks quite a bit), and I think we've seen it with green too (heavy ramp theme vs. cheap green aggro creatures). I would not be surprised if the next colors we see divergence in are black (heavy control vs. combo vs. aggro support) and red (aggro vs. heavy artifact/combo support). White feels like the most stable as a wide open "do anything" color, though it still has the potential to be focused into particular archetypes as well.
It'll be funny, one day we may find a cube that focuses solely on green ramp, blue aggro and combo, black aggro, big red and combo, and white control. Just because the owner could.
For me, what makes cube different from regular limited is the better implementation of synergies, leading to more interesting decks. I feel that is not necessarily the case with all the often promoted cubes in this forum, especially those that promote twodrop.dec too much.
If that magical christmasland ever comes, we'll have to be careful not to throw in too many strategically narrow cards, else the picks get too easy. Once you've decided for an archetype, e.g. blink, you just go ahead and pick the best/only blink card in the booster, ignoring 75% of the booster. That would be bad. And my vision of a perfect cube environment would have these synergistic decks coexist with twodrop.dec, because I like to have this around because it's a completely different playstile, leading to diversity, and it forces the synergistic decks to care for the opponent as well.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I would venture that the problem of designing cubes as an environment (rather than a collection of cards) has not been the designers but the more casual players, who often expect one thing and are disappointed when they don't get it.
I'm glad to see that's changing.
As the demand changes, I think it would be more helpful if people started organizing their thoughts more in terms of themes than in terms of "this is my blue section." I'll point people to this post here (not mine), which lists a number of the cards required for an Enchantress subtheme in a cube. Though for the record I think there are several cards he is missing, and I exclude several of the bad/useless cards, in general I think this is a far more helpful method of communication than "card A is better than B, you should fix that."
Organizing in this way allows people to look more at what cards are out-of-theme or useless on their own, and consider forgotten cards, rather than simply choosing the "best" card for each slot.
I've been designing a cube along these lines, and quite frankly it is very difficult to strike the balance between including narrow archetype enablers and more broadly compelling (read: versatile, powerful) cards. Because cards that are both narrow and weak are unplayable, and because "weak" is relative, I've found that excluding some of the most powerful and versatile cards (Power, Swords to Plowshares, Jitte, Wheel of Fortune, etc) is wise because they render useless the less powerful, narrower cards. An inverse relationship between versatility and power is critical for a healthy environment. On the other hand, you really want to maximize the versatility of each card so that as many archetypes as possible can be supported, and maximize the power level because most players find more-powerful cubes more fun (because their decks are so good). Therein lies the rub!
Personally, being a spike type player, I like to keep the power level in my cube high. That doesn't mean I'm not open to supporting non-standard archetypes, but it does mean that I won't be running lots of cards that only see play in a specific archetype because doing that would significantly lower the power of the cube as a whole.
So what keeps the spikes happy yet does allow for specialized synergistic archetype? The answer is sufficient cards that fit the archetype without being exclusive to it, and archetype enablers that either have this same trait or are so powerful that their narrowness is justified. Examples would be Mirror Entity which is fine in the average aggro deck but superb in tokens, and Tezzeret the Seeker, which really needs his toys to play with but is the MVP in the right deck.
Cards of the first category are those cards a spike cube is running already. Occasionally, an emphasis can be made by adding a few more cards of the same type you're already running so the archetype you want to push has a strong enough core. Cards of the second category are cubeable only if enough synergistic cards of the first category are already in. So basically, just analyse which archetypes can be pushed for which enough (or almost enough) support is already in your cube. For those archetypes you want to push, strengthen the core if necessary and add some powerful enablers.
In a nutshell, this is our approach.
As a case study, green ramp. What we did to turn green ramp into a full-scale archetype:
- add some mana elves
- add tutors: Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, Natural Order
- add 1 top end fatty
Green ramp is currently one of the best archetypes around. Sometimes, the tutors are used in toolbox decks, which can also be really cool and powerful.
Tokens is a strange archetype in that it consists exclusively of cards from the 'cubeable on its own' category - I can't think of any narrow token-enabler card. Which is of course all to the good in my book.
Blink is a cool archetype whose core of synergistic cubeables is getting stronger and stronger, so maybe the time has come to add some narrow synergistic cards. We've recently added Venser, the Sojourner, but testing hasn't been very conclusive so far. As I mentioned in the AVR thread, maybe a cool idea would be to add Momentary Blink and Cloudshift as well and see what that does for blink. The advantage these cards have is that they can be plenty useful even without special synergy, just by saving creatures from removal or setting up surprise blocks.
Reanimator is a much discussed archetype that I've never seen working properly. Even in a dedicated deck, often it didn't win very often because you need to have the right cards at the right time, and a certain percentage of the time you'll have discard stuff and reanimation stuff but no fatty, or fatties and discard stuff but no reanimation, etc. For that reason, I'm hesitant to include ie extra looting and reanimation that wouldn't make the cube on their own merit just to push an archetype I've never seen work properly. If they'd only print another solid 2 or 3 cost reanimation spell... but that's probably not going to happen.
We do get mono-black archetypes every now and again, but I must say adding cards that are only good in mono-black does not appeal much to me. In fact, it doesn't feel like an archetype at all to me. We could add color-heavy stuff in every color and call it an archetype, but that would only result in a lower power level and more linear drafting.
Tokens is a strange archetype in that it consists exclusively of cards from the 'cubeable on its own' category - I can't think of any narrow token-enabler card. Which is of course all to the good in my book.
Blink is a cool archetype whose core of synergistic cubeables is getting stronger and stronger, so maybe the time has come to add some narrow synergistic cards. We've recently added Venser, the Sojourner, but testing hasn't been very conclusive so far. As I mentioned in the AVR thread, maybe a cool idea would be to add Momentary Blink and Cloudshift as well and see what that does for blink. The advantage these cards have is that they can be plenty useful even without special synergy, just by saving creatures from removal or setting up surprise blocks.
I can see adding some specific blink support to my cube soon, true. There is also that Venser Cabinet artifact in AVR.
Reanimator is a much discussed archetype that I've never seen working properly. Even in a dedicated deck, often it didn't win very often because you need to have the right cards at the right time, and a certain percentage of the time you'll have discard stuff and reanimation stuff but no fatty, or fatties and discard stuff but no reanimation, etc. For that reason, I'm hesitant to include ie extra looting and reanimation that wouldn't make the cube on their own merit just to push an archetype I've never seen work properly. If they'd only print another solid 2 or 3 cost reanimation spell... but that's probably not going to happen.
Reanimator just can't count on winning on turn two or three every game. It has to be prepared for a longer game, but it can do that with playing mostly cards that are generally good. I want to support it a bit more with narrow cards (Entomb, Buried Alive, Exhume and Living Death) and with how I select the general purpose cards, especially in blue (Frantic Search, Thirst for Knowledge; cards that are good enough on their own, but in my 450 list only make it because of the additional value in reanimator).
We do get mono-black archetypes every now and again, but I must say adding cards that are only good in mono-black does not appeal much to me. In fact, it doesn't feel like an archetype at all to me. We could add color-heavy stuff in every color and call it an archetype, but that would only result in a lower power level and more linear drafting.
I must say I'm not tempted to add any of those to our cube. In fact, I don't think tokens really *need* narrow archetype-specific cards. Now that I think of it, we did try Doubling Season but expensive cards that don't do anything on their own are just too weak.
I can see adding some specific blink support to my cube soon, true. There is also that Venser Cabinet artifact in AVR.
The piece of furniture is interesting, but still a 5-cost artifact that does nothing on its own. Venser at least builds up to a scary ultimate and can divert attacks if you happen to not have synergistic cards at hand, and can power out a surprise alpha strike in more tempo-oriented builds. I don't think the Cabinet can replace him, although swapping a gold card for a colorless one certainly has its appeal.
Reanimator just can't count on winning on turn two or three every game. It has to be prepared for a longer game, but it can do that with playing mostly cards that are generally good. I want to support it a bit more with narrow cards (Entomb, Buried Alive, Exhume and Living Death) and with how I select the general purpose cards, especially in blue (Frantic Search, Thirst for Knowledge; cards that are good enough on their own, but in my 450 list only make it because of the additional value in reanimator).
The problem was that these decks weren't more powerful than the average UB decks - it was just a theme in a deck that usually had a mediocre run. If I'm going to run sub-par archetype cards, I want to see the decks that go to the effort of making them work rewarded with good results. For green ramp, that worked out very well, and a deck with a strong tokens theme is usually quite powerful, but I don't think we've ever seen a reanimator deck mop up the field.
We do still run Living Death, which is a powerful card in its own right. Every time it makes a main deck, it just wins games. It requires good timing, but, well, so does Balance, and Armageddon. I can recommend it.
Are cards like Spectral Procession or Animate Dead good enough to run on their own, or should an effort be made to include other cards that synergize with them (like fatties for reanimation-type effects) or that enhance their effect (like anthem-effect for token producers)?
When does a mechanic or type of effect becomes a sub-theme? When 5% of the cards in a section provide this effect? 10%? 20%?
Thoughts?
These days I get less and less excited when I sit down to a random cube and find nothing but the usual players. There's no real incentive to build off-the-wall decks and drafting the same decks over and over again makes the cubing experience boring. Sure, that is some people's idea of a good time, but very few players in the play groups I run with share that sentiment.
A few years ago, I might open a pack that had some tribal card like Goblin Lackey or narrow archetype card like Sneak Attack and think, pssh, this cube is awful. Now, after drafting what could be thousands of drafts with 'normal' lists, I am finding disinterest in first-picking the same cards over and over again. If anything, theme-drafting makes opening that first pack more interesting. I am far more likely to first-pick a card like Dream Halls or Devastating Dreams in an unknown cube than something like Path to Exile or some random dork. Why? Because it's those off-the-wall decks that make cubing memorable. The kind of deck you show your teammates and are met with all the oohs and ahhs you get similar to when you saw your first cube draft deck.
I'm in no way advocating playing suboptimal lists. I'm not saying cut all your Jittes for wacky cards. Just be willing to flex your creative muscles a bit. Does your cube really need certain kinds of aggro or control decks? Do you really want white to have 6 Wrath effects? Does black really need 4 tutors? Does blue really need 20 Counterspells? Try to find ways to keep those 'normal' archetypes viable, but find reasons to make them fun. Give your control decks new kill conditions. Give your weenie decks new disruption. Give your mid-range decks new ways to take advantage of lots of mana. In the end, doing these things doesn't really change the fundamental vision of your cube, but helps to make for a memorable draft experience and will keep your group wanting to draft your cube again in the future.
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Frankly, it's something you have to test from a power, as well as an attitude standpoint. Does your group love raw power, or interaction? Do they want the cube more biased towards drafting enjoyment or playing enjoyment?
I think you can't break away from the aggro-midrange-control scheme in cube, combo is just not viable. What you can do, however, is to make specific aggro decks, specific midrange strategies and specific control styles viable. Token aggro is one possibility, maybe BG grindy rock is cool (somewhat of a midrange archetype), what about prison decks, why not mono black? (Man, I loved myself some mono B in the MTGO cube..) That way, your white-green aggro deck feels different from your black-red one and counterburn is very different from UW control. It's diversity within the archetype that is key here.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
It's going to drastically change the way we evaluate cards. A card like Restoration Angel has easy applications in many archetypes just on power alone, but how do you evaluate cards like Flickerwisp? Glimmerpoint Stag? At what point do these middle-of-the-road cards go from 'meh' to allstar? When do you start cutting staples to make room for thematic cards which do the same thing but less efficiently in a vacuum? Like I alluded to in my post above, I hope this time comes sooner than later. I can't wait to ask questions like, are you pushing Artifacts, big mana, tempo, or looters/Reanimation when asking about someone's blue section rather than argue the merits of the same staples and vanilla configurations ad nauseum. I believe this is the future of cubing.
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That's a very bright future that you paint, and I'm inclined to believe you.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
A couple of years ago when I was building my original Cube I spent a fair amount of time online looking at lists from other players. And those lists were wildly different from one another. Some cards were already known as being Cube worthy, but most of what I saw was unique in its own way. Now, being on the verge on building a second Cube and again looking online at different lists, I find that many of them are basically the same, and that differences are often a matter of budget and not design.
One of the worst thing a Commander player wants to hear is: "Which Commander are you playing? Oh, that guy. I have that deck home." As if there was only one way of building a deck with a certain Commander. And Cube right now has a similar feel to it, where it seems like many people are building the Cube and not their Cube.
But at the same time, you have the dedicated enthusiasts reacting to this trend, who are basically saying: "No, Cube building is a personal experience. Understand it and make it your own. Make your Cube your Cube." And I really hope that people listen to this message by digging deeper into the format, and not simply by trying to streamline it.
That being said, topic at hand:
The basic feedback I get here is that sub-themes allow for greater diversity on some level. Would you say that a Cube should use sub-themes from the get go, or build upon its original design, go with the good-stuff early on and build its themes/sub-themes as it goes, through playtesting and the general evolution process that most open Cubes go through?
I've only been into cubing for a couple of years now, and I have definitely seen this trend, as more and more cards get created and there is a certain upper bound to the typical power level of each expansion Wizards creates. They've been pretty consistent overall.
Seems pretty awesome.
My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter
Getting every subtheme right from the beginning is extremely hard. Furthermore, evaluating if reanimator works, for instance, is a lot harder if the rest of the decks are half-assed blink, ramp or madness decks, if no one actually "works" and sets a standard. Establishing a reasonable aggro-midrange-control environment first gives you a point of reference for subthemes. Also, I love to see cubes evolve.
There is really a "hive mind" kind of vibe here in this community. Practically every list is inspired by other lists, and with tools like eidolon's comparison thread or the Card Evaluation Thread it's easy to recognize and adapt to the norm. Don't get me wrong, not having to test every card by oneself is a huge boon, but the side-effect is, as you said, that cubes resemble each other. Use the power of the hive mind, but don't get trapped in it.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I expect myself and my playgroup to "evolve" the cube later. There will probebly some niche cards inserted once in a while to support certain archetypes, enable more synergies. I'm guessing most of the bombs will remain, but I expect my cube to evolve differently as with all cubes.
This sounds plausible. So far the biggest playgroup I've been able to arrange for my new 360-card Pauper Cube consists of 4 people. I hope to expand that in the future but most of my hobby-shop acquaintances would rather play Standard Constructed or EDH. Winchester drafting with a single friend seems to be the most common action my Cube sees. And it's tough to reliably draft any archetype more specific than, say, RW aggro or UB control when you're not doing a full draft from the standard-sized 360 card Cube. So I can see how we might tend to default to drafting generic good-stuff cards that work well on their own and packing our Cubes with the same.
Of course, if that's the case it may be possible to construct smaller and more focused Cubes that support more exotic archetypes even with 2- or 4-player drafts.
I really like playing the "stock" cube stables. I would love to have a cube that is made up of the cards from the cube comparison thread. I think it's cool that there's this list that everyone has been collectively working on and refining. Let's enjoy the fruit of that labor, and play the most powerful and dynamic limited format ever!
But that's not all! Just because I love playing the "stock" 360 list doesn't mean I have to forgo playing wacky and crazy lists. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's all about having fun, and it doesn't have to be one or the other. One guy in our group has a cube that's mostly older, pre-8th edition cards, and has almost no removal in it. It's really fun and there are always crazy cards and plays.
For my part, I'd eventually like to have the perfect stock list and then a second, smaller cube that has no duplicates from the first list. Pie to go around!
How do french-vanilla creatures and the same equipment and removal over and over again provide more options? Again, not saying they make for bad decks, they just don't paint the same picture.
On another note, I understand this thread getting less traffic because of spoilers, but it's a shame it's not getting more discussion.
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I believe a cube should provide a good mix of general purpose cards and powerful but narrow cards. I know that I want to include more support for sub-themes. It is not that easy, though, because at some point the whole thing degenerates to linear strategies.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Reanimator
Blink
Cheat fatties into play
Turboland
Mill
StormMonoblack
Monowhite weenie
Tokens
2 Card combo (Tezz & Time Vault for example)
Artifacts matter
Blue tempo
Probably some others that I missed. I'd be interested in hearing from people that do support these archetypes and what cards specifically are important to support them.
Madness
Self-Mill
Artifacts matter is easy, but it depends on how hard you want to push it. If you want to support affinity, add in lots of the non-tier 1 equipment along with multiples of artifact lands, frogmite, enforcer, and the blue dudes with affinity. For metalcraft its pretty much the same thing. Also Tezz 1 and 2.
Tokens: Any good generator. Doubling season and the newer one from Innistrad. Anthems.
2 card combo: Kiki Jiki.
Monoblack: Anything with lots of Bs in the cost. Cabal Coffers. Lake of the Dead. The other black mana flares. Spells that require you only pay black. The better spectres. The spells that do bad stuff equal to swamps you control. Urborg.
Turboland: Huge amounts of rampant growth effects plus huge fatties that nobody else is going to take, like ulamog or whatever.
Cheat fatties into play: Tooth and nail, green sun, that one in mirage, that one in visions, into the breach, sneak attack, reanimation spells.
Reanimator: Self-mill, entomb, lots of tutors, Buried alive, huge fat dudes, ways to discard from your hand for cheap (putrid imp, wild mongrel, et al). Spells that return dudes to play like necromancy, life/death, reanimate, buried alive, the white ones.
Blink: CITP effects, blink effects.
Mill: The mill card from Rise of Eldrazi.
Monowhite: Shade of Trokair, the remove from time spiral that flashbacks. Honor of the pure. Crusade.
I think part of this discussion also includes using slightly less powerful/efficient in the abstract, but more focused (Storm combo) or more open-ended value (like Glimmerpoint Stag), as well as narrower than normal cards that enable strategies that would otherwise never even be a strategy without them in the cube.
For instance, Sneak Attack was brought up. It's fairly narrow at first glance, if you consider it a fattie/combo enabler. But it also supports the same kinds of card that go into blink decks. It essentially gives all of your creatures a very cheap evoke cost. And by removing something like a typical burn spell from your cube, you reduce ever so slightly the amount of burn every deck in the cube can draft, you also open up more deck options. The opportunity cost of removing the burn spell (a "boring" card), theoretically, is overshadowed by the entertainment value you get from being able to play Sneak Attack (a "fun" card) at all.
And even if you have another objectively weaker card in an archetype (like, say, Diabolic Servitude or even Dawn of the Dead), the redundancy they provide and the surrounding support cards dictate the decks you will find in the draft. The idea is that due to the nature of the format, where typically draft more cards than is necessary for a deck anyway, pushing archetypes in certain ways or including narrow cards will shape the metagame that forms around your cube design choices.
Another example shows up in the MTGO cube. "Big Mana" decks that played crazy spells weren't just successful because aggressive strategies were given suboptimal cards (and sure, they definitely were), but also only existed because cards like Dream Halls, Cruel Ultimatum, and Ulamog, the Endless Gyre were in the format to begin with.
Basically, you can make *any* theme in your cube a powerful one with the right support. It doesn't have to be narrow, like supporting Storm combos with rituals. We've already seen different cubes take different approaches to blue (how many creatures do you run in blue? It affects aggro/tempo decks quite a bit), and I think we've seen it with green too (heavy ramp theme vs. cheap green aggro creatures). I would not be surprised if the next colors we see divergence in are black (heavy control vs. combo vs. aggro support) and red (aggro vs. heavy artifact/combo support). White feels like the most stable as a wide open "do anything" color, though it still has the potential to be focused into particular archetypes as well.
It'll be funny, one day we may find a cube that focuses solely on green ramp, blue aggro and combo, black aggro, big red and combo, and white control. Just because the owner could.
My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter
Imagine...
If that magical christmasland ever comes, we'll have to be careful not to throw in too many strategically narrow cards, else the picks get too easy. Once you've decided for an archetype, e.g. blink, you just go ahead and pick the best/only blink card in the booster, ignoring 75% of the booster. That would be bad. And my vision of a perfect cube environment would have these synergistic decks coexist with twodrop.dec, because I like to have this around because it's a completely different playstile, leading to diversity, and it forces the synergistic decks to care for the opponent as well.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I'm glad to see that's changing.
As the demand changes, I think it would be more helpful if people started organizing their thoughts more in terms of themes than in terms of "this is my blue section." I'll point people to this post here (not mine), which lists a number of the cards required for an Enchantress subtheme in a cube. Though for the record I think there are several cards he is missing, and I exclude several of the bad/useless cards, in general I think this is a far more helpful method of communication than "card A is better than B, you should fix that."
Organizing in this way allows people to look more at what cards are out-of-theme or useless on their own, and consider forgotten cards, rather than simply choosing the "best" card for each slot.
I've been designing a cube along these lines, and quite frankly it is very difficult to strike the balance between including narrow archetype enablers and more broadly compelling (read: versatile, powerful) cards. Because cards that are both narrow and weak are unplayable, and because "weak" is relative, I've found that excluding some of the most powerful and versatile cards (Power, Swords to Plowshares, Jitte, Wheel of Fortune, etc) is wise because they render useless the less powerful, narrower cards. An inverse relationship between versatility and power is critical for a healthy environment. On the other hand, you really want to maximize the versatility of each card so that as many archetypes as possible can be supported, and maximize the power level because most players find more-powerful cubes more fun (because their decks are so good). Therein lies the rub!
Personally, being a spike type player, I like to keep the power level in my cube high. That doesn't mean I'm not open to supporting non-standard archetypes, but it does mean that I won't be running lots of cards that only see play in a specific archetype because doing that would significantly lower the power of the cube as a whole.
So what keeps the spikes happy yet does allow for specialized synergistic archetype? The answer is sufficient cards that fit the archetype without being exclusive to it, and archetype enablers that either have this same trait or are so powerful that their narrowness is justified. Examples would be Mirror Entity which is fine in the average aggro deck but superb in tokens, and Tezzeret the Seeker, which really needs his toys to play with but is the MVP in the right deck.
Cards of the first category are those cards a spike cube is running already. Occasionally, an emphasis can be made by adding a few more cards of the same type you're already running so the archetype you want to push has a strong enough core. Cards of the second category are cubeable only if enough synergistic cards of the first category are already in. So basically, just analyse which archetypes can be pushed for which enough (or almost enough) support is already in your cube. For those archetypes you want to push, strengthen the core if necessary and add some powerful enablers.
In a nutshell, this is our approach.
As a case study, green ramp. What we did to turn green ramp into a full-scale archetype:
- add some mana elves
- add tutors: Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, Natural Order
- add 1 top end fatty
Green ramp is currently one of the best archetypes around. Sometimes, the tutors are used in toolbox decks, which can also be really cool and powerful.
Tokens is a strange archetype in that it consists exclusively of cards from the 'cubeable on its own' category - I can't think of any narrow token-enabler card. Which is of course all to the good in my book.
Blink is a cool archetype whose core of synergistic cubeables is getting stronger and stronger, so maybe the time has come to add some narrow synergistic cards. We've recently added Venser, the Sojourner, but testing hasn't been very conclusive so far. As I mentioned in the AVR thread, maybe a cool idea would be to add Momentary Blink and Cloudshift as well and see what that does for blink. The advantage these cards have is that they can be plenty useful even without special synergy, just by saving creatures from removal or setting up surprise blocks.
Reanimator is a much discussed archetype that I've never seen working properly. Even in a dedicated deck, often it didn't win very often because you need to have the right cards at the right time, and a certain percentage of the time you'll have discard stuff and reanimation stuff but no fatty, or fatties and discard stuff but no reanimation, etc. For that reason, I'm hesitant to include ie extra looting and reanimation that wouldn't make the cube on their own merit just to push an archetype I've never seen work properly. If they'd only print another solid 2 or 3 cost reanimation spell... but that's probably not going to happen.
We do get mono-black archetypes every now and again, but I must say adding cards that are only good in mono-black does not appeal much to me. In fact, it doesn't feel like an archetype at all to me. We could add color-heavy stuff in every color and call it an archetype, but that would only result in a lower power level and more linear drafting.
I can see adding some specific blink support to my cube soon, true. There is also that Venser Cabinet artifact in AVR.
Reanimator just can't count on winning on turn two or three every game. It has to be prepared for a longer game, but it can do that with playing mostly cards that are generally good. I want to support it a bit more with narrow cards (Entomb, Buried Alive, Exhume and Living Death) and with how I select the general purpose cards, especially in blue (Frantic Search, Thirst for Knowledge; cards that are good enough on their own, but in my 450 list only make it because of the additional value in reanimator).
I see it the same way.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
We do still run Living Death, which is a powerful card in its own right. Every time it makes a main deck, it just wins games. It requires good timing, but, well, so does Balance, and Armageddon. I can recommend it.