I'm really interested to hear how this card works out. I know some people have it in their cube, and that drafting it gives you the other 3 after the draft, but is the card sweet? How high of a pick is it, usually? What kind of deck does it fit into best? Thanks!
Someone must have just mentioned this because i came here to see if this topic had been started and what people have said about it. (the singelton thread)
I have been thinking about it and it similarish to lingering souls. They both end up being 4-1's Squadron hawk gives you in card hand advantage. They thin out your deck by 10%.
That being said that means you dont have 3 other spells in you deck that would be much higher impact than a 1/1 flyer. hmm you wouldnt top deck them in you already played one or two already... so it would be as good of a topdeck. They are not as good of a top deck if you have already played one or two of them. And they cost a total of 8cc instead of 5cc that seems like a big deal.
if you played in on turn 2 you would have 3 in hand, play a three drop, then two of these on turn four. Does that seem good? Or just play your 4 drop and fit one of these guys in when you have open mana. Could look at it like a mana sink for 3 1/1 fliers if you play it like that.
on the top deck end it an 8cc 4/4 flier that takes an arc trail+ to kill them all. How different if that from a 5cc 4/4 flier that does has the same card advantage with all of the upsides/downsides that i've presented in the very long winded post
isnt that what we are shooting for in cube? Whats more powerful sol ring or squadron hawk? or for the unpowered of us out there... tinker or squadron hawk?
That's not what I'm shooting for. I don't want to change the rules to make cards better. They either make the cut or they don't. If a card doesn't make the list unless I give multiple copies away to the drafter for free, I'm not interested at all.
If I had 4 Lightning Bolt, my cube deck also would be tons better. Or 4 Sol Ring. Or almost all cube cards for that matter, especially the top ten cards of each colors. I just don't see justifying that specific rule just for a single card.
I don't think it's unreasonable to play Squadron Hawk in cube if you and your players like it. I think giving three free copies is too many since it gives that player a larger draft/sealed pool than everyone else, and four copies in a 40 card limited deck is much different than in a 60 card constructed deck. Personally, I'd only give one or two extra copies along with it and it would probably still be playable.
I think the bigger headache is remembering to pull the extra copies out at the end of the night so only one remains in the draft pool.
Giving them 3 total hawks instead of 4 is probably a bit more balanced. At 4, it's still not more powerful than Sol Ring or Ancestral or anything like that, but is your white section really that bad that it needs another Balance power-level type card?
Lots of people play functional reprints in cube, so what truly qualifies as singleton is already pretty muddy.
Again, I say just go with whatever you and your players like. There's no cube police that's going to come around and impound your cards for doing a 3-for-1 on Squadron Hawk.
I think this is just adhering to the mechanic that the card has been built on. It's nothing like lightning bolt x4. It is the design of the card. A mox let's you 'play 2 lands per turn' that's the design of the card and it breaks the rules of magic. It's not purely upside like I said in my post above. You sacrificing 3 or 4 slots that be taken by more powerful spells by using them.
We talk about cube being constructed power decks in a draft format. This card in that light is very constructed playable with out any help from other cards. The mechanic is inherent on the card unlike accululated knowledge where it refers to other cards but it doesn't fetch them.
I think we should be able to grant a cards inherent mechanic if it is on the card. This being said, does this logic break down when referring to accumulated knowledge et al.?
I don't think I'll include this card myself but I think it does warrant more than flippant disscusion.
I considered doing this at one point. There are some reasonable choices in the other colours that could also work in the same manner, like Aether Burst (really sick), Flame Burst, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Nesting Wurm and Tarox Bladewing (he's a beating). I thought in the end though that it wasn't worth the effort of 'bending the rules' (even if that isn't really the case).
I don't think giving someone 4 cards from one pick (especially when they are 1/1 2 mana fliers) is overpowered in cube drafting; the limiting factors of the decks I draft almost never include the amount of playable cards. Even if a draft goes atrociously bad I haven't had much difficultly assembling 23 playable cards.
Lots of people like Squadron Hawk and having access to four of them would still not make the card too powerful. If the people you play with are okay with the rule and like attaching swords to birds, I would say give it a try.
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Any insight to the rest of my points on the matter?
As I said before, I don't like changing the rules for drafting cards just to make something playable. If you wanna include 4-6 Hawks in your white section, I think that's a much more interesting way of playing the card than giving a player 4 cards for 1 pick.
Squadron Hawk does not waste slots for cards that could be more powerful. It actually does the exact opposite: since you are decreasing the size of your library by 3 when you cast your first Squadron Hawk, you automatically make your remaining deck more powerful since you have increased the probability to draw your bombs.
This is exactly right. I tried explaining this already, but perhaps I did a poorer job. When you can replace your 4 lowest power cards in your limited deck with 4 Hawks, as soon as you play one, you eliminate the 4 lowest remaining topdecks from your library. Which actually increases the concentration of your bombs and improves the quality of your draws. It doesn't take up 4 of your 23 slots in a negative way, it actually eliminates 4 of your 23 slots in a good way.
Not to mention that drafting the right concentration of lands/spells is an important cube skill to have, and when you're gifted 4 playable cards from one pick, it allows you to spend less picks on gas and more on mana-fixing, giving you an additional draft advantage that shouldn't be there. In addition to never running low/short on playables because you were able to pick up 4 cards from one pick.
I actually play with this card by breaking the singleton rule in my cube. There's 4 Squadron Hawk in my 450ish card cube, and after a couple of weeks in the field, I'd say it's a reasonably powered card at best. I figured, it's certainly better than the cards I removed for it (Nearheath Pilgrim, Cloistered Youth, and two other bears I can't recall), which had a habit of tabling every time they were in the mix. What did I have to lose?
As you might expect, with this setup, the Hawks get a lot better the more players there are at the table. With a full house of 10, all the Hawks are guaranteed to be in play, and an enterprising player can scoop them up with mid and late picks. On the other hand, with smaller drafts of 4, people sometimes move in early, but find out later there were only two Hawks available to be had. I'm not perfectly happy with a card that scales up in power the more players there are, but again, it wasn't like Cloistered Youth was bringing down the house. So I've come to accept the trade-off.
There was one odd draft where two players on opposite ends, after seeing multiple Hawks table, went in at the same time, and ended up with two apiece. Even more interesting was that one player benched them (rightfully so?), while the other player started them and ended up winning the whole thing. That probably doesn't say anything about the power level of fetching up only one Hawk, but it did tell me that my players are willing to play along with the experiment.
And, for what it's worth, successfully drafting all four copies is immensely gratifying. It's a mix of luck, obviously (in this 8-man, are the cards even here to take?), but there's a significant element of signal reading there, as well. Putting your finger on the pulse of the table, and gambling on whether to take your first Hawk with that sixth pick, makes for a fun and rewarding mini-game when you're putting together an otherwise unremarkable white critter deck.
Magic is one of the most complex games ever. Cube is one of the most complex way to play Magic, both rule wise and strategicaly wise. Those things are already taxing, and need to be kept in check.
If you always play with the same crew, the cost of adding house rules is low, especialy if you add them progressively. Learning one extra rule every three months is far easier than learning 50 rules at once.
If you play with people who never cubed before, or never with your cube, for example if you bring it to LGS or GPs, your house rules could become a burden. This is why I try to keep them as few as possible : I don't want to start each cube by a 10 minutes introductions of extra layers of complexity on what is already a dauting format for non-veterans.
So I wouldn't want to add a rule one some cards saying "When you pick this, something specific happens". That's extra logistic and complexity, and while it's not major by itself, at some point the straw will break the camel's back.
You can, as suggested on this thread, break the singleton rule and just put 4 Squadron Hawk, 4 Kindle and 4 Accumulated Knowledge. However, the actual R&D think that breaking rules has costs, and one of them is that restrictions breads creativity. They still break their rules when doing so worth it, and there is no way to achieve a goal by staying in the box. I think they are right on that. So we need to analyze what is our goal, and if we could pull it off by staying true to our restrictions. I think that we could provide good white creatures, good red burn spell, and good card draw without breaking rules. And for this reason, I will stay in the box.
How do you explain the misprints then, such as meloku making 2/2s and the other broken stuff in multiple other languages you like to include? (Sorry if you don't include those cards anymore, but I remember from seeing from your cube thread sometime in the last couple years that you like to include those types of cards.)
Of course the next step is to allow someone to get 22 free Relentless Rats by drafting one, heh.
I know you're joking, but this is the line of thought that I'm trying to avoid by not allowing 4 hawks. It's the never ending principle of "well, we allowed this, so this other thing should be ok since it's only a step higher.."
But then you are going down a slippery slope of how many of these types of cards to allow and also giving the list of these cards to everyone before a draft and remembering them during a draft.
I'm not going there, only 1 copy of each card in my cube.
But then you are going down a slippery slope of how many of these types of cards to allow and also giving the list of these cards to everyone before a draft and remembering them during a draft.
I'm not going there, only 1 copy of each card in my cube.
Those guys are all pretty awful, though. At least hawk has evasion and doesn't have to die to get the team/actually gets the whole team when the trigger goes off.
It's up to your discretion because there are no unified rules of cube. Some posters like Nof have used misprints. Others have used non-misprint non-legal cards like symbol status or gifts given. Still others like wtwfl123 play without sideboards breaking a magic rule that exists in all levels of sanctioned play. Some people do sealed rather than draft. Some play power, while some don't. Others play old rules and many play old cards for nostalgia rather than strength. The slope is only as slippery as you wish it to be.
Seems like the shuffle effect would be interesting and synergistic in a lot of decks and the power level is reasonable for a white two drop. Having to grab my 3 other hawks and store them separately from the rest of the cube seems like a hassle to me, so I wouldn't do it, but to each his/her own.
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I have been thinking about it and it similarish to lingering souls. They both end up being 4-1's Squadron hawk gives you in card hand advantage. They thin out your deck by 10%.
That being said that means you dont have 3 other spells in you deck that would be much higher impact than a 1/1 flyer. hmm you wouldnt top deck them in you already played one or two already... so it would be as good of a topdeck. They are not as good of a top deck if you have already played one or two of them. And they cost a total of 8cc instead of 5cc that seems like a big deal.
if you played in on turn 2 you would have 3 in hand, play a three drop, then two of these on turn four. Does that seem good? Or just play your 4 drop and fit one of these guys in when you have open mana. Could look at it like a mana sink for 3 1/1 fliers if you play it like that.
on the top deck end it an 8cc 4/4 flier that takes an arc trail+ to kill them all. How different if that from a 5cc 4/4 flier that does has the same card advantage with all of the upsides/downsides that i've presented in the very long winded post
Thanks and sorry
Andrew
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That's not what I'm shooting for. I don't want to change the rules to make cards better. They either make the cut or they don't. If a card doesn't make the list unless I give multiple copies away to the drafter for free, I'm not interested at all.
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I think the bigger headache is remembering to pull the extra copies out at the end of the night so only one remains in the draft pool.
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Again, I say just go with whatever you and your players like. There's no cube police that's going to come around and impound your cards for doing a 3-for-1 on Squadron Hawk.
We talk about cube being constructed power decks in a draft format. This card in that light is very constructed playable with out any help from other cards. The mechanic is inherent on the card unlike accululated knowledge where it refers to other cards but it doesn't fetch them.
I think we should be able to grant a cards inherent mechanic if it is on the card. This being said, does this logic break down when referring to accumulated knowledge et al.?
I don't think I'll include this card myself but I think it does warrant more than flippant disscusion.
Not really. As soon as you play 1, it doesn't take up any more of your draws.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I'm referring to 4 of your 23 slots.
Any insight to the rest of my points on the matter?
Lots of people like Squadron Hawk and having access to four of them would still not make the card too powerful. If the people you play with are okay with the rule and like attaching swords to birds, I would say give it a try.
As I said before, I don't like changing the rules for drafting cards just to make something playable. If you wanna include 4-6 Hawks in your white section, I think that's a much more interesting way of playing the card than giving a player 4 cards for 1 pick.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
This is exactly right. I tried explaining this already, but perhaps I did a poorer job. When you can replace your 4 lowest power cards in your limited deck with 4 Hawks, as soon as you play one, you eliminate the 4 lowest remaining topdecks from your library. Which actually increases the concentration of your bombs and improves the quality of your draws. It doesn't take up 4 of your 23 slots in a negative way, it actually eliminates 4 of your 23 slots in a good way.
Not to mention that drafting the right concentration of lands/spells is an important cube skill to have, and when you're gifted 4 playable cards from one pick, it allows you to spend less picks on gas and more on mana-fixing, giving you an additional draft advantage that shouldn't be there. In addition to never running low/short on playables because you were able to pick up 4 cards from one pick.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
As you might expect, with this setup, the Hawks get a lot better the more players there are at the table. With a full house of 10, all the Hawks are guaranteed to be in play, and an enterprising player can scoop them up with mid and late picks. On the other hand, with smaller drafts of 4, people sometimes move in early, but find out later there were only two Hawks available to be had. I'm not perfectly happy with a card that scales up in power the more players there are, but again, it wasn't like Cloistered Youth was bringing down the house. So I've come to accept the trade-off.
There was one odd draft where two players on opposite ends, after seeing multiple Hawks table, went in at the same time, and ended up with two apiece. Even more interesting was that one player benched them (rightfully so?), while the other player started them and ended up winning the whole thing. That probably doesn't say anything about the power level of fetching up only one Hawk, but it did tell me that my players are willing to play along with the experiment.
And, for what it's worth, successfully drafting all four copies is immensely gratifying. It's a mix of luck, obviously (in this 8-man, are the cards even here to take?), but there's a significant element of signal reading there, as well. Putting your finger on the pulse of the table, and gambling on whether to take your first Hawk with that sixth pick, makes for a fun and rewarding mini-game when you're putting together an otherwise unremarkable white critter deck.
How do you explain the misprints then, such as meloku making 2/2s and the other broken stuff in multiple other languages you like to include? (Sorry if you don't include those cards anymore, but I remember from seeing from your cube thread sometime in the last couple years that you like to include those types of cards.)
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I know you're joking, but this is the line of thought that I'm trying to avoid by not allowing 4 hawks. It's the never ending principle of "well, we allowed this, so this other thing should be ok since it's only a step higher.."
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Howling Wolf
Skyshroud Sentinel
Llanowar Sentinel
Welkin Hawk
But then you are going down a slippery slope of how many of these types of cards to allow and also giving the list of these cards to everyone before a draft and remembering them during a draft.
I'm not going there, only 1 copy of each card in my cube.
Those guys are all pretty awful, though. At least hawk has evasion and doesn't have to die to get the team/actually gets the whole team when the trigger goes off.
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Seems like the shuffle effect would be interesting and synergistic in a lot of decks and the power level is reasonable for a white two drop. Having to grab my 3 other hawks and store them separately from the rest of the cube seems like a hassle to me, so I wouldn't do it, but to each his/her own.