First off, Blue and black decks play equipment all the time.
Secondly, if the spell doesn't make the maindeck without two colors of mana, the card should be classified in a section where all other cards have the same requirements. Playing Souls in mono white, when you don't play it without access to black, means all of your white decks without black mana have one less card in their pool.
I felt a need for my hybrid section to satisfy my group who are always suggesting more gold cards, but I keep dropping my guild counts because too many float to the end of the draft. Technically there are more options for some colors but it is so minor. As far as ram-gang, G/X decks frequently have GGG on turn 2, let alone turn 3. For red, it is the most commonly drafted mono color. In R/x decks it is a decent 3 drop or it rides the bench. Not every card makes a deck if it is drafted.
But like any cards in the cube, if the end up last picked and not played they will get (axed. But while I am trying out the idea I am using a few that are pushing it. (Night veil Spectre, Unmake)
Yes, they play equipment all the time, but I've never considered either of those for a blue or black deck... Just like how other colours play artifacts and I wouldn't consider Shackles without blue. Yes it's an absurd comparison, but you get the idea.
A spell wanting you to include a second colour to be better, is not the same as a spell that can't be cast without that second colour. Just like asking how bad a cube or deck is that you're including a Souls without black, it is possible to ask how bad a cube or deck is that it can't easily have access to that black source without sacrificing anything for it in the long run. More so you're someone who organizes phyrexian mana cards like Phyrexian Metamorph in their respective colour sections. Most people would play Metamorph in a non-blue in the same frequency they would play it in a blue deck, so by the same token aren't you depriving blue a tool by including a colourless card in their section?
Never have I ever had an issue including a card with alternate flash back in a deck that only ran one source of that colour, nor have I ever felt any regret when the card sat in my graveyard without me drawing the "splash" colour. The spell happened once, the second casting is extra that makes the spell better. Complaining about it depriving decks a tool is like complaining that your Green Sun's Zenith is no longer a Rampant Growth because your Birds are in your opening hand.
You can cut gold cards and add in more hybrids without making a hybrid section. The advantage, is that you're not forced to squeeze in subpar hybrids in combinations that don't have them available, like you might be forced to do by creating a dedicated section for them.
..........
@Demagogue:
I classify all cards where they're intrinsically best. It has its pros and cons just like all other sorting methods. Like you said before, a lot of the reason why you play cards like Kird Ape in red is for the simplicity of the organization, and I agree with that. I just put everything where it's best, and move on. It has the advantages of a simple classification system, without a lot of the drawbacks associated with an "as printed" sorting method. My playgroup plays a lot of the Phybrid cards in decks with the matching colors available, so it makes sense for us to classify them that way. I could move them to colorless, where they get played sometimes, but it creates the same small imbalances there. Taking a tool away from blue by having Metamorph there isn't much better than having a "colorless" card that's intrinsically better with a specific color available.
The difference, is that sorting them that way (and sorting Souls in gold) creates more colorless cards and less gold cards in the cube, and in both cases, increases the number of cards that are easier to cast. Moving Kird Ape to red and removing a red card and moving Metamorph to colorless and adding a blue card both increase the quantity of harder to cast spells. By sorting them the way I do, it maximizes the number of colorless cards and reduces the number of gold cards; both are sorting decisions that increase the average playability of cards in the cube.
I felt a need for my hybrid section to satisfy my group who are always suggesting more gold cards, but I keep dropping my guild counts because too many float to the end of the draft. Technically there are more options for some colors but it is so minor. As far as ram-gang, G/X decks frequently have GGG on turn 2, let alone turn 3. For red, it is the most commonly drafted mono color. In R/x decks it is a decent 3 drop or it rides the bench. Not every card makes a deck if it is drafted.
But like any cards in the cube, if the end up last picked and not played they will get (axed. But while I am trying out the idea I am using a few that are pushing it. (Night veil Spectre, Unmake)
Instead of adding subpar hybrid cards to round out the sections just bump up the number of coloured cards available for the colours which are lacking in the good hybrid department.
For example, lets say you want to add two additional GW hybrids and two additional BR hybrids, technically this gives W, B, R, G access to two cards that U would not have access to. To offset this, simply add more blue cards. If you do this with the entire gold section you won't have to run cards like Nucklavee or Spitting Image to find ample hybrids.
Edit: For instance when I was doing my math, I counted each additional hybrid as 0.5 of colour X, and 0.5 of colour Y, and then summed all the colours together to figure out a total discrepancy and decide which coloured sections needed to be altered for proper balance.
I agree with that. I'm someone who has had a separate Hybrid section since my cube started, and I can say it's not hard to find at least 1 card in each combination you enjoy playing with, for whatever reason. The issue for me came when I was planning to expand to 2 cards per combination with the release of RtR introducing the first 5 and GTC introducing the next 5... Clearly this didn't pan out as well as I hoped and as such I decided I could expand it to include split cards that had two usable modes (such as Life/Death and Fire/Ice), and that if no card could be found for that combination I reserved the right to take that slot and convert it into a gold card for the pair... It's not exactly the fairest of trade offs, but better to be a little unfair than to run unneeded things.
Doing something like building a separate hybrid section requires willingness to compromise on occasion.
Instead of adding subpar hybrid cards to round out the sections just bump up the number of coloured cards available for the colours which are lacking in the good hybrid department.
For example, lets say you want to add two additional GW hybrids and two additional BR hybrids, technically this gives W, B, R, G access to two cards that U would not have access to. To offset this, simply add more blue cards. If you do this with the entire gold section you won't have to run cards like Nucklavee or Spitting Image to find ample hybrids.
Edit: For instance when I was doing my math, I counted each additional hybrid as 0.5 of colour X, and 0.5 of colour Y, and then summed all the colours together to figure out a total discrepancy and decide which coloured sections needed to be altered for proper balance.
That is actually what I am doing, which allows me to run an unbalanced hybrid section. But it does give me a chance to try a few cards I might not otherwise have tried. I agree that running sub par cards means you are too much a slave to your system. I just needed a way to fit more awesome golgari, selesnya, and boros cards in that were miles better than the worst cards in the strait colors.
Does anyone have an updated ranking of hybrids from every section. I recently upped the amount of hybrids in my cube, and am loving it, and would like to make sure I'm not missing any.
I don't think Deathrite Shaman is a "true" hybrid card. Without access to all three abilities, it loses a lot of its value. Especially without black.
How do you define a "true" hybrid? I play it in mono black or B/nongreen pox, which I can't do with Pernicious Deed, so for me it fits better in hybrid or black than gold.
I think trying to define what does not count as a hybrid is going to have to be left up to the individual cube designer for the purposes of this thread. I only start counting them as "gold" cards (generally) when they get above three colored hybrid mana (because I run tripe colored cards in mono sections). Obviously though, you have to look at every card individually, and how it fits into your overall cube goal.
I've seen Deathrite Shaman in decks without green and in decks with very little black, so it seems to play like a true hybrid. Obviously it's best if you have access to both, preferably with a good number of lands from the fetch/Strip Mine/Wasteland category.
Using the concept true/fake hybrids does make it rather hard to discuss them since it can be quite borderline (as DRS shows). It might be better to forget about the distinction and just treat all hybrids as equal. At the very least they're still easier to cast than gold cards even in a deck that has access to both colors.
Itt might be better to forget about the distinction and just treat all hybrids as equal. At the very least they're still easier to cast than gold cards even in a deck that has access to both colors.
Agreed. That's why I include them in the guild section. I don't have to make a subjective decision about "true/untrue" hybrid cards with the additional advantage of being able to cut narrow gold cards for easier to cast hybrid cards. All if the cards that are intrinsically best in a specific combination get grouped together. Easy as can be.
The system I am working with now has been fairly great thus far.
If the card is good enough that it will easily be run in either of two colors (think Kitchen Finks or Figure of Destiny) it gets run in the hybrid section. This section is unbalanced. If the card is good enough to run in one color without the second (but not the reverse) then it goes in that mono colored section (Duergar Hedge-Mage, Deathrite Shaman, Fulminator Mage). If it wouldn't be run unless you have access to both colors, then it must compete for a gold slot.
I have really enjoyed what it what it has done to the cube so far, and it has made drafting more interesting, especially when we have four or less players. More results forthcoming.
also, no 1 has mentioned any phyrexian mana cards but dont they often play as "pseudo-hybrids"? just wondering if they should be included in this conversation as well...
also, no 1 has mentioned any phyrexian mana cards but dont they often play as "pseudo-hybrids"? just wondering if they should be included in this conversation as well...
I think they generally are more colorless, which can certainly be classified with hybrid in your cube if you want, but I think should be left out of this discussion.
Off colored kicker cards are more similar, but already start out less flexible, and almost always need both colors to be worth a deck slot.
Deathrite shaman for me has been closer to a black card: No play so far in a Green (Nonblack) deck, but some play in a Black (Nongreen) deck, and some play in a golgari deck, so it's in my black section.
I dunno, maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I've always had signets in the artifact section. I don't really mind the more rampy color pairs having extra cards, so long as it's as small a difference as the 5 signets I run. I think I've seen a Blue White control deck play gruul signet anyways
Agreed. That's why I include them in the guild section. I don't have to make a subjective decision about "true/untrue" hybrid cards with the additional advantage of being able to cut narrow gold cards for easier to cast hybrid cards. All if the cards that are intrinsically best in a specific combination get grouped together. Easy as can be.
This is a fine method of making sure you don't have too many restrictive gold cards. A side effect of including hybrids in the cap put on a guild is that hybrids with a power level high enough to make the cut in your cube get excluded if the power level of the gold cards in their guild are strong enough.
The system I am working with now has been fairly great thus far.
If the card is good enough that it will easily be run in either of two colors (think Kitchen Finks or Figure of Destiny) it gets run in the hybrid section. This section is unbalanced. If the card is good enough to run in one color without the second (but not the reverse) then it goes in that mono colored section (Duergar Hedge-Mage, Deathrite Shaman, Fulminator Mage). If it wouldn't be run unless you have access to both colors, then it must compete for a gold slot.
I have really enjoyed what it what it has done to the cube so far, and it has made drafting more interesting, especially when we have four or less players. More results forthcoming.
Really great way to deal with hybrids. I like having my card structure less up to interpretation, but as an alternative it really is quite nice. Makes sense on all levels, and quite clean in application. Like a Hybrid of Hybrid classification hehehe.
With that search, you'll get some Alara Reborn cards in addition to your results. You can fix that by searching specifically for cards of the color you're looking for and excluding unselected colors...
I personally consider Phyrexian Mana to be in the same space as hybrid mana.
I have been thinking of making a new section in the organization of my cube. Currently I have 5 colors, artifact, land, & gold sections.
I have been toying with the idea of a ninth section.
Basically an alternate cost section.
Putting in Phyrexian mana, Hybrid mana, the 2 colorless or one color hybrid, Split cards, and any other card I would want that has alternate costs would be put in this section.
I haven't done it yet, my group is still discussing if including off color flashback/kickers in this section would be the way to go or not. (We are leaning at not)
The problem I had in the past with having just a hybrid section, was lack of good cards in certian colors to balance, but including other alternate costed cards I think will help with this problem.
I personally consider Phyrexian Mana to be in the same space as hybrid mana.
I have been thinking of making a new section in the organization of my cube. Currently I have 5 colors, artifact, land, & gold sections.
I have been toying with the idea of a ninth section.
Basically an alternate cost section.
Putting in Phyrexian mana, Hybrid mana, the 2 colorless or one color hybrid, Split cards, and any other card I would want that has alternate costs would be put in this section.
I haven't done it yet, my group is still discussing if including off color flashback/kickers in this section would be the way to go or not. (We are leaning at not)
It depends on why you are doing this. If you, as I suspect, want to put them in this section because these cards are too flexible (from a mana standpoint) to be considered mono, then leaving out the off color kickers and flashback cards is the right call, as they are at least as narrow as a monocolored card.
It depends on why you are doing this. If you, as I suspect, want to put them in this section because these cards are too flexible (from a mana standpoint) to be considered mono, then leaving out the off color kickers and flashback cards is the right call, as they are at least as narrow as a monocolored card.
That is the main reason why we are thinking of making this new section.
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Secondly, if the spell doesn't make the maindeck without two colors of mana, the card should be classified in a section where all other cards have the same requirements. Playing Souls in mono white, when you don't play it without access to black, means all of your white decks without black mana have one less card in their pool.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
But like any cards in the cube, if the end up last picked and not played they will get (axed. But while I am trying out the idea I am using a few that are pushing it. (Night veil Spectre, Unmake)
A spell wanting you to include a second colour to be better, is not the same as a spell that can't be cast without that second colour. Just like asking how bad a cube or deck is that you're including a Souls without black, it is possible to ask how bad a cube or deck is that it can't easily have access to that black source without sacrificing anything for it in the long run. More so you're someone who organizes phyrexian mana cards like Phyrexian Metamorph in their respective colour sections. Most people would play Metamorph in a non-blue in the same frequency they would play it in a blue deck, so by the same token aren't you depriving blue a tool by including a colourless card in their section?
Never have I ever had an issue including a card with alternate flash back in a deck that only ran one source of that colour, nor have I ever felt any regret when the card sat in my graveyard without me drawing the "splash" colour. The spell happened once, the second casting is extra that makes the spell better. Complaining about it depriving decks a tool is like complaining that your Green Sun's Zenith is no longer a Rampant Growth because your Birds are in your opening hand.
..........
@Demagogue:
I classify all cards where they're intrinsically best. It has its pros and cons just like all other sorting methods. Like you said before, a lot of the reason why you play cards like Kird Ape in red is for the simplicity of the organization, and I agree with that. I just put everything where it's best, and move on. It has the advantages of a simple classification system, without a lot of the drawbacks associated with an "as printed" sorting method. My playgroup plays a lot of the Phybrid cards in decks with the matching colors available, so it makes sense for us to classify them that way. I could move them to colorless, where they get played sometimes, but it creates the same small imbalances there. Taking a tool away from blue by having Metamorph there isn't much better than having a "colorless" card that's intrinsically better with a specific color available.
The difference, is that sorting them that way (and sorting Souls in gold) creates more colorless cards and less gold cards in the cube, and in both cases, increases the number of cards that are easier to cast. Moving Kird Ape to red and removing a red card and moving Metamorph to colorless and adding a blue card both increase the quantity of harder to cast spells. By sorting them the way I do, it maximizes the number of colorless cards and reduces the number of gold cards; both are sorting decisions that increase the average playability of cards in the cube.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Instead of adding subpar hybrid cards to round out the sections just bump up the number of coloured cards available for the colours which are lacking in the good hybrid department.
For example, lets say you want to add two additional GW hybrids and two additional BR hybrids, technically this gives W, B, R, G access to two cards that U would not have access to. To offset this, simply add more blue cards. If you do this with the entire gold section you won't have to run cards like Nucklavee or Spitting Image to find ample hybrids.
Edit: For instance when I was doing my math, I counted each additional hybrid as 0.5 of colour X, and 0.5 of colour Y, and then summed all the colours together to figure out a total discrepancy and decide which coloured sections needed to be altered for proper balance.
My Tribal Cube
EDH Decks
GOmnath, Locus of ManaG
WUBSen TripletsWUB
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG
Doing something like building a separate hybrid section requires willingness to compromise on occasion.
That is actually what I am doing, which allows me to run an unbalanced hybrid section. But it does give me a chance to try a few cards I might not otherwise have tried. I agree that running sub par cards means you are too much a slave to your system. I just needed a way to fit more awesome golgari, selesnya, and boros cards in that were miles better than the worst cards in the strait colors.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
How do you define a "true" hybrid? I play it in mono black or B/nongreen pox, which I can't do with Pernicious Deed, so for me it fits better in hybrid or black than gold.
I think trying to define what does not count as a hybrid is going to have to be left up to the individual cube designer for the purposes of this thread. I only start counting them as "gold" cards (generally) when they get above three colored hybrid mana (because I run tripe colored cards in mono sections). Obviously though, you have to look at every card individually, and how it fits into your overall cube goal.
I agree that an overall list is better than a section list, but was looking for more like a top 25, since I already run all of these at 500.
Using the concept true/fake hybrids does make it rather hard to discuss them since it can be quite borderline (as DRS shows). It might be better to forget about the distinction and just treat all hybrids as equal. At the very least they're still easier to cast than gold cards even in a deck that has access to both colors.
Agreed. That's why I include them in the guild section. I don't have to make a subjective decision about "true/untrue" hybrid cards with the additional advantage of being able to cut narrow gold cards for easier to cast hybrid cards. All if the cards that are intrinsically best in a specific combination get grouped together. Easy as can be.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
If the card is good enough that it will easily be run in either of two colors (think Kitchen Finks or Figure of Destiny) it gets run in the hybrid section. This section is unbalanced. If the card is good enough to run in one color without the second (but not the reverse) then it goes in that mono colored section (Duergar Hedge-Mage, Deathrite Shaman, Fulminator Mage). If it wouldn't be run unless you have access to both colors, then it must compete for a gold slot.
I have really enjoyed what it what it has done to the cube so far, and it has made drafting more interesting, especially when we have four or less players. More results forthcoming.
Burning-Tree Emissary
Judge's Familiar
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Shattering Blow
Fulminator Mage - which of course Phantizle alrdy mentioned
also, no 1 has mentioned any phyrexian mana cards but dont they often play as "pseudo-hybrids"? just wondering if they should be included in this conversation as well...
I think they generally are more colorless, which can certainly be classified with hybrid in your cube if you want, but I think should be left out of this discussion.
Off colored kicker cards are more similar, but already start out less flexible, and almost always need both colors to be worth a deck slot.
I dunno, maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I've always had signets in the artifact section. I don't really mind the more rampy color pairs having extra cards, so long as it's as small a difference as the 5 signets I run. I think I've seen a Blue White control deck play gruul signet anyways
This is interesting. I count green ramp cards as green, so blue signets as blue is a possibility.
Edit: Since this has come up a bit over a few different, should we maybe start a "categorization" thread?
Likewise, the system I run is perfect for me.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Really great way to deal with hybrids. I like having my card structure less up to interpretation, but as an alternative it really is quite nice. Makes sense on all levels, and quite clean in application. Like a Hybrid of Hybrid classification hehehe.
My 450 Cube
Mana Cost >= [hybrid combination I'm looking for's mana symbol.]
The nomenclature is {X/Y}, but if you have the symbols in the wrong order, you won't get the results you're looking for.
{G/W} {W/U} {U/B} {B/R} {R/G}
{R/W} {W/B} {B/G} {G/U} {U/R}
Base search term translation: mana>={G/U}
With that search, you'll get some Alara Reborn cards in addition to your results. You can fix that by searching specifically for cards of the color you're looking for and excluding unselected colors...
Search: c!ug mana>={G/U}
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
I have been thinking of making a new section in the organization of my cube. Currently I have 5 colors, artifact, land, & gold sections.
I have been toying with the idea of a ninth section.
Basically an alternate cost section.
Putting in Phyrexian mana, Hybrid mana, the 2 colorless or one color hybrid, Split cards, and any other card I would want that has alternate costs would be put in this section.
I haven't done it yet, my group is still discussing if including off color flashback/kickers in this section would be the way to go or not. (We are leaning at not)
The problem I had in the past with having just a hybrid section, was lack of good cards in certian colors to balance, but including other alternate costed cards I think will help with this problem.
It depends on why you are doing this. If you, as I suspect, want to put them in this section because these cards are too flexible (from a mana standpoint) to be considered mono, then leaving out the off color kickers and flashback cards is the right call, as they are at least as narrow as a monocolored card.
That is the main reason why we are thinking of making this new section.