The Hero card discussion recently got me thinking about power level of cards. Part of the reason to play a Powered cube is to play with all the best cards Magic has to offer and to create as balanced an environment as possible.
If Contract From Below didn't have the ante clause, would you play it? I don't think I would. Seven new cards for one black mana is so incredibly powerful it's difficult reconciling having a better-than Double Stroked Ancestral Recall all in one card.
We've taken out Time Vault a few times (and re-added it a few times) because of Power Level concerns. Some games with Time Vault are won on turn 1-3 just because the player lucked into Voltaic Key + Time Vault in their opener. Those games aren't really that fun, but it can be argued they're not much less fun than Black Lotus -> Hero of Bladehold.
What cards are you not playing because of power level concerns?
I play everything. I'm not going to errata cards just to crank up their brokenness, like anteless Contract, although I do have small errata for cards like Blacker Lotus (return to the cube when used). I guess I could live with Contract if it got errata to require the caster to wager $20 when cast or something.
I play everything. I'm not going to errata cards just to crank up their brokenness, like anteless Contract, although I do have small errata for cards like Blacker Lotus (return to the cube when used). I guess I could live with Contract if it got errata to require the caster to wager $20 when cast or something.
I would run Contract from Below the same as Blacker Lotus, just send the 'ante' card back into the cube.
As for the main question, we have no cards banned for power level concerns. We do ban for time concerns though, as cards like Once More With Feeling have extended games to draws waaay too many times for any of my groups liking.
I don't know how I feel about the Hero cards yet, but I'm going to bring it up to my group this week and see how everyone feels.
Those are a few off of the top of my head that I have taken out or don't play. The 2 swords being the ones that will probably come back in.
I like to straddle the line between broken and fun but at any time one card annoys my playgroup or becomes overly oppressive I just remove it.
My playgroup is also fairly casual.
I stopped running Timetwister and Time Spiral because no one drafted them. I think it's because in my cube, especially, it allows for the potential to refill your opponent into threats which can be bad.
I stopped running Timetwister and Time Spiral because no one drafted them. I think it's because in my cube, especially, it allows for the potential to refill your opponent into threats which can be bad.
Timetwister and Time Spiral are no longer in my 450-Powered. No one drafted them and they weren't being used. No matter how many times I forced one, I still wasn't impressed. So yeah, I actually took them out for being underpowered haha.
Otherwise, I've banned Fastbond only because the only way to make it powerful enough is to include Karoos. And I don't like Karoos. So I guess I've banned them as well.
It's broken in Rochester, you could basically get an extra booster for free in that format. We also don't allow ante cards (because we're not playing for ante) or silver-bordered cards (because the rules are too hazy on them and, well, they're basically not real magic cards).
All others are fair game. The card closest to getting banned from our cube is probably Double Stroke. It's hella broken because it takes broken cards and breaks the pieces in two more pieces.
A common card banned even from power cubes is Gifts Given. I play it because my playgroup loves punt your puppy style broken magic. People cry when this resolves.
Magical Hacker is another that some feel bends the rules too far with planeswalkers, but to me feels a lot like Splinter Twin/crucible+strip mine combos.
I only recently added Jace, Memory Adept, after having kept it out as "unfun", not "too good".
I try to tell myself that Moat falls into that "unfun" catagory, but that's probably just to prevent me from blowing a bunch of money on one.
There should not be any restrictions in a powered cube. It's an exercise that would lead to a descent into madness.
Unpowered on the other hand, is another (very long) story.
Meh, I think fun plays a factor in things for sure. Time Vault wins are pretty un-fun, but it's certainly one of the more powerful decks/strategies in a 360 powered cube, IMHO. Double Stroke can also lead to some really un-fun wins if you get it paired with Ancestral Recall, so that's a concern too.
Really though, half the fun with a powered 360 is drafting Black Lotus and essentially winning off of nearly anything on turn 1, so it's not like somewhat rare wins like that are a concern here, but I figured they could be for some people.
Jace, memory adept is the main one. He was in the cube then removed because too strong. (And one of my regulars detests mill. )
I've never run channel or the eldrazi. I'm adding Kozilek, agent of Kozilek and possibly the 8-drop with this next update.
I run time vault, but no voltaic key. Rez and ral zarek both enable the uncapping for I fine, but are (slightly) later in the game.
I don't run contract, but if I did I'd say the ante card goes with the winner of the game for the rest of the draft.
I did run blacker lotus (with the understanding that tear up meant put back in the cube box)
I run the hero and conspiracy cards in mine. Some of the hero cards are not that great, while ones like The Explorer or The Harvester are absolutely insane. I would not run them in smaller cubes because they will concentrate and make board states unwieldy from turn 0. Imagine having six or seven emblems from turn 0 for both players. Too much going on without even a hand. I run all the hero cards and all but one of the conspiracies, and my cube is around 800 cards.
Modern: UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy: UWBMiracles
Edh: UUUThassa Control WWWHokori Stax GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy BBBGriselbrand French List RBGShattergang(Super Villians) RWGHazezon Flicker UBRMarchesa Aggro URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
I don't run a powered cube, but after seeing what Time Vault did to the MTGO holiday cube, I've certainly changed my tune on this answer. There should be natural checks and balances of power in a cube, and when a non-interactive strategy is so powerful that fair decks are completely obsoleted, everything falls apart. Powered cubes can be partucularly prone to this if filled to the brim with broken card draw and free spells, to the point where the deck is just air apart from the combo, routinely goldfishing faster than creature decks.
As a result, I don't think I'd ever run Vault or Painter/Stone. I don't want to play a format of standard decks vs vintage decks.
Specifically for power level no. However there are powerful cards which I don't run for other reasons in my powered 720.
No double sided cards - Not everybody who plays my cube always knows what the flip side of cards do, and taking them out of a sleeve was time consuming and a pain, so I've opted to not run them
Combo only cards - I used to run Kiki, Pestermite and friends, but in a 720 cube knowing that your other combo pieces may not ever show up made them low picks. I did keep Kiki himself in for a while, and people did still combo with him and zealous conscripts because it was good enough on it's own and Kiki was fun. eventually though Kiki got cut because of the triple red. This is the same reason I don't run time vault combo
Mishra's Workshop - With a larger cube the concentration or artifacts in my cube is lower than a powered 360 or 450, so more often than not the workshop is a dead card
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - I like this card if it is in a deck where its ability helps you win, but I found more often it was just used to in such a way it did not help win, just really slowed down the game
Shaharazad - prolongs the game without accomplishing much.
Hero/conspiracy cards - I have a set of these, and the numbers work out great. I have been wanting to play with them, but when I do I'll be adding a 16th card to each pack rather than integrating them with my 720.
Silver boarder cards - Not for power, I just don't see the need or desire to do so.
Sol Ring and Porphoros are cards that have been deemed "unfun" but my playgroup. Sol Ring for putting the caster so far ahead and Porphoros for being extremely uninteractive. Funny enough we haven't had problems with Lotus and Moxen.
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If something like Purphoros is "too good" in your list, then you might want to bring in more cards like Deglamer that can deal with indestructible permanents. I don't ban anything based on power level. If there are powerful cards that aren't in my list, it's because I ran them at some point in time and they just didn't catch on with my group. I don't run Channel, Show and Tell, or Eureka. That deck just wasn't popular and rarely came together.
I don't exclude cards just based on power level. There are certain cards I exclude that have no interaction and are very narrow. Blightsteel collosus was taken out because its kind of stupid to play against that card with a nonwhite deck. A few too many tinkers turn 2 from a mox for blightsteel made me take it out and put in more "fair" tinker targets like Sphinx of the steel wind and Mindslaver.
I also don't know if my list is technically considered powered anymore, considering I cut black lotus and Timetwister.
We aren't running certain fast mana*, which provide degeneracy most regularly with unbeatable starts, but that's not to say we won't reintroduce it at some time. We enjoy the play style of both 'true' powered, and 'semi-powered', as I've coined our present environment. There really aren't many blowout situations, and when they do occur, it's just a cool story.
*anything costing 0-2 which provides > its cost in mana: Moxen, Lotus, Sol Ring, Crypt and Vault. Grim Monolith being the exception.
I can't imagine Purphoros being oppressive. It's pretty hard to get huge value from it in the cube, rather it's just a solid archetype support.
Likewise, I don't think Jace, Memory Adept is too good. It's a really fast clock that does nothing if answered, so high risk/high reward but eminently fair in my opinion.
There's no card that's too powerful for a powered cube. If you're into errata'ing cards to make them more powerful, power to you, but that's a slippery slope. I'd rather just play with the awesome toys they give me instead of melting them down and trying to make new, better ones.
And if I lose t1 to a Time Vault combo? You can always play more magic.
Channel, that's it. The card doesn't do anything interesting or fun. It's completely non-interactive. The first time you see someone cast Emrakul on turn 1 or 2, you say think "Wow, how cool!" Every subsequent time you think, welp, that wasn't actually a game of Magic.
Sol Ring is a more powerful card, but it isn't as egregious on the "not playing a game of Magic scale."
With Channel there are not a whole lot of outcomes.
You don't draw it, it's not relevant.
You draw it, but nothing to cast, it's just a dead card in your hand that does actual nothing. Or you draw it too late in the game, and you can't pay the life, so it's again a completely dead card.
You draw it with a combo piece. You cast it. Either the opponent has an answer for the Colossus/ Eldrazi/ Ugin you put into play, or they lose immediately. If they do have an answer, you probably lose immediately, since you just spent 2 cards and 10 life and your turn to not really do anything.
If Contract From Below didn't have the ante clause, would you play it? I don't think I would. Seven new cards for one black mana is so incredibly powerful it's difficult reconciling having a better-than Double Stroked Ancestral Recall all in one card.
We've taken out Time Vault a few times (and re-added it a few times) because of Power Level concerns. Some games with Time Vault are won on turn 1-3 just because the player lucked into Voltaic Key + Time Vault in their opener. Those games aren't really that fun, but it can be argued they're not much less fun than Black Lotus -> Hero of Bladehold.
What cards are you not playing because of power level concerns?
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I would run Contract from Below the same as Blacker Lotus, just send the 'ante' card back into the cube.
As for the main question, we have no cards banned for power level concerns. We do ban for time concerns though, as cards like Once More With Feeling have extended games to draws waaay too many times for any of my groups liking.
I don't know how I feel about the Hero cards yet, but I'm going to bring it up to my group this week and see how everyone feels.
I don't play
Channel
Eureka
Jace, Memory Adept
Sword of Body and Mind
Sword of War and Peace
Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
Those are a few off of the top of my head that I have taken out or don't play. The 2 swords being the ones that will probably come back in.
I like to straddle the line between broken and fun but at any time one card annoys my playgroup or becomes overly oppressive I just remove it.
My playgroup is also fairly casual.
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Timetwister and Time Spiral are no longer in my 450-Powered. No one drafted them and they weren't being used. No matter how many times I forced one, I still wasn't impressed. So yeah, I actually took them out for being underpowered haha.
Otherwise, I've banned Fastbond only because the only way to make it powerful enough is to include Karoos. And I don't like Karoos. So I guess I've banned them as well.
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It's broken in Rochester, you could basically get an extra booster for free in that format. We also don't allow ante cards (because we're not playing for ante) or silver-bordered cards (because the rules are too hazy on them and, well, they're basically not real magic cards).
All others are fair game. The card closest to getting banned from our cube is probably Double Stroke. It's hella broken because it takes broken cards and breaks the pieces in two more pieces.
Magical Hacker is another that some feel bends the rules too far with planeswalkers, but to me feels a lot like Splinter Twin/crucible+strip mine combos.
I only recently added Jace, Memory Adept, after having kept it out as "unfun", not "too good".
I try to tell myself that Moat falls into that "unfun" catagory, but that's probably just to prevent me from blowing a bunch of money on one.
Etali, Primal Storm EDH
Unpowered on the other hand, is another (very long) story.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
Meh, I think fun plays a factor in things for sure. Time Vault wins are pretty un-fun, but it's certainly one of the more powerful decks/strategies in a 360 powered cube, IMHO. Double Stroke can also lead to some really un-fun wins if you get it paired with Ancestral Recall, so that's a concern too.
Really though, half the fun with a powered 360 is drafting Black Lotus and essentially winning off of nearly anything on turn 1, so it's not like somewhat rare wins like that are a concern here, but I figured they could be for some people.
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I've never run channel or the eldrazi. I'm adding Kozilek, agent of Kozilek and possibly the 8-drop with this next update.
I run time vault, but no voltaic key. Rez and ral zarek both enable the uncapping for I fine, but are (slightly) later in the game.
I don't run contract, but if I did I'd say the ante card goes with the winner of the game for the rest of the draft.
I did run blacker lotus (with the understanding that tear up meant put back in the cube box)
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UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy:
UWBMiracles
Edh:
UUUThassa Control
WWWHokori Stax
GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy
BBBGriselbrand French List
RBGShattergang(Super Villians)
RWGHazezon Flicker
UBRMarchesa Aggro
URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
As a result, I don't think I'd ever run Vault or Painter/Stone. I don't want to play a format of standard decks vs vintage decks.
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No double sided cards - Not everybody who plays my cube always knows what the flip side of cards do, and taking them out of a sleeve was time consuming and a pain, so I've opted to not run them
Combo only cards - I used to run Kiki, Pestermite and friends, but in a 720 cube knowing that your other combo pieces may not ever show up made them low picks. I did keep Kiki himself in for a while, and people did still combo with him and zealous conscripts because it was good enough on it's own and Kiki was fun. eventually though Kiki got cut because of the triple red. This is the same reason I don't run time vault combo
Mishra's Workshop - With a larger cube the concentration or artifacts in my cube is lower than a powered 360 or 450, so more often than not the workshop is a dead card
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - I like this card if it is in a deck where its ability helps you win, but I found more often it was just used to in such a way it did not help win, just really slowed down the game
Shaharazad - prolongs the game without accomplishing much.
Hero/conspiracy cards - I have a set of these, and the numbers work out great. I have been wanting to play with them, but when I do I'll be adding a 16th card to each pack rather than integrating them with my 720.
Silver boarder cards - Not for power, I just don't see the need or desire to do so.
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Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
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But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
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I also don't know if my list is technically considered powered anymore, considering I cut black lotus and Timetwister.
thats my cube
*anything costing 0-2 which provides > its cost in mana: Moxen, Lotus, Sol Ring, Crypt and Vault. Grim Monolith being the exception.
I can't imagine Purphoros being oppressive. It's pretty hard to get huge value from it in the cube, rather it's just a solid archetype support.
Likewise, I don't think Jace, Memory Adept is too good. It's a really fast clock that does nothing if answered, so high risk/high reward but eminently fair in my opinion.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
And if I lose t1 to a Time Vault combo? You can always play more magic.
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Sol Ring is a more powerful card, but it isn't as egregious on the "not playing a game of Magic scale."
With Channel there are not a whole lot of outcomes.
You don't draw it, it's not relevant.
You draw it, but nothing to cast, it's just a dead card in your hand that does actual nothing. Or you draw it too late in the game, and you can't pay the life, so it's again a completely dead card.
You draw it with a combo piece. You cast it. Either the opponent has an answer for the Colossus/ Eldrazi/ Ugin you put into play, or they lose immediately. If they do have an answer, you probably lose immediately, since you just spent 2 cards and 10 life and your turn to not really do anything.