Oh yeah, I find the Un-sets not that funny to play with.:p The cards and jokes might be funny, but their silliness and obvious balance issues make that they jsut are not fun to play with.
I really wanted land destruction to be a playable archytpe in my Cube.
Armegeddon is serious fun if you ask me.:D Kudos to the drafter that does something good with Stasis! Winter Orb is cool as it makes the aggro decks smarter.
Only cards I don't run even if they might be strong enough are colour hosers. Karma, Boil, Red Elemental Blasts and the like. To me these cards are not fair.
Small anecdote: I was trying to teach a bad player the basics of drafting as his decks always sucked. When I told him that removal is very very important when you draft, he got all negative about that. Removal was unfun according to him.:facepalm: It removed the part he liked best, namely having tons of (crappy, 1/1) creatures. So never think that there is something universal about what is unfun. For me land destruction, locking and discard are as much - if not more- fun then weenies and big dragons.
What do people think about Counterbalance? I'm considering adding it to my cube unless someone wants to talk me out of it.
I don't know if I would ever play this in a Cube draft. It seems to be something that could only be used if you have tricks with it (Sylvan Library or Sensei's Divining Top). This card seems a bit too random to be usable.
What are your experiences with Pox in Cube? My Cubing partner wants to add this, but I have my doubts. The card sure is strong enough, but is it good enough/abusable enough to overcome the BBB cost?
Arcane Denial always gives interesting discussions. For some it is just unplayable because you give the opponent two cards, others argue that this is offset by the card you draw and the splashability.
Both sides have good points. Arcane Denial clearly has a drawback, but ui think a lot of nay sayers underestimate the good sides of this card. It is a hard counter for 1U and it also gives you a card. Which is hugely important for certain decks like CounterBurn.
I have a dislike for conditional counters in the cube. Like wtwlf123 I rather have counters that always work instead of counters that only counter half of my opponent cards. I might play these in sideboard, but that is not enough for me to justify their inclusion in my cube.
Do a lot of people run Topple? This card has been quite good for us. In White Weenie it is very good, in white based control decks too. It is very rare that you cannot choose the right creature. Sure it is a sorcery but hey white (non-wrath) removal are not that wide spread.
German is not the only language to do that. In Dutch we do the same but luckily we don't have cards in our own language, though it might be hilarious to see what crazy translations they might come up with.
A funny word in Dutch is angstschreeuw (a cry when one is scared) which has eight consonants in a row. A lot of foreigners find this really hard to pronounce.
German cards are considered kind of cool here in Belgium (because of the funny names), unlike French cards which have less trading value.
No... because someone could take the knowledge that people know about this type of signaling and use it against you. Just like it says in the article. Nothing prevents you from shuffling the pack, or reordering it so that it shows different colors.
Same with talking no? You could not listen to what other people say. Also people can lie both with talkign and with this metod.
You can say ' I sure took a lot of white bombs from this booster' when you infact took only red cards. Or you can be very subtle and keep talking about how you which there was more nature in this area, so you could see more animals in the wild.
Thing remains that those who know this secret code could get an advantage over those that don't. It would be easy for me and my buddies to use a secret code (like put the land behind the card after the colour you drafted). All who are not in our little group would get no (or wrong) information, and we might have some extra advantage. Is this fair for beginners or casual players?
If people insist on signaling like this to avoid getting colour screwed on occasion, just play Rochester draft, no? There you don't need tricks to get that result.
I asked our local Judge (an ex pro). His take on this was that even if this was not covered literally in the rules, it was still illegal as the intent is to do something that is not allowed by the rules. In tournaments and even most casual drafts here this is a moot point anyway as people always shuffle there packs.
It is not illegal to order your pack and hope people read something from it. Period. Anyone else accusing the author of encouraging cheating will be infracted at the least.
Now, if the entire group plans ahead of time to signal to each other, then we have a more interesting issue. But what is discussed here is not illegal until you have groups collaborating on shenanigans.
But can you say up front that this is what you will do? If this is allowed why not allow talking during a draft? Sure you can lie with your land card or other dodgy signaling tricks, but you can bluff if you say out loud ' I play white'.
What if you give signals with turning upside down number of cards? One means white, two means blue and so on? Or tapping with your finger a number of times? If you allow this where does it end? It is a very slippery slope IMO.
Here everybody who is not a total beginner shuffle their packs after picking a card. Isn't this standard practice everwhere? I think this is because it is standard practise in Top 8's and it trickled down from there to the random players.
What you discribe iI would think of as cheating or collusion.:-/ Also it would be very tiring to be so paranoid about how people shuffle their cards.
Which makes me wonder how many X-burn spells a cube should have. I played this weekend and there was this awesome CounterBurn deck which won a lot of games with a Kaervek's Torch (in combination with Izzet and other serious burn). Do these Fireballs ever hit a sideboard? I doubt it really. They just allways work. Either they kill some critters or they just kill your opponent. Sure they are a tad on the slow side, but they are very splashable.
I am worried about adding too many as maybe it could become boring when people just win cause they topdeck yet another Fireball. But you could say that if that happens you should have had either a counter or have never let yourself get so low in life.
Land Destruction has always been on of my favorit decks. That is why I insisted on having in my Cube as a valid archytype.
I find it more fun then reanimator, but I am even ok with stasis which many people find unfun.
Armegeddon is serious fun if you ask me.:D Kudos to the drafter that does something good with Stasis! Winter Orb is cool as it makes the aggro decks smarter.
Only cards I don't run even if they might be strong enough are colour hosers. Karma, Boil, Red Elemental Blasts and the like. To me these cards are not fair.
Small anecdote: I was trying to teach a bad player the basics of drafting as his decks always sucked. When I told him that removal is very very important when you draft, he got all negative about that. Removal was unfun according to him.:facepalm: It removed the part he liked best, namely having tons of (crappy, 1/1) creatures. So never think that there is something universal about what is unfun. For me land destruction, locking and discard are as much - if not more- fun then weenies and big dragons.
I don't know if I would ever play this in a Cube draft. It seems to be something that could only be used if you have tricks with it (Sylvan Library or Sensei's Divining Top). This card seems a bit too random to be usable.
Both sides have good points. Arcane Denial clearly has a drawback, but ui think a lot of nay sayers underestimate the good sides of this card. It is a hard counter for 1U and it also gives you a card. Which is hugely important for certain decks like CounterBurn.
I have a dislike for conditional counters in the cube. Like wtwlf123 I rather have counters that always work instead of counters that only counter half of my opponent cards. I might play these in sideboard, but that is not enough for me to justify their inclusion in my cube.
A funny word in Dutch is angstschreeuw (a cry when one is scared) which has eight consonants in a row. A lot of foreigners find this really hard to pronounce.
German cards are considered kind of cool here in Belgium (because of the funny names), unlike French cards which have less trading value.
Same with talking no? You could not listen to what other people say. Also people can lie both with talkign and with this metod.
You can say ' I sure took a lot of white bombs from this booster' when you infact took only red cards. Or you can be very subtle and keep talking about how you which there was more nature in this area, so you could see more animals in the wild.
Thing remains that those who know this secret code could get an advantage over those that don't. It would be easy for me and my buddies to use a secret code (like put the land behind the card after the colour you drafted). All who are not in our little group would get no (or wrong) information, and we might have some extra advantage. Is this fair for beginners or casual players?
I asked our local Judge (an ex pro). His take on this was that even if this was not covered literally in the rules, it was still illegal as the intent is to do something that is not allowed by the rules. In tournaments and even most casual drafts here this is a moot point anyway as people always shuffle there packs.
It so often is the MVP of the match.
But can you say up front that this is what you will do? If this is allowed why not allow talking during a draft? Sure you can lie with your land card or other dodgy signaling tricks, but you can bluff if you say out loud ' I play white'.
What if you give signals with turning upside down number of cards? One means white, two means blue and so on? Or tapping with your finger a number of times? If you allow this where does it end? It is a very slippery slope IMO.
What you discribe iI would think of as cheating or collusion.:-/ Also it would be very tiring to be so paranoid about how people shuffle their cards.
I am worried about adding too many as maybe it could become boring when people just win cause they topdeck yet another Fireball. But you could say that if that happens you should have had either a counter or have never let yourself get so low in life.
I find it more fun then reanimator, but I am even ok with stasis which many people find unfun.