The telos of the cube is to encourage multicolor and tribes when appropriate. This is a bit of discussion for anyone whose done a tribal cube before or played in one with "what works" and "what doesn't" without getting overly complicated in the "big picture sense."
Onslaught, the first tribal block, pushed for mostly mono color tribes with some inter tribe synergy hither and thither. Lorwyn, the king of tribal blocks, encouraged mono and multicolor. Innistraad was horror themed and tribal light, but encouraged multicolor. Looking at prices for specific tribes, I've found that with the rise in competitive prices for merfolk that it got slotted out but was no large loss. The problem right now is determining secondary supported "glue" tribes without devolving the major tribes.
Firstly, shapeshifters are the glue that held together the Lorwin block and there's no substitution for them. Humans are a "sort of" tribe that fits into the other major class and tribes. Considering that "human tribe" is now a "thing" it's certainly possible to add in future adjustments. However, most "human lords" like Sun Quan, Lord of Wu are universally acceptable to all race/class combinations so this adds to the precept of pre-existing tribes having a universal lord protecting them. Acting in part as another "glue" to the design fabric. So humans and shapeshifters are auto includes. Goblins and Elves have been around since immemorial, so they are again an auto include. Zombies, again are ancient with a strong push in Onslaught and IST blocks they're generally acceptable. Soldier, while a class not a race, is altogether a very strong option to carry white.
The tug of war between wizard vs. merfolk as the "main" tribe, altogether was an economic decision in terms of design space as well as cost benefit analysis. Firstly, merfolk tribal are competitive in Legacy and Modern. So the prices for certain commons and uncommons are unwanted. Equally, wizards tend to be print in every set in every color, while merfolk tend to be dependent on the plane they're on. Equally with zombies from IST block there's even more competition for those cards slots in blue. Equally, the archetype from Born of the Gods offers up just superior universal lords once again over merfolk.
I am very much on the fence about bringing in clerics, shamans, warriors, and maybe spirits. Rogues, while there is tribal support, I have decided to leave out fairies as much as possible and they contribute to a large part of good rogues whenever available and compete for black/blue space that would better go to zombies and wizards. Cleric in Onslaught dovetailed with Zombie and Soldier and Wizard. Shamans and Warriors dovetailed with elves and goblins. Spirits have multiple creature types and support tokens, but lack universal lords as well as only have two block support, Kawigama (which sucks as a block for spirits) and IST (which offered up some really weak spirit support).
Beast is certainly going to have some attention, considering it had some dovetail with elves and exists in multiple colors. However, humans offers up much better support with universal lords that there's little need. Humans have multiple ins and are constantly growing as a source for strength. Minotaur, Kavu, and other "weak tribes" do not have the necessary space for future growth. I am still deciding whether to put in Archetype of Endurance which is a boar or Archetype of Finality which is a gorgon, while the other three are all human and respectively warrior, soldier, and wizard. So what are your thoughts on universal lords?
The are where I need to figure out is set size, probably aiming for 400-600 range, while also looking at dovetail tribes in each block. Figuring the "dovetail tribes" is the area that I need some figuring out to do. For now from working memory I've been looking at areas to push or at least allow for certain strategies or tribes to exist a part of different colors:
Now looking at Bondafong's design, it was focused on one or two main tribes then 3 support tribes per color with a core strategy of either pinger/gun or token strategies. I like the token strategy support but a fan of pingers. The inter and intra support for race/class combinations was there and executed well. However, for my own tastes lacked the multicolor department. While the other cube I looked at, Splodycopter's, offered up a multicolor design, but lacked inter and intra race/class combinations that I've been looking for. While I've only drafted slivers a few times, I've never seen them to be particularly amazing unless if in multiples and they traditionally have no intra tribal support outside of Hive Stone and require shapeshifters or universal lords to be buddies. Besides, I already have a sliver EDH deck with all the bells and whistles with another person in our play group having one as well.
Any advice or anyone that can link a good list that they know of besides Bondafong and Splodycopters would be appreciated.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
I don't really like universal lords, but that is just a personal preference. I want people to have to take chances while drafting and either get rewarded or not. I think it makes for more highs and lows, which in my experience makes for more fun in general. The universal lords don't really achieve that.
I don't have a lot of time for a coherent explanation of what I am trying to achieve with my cube but maybe looking through would be helpful for you. My cube is linked in my sig. I try to only include tribal cards that can be viable on their own.
Basic premise:
Similar environment to a pauper cube or a block draft format where the card quality isn't high enough (I know the equipment is bonkers, I may need to tone it down) to make the tribal stuff useless without drafting a fully tribal deck.
There are a lot of viable "tribes" that exist but I have had much more success drafting the best possible deck archetype (aggro, midrange etc...). The tribal stuff is usually just a bonus, or makes for interesting decisions when drafting.
Example:
- Do I have enough beasts/shapeshifters to take this wirewood savage over eternal witness. Savage also exists and could be playable if you have timberwatch elf or immaculate magistrate etc...
My cube is fairly new and I see alot of open space for me to tune it and refine the environment, especially in the non-creature spells. What I don't want is for the drafting to be linear where you just take cards in your tribe(s) and
have either of you actually built a list for the tribal cube? I've been talking with my play group for a long time about doing this. My group started playing in lorwyn block so this would be a great kick of nostalgia
In terms of raw power and consistency, Merfolk are among the strongest tribes in Magic. They don't necessarily have the most exciting tribal interactions, but they do have them beyond the many lords they get access to.
But, how you build you cube is up to you. Brendan_coad doesn't like universal lords, but I like them very much. I think it's exciting that Adaptive Automaton and Brass Herald become better cards just because you know there are going to be tribal interactions in the draft for you to force.
I started work on a tribal cube long ago, but never finished it because I was trying to take a very systematic and mathematical approach to choosing the tribes I included. First, I'll explain what I was going for and then I'll explain some of the problems I ran into:
I was going through every tribe I could think of and searching on magiccards.info for cards of that tribe and recording lots of information as I scoured the pages. I kept track of the number of cards in each tribe I searched for, but I went even deeper than that. I recorded the number of cards in each tribe for each color, for each multicolor combination, I recorded if the cards had tribal interactions or if they were specifically lords, and probably even other details. This was done for types like Elf and Goblin, but also for Soldier and Wizard.
Unfortunately, this was a very daunting endeavor and I eventually ran out of steam. I wanted to have a race and a class assigned to each color combination, rather than just each color. I was stretching to think of creature types that would work, and then I was also trying to find cards with "races" and "classes" on them, which can be a stretch when you're also looking for creatures with worthwhile bodies and interesting tribal abilities.
Anyways, based on my (abandoned) attempt at a tribal cube, here are the pieces of advice I can offer:
Don't go too deep; try to include enough cards that aren't explicitly tribal (and clunky) that a non-tribal deck can at least compete with tribal decks. There doesn't have to be a Tarmogoyf and Strangleroot Geist in your cube if you think they're "too spike" and "non-tribal," but workhorse cards like Eternal Witness can actually augment and improve your tribal cards. Keep in mind that--no matter how hard you push tribal strategies--bad cards are bad cards. Assign your tribes color combinations; If all of your elf cards are green and all your merfolk cards are blue, eventually, one of your drafters will be taking exclusively blue cards and another will be taking exclusively green cards. By trying to keep your overall card quality high (but more importantly "even") and distributing tribes between colors, you can force some amount of tension between players even if they aren't picking cards from the same tribe. Eternal Witness (again) will be good in my Elf deck, sure, but it would also be good in the Zombie player's deck. I don't have a great specific example of the importance of this, but note that Lorwyn and Innistrad both tried to put all of their tribes into two colors. (R/G Werewolves, B/R Vampires, U/B Zombies...) "Glue" the pieces together; I consider cards like Changelings to be "glue" with regards to tribal interactions. Your first post implies that you understand the value of changelings in a tribal limited environment, but even Karmic Guide could be considered a "glue" card. Cards like reanimation spells become even more important in a singleton draft environment where you might be banking on one effect as your win condition. Encourage tribal decks with "universal" glue; This is somewhat of a counterpoint to "don't go too deep." Cards like Adaptive Automaton are good in every (limited) tribal deck. You can find these gems peppered throughout Magic's history, and some are more potent than others. I think having a few cards like Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, and Shared Triumph in a tribal cube really encourage players to try to pick cards of the same tribe even if they haven't found cards with tribal triggers and interactions that would make them. The universal nature of these cards make them extremely valuable picks. To a lesser extent, there are also cards like Pack's Disdain and Coordinated Barrage which reward a player for going deep into a tribe, but are generally functional with as few as two creatures of a given type. Creatures matter; and so, removal matters. Similarly to my points regarding Eternal Witness and Karmic Guide allowing you to simulate having redundant effects, being able to protect your creatures with spells like Apostle's Blessing and Vines of Vastwood (both of which are powerful enough to go into most normal cubes) allow players to protect the foundation of their decks. I absolutely endorse still playing efficient removal and Sweepers, because this is cube, and (I assume) you don't want boring, cluttered board states; but, I encourage discretion so as to avoid going too deep.
That was a lot of stuff. I hope you find it useful or at the very least interesting!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Onslaught, the first tribal block, pushed for mostly mono color tribes with some inter tribe synergy hither and thither. Lorwyn, the king of tribal blocks, encouraged mono and multicolor. Innistraad was horror themed and tribal light, but encouraged multicolor. Looking at prices for specific tribes, I've found that with the rise in competitive prices for merfolk that it got slotted out but was no large loss. The problem right now is determining secondary supported "glue" tribes without devolving the major tribes.
Onslaught tribes:
Beast
Bird
Cleric
Dragon
Elves
Goblin
Illusions
Slivers
Soldiers
Wizards
Zombies
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Bloc:
Elementals
Elves
Fairies
Giants
Goblins
Kithkin
Merfolk
Rogue
Soldier
Shapeshifters
Shaman
Treefolk
Warrior
Wizard
Innistrad:
Human
Werewolf
Zombie
Spirit
Vampire
Analysis
Firstly, shapeshifters are the glue that held together the Lorwin block and there's no substitution for them. Humans are a "sort of" tribe that fits into the other major class and tribes. Considering that "human tribe" is now a "thing" it's certainly possible to add in future adjustments. However, most "human lords" like Sun Quan, Lord of Wu are universally acceptable to all race/class combinations so this adds to the precept of pre-existing tribes having a universal lord protecting them. Acting in part as another "glue" to the design fabric. So humans and shapeshifters are auto includes. Goblins and Elves have been around since immemorial, so they are again an auto include. Zombies, again are ancient with a strong push in Onslaught and IST blocks they're generally acceptable. Soldier, while a class not a race, is altogether a very strong option to carry white.
The tug of war between wizard vs. merfolk as the "main" tribe, altogether was an economic decision in terms of design space as well as cost benefit analysis. Firstly, merfolk tribal are competitive in Legacy and Modern. So the prices for certain commons and uncommons are unwanted. Equally, wizards tend to be print in every set in every color, while merfolk tend to be dependent on the plane they're on. Equally with zombies from IST block there's even more competition for those cards slots in blue. Equally, the archetype from Born of the Gods offers up just superior universal lords once again over merfolk.
I am very much on the fence about bringing in clerics, shamans, warriors, and maybe spirits. Rogues, while there is tribal support, I have decided to leave out fairies as much as possible and they contribute to a large part of good rogues whenever available and compete for black/blue space that would better go to zombies and wizards. Cleric in Onslaught dovetailed with Zombie and Soldier and Wizard. Shamans and Warriors dovetailed with elves and goblins. Spirits have multiple creature types and support tokens, but lack universal lords as well as only have two block support, Kawigama (which sucks as a block for spirits) and IST (which offered up some really weak spirit support).
Beast is certainly going to have some attention, considering it had some dovetail with elves and exists in multiple colors. However, humans offers up much better support with universal lords that there's little need. Humans have multiple ins and are constantly growing as a source for strength. Minotaur, Kavu, and other "weak tribes" do not have the necessary space for future growth. I am still deciding whether to put in Archetype of Endurance which is a boar or Archetype of Finality which is a gorgon, while the other three are all human and respectively warrior, soldier, and wizard. So what are your thoughts on universal lords?
The are where I need to figure out is set size, probably aiming for 400-600 range, while also looking at dovetail tribes in each block. Figuring the "dovetail tribes" is the area that I need some figuring out to do. For now from working memory I've been looking at areas to push or at least allow for certain strategies or tribes to exist a part of different colors:
The tribes and colors:
Main colors:
Blue: Wizard
Black: Zombie
Red: Goblin
Green: Elves
White: Soldier
Dual Color:
Azorius: Wizard/Soldier
Dimir: Wizard
Rakdos:
Gruul: Goblin/Elf
Selesnya: Elf/Soldier
Orzhov: Zombie
Boros: Soldier
Izzet: Wizard
Simic:
Golgari: Elves
Tri color:
Shard:
Esper: Wizards
Bant: Soldier
Naya: ELves
Jund: Goblin/Elves
Grixis: Wizards/Zombies
Wedges:
Raka(RUB): Soldier
Dega (WBR): Elves
Necra (BGW): Elves
Ana (GBU):
Ceta(URG): Goblins
Now looking at Bondafong's design, it was focused on one or two main tribes then 3 support tribes per color with a core strategy of either pinger/gun or token strategies. I like the token strategy support but a fan of pingers. The inter and intra support for race/class combinations was there and executed well. However, for my own tastes lacked the multicolor department. While the other cube I looked at, Splodycopter's, offered up a multicolor design, but lacked inter and intra race/class combinations that I've been looking for. While I've only drafted slivers a few times, I've never seen them to be particularly amazing unless if in multiples and they traditionally have no intra tribal support outside of Hive Stone and require shapeshifters or universal lords to be buddies. Besides, I already have a sliver EDH deck with all the bells and whistles with another person in our play group having one as well.
Any advice or anyone that can link a good list that they know of besides Bondafong and Splodycopters would be appreciated.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
I don't have a lot of time for a coherent explanation of what I am trying to achieve with my cube but maybe looking through would be helpful for you. My cube is linked in my sig. I try to only include tribal cards that can be viable on their own.
Basic premise:
Similar environment to a pauper cube or a block draft format where the card quality isn't high enough (I know the equipment is bonkers, I may need to tone it down) to make the tribal stuff useless without drafting a fully tribal deck.
There are a lot of viable "tribes" that exist but I have had much more success drafting the best possible deck archetype (aggro, midrange etc...). The tribal stuff is usually just a bonus, or makes for interesting decisions when drafting.
Example:
- Do I have enough beasts/shapeshifters to take this wirewood savage over eternal witness. Savage also exists and could be playable if you have timberwatch elf or immaculate magistrate etc...
My cube is fairly new and I see alot of open space for me to tune it and refine the environment, especially in the non-creature spells. What I don't want is for the drafting to be linear where you just take cards in your tribe(s) and
But, how you build you cube is up to you. Brendan_coad doesn't like universal lords, but I like them very much. I think it's exciting that Adaptive Automaton and Brass Herald become better cards just because you know there are going to be tribal interactions in the draft for you to force.
I started work on a tribal cube long ago, but never finished it because I was trying to take a very systematic and mathematical approach to choosing the tribes I included. First, I'll explain what I was going for and then I'll explain some of the problems I ran into:
I was going through every tribe I could think of and searching on magiccards.info for cards of that tribe and recording lots of information as I scoured the pages. I kept track of the number of cards in each tribe I searched for, but I went even deeper than that. I recorded the number of cards in each tribe for each color, for each multicolor combination, I recorded if the cards had tribal interactions or if they were specifically lords, and probably even other details. This was done for types like Elf and Goblin, but also for Soldier and Wizard.
Unfortunately, this was a very daunting endeavor and I eventually ran out of steam. I wanted to have a race and a class assigned to each color combination, rather than just each color. I was stretching to think of creature types that would work, and then I was also trying to find cards with "races" and "classes" on them, which can be a stretch when you're also looking for creatures with worthwhile bodies and interesting tribal abilities.
Anyways, based on my (abandoned) attempt at a tribal cube, here are the pieces of advice I can offer:
Don't go too deep; try to include enough cards that aren't explicitly tribal (and clunky) that a non-tribal deck can at least compete with tribal decks. There doesn't have to be a Tarmogoyf and Strangleroot Geist in your cube if you think they're "too spike" and "non-tribal," but workhorse cards like Eternal Witness can actually augment and improve your tribal cards. Keep in mind that--no matter how hard you push tribal strategies--bad cards are bad cards.
Assign your tribes color combinations; If all of your elf cards are green and all your merfolk cards are blue, eventually, one of your drafters will be taking exclusively blue cards and another will be taking exclusively green cards. By trying to keep your overall card quality high (but more importantly "even") and distributing tribes between colors, you can force some amount of tension between players even if they aren't picking cards from the same tribe. Eternal Witness (again) will be good in my Elf deck, sure, but it would also be good in the Zombie player's deck. I don't have a great specific example of the importance of this, but note that Lorwyn and Innistrad both tried to put all of their tribes into two colors. (R/G Werewolves, B/R Vampires, U/B Zombies...)
"Glue" the pieces together; I consider cards like Changelings to be "glue" with regards to tribal interactions. Your first post implies that you understand the value of changelings in a tribal limited environment, but even Karmic Guide could be considered a "glue" card. Cards like reanimation spells become even more important in a singleton draft environment where you might be banking on one effect as your win condition.
Encourage tribal decks with "universal" glue; This is somewhat of a counterpoint to "don't go too deep." Cards like Adaptive Automaton are good in every (limited) tribal deck. You can find these gems peppered throughout Magic's history, and some are more potent than others. I think having a few cards like Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, and Shared Triumph in a tribal cube really encourage players to try to pick cards of the same tribe even if they haven't found cards with tribal triggers and interactions that would make them. The universal nature of these cards make them extremely valuable picks. To a lesser extent, there are also cards like Pack's Disdain and Coordinated Barrage which reward a player for going deep into a tribe, but are generally functional with as few as two creatures of a given type.
Creatures matter; and so, removal matters. Similarly to my points regarding Eternal Witness and Karmic Guide allowing you to simulate having redundant effects, being able to protect your creatures with spells like Apostle's Blessing and Vines of Vastwood (both of which are powerful enough to go into most normal cubes) allow players to protect the foundation of their decks. I absolutely endorse still playing efficient removal and Sweepers, because this is cube, and (I assume) you don't want boring, cluttered board states; but, I encourage discretion so as to avoid going too deep.
That was a lot of stuff. I hope you find it useful or at the very least interesting!