I would really like it if Wizards released a power cube and a unpowered cube and let people play both and then gathered the colossal amount of date they have access to and released the data set to the public. I imagine it sort of in the vein of that minor snippet they provided for M10 uncommons on Aaron's tumblr, but more encompassing including extrinsic data like a player's limited and constructed ratings. That would be a fantastic service to the cubing community.
Until the point that we are able to get hard data, almost everything boils down to pure conjecture. With that said, I think that if you increase the magnitude of inequality of power level of cards in a draft environment, you necessarily create a more swingy environment that will result in more games that come down to luck of the draw than skill (though the difference might be relatively tiny, think 1%). Keep in mind that certain cards we consider power are not necessarily creating inequality on their own (moxen). Also consider that many people play and enjoy magic because it is a game that is not entirely skill based, so whether something comes down to luck more often is not a value judgment as to whether the environment created is more enjoyable. Another consideration is changing expectations of the players and the fact that different types of inequality and interactions affect people differently (ex. people tend to feel less bad about getting their creature killed by removal than getting countered or ex. people feel worse about getting blown out by an abrupt effect than incremental effects that add up to a blow out like Jace staying on the board for a couple of turns vs. someone casting wrath and 3 for 1 ing)
In my opinion, if you are adding Jitte, Jace, SOFI, Gideon, Lotus, and Sol Ring to a pauper cube, people aren't going to have a good time because they will have too much of an impact. If you are adding them to a 360 card cube where Elspeth, and Moxen are being played, it won't affect them as much. I think that if you are going to play power (sol ring included), you should play it in the smallest environment with the highest card quality possible to reduce the level of card inequality therefore decreasing variation for luck in games and decreasing the warping impact of the cards on the play style of the environment, but even that could be off base given the manner in which cards interact. There are no right answers - Magic is a beautiful game.
I think when people hear "Power" they just think broken and unfun because well, it's power, but in the environment of cube it really isn't. They're more broken cards than power. It's really not as bad some may think.
The other thing I question is how people can see these blow outs so often even if they are in your deck. If most of them aren't there in your opening hand their value as a playable card starts dropping very quick. Assuming you pick up 1 mox in your card pool and create a 40 card deck you only have a 7/40 chance on the play and a 8/40 chance on the draw of getting it opening turn (17.5% and 20% respectively). Assuming you are playing with 8 people can pairing based of wins in a 3 match setup and each match goes to 3 games that means you will get it in your opening hand roughly twice on the day. I don't see how those odds can create a degenerative environment.
It comes down to preference. Here is a post I wrote in an earlier power discussion that addresses the issue why some people don't see a problem at all and some do:
Magic has a skill and a luck component (imagine that as percentages, so you have x % skill and 100-x % luck). In a singleton format with a shared card pool like cube, having a few cards with a much higher impact than most other cards increases the luck component (which is always at the cost of the skill component, because the two components add up to 100 %).
A higher luck component is desirable to increase the accessibility of the format (because also less skilled players have a chance of winning; note that this will always be the case in Magic, because Magic always has a luck component) and it increases the number of highly memorable plays.
A higher skill component is desirable for a certain competitive type of player who feels cheated if the luck component is too high (both because he wins games he knows he should have lost, and because he looses games he knows he should have won). Note that this competitive player is also playing the cube for fun, but having too much luck in the format ruins the fun for him.
I think the cube builder has to find a balance that he is happy with and that works well for his playgroup. I know some players in my group would like me to bring power back, others are quite happy it is gone. I know I prefer a higher skill component myself, and because my cube is not democratic at all I just work in that direction.
As an illustration of the skill vs. luck ratio for those who know what TF2 is: TF2 is a first person shooter, and winning in a fight has a lot to do with skill. In order to make the game more accessible, many public servers have critical hits enabled, that means you randomly get to deal more damage than you normally would. That way, less skilled players can get lucky and kill higher skilled players. Some of the more skilled players choose not to play on servers where critical hits are enabled, because they don't want to win nor loose because of luck.
I happen to think that the discussion of the power vs. non power issue is quite valuable. Some might have locked in their opinion, and to them it may seem rather pointless because clearly the whole thing is not going anywhere. But me, I am not sure at all whether cutting power is the right thing to do - currently I think it is, but having arguments both for and against it and sharing experiences from powered and unpowered environments helps me to get a better picture of the situation.
The ~20% chance to draw a Sol Ring or something are like critical hits.
Now of course the issue remains what cards, if any, have a much higher impact than most other cards. Some say that when you start cutting cards for power reasons, where do you stop? Others say cards like Mind Twist, Jitte, Jace and Balance should be on that list if power is or even before power.
My answer is that fast mana is the main offender. I think Sol Ring is the most broken cube card there is. Similar cards like Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Moxen, Lotus and Mana Drain are problematic for the same reason: they let you play all the other broken spells 1-3 turns early. Balance is a lot less scary when it cannot be abused with dropping artifact mana early, Mind Twist does not nearly the same amount of damage without access to a lot of mana very early and a turn 3 Jace is at least slightly easier to beat than a turn 1 Jace.
But again, the most important thing to remember is that it is a preference call. I agree completely with what wtwlf123 said about how much power impacts the cube:
After playing lots of matches with the MODO powered cube I have to say i.) that the different is not THAT big as I thought it would be and ii.) even the most broken cards can be beaten.
I am really enjoying the powered version as it provides this interesting boost and excitement. What I especially like is that the decks I love (Wildfire and Tezzeret artifact decks) are stronger in this environment. I am seriously considering going power myself.
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isn't aggro pretty much nonexistant in the world of TPS, Tinker-Blightsteel and other artifact goodies?
But this is because the format is dominated by combo kills in the first three turns. The cube doesn't support the kind of combo kills that render aggro dead.
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if you have an aggro vs. control matchup that is balanced at 50% / 50%, and then you give each deck moxen, I would expect to see the win percentage go up for the control deck.
This has not been my experience. Moxen benefit pretty much everything equally.
Mid-range benefits more from the other power mana rocks than anything else. And mid-range beats aggro anyways. The best way to counteract this is just to make sure control is good enough to beat mid-range (even powered mid-range) so that aggro decks can still thrive against the control decks at the table.
I love the power in my 360 and I am constantly trying to make it more powerful all around, I do not think that the power break the game open so much as they allow for some fast acceleration and swingy comebacks which make for fun magic stories and interesting games. However I do take out the power when I go down to a 225 stack for casual dueling, but I also remove the titans and swords, jitte, along with some others just to make the games different between the two iterations of the cube. I think more games in my cube have been won off the back of bitterblossum than off of power. Once I make the Expansion Pack to go up to a 540 archetype cube then I will have more data on how the power effect cubes where the power density of cards is dropping but their are quite a few powered 540's running around that seem fine.
I have not dabbled in a powered cube to be honest, but as far as playing power in a cube goes, I am not opposed to it. I have wanted to fit it in but I am still getting my 360 where I want it and to where I can maintain expansions before I start adding power.
I am also not really concerned about power breaking the game simply because unlike vintage, you run thin on density when it comes to making your combo deck actually work on a consists t level. You are drafting, which means Moxen probably won't be tabled too often, much less in consistency of applicable use in terms of color.
I am currently running Grim Monolith, Sol Ring and Mana Vault and I love how decks find ways to abuse them. It makes it a roller coaster ride of a game if everything goes right, and if anything, Moxen can help ensure that balance even more since aggro decks can use the. To help compete with turn 3 WCE or Grave Titan.
If you group fast mana in with power cards then I think the package as a whole disadvantages aggro especially in smaller lists. And I personally think that even just having moxen in the format disadvantages aggro more than it does any other archetype. Not to say that aggro can't benefit from moxen, but that an opposing mox is more detrimental to aggro than it is to the other archetypes.
I have drafted the MODO cube a few times since power was added, and it seems to have made aggro even worse. I did have a successful RW aggro deck, but most of the decks I faced used artifact mana to power out early 6-drops.
I did have some success with a RW control deck packing loads of LD, artifact destruction and Crucible/Strip Mine/Wasteland. Despite MTGO disconnecting just before deck submission (meaning I played the first game in each round with an 81 card deck) I still went 2-1. The only match I lost was to a storm deck that was able to drop Dream Halls under my mana denial using Black Lotus to win by storm combo.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Mmh. I had the opposite experience. Just won a draft with my RB aggro deck. Total play time: 5 minutes and 40 seconds ;-).
Though I agree that the cubes here support aggro a lot better (which I like). Also Manic Vandal and friends are missing in the MODO cube.
I love drafting aggro in the modo cube because nobody respects it enough (unless it's mono red) and you get all the sweet cards on the wheel a lot. It's just annoying after you stomp their face in and have to wait 40 minutes for the grindy decks to win.
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I've smashed peoples' faces with Boros aggro in MTGO cube (there's going to be a video draft on SCG of a Boros aggro walkthrough with the MTGO powered cube going up tonight at 12 EST) especially since 1-drops wheel all day long and the aggro support is better than in cubes where I've found aggro to be stone unplayable but in general, aggro is not where I want to be unless it falls into my lap.
The biggest problem we've found with aggro in the MODO cube isn't the deck (it's easy to build because nobody drafts it). The problem is the fact that 5-6 of the other decks at the table are mid-range decks that have great matchups against aggro.
The biggest problem we've found with aggro in the MODO cube isn't the deck (it's easy to build because nobody drafts it). The problem is the fact that 5-6 of the other decks at the table are mid-range decks that have great matchups against aggro.
I haven't had that problem too much, since I mostly stick to a base red, which is sad because it's the only way you can beat the midrange decks.
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The biggest problem we've found with aggro in the MODO cube isn't the deck (it's easy to build because nobody drafts it). The problem is the fact that 5-6 of the other decks at the table are mid-range decks that have great matchups against aggro.
This is what I've found as well. Aggro decks with red burn may have enough reach to finish off an opponent, but not other colour combinations.
By the way, do people draft single elimination or Swiss on MODO cube?
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
the ramp presence is pretty strong in the current iteration of mtgo cube and I want to see it's too prevalent. mana rocks, signets, moxes, I had a guy drop grave titan on turn 2. I know this isn't the most broken thing when one can reanimate fatties or tinker, but it happens far to often to the detriment of aggro.
I actually started drafting red aggro in mtgo simply because so many people durdle with mana rocks and mana (and the storm deck the last 3 drafts I did) and it gets there fairly often.
on point, I plau power in my cube because I playing with the most powerful cards. As mentioned above, all strategies benefit from it pretty much equally.
playing the mtgo cube makes it pretty clear to me that having p9+library/workshop/sol ring makes cube really swingy and unfun. Shop into sol ring into worn powerstone on the play? Silly.
You guys should see our Cube with UNpower. Blacker Lotus, Jack-in-the-Mox and whatever that other one is. The lotuses (loti) are great for aggro but its all of the colorless acceleration that hurts it, including off color moxen.
I very much agree with the sentiment that "power" becomes more balanced as the size of the cube is trimmed down. The relative power level of the contextual cards in the pack and/or deck will be higher and the differential will be far less apparent. Also, the larger the cube, the higher the likelihood that drafting "power" becomes algorithmic since there will likely be a more pronounced raw-power differential.
I don't mind the occasional blowout game. Though I suppose that drafting on MODO, where there is an associated cost, might be frustrating if you're on the receiving end.
I very much agree with the sentiment that "power" becomes more balanced as the size of the cube is trimmed down. The relative power level of the contextual cards in the pack and/or deck will be higher and the differential will be far less apparent. Also, the larger the cube, the higher the likelihood that drafting "power" becomes algorithmic since there will likely be a more pronounced raw-power differential.
I don't mind the occasional blowout game. Though I suppose that drafting on MODO, where there is an associated cost, might be frustrating if you're on the receiving end.
Especially now that you get worthless prize instead of packs.
What exactly is considered power? Just cards like Moxen, Time Walk, Mind Twist, Nether Void, Moat, Mana Drain, Library of Alexandria etc. I made my cube with only 4 planeswalkers in it. I didn't want planeswalkers to come up in every draft. Now prices on Scars of Mirrodin block stuff is really cheap so I have been adding cards to my cube. I have been updating my unpowered cube with more powerful cards like Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan and Grave Titan.I was thinking of adding Koth the Hammer and Gideon Jura. I don't really know if you can consider these to be powered cards or not? I play some select stronger cards like Balance, Upheaval, Mind Twist, Wheel of Fortune, Sylvan Library,Ancestral Vision etc. I have many cards that aren't in normal cube lists. I like to make cube drafts more interesting.
Everybody has their own definition. Some people just consider it the power 9. Other people factor in Sol Ring and Library. Others include all fast artifact mana. Others include all completely broken and unfair cards like Mind Twist and stuff too. It's up to the individual cube manager to decide what it means to them.
For me, when I pick up power, I plan to run the Moxen and Black lotus, but not Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Crypt, etc.
This is my position as well. I'm in the middle of building my cube, have some power, and am acquiring more. As I see it, speeding up your plays by 1 turn (moxes) or speeding up a single play by 3 turns (lotus) is powerful but not overly powerful. Plus, the cards are special and revered--people love to play them and even play against them, particularly if they win. As a result, the moxes and lotus are in a fairly unique position of being "fun" both because of and in spite of their power level.
Sol Ring, Crypt, and the Signets all fall short of that standard, and adding them along with power (like the MTGO cube just did) seems to be too much artifact acceleration for a cube with less than 540 cards.
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This is my position as well. I'm in the middle of building my cube, have some power, and am acquiring more. As I see it, speeding up your plays by 1 turn (moxes) or speeding up a single play by 3 turns (lotus) is powerful but not overly powerful. Plus, the cards are special and revered--people love to play them and even play against them, particularly if they win. As a result, the moxes and lotus are in a fairly unique position of being "fun" both because of and in spite of their power level.
Sol Ring, Crypt, and the Signets all fall short of that standard, and adding them along with power (like the MTGO cube just did) seems to be too much artifact acceleration for a cube with less than 540 cards.
I don't understand exactly what is the problem with the signets? I thought of them as being something you would automatically include in your cube along with the Ravnica Bouncelands. I would not play signets if I found there was something truly wrong with them. Maybe it has to do with running all of those non basic lands including dual lands and sac lands. I have a budget cube without dual lands and sac lands.
I'm currently only running Signets, Bouncelands, Painlands and those Mirage Sac Lands. I'm not running any Moxes or Sol Ring. I'm running Mind Stone and Worn Powerstone. I fee like Sol Ring is too powerful. Mind Stone speeds you up 1 turn. Sol Ring speeds you up 2 turns and gives you a greater advantage.
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Until the point that we are able to get hard data, almost everything boils down to pure conjecture. With that said, I think that if you increase the magnitude of inequality of power level of cards in a draft environment, you necessarily create a more swingy environment that will result in more games that come down to luck of the draw than skill (though the difference might be relatively tiny, think 1%). Keep in mind that certain cards we consider power are not necessarily creating inequality on their own (moxen). Also consider that many people play and enjoy magic because it is a game that is not entirely skill based, so whether something comes down to luck more often is not a value judgment as to whether the environment created is more enjoyable. Another consideration is changing expectations of the players and the fact that different types of inequality and interactions affect people differently (ex. people tend to feel less bad about getting their creature killed by removal than getting countered or ex. people feel worse about getting blown out by an abrupt effect than incremental effects that add up to a blow out like Jace staying on the board for a couple of turns vs. someone casting wrath and 3 for 1 ing)
In my opinion, if you are adding Jitte, Jace, SOFI, Gideon, Lotus, and Sol Ring to a pauper cube, people aren't going to have a good time because they will have too much of an impact. If you are adding them to a 360 card cube where Elspeth, and Moxen are being played, it won't affect them as much. I think that if you are going to play power (sol ring included), you should play it in the smallest environment with the highest card quality possible to reduce the level of card inequality therefore decreasing variation for luck in games and decreasing the warping impact of the cards on the play style of the environment, but even that could be off base given the manner in which cards interact. There are no right answers - Magic is a beautiful game.
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The ~20% chance to draw a Sol Ring or something are like critical hits.
Now of course the issue remains what cards, if any, have a much higher impact than most other cards. Some say that when you start cutting cards for power reasons, where do you stop? Others say cards like Mind Twist, Jitte, Jace and Balance should be on that list if power is or even before power.
My answer is that fast mana is the main offender. I think Sol Ring is the most broken cube card there is. Similar cards like Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Moxen, Lotus and Mana Drain are problematic for the same reason: they let you play all the other broken spells 1-3 turns early. Balance is a lot less scary when it cannot be abused with dropping artifact mana early, Mind Twist does not nearly the same amount of damage without access to a lot of mana very early and a turn 3 Jace is at least slightly easier to beat than a turn 1 Jace.
But again, the most important thing to remember is that it is a preference call. I agree completely with what wtwlf123 said about how much power impacts the cube:
I played my cube powered and unpowered and I prefer the latter, but both ways of cubing are amazing!
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But this is because the format is dominated by combo kills in the first three turns. The cube doesn't support the kind of combo kills that render aggro dead.
This has not been my experience. Moxen benefit pretty much everything equally.
Mid-range benefits more from the other power mana rocks than anything else. And mid-range beats aggro anyways. The best way to counteract this is just to make sure control is good enough to beat mid-range (even powered mid-range) so that aggro decks can still thrive against the control decks at the table.
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I am also not really concerned about power breaking the game simply because unlike vintage, you run thin on density when it comes to making your combo deck actually work on a consists t level. You are drafting, which means Moxen probably won't be tabled too often, much less in consistency of applicable use in terms of color.
I am currently running Grim Monolith, Sol Ring and Mana Vault and I love how decks find ways to abuse them. It makes it a roller coaster ride of a game if everything goes right, and if anything, Moxen can help ensure that balance even more since aggro decks can use the. To help compete with turn 3 WCE or Grave Titan.
When my 360 was powered, I ran Gorilla Shaman. I think if I were to put power back into my cube, and I've been thinking about it, I might try out Kataki, War's Wage, and Leonin Relic-Warder along with Mox Monkey, but I don't think Leonin Arbiter or Ingot Chewer would be worth the slots. I'd probably put Ratchet Bomb back in too.
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I did have some success with a RW control deck packing loads of LD, artifact destruction and Crucible/Strip Mine/Wasteland. Despite MTGO disconnecting just before deck submission (meaning I played the first game in each round with an 81 card deck) I still went 2-1. The only match I lost was to a storm deck that was able to drop Dream Halls under my mana denial using Black Lotus to win by storm combo.
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I love drafting aggro in the modo cube because nobody respects it enough (unless it's mono red) and you get all the sweet cards on the wheel a lot. It's just annoying after you stomp their face in and have to wait 40 minutes for the grindy decks to win.
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I haven't had that problem too much, since I mostly stick to a base red, which is sad because it's the only way you can beat the midrange decks.
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This is what I've found as well. Aggro decks with red burn may have enough reach to finish off an opponent, but not other colour combinations.
By the way, do people draft single elimination or Swiss on MODO cube?
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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I actually started drafting red aggro in mtgo simply because so many people durdle with mana rocks and mana (and the storm deck the last 3 drafts I did) and it gets there fairly often.
on point, I plau power in my cube because I playing with the most powerful cards. As mentioned above, all strategies benefit from it pretty much equally.
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I don't mind the occasional blowout game. Though I suppose that drafting on MODO, where there is an associated cost, might be frustrating if you're on the receiving end.
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Especially now that you get worthless prize instead of packs.
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This is my position as well. I'm in the middle of building my cube, have some power, and am acquiring more. As I see it, speeding up your plays by 1 turn (moxes) or speeding up a single play by 3 turns (lotus) is powerful but not overly powerful. Plus, the cards are special and revered--people love to play them and even play against them, particularly if they win. As a result, the moxes and lotus are in a fairly unique position of being "fun" both because of and in spite of their power level.
Sol Ring, Crypt, and the Signets all fall short of that standard, and adding them along with power (like the MTGO cube just did) seems to be too much artifact acceleration for a cube with less than 540 cards.
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I'm currently only running Signets, Bouncelands, Painlands and those Mirage Sac Lands. I'm not running any Moxes or Sol Ring. I'm running Mind Stone and Worn Powerstone. I fee like Sol Ring is too powerful. Mind Stone speeds you up 1 turn. Sol Ring speeds you up 2 turns and gives you a greater advantage.