I think many Hybrid cards or cards with another color in their text should be classified where applicable. I give some examples. Graverobber Spider, although green, has a very relevant black ability. Kird Ape is terrible without being Gruul. Ethersworn Adjudicator is Esper. The most recent Soulfire Grand Master is Jeskai, but I won't fault anyone for putting it in Boros. Figure of Destiny can fit in Red, White, or boros. I call it flexibility; some call it greediness. It depends how much goodness one wants to squeeze in cube.
I think as more and more sets are introduced, cubers are gonna give in sooner or later to gold cards. This is something I've foreseen for years. It's been coming. There're bound to be gold/hybrid cards printed in almost every set (especially the big ones) because Wizards have to cater to color archetypes in limited. And limited cards in turn becomes potential for cube.
The dynamics have changed, and so have people's tastes. Some multicolor cards are so good that they're become hard to ignore.
I don't entirely agree with this. True gold cards (that require you to play ALL of their colors) have an inbuilt weakness that will always make them less desirable for cube. This is why even today, our 470 still has only 34 cards in the multi-color section (including hybrids). The quantity of gold cards printed does not matter, to keep the cube environment healthy we MUST restrict the amount of gold cards no matter how big the pool we get to choose from.
What does matter, and here I do agree with you, is flexibility because this determines how easily a card gets included in a deck. Cards like Soulfire Grand Masterseem tri-colored, but they're not: instead of being harder to include, Soulfire is actually more likely to see play than random azorius or boros cards because it can be either. So it's basically a different type of hybrid.
So the new 'ease of inclusion' order is actually this:
As for how to classify, those cards that rely on their activated ability will be in the multi-colored section for us (which is unbalanced, so we don't worry about 'cycles'). Those cards that don't need their activated ability to see play (such as Brutal Hordechief) might be included in a mono-colored section.
I'm on the fence about Warden of the First Tree. It's similar to Wild Nacatl in its requirements, which we currently classify in green because it fits in the majority of green aggro decks. Not sure where Warden will end up (and whether Nacatl will stay where it is), we'll have to discuss this.
I have a flex section specifically for cards like this, so it's fairly easy for me.
If I had a more traditional cube, I'd put them in their respective mono color section. For me, classification is all about intent. For example, we seperate gold cards because they can really only (or mostly) be played in those two colors, so they are (again mostly) less flexible than mono cards.
So let's look at something like Yasova Dragonclaw. I have run it as a straight green card. I have run it in decks with literally 2-3 red/blue sources. I have run it in blue decks that barely splash green. Color wise, the card is more flexible than a card that would cost 1GGG, so I really think its home would be mono.
Having them compete with wedge cards is the worst idea imo (for my cube at least) for the same reason gold anf hybrid cards shouldn't compete. I like to keep cards of similar flexibility in similar sections, or else the comparisons become wonky. I wouldn't have a five color card compete for an artifact spot (as an extreme example).
Note, I have a cube group of 3-6 people most nights, so we do a lot of smaller drafts that reward flexibility, so it is possible I value it too high.
I have my preference, which is to run the cards where they are best at, but overall, I don't think the exact classification matters much. There are just a few points that are important:
1) Cards have to be picked and played regularly, so there shouldn't be too many cards with difficult casting costs. This applies to cards like Mantis Rider just as much as it does to cards like Necropotence. A few of them are okay, if (and only if) decks that can cast them get drafted regularly.
2) Colors should be balanced, so that no color feels better just because there more cards of it in the pool. I don't think exact numbers are important though, it just needs to be roughly the same.
3) The cube should have a structure, so that it stays manageable, so we can talk about it, compare it to other cubes with similarly sized sections, etc.
Whether you put a few hybrid cards in the mono sections, or in the multicolor sections, or a flex section, doesn't really hurt either way.
Hybrid cards in general can fit in multiple colors, so I just put them in the color they fit the most, or distribute them evenly if there are multiple. If there are about 10-20 hybrid cards , I put 2-4 of them in each color. It's not a big deal if the colors have 2-3 cards of imbalance, gameplay-wise.
But these monocolor cards with 2 off-color activation are special. Technically, you need to play these colors to get the full effect, but if your cube has enough mana fixing, it's safe enough to assume the player will have access to that mana eventually. Worst case, these are mostly ok creatures, so the abilities are just gravy. That means the color requirement is mostly the mana cost. Mono-color represents that better then sticking them in sultai or 33% golgari/33% dimir/33% simic
if your cube has enough mana fixing, it's safe enough to assume the player will have access to that mana eventually.
I don't think this is accurate. If your cube has the proper amount of mana fixing, every red deck shouldn't automatically have access to :symwb::symwb: all the time (for Alesha, for example). The color requirement is both the mana cost and the activation cost, on all of those creatures. And I don't think they should be sorted in a way that ignores the color demands of the card.
This i problematic too but I have been thinking about them as the guild of their activation. Alesha is Orzhov and tasigur is simic. You just t have to splash r or b to play them.
This seems like mostly a bookkeeping issue to me, but since I'm mostly cutting non-hybrid gold cards for the tribrids I'm categorizing them under the guild the card that was cut for them came from. Looks like I'm in the minority on this one, though.
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I ended up cutting one card from each guild and throwing Tasigur, Yasova, Soulfire, Alesha, the Warden and the Hordechief in a slush section where I keep my hybrid cards. Maybe over time I'll designate them to a specific guild section if testing proves them to be more inflexible than I originally thought, but for now I'm happy to not get too OCD about it.
I classify must of them in mono-color except if the power level drop too much without another one specific color. Let's see this in details.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a really good delve black creature. It also have a bonus ability that become huge if you're using either green or blue. So it goes in black without question because it's great even in mono black.
Alesha, Who Smileys at Death is ok as a mono-red cars but become immense whit either white black or white. So it goes into red due to his versatile potential as a RB or RW card.
Yasova, Dragon is a solid human 3-drop with great stats and keyword. With either red or blue, he unlocks a very useful ability. So it goes in green for being versatile in terms of color, while being a RG or UG card.
Soulfire Grand Master in counterpart doesn't bring much to the board if you're not playing any burn. Plus, I think that his bonus ability seems a bit narrow and too much mana dependant so it doesn't make him enough versatile to be count only as a white card. You'll need at least red to make it right so it could become something else than a lifelink bear. So that's why I classify it as a Boros card.
So for the ones I use in my cube, I consider SGM the only one that's not enough versatile to be class as a mono colored card. All the others, IMO, worth it even if you only play there casting cost color or at least, like Alesha or Yasova, does have a easy to active bonus ability.
IMO, none of them are cubeworthy without access to the additional colors and I doubt I would ever run them in a deck that couldn't use their abilties (unless my draft went completely in the crapper and I was struggling for playables). Therefore, they get run as tricolor cards. In my next update, I'm moving to the unbalanced tricolored section and just running the best cards in that section.
What I meant is that they are versatile enough not to be off sure classify as tri-color cards.
Each of them can be played in both guild they connect with. Tasigur for example doesn't absolutly need blue if you have already have green. That's what I mean by versatilty. Yes, some do have a power level that seems fair enough, but that is not enough to be consider mono-color one. I certainly missexpress myself a bit. What I was trying to say is that if the bonus ability is simple to use, like the 3 mention in my previous post, you can easily put them in a mono-colored section to balance the chart because they aren't restricted to either XY, YZ or XYZ color mix. SGM for his part is so bad as a white card and does have a very expensive and dependant bonus so it needs to be class as Boros at least.
But I agreed that this is a pretty subjective point of view. But thread was asking for a charting idea, so I shared mine.
How many G/ mana symbols does it take for you to consider something dual colored.
Like the Overbeing of myth cycle is considered multicolor by pretty much everyone. but kitchen finks is considered monocolor by a lot of people.
I personnally like to class cards that have 2 hybrid mana symbol or less in a mono colored section (that I subjectivly choose and pick) to give some extra space to the real gold cards in the multicolor section.
For example, I class Rakdos Cackler in red and Dryad Militant in white becaure this is the color where they has the most chances of getting played and because those color desperatly needs more 1-drop on paper. I also class Kitchen Finks in green, where lifegain pay the most, and Stillmoon Cavalier, even if he's a zombie, into white because of the actual congestion in the black 3-drop section.
There's a bunch of little factors out there that help decide in which color I should chart the hybrid card and it works great so far in term of balance.
EDIT : For his part, I think Figure of Destiny works a bit different because he needs RRR, WWW, WRR or WWR to activate his second ability and you're most likely to be able to do in a 2-colors deck. However, he's actually quite good with only a R or W. For that reason, I might actually move it to red or white some day if I feel I should readd Boros Charm, that I don't miss that much for now, or any other new Boros card.
I honestly don't think it matters that much where you put a lot of these cards in the grand scheme of things. Unless you are really running a super high number of multi-colored cards or have a horribly unbalanced configuration going on, it won't make that big of a difference. I think we tend to fret too much over things like this. I can certainly sympathize with the OCD aspect of this whole balancing act, but it's a bit like stepping on cracks in the sidewalk.
I try and error on the side of flexibility first and foremost and do my best to ignore the OCD impulses. Someone alluded to this in a prior post but if a card can be played in more decks (whether technically multi-colored or not), then it really shouldn't be competing for a narrow slot in your cube (namely the "multi-colored/guild section"). Most of the hybrids fall into this category (except maybe the triple CC ones). For example, running Kitchen Finks in a guild section makes little sense to me since it is just as likely to be run in Gx or Wx as it is in GW (and that card is better than many mono W and mono G options at 3 CC). The same is true of Rakdos Cackler, which I put in either red or black depending on where I have a spot for it (usually red). Not running Cackler because there is no room in your Rakdos section is IMO a huge mistake. As is excluding a great RG gold card just because of the devil. No one would think twice about running an R version of Cackler and then running 3 (or however many) Rakdos gold cards. And yet somehow because cackler is R/B there's this desire to cut an RG card for it. Why?
Cards like Soulfire Grandmaster and it's brethren are probably closer to mono-colored cards than guild cards as well. While you can argue that a mono white card can go in any Wx deck, this is actually not a true statement for a great number of cards that we run in cube. Many mono colored cards are more narrow than Soulfire. You aren't going to run Wrath of God for example in most WR or WG decks (neither deck in my cube has ever played that card in over two years of drafts). It really only goes in WU and WB. Soulfire can be run in the same number of combinations technically (WR and WU), so why would I put that in a wedge/guild section?
Up until the lastest draft I was running the FRF hybrids in the respective single color sections (the same for Wild Nacatl and Rattleclaw Mystic), but now I'll be moving them into an unbalanced three-colored section with the five true gold cards already there. That'll involve trimming the section down a bit.
You aren't going to run Wrath of God for example in most WR or WG decks (neither deck in my cube has ever played that card in over two years of drafts). It really only goes in WU and WB.
This isn't true at all. You can play Wrath of God in any white deck you want. It's a great card for Boros and Selesnya control decks. They may be less common, but they're still played, and there's nothing about the Wrath that prohibits this from happening.
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Soulfire can be run in the same number of combinations technically (WR and WU), so why would I put that in a wedge/guild section?
Because there's an intrinsic quality to the card that requires access to non-white mana in order to make the card work. And it's not good without access to those colors. Meaning that it's not a white card in practice.
I also doesn't agreed on the Wrath of God statement. It goes in any white deck, even in mono white if you are having enough suitable stuff to control the board early and finish the game later on. WR deck plays very often in my cube. Wildfire decks, for example, are going to need those type of effect to establish their strategies in the first 1-5 turns before they could board out a Planeswalker or a fatty that survive to Devastation/Wildfire. In fact, it really depends on how you build up your cube and manage the sections.
But I agreed that the hybrid card doesn't really need to be considered as multicolor. By sorting them that way, you are missing some nice gold cards that are more very cubeable. For his part, Soulfire Grand Master is a Boros card at least. Without red, the card is so bad that it becomes not playable at all. With blue it becames okay, but it definitly needs red (and burns) IMO.
The construction of the cube has a lot to do with classification. For me, since I can play aggro/tempo, midrange or control in any of the color combinations, it makes sense to classify cards where their color identity allows for ideal play. And cards like Dryad Militant need to be in Selesnya because we play aggro in both of those colors. For people that will only use that card in their white decks, classifying it as a white card makes more sense for them. Players that don't play certain theaters of decks within some of their colors can sort hybrids into the only colors they'll see play in without disrupting any color balance. Maybe having universally playable theaters just makes classification clearer and easier for me than it does for other cube managers. In the end, sort cards how they make sense for you and your cube's composition. For me, it's clear that color identity is important, since cards of every color can be played with any other combination of colors for any theater.
My green section play aggro as well but don't run as many aggressive 1-drop as white does and tend to be more a support color for those type of strategies. That means that my green land is more likely to comes up by turn 2 or turn 3 and going to be used to splash for a Selesnya gold card or even later on for a 4-drop fatty. And even Loam Lion point into that direction.
In fact, I really like W/g aggro deck or variant, but I actually doesn't like very much the 1-drop package green offers. I've already tried Experiment One, Wolfbitten Capture and Wild Dogs and ending up cutting them because I don't find them that stable. By processing like this, my green section is certainly more midrange and rampy though. But the W/g and R/g aggro shells are still pretty strong, while using more often white and red 1-drop.
With that said, I don't think I'm affecting that much my cube's archetypes by classify Dryad Militant in the white section.
EDIT : Also, green 2-drop aren't that much aggro-oriented, making the color becoming even more a late splash. Voice of Resurgence and Qasali Pridemage are nice but also white.
Lol!
What does matter, and here I do agree with you, is flexibility because this determines how easily a card gets included in a deck. Cards like Soulfire Grand Master seem tri-colored, but they're not: instead of being harder to include, Soulfire is actually more likely to see play than random azorius or boros cards because it can be either. So it's basically a different type of hybrid.
So the new 'ease of inclusion' order is actually this:
colorless
bi-color hybrids
mono-colored
...
new style tri-color hybrids
bi-colored gold
...
...
...
tri-colored gold
As for how to classify, those cards that rely on their activated ability will be in the multi-colored section for us (which is unbalanced, so we don't worry about 'cycles'). Those cards that don't need their activated ability to see play (such as Brutal Hordechief) might be included in a mono-colored section.
I'm on the fence about Warden of the First Tree. It's similar to Wild Nacatl in its requirements, which we currently classify in green because it fits in the majority of green aggro decks. Not sure where Warden will end up (and whether Nacatl will stay where it is), we'll have to discuss this.
If I had a more traditional cube, I'd put them in their respective mono color section. For me, classification is all about intent. For example, we seperate gold cards because they can really only (or mostly) be played in those two colors, so they are (again mostly) less flexible than mono cards.
So let's look at something like Yasova Dragonclaw. I have run it as a straight green card. I have run it in decks with literally 2-3 red/blue sources. I have run it in blue decks that barely splash green. Color wise, the card is more flexible than a card that would cost 1GGG, so I really think its home would be mono.
Having them compete with wedge cards is the worst idea imo (for my cube at least) for the same reason gold anf hybrid cards shouldn't compete. I like to keep cards of similar flexibility in similar sections, or else the comparisons become wonky. I wouldn't have a five color card compete for an artifact spot (as an extreme example).
Note, I have a cube group of 3-6 people most nights, so we do a lot of smaller drafts that reward flexibility, so it is possible I value it too high.
1) Cards have to be picked and played regularly, so there shouldn't be too many cards with difficult casting costs. This applies to cards like Mantis Rider just as much as it does to cards like Necropotence. A few of them are okay, if (and only if) decks that can cast them get drafted regularly.
2) Colors should be balanced, so that no color feels better just because there more cards of it in the pool. I don't think exact numbers are important though, it just needs to be roughly the same.
3) The cube should have a structure, so that it stays manageable, so we can talk about it, compare it to other cubes with similarly sized sections, etc.
Whether you put a few hybrid cards in the mono sections, or in the multicolor sections, or a flex section, doesn't really hurt either way.
But these monocolor cards with 2 off-color activation are special. Technically, you need to play these colors to get the full effect, but if your cube has enough mana fixing, it's safe enough to assume the player will have access to that mana eventually. Worst case, these are mostly ok creatures, so the abilities are just gravy. That means the color requirement is mostly the mana cost. Mono-color represents that better then sticking them in sultai or 33% golgari/33% dimir/33% simic
I don't think this is accurate. If your cube has the proper amount of mana fixing, every red deck shouldn't automatically have access to :symwb::symwb: all the time (for Alesha, for example). The color requirement is both the mana cost and the activation cost, on all of those creatures. And I don't think they should be sorted in a way that ignores the color demands of the card.
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Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a really good delve black creature. It also have a bonus ability that become huge if you're using either green or blue. So it goes in black without question because it's great even in mono black.
Alesha, Who Smileys at Death is ok as a mono-red cars but become immense whit either white black or white. So it goes into red due to his versatile potential as a RB or RW card.
Yasova, Dragon is a solid human 3-drop with great stats and keyword. With either red or blue, he unlocks a very useful ability. So it goes in green for being versatile in terms of color, while being a RG or UG card.
Soulfire Grand Master in counterpart doesn't bring much to the board if you're not playing any burn. Plus, I think that his bonus ability seems a bit narrow and too much mana dependant so it doesn't make him enough versatile to be count only as a white card. You'll need at least red to make it right so it could become something else than a lifelink bear. So that's why I classify it as a Boros card.
So for the ones I use in my cube, I consider SGM the only one that's not enough versatile to be class as a mono colored card. All the others, IMO, worth it even if you only play there casting cost color or at least, like Alesha or Yasova, does have a easy to active bonus ability.
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Each of them can be played in both guild they connect with. Tasigur for example doesn't absolutly need blue if you have already have green. That's what I mean by versatilty. Yes, some do have a power level that seems fair enough, but that is not enough to be consider mono-color one. I certainly missexpress myself a bit. What I was trying to say is that if the bonus ability is simple to use, like the 3 mention in my previous post, you can easily put them in a mono-colored section to balance the chart because they aren't restricted to either XY, YZ or XYZ color mix. SGM for his part is so bad as a white card and does have a very expensive and dependant bonus so it needs to be class as Boros at least.
But I agreed that this is a pretty subjective point of view. But thread was asking for a charting idea, so I shared mine.
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How many G/ mana symbols does it take for you to consider something dual colored.
Like the Overbeing of myth cycle is considered multicolor by pretty much everyone. but kitchen finks is considered monocolor by a lot of people.
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For example, I class Rakdos Cackler in red and Dryad Militant in white becaure this is the color where they has the most chances of getting played and because those color desperatly needs more 1-drop on paper. I also class Kitchen Finks in green, where lifegain pay the most, and Stillmoon Cavalier, even if he's a zombie, into white because of the actual congestion in the black 3-drop section.
There's a bunch of little factors out there that help decide in which color I should chart the hybrid card and it works great so far in term of balance.
EDIT : For his part, I think Figure of Destiny works a bit different because he needs RRR, WWW, WRR or WWR to activate his second ability and you're most likely to be able to do in a 2-colors deck. However, he's actually quite good with only a R or W. For that reason, I might actually move it to red or white some day if I feel I should readd Boros Charm, that I don't miss that much for now, or any other new Boros card.
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I try and error on the side of flexibility first and foremost and do my best to ignore the OCD impulses. Someone alluded to this in a prior post but if a card can be played in more decks (whether technically multi-colored or not), then it really shouldn't be competing for a narrow slot in your cube (namely the "multi-colored/guild section"). Most of the hybrids fall into this category (except maybe the triple CC ones). For example, running Kitchen Finks in a guild section makes little sense to me since it is just as likely to be run in Gx or Wx as it is in GW (and that card is better than many mono W and mono G options at 3 CC). The same is true of Rakdos Cackler, which I put in either red or black depending on where I have a spot for it (usually red). Not running Cackler because there is no room in your Rakdos section is IMO a huge mistake. As is excluding a great RG gold card just because of the devil. No one would think twice about running an R version of Cackler and then running 3 (or however many) Rakdos gold cards. And yet somehow because cackler is R/B there's this desire to cut an RG card for it. Why?
Cards like Soulfire Grandmaster and it's brethren are probably closer to mono-colored cards than guild cards as well. While you can argue that a mono white card can go in any Wx deck, this is actually not a true statement for a great number of cards that we run in cube. Many mono colored cards are more narrow than Soulfire. You aren't going to run Wrath of God for example in most WR or WG decks (neither deck in my cube has ever played that card in over two years of drafts). It really only goes in WU and WB. Soulfire can be run in the same number of combinations technically (WR and WU), so why would I put that in a wedge/guild section?
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This isn't true at all. You can play Wrath of God in any white deck you want. It's a great card for Boros and Selesnya control decks. They may be less common, but they're still played, and there's nothing about the Wrath that prohibits this from happening.
Because there's an intrinsic quality to the card that requires access to non-white mana in order to make the card work. And it's not good without access to those colors. Meaning that it's not a white card in practice.
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But I agreed that the hybrid card doesn't really need to be considered as multicolor. By sorting them that way, you are missing some nice gold cards that are more very cubeable. For his part, Soulfire Grand Master is a Boros card at least. Without red, the card is so bad that it becomes not playable at all. With blue it becames okay, but it definitly needs red (and burns) IMO.
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In fact, I really like W/g aggro deck or variant, but I actually doesn't like very much the 1-drop package green offers. I've already tried Experiment One, Wolfbitten Capture and Wild Dogs and ending up cutting them because I don't find them that stable. By processing like this, my green section is certainly more midrange and rampy though. But the W/g and R/g aggro shells are still pretty strong, while using more often white and red 1-drop.
With that said, I don't think I'm affecting that much my cube's archetypes by classify Dryad Militant in the white section.
EDIT : Also, green 2-drop aren't that much aggro-oriented, making the color becoming even more a late splash. Voice of Resurgence and Qasali Pridemage are nice but also white.
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