So I haven't been posting much here lately, and it has a little to do with the thread title.
Before I get too much into this (and in the hopes of calming the probably unavoidable incoming flame war), I want to say that I think this is a valuable site. Even though I don't post much, I do still keep tabs on this place and continue to read threads. There are knowledgeable people here and there is good information. I don't agree with all of what I read here, but that doesn't mean it isn't without truth / value. As I've said many times, if this game were so simple that there really were universal truths that defined everything, I wouldn't have kept with this game as long as I have (and I suspect many of you wouldn't have either). The fact that the game has so much depth is really what keeps me playing it.
With that said, there is a very strong collective voice on MTGS that reigns supreme here. It's like the Borg. Ideas outside the traditional power-max / roshambo (aggro/midrange/control) theatre paradigm is not met with much enthusiasm. In fact, it is generally met with a lot of malice and ridicule (or it's just ignored entirely). Either way, guys like me who want to take cube in a different direction really don't have a voice here and can't get much feedback on ideas (at least not useful feedback). You can only read so many dismissive replies before you just get tired of wasting your time trying.
That sort of segue me to Lighting bolt. Take the recent discussion in the "this or that" thread. Someone mentions the idea of not running lightning bolt (running Firebolt instead) and that post was rained down upon with fury. Didn't see that one coming (not). I get that lightning bolt is probably the staplest of staples, but that doesn't mean it isn't the wrong card for some cubes. There are plenty of reasons someone might not want to run lightning bolt. It's ridiculously efficient from a mana cost perspective (way above the curve). It's an auto pick in every single deck with red mana (and IMO, this is pretty good reason right there not to run it). It's instant speed removal that comes with tons of tempo robbing power (3 damage is a key number after all), and that can really kill the value of many fringe arch types and/or cards you may want to push in your environment (there are plenty of powerful/interesting effects attached to bodies with weak butts that just roll over to bolt - and in cube losing your 4 mana turn to a one mana spell can cost you the match).
Not every cube gets better without Lightning Bolt (most don't is my guess even if I'm playing Devil's advocate here), but to make black and white statements about which cards cubes are ALWAYS better with is a really myopic viewpoint. IMHO, cube has evolved a great deal since it's inception. The whole "run the best cards possible no matter what" mentality really isn't where I think this format is/should be evolving too. Honestly, I feel like cube is a way to craft a really fun, powerful and (in theory) perfectly balanced limited environment. And that does not require that you run the best cards printed at every CC. In fact, it probably requires that you DO NOT do that (and if you think about it, the reason why is obvious).
A simple example to illustrate some of the problems which many are introducing into their own meta by power maxing. A lot of you are running underpowered hate cards to try and deal with some of the broken stuff that is getting put in your cube (and warping your meta whether you see it or not). Take artifact hate cards for instance. In a powered cube, there is a minimum threshold you need to hit otherwise games just get ruined by moxen and other super overpowered stuff like clamp, etc. Take these cards out and all of a sudden Manic Vandal is no longer a requirement and you are free to run a red three drop that is maybe more interesting or helps support fringe decks or bolster weak arch types, whatever. Getting rid of powerful cards can in some cases give you MORE design choices. That's the real benefit I see and why I've chosen this path personally.
Now I fully understand there are those that want to play the highest power cube possible. And I do not begrudge that approach. I ran that for a long time and it was really fun. But there are others who may not want to do that, and there is nothing wrong with that either. In fact, that approach is just as valid (and for their group might actually lead to a BETTER MORE FUN cube environment even). I would just ask that some of you dial back some of the elitism that is often running rampant around here because it doesn't make this community better. It drives people away and it really discourages creative thinking and experimentation (things that this format needs to thrive).
Again, there is nothing wrong with following the tried and true cube design approach. I want to make it clear I'm not claiming my way is better. In fact, for anyone new to cube. the tried and true is the best place to start IMO (cube design is a really huge undertaking). This site is a key resource in helping people build that (and it was a key resource for me in the beginning without a doubt). Bottom line… If you follow the advice here, you will end up with a very good cube and you will have a lot of fun with it.
But if you are like me and you have had your fill of jitte, recurring nightmare, et all and you want to take this in a new direction... well, I'm not sure there's a place on this site for that right now. There has certainly been a shortage of tolerance for it at the very least.
I agree with some of your points. I've had some heated arguments here on past accounts with some of the prominent members of this community. (That said, I didn't change accounts due to it. I just play Mafia and tend to make a new account fairly often to keep those guys guessing about my identity.) I do think you've gone a bit far with your points though and you could dial back the rhetoric on our way to having a conversation. (Borg, Malice, myopic, elitist, et al.)
I really like the idea of making a cube with a more level power curve. Part of the concept of cube is that every pack is full of first pickable cards and hard decisions. But in practice, there are still cards that stand out as head and shoulders above the rest (like Lightning Bolt, Jace 2.0, Jitte, etc). Cube is much more deep than most limited formats, but I believe it's possible to create a cube format that spawns even more difficult draft decisions and I would personally contribute to that project. If your cube is like that, please link me and let's discuss it. It's something I've considered starting a project for myself and one of the things I admire most about many Peasent/Pauper cubes. (The more level power curve.)
However, this is NOT the standard definition of cube and you shouldn't necessarily try and push others to follow your lead. Cube has evolved a lot, but the majority still prefers to have the most powerful cube - and that is OK. You can see the growth in the breadth of the format just by looking at how many unpowered, EDH, Peasant, Themed, etc cubes there are though. Going into the This or That thread and suggesting replacing Lightning Bolt with Firebolt is going to be met with dismissal because it doesn't make sense in the context of what the player was asking for advice on. It sounds like you trying to preach your philosophy and convert others. That is why I didn't want to discuss it there where our conversation would rapidly devolve off-topic and disrupt the thread.
I think one of the core components of making a power balanced cube would be to start with a "baseline" power level for each color. Find a couple of cards which you consider perfectly balanced and core and then try to deviate as little as possible from the power level set by them. Adjustments will have to be made due to the meta that evolves from that. Alternately, you could start with a set meta the way a Pauper cube does and try to build a level power curve in a known meta. Haphazardly chopping powerful cards out of normal power cubes is more likely to skew power between colors and archetypes than create the new kind of balance we are looking for.
P.S. I can't believe you used Recurring Nightmare as an example of an unfun card. That's one of my favorite build-around-me cards and does generally everything I want a fun cube card to do!
You can kind of look at Cube management like government. You can create all these rules and regulations to reach some greater utility, but these experiments almost always go awry. Many of these more "unique" cubes only work in concept, and some of them work just fine if a lot of work has been put into them, but it's hard to know if something's sub-optimal if someone has not cubed with dozens of different cubes. The more government control in an economy, the less efficient the economy tends to be, and the less utility can be found for the average citizen. The same thing happens with cube. The more a cube designer employs their own limitations, biases, and rules, the less efficient the design and the lower the average utility of your play group. There is a ton of room for personalization and preferences in cube design. Even the most traditionally-minded cube designers here abandon many staples in favor of a flavor more suited to their play group. But at a fundamental level, the game defines its own limitations better than any of us are able to, at least from what I've seen. The cube mentality that's most common here is a more laissez-faire approach. Magic, as a game, balances itself. Because most cube designers (especially those who tend to make more specialized cubes) don't have the thousands and thousands of hours of play experience that R&D has or the design and development training that comes with working in Seattle, anything less creates a format that is uninteresting, linear, unbalanced, or boring after a short time.
It's not about tolerance. It's not even about the highest power level possible. It's the ego of some cube designers that they think they know what's more fun for a group. Sometimes they're correct. But as with most other formats of Magic, cube, as it's generally known, is solved to an extent. It has been made more efficient and effective by years of bickering between rival cube designers. The optimal lists are created, changed, tweaked, and varied upon, and there's probably not a "definitive" list, but the pool for what a good 360 looks like is not huge.
Going in a new direction for the sake of it has no value when the people on this forum are generally interested in the "standard cube". The reason so many vie for the "standard cube" and we work together every day to figure out what that means is because that's really the optimal way to play cube (or Magic really) for the greatest amount of people. So when most people here are working towards the same general idea and others come into the conversation and bring up sub-optimal choices, it makes sense that they would have a hard time finding agreement.
I've tried to make a cube that was a little more off the radar. It was novel, for sure, but it failed to keep my playgroup's interest for very long. While it may get a hard time, the reason that most of the ice cream in the world is vanilla is because it's a fantastic flavor with no faults. It's almost impossible to get sick of it. When people are trying to be special snowflakes, they'll just look for ice cream that sounds very bizarre or jam in too many ingredients. That's fine and great, but those who prefer vanilla often have a certain maturity to them. They've tried the crazy flavors and are happy to be back at the standard. Forcing bad cards just to force them almost seems to be a phase in newer cube designers. In the long term, the reason why most cubers don't deviate more than 20% from the Cube Tutor standard cubes is because that is what is the most optimal fun (as much as you can objectively define fun). It's testament to it's objective fun-ness that it's so popular, even among the most grizzled grinders and casual kitchen tablers.
An approach to make your cube more different for the sake of being different will not, in the long run, be more "fun" for the average play group. It may work great for your play group, but people are generally not all so different. There's a place for different cube designs on this board, but just remember to provide the context of your own cube, and to not get upset when people talk about their own cubes in the context of their own cubes. You claim you don't want people to be dismissive of your ideas, and then spend the rest of your text dismissing the ideas of others. I don't run some staples like Mind Twist and Gideon Jura, and while most here don't agree with me, I've never had anything than fair debate and reasoned arguments about that sort of thing. Consider how you're framing your cube going forward, and you may find much more success.
TL;DR - Cube design is much closer to Smith capitalism than it is to Borg assimilation
I don't want a new direction where I don't play good cards. Cube is still super exciting to me and hasn't grown stale for me to consider not playing amazing cards. Sorry.
Thanks for the reply. My use of certain words was intentional. In my history posting here, I have been really nice and respectful of people on this forum. But that has not always been returned in kind. With all due respect, I'm not going to sugar coat how I feel about it at this point.
I've been working on an update to my cube for months. I finally got it partially uploaded into cube tutor. When I finally get this done, I'll update my sig with a link to it. Feedback is certainly welcome as it's hard work this far from the norm with the limited amount of play time my cube gets (and the limited feedback available for what I'm doing). It sometimes feels like an exercise in futility since there are so many variables and so few resources. I agree with you though on evening out the power level. I'm not sure I can (or even want to) make it so there aren't cards ahead of the rest, but I do want to greatly reduce and limit some of the bombs. I've cut all kinds of power cards that most would shudder to hear have been removed. Just to name a few... swords, jitte, recurring nightmare, balance, winter orb, shackles, soltari brothers, hero of bladehold, vindicate, anhk. Not to mention the huge list of high cost power cards I either removed or never ran (all Titans, Wurmcoil, Batterskull, Baneslayer, Thragtusk, all walkers). It's a very different cube meta.
With regard to pushing my philosophy... that isn't what I was trying to do. I've made three posts in the last 4 months probably. All of them were replies to guys who were either suggesting things or asking for feedback outside the standard paradigm. They were getting ready to step on a land mine and I tried to steer them away. Maybe my posts were more confrontational than they needed to be though. That's fair.
As far as Recurring Nightmare... it's a very fun card but it wore thin with our group. I destroyed everyone with it and then a draft or two later, another guy did and then again it happened. It was that point where there was a lot less enthusiasm. This is true of a lot of cards, not just that one. When we first started cubing, it was fun to see all the broken things you could do with some of these cards. But then after awhile, it stops being entirely cute (at least did for us). Guys wanted it to be less about P1P1 and drawing your broken enabler and more about synergy, good deck building and smart play decisions. My group has kind of unraveled so it's sort of a moot point now (I work on cube these days more as a theoretical hobby as I rarely get to play anymore).
I don't want a new direction where I don't play good cards. Cube is still super exciting to me and hasn't grown stale for me to consider not playing amazing cards. Sorry.
Well, a new direction doesn't necessarily require that you play bad cards. My cube is composed of very good cards, I've just started to eliminate some of the format warping ones is all. And that has created more options from a design perspective I think. I can play more fringe cards now. I can push different synergies and strategies that might rollover to jitte or swords but is very competitive and fun without them, etc.
Again though, I understand the appeal and excitement you get from running all the power cards. I do. Cutting jitte was a very hard choice to make.
I don't want a new direction where I don't play good cards. Cube is still super exciting to me and hasn't grown stale for me to consider not playing amazing cards. Sorry.
Well, a new direction doesn't necessarily require that you play bad cards. My cube is composed of very good cards, I've just started to eliminate some of the format warping ones is all. And that has created more options from a design perspective I think. I can play more fringe cards now. I can push different synergies and strategies that might rollover to jitte or swords but is very competitive and fun without them, etc.
Again though, I understand the appeal and excitement you get from running all the power cards. I do. Cutting jitte was a very hard choice to make.
I didn't say that is required me to play bad cards, I said it required me to not play good cards. I'd rather play with the most powerful cards then not play with them in order to support archetypes. All the cards you mentioned are all cards I find fun because I like playing with broken cards and doing dumb things. Again, sorry, but no interest.
I don't think the game balances itself. Not if you use the entire 30k population of cards ever printed (or whatever the number is now). Some of these cards were complete design mistakes banned in almost every format for a reason. Balanced they are not. This is IMO the flaw in the power-max design. There is nothing inherently balanced about running the best cards possible. What you find (and perhaps this is where we will agree) is that the community has tweaked the curve and removal numbers so that you have a playable and relatively balanced meta if you follow the blueprint. Aggro gets pushed to the moon here because it's the only thing standing in the way of all the broken power degenerating the game. People have vitriol towards "dragon" cubes but that is how cube started and it took off like wildfire in that state. I'm not suggestion we go back to that, I'm simply stating that running the most powerful cards possible forces you into a corner as far as how you can balance your cube. There really is only one way if you power-max (push aggro).
But that isn't the only way to balance a meta. Look at limited. Aggro is pretty much impossible to run in limited. And yet it is possible to create a very fun, interactive and balanced limited environment. Is cube better? I think so, but that has to do with the overall power level of the card pool (it is still a limited format after all). But it doesn't have to be all or nothing (all good cards or no good cards). You can create a really powerful meta without running all the most powerful cards. That wasn't really true in 2005 (where the best stuff was head and shoulders above everything else), but it most certainly is true today. How much of the modern cube is made up of cards printed in the last 5 years? 50%? Maybe more.
For me personally, I enjoy games with a lot of play decisions. And that means super fast meta environments work against what I enjoy. So for me, slowing down the game a bit so that you get interaction is very desirable. Doing that however gives broken power cards too much time to degenerate the game. So really you have two choices from where I'm standing. Speed up your meta (push aggro more) or get rid of the stuff degenerating your meta so you can slow it down a bit and not end up with 3-0 decks running recurring nightmare et all. I like the later option better but not everyone will.
As far as how many good 360 cubes you can build? More than a few. I'm guessing thousands. To think that this site has refined cube to the point where it can't be improved upon or that doing something outside the norm is less "mature" or less "fun" is IMO a ridiculous suggestion. It speaks exactly to the myopic viewpoint I alluded to in my OP. There are just as many people who started eating vanilla ice cream because it was the most popular and then tried mint chip and never looked back as there are guys who went for frosty cherry banana cream puff and then went vanilla and said "WTF was I thinking with that first choice?". It works both ways.
As I said, using this site and the work that has gone into the power max roshambo cube is IMO a very good idea for those starting out. It works and you have tons of resources. And many people will find they never need to deviate from it. That's fine. I'm not one of those people and I know I'm not alone.
As an aside, in my current cube artifacts are greatly depowered to the point that I am actually cutting almost all of my artifact and enchantment removal because I just don't need it without Swords and power 9 running around. This is freeing up a lot more spots to play what I consider more interesting cards because I don't have to run swords or ways to kill swords.
I'm really enjoying the change so far in testing.
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An accurate description of myself:
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You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
As an aside, in my current cube artifacts are greatly depowered to the point that I am actually cutting almost all of my artifact and enchantment removal because I just don't need it without Swords and power 9 running around. This is freeing up a lot more spots to play what I consider more interesting cards because I don't have to run swords or ways to kill swords.
I'm really enjoying the change so far in testing.
Ditto. A funny story along those lines. So before I really went to town de-powering my cube, I was testing a bunch of arch types and I found really well built decks were just getting trashed by certain decks. Namely, I had this white weenie deck that had mother, the soltari brothers, jitte and a sword I think (along with stone forge and enlightened tutor to fetch them). It really wasn't a great deck outside these cards (my card draw engine was mentor of the meek). But it became my gold standard deck for testing because it could beat anything with a decent draw. I tried to add cards that helped the other arch types compete, but I couldn't make it work. This deck just wrecked pretty much everything (well, except the recurring nightmare deck and the tinker deck but those are the same kind of problem as Jitte).
Anyway, it occurred to me after awhile that I was banging my head against a wall trying to RAISE the power level of all my other arch types to compete with Jitte, when all I needed to do was take that card away and suddenly it was on a level footing with everything else I was building. This is really what prompted me to take a serious look at some of the format defining cards I was running. Some of them just require no deck building skills at all to break. Again, this white weenie deck was not that great. But it could consistently get jitte or a sword and protect them and that was enough for the deck to beat everything else I built. Jitte is busted.
Maybe I'm pulling out TOO many power cards now and I've gone knee-jerk. But better that then leaving in something that just ruins match ups. Again, there are so many powerful cards now (recent sets have been a real boon for cube). Cutting even the 50 best cards of all time still leaves you with an extremely high powered environment that has all the great things which made me fall in love with cube. At least IMO.
@ahadabans: Everybody, myself included, just plays the cards that allows our groups to have the most fun when we sit down. You have a different opinion of what makes things fun for you than a lot of the players that post here. There seems to be some kind of disconnect where there's a separation between something being "powerful" and something being "fun". As if what you call "powermax" cubers aren't designing their cubes to have fun. When that's completely wrong. Cards being powerful and cards being fun aren't mutually exclusive concepts. What you call "format warping" cards that you decide to cut, I call "format defining" cards that make the cube a blast to play. When you consider cutting something strong because it's boring, I consider the strength of the card to be what makes it exciting.
We have completely different design paradigms, and that's all. There are things about the cube I consider critical after cubing experience has shown me their importance, and they're dismissed by the "fun" crowd as unimportant factors for cube design and balance. It's hard to debate what makes something "fun" ...when by definition that experience is subjective.
And the Hive Mind thing is just silly. We're no more a hive mind over here than folks at riptidelab are a hive mind on the other end of the spectrum. It's basically just a divide between people that find powerful cards fun to use and those who don't. You cut Jitte because it was "busted" and made things unfun for you. I cube Jitte because it's a blast to use insanely powerful cards, and that's fun for us. How are our experiences possibly going to gel when how we define the subjective nature of "fun" (the epicenter of cube design) in opposite ways?
Though I haven't posted much either, I have been lurking the Cube forum for a very long time. Honestly speaking I don't even spend much time on my Cube nowadays because I think the price of cards has gotten a bit too ridiculous and I don't have a regular playgroup anymore. I still like to come here during spoiler season though to see what people think of new cards, and to see if there are any cards I would slam dunk like to include in my Cube.
Having seen Cube as a format grow over the last 7-8 years (yikes, has it really be that long?!), it's been interesting to see how the definition of "Cube" seems to have shifted subtly over the years.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Cubing really started making headwinds around Time Spiral. There was a set in which people were playing new cards mixed in with the intentionally nostalgic old frame timeshifted cards, and some people asked themselves "Wow, why can't we do this more often?" You could see the beginning of the split even back then, because some people were saying to themselves "Man, I miss being able to play with iconic cards like Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire" while others were saying "Man, I miss being able to play with powerful cards like Force of Will and Reanimate." Only it was easy to confuse the two in the beginning because powerful often meant iconic back then, but the recent rise in powerful levels has really differentiated the two words as they pertain to MTG.
The MTGS forum really leaned towards the "power" group of players, and as far as I can tell this seems to be the case with older Cube discussion groups. Newer groups (for example the mtgcube subreddit) seem to be more flexible when it comes to Cube building, but as Braid of Fire points out above it's kind of hard to evaluate a Cube (or even if a card is good for a Cube) if it diverges too far from people's personal experience. I mean I have a general idea of the ideas behind a Tribal Cube but I'm not going to be able to tell you with any amount of certainty if An-Zerrin Ruins is going to be a windmill slam dunk pick or a sideboard at best card since I'm not familiar with the environment.
With my Cube I've also started making certain selective edits due to the fact that I disliked how my Cube was becoming a barrage of keywords. So I instituted my own rule that if a more fiddly keyword were to be included in my Cube, it would require at least 4 playable cards. As more people build Cubes, they are by nature going to look more different, but at the same time the more your Cube diverges from the mainstream the more difficult it will be for people to give you meaningful feedback on your decisions.
That is a pretty good and interesting post OP, but I do disagree with your assumptions about 'hive-mind' and 'power-max'. The fact that a large proportion of cubes here are unpowered or semi-powered or even completely off-the-wall EDH cubes should be enough to nip that in the bud. So I'm going to spam a few thoughts about some other points that cropped up:
I don't even run fast mana any more and I can tell you there's nothing wrong with Manic Vandal, at all. I don't understand the logic behind castigating people for running 'broken' cards like fast mana, JtMS and Jitte (they're too good!) and then complaining that people have to run answers like Manic Vandal (they aren't good enough!). Which power level is being arbitrarily defined as the 'correct' one?
There's nothing wrong with NOT running those broken cards, and removing all the Jittes of the cube world. That's not an argument for some radical new cube paradigm, that's just an argument for unpowered cubes which we've been having here for years. I personally like the cutthroat environment of having those sick cards that need answering rapidly. I don't want to hold my players' hands and run inefficient cards and inefficient answers. I want to have to consider other decks when I build my own - it makes me draft more intelligently than going 'right, mono-red'. I have to be able to deal with fast starts, grindy decks, Moat, equipment, planeswalkers and big threats. My successful decks need focus, but also versatility. I don't want to de-tool my decks to the point where any old pile is viable because there just isn't anything strong enough to make me pack answers or get the win within a certain time frame. I love drafting and thinking, "crap - I need more artefact removal or I risk getting walled by a strong equipment". If I get killed by a Sword as happened yesterday, it's because I deserved to have been killed by it. It was sitting there for a turn and my deck wasn't built well enough to either find a blocker, some instant speed removal, or some artefact removal. I could remove the Sword, or I can own up to my own deck-building weaknesses, or bad luck, and get on the next game. I don't want to replace my Swords with inferior equipment, I want the best tools available and the best answers available.
Some of your examples seem a bit less thought-out. I just can't see how something Lightning Bolt 'breaks archetypes'. So what if good creatures die to bolt? The solution of removing bolt seems like the most ludicrous one, to me. Why not run cheap countermagic to back up your creatures? Run different versions of the effects with higher toughness? It seems less like using a sledgehammer to put in a nail, than using a sledgehammer to put out a fire. Not only is it disproportionate, it also won't really work. The 'super interesting' creatures will still die unless you protect them, short of removing most removal. I would suggest that something like Grafdigger's Cage or Rest in Peace is the sort of thing that obviates an entire archetype; Lightning Bolt just isn't. Your complaints about it being an auto-pick for any red deck is mostly correct, and this is a documented feature of pretty much all targeted burn in the cube. Sorry, but every deck needs those effects - short of cutting burn, you have to accept their generic appeal to all deck types.
Our reason for cutting fast mana was specifically to limit the most overt instances of brokenness; Sol Ring makes everything in your hand more broken with sort-of-immediate effect, but Jitte is just one card. That was what works for us, specifically, at the moment. Maybe we will re-add the Moxen and Sol Ring and Lotus at some point, who knows, but it's fun for now.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with not running power or not running cards you consider unfun ("But if you are like me and you have had your fill of jitte, recurring nightmare, et al") However, you have to recognize that this is what every single group already does! NO group runs cards they don't enjoy. And what you find unfun is totally subjective. Look at your second example - even the guy who agrees with you on most counts thinks you're mad for suggesting that RN is not fun. That just goes to show, doesn't it?
You should share the cards that you personally enjoy and find fun. Telling people that power or Manic Vandal isn't fun won't get you very far when it's a subjective element, regardless of whether individuals agree or not.
And on a final note:
Aggro is pretty much impossible to run in limited
I nearly always play aggro in limited events, including Sealed, and have placed first by doing so numerous times.
I think there needs to be some consensus in order to have a discussion, and it's helpful to have the forum here largely agree on the same goals, i.e., running the best cards, singleton, etc. Everyone has a base to comment from. In my experience, there has been room for other cubes, but they get less interest. It's just hard to comment in-depth on a limited environment one has never and probably will never play.
FWIW, I think riptidelab.com has a forum that tends more towards what you're describing, but sometimes it feels "elitist," etc. in their consensus opinion that some power-max cards are wrong or "bad design." When you get similar people in a group, it's natural for people to define themselves against others.
I like the viewpoint of both places and weigh it accordingly.
OP, I am with you so far that people should not be obsessed by what the consensus is, be it here or on Jason's site. But to have a discussion you still need to make sure you are talking about the same thing. For most people Cube is a singleton custom made set, which uses powerful cards.
Sure you can take away the singleton rule and still have fun, hell maybe your custom set will play better. But is it still a cube? Can we as a community have meaningful discussions if some do singleton, other don't, and others do it just for dual lands?
Same with banning the top level cards. Is it a good idea? For our group, no. For yours? Totally your decision. But if you ban Lightning Bolt, why allow Swords to Ploughshares which is clearly more powerful? If some new member comes by and says don't run Bolt, but run Thunderclap because it provides better decision making moments, what do you want us to say? We cannot say this is a good move without knowing the whole back ground of his thinking and his cube. To some point we all have our specific ban-list and pet cards, but if a forum like this loses what you call a hivemind, it will lose focus. That is the reason peasant has its own forum, there is little overlap between Peasant and 'normal' cube. This means I cannot give any valuable input about their cubes and vice versa. Same goes if you decide to neuter aggro and chop off the top layer of your cube. This will make your cube slower and midrangier. You might need more answers to control then a 'normal' cube. All this is fine, but I could only talk about your cube if I really understand its meta and the design restrictions.
Cubes like the one you talked about, or like Jason's/Trunkers or offbeat Tribal or Combo are not inherently worse cubes, just like 'our' cubes are not worse then the ones on Riptidelab. They are just different. All of us want a fun cube. If my powered cube becomes a drag to play, I would consider making a non-singleton low powered cube, but now? No thanks.
It reminds me of discussing casual decks. I have little interest in those and find that discussing them quickly becomes pointless. Without clear restrictions (a clear format)and a clear goal (making the best deck), I find talking about decks useless. Me: You could play this card, it is better then that one. Casual deck owner: No, that one is way cooler, it is a Dragon. End of the discussion for me. Even if Dragons are cooler
Beside the main point I am making here, I really can't see the need to remove Bolt or Manic Vandals in almost any cube. Artifact removal on a stick is always great. Removing moxen and Sol Ring is not why these cards are run. Getting rid of an Icy or a Sundering Titan or just a Signet is good enough for me. The world is full with removal, Bolt only kills one small to medium size creature. Since when would that be format warping? You could remove removal if you like a board full of creatures doing there thing. To me that sounds like it would result in a trench ware pretty quickly. A format where almost any deck would be midrange.
Also, how often do we go over to riptide and ***** about how they do things? We don't ever. Link me to a time that a prominent mtgs poster went to riptide and called them out on their bull*****? I think we are pretty respectful here and just know what we want out of cube drafting.
Edit - Also, go to the riptide site and run a search for any of these terms "mtgs", "salvation", "wtwlf", or "powermax" and see what results come up and how they talk about this site. I just ran a search for riptide on this site and outside of this discussion, the last comment was Humpty_Dumpty advising someone to visit their site as they would be more open to the ideas suggested. We are even advertising for them in a positive light.
I sometimes feel the hive mind effect here but I don't mind it so much, it gives me an idea of what "most people" feel about Cube.
As far as the philosophy of Cube design, however, I can sort of understand where you're going, but even if it provides a somewhat more balanced limited environment, I don't think that's necessary for me, and deviating from the norm too much on my Cube design could be detrimental for me as well.
It's not necessary because my Cube gets drafted once, maybe two times a month, if I'm lucky, and there might be up to 6 drafts in between updates. I don't even have the ability to fully balance the environment with so little testing, so it's not necessary for me to put so much effort into this. A general approach of making sure the theaters of aggro, midrange, and control are present and popular in my playgroup is sufficient. If I were designing a Cube that would be drafted thousands upon thousands of times (like the MODO Cube), then I'd make more sure of the balance, but I just don't need to. And frankly, I don't know if I want to.
It's potentially detrimental just because I want anyone to be able to draft my Cube without a lot of confusion or explanation beforehand - I don't want to hand out crib sheets or anything. That's why all my cards are in English and none are textless. I want everyone to understand all the cards, and to that extent I think there is a pretty common understanding that a Cube contains the most powerful cards available.
I appreciate the replies. All good points. Again, I think this place has good information. I don't post much anymore but I do read what is posted because there is a lot of value.
With that said, there is a very strong collective voice on MTGS that reigns supreme here. It's like the Borg. Ideas outside the traditional power-max / roshambo (aggro/midrange/control) theatre paradigm is not met with much enthusiasm. In fact, it is generally met with a lot of malice and ridicule (or it's just ignored entirely). Either way, guys like me who want to take cube in a different direction really don't have a voice here and can't get much feedback on ideas (at least not useful feedback). You can only read so many dismissive replies before you just get tired of wasting your time trying.
You made a good post but I wanted to specifically address this section of it.
While people could definitely dial back the negativity or hostile reactions to outside the box ideas, you shouldn't be expecting a response or enthusiasm from the dominant viewpoint for your off-the-wall choices. Many of us from the dominant viewpoint just don't have anything to contribute to certain scenarios brought up such as replacing Lightning Bolt with Firebolt.
If you want useful feedback there has to be a larger community of people with similar views and values to your own when it comes to cubing. The best I could tell you in a situation such as Lighting Bolt vs Firebolt is to go with Firebolt if you want and think it'll make what you play more fun.
Thanks for the reply. Not being able to provide feedback for an environment that is too far from the norm is an accurate statement. I don't disagree. With that said, I think some of this is being slightly overstated. The lightning bolt example was simply an example that came up in a thread. Pick something else. Let's use Jitte. Most people run it and I think everyone knows what it can do and how it impacts a meta. If someone wanted to remove it, I think the vast majority of people here would be able to comment on that. I also don't think it would suddenly change that person's cube so much that no one would be able to comment on it or understand how it functions.
Choosing to not run a selection of cards doesn't necessarily make your cube environment so completely different that it is no longer cube. This is still a limited format. This isn't constructed we are talking about here where there are X decks and the meta is turned upside down when you remove a key card to one of the top decks and it's like a house of cards to the format. When I build a deck in cube, it is never the same deck I played with in a prior draft. Moreover, it never plays the same way two games in a row. In fact, I can play it all night and wind up with different game states in each game I play. That is sort of the nature of limited. In constructed, you play with 4 copies of everything, so you might only run 9 cards. Every game you play you are going to see most of the same cards and the deck will play very similarly. But in cube, your deck has 23 or 24 unique cards in it. It just doesn't play consistently unless you've gone out of your way to try and build that. This is the single best thing about limited IMO.
Is cube drastically different today versus when it first came into existence? From a mana curve perspective, I think it is. But the usual suspect power cards haven't really changed (especially in a power environment). Finishers have come and gone sure (and are certainly more powerful now) so have a lot of the aggro and midrange guys, but the truly format warping cards are mostly the old school mistakes. How many truly format warping ultra busted cards has Wizard's printed in the last 10 years? Compare that number to the first 15 years of Magics life.
All I'm saying is that you can deviate pretty far from the normal environment and still have a cube that really isn't going to play that differently from the power-max cube. There will be differences for sure (IMO it will be less swingy), but is it really apples and oranges? Does it really require a whole new forum or a segregation of the cube population? It just all seems really drastic to me.
The definition of cube that Hicham used encompasses a very broad spectrum, not just the power-max version of cube. You can cut the 50 best cards ever printed from your cube and it's still going to play like a rare cube. It's not like you suddenly made it a C/Ube. The high powered card pool at this point is massive. Thousands of cards. There are so many cards that this forum called a "staple" years ago that now is like 4 cards removed from a CC to the point where no one talks about it and those that bring it up quickly dismiss it as not being good enough. When the reality is their is a very fine power line for much of this stuff that no one runs anymore. In fact, you could probably build a cube comprised of only cards not found in the average 360 cube and it would still play like a rare cube and nothing like a C\Ube at all.
It's going to be pretty hard to get meaningful imput from any community when your only concern is a subjective "fun" level that is not well defined. For a lot of cubers, fun means playing the most powerful cards they can within reason (no contract from below, cubes choosing to be not powered and not run sol ring, etc), but those categories are well understood and so it's easy for the community to say that the new izzet planeswalker is probably going to be better than ral zarek so if you are looking to run one or the other you should run the new guy. Now, if you said which of those cards is more fun, no one would really be able to help you in a meaningful way. If you are looking to make a fun, off the wall cube all you can really do is ask stuff like "What cards can clockspinning impact?" and expect to get a meaningful response.
Can't we all just get along? Having fun with the cube is subjective. I enjoy playing with powerful cards. ahadabans enjoys playing with cards that he feels are more fair. Obviously there are going to be differences in both card evaluation and cube design because of this. Neither opinion is wrong, obviously. Cant be wrong with subjective opinions on what makes things "fun". It doesn't mean that either one of us should refrain from voicing our opinions though. When someone suggests cutting a card because it's "too powerful", I'm allowed to share my opinion that I disagree with the notion. Just as he's voiced his opinion that playing with the most powerful cards isn't his idea of an ideal cube environment. It's all cube, it's all based on creating the best environments for our playgroups. I'm disappointed that simply because the majority of posters here disagree with their philosophy on cube design that they had to create a separate group that spits vitriol about "powermax" cubing, "hive mind" and anything else MTGS promotes that they disagree with. Just as they were disappointed that their contrarian ideas weren't received with open arms. The difference I see is that we don't bash their posters. We don't bash their forum. We don't bash their "hive mind" even though it's exactly the same thing over there that they feel is happening here. We don't create tags for their style of cubing to insult them (I don't create terms like "nerfmax" cubes to apply negative connotations to their designs). I'm very much "cube and let cube" with my philosophies, and I think the majority of MTGS feels the same way. But my posts and articles are posted, ridiculed and insulted on their site on a regular basis. And why? Because my ideas are contrary to theirs. Seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, when they supposedly created their own forum to be free of that kind of treatment here, no? Treat others as you want to be treated, and all that good stuff, right?
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm attacking people or the predominant philosophy here. I'm simply airing grievances I have about treatment I've seen towards different perspectives (not just mine, but other people doing different things).
And for the record, most of you are simply proving my point by being defensive about it.
I won't waste anymore time here. There clearly is little point to that.
Comes in, insults how we cube, doesn't listen to a pretty fair discussion (derbk being a grump not included), says we are being super defensive, leaves when proven wrong.
Comes in, insults how we cube, doesn't listen to a pretty fair discussion (derbk being a grump not included), says we are being super defensive, leaves when proven wrong.
see ya again in a few months, riptide!
Took the keys right out of my fingers. We get called insults like "hive mind" and "borg" and then get accused of being defensive when we respond, mostly in reasonable and fair language. Great way to promote an amicable discussion.
I'd like to see some examples of the bad treatment the OP keep saying s/he and others have received on this forum. Just because we didn't ooh and ahh and sing praises over your ideas doesn't mean you were treated badly. Disagreement is not the same as attack.
Just have to say, as one of the people who started the Lightning Bolt discussion in the other thread, that this isn't where it was intended to go. I was pretty happy with the discussion that came of it, and didn't feel like anybody was saying my opinion was wrong.
On the Hive Mind: Isn't that why we're here? We're putting our brains together to improve our cubes. This does, in fact, work better if there are different hive minds for different cubes that vary in power level, limitations, themese, etc. He have a powered cube hive, unpowered hive, pauper hive, peasant hive, edh hive, etc.
Before I get too much into this (and in the hopes of calming the probably unavoidable incoming flame war), I want to say that I think this is a valuable site. Even though I don't post much, I do still keep tabs on this place and continue to read threads. There are knowledgeable people here and there is good information. I don't agree with all of what I read here, but that doesn't mean it isn't without truth / value. As I've said many times, if this game were so simple that there really were universal truths that defined everything, I wouldn't have kept with this game as long as I have (and I suspect many of you wouldn't have either). The fact that the game has so much depth is really what keeps me playing it.
With that said, there is a very strong collective voice on MTGS that reigns supreme here. It's like the Borg. Ideas outside the traditional power-max / roshambo (aggro/midrange/control) theatre paradigm is not met with much enthusiasm. In fact, it is generally met with a lot of malice and ridicule (or it's just ignored entirely). Either way, guys like me who want to take cube in a different direction really don't have a voice here and can't get much feedback on ideas (at least not useful feedback). You can only read so many dismissive replies before you just get tired of wasting your time trying.
That sort of segue me to Lighting bolt. Take the recent discussion in the "this or that" thread. Someone mentions the idea of not running lightning bolt (running Firebolt instead) and that post was rained down upon with fury. Didn't see that one coming (not). I get that lightning bolt is probably the staplest of staples, but that doesn't mean it isn't the wrong card for some cubes. There are plenty of reasons someone might not want to run lightning bolt. It's ridiculously efficient from a mana cost perspective (way above the curve). It's an auto pick in every single deck with red mana (and IMO, this is pretty good reason right there not to run it). It's instant speed removal that comes with tons of tempo robbing power (3 damage is a key number after all), and that can really kill the value of many fringe arch types and/or cards you may want to push in your environment (there are plenty of powerful/interesting effects attached to bodies with weak butts that just roll over to bolt - and in cube losing your 4 mana turn to a one mana spell can cost you the match).
Not every cube gets better without Lightning Bolt (most don't is my guess even if I'm playing Devil's advocate here), but to make black and white statements about which cards cubes are ALWAYS better with is a really myopic viewpoint. IMHO, cube has evolved a great deal since it's inception. The whole "run the best cards possible no matter what" mentality really isn't where I think this format is/should be evolving too. Honestly, I feel like cube is a way to craft a really fun, powerful and (in theory) perfectly balanced limited environment. And that does not require that you run the best cards printed at every CC. In fact, it probably requires that you DO NOT do that (and if you think about it, the reason why is obvious).
A simple example to illustrate some of the problems which many are introducing into their own meta by power maxing. A lot of you are running underpowered hate cards to try and deal with some of the broken stuff that is getting put in your cube (and warping your meta whether you see it or not). Take artifact hate cards for instance. In a powered cube, there is a minimum threshold you need to hit otherwise games just get ruined by moxen and other super overpowered stuff like clamp, etc. Take these cards out and all of a sudden Manic Vandal is no longer a requirement and you are free to run a red three drop that is maybe more interesting or helps support fringe decks or bolster weak arch types, whatever. Getting rid of powerful cards can in some cases give you MORE design choices. That's the real benefit I see and why I've chosen this path personally.
Now I fully understand there are those that want to play the highest power cube possible. And I do not begrudge that approach. I ran that for a long time and it was really fun. But there are others who may not want to do that, and there is nothing wrong with that either. In fact, that approach is just as valid (and for their group might actually lead to a BETTER MORE FUN cube environment even). I would just ask that some of you dial back some of the elitism that is often running rampant around here because it doesn't make this community better. It drives people away and it really discourages creative thinking and experimentation (things that this format needs to thrive).
Again, there is nothing wrong with following the tried and true cube design approach. I want to make it clear I'm not claiming my way is better. In fact, for anyone new to cube. the tried and true is the best place to start IMO (cube design is a really huge undertaking). This site is a key resource in helping people build that (and it was a key resource for me in the beginning without a doubt). Bottom line… If you follow the advice here, you will end up with a very good cube and you will have a lot of fun with it.
But if you are like me and you have had your fill of jitte, recurring nightmare, et all and you want to take this in a new direction... well, I'm not sure there's a place on this site for that right now. There has certainly been a shortage of tolerance for it at the very least.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I really like the idea of making a cube with a more level power curve. Part of the concept of cube is that every pack is full of first pickable cards and hard decisions. But in practice, there are still cards that stand out as head and shoulders above the rest (like Lightning Bolt, Jace 2.0, Jitte, etc). Cube is much more deep than most limited formats, but I believe it's possible to create a cube format that spawns even more difficult draft decisions and I would personally contribute to that project. If your cube is like that, please link me and let's discuss it. It's something I've considered starting a project for myself and one of the things I admire most about many Peasent/Pauper cubes. (The more level power curve.)
However, this is NOT the standard definition of cube and you shouldn't necessarily try and push others to follow your lead. Cube has evolved a lot, but the majority still prefers to have the most powerful cube - and that is OK. You can see the growth in the breadth of the format just by looking at how many unpowered, EDH, Peasant, Themed, etc cubes there are though. Going into the This or That thread and suggesting replacing Lightning Bolt with Firebolt is going to be met with dismissal because it doesn't make sense in the context of what the player was asking for advice on. It sounds like you trying to preach your philosophy and convert others. That is why I didn't want to discuss it there where our conversation would rapidly devolve off-topic and disrupt the thread.
I think one of the core components of making a power balanced cube would be to start with a "baseline" power level for each color. Find a couple of cards which you consider perfectly balanced and core and then try to deviate as little as possible from the power level set by them. Adjustments will have to be made due to the meta that evolves from that. Alternately, you could start with a set meta the way a Pauper cube does and try to build a level power curve in a known meta. Haphazardly chopping powerful cards out of normal power cubes is more likely to skew power between colors and archetypes than create the new kind of balance we are looking for.
P.S. I can't believe you used Recurring Nightmare as an example of an unfun card. That's one of my favorite build-around-me cards and does generally everything I want a fun cube card to do!
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
You can kind of look at Cube management like government. You can create all these rules and regulations to reach some greater utility, but these experiments almost always go awry. Many of these more "unique" cubes only work in concept, and some of them work just fine if a lot of work has been put into them, but it's hard to know if something's sub-optimal if someone has not cubed with dozens of different cubes. The more government control in an economy, the less efficient the economy tends to be, and the less utility can be found for the average citizen. The same thing happens with cube. The more a cube designer employs their own limitations, biases, and rules, the less efficient the design and the lower the average utility of your play group. There is a ton of room for personalization and preferences in cube design. Even the most traditionally-minded cube designers here abandon many staples in favor of a flavor more suited to their play group. But at a fundamental level, the game defines its own limitations better than any of us are able to, at least from what I've seen. The cube mentality that's most common here is a more laissez-faire approach. Magic, as a game, balances itself. Because most cube designers (especially those who tend to make more specialized cubes) don't have the thousands and thousands of hours of play experience that R&D has or the design and development training that comes with working in Seattle, anything less creates a format that is uninteresting, linear, unbalanced, or boring after a short time.
It's not about tolerance. It's not even about the highest power level possible. It's the ego of some cube designers that they think they know what's more fun for a group. Sometimes they're correct. But as with most other formats of Magic, cube, as it's generally known, is solved to an extent. It has been made more efficient and effective by years of bickering between rival cube designers. The optimal lists are created, changed, tweaked, and varied upon, and there's probably not a "definitive" list, but the pool for what a good 360 looks like is not huge.
Going in a new direction for the sake of it has no value when the people on this forum are generally interested in the "standard cube". The reason so many vie for the "standard cube" and we work together every day to figure out what that means is because that's really the optimal way to play cube (or Magic really) for the greatest amount of people. So when most people here are working towards the same general idea and others come into the conversation and bring up sub-optimal choices, it makes sense that they would have a hard time finding agreement.
I've tried to make a cube that was a little more off the radar. It was novel, for sure, but it failed to keep my playgroup's interest for very long. While it may get a hard time, the reason that most of the ice cream in the world is vanilla is because it's a fantastic flavor with no faults. It's almost impossible to get sick of it. When people are trying to be special snowflakes, they'll just look for ice cream that sounds very bizarre or jam in too many ingredients. That's fine and great, but those who prefer vanilla often have a certain maturity to them. They've tried the crazy flavors and are happy to be back at the standard. Forcing bad cards just to force them almost seems to be a phase in newer cube designers. In the long term, the reason why most cubers don't deviate more than 20% from the Cube Tutor standard cubes is because that is what is the most optimal fun (as much as you can objectively define fun). It's testament to it's objective fun-ness that it's so popular, even among the most grizzled grinders and casual kitchen tablers.
An approach to make your cube more different for the sake of being different will not, in the long run, be more "fun" for the average play group. It may work great for your play group, but people are generally not all so different. There's a place for different cube designs on this board, but just remember to provide the context of your own cube, and to not get upset when people talk about their own cubes in the context of their own cubes. You claim you don't want people to be dismissive of your ideas, and then spend the rest of your text dismissing the ideas of others. I don't run some staples like Mind Twist and Gideon Jura, and while most here don't agree with me, I've never had anything than fair debate and reasoned arguments about that sort of thing. Consider how you're framing your cube going forward, and you may find much more success.
TL;DR - Cube design is much closer to Smith capitalism than it is to Borg assimilation
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Thanks for the reply. My use of certain words was intentional. In my history posting here, I have been really nice and respectful of people on this forum. But that has not always been returned in kind. With all due respect, I'm not going to sugar coat how I feel about it at this point.
I've been working on an update to my cube for months. I finally got it partially uploaded into cube tutor. When I finally get this done, I'll update my sig with a link to it. Feedback is certainly welcome as it's hard work this far from the norm with the limited amount of play time my cube gets (and the limited feedback available for what I'm doing). It sometimes feels like an exercise in futility since there are so many variables and so few resources. I agree with you though on evening out the power level. I'm not sure I can (or even want to) make it so there aren't cards ahead of the rest, but I do want to greatly reduce and limit some of the bombs. I've cut all kinds of power cards that most would shudder to hear have been removed. Just to name a few... swords, jitte, recurring nightmare, balance, winter orb, shackles, soltari brothers, hero of bladehold, vindicate, anhk. Not to mention the huge list of high cost power cards I either removed or never ran (all Titans, Wurmcoil, Batterskull, Baneslayer, Thragtusk, all walkers). It's a very different cube meta.
With regard to pushing my philosophy... that isn't what I was trying to do. I've made three posts in the last 4 months probably. All of them were replies to guys who were either suggesting things or asking for feedback outside the standard paradigm. They were getting ready to step on a land mine and I tried to steer them away. Maybe my posts were more confrontational than they needed to be though. That's fair.
As far as Recurring Nightmare... it's a very fun card but it wore thin with our group. I destroyed everyone with it and then a draft or two later, another guy did and then again it happened. It was that point where there was a lot less enthusiasm. This is true of a lot of cards, not just that one. When we first started cubing, it was fun to see all the broken things you could do with some of these cards. But then after awhile, it stops being entirely cute (at least did for us). Guys wanted it to be less about P1P1 and drawing your broken enabler and more about synergy, good deck building and smart play decisions. My group has kind of unraveled so it's sort of a moot point now (I work on cube these days more as a theoretical hobby as I rarely get to play anymore).
4/24/2014 5:57:00 PM
Well, a new direction doesn't necessarily require that you play bad cards. My cube is composed of very good cards, I've just started to eliminate some of the format warping ones is all. And that has created more options from a design perspective I think. I can play more fringe cards now. I can push different synergies and strategies that might rollover to jitte or swords but is very competitive and fun without them, etc.
Again though, I understand the appeal and excitement you get from running all the power cards. I do. Cutting jitte was a very hard choice to make.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I didn't say that is required me to play bad cards, I said it required me to not play good cards. I'd rather play with the most powerful cards then not play with them in order to support archetypes. All the cards you mentioned are all cards I find fun because I like playing with broken cards and doing dumb things. Again, sorry, but no interest.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
I don't think the game balances itself. Not if you use the entire 30k population of cards ever printed (or whatever the number is now). Some of these cards were complete design mistakes banned in almost every format for a reason. Balanced they are not. This is IMO the flaw in the power-max design. There is nothing inherently balanced about running the best cards possible. What you find (and perhaps this is where we will agree) is that the community has tweaked the curve and removal numbers so that you have a playable and relatively balanced meta if you follow the blueprint. Aggro gets pushed to the moon here because it's the only thing standing in the way of all the broken power degenerating the game. People have vitriol towards "dragon" cubes but that is how cube started and it took off like wildfire in that state. I'm not suggestion we go back to that, I'm simply stating that running the most powerful cards possible forces you into a corner as far as how you can balance your cube. There really is only one way if you power-max (push aggro).
But that isn't the only way to balance a meta. Look at limited. Aggro is pretty much impossible to run in limited. And yet it is possible to create a very fun, interactive and balanced limited environment. Is cube better? I think so, but that has to do with the overall power level of the card pool (it is still a limited format after all). But it doesn't have to be all or nothing (all good cards or no good cards). You can create a really powerful meta without running all the most powerful cards. That wasn't really true in 2005 (where the best stuff was head and shoulders above everything else), but it most certainly is true today. How much of the modern cube is made up of cards printed in the last 5 years? 50%? Maybe more.
For me personally, I enjoy games with a lot of play decisions. And that means super fast meta environments work against what I enjoy. So for me, slowing down the game a bit so that you get interaction is very desirable. Doing that however gives broken power cards too much time to degenerate the game. So really you have two choices from where I'm standing. Speed up your meta (push aggro more) or get rid of the stuff degenerating your meta so you can slow it down a bit and not end up with 3-0 decks running recurring nightmare et all. I like the later option better but not everyone will.
As far as how many good 360 cubes you can build? More than a few. I'm guessing thousands. To think that this site has refined cube to the point where it can't be improved upon or that doing something outside the norm is less "mature" or less "fun" is IMO a ridiculous suggestion. It speaks exactly to the myopic viewpoint I alluded to in my OP. There are just as many people who started eating vanilla ice cream because it was the most popular and then tried mint chip and never looked back as there are guys who went for frosty cherry banana cream puff and then went vanilla and said "WTF was I thinking with that first choice?". It works both ways.
As I said, using this site and the work that has gone into the power max roshambo cube is IMO a very good idea for those starting out. It works and you have tons of resources. And many people will find they never need to deviate from it. That's fine. I'm not one of those people and I know I'm not alone.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I'm really enjoying the change so far in testing.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
Ditto. A funny story along those lines. So before I really went to town de-powering my cube, I was testing a bunch of arch types and I found really well built decks were just getting trashed by certain decks. Namely, I had this white weenie deck that had mother, the soltari brothers, jitte and a sword I think (along with stone forge and enlightened tutor to fetch them). It really wasn't a great deck outside these cards (my card draw engine was mentor of the meek). But it became my gold standard deck for testing because it could beat anything with a decent draw. I tried to add cards that helped the other arch types compete, but I couldn't make it work. This deck just wrecked pretty much everything (well, except the recurring nightmare deck and the tinker deck but those are the same kind of problem as Jitte).
Anyway, it occurred to me after awhile that I was banging my head against a wall trying to RAISE the power level of all my other arch types to compete with Jitte, when all I needed to do was take that card away and suddenly it was on a level footing with everything else I was building. This is really what prompted me to take a serious look at some of the format defining cards I was running. Some of them just require no deck building skills at all to break. Again, this white weenie deck was not that great. But it could consistently get jitte or a sword and protect them and that was enough for the deck to beat everything else I built. Jitte is busted.
Maybe I'm pulling out TOO many power cards now and I've gone knee-jerk. But better that then leaving in something that just ruins match ups. Again, there are so many powerful cards now (recent sets have been a real boon for cube). Cutting even the 50 best cards of all time still leaves you with an extremely high powered environment that has all the great things which made me fall in love with cube. At least IMO.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
We have completely different design paradigms, and that's all. There are things about the cube I consider critical after cubing experience has shown me their importance, and they're dismissed by the "fun" crowd as unimportant factors for cube design and balance. It's hard to debate what makes something "fun" ...when by definition that experience is subjective.
And the Hive Mind thing is just silly. We're no more a hive mind over here than folks at riptidelab are a hive mind on the other end of the spectrum. It's basically just a divide between people that find powerful cards fun to use and those who don't. You cut Jitte because it was "busted" and made things unfun for you. I cube Jitte because it's a blast to use insanely powerful cards, and that's fun for us. How are our experiences possibly going to gel when how we define the subjective nature of "fun" (the epicenter of cube design) in opposite ways?
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!
Having seen Cube as a format grow over the last 7-8 years (yikes, has it really be that long?!), it's been interesting to see how the definition of "Cube" seems to have shifted subtly over the years.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Cubing really started making headwinds around Time Spiral. There was a set in which people were playing new cards mixed in with the intentionally nostalgic old frame timeshifted cards, and some people asked themselves "Wow, why can't we do this more often?" You could see the beginning of the split even back then, because some people were saying to themselves "Man, I miss being able to play with iconic cards like Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire" while others were saying "Man, I miss being able to play with powerful cards like Force of Will and Reanimate." Only it was easy to confuse the two in the beginning because powerful often meant iconic back then, but the recent rise in powerful levels has really differentiated the two words as they pertain to MTG.
The MTGS forum really leaned towards the "power" group of players, and as far as I can tell this seems to be the case with older Cube discussion groups. Newer groups (for example the mtgcube subreddit) seem to be more flexible when it comes to Cube building, but as Braid of Fire points out above it's kind of hard to evaluate a Cube (or even if a card is good for a Cube) if it diverges too far from people's personal experience. I mean I have a general idea of the ideas behind a Tribal Cube but I'm not going to be able to tell you with any amount of certainty if An-Zerrin Ruins is going to be a windmill slam dunk pick or a sideboard at best card since I'm not familiar with the environment.
With my Cube I've also started making certain selective edits due to the fact that I disliked how my Cube was becoming a barrage of keywords. So I instituted my own rule that if a more fiddly keyword were to be included in my Cube, it would require at least 4 playable cards. As more people build Cubes, they are by nature going to look more different, but at the same time the more your Cube diverges from the mainstream the more difficult it will be for people to give you meaningful feedback on your decisions.
I don't even run fast mana any more and I can tell you there's nothing wrong with Manic Vandal, at all. I don't understand the logic behind castigating people for running 'broken' cards like fast mana, JtMS and Jitte (they're too good!) and then complaining that people have to run answers like Manic Vandal (they aren't good enough!). Which power level is being arbitrarily defined as the 'correct' one?
There's nothing wrong with NOT running those broken cards, and removing all the Jittes of the cube world. That's not an argument for some radical new cube paradigm, that's just an argument for unpowered cubes which we've been having here for years. I personally like the cutthroat environment of having those sick cards that need answering rapidly. I don't want to hold my players' hands and run inefficient cards and inefficient answers. I want to have to consider other decks when I build my own - it makes me draft more intelligently than going 'right, mono-red'. I have to be able to deal with fast starts, grindy decks, Moat, equipment, planeswalkers and big threats. My successful decks need focus, but also versatility. I don't want to de-tool my decks to the point where any old pile is viable because there just isn't anything strong enough to make me pack answers or get the win within a certain time frame. I love drafting and thinking, "crap - I need more artefact removal or I risk getting walled by a strong equipment". If I get killed by a Sword as happened yesterday, it's because I deserved to have been killed by it. It was sitting there for a turn and my deck wasn't built well enough to either find a blocker, some instant speed removal, or some artefact removal. I could remove the Sword, or I can own up to my own deck-building weaknesses, or bad luck, and get on the next game. I don't want to replace my Swords with inferior equipment, I want the best tools available and the best answers available.
Some of your examples seem a bit less thought-out. I just can't see how something Lightning Bolt 'breaks archetypes'. So what if good creatures die to bolt? The solution of removing bolt seems like the most ludicrous one, to me. Why not run cheap countermagic to back up your creatures? Run different versions of the effects with higher toughness? It seems less like using a sledgehammer to put in a nail, than using a sledgehammer to put out a fire. Not only is it disproportionate, it also won't really work. The 'super interesting' creatures will still die unless you protect them, short of removing most removal. I would suggest that something like Grafdigger's Cage or Rest in Peace is the sort of thing that obviates an entire archetype; Lightning Bolt just isn't. Your complaints about it being an auto-pick for any red deck is mostly correct, and this is a documented feature of pretty much all targeted burn in the cube. Sorry, but every deck needs those effects - short of cutting burn, you have to accept their generic appeal to all deck types.
Our reason for cutting fast mana was specifically to limit the most overt instances of brokenness; Sol Ring makes everything in your hand more broken with sort-of-immediate effect, but Jitte is just one card. That was what works for us, specifically, at the moment. Maybe we will re-add the Moxen and Sol Ring and Lotus at some point, who knows, but it's fun for now.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with not running power or not running cards you consider unfun ("But if you are like me and you have had your fill of jitte, recurring nightmare, et al") However, you have to recognize that this is what every single group already does! NO group runs cards they don't enjoy. And what you find unfun is totally subjective. Look at your second example - even the guy who agrees with you on most counts thinks you're mad for suggesting that RN is not fun. That just goes to show, doesn't it?
You should share the cards that you personally enjoy and find fun. Telling people that power or Manic Vandal isn't fun won't get you very far when it's a subjective element, regardless of whether individuals agree or not.
And on a final note:
I nearly always play aggro in limited events, including Sealed, and have placed first by doing so numerous times.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
FWIW, I think riptidelab.com has a forum that tends more towards what you're describing, but sometimes it feels "elitist," etc. in their consensus opinion that some power-max cards are wrong or "bad design." When you get similar people in a group, it's natural for people to define themselves against others.
I like the viewpoint of both places and weigh it accordingly.
Sure you can take away the singleton rule and still have fun, hell maybe your custom set will play better. But is it still a cube? Can we as a community have meaningful discussions if some do singleton, other don't, and others do it just for dual lands?
Same with banning the top level cards. Is it a good idea? For our group, no. For yours? Totally your decision. But if you ban Lightning Bolt, why allow Swords to Ploughshares which is clearly more powerful? If some new member comes by and says don't run Bolt, but run Thunderclap because it provides better decision making moments, what do you want us to say? We cannot say this is a good move without knowing the whole back ground of his thinking and his cube. To some point we all have our specific ban-list and pet cards, but if a forum like this loses what you call a hivemind, it will lose focus. That is the reason peasant has its own forum, there is little overlap between Peasant and 'normal' cube. This means I cannot give any valuable input about their cubes and vice versa. Same goes if you decide to neuter aggro and chop off the top layer of your cube. This will make your cube slower and midrangier. You might need more answers to control then a 'normal' cube. All this is fine, but I could only talk about your cube if I really understand its meta and the design restrictions.
Cubes like the one you talked about, or like Jason's/Trunkers or offbeat Tribal or Combo are not inherently worse cubes, just like 'our' cubes are not worse then the ones on Riptidelab. They are just different. All of us want a fun cube. If my powered cube becomes a drag to play, I would consider making a non-singleton low powered cube, but now? No thanks.
It reminds me of discussing casual decks. I have little interest in those and find that discussing them quickly becomes pointless. Without clear restrictions (a clear format)and a clear goal (making the best deck), I find talking about decks useless. Me: You could play this card, it is better then that one. Casual deck owner: No, that one is way cooler, it is a Dragon. End of the discussion for me. Even if Dragons are cooler
Beside the main point I am making here, I really can't see the need to remove Bolt or Manic Vandals in almost any cube. Artifact removal on a stick is always great. Removing moxen and Sol Ring is not why these cards are run. Getting rid of an Icy or a Sundering Titan or just a Signet is good enough for me. The world is full with removal, Bolt only kills one small to medium size creature. Since when would that be format warping? You could remove removal if you like a board full of creatures doing there thing. To me that sounds like it would result in a trench ware pretty quickly. A format where almost any deck would be midrange.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Edit - Also, go to the riptide site and run a search for any of these terms "mtgs", "salvation", "wtwlf", or "powermax" and see what results come up and how they talk about this site. I just ran a search for riptide on this site and outside of this discussion, the last comment was Humpty_Dumpty advising someone to visit their site as they would be more open to the ideas suggested. We are even advertising for them in a positive light.
Draft my cube!
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As far as the philosophy of Cube design, however, I can sort of understand where you're going, but even if it provides a somewhat more balanced limited environment, I don't think that's necessary for me, and deviating from the norm too much on my Cube design could be detrimental for me as well.
It's not necessary because my Cube gets drafted once, maybe two times a month, if I'm lucky, and there might be up to 6 drafts in between updates. I don't even have the ability to fully balance the environment with so little testing, so it's not necessary for me to put so much effort into this. A general approach of making sure the theaters of aggro, midrange, and control are present and popular in my playgroup is sufficient. If I were designing a Cube that would be drafted thousands upon thousands of times (like the MODO Cube), then I'd make more sure of the balance, but I just don't need to. And frankly, I don't know if I want to.
It's potentially detrimental just because I want anyone to be able to draft my Cube without a lot of confusion or explanation beforehand - I don't want to hand out crib sheets or anything. That's why all my cards are in English and none are textless. I want everyone to understand all the cards, and to that extent I think there is a pretty common understanding that a Cube contains the most powerful cards available.
-rexx
Draft my 540 card powered cube here: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/36935
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
You made a good post but I wanted to specifically address this section of it.
While people could definitely dial back the negativity or hostile reactions to outside the box ideas, you shouldn't be expecting a response or enthusiasm from the dominant viewpoint for your off-the-wall choices. Many of us from the dominant viewpoint just don't have anything to contribute to certain scenarios brought up such as replacing Lightning Bolt with Firebolt.
If you want useful feedback there has to be a larger community of people with similar views and values to your own when it comes to cubing. The best I could tell you in a situation such as Lighting Bolt vs Firebolt is to go with Firebolt if you want and think it'll make what you play more fun.
Personally, I'd never consider it.
Thanks for the reply. Not being able to provide feedback for an environment that is too far from the norm is an accurate statement. I don't disagree. With that said, I think some of this is being slightly overstated. The lightning bolt example was simply an example that came up in a thread. Pick something else. Let's use Jitte. Most people run it and I think everyone knows what it can do and how it impacts a meta. If someone wanted to remove it, I think the vast majority of people here would be able to comment on that. I also don't think it would suddenly change that person's cube so much that no one would be able to comment on it or understand how it functions.
Choosing to not run a selection of cards doesn't necessarily make your cube environment so completely different that it is no longer cube. This is still a limited format. This isn't constructed we are talking about here where there are X decks and the meta is turned upside down when you remove a key card to one of the top decks and it's like a house of cards to the format. When I build a deck in cube, it is never the same deck I played with in a prior draft. Moreover, it never plays the same way two games in a row. In fact, I can play it all night and wind up with different game states in each game I play. That is sort of the nature of limited. In constructed, you play with 4 copies of everything, so you might only run 9 cards. Every game you play you are going to see most of the same cards and the deck will play very similarly. But in cube, your deck has 23 or 24 unique cards in it. It just doesn't play consistently unless you've gone out of your way to try and build that. This is the single best thing about limited IMO.
Is cube drastically different today versus when it first came into existence? From a mana curve perspective, I think it is. But the usual suspect power cards haven't really changed (especially in a power environment). Finishers have come and gone sure (and are certainly more powerful now) so have a lot of the aggro and midrange guys, but the truly format warping cards are mostly the old school mistakes. How many truly format warping ultra busted cards has Wizard's printed in the last 10 years? Compare that number to the first 15 years of Magics life.
All I'm saying is that you can deviate pretty far from the normal environment and still have a cube that really isn't going to play that differently from the power-max cube. There will be differences for sure (IMO it will be less swingy), but is it really apples and oranges? Does it really require a whole new forum or a segregation of the cube population? It just all seems really drastic to me.
The definition of cube that Hicham used encompasses a very broad spectrum, not just the power-max version of cube. You can cut the 50 best cards ever printed from your cube and it's still going to play like a rare cube. It's not like you suddenly made it a C/Ube. The high powered card pool at this point is massive. Thousands of cards. There are so many cards that this forum called a "staple" years ago that now is like 4 cards removed from a CC to the point where no one talks about it and those that bring it up quickly dismiss it as not being good enough. When the reality is their is a very fine power line for much of this stuff that no one runs anymore. In fact, you could probably build a cube comprised of only cards not found in the average 360 cube and it would still play like a rare cube and nothing like a C\Ube at all.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
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!
And for the record, most of you are simply proving my point by being defensive about it.
I won't waste anymore time here. There clearly is little point to that.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
see ya again in a few months, riptide!
Draft my cube!
Watch me stream!
Took the keys right out of my fingers. We get called insults like "hive mind" and "borg" and then get accused of being defensive when we respond, mostly in reasonable and fair language. Great way to promote an amicable discussion.
I'd like to see some examples of the bad treatment the OP keep saying s/he and others have received on this forum. Just because we didn't ooh and ahh and sing praises over your ideas doesn't mean you were treated badly. Disagreement is not the same as attack.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
On the Hive Mind: Isn't that why we're here? We're putting our brains together to improve our cubes. This does, in fact, work better if there are different hive minds for different cubes that vary in power level, limitations, themese, etc. He have a powered cube hive, unpowered hive, pauper hive, peasant hive, edh hive, etc.