I have been making cubes for a decade or so but have been pretty dormant cube wise the past couple years.
A friend of mine has a level up cube where you add abilities to cards (via stickers) each draft so random draft creatures become mini akromas after a while.
What if instead of adding text and abilities to cards every draft you remove lines of text each draft.
Basically a draft would happen and you pick two cards to sharpie. Win a round you can sharpie again. These changes are PERMANENT so next draft there will be some very different cards available.
Some other rules.
Would be a budget cube (as we would be defacing cards).
Some cards would just be in to make drafting work (mana fixing and the like).
Stuff that you can alter into "you win the game" should be avoided (or should they?)
You cant add text to cards.
Obvious stuff to look for.
Cards with Upkeep Costs
Phasing
Fading
"Skulking" creatures
Stuff that enters with -1-1 counters like Etched Monstrosity
Stuff like Hunted Dragon that give opponents bonuses.
Phage
Stuff that expires end of turn like Ball Lightning
A couple hundred of these cards mixed with a couple hundred cards for balance and filler should be enough for a cube.
We have waves of playing the level up cube. It gets drafted a bunch of times in a row then gets a big bogged down and we purge a bunch of the changes. Balance is an other thing that can get wonky, but again is something that regularly pruning and editing can fix.
I've done that with my cube, my group has called it 'Legacy'. The basic synopsis of how we've done it is like this:
Each match win you get some points. Each match loss you get some consolidation points. End of the night bonus points are distributed based on match wins/losses.
Dudes may now spend points on abilities to put on cards. Some abilities cost more (Buyback, Cascade, Flashback, Phyrexian Mana) than others (Haste, Vigilance, Trample, Unleash).
We just use little tabs of paper with the abilities written on them inside of their sleeves to prevent ruining the cards/sleeves.
Some examples of cards we've made stupid ridiculous:
Ponder/Preordain with Buyback
Geist of Saint Traft with Phyrexian Mana and Haste
Flametongue Kavu with Haste and Unleash
Are there stipulations on how much text you have to remove? For example, could you adjust the reminder text in Persist to stop it from putting a counter on the creature?
Yesterday my group kicked around a few ideas and this is the best we got.
You can sharpie out one full sentence in the text box only.
At the start of the first round of the draft you get 2 cards you can sharpie, then each round each winner gets an extra sharpie.
One Modification:
Gruul Turf enters the battlefield tapped. When Gruul Turf enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand. Tap: Add RG to your mana pool.
Nice card!
Two Modifications: Gruul Turf enters the battlefield tapped. When Gruul Turf enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand. Tap: Add RG to your mana pool.
Absurd Card!
A concern would be that magic could get really boring when everything becomes vanilla.
That is my biggest concern as well. I figure the cube would go through a few phases.
Phase 1: Very few cards modified, generally low power of the decks. This actually could be pretty interesting as you have to make mediocre cards and a deck that works. The small number of cards modified would mean not every game is affected by a mod. People would probably just mod whatever would bring the most impact. Decks would be low power with 2-3 modified cards/deck that are much more powerful than the rest.
Phase 2: Enough modified cards so that every game has some. After a few drafts people are going to start seeing modified cards coming around, though they would likely be high picks at this point. People would start to modify cards to make decks better as opposed to just raw power. At this point there would be a wide range in power but you would have to include some low power cards to make decks work. Decks become more consistent with 3-5 modified cards per deck.
Phase 3: Each pack will have 2-3 modded cards and decks would end up with 6-10 modded cards. Every game would have several modded cards played and more role playing cards like Goblin Patrol would get modified. Decks are now consistent with a good number of strong and synergistic modified cards and only a few duds remain.
Phase 4: Decks end up with more than half modded cards and become both powerful and consistent. At this point any bias by color becomes apparent, so if people mod more blue cards than the rest many players will be fighting over blue. There could an issue if one color is much more powerful, more people will draft it then modify more cards of that color. At this point we might need to purge problem cards.
Phase 5: Most of the cards are modified and a big purge is required. Some cards will just never be modded and as a result never played.
By phase 4 and def phase 5 there is the possibility of vanilla-ville. But at that point i'll start purging and editing to keep things spicy.
The big key to keeping it from becoming vanilla land is to pick cards with drawbacks that are still reasonably playable. Thirst for Knowledge is a good card but if you remove the discard clause then it becomes really powerful. But you could easy draft that card and keep it as printed. Goblin Patrol and Blastoderm are pretty vanilla when you remove their downsides but i think i just need to be mindful to keep them in check.
I would set aside a chunk of the cube to just normal cards to balance things out and keep it interesting if need be.
I bounced some ideas around with my peeps and here is some more explanation about the cube idea.
The cube will be built out of 400ish budget cards (like draft throwaway level cards).
Cards are drafted like normal but after the draft you get can alter two cards with a sharpie. Win a round and you can alter one more (you can bank alters up to five).
What can you alter?
1. Any keyword ability can be sharpied out completely. This makes cards with Echo, Cumulative Upkeep, Defender, Phasing, Fading, Vanishing much better.
2. Any whole sentence within the card's text box can be removed. Just one sentence at a time. You can alter cards that already have been altered.
Some examples of cards i would put in the cube.
Gruul Turf
Comes into play tapped.
Bounce a land when it comes into play.
T: add RG to your mana pool. Fine card on its own, but nothing to write home about.
Can become... Gruul Turf
Comes into play tapped.
T: add RG to your mana pool. A very nice card, worthy of a normal cube.
With 2 edits Gruul Turf
T: add RG to your mana pool. Becomes a powerful first pick worthy card.
Faceless Buthcher
BB2
2/3
When FB comes into play exile a creature.
When FB Leaves play return that creature to play. Decent role player in a low power cube.
but with one edit... Faceless Buthcher
BB2
2/3
When FB comes into play exile a creature. Excellent removal that can be re used.
Sunweb
W3
5/6
Flying, Defender
Sunweb cant block creatures with power 2 or less. Situation wall, not great.
But with one edit. Sunweb
W3
5/6
Flying
Sunweb cant block creatures with power 2 or less. Now it is a cheap and potent threat.
Final Fortune
RR
Take an extra turn after this one. At the end of that turn you lose the game. Very situation and really only good in an all-in red deck.
But with one edit.... Final Fortune
RR
Take an extra turn after this one. Its a time walk...
and of course.
Lord of Tresserhorn
UBR1
10/4
B: Regenerate
When Lord of Tresserhorn comes into play, pay 2 life and sacrifice two creatures, and target opponent draws two cards. Effects that prevent or redirect damage cannot be used to counter this loss of life. Crazy hard to make work.
Becomes Lord of Tresserhorn
UBR1
10/4
B: Regenerate Absurd (though 3 colors wont be as easy in this cube).
What else is in the cube? I'll probably do about 75% cards that would be sharpied and about 25% utility and stuff to balance the cube.
Variable Colorless, Tap: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron and exile a nonland card from your hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Note the type and amount of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Activate this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron.
Tap, Remove a charge counter from Ice Cauldron: Add Ice Cauldron's last noted type and amount of mana to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast the last card exiled with Ice Cauldron.
Change to:
Variable Colorless, Tap: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron and exile a nonland card from your hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Note the type and amount of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Activate this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron.
Tap, Remove a charge counter from Ice Cauldron: Add Ice Cauldron's last noted typeandamount of mana to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast the last card exiled with Ice Cauldron.
I think the Invasion-block "gate" creatures like Horned Kavu would make for interesting decisions. If you sharpie them they become very efficient beaters, but some players might choose to leave the text on to be able to return creatures with ETB abilities to their owner's hand. There are also the Ravnica-block cards like Court Hussar which are pretty playable in a janky environment anyway, and they become good value creatures with the sacrifice clause removed.
There are loads of good suicide black creatures out there and it will end up being a draftable archetype. Horned Kavu and other gating creatures will make the cut, though not all of those guys are good by todays standards.
Force of Nature is going to get some much needed love. Phyrexian Dreadnought is too good but also i want to actually sharpie the cards so it would be too expensive.
Sheltering Ancient is a pet card of mine and it would rock. Again, maybe even too good. (Free goyf with trample? Sign me up!)
Cards with the "Activate this ability only once each turn." sentences like Crazed Armodon become interesting too. You can also remove the sorcery restriction from cards like Dimir Guildmage.
Exactly. I think it will more or less balance out. Even a card like Paralyze becomes a really efficient removal spell with one swipe of the sharpie. There will be few pure wraths but hopefully Ashes to Ashes and friends fill a similar function.
Here's another entirely different approach. Draft as normal, but every 15th pick is kept separate from the rest of that player's pool. Each player then has three 15th picks, presumably cards that no one wanted.
Each of them then gets "improved" in some fashion, and then shuffled back into the cube for the next draft. That way, whatever the least popular/useful cards in your cube are, they're constantly getting better.
The problem, to me, with what's being described, is that it's fundamentally not very interesting to just find every card with a drawback and remove the drawback. The "Sharpie"-ing in that case is obvious and requires no creativity. I think there's a much wider world of possibility if you say "hmm, I got this card 15th because no one wanted it... how can I improve it to make it playable but hopefully not busted next draft?", and then of course next draft your opening pack has two newly modified cards and suddenly you have to on-the-fly evaluate how good they are now.
And one other idea I _really really_ want to try out, that I'm mentioning here because it's obviously related: everyone starts with two cube boosters, and one sealed booster or a "normal" magic set. Everyone opens their normal booster, and then sharpies each of the cards in the pack to make it approximately cube-power-level, however they like, with no restrictions. Then shuffle all the sharpied cards together, deal them out into packs of 15, and mix those boosters in with the normal cube boosters. (note that players are NOT guaranteed to open up the cards that they personally sharpied, so there's no incentive to just go OP).
One way this could be abused is a player who really loves drafting reanimator just sharpies every one of his normal cards to make it good in a reanimator deck, and then he knows that reanimator will be "open" no matter what. Don't be that guy.
One other note: the basic land definitely counts as a card that can be sharpied. "Hmm, this forest has cycling: 0... obviously busted in constructed magic, but how highly do I pick it?"
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A friend of mine has a level up cube where you add abilities to cards (via stickers) each draft so random draft creatures become mini akromas after a while.
What if instead of adding text and abilities to cards every draft you remove lines of text each draft.
Basically a draft would happen and you pick two cards to sharpie. Win a round you can sharpie again. These changes are PERMANENT so next draft there will be some very different cards available.
Some other rules.
Would be a budget cube (as we would be defacing cards).
Some cards would just be in to make drafting work (mana fixing and the like).
Stuff that you can alter into "you win the game" should be avoided (or should they?)
You cant add text to cards.
Obvious stuff to look for.
Cards with Upkeep Costs
Phasing
Fading
"Skulking" creatures
Stuff that enters with -1-1 counters like Etched Monstrosity
Stuff like Hunted Dragon that give opponents bonuses.
Phage
Stuff that expires end of turn like Ball Lightning
A couple hundred of these cards mixed with a couple hundred cards for balance and filler should be enough for a cube.
What do y'all think?
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Each match win you get some points. Each match loss you get some consolidation points. End of the night bonus points are distributed based on match wins/losses.
Dudes may now spend points on abilities to put on cards. Some abilities cost more (Buyback, Cascade, Flashback, Phyrexian Mana) than others (Haste, Vigilance, Trample, Unleash).
We just use little tabs of paper with the abilities written on them inside of their sleeves to prevent ruining the cards/sleeves.
Some examples of cards we've made stupid ridiculous:
Ponder/Preordain with Buyback
Geist of Saint Traft with Phyrexian Mana and Haste
Flametongue Kavu with Haste and Unleash
My 540 Powered CubeTutor Page
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Defender
Clockwork
"As an additional cost"
Chain of...
Nightmares
Champion
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
You can sharpie out one full sentence in the text box only.
At the start of the first round of the draft you get 2 cards you can sharpie, then each round each winner gets an extra sharpie.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
One Modification:
Gruul Turf enters the battlefield tapped.
When Gruul Turf enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand.
Tap: Add RG to your mana pool.Nice card!
Two Modifications:
Gruul Turf enters the battlefield tapped.
When Gruul Turf enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand.
Tap: Add RG to your mana pool.Absurd Card!
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
That is my biggest concern as well. I figure the cube would go through a few phases.
Phase 1: Very few cards modified, generally low power of the decks. This actually could be pretty interesting as you have to make mediocre cards and a deck that works. The small number of cards modified would mean not every game is affected by a mod. People would probably just mod whatever would bring the most impact. Decks would be low power with 2-3 modified cards/deck that are much more powerful than the rest.
Phase 2: Enough modified cards so that every game has some. After a few drafts people are going to start seeing modified cards coming around, though they would likely be high picks at this point. People would start to modify cards to make decks better as opposed to just raw power. At this point there would be a wide range in power but you would have to include some low power cards to make decks work. Decks become more consistent with 3-5 modified cards per deck.
Phase 3: Each pack will have 2-3 modded cards and decks would end up with 6-10 modded cards. Every game would have several modded cards played and more role playing cards like Goblin Patrol would get modified. Decks are now consistent with a good number of strong and synergistic modified cards and only a few duds remain.
Phase 4: Decks end up with more than half modded cards and become both powerful and consistent. At this point any bias by color becomes apparent, so if people mod more blue cards than the rest many players will be fighting over blue. There could an issue if one color is much more powerful, more people will draft it then modify more cards of that color. At this point we might need to purge problem cards.
Phase 5: Most of the cards are modified and a big purge is required. Some cards will just never be modded and as a result never played.
By phase 4 and def phase 5 there is the possibility of vanilla-ville. But at that point i'll start purging and editing to keep things spicy.
The big key to keeping it from becoming vanilla land is to pick cards with drawbacks that are still reasonably playable. Thirst for Knowledge is a good card but if you remove the discard clause then it becomes really powerful. But you could easy draft that card and keep it as printed. Goblin Patrol and Blastoderm are pretty vanilla when you remove their downsides but i think i just need to be mindful to keep them in check.
I would set aside a chunk of the cube to just normal cards to balance things out and keep it interesting if need be.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
The cube will be built out of 400ish budget cards (like draft throwaway level cards).
Cards are drafted like normal but after the draft you get can alter two cards with a sharpie. Win a round and you can alter one more (you can bank alters up to five).
What can you alter?
1. Any keyword ability can be sharpied out completely. This makes cards with Echo, Cumulative Upkeep, Defender, Phasing, Fading, Vanishing much better.
2. Any whole sentence within the card's text box can be removed. Just one sentence at a time. You can alter cards that already have been altered.
Some examples of cards i would put in the cube.
Gruul Turf
Comes into play tapped.
Bounce a land when it comes into play.
T: add RG to your mana pool.
Fine card on its own, but nothing to write home about.
Can become...
Gruul Turf
Comes into play tapped.
T: add RG to your mana pool.
A very nice card, worthy of a normal cube.
With 2 edits
Gruul Turf
T: add RG to your mana pool.
Becomes a powerful first pick worthy card.
Faceless Buthcher
BB2
2/3
When FB comes into play exile a creature.
When FB Leaves play return that creature to play.
Decent role player in a low power cube.
but with one edit...
Faceless Buthcher
BB2
2/3
When FB comes into play exile a creature.
Excellent removal that can be re used.
Sunweb
W3
5/6
Flying, Defender
Sunweb cant block creatures with power 2 or less.
Situation wall, not great.
But with one edit.
Sunweb
W3
5/6
Flying
Sunweb cant block creatures with power 2 or less.
Now it is a cheap and potent threat.
Final Fortune
RR
Take an extra turn after this one. At the end of that turn you lose the game.
Very situation and really only good in an all-in red deck.
But with one edit....
Final Fortune
RR
Take an extra turn after this one.
Its a time walk...
and of course.
Lord of Tresserhorn
UBR1
10/4
B: Regenerate
When Lord of Tresserhorn comes into play, pay 2 life and sacrifice two creatures, and target opponent draws two cards. Effects that prevent or redirect damage cannot be used to counter this loss of life.
Crazy hard to make work.
Becomes
Lord of Tresserhorn
UBR1
10/4
B: Regenerate
Absurd (though 3 colors wont be as easy in this cube).
What else is in the cube?
I'll probably do about 75% cards that would be sharpied and about 25% utility and stuff to balance the cube.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Variable Colorless, Tap: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron and exile a nonland card from your hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Note the type and amount of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Activate this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron.
Tap, Remove a charge counter from Ice Cauldron: Add Ice Cauldron's last noted type and amount of mana to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast the last card exiled with Ice Cauldron.
Change to:
Variable Colorless,Tap: Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldronand exile a nonland card from your hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Note the type and amount of mana spent to pay this activation cost. Activate this ability only if there are no charge counters on Ice Cauldron.Tap, Remove a charge counter from Ice Cauldron: Add
Ice Cauldron's last noted typeandamount ofmana to your mana pool.Spend this mana only to cast the last card exiled with Ice Cauldron.Both of those are excellent and i am sure the Leviathan creature type would yield a couple more goodies.
I am also finding cards that change functionality when you remove a sentence.
Otherworldly Journey goes from ho-hum blink card to a 2 mana exile target creature card.
Waylay is pretty exciting.
Crypt Champion and the rest of the cycle are interesting as well.
I am also happy Sindbad can find a home in this cube as i always had a soft spot for the dude.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
I think the Invasion-block "gate" creatures like Horned Kavu would make for interesting decisions. If you sharpie them they become very efficient beaters, but some players might choose to leave the text on to be able to return creatures with ETB abilities to their owner's hand. There are also the Ravnica-block cards like Court Hussar which are pretty playable in a janky environment anyway, and they become good value creatures with the sacrifice clause removed.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Force of Nature is going to get some much needed love.
Phyrexian Dreadnought is too good but also i want to actually sharpie the cards so it would be too expensive.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Cards with the "Activate this ability only once each turn." sentences like Crazed Armodon become interesting too. You can also remove the sorcery restriction from cards like Dimir Guildmage.
The good thing is removal should also get much better as the cube advances. Unless people just upgrade creatures.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Death's Shadow
B
Death's Shadow gets -X/-X where X is your life total
13/13
Becomes a 13/13 one-drop
Each of them then gets "improved" in some fashion, and then shuffled back into the cube for the next draft. That way, whatever the least popular/useful cards in your cube are, they're constantly getting better.
The problem, to me, with what's being described, is that it's fundamentally not very interesting to just find every card with a drawback and remove the drawback. The "Sharpie"-ing in that case is obvious and requires no creativity. I think there's a much wider world of possibility if you say "hmm, I got this card 15th because no one wanted it... how can I improve it to make it playable but hopefully not busted next draft?", and then of course next draft your opening pack has two newly modified cards and suddenly you have to on-the-fly evaluate how good they are now.
One way this could be abused is a player who really loves drafting reanimator just sharpies every one of his normal cards to make it good in a reanimator deck, and then he knows that reanimator will be "open" no matter what. Don't be that guy.
One other note: the basic land definitely counts as a card that can be sharpied. "Hmm, this forest has cycling: 0... obviously busted in constructed magic, but how highly do I pick it?"