So after a year of cubing, I'm routinely drawing 8-man drafts every few weeks for Cube draft. It's been a lot of fun, but I'm seeing some troubling trends to the decks that are created. Since I'm playing with mostly casual players, the normal meta of aggro / midrange / control goes out the window. Here are two of the biggest problems we're having:
1) A lot of the decks are winding up midrange. Lots of G/x midrange, or goodstuff.dec. This makes it nearly impossible for a good aggro deck to do well. We've had a couple of players run aggro, and so many opposing creatures hit the board that it's impossible to close the deal. The only thing we've seen be successful is R/x aggro/midrange with a lot of burn. Is there any way to break this cycle of seeing 5-6 pure midrange decks every draft?
2) Some of the deck archetypes go completely ignored. I'm the only one that's drafted reanimator or tinker. We've had someone draft artifact.dec (successfully), but it's largely goodstuff.dec. Is there any way to get my players thinking more about card interactions and deck archetypes?
I went back a few pages and didn't see anyone commenting about the availability at big-box retailers. Has anyone seen these showing up at Target / Wal-Mart yet? I looked at a couple of stores over the weekend and haven't seen them there yet.
So I haven't updated my Cube for M12 or Innistrad - mainly because the prices for the chase rares are so high. (Liliana of the Vale, Snapcaster Mage, etc.) I don't play Standard, and I've stopped buying sealed product completely, except for the occasional booster (just for fun).
I'm toying with the idea of making my Cube "non-Standard". That is, waiting until new sets rotate out before I bring them into my Cube. For those of you that play Standard, or are really plugged-in to the scene, this may sound boring to you. I'm sure a lot of you get a big charge out of the spoilers, and want to try out all the latest stuff as soon as it hits. My players are very casual. Most of them don't play anything but Cube, and ignore what's going on in Standard. If Garruk Relentless doesn't see the Cube for 12 months, they're not going to care.
Waiting for rotation should have a few benefits:
1) Prices for singles in Standard are (generally) inflated during rotation. When they rotate out, they should generally drop in price, making it cheaper to update the Cube.
2) Waiting for rotation gives the cards a chance to get reprinted in a Core set, possibly making them cheaper to pick up.
3) Waiting for rotation means I can wait for the rest of the Cube community to try out all the latest cards. The cards that will make the cut long-term should have plenty of time to rise to the top, meaning I'm not spending lots of money testing out cards, only to cut them months later.
The other idea is just proxy everything >$10, which is how I build the original Cube. This idea is really demoralizing, though. I've been slowly whittling down the number of proxies in my Cube (from 69 to 13). Proxying Standard cards would mean I constantly have proxies in the Cube - definitely something I don't want to do.
Thoughts? Again, I know some of you couldn't live with this idea, but consider my playgroup. Good / bad idea?
Background
I recently bought all 5 of the Commander preconstructed decks. They're a blast to play, and relatively balanced against each other. I plan on keeping these decks mostly intact to play casual, multiplayer EDH with my friends.
The Goal
I'm interested in trimming the fat and tweaking the decks, but I'm on a budget. I want to focus the decks a little more and remove what doesn't work well. I don't want degenerate decks, infinite combos, or fast kills. I want the games to be epic, like EDH was meant to be played.
The Rules
- I'll use any cards I own that aren't in my Cube
- I'll invest $15 per deck in cards I don't own, and I want to spend it wisely.
- I don't want infinite combos, or combos that rely on crazy stack manipulation rules. (I play with casual players)
The Deck
I'm starting with Devour for Power. I really enjoy the reanimation / recur theme of this deck. However, I'm not too crazy with the mill sub-theme, so I'd like to rip that out and replace it with better creatures and reanimation abilities. I'd also like to up the amount of removal, since the precons don't seem to have a lot of answers.
Obviously I have more cards to add then remove. I'd love some feedback on both removals and adds, as well as feedback on whether I'm spending my upgrade money wisely.
I've been searching Google and the MTGS forums all day, so apologies if I'm missing something obvious. Does anyone have links to forum posts / blog posts, etc. that talk about tweaking the 5 Commander precon decks? I'm specifically looking for something that points out the weak cards in the decks, and makes suggestions on what to replace them with to up the power level a bit.
Just taking it out of the sleeve and flipping it over. It's not even remotely a hassle.
"Oh my, a double-sided card, the end of the world!". Nah, just flip it over. Easy.
Hmmm. I've had a hard time with the Perfect Fits / KMC Matte sleeves. It's tough to get them in/out of the sleeves, so I figured the double-sided cards would be a pain in the arse to take in&out on a regular basis.
I'm sorry if my previous post was misleading. I was referring to the sellers email referring to the "order IP adress", which means that they somehow sniffed the ip adress of the user, determining he was using a computer in Russia while placing the order. This and the fact that the karmic guides mysteriously jumped from 50$ to 87.5$ since makes it a clear cut case of poor business practices (in my own personal opinion).
I work in eCommerce. Many credit card gateways have fraud detection in place. One of the rules that can drive up the fraud score of a transaction is the IP address being in a different location than the billing / shipping address. It could be that your transaction raised the fraud level of the order, and it was subsequently canceled. It happens a lot, and it's really up to the vendor / payment gateway to setup the rules.
I'm not saying they didn't back out of the transaction because of the pricing - just that it's not uncommon for your situation to raise fraud scores. It's a pain in the ass if you're legit, but they're protecting their business.
Did anyone else preorder the set of Commander decks from CCG Armory? I placed an order back on June 17th, and was told that it would ship with "Wave 2" of the Commander decks when they came in stock.
On August 11th, I finally received an email confirming that the stock had arrived and they preorders would be shipping soon.
from Service [email]Service@ccgarmory.com[/email] date Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:39 AM subject CCG Armory Order usacomicbooks-XXXXX
Good news! The new wave of commander decks is arriving today – all pre-orders will be shipping out over the next few days
2 weeks later, I still received nothing in the mail. I sent them a couple of emails asking for status on the order - after they asked for an order number, I never heard back again. Today, I tried a Live Chat with customer service, and was told this:
ken:
We are still waiting for the wave second ken:
it will be shipped as soon as we receive them ken:
we are sorry that we did not receive enough what we expected me:
when will you be fulfilling the rest of the preorders? ken:
We will ship the per-order as soon as we receive the re stock me:
and when do you expect the next shipment? ken:
We are not sure yet ken:
we are still waiting for the confirmation
It's been 10 weeks since my preorder, and 2 weeks since they (proactively) sent me an email telling me it was shipping. And now they said it hasn't shipped and they have no idea when it will ship.
Has anyone else preordered the Commander decks from them? If so, did you receive them?
I don't see much data on the value of preconstructed decks. (maybe because there is no value?) I can make an offer on approximately 60 preconstructed decks, most of them from the Mirrodin - Lorwyn sets.
Catastrophe - Armageddon when you're ahead, Wrath of God when you're behind. Great starting card for Wx Control. Vampiric Tutor - 2nd best tutor in the Cube? Timetwister - I'd take this just for the power level, and be on the lookout for synergies. (What would I be looking for in future picks to combo with this card?)
Okay. I dont call the effects on the field, and opponents hand, CA, as I mean "draw a card" Or sometimes "two spell from one card" is also CA.
Then you don't understand (or use the correct term) for the very basic concept of Card Advantage in Magic. You're using a popular term that is understood by a wide swath of players, and making it mean something else entirely. Card advantage includes a net advantage in cards over your opponent - sometimes that is "losing less" cards than them, sometimes it's gaining more. It doesn't just mean drawing cards.
On average a Winston 90 from a 180 Stack, each player will have two pieces of power, and two fast mana cards each.
On average each player gets eight Dual-lands; each player gets on average for a 90 Winston two or three Alpha-Duals plus a high concentration Fetch, and Worldwake Dual-Lands and of 5 colour lands like City of Brass; Grand Coliseum; make playing gold decks easy. That isnt even the other fixing and acceleration cards. On average there are a couple more cards of each.
There is 12 of 40 MD cards, just with power, fast mana, and land, on average. Plus a couple of mana-facts, and acceleration and fixing are valued highly and MD consistently, filtering and draw help also.
Counterspell would not make the MD40, over the other CMC2< CS, Mana Leak; Miscalculation; Remand; Memory Lapse; Daze; Force Spike; Spellstutter Sprite; Spell Pierce; Steel Sabotage; Force of Will; Mana Tithe; Condescend. There isnt even room enough for all these in a 180 list, but in a 360 list I think they are all preferable for Winston Drafting.
This is completely incongruous. If your 180 list has so much fixing, with dual lands, fetch lands, etc., then how can a hard counter costing UU be considered so bad? UU should be cakewalk with all that fixing - and a hard counter for 2 is way better than most of the cards in your list.
Edit: For example, how is Memory Lapse better than Counterspell if fixing is so easily and readily available?! Your argument makes no sense.
So has anyone had anything go missing or get damaged while cubing?
I think I've been comparitively very lucky so far with my 500 individual, very vulnerable pieces of cardboard. I shudder to think what could happen sometimes.
I haven't cubed enough yet to have anything go missing / stolen. I play with a couple of people I only know through Magic, but they're pretty trustworthy. I'm starting to see "friend of a friend" invites. I'd like to think everyone is trustworthy, but you never know. Up until my last Cube draft, I've been playing with my actual Unlimited Black Lotus, but I've decided to proxy it and look for a CE edition as a permanent replacement.
The number of proxies in my Cube has gone down from 69 last year to 18 right now. As I get more and more expensive cards in the Cube, my paranoia level rises. It caused me to re-sleeve with Perfect Fits last month.
The worst thing that's happened so far is one guy riffle-shuffling his deck in our last Cube draft. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw him do it. I think I handled it well - asking him to overhand shuffle instead of riffle shuffle. But on the inside, I wanted to yank the cards out of his hand and let him know how much hard work and cash was involved in putting the Cube together.
-----------
Here's a follow-up question. Do any of you have any "house rules" that you cover with people before they play with your Cube? Do you ask people to overhand shuffle? No drinks at the table? Do you tell people how much money is in your Cube so they understand why you're asking them to be careful?
I play with a bunch of casual players, and some of them don't know how much some of the cards are actually worth. (my Unlimited dual lands, CE Moxen, and some of the chase rares) A lot of them still play with their own unsleeved decks that they riffle shuffle.
1) A lot of the decks are winding up midrange. Lots of G/x midrange, or goodstuff.dec. This makes it nearly impossible for a good aggro deck to do well. We've had a couple of players run aggro, and so many opposing creatures hit the board that it's impossible to close the deal. The only thing we've seen be successful is R/x aggro/midrange with a lot of burn. Is there any way to break this cycle of seeing 5-6 pure midrange decks every draft?
2) Some of the deck archetypes go completely ignored. I'm the only one that's drafted reanimator or tinker. We've had someone draft artifact.dec (successfully), but it's largely goodstuff.dec. Is there any way to get my players thinking more about card interactions and deck archetypes?
I'm toying with the idea of making my Cube "non-Standard". That is, waiting until new sets rotate out before I bring them into my Cube. For those of you that play Standard, or are really plugged-in to the scene, this may sound boring to you. I'm sure a lot of you get a big charge out of the spoilers, and want to try out all the latest stuff as soon as it hits. My players are very casual. Most of them don't play anything but Cube, and ignore what's going on in Standard. If Garruk Relentless doesn't see the Cube for 12 months, they're not going to care.
Waiting for rotation should have a few benefits:
1) Prices for singles in Standard are (generally) inflated during rotation. When they rotate out, they should generally drop in price, making it cheaper to update the Cube.
2) Waiting for rotation gives the cards a chance to get reprinted in a Core set, possibly making them cheaper to pick up.
3) Waiting for rotation means I can wait for the rest of the Cube community to try out all the latest cards. The cards that will make the cut long-term should have plenty of time to rise to the top, meaning I'm not spending lots of money testing out cards, only to cut them months later.
The other idea is just proxy everything >$10, which is how I build the original Cube. This idea is really demoralizing, though. I've been slowly whittling down the number of proxies in my Cube (from 69 to 13). Proxying Standard cards would mean I constantly have proxies in the Cube - definitely something I don't want to do.
Thoughts? Again, I know some of you couldn't live with this idea, but consider my playgroup. Good / bad idea?
BORK BORK BORK!
I recently bought all 5 of the Commander preconstructed decks. They're a blast to play, and relatively balanced against each other. I plan on keeping these decks mostly intact to play casual, multiplayer EDH with my friends.
The Goal
I'm interested in trimming the fat and tweaking the decks, but I'm on a budget. I want to focus the decks a little more and remove what doesn't work well. I don't want degenerate decks, infinite combos, or fast kills. I want the games to be epic, like EDH was meant to be played.
The Rules
- I'll use any cards I own that aren't in my Cube
- I'll invest $15 per deck in cards I don't own, and I want to spend it wisely.
- I don't want infinite combos, or combos that rely on crazy stack manipulation rules. (I play with casual players)
The Deck
I'm starting with Devour for Power. I really enjoy the reanimation / recur theme of this deck. However, I'm not too crazy with the mill sub-theme, so I'd like to rip that out and replace it with better creatures and reanimation abilities. I'd also like to up the amount of removal, since the precons don't seem to have a lot of answers.
Damia, Sage of Stone - I'm using The Mimeoplasm for my general, no reason to run this card.
Dark Hatchling - Replace with Shriekmaw?
Nezumi Graverobber - Why would I want a card that removes cards in an opponent's graveyard in a reanimate deck?
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave - Cute, but not necessary
Slipstream Eel - No idea why this is in the deck
Triskelavus - Replacing this with Triskelion
Troll Ascetic - Hexproof isn't worth it
Vorosh, the Hunter - I'm using The Mimeoplasm for my general, no reason to run this card.
Removing the mill sub-theme
Dreamborn Muse
Extractor Demon
Patron of the Nezumi
Riddlekeeper
Sewer Nemesis
Szadek, Lord of Secrets
Vulturous Zombie
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Memory Erosion
Shared Trauma
Combos well with The Mimeoplasm
Triskelion
Lord of Extinction $4.00
Inkwell Leviathan $1.90
Simic Sky Swallower $1.50
Kodama of the North Tree - Trampling Hexproof
Putrefax - One-shot kill with poison
It That Betrays
Reanimation & Targets
Sheoldred, Whispering One
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Shriekmaw
Terastodon $0.50
Phyrexian Ingester $0.10
Big Game Hunter $0.30
Hermit Druid $0.75
Soul Manipulation
Reanimate
Animate Dead
Life/Death $0.20
Zombify
Tutor Package
Corpse Connoisseur
Insidious Dreams $0.70
Worldly Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Better & More Removal
Life's Finale
Nevinyrral's Disk
Beast Within
Decree of Pain
Goodstuff
Necrotic Ooze - Seems awesome
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - Not sold on this one
Phyrexian Metamorph - General killer or artifact clone
Body Double - Graveyard clone seems good
Consecrated Sphinx - Card draw seems good
Greater Good $2.00
Everflowing Chalice - Cheap mana fixing
Praetor's Counsel - Graveyard Shenanigans
Asceticsm - Protection for my creatures
Capsize $0.40 - Bouncing my own ETB creatures
Traumatize - Self-mill half my deck to the graveyard seems strong
Reclaim - Poor man's regrowth
Grim Discovery - Poor man's regrowth
Thanks in advance.
Hmmm. I've had a hard time with the Perfect Fits / KMC Matte sleeves. It's tough to get them in/out of the sleeves, so I figured the double-sided cards would be a pain in the arse to take in&out on a regular basis.
I wonder if it's just the humidity here in Texas?
I work in eCommerce. Many credit card gateways have fraud detection in place. One of the rules that can drive up the fraud score of a transaction is the IP address being in a different location than the billing / shipping address. It could be that your transaction raised the fraud level of the order, and it was subsequently canceled. It happens a lot, and it's really up to the vendor / payment gateway to setup the rules.
I'm not saying they didn't back out of the transaction because of the pricing - just that it's not uncommon for your situation to raise fraud scores. It's a pain in the ass if you're legit, but they're protecting their business.
On August 11th, I finally received an email confirming that the stock had arrived and they preorders would be shipping soon.
2 weeks later, I still received nothing in the mail. I sent them a couple of emails asking for status on the order - after they asked for an order number, I never heard back again. Today, I tried a Live Chat with customer service, and was told this:
It's been 10 weeks since my preorder, and 2 weeks since they (proactively) sent me an email telling me it was shipping. And now they said it hasn't shipped and they have no idea when it will ship.
Has anyone else preordered the Commander decks from them? If so, did you receive them?
Is there any value in these precons at all?
Vampiric Tutor - 2nd best tutor in the Cube?
Timetwister - I'd take this just for the power level, and be on the lookout for synergies. (What would I be looking for in future picks to combo with this card?)
Then you don't understand (or use the correct term) for the very basic concept of Card Advantage in Magic. You're using a popular term that is understood by a wide swath of players, and making it mean something else entirely. Card advantage includes a net advantage in cards over your opponent - sometimes that is "losing less" cards than them, sometimes it's gaining more. It doesn't just mean drawing cards.
Counterspell is a better card than Memory Lapse, especially in a small Cube that has access to all that fixing. It is that simple.
This is completely incongruous. If your 180 list has so much fixing, with dual lands, fetch lands, etc., then how can a hard counter costing UU be considered so bad? UU should be cakewalk with all that fixing - and a hard counter for 2 is way better than most of the cards in your list.
Edit: For example, how is Memory Lapse better than Counterspell if fixing is so easily and readily available?! Your argument makes no sense.
I haven't cubed enough yet to have anything go missing / stolen. I play with a couple of people I only know through Magic, but they're pretty trustworthy. I'm starting to see "friend of a friend" invites. I'd like to think everyone is trustworthy, but you never know. Up until my last Cube draft, I've been playing with my actual Unlimited Black Lotus, but I've decided to proxy it and look for a CE edition as a permanent replacement.
The number of proxies in my Cube has gone down from 69 last year to 18 right now. As I get more and more expensive cards in the Cube, my paranoia level rises. It caused me to re-sleeve with Perfect Fits last month.
The worst thing that's happened so far is one guy riffle-shuffling his deck in our last Cube draft. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw him do it. I think I handled it well - asking him to overhand shuffle instead of riffle shuffle. But on the inside, I wanted to yank the cards out of his hand and let him know how much hard work and cash was involved in putting the Cube together.
-----------
Here's a follow-up question. Do any of you have any "house rules" that you cover with people before they play with your Cube? Do you ask people to overhand shuffle? No drinks at the table? Do you tell people how much money is in your Cube so they understand why you're asking them to be careful?
I play with a bunch of casual players, and some of them don't know how much some of the cards are actually worth. (my Unlimited dual lands, CE Moxen, and some of the chase rares) A lot of them still play with their own unsleeved decks that they riffle shuffle.