I'm looking to design a 360 card cube that is powerful (not power 9, but uses mostly top tier cards), but it's goal is to maximize VARIETY and CREATIVENESS in creating viable competitive decks.
I want to be able to design a cube where a well executed archetype (understanding synergies between cards), with inferior cards, can beat decks that are a semi-random mish mash of broken cards.
I read wtwlf123's theory on including cards that maximize versatility and understand the logic behind it. But is it possible to design a cube that supports inferior cards, with archtype specific applications?
So say, 330 of your 360 cards are versatile. But 30 of them are archtype specific?
Basically, I want to create a drafting environment that rewards understanding and identifying synergy as much as possible and giving people as many viable options as possible to create interesting decks.
Im wondering if you guys were to design a cube prioritizing strategic options, are there certain very powerful cards that you would cut in order to make "weaker, but interesting" cards viable ?
Are there specific cards that fall short of the top 360 that you would include because it opens strategic options?
Am thinking it might be necessary to scale the power of the cube down a bit for this versatility to be effective?
I understand my question is very general, but any thoughts are apreciated, thanks.
I think you can definitely build a cube that's more focused on archetype support rather than just general good stuff. But in the same vein, I think you'd be surprised by how many good cube cards that make the cut because of their general awesomeness have a lot of subtle interactions with other cube cards. I'd scour your favorite cube lists from the 360-540 level and include the most interesting cards you find, and then playtest that list and discover all of the cool things that can show up in the cube.
sweet, ty.
Im going to focus on "interesting" cards first, from the 1-720 range, then cut/add as necessary to support archtypes once ive play tested.
Example of Powerful Cards that seem boring to me
Mind twist (super powerful, but discard X cards = boring and useful for too many decks)
Jace, memory adept (lacks synergy with anything but mill decks, which there arent enough versatile cards to support a mill theme)
Sword of **** (could be wrong on this, but dont see much creativity in them other than requiring creatures and/or stoneforge mystic)
Land tax
Themes off the top of my that Id like to support:
Heavy graveyard interaction (flashback spells, reanimator, dredge, cards that increase in power as your graveyard fills)
Artifact based decks (tinker, tezzeret, metalcraft?)
Flicker, ETB effect decks (birthing pod, restoration angel, flickerwisp)
I think you can definitely build a cube that's more focused on archetype support rather than just general good stuff. But in the same vein, I think you'd be surprised by how many good cube cards that make the cut because of their general awesomeness have a lot of subtle interactions with other cube cards. I'd scour your favorite cube lists from the 360-540 level and include the most interesting cards you find, and then playtest that list and discover all of the cool things that can show up in the cube.
Absolutely possible. If its one thing I've learned about the cube and this community, its that you can go about cube design from any number of angles.
How you draft this cube is really important when thinking about archetype support. You can really go all in if this is for 8 man draft and build a pretty crazy cube with all kinds of strange archetypes and combos (there is a 360 card local cube that does this). However if you were to try to draft that cube Winston style it would likely be a complete train wreck because you simply would see enough support cards during the draft.
You could look at tribal cubes. I've never drafted one, but I've heard that it makes for a fantastic experience. It's certainly the goal of the cube to make synergy more important than random goodstuff.
I have a 180 Winston Cube with this kind of playstyle as a very specific goal, so I understand exactly where this thread is coming from!
I believe the trick to approaching this, as opposed to Tribal Cubes (which I don't find terribly interesting) is to find a way to support archetypes while also using cards that people would want to use on their own. For example, in my cube you might be able to first-pick an Intangible Virtue and force Wx tokens... or you might go the whole draft and pick up things like Siege-Gang Commander, Rise of the Hobgoblins, Spectral Procession, and Accorder Paladin, shooting for a swarm deck that doesn't care that half of its drops are Isamarus and Keldon Marauders. If you find a last-pick Virtue, you might even find that a lot of the aggressive swarm-y creatures were tokens after all, and find it a nice pick!
Basically, my take on it is to build a balanced and fun cube FIRST, making archetypes that work based on a variety of cards rather than a single keystone. You might have WR Tokens as a deck, for example... but it could also be WR Aggro, WRG Midrange, WRB Aggro, BR Aggro... your archetypes should be modular.
Or you could build a cube that asks you to force a certain archetype, like Tribal cubes, but that doesn't sound nearly as much fun to me
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I'm looking to design a 360 card cube that is powerful (not power 9, but uses mostly top tier cards), but it's goal is to maximize VARIETY and CREATIVENESS in creating viable competitive decks.
I want to be able to design a cube where a well executed archetype (understanding synergies between cards), with inferior cards, can beat decks that are a semi-random mish mash of broken cards.
I read wtwlf123's theory on including cards that maximize versatility and understand the logic behind it. But is it possible to design a cube that supports inferior cards, with archtype specific applications?
So say, 330 of your 360 cards are versatile. But 30 of them are archtype specific?
Basically, I want to create a drafting environment that rewards understanding and identifying synergy as much as possible and giving people as many viable options as possible to create interesting decks.
Im wondering if you guys were to design a cube prioritizing strategic options, are there certain very powerful cards that you would cut in order to make "weaker, but interesting" cards viable ?
Are there specific cards that fall short of the top 360 that you would include because it opens strategic options?
Am thinking it might be necessary to scale the power of the cube down a bit for this versatility to be effective?
I understand my question is very general, but any thoughts are apreciated, thanks.
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Im going to focus on "interesting" cards first, from the 1-720 range, then cut/add as necessary to support archtypes once ive play tested.
Example of Powerful Cards that seem boring to me
Mind twist (super powerful, but discard X cards = boring and useful for too many decks)
Jace, memory adept (lacks synergy with anything but mill decks, which there arent enough versatile cards to support a mill theme)
Sword of **** (could be wrong on this, but dont see much creativity in them other than requiring creatures and/or stoneforge mystic)
Land tax
Themes off the top of my that Id like to support:
Heavy graveyard interaction (flashback spells, reanimator, dredge, cards that increase in power as your graveyard fills)
Artifact based decks (tinker, tezzeret, metalcraft?)
Flicker, ETB effect decks (birthing pod, restoration angel, flickerwisp)
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Absolutely possible. If its one thing I've learned about the cube and this community, its that you can go about cube design from any number of angles.
Ask away, people here are very helpful.
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I believe the trick to approaching this, as opposed to Tribal Cubes (which I don't find terribly interesting) is to find a way to support archetypes while also using cards that people would want to use on their own. For example, in my cube you might be able to first-pick an Intangible Virtue and force Wx tokens... or you might go the whole draft and pick up things like Siege-Gang Commander, Rise of the Hobgoblins, Spectral Procession, and Accorder Paladin, shooting for a swarm deck that doesn't care that half of its drops are Isamarus and Keldon Marauders. If you find a last-pick Virtue, you might even find that a lot of the aggressive swarm-y creatures were tokens after all, and find it a nice pick!
Basically, my take on it is to build a balanced and fun cube FIRST, making archetypes that work based on a variety of cards rather than a single keystone. You might have WR Tokens as a deck, for example... but it could also be WR Aggro, WRG Midrange, WRB Aggro, BR Aggro... your archetypes should be modular.
Or you could build a cube that asks you to force a certain archetype, like Tribal cubes, but that doesn't sound nearly as much fun to me
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