MTG Salvation

The only card I've ever cut because it's not fun is Inkwell Leviathan. No one in my playgroup enjoys shroud, especially on a creature this massive with trample and islandwalk that can't easily be blocked early game when it is likely to be tinkered in. Having a tinkered in turn 1 or 2 Inkwell is no longer a fun game of Magic, especially in smaller cube decks where I've seen it happen 4 games out of 5. If it's played on a more appropriate curve, it's uninteresting to our group, so it became an easy cut after some testing.

After thinking this over for some time now I think I finally have a correct answer. I run a 450 powered cube, which many times is drafted without power for a better drafting experience. The best drafting experience is a topic that is commonly discussed in my playgroup. What do we want to play tonight? Sometimes power, sometimes without power, sometimes power without the other strong cards. I think there are times that each kind of draft is more entertaining than the other.

This brings me to "what do you cut when you want to play with power but not other broken cards?" The straightforward answer is the un-interactive cards.

As someone who manages a cube that revolves around a playgroup that isn't too into magic but rather something to play for fun, I have to manage personalities and interactions between the players. I don't want my friends who are less into magic or more introverted to dislike the game because of one experience. The un-interactive cards are often the nail in the coffin in most early experiences. Even later it is poor design to allow players to feel like Eureka , Channel and Jace, Memory Adept are the BEST cards in magic and can never be beaten, and continually be beaten by them. I think this philosophy only displays a lackluster effort put forward from a cube design standpoint.

There are many cube designers who would argue that "Well that's the environment my playgroup enjoys so that's what it is!" and that's fine but this is my experience.

Just having the "Power Nine" in my cube doesn't mean I endorse un-interactive games, nor does it mean I want silly putty games but rather a simple accelerant that can make games a bit spicy. I would rather reward my players for smart play and understanding the format than the cheesehead who can take infinite turns every draft.

I think I'm going to do some research in player personalities and see what the data suggests, I feel as though this area has been unexplored.

Quote from MerfolkMagic »

As someone who manages a cube that revolves around a playgroup that isn't too into magic but rather something to play for fun, I have to manage personalities and interactions between the players. I don't want my friends who are less into magic or more introverted to dislike the game because of one experience. The un-interactive cards are often the nail in the coffin in most early experiences.

This has been my experience as well. Removing cards for power level concerns is a group dependent decision. There's no right or wrong in any larger context here, just a right or wrong for your specific group.

With that said, I think anyone starting out should really run a power max cube first. Playing degenerate Magic is a very cool experience and in many ways vastly different from what I think most casuals are exposed to. I think everyone should play it at least once. Your group may love that and just want to keep playing it. This is ideal actually because most of the advice on the forums is geared towards that meta.

As far as what cards we've cut for power level... I've gone further than most. We ran moxen for awhile (so semi-powered) and over time have dialed back considerably (not even running Jitte currently). One of the first cards cut for us was Bribery. In our group, that card just wrecked people and you were powerless to stop it (barring discard or counters). But aggro is underrepresented here, so that's why.