So, I have a rather weird problem. I have one player who drafts the same deck all the time, we draft my cube. He drafts 5-color good stuff. The problem is, he first drafts all lands and mana-fixing he can get and then all the good stuff, leaving all other players with suboptimal decks, because they lack the mana-fixing. If we try to draft also the lands first, we have to pass the good cards and still have a suboptimal deck.
So, the main problem isn't that we have suboptimal decks, but that the intention of having fun with the cube draft shifts to having problems getting the fixing, draining the fun out of everyone.
Does anybody has some advice, how to deal with such a situation? I mean, maybe I'm just bad at drafting and don't see the right strategy?
4-5 color control decks should be playable, but not so good that it can be forced in every draft and crush the table. It sounds like other drafters need to focus on strategies that can beat control more, and prioritize fixing higher. The player playing aggro might want to pass that Stormblood Berserker and take that Arid Mesa early, hoping that the Berserker will wheel since the land probably won't. It takes drafters a few tries picking up no fixing for their deck to draft this way, but the quality of their final 40 will be higher once they do.
I would suggest drafting decks that pray on 5 colour control for a while. If 5CC was the deck to beat in standard you would see a lot of aggressive decks showing up to take advantage, cube is no different.
It's difficult to get someone off a gameplan that they like, especially if it is the correct thing to do in their mind because it is winning. The best way is to just make the deck seem less viable; draft to best it or increase the number of aggressive cards in your cube.
It could be the player has "solved" the format, if the same deck always come together and usually wins it could be a sign 5CC needs nerfed or the other strategies need a few more cards dedicated to them.
Would changing the types of fixing you are running help? Maybe go for faster 1 shot effects rather than slower tap lands like the bounce lands, I don't have too much experience with the format so I don't know what to suggest.
Maybe cut the fixing down? If it is less plentiful it become much harder to force 5CC as that deck relies on alot of fixing. Cutting out a some of fixing hits 5CC the hardest but mid range etc cares less.
I had to cut Sovereign's Realm because it was causing similar issues, if someone got it early it made everyone else at the tables deck worse just by existing since the 5CC player just lifted all the colour intensive that should have been a reward for players who were specifically in that deck.
It's probably a combination of different things. That player is first and foremost probably preying on an underappreciation for fixing in your playgroup. Second, there might be too much fixing in your cube. Third, it might be that the decks that prey on 5C Control - ie aggro decks - just simply don't have the tools they need to win (like TheGrogLord mentioned).
Fixing is so incredibly important in cube, moreso than any other limited format. If I'm solidly in two or more colors, I will almost never pass the first dual I see in my colors. Risking it not wheel and ending up with a 9/8 basic mana base is a recipe for disaster in cube. This is especially true of aggro decks that need to hit their colors early. If I'm drafting Boros aggro that's evenly split on RW, but I have no fixing, I'll take Plateau over pretty much anything, including Sulfuric Vortex, especially if I have some fetches and need that fetchable dual. If it's early I might take Vortex and try to slant heavy red to avoid mana issues.
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Cut every card he loves and holds dear. That'll teach them.
I had a player that would exclusively draft Dimir control, so I can confirm that this is the best way to make them stop. Also, grab all the burn and 1 drops.
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Unfortunately this doesn't have much to do with the player who drafts 5 color control. If your other players are just drafting like it's a normal Limited Format it could be skewing the results.
What I mean by that is many of the cubes here have been built in such a way to mimic each other, what this means is everyone has really gravitated to putting Arc types in the Cube
A similar Dynamic happened when I would draft with my close friends the people who I made the cube for. They would identify strategies and archives they would adapt to Mana curves and we would start to build decks at work quite well around and had a lot of power.
And that translated pretty well when I brought it to a local game shop with only a players.
Then the cube started getting popular and I had to make it bigger and so I ended up getting up to as much as 810 cars. And that was a large pool of players 3 drafting at one time. And I would have people passing aggro cards like 1 cc and 2 CC Agro cards. But I never got anything to top off my decks I never had those really good mid-range cards.
What happened was when I would go to play I had a really weak aggro deck that couldn't finish the job it would come out of the gates laser but I couldn't finish anything and when I lost my first round and I started to go from table to table to see what other people have drafted I noticed that almost everybody else was drafting mid-range Jank. You'd see tables of creatures locked up against each other trying to get through.
and so the next weekend when we had the cube draft I decided I'm going to get 5 color control a chance and that's what I did I drafted my Mana fixing in the first two rounds with a spattering of bombs or counterspells as they came along and then in the third round I picked up big flashy cards removal counterspells things like that.
And I went completely undefeated. It wasn't even a challenge. Because no one else drafting anything to combat my control deck I was playing against to see if slow mid-range decks.
anyway sorry if all that is hard to read I'm talking into my phone as I'm driving to a business meeting. So please excuse the typos and weird grammar I hope the message got through though
Cut every card he loves and holds dear. That'll teach them.
I had a player that would exclusively draft Dimir control, so I can confirm that this is the best way to make them stop. Also, grab all the burn and 1 drops.
But if they are playing good stuff decks you will just be replacing that good stuff with cards of a similar power level, so the problem remains the same as he is just drafting the best cards in each pack.
How did you hurt Dimir control, cut some removal and counters? It seems like that hurts Azorius and Jund just as much unless your just swapping out the Dimir section, but if you are replacing them with cards of a similar power level they will just be using different cards to kill you.
I feel like these things naturally correct themselves over time. Or maybe he's just really good and would beat people with anything? Sorry, wish I had better answers
Cut every card he loves and holds dear. That'll teach them.
I had a player that would exclusively draft Dimir control, so I can confirm that this is the best way to make them stop. Also, grab all the burn and 1 drops.
But if they are playing good stuff decks you will just be replacing that good stuff with cards of a similar power level, so the problem remains the same as he is just drafting the best cards in each pack.
How did you hurt Dimir control, cut some removal and counters? It seems like that hurts Azorius and Jund just as much unless your just swapping out the Dimir section, but if you are replacing them with cards of a similar power level they will just be using different cards to kill you.
I did replace like 6-8 cards over the course of that, similar power level switches but more tempo-oriented and less late game sustain cards. It's not really an analogous situation, though. For Mr. 5 Color Good Stuff you're gonna have to just cut him off fixing hard.
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Yeah that's probably what it really comes down to. If the other players in the draft are letting him scoop up all these fixers, it's kinda their fault. In my experience, it takes serious work to get to 4-5 color decks where all your picks need to matter, and drafting with people who value lands make it that much tougher outside of loose splashes off a heavy base color, or green.
Aside from the suggestions above, you can punish greedy manabases thru LD. I'm sure you have the staple Strip Mine and Wasteland, but you can add Dustbowl or Fulminator Mage. Cheap options include Goblin Ruinblaster. You can also up the Creeping Mold type spells in green.
You can also replace some of the splashable cards into double color, to discourage these strategies. Doom Blade, for example, can be replaced by Malicious Affliction.
I'm curious but is thi's issue relayed to your pauper cube you have linked in your signature? Maybe I'm being blind but I don't see another list, I have a pauper cube but it's a bit out of date, the suggestion of boosting aggro etc is good but (as you'll probably know) it's much harder to do in pauper than regular cube.
I have the opposite issue with my pauper cube in that control is hard to drat since the finishers are weaker and there aren't the same card advantages engines available at common.
We can give more specific feedback if we know what cube this is in reference to.
Thanks
Typically, when I see that a cube lacks aggressive support, I force a durdling deck as I won't be punished for doing so (this going for all flavors of cube, from pauper cubes, where I'd play decks with cards like Morgue Burst, to cubes with power.)
Having drafted it a few times, it seems the aggressive decks need some help and I usually end up going some control route.
There are some pretty weak cards in there, but the overall root cause seems to be lacking aggressive support and having no signets doesn't help the root cause.
So, the main problem isn't that we have suboptimal decks, but that the intention of having fun with the cube draft shifts to having problems getting the fixing, draining the fun out of everyone.
Does anybody has some advice, how to deal with such a situation? I mean, maybe I'm just bad at drafting and don't see the right strategy?
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It's difficult to get someone off a gameplan that they like, especially if it is the correct thing to do in their mind because it is winning. The best way is to just make the deck seem less viable; draft to best it or increase the number of aggressive cards in your cube.
It could be the player has "solved" the format, if the same deck always come together and usually wins it could be a sign 5CC needs nerfed or the other strategies need a few more cards dedicated to them.
Would changing the types of fixing you are running help? Maybe go for faster 1 shot effects rather than slower tap lands like the bounce lands, I don't have too much experience with the format so I don't know what to suggest.
Maybe cut the fixing down? If it is less plentiful it become much harder to force 5CC as that deck relies on alot of fixing. Cutting out a some of fixing hits 5CC the hardest but mid range etc cares less.
I had to cut Sovereign's Realm because it was causing similar issues, if someone got it early it made everyone else at the tables deck worse just by existing since the 5CC player just lifted all the colour intensive that should have been a reward for players who were specifically in that deck.
Fixing is so incredibly important in cube, moreso than any other limited format. If I'm solidly in two or more colors, I will almost never pass the first dual I see in my colors. Risking it not wheel and ending up with a 9/8 basic mana base is a recipe for disaster in cube. This is especially true of aggro decks that need to hit their colors early. If I'm drafting Boros aggro that's evenly split on RW, but I have no fixing, I'll take Plateau over pretty much anything, including Sulfuric Vortex, especially if I have some fetches and need that fetchable dual. If it's early I might take Vortex and try to slant heavy red to avoid mana issues.
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I had a player that would exclusively draft Dimir control, so I can confirm that this is the best way to make them stop. Also, grab all the burn and 1 drops.
Warning: Not for the durdly-hearted!
Or are you interested in a Fiora flavor cube? Conspire and win!
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What I mean by that is many of the cubes here have been built in such a way to mimic each other, what this means is everyone has really gravitated to putting Arc types in the Cube
A similar Dynamic happened when I would draft with my close friends the people who I made the cube for. They would identify strategies and archives they would adapt to Mana curves and we would start to build decks at work quite well around and had a lot of power.
And that translated pretty well when I brought it to a local game shop with only a players.
Then the cube started getting popular and I had to make it bigger and so I ended up getting up to as much as 810 cars. And that was a large pool of players 3 drafting at one time. And I would have people passing aggro cards like 1 cc and 2 CC Agro cards. But I never got anything to top off my decks I never had those really good mid-range cards.
What happened was when I would go to play I had a really weak aggro deck that couldn't finish the job it would come out of the gates laser but I couldn't finish anything and when I lost my first round and I started to go from table to table to see what other people have drafted I noticed that almost everybody else was drafting mid-range Jank. You'd see tables of creatures locked up against each other trying to get through.
and so the next weekend when we had the cube draft I decided I'm going to get 5 color control a chance and that's what I did I drafted my Mana fixing in the first two rounds with a spattering of bombs or counterspells as they came along and then in the third round I picked up big flashy cards removal counterspells things like that.
And I went completely undefeated. It wasn't even a challenge. Because no one else drafting anything to combat my control deck I was playing against to see if slow mid-range decks.
anyway sorry if all that is hard to read I'm talking into my phone as I'm driving to a business meeting. So please excuse the typos and weird grammar I hope the message got through though
But if they are playing good stuff decks you will just be replacing that good stuff with cards of a similar power level, so the problem remains the same as he is just drafting the best cards in each pack.
How did you hurt Dimir control, cut some removal and counters? It seems like that hurts Azorius and Jund just as much unless your just swapping out the Dimir section, but if you are replacing them with cards of a similar power level they will just be using different cards to kill you.
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I did replace like 6-8 cards over the course of that, similar power level switches but more tempo-oriented and less late game sustain cards. It's not really an analogous situation, though. For Mr. 5 Color Good Stuff you're gonna have to just cut him off fixing hard.
Warning: Not for the durdly-hearted!
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You can also replace some of the splashable cards into double color, to discourage these strategies. Doom Blade, for example, can be replaced by Malicious Affliction.
I have the opposite issue with my pauper cube in that control is hard to drat since the finishers are weaker and there aren't the same card advantages engines available at common.
We can give more specific feedback if we know what cube this is in reference to.
Thanks
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Having drafted it a few times, it seems the aggressive decks need some help and I usually end up going some control route.
There are some pretty weak cards in there, but the overall root cause seems to be lacking aggressive support and having no signets doesn't help the root cause.
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