I'm not sure if this goes here or in Limited. So I'm sorry if this thread doesn't belong here and a mod has to move it.
It's been years but finally I finished my "Re-Draft" set of Innistrad and Dark Ascension. I've been working on it for a long time and I'm ready to sleeve it and draft. My set is like a Cube, but with multiple copies of commons and uncommons and trying to replicate the original draft environment. But I'm having doubts about how "pure" it should be.
In short, I have two problems related to Lands.
Problem one: I would like to include Alchemist's Refuge, Desolate Lighthouse and Slayer's Stronghold in the set. I like this land cycle and I think it would improve the game to have the 10 lands. I think I'll add 2 of these to Innistrad and 1 to Dark Ascension. I'm confident it would be fine, but if anyone can talk me out of this idea, I'm willing to listen.
Problem two: the check lands. I don't like those 5 lands in the original draft. I like the fixing but I'm not sure its needed. Specialy when the tribe theme of both set use allied colors (BR Vampires, RG Werewolves, etc.) Maybe I'll just leave it as it is, but I'm thinking about removing those lands or about including the allied color check lands (Glacial Fortress, Sunpetal Grove, etc.) If I include those 5 lands to balance the fixing I will end up with another problem: too many rare lands. If I add the 5 check lands and 3 avacyn lands, that will be a lot of rare slots dedicated to lands.
So, does anyone have an idea about how to implement those changes? Or if any of those changes are actually a good or bad idea?
Very cool, would love to draft that set. May not be a cube but seems like as good a place as any for this question. A list would help.
I can certainly see how completing both land cycles would improve the feel and the fixing. My cube experience says twenty lands won't be too many. I would probably get all the buddy lands in Innistrad and the spell lands in dark ascension.
I'd say just include loothouse, refuge, and stronghold and see how it goes. I don't think a few extra lands are capable of skewing the draft that much. As for the check lands, since you're already including multiples of evolving wilds from dark ascension, the absence of the checklands in the rare spot shouldn't be too much of an issue. The lower power and speed of the draft sim, compared with a standard cube, should also reduce the need for immediate, high quality color fixing.
I own a rise of the eldrazi sim that includes a couple "honorary" rise cards from different sets: indrik umbra from planechase 2012, and eye of ugin from worldwake. Neither has been a problem in any session we've played so far. I also own an innistrad (and rarely played dark ascension) draft sim, and if wizards ever releases some kind of "return to innistrad" casual product, I'd definitely look for appropriate and fun cards to add, regarless if it dilutes the "pure" innistrad pack experience.
I didn't know the term for this kind of "cube" was "sim". Are there any resources or articles for building sims?
I also like the idea of adding some "honorary" cards to the sets! Specially if they are Mythics. Maybe I could add Avacyn, Griselbrand and the other angels. And Tibalt, just for the lols. And if I really want to make it crazy, I could add text to the Helvault: When Helvault enters the battlefield, it exiles a Mythic Rare card from outside the game at random and face down. Or something like that.
How many rares/uncommons/commons are you including in your set? Do you assemble packs in the 1r/3u/11c ratios, or do you just shuffle everything together?
All of the draft sims I own use 36-45 carefully selected rares/mythics, 2 of each uncommon, and 4 of each common. I have a tendency to cut the bottom 1-2 uncommon/commons from each color, and also exclude the most unbeatable rares/mythics (most planeswalkers, drana, olivia) so that the matches aren't too one-sided.
Glad to hear you like the idea of honorary cards. I know that some purists aren't too keen on the idea, but the theme's and gameplay of the various expansions matter more than preserving the exact limited format. Wizard's decision to revisit various old, defunct settings, and make new cards for them in planechase 2012, was one of my favorite releases they've done. I hope down the road they're capable of doing more of these, and breathing new life into mechanics that may not have been cut tragically short (landfall, monstrosity, etc).
For the Dark Ascension packs, I use 2 commons / 2 uncommons /1 rare and mythic rare of each, in 11/3/1 slots.
For the two Innistrad packs, I use 3 commons / 2 uncommons /1 rare and mythic rare of each.
I want to create an accurate draft environment, but I don't have a problem with some honorary rare and mythic rares. If the rares are fine with the mechanics and power level of the other cards they shouldn't be a big deal. Mythic rares, in the other hand, are usually very powerful, but demand some comitement to color or to certain specific strategies, so I don't have a problem with them. They are bombs after all. But if I want to play more seriously, I think I'll exclude mythics from that particular draft to focus more on the commons and uncommons.
I have always wondered if a set like this would include slightly more of some of the key archetype uncommons (Spider Spawning, Burnign Vengeance, Lords, Lingering Souls) and really some of the commons( travel preparations). The set was well balanced but I feel like people going back to draft it again will force those archetypes and you would need them at higher as fan. Might be a good way to balance out the extra added rare lands and the honorary cards. Predator's Howl is the other no-brainer honorary card from conspiracy
Also how do you handle flip cards in your repacks?
I like your idea, but I preffer to keep it balanced. I think the result will be that those strategies can be drafted regularily, but not abused like some times you could in a normal draft in wich you open 5 travel preparations.
These are Innistrad stat numbers:
107 commons
67 uncommons
59 rares
16 mythic rares
You need at least 200 commons, 60 uncommons and 20 rares for the 2 Innistrad packs for each player (in a 10 player draft)
So, at least, you need to use 2 copies of every common (so you have 214) and one copy of every uncommon to make the draft. That will certainly make it difficult to draft powerful decks, because there will be a lot of bad cards and not a copy of archetype cards.
Adding 1 copy of each common and uncommon card should make it more balanced: 321 commons and 134 uncommons. You can add another copy, but I think that will make it more random and more difficult to manage... and store. I'm not against that and maybe, if testing proves me wrong, I'll add more cards.
Any way... I haven't tested the set yet. It's just pure numbers until I get my card sleeves nex month.
Speaking of sleeves: thats how I'll handle flip cards. I'm going to sleeve every card. I understand that in the original draft, watching the double face cards drafted by your opponents was an interesting strategy element, but it was more of a solution of compromise than a carefully thought draft feature. In Magic OnLine you couldn't see the double faced cards. So I think that is not a real problem.
I didn't think about that. I wanted to treat double faced cards as normal cards. Unless all players want to recreate the one double faced per pack thing.
I'm putting together a sim cube (ROE) and decided that I was going to provide mana fixing lands in the slot the basic land would normally be in a pack, which means I'm going to be going with 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare/mythic, and 1 land. Another thing you could do if you wanted to keep the number of rares in the draft at 3x # of players, is move the lands to the common/uncommon slot. You can keep the rarity (only one copy per cube) and it shouldn't mess the cube up. This is what I'm planning on doing if I get around to doing an Innistrad sim cube.
Im thinking my next cube will be something very similar to this. In my mind however, Ive decided that the core of the deck will be innistrad block with on flavor cards from other blocks filling in the gaps. The rare lands and other utility cards can come from any where in my opinion as long as they are done in a balanced way.
From a purest point of view, You would still have to include the core set check lands for balancing, or just use the the core check lands since they are on color with the tribes.
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I'm not sure if this goes here or in Limited. So I'm sorry if this thread doesn't belong here and a mod has to move it.
It's been years but finally I finished my "Re-Draft" set of Innistrad and Dark Ascension. I've been working on it for a long time and I'm ready to sleeve it and draft. My set is like a Cube, but with multiple copies of commons and uncommons and trying to replicate the original draft environment. But I'm having doubts about how "pure" it should be.
In short, I have two problems related to Lands.
Problem one: I would like to include Alchemist's Refuge, Desolate Lighthouse and Slayer's Stronghold in the set. I like this land cycle and I think it would improve the game to have the 10 lands. I think I'll add 2 of these to Innistrad and 1 to Dark Ascension. I'm confident it would be fine, but if anyone can talk me out of this idea, I'm willing to listen.
Problem two: the check lands. I don't like those 5 lands in the original draft. I like the fixing but I'm not sure its needed. Specialy when the tribe theme of both set use allied colors (BR Vampires, RG Werewolves, etc.) Maybe I'll just leave it as it is, but I'm thinking about removing those lands or about including the allied color check lands (Glacial Fortress, Sunpetal Grove, etc.) If I include those 5 lands to balance the fixing I will end up with another problem: too many rare lands. If I add the 5 check lands and 3 avacyn lands, that will be a lot of rare slots dedicated to lands.
So, does anyone have an idea about how to implement those changes? Or if any of those changes are actually a good or bad idea?
I can certainly see how completing both land cycles would improve the feel and the fixing. My cube experience says twenty lands won't be too many. I would probably get all the buddy lands in Innistrad and the spell lands in dark ascension.
I own a rise of the eldrazi sim that includes a couple "honorary" rise cards from different sets: indrik umbra from planechase 2012, and eye of ugin from worldwake. Neither has been a problem in any session we've played so far. I also own an innistrad (and rarely played dark ascension) draft sim, and if wizards ever releases some kind of "return to innistrad" casual product, I'd definitely look for appropriate and fun cards to add, regarless if it dilutes the "pure" innistrad pack experience.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I didn't know the term for this kind of "cube" was "sim". Are there any resources or articles for building sims?
I also like the idea of adding some "honorary" cards to the sets! Specially if they are Mythics. Maybe I could add Avacyn, Griselbrand and the other angels. And Tibalt, just for the lols. And if I really want to make it crazy, I could add text to the Helvault: When Helvault enters the battlefield, it exiles a Mythic Rare card from outside the game at random and face down. Or something like that.
All of the draft sims I own use 36-45 carefully selected rares/mythics, 2 of each uncommon, and 4 of each common. I have a tendency to cut the bottom 1-2 uncommon/commons from each color, and also exclude the most unbeatable rares/mythics (most planeswalkers, drana, olivia) so that the matches aren't too one-sided.
Glad to hear you like the idea of honorary cards. I know that some purists aren't too keen on the idea, but the theme's and gameplay of the various expansions matter more than preserving the exact limited format. Wizard's decision to revisit various old, defunct settings, and make new cards for them in planechase 2012, was one of my favorite releases they've done. I hope down the road they're capable of doing more of these, and breathing new life into mechanics that may not have been cut tragically short (landfall, monstrosity, etc).
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
For the Dark Ascension packs, I use 2 commons / 2 uncommons /1 rare and mythic rare of each, in 11/3/1 slots.
For the two Innistrad packs, I use 3 commons / 2 uncommons /1 rare and mythic rare of each.
I want to create an accurate draft environment, but I don't have a problem with some honorary rare and mythic rares. If the rares are fine with the mechanics and power level of the other cards they shouldn't be a big deal. Mythic rares, in the other hand, are usually very powerful, but demand some comitement to color or to certain specific strategies, so I don't have a problem with them. They are bombs after all. But if I want to play more seriously, I think I'll exclude mythics from that particular draft to focus more on the commons and uncommons.
Also how do you handle flip cards in your repacks?
These are Innistrad stat numbers:
107 commons
67 uncommons
59 rares
16 mythic rares
You need at least 200 commons, 60 uncommons and 20 rares for the 2 Innistrad packs for each player (in a 10 player draft)
So, at least, you need to use 2 copies of every common (so you have 214) and one copy of every uncommon to make the draft. That will certainly make it difficult to draft powerful decks, because there will be a lot of bad cards and not a copy of archetype cards.
Adding 1 copy of each common and uncommon card should make it more balanced: 321 commons and 134 uncommons. You can add another copy, but I think that will make it more random and more difficult to manage... and store. I'm not against that and maybe, if testing proves me wrong, I'll add more cards.
Any way... I haven't tested the set yet. It's just pure numbers until I get my card sleeves nex month.
Speaking of sleeves: thats how I'll handle flip cards. I'm going to sleeve every card. I understand that in the original draft, watching the double face cards drafted by your opponents was an interesting strategy element, but it was more of a solution of compromise than a carefully thought draft feature. In Magic OnLine you couldn't see the double faced cards. So I think that is not a real problem.
I didn't think about that. I wanted to treat double faced cards as normal cards. Unless all players want to recreate the one double faced per pack thing.
From a purest point of view, You would still have to include the core set check lands for balancing, or just use the the core check lands since they are on color with the tribes.
People still scoop to Thragtusk.