I don't run a balanced gold section but I do keep track of my gold percentage. I don't count hybrid when I calculate it because none of the hybrid cards I run have the same effect on drafting that gold cards do. I don't consider that cheating, it's just logical.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I think I like the Guildmage more than the Paladin as far as new Boros 2-drops go. I think I'd rather make and pump a team in Boros than make one guy bigger and give him first strike. He should've been +1/+0 for R, and First Strike for W. As it is now, he can't even crack the top 7 or 8 Boris cards in the cube.
I think I like the Guildmage more than the Paladin as far as new Boros 2-drops go. I think I'd rather make and pump a team in Boros than make one guy bigger and give him first strike. He should've been +1/+0 for R, and First Strike for W. As it is now, he can't even crack the top 7 or 8 Boris cards in the cube.
I agree, I'd be more inclined to run the guildmage if I had to choose a 2 drop boros multicolor creature. Maybe I'll play the guildmage over goblin legionnaire.
We got Deathrite Shaman and a few other good cards in the mass spoiling of RTR near the end of spoiler season. In addition, no one has really been able to play with the GTC cards and mechanics yet, it's possible there are some hidden gems in the cards already spoiled. People were certainly dismissing Jace4 when he was spoiled, but now he's considered very strong.
What GTC is missing that RTR had is slam-dunk obvious upgrades to existing cards like Dryad Militant, Rakdos Cackler, Supreme Verdict, etc.
----------------------------------
GTC also suffers from a lot of the mechanics and cards fitting normal limited well, but not Cube's hybrid limited/constructed environment.
Bloodrush is all about the combat step, which is not something Cube focuses on. A few of the cards could be strong enough for R/G aggro (the 4/4 for 4 with Bloodrush RG comes to mind) but we'll have to see.
Battalion is a parasitic mechanic that gets stronger the more you build around it, but the battalion cards are not strong enough on their own (to balance them for Constructed) which means cube isn't interested.
Simic is very "play more creatures" which is not Blue's domain in Cube, and in addition Cube has a lot of ways to punish players for overextending. If all the Simic cards had their blue mana symbols replaced with white mana symbols, I think a lot of the spoiled cards would be closer to playable, since white is all about "play more creatures".
Orzhov and Extort I think could be a source of hidden gems. Giving black and white aggro decks reach is potentially very awesome, and the mechanic is unlike anything we've seen before, so I feel our initial evaluations may be off.
Dimir and Cipher in theory fit Cube reasonably well, we just haven't seen many cards costed aggressively enough to make the cut.
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Compare to RtR's guilds and mechanics - you have:
Unleash/aggression which works on its own regardless of environment
Populate/creature generation which fits with W/G's strategy in Cube
Detain which isn't great for Cube but Azorious's control elements are Scavenge/graveyard interaction and meaty creatures which B/G is down with
Overload which works on its own regardless of environment
When you look at it from a wide lens it's not surprising GTC has been underwhelming for Cube.
I'm now really happy that most of Gatecrashes goodness comes from commons and uncommons. Innistrad and M13 are getting really expensive for anyone that is behind on their cube building Hellkite is 40 St traft is 30, Huntmaster is 30. Damn, it might be hard to afford the cube if new mythics keep getting in.
finally picked up a jitte, when I got some missing cards for my experimental addition to blues tempo/aggro.
I'm now really happy that most of Gatecrashes goodness comes from commons and uncommons. Innistrad and M13 are getting really expensive for anyone that is behind on their cube building Hellkite is 40 St traft is 30, Huntmaster is 30. Damn, it might be hard to afford the cube if new mythics keep getting in.
finally picked up a jitte, when I got some missing cards for my experimental addition to blues tempo/aggro.
Try foiling one
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This forum has been pretty good about identifying the cube cards early, at least better than people predicting what will be good in constructed. I think we all know the cube format better than people know how the standard environment will change. So that means there's usually a window to pick stuff up before the price spikes, except for planeswalkers, which for some reason, are typically overpriced.
I started building my cube last year, and was planning on getting the newest stuff first and going backward, its hard when every card goes up 10 or 20 dollars randomly :/.
My cube is actually pretty decent at the moment, but it changes rapidly, due to me splurging on cool cards.
This forum has been pretty good about identifying the cube cards early, at least better than people predicting what will be good in constructed. I think we all know the cube format better than people know how the standard environment will change. So that means there's usually a window to pick stuff up before the price spikes, except for planeswalkers, which for some reason, are typically overpriced.
The reason is our little friend Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I remember at first he could be preordered from star city for 16 dollars. Stores will never want to lose out on another planeswalker again so they overprice them at the start.
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i wish i could go back in time and preorder 3000 JTMS. i would be happier.
JTMS isnt the only reason. New players love planeswalkers, absolutely love them. There is high demand for planeswalkers of all varieties especially when they first come out. Thats why tibalt is 3 bucks still.
I started building my cube last year, and was planning on getting the newest stuff first and going backward, its hard when every card goes up 10 or 20 dollars randomly :/.
My cube is actually pretty decent at the moment, but it changes rapidly, due to me splurging on cool cards.
Go with 360 staple first regardless of price. Then built up from there. That's how I did mine in the beginning. I brought things that won't get cut from my cube in a while. FoW and Goyf are expensive to me when they are $45, but I brought them anyways. It's about 5 hours of part time job each. But that's fine. But look at right now, people'll still be getting those if they want to "finish" their cube. But the price has gotten so ridiculous it's not even funny:-/
Waiting for goyf in modern masters, along with vendillion clique and bob.
FoW for somereason i thought didn't get high marks from everyone on here. I think I'm wrong on that now though.
(plus i make 90% of my money in the summer so it coincides with modern masters)
I had a foil Bob and Foil Thoughsieze when i didnt understand noncasual formats. I traded them for 3 sarkhan vols, and some useless slivers respectively. Yay cardsharks.
The perfect time to pick up foils on the cheap is within the first month after a set rotates out of standard.
Naturally the card prices fall because they aren't standard legal (obviously), but this is also the time when people who made the terrible choice to foil out a standard deck need to try and recoup some of their losses. I remember picking up foils of Koth, Inferno Titan, Frost Titan and Venser the Sojourner for $10 worth of cards once SOM/M12 rotated out.
I will never foil out anything standard legal unless I get it for insanely good value, or if I draft it/pull it from packs. Trust me, sometimes you have to resist the temptation but your wallet will thank you.
The perfect time to pick up foils on the cheap is within the first month after a set rotates out of standard.
Naturally the card prices fall because they aren't standard legal (obviously), but this is also the time when people who made the terrible choice to foil out a standard deck need to try and recoup some of their losses. I remember picking up foils of Koth, Inferno Titan, Frost Titan and Venser the Sojourner for $10 worth of cards once SOM/M12 rotated out.
I will never foil out anything standard legal unless I get it for insanely good value, or if I draft it/pull it from packs. Trust me, sometimes you have to resist the temptation but your wallet will thank you.
Eh, for some things. If you find a retailer that actually prices cards based on demand (Instead of having a baseline for all rareties and extending upwards from there) you can usually get a lot of the cards from new sets for reasonable prices.
The perfect time to pick up foils on the cheap is within the first month after a set rotates out of standard.
Naturally the card prices fall because they aren't standard legal (obviously), but this is also the time when people who made the terrible choice to foil out a standard deck need to try and recoup some of their losses. I remember picking up foils of Koth, Inferno Titan, Frost Titan and Venser the Sojourner for $10 worth of cards once SOM/M12 rotated out.
I will never foil out anything standard legal unless I get it for insanely good value, or if I draft it/pull it from packs. Trust me, sometimes you have to resist the temptation but your wallet will thank you.
That would be the smart way to do it!
But I'm a guy with no patience, so I always bite the bullet. I justify it by telling myself I'm paying a premium to play with the cards early.
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This forum has been pretty good about identifying the cube cards early, at least better than people predicting what will be good in constructed. I think we all know the cube format better than people know how the standard environment will change. So that means there's usually a window to pick stuff up before the price spikes, except for planeswalkers, which for some reason, are typically overpriced.
Well, in a way, cube performs more like Legacy when it comes to the impact new cards will have. The card pool we have to build with is very large, and because we only use a small subset of it, unless there's a new card with a very unique effect, most cards are simple improvements or iterations on previous cards.
Now, this isn't to say that these are the most constructed-worthy cards (though many have/were). However, some of these are among the most impactful cards that we've added to cubes recently, due to having an effect that is uniquely different from "card has an additional point of power than it's replacee" (and I'm giving the nod to Restoration Angel, Lotus Cobra, and Goblin Guide for their efficiency in the color). Many of these encourage building around their effect while drafting, or have encouraged us to completely revamp what a color does in their cube.
It's harder, sometimes, to see that change in a format that's much more limited in card pool. It seems like an oxymoron (you may think it's easier to see what changes, when you add cards to a smaller pool, since you already know the existing cards so well), but you actually introduce a much greater percentage of cards when a new set is released into Standard, which has a more homogenous and lower power level from set to set, compared to cube where most new cards can be easily written off as not impactful enough because the barrier to entry is even higher. The changes you make every few months are typically miniscule compared to the size of the whole cube.
For instance, we might have added 20 cards from Zendikar, one of the largest quantities of new cards from the more modern sets. But Zendikar had a much higher impact on Standard decks, because not only are there 60-100+ new constructed-quality cards to the format, the oldest block was removed. Removing almost half of an existing format's cards, and adding another 25% new cards is a huge change, much larger than the 5% change would be to a 360 card cube.
Sometimes our barrier to entry results in discovering constructed staples before players of Standard do, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's just an unbeatable card in limited (Pack Rat ) or a card that can't be capitalized on in constructed due to other cards in the respective format (Lotleth Troll, Pack Rat).
Anyway, after all that, I agree with what you said.
One of the things I likelove about cube drafting is that it gives me an alternate perspective on how cards perform with others in an abstract way (Commander is cool for this too sometimes). Sometimes it helps creating a new constructed deck based on those interactions, or just help you see interactions in limited, making you a better Magic player in general.
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I agree, I'd be more inclined to run the guildmage if I had to choose a 2 drop boros multicolor creature. Maybe I'll play the guildmage over goblin legionnaire.
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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!
What GTC is missing that RTR had is slam-dunk obvious upgrades to existing cards like Dryad Militant, Rakdos Cackler, Supreme Verdict, etc.
----------------------------------
GTC also suffers from a lot of the mechanics and cards fitting normal limited well, but not Cube's hybrid limited/constructed environment.
Bloodrush is all about the combat step, which is not something Cube focuses on. A few of the cards could be strong enough for R/G aggro (the 4/4 for 4 with Bloodrush RG comes to mind) but we'll have to see.
Battalion is a parasitic mechanic that gets stronger the more you build around it, but the battalion cards are not strong enough on their own (to balance them for Constructed) which means cube isn't interested.
Simic is very "play more creatures" which is not Blue's domain in Cube, and in addition Cube has a lot of ways to punish players for overextending. If all the Simic cards had their blue mana symbols replaced with white mana symbols, I think a lot of the spoiled cards would be closer to playable, since white is all about "play more creatures".
Orzhov and Extort I think could be a source of hidden gems. Giving black and white aggro decks reach is potentially very awesome, and the mechanic is unlike anything we've seen before, so I feel our initial evaluations may be off.
Dimir and Cipher in theory fit Cube reasonably well, we just haven't seen many cards costed aggressively enough to make the cut.
----------------------------------
Compare to RtR's guilds and mechanics - you have:
Unleash/aggression which works on its own regardless of environment
Populate/creature generation which fits with W/G's strategy in Cube
Detain which isn't great for Cube but Azorious's control elements are Scavenge/graveyard interaction and meaty creatures which B/G is down with
Overload which works on its own regardless of environment
When you look at it from a wide lens it's not surprising GTC has been underwhelming for Cube.
Bobsquare Spongepants has been playing great in testing so far. He's a boss for UB tempo as a curve-topper.
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!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
finally picked up a jitte, when I got some missing cards for my experimental addition to blues tempo/aggro.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Try foiling one
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Draft it here!
My cube is actually pretty decent at the moment, but it changes rapidly, due to me splurging on cool cards.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
The reason is our little friend Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I remember at first he could be preordered from star city for 16 dollars. Stores will never want to lose out on another planeswalker again so they overprice them at the start.
The Great Cube Map!
My Powered Cube
Draft it here!
JTMS isnt the only reason. New players love planeswalkers, absolutely love them. There is high demand for planeswalkers of all varieties especially when they first come out. Thats why tibalt is 3 bucks still.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Go with 360 staple first regardless of price. Then built up from there. That's how I did mine in the beginning. I brought things that won't get cut from my cube in a while. FoW and Goyf are expensive to me when they are $45, but I brought them anyways. It's about 5 hours of part time job each. But that's fine. But look at right now, people'll still be getting those if they want to "finish" their cube. But the price has gotten so ridiculous it's not even funny:-/
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I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
FoW for somereason i thought didn't get high marks from everyone on here. I think I'm wrong on that now though.
(plus i make 90% of my money in the summer so it coincides with modern masters)
I had a foil Bob and Foil Thoughsieze when i didnt understand noncasual formats. I traded them for 3 sarkhan vols, and some useless slivers respectively. Yay cardsharks.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
The perfect time to pick up foils on the cheap is within the first month after a set rotates out of standard.
Naturally the card prices fall because they aren't standard legal (obviously), but this is also the time when people who made the terrible choice to foil out a standard deck need to try and recoup some of their losses. I remember picking up foils of Koth, Inferno Titan, Frost Titan and Venser the Sojourner for $10 worth of cards once SOM/M12 rotated out.
I will never foil out anything standard legal unless I get it for insanely good value, or if I draft it/pull it from packs. Trust me, sometimes you have to resist the temptation but your wallet will thank you.
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EDH Decks
GOmnath, Locus of ManaG
WUBSen TripletsWUB
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG
Eh, for some things. If you find a retailer that actually prices cards based on demand (Instead of having a baseline for all rareties and extending upwards from there) you can usually get a lot of the cards from new sets for reasonable prices.
Because honestly, who really wants a foil hellhole flailer?
That would be the smart way to do it!
But I'm a guy with no patience, so I always bite the bullet. I justify it by telling myself I'm paying a premium to play with the cards early.
The Great Cube Map!
My Powered Cube
Draft it here!
Well, in a way, cube performs more like Legacy when it comes to the impact new cards will have. The card pool we have to build with is very large, and because we only use a small subset of it, unless there's a new card with a very unique effect, most cards are simple improvements or iterations on previous cards.
Batterskull
Birthing Pod
Kessig Wolf Run
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Geist of Saint Traft
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Lotleth Troll
Deathrite Shaman
Maelstrom Wanderer
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Restoration Angel
Elesh Norn
Gideon Jura
Lotus Cobra
Garruk Relentless
Goblin Guide
Koth of the Hammer
Gravecrawler
Pack Rat
Geralf's Messenger
Disciple of Bolas
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
And Worldwake Manlands
It's harder, sometimes, to see that change in a format that's much more limited in card pool. It seems like an oxymoron (you may think it's easier to see what changes, when you add cards to a smaller pool, since you already know the existing cards so well), but you actually introduce a much greater percentage of cards when a new set is released into Standard, which has a more homogenous and lower power level from set to set, compared to cube where most new cards can be easily written off as not impactful enough because the barrier to entry is even higher. The changes you make every few months are typically miniscule compared to the size of the whole cube.
For instance, we might have added 20 cards from Zendikar, one of the largest quantities of new cards from the more modern sets. But Zendikar had a much higher impact on Standard decks, because not only are there 60-100+ new constructed-quality cards to the format, the oldest block was removed. Removing almost half of an existing format's cards, and adding another 25% new cards is a huge change, much larger than the 5% change would be to a 360 card cube.
Sometimes our barrier to entry results in discovering constructed staples before players of Standard do, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's just an unbeatable card in limited (Pack Rat ) or a card that can't be capitalized on in constructed due to other cards in the respective format (Lotleth Troll, Pack Rat).
Anyway, after all that, I agree with what you said.
One of the things I
likelove about cube drafting is that it gives me an alternate perspective on how cards perform with others in an abstract way (Commander is cool for this too sometimes). Sometimes it helps creating a new constructed deck based on those interactions, or just help you see interactions in limited, making you a better Magic player in general.My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter