First, let me apologize to Mods, but since this post feels like it would drag Karmic Guide thread off discussion too much, I decide to just start a new thread. I can't do much to stop the way another user decide to talk, but I think it's at least good to keep discussion in one single thread. At least it'll prevent another topic from going off topic like Storm or Karmic Guide thread.
To maybe answer this in a better way, let me ask a simple question: Why should there be balance in rock paper scissors?
Then you say something like: 'to keep them from being more powerful than eachother'. Which isn't an answer to my question because then I ask: "so what?"
Because you don't seem to get why it's similar to rock paper scissors, allows me to tell you.
Here's the basic characteristic of the 3 main deck type.
Aggro: Put down threat early, kill the opponent before they have a chance to do anything.
Midrange: Contains many creatures with 3-6 mana cost. And some 2.
Control: Try to survive early game and dominate late game.
There's of course variation and so forth depending on the pick, but that's basically what it come down to. So, here is how the match up would work. I would say in theory, but I have play many Magic games, and I feel it's rather accurate.
Aggro, with its early game pressure, can't get pass Midrange because Midrange put too many stopper in its way before Aggro can reduce the opponent life to low enough amount. Midrange creatures will soon grow to the same amount as aggro, not to mention that it's all bigger.
Midrange, because it doesn't put down enough threats at the beginning of the game, give control free leeway to set up and save removal as it please. Control can then save those removal for the late game creature that come down and bring the game to late game where it dominates.
Control, although the best decks in late game, is unable to deal with every single threats that aggro bring down. Aggro also have tools to keep the game in early state for long as possible, such as by using cards like Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, or any land destruction.
In the cube where aggro doesn't exist, or exist in low quantity, this means that since control>midrange, it's pretty much very tempting to go control. If players in that cube haven't done this, it just mean they don't realize that control>midrange.
The thing is that, midrange exist no matter what. If someone new to cube or magic just draft good cards, that's generally midrange deck.
Control deck is more trickly, but it exists as well. Cube is a format with a high density of removal and very strong finisher. Combine that with some creature to keep you alive, and there'll be control deck in your cube.
Control and Midrange exist naturally. Hence why without pushing something to keep Control in check, there's no reason to not draft control if a player know enough about Magic.
Storm can keep control in check, but if Storm happen naturally as you say and there's less than 2-3 Storm player at a table, then storm did not keep control in check, since there's not enough deck.
Why? Because otherwise control will wreck it. If you're fine with having cube where people who's smart to draft control to win almost every time, then it's fine.
A lot of people here like their cube to not be that way, though. Me included. I want my cube to be the environment that's balance.
First, let me apologize to Mods, but since this post feels like it would drag Karmic Guide thread off discussion too much, I decide to just start a new thread. I can't do much to stop the way another user decide to talk, but I think it's at least good to keep discussion in one single thread. At least it'll prevent another topic from going off topic like Storm or Karmic Guide thread.
Because you don't seem to get why it's similar to rock paper scissors, allows me to tell you.
Here's the basic characteristic of the 3 main deck type.
Aggro: Put down threat early, kill the opponent before they have a chance to do anything.
Midrange: Contains many creatures with 3-6 mana cost. And some 2.
Control: Try to survive early game and dominate late game.
There's of course variation and so forth depending on the pick, but that's basically what it come down to. So, here is how the match up would work. I would say in theory, but I have play many Magic games, and I feel it's rather accurate.
Aggro, with its early game pressure, can't get pass Midrange because Midrange put too many stopper in its way before Aggro can reduce the opponent life to low enough amount. Midrange creatures will soon grow to the same amount as aggro, not to mention that it's all bigger.
Midrange, because it doesn't put down enough threats at the beginning of the game, give control free leeway to set up and save removal as it please. Control can then save those removal for the late game creature that come down and bring the game to late game where it dominates.
Control, although the best decks in late game, is unable to deal with every single threats that aggro bring down. Aggro also have tools to keep the game in early state for long as possible, such as by using cards like Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, or any land destruction.
In the cube where aggro doesn't exist, or exist in low quantity, this means that since control>midrange, it's pretty much very tempting to go control. If players in that cube haven't done this, it just mean they don't realize that control>midrange.
I see most of your point but if two playersdraftmidgrange while 6 draft control, the midrange decks willhave agreater average strength which could very easily make up for the matchup weakness.
So, in the other word, because people prefer their cube to be a healthy and balance environment that consists of card that is consistently strong, that's not ok? I don't know why there's even a problem.
Your idea aren't new. It's actually call Dragon cube or combo cube. It's just a different cube. Standard cube is this way because it's what people prefer.
I see most of your point but if two playersdraftmidgrange while 6 draft control, the midrange decks willhave agreater average strength which could very easily make up for the matchup weakness.
If 6 player manage to draft control, then it's more likely for those decks to become more midrange than control, I'll say. Then it's just midrange match, not a match between control and midrange. If I fail to make an aggro deck or reaninator deck, it's not an aggro deck or reaninator deck. It'll just be an attempt to be those decks. And I don't want 8 midrange decks at the table either. That's just boring to me. Maybe it's not to you.
No, I really don't get it. There are many different kind of cube. There are pauper, peasants, combo, tribal, dragon, combo, artifact, and of course, standard cube on top of my head. Why are you telling people it's wrong to make a cube that's not the same as you?
People here are generally discussing standard cube because it's what they have. I don't hear people saying Guardian of Guildpact is a staple and must pick and top card in any cube. It is a staple and probably even 180 card in pauper. But that's a different format.
It's still not my point. Why should anything keep any other thing in check?
They don't have to, but the majority of cubers find a balanced format more FUN and that is the be all and end all of any argument you can throw at this topic. A control dominant cube would be despicable to mid range-prefering players and vice versa, and etc etc. In the end, the correct cube design is the one most fun to the most people who play your cube, which in most cases is a regular playgroup. For those of us who often play with new cubers and randoms, you don't want to make any assumptions to player preferences so a balanced cube caters to more preferences than an unbalanced one.
I'll go first since it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm basically talking to myself.
Although I've played Magic for many years, I would not consider myself an exceptionally good player. I'm above average probably and I think I understand the fundamentals well enough. I'm not a super competitive player who has done tournaments or anything. I mostly play casually for fun with friends of similar mindset. So I realize my real world experience may be somewhat limited.
From my time playing and studying the game, I am of the opinion that every single game of magic is won via card advantage. Whether that takes the form of virtual card advantage or actual card advantage depends on what deck you are playing and whether you are the aggressor or not (which is all about match ups).
This is where the whole theatre thing comes in. Aggro uses tempo to gain virtual card advantage. There basic goal is to play more cards than their opponent, gaining enough virtual card advantage via tempo to win the game before their opponent stabilizes. This is most effective against very slow decks (control decks) because the tempo advantage is the largest. Midrange decks generally are faster so neutralize the tempo advantage of aggro. Midrange decks often focus on card quality (another form of virtual card advantage), which is very effective against aggro but is less effective against control (which typically uses real card advantage. i.e. drawing more cards than one's opponent).
That basically sums up the rock/paper/scissors argument at a high level.
But how much of that exists in cube? What really separates a midrange deck from a control deck in cube? IMO, there is very little (if any true distinction), and the reason for that has to do with the power of the cards in cube. They are all broken.
Almost every card I run in my cube either has built in card advantage (you get another card out of it or your opponent loses a card either via discard, removal, etc.), or it is way over the power curve, or it's just broken to pieces (via synergy with other cards in the cube). In short, pretty much every decently built deck in cube can produce gross amounts of card advantage (virtual and real) to the point where even traditional control decks simply lose a lot of their advantage in the long game. Take Genesis for example. Do people consider a deck built around that card a control deck? I would classify it as a midrange strategy, and yet the card advantage engine it produces is as good as anything you can get going in cube. So where again is control's advantage exactly?
Now, I realize many of you have cubed longer than me and have probably played magic at a higher level. So maybe you can build control decks in cube that simply will always beat your average midrange deck. And if that is the case, I'd love to see what cards you are using in particular that give you that large advantage over all the other broken midrange stuff in cube.
This is an honest inquiry. I genuinely want to know how you build a control deck in cube that will run over these busted midrange decks I see people build.
I think the nature of the rock-paper-scissors argument is being interpreted too simply.
In our cube, any deck is capable of beating any other deck, regardless of which phase of the game it wants to dominate. Control beats aggro all the time, and the same is true for midrange vs control and aggro vs midrange. However, this doesn't mean there aren't match-ups that are favorable for one or the other deck. And often, an aggro deck will have the edge against control, midrange against aggro, and control against midrange (assuming similar deck quality).
To beat a well-built control deck, the deck with the best shot at doing so is a well-built aggro deck. A great green ramp/Eureka deck can have a good chance to take the draft, but it has a noticable disadvantage against the deck with 5+ counters. Etcetera, etcetera.
It is not a hard and fast rules by any means, but it is a tool to balance a well-designed cube.
I think the nature of the rock-paper-scissors argument is being interpreted too simply.
In our cube, any deck is capable of beating any other deck, regardless of which phase of the game it wants to dominate. Control beats aggro all the time, and the same is true for midrange vs control and aggro vs midrange. However, this doesn't mean there aren't match-ups that are favorable for one or the other deck. And often, an aggro deck will have the edge against control, midrange against aggro, and control against midrange (assuming similar deck quality).
To beat a well-built control deck, the deck with the best shot at doing so is a well-built aggro deck. A great green ramp/Eureka deck can have a good chance to take the draft, but it has a noticable disadvantage against the deck with 5+ counters. Etcetera, etcetera.
It is not a hard and fast rules by any means, but it is a tool to balance a well-designed cube.
This is exactly what we found to be the case. And the more I played cube lists back in the day, the more I found that typical lists were assembled to cater to midrange. Which made drafting control the advantageous thing to do. Did it win every draft? Of course not. But it certainly gave you the best chance at winning a given draft. We didn't like that aspect of typical cube lists. Aggro was too underrepresented to challenge control with more than maybe one solid aggro deck at the table, and that simply wasn't enough of a concern to control to not force it and win with it.
It wasn't until aggro made up ~1/3 of the decks at the table that control really started to be challenged at the drafts. As it stands now, aggro, midrange and control each win roughly a third of our drafts, and that's the kind of balanced results we were looking for from the start.
To beat a well-built control deck, the deck with the best shot at doing so is a well-built aggro deck. A great green ramp/Eureka deck can have a good chance to take the draft, but it has a noticable disadvantage against the deck with 5+ counters. Etcetera, etcetera.
I figured the Ux control deck would be the one that got brought up as a foil to specific midrange strategies, and I don't disagree. But what about a genesis deck? Depending on how you build it (I tend to go GB with a lot of smaller utility type creatures). I feel like that is still midrange (I'm trying to get threats going early and then recur them with Genesis). Counters are not going to really hurt that deck very much (which that said, I certainly don't want some flavor of UR running Pyroclasm and Wildfire).
So I suppose what I'm trying to get at is the idea that maybe the line is blurred more in cube between aggro, midrange and control? Almost every deck I build can do two of those things reasonably well simply because of the power level of the cards.
Even when I really try to draft aggro, I generally add a couple 5 drops to my deck which gives me some options if the deck doesn't get a fast start. I'm always looking for ways to add versatility to every deck I build. And I think that's more important in cube than it is in standard because of the one of each card thing. You aren't going to be able to build super consistent decks in cube that goldfish like constructed decks (even if the effectiveness of cube decks is more on a constructed level than limited). It's IMO still apples and oranges.
I feel in cube it's less about the rock/paper/scissors thing you see in constructed and more about specific match-ups. Like re-animator not wanting to see graveyardhate.dec, etc. Is that really about midrange vs control though? Or just a case of having your primary strategy countered by something that is particularly effective against what you are trying to do?
It is not a hard and fast rules by any means, but it is a tool to balance a well-designed cube.
I agree with this. And I have one friend that likes aggro a lot. I certainly wouldn't suggest removing it from cube. I also agree that many cubes are too heaving biased towards midrange and control (dragon cubes), and that IS an issue.
Ultimately, I just want to play the best cards at all cc levels. And I want to have a solid balance (number) of cards at each cc. But I'm not specifically aiming for 3:2:1 aggro/midrange/control. I don't really care about that.
My cube has gone through massive changes since I started it. Much of which was inspired by posts and cube lists I've seen on this forum. I don't post a lot, but I've read a massive number of posts and sucked up a ton of information - I've been around a long time.
One thing I ended up doing which has worked amazingly well is I went through an exercise where I literally took every single card in the cube and put it into a deck. Every card. And what I found was that previous iterations of my cube didn't have enough 1 and 2 cc cards. I ended up running out of them and so some decks had a nice curve and others didn't have anything to do for several turns (i.e. they were garbage). I then restructured my cube to have this ratio:
1cc: 60 cards
2cc: 90 cards
3cc: 75 cards
4cc: 60 cards
5cc: 40 cards
6+cc: 20 cards
Including lands and the 5 moxes, I ended up with 410 cards, which made exactly 15 decks all with a reasonably solid mana curve. The decks weren't perfectly balanced of course, but they all were playable. It vastly improved the quality of drafts because people weren't suddenly struggling to find cards to plug holes in their decks at certain cc.
So for me, it became less about balancing aggro/midrange/control and more about balancing how many cards I see at each casting cost so that everyone has enough things to do at all stages of the game (without being forced to pick up wild mongrel in a deck that doesn't want it just so that they are not sitting on their hands turn two).
Again, I want to run the best 60 1cc cards in the game ("best" being somewhat subjective in that they support the things I want to push in my cube - Goblin Welder is a very powerful 1 drop which I would certainly rank in the top 60 1 drops, but I don't run it right now because he doesn't really have a great home and I'd rather use his spot for something else). Many of those one drops are aggro cards, but a good number are not. I let that happen organically though. But it makes it easier for me to justify not running bad aggro cards (like Wild Dogs) just because I'm trying to enforce a specific threshold for traditional aggro when I look at it in this perspective. What are the 60 one drops I want in here that do the most for the most number of decks?
If Wizards prints a green goblin guide, it will end up in my 60 1cc and green's identity could shift a bit. Until then, green is getting birds, et al because they are better cards and simply do more for more decks.
I feel in cube it's less about the rock/paper/scissors thing you see in constructed and more about specific match-ups.
Whereas I feel like constructed displays less of the effect of Rock/Paper/Scissors than limited environments do. I think constructed is more about the specific matchup, and limited (cube included) is more about how well the pace of your deck matches the pace of your opponent's deck.
Quote from ahadabans »
But what about a genesis deck?
Genesis is a perfect example of the exception to the rule. Genesis' value is what it is because of the R/P/S dynamic. Genesis is a midrange card that is specifically played to shore up the weakness against control. All theaters play cards that shore up their weaknesses, because of how important it is in limited to do that. Genesis is one example of a midrange card that helps out against control.
Whereas I feel like constructed displays less of the effect of Rock/Paper/Scissors than limited environments do. I think constructed is more about the specific matchup, and limited (cube included) is more about how well the pace of your deck matches the pace of your opponent's deck.
That's interesting. My experiences are different, but my playgroups have never consisted of high level players. From my experience, I have seen more rock/paper/scissors in constructed simply because you can make more focused decks. My friend always plays aggro, and those decks tear up my control decks. I can beat them with my midrange decks and I can sometimes race him in the aggro mirror (though he is better than I am, so I lose more than I win).
In limited, it never seemed possible to build strong aggro or control decks. The card pool never supported it. All decks that won ended up some flavor of midrange, so it was like Limited had paper and nothing else. In a way that was cool (because all games were close and competitive), but variety was certainly lacking.
Genesis is a perfect example of the exception to the rule. Genesis' value is what it is because of the R/P/S dynamic. Genesis is a midrange card that is specifically played to shore up the weakness against control. All theaters play cards that shore up their weaknesses, because of how important it is in limited to do that. Genesis is one example of a midrange card that helps out against control.
So what do you define as the strongest control strategies in your cube? Serious question. Which cards tend to find their way into control decks your group plays - i.e. which cards do you feel really make those decks shine?
I'm trying to get at what about control in cube is the key to it's dominance over midrange in your meta.
Counterspells, sweepers, spot removal, card draw and finishers. Midrange doesn't have the speed that aggro does to put pressure on in the early stages of the game, and the ramp cards used to get the threats onto the board faster are wasted when a wrath effect wipes the board clean. Midrange puts more eggs into one basket than aggro does, and is hurt more by the sweepers and cost-efficient spot removal when they're played. And it can't out-finish control's finishers, gets blown out by creature theft and can't out-card advantage control's card advantage. It simply lacks the speed to force control onto its heels, and is too damaged by cost effective removal and CA spells. And counterspells against a smaller number of more expensive threats is far more damaging than against a bunch of cheap critters.
This is exactly what we found to be the case. And the more I played cube lists back in the day, the more I found that typical lists were assembled to cater to midrange. Which made drafting control the advantageous thing to do. Did it win every draft? Of course not. But it certainly gave you the best chance at winning a given draft. We didn't like that aspect of typical cube lists. Aggro was too underrepresented to challenge control with more than maybe one solid aggro deck at the table, and that simply wasn't enough of a concern to control to not force it and win with it.
It wasn't until aggro made up ~1/3 of the decks at the table that control really started to be challenged at the drafts. As it stands now, aggro, midrange and control each win roughly a third of our drafts, and that's the kind of balanced results we were looking for from the start.
AMEN! Build your cube to give each archetype the tools it needs to be strong. One of the largest things most cubes I have seen, are aggro centric cards, especially cards that support and give utility to aggro creatures.
Great one and two drops get there, but great equipment, enchants, and other spells, are what can give aggro that punishing edge.
I'd argue the same is true for any other archetype; give them the tools they need to be great!
The Rock/Paper/Scissors cliche stopped being true many many years ago in Constructed. Control can be designed to completely annihilate Aggro, either by packing tons of removal (especially redundant mass removal) or a Combo finish (either Psychatog during the Odyssey era, or cards like Gifts Ungiven and Hana Kami). In Eternal formats, some Combo decks just cannot lose to Control (Flash, the slower Storm decks) and also have huge issues against Aggro packing a bit of disruption (Ad Nauseam Tendrils). Depending on the environment, Aggro can be adjusted to beat every single archetype, if enough hate bears are available (things like Yixlid Jailer, Kataki, War's Wage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben...). Then there is Mid Range somewhere in between, which can either demolish Combo or stand no chance against it (The Rock vs. Aluren in old old Extended), which can either demolish Control (RecSur) or stand no chance against it ...
The Rock/Paper/Scissors is more visible in a lot of Cubes on these boards because Control is intrinsecally made weak against Aggro by Cube design and due to the singleton format preventing consistency in removal, especially mass removal: Control just cannot reliably Force Spike on Turn 1 and Wrath on Turn 4. Then there is still Mid Range in between, but this time Aggro cannot reliably beat Mid Range (not enough explosivity) and Mid Range cannot reliably beat Control (recursion engines are too random to assemble), even if some tools can turn the matchups around (Genesis, RecSur).
What you describe actually supports my argument. In constructed, deck X always beats deck Y but auto loses to deck Z. Whether that falls exactly into the traditional aggro beats control which beats midrange which beats aggro is immaterial. It's still rock/paper/scissors and its what drove me from constructed.
On the other hand, in cube control decks and aggro decks are both inherently weaker as you said due to lack of redundancy. So that should weaken the rock/paper/scissors not strengthen it.
Again, show me how you draft true aggro or control in limited? It's impossible because the redundancy and card quality simply isn't there. Cube is ultimately a limited format even if the power level is closer to constructed.
On the other hand, in cube control decks and aggro decks are both inherently weaker as you said due to lack of redundancy. So that should weaken the rock/paper/scissors not strengthen it.
Again, show me how you draft true aggro or control in limited? It's impossible because the redundancy and card quality simply isn't there. Cube is ultimately a limited format even if the power level is closer to constructed.
This isn't true at all. A properly built cube has the redundancy required to build those archetypes. That's a little more difficult feat for aggro, but that's the point of this whole thread. That's the reason why you need a decent number of 2 power one-drops and aggro-exclusive beaters in each colour in order for aggro to be draftable. That is your redundancy, which comes from multiples of similar cards rather than multiples of the same card. 'True aggro' can use plenty of cards used by everyone else, but you need those aggro guys to be prevalent.
If you build the cube badly, those archetypes won't be draftable. But you can't then use the argument that you can't support true aggro or control when you didn't enable them in the first place. That's circular logic. As for card quality being not high enough - that's a ludicrous suggestion when you have all the good aggro beaters ever printed at your disposal. You need to draft a few of those and some support cards, and that's a great aggro deck.
show me how you draft true aggro or control in limited?
It's not clear what you want here. Decklists? Advice on adds? You can both of those all over the forum with minimal effort.
This isn't true at all. A properly built cube has the redundancy required to build those archetypes. That's a little more difficult feat for aggro, but that's the point of this whole thread. That's the reason why you need a decent number of 2 power one-drops and aggro-exclusive beaters in each colour in order for aggro to be draftable. That is your redundancy, which comes from multiples of similar cards rather than multiples of the same card. 'True aggro' can use plenty of cards used by everyone else, but you need those aggro guys to be prevalent.
If you build the cube badly, those archetypes won't be draftable. But you can't then use the argument that you can't support true aggro or control when you didn't enable them in the first place. That's circular logic. As for card quality being not high enough - that's a ludicrous suggestion when you have all the good aggro beaters ever printed at your disposal. You need to draft a few of those and some support cards, and that's a great.
It's not circular logic at all. My argument is and always has been that there is more than one way to build a healthy cube environment.
If you want super efficient aggro decks, you stuff the cube full of 2 power one drops. You want crazy powerful control decks? You jam the cube full of sweepers, counters and anti-aggro tech.
In short, if you want rock/paper/scissors you can certainly make that your meta
But IMO there are other approaches here that don't allow for either extreme to warp the format. I don't run auto win conditions for control. You can't drop your 6 drop and win the game in my meta. By the same token, you are going to have a hard time putting together a constructed quality aggro deck with a consistent turn 3/4 clock. Because I don't want either of those decks in my meta.
My cube is far from perfect but it's goal is to soften the extreme sides of the game and reward synergy in deck building. I want games to be interactive.
You're all free to build super competitive spike cubes and recreate a constructed meta but I'm not interested in that. That's what drove me from magic in the first place.
My argument is and always has been that there is more than one way to build a healthy cube environment.
1) That's fine. What are the other ways of building a healthy cube environment? See my point 3.
If you want super efficient aggro decks, you stuff the cube full of 2 power one drops. You want crazy powerful control decks? You jam the cube full of sweepers, counters and anti-aggro tech.
In short, if you want rock/paper/scissors you can certainly make that your meta
2) You were just saying that you can't draft 'true' aggro and 'true' control in cube, and that rock-paper-scissors couldn't apply. Now you're saying that you can, but that's it's undesirable. I'm glad we agree on the first point!
But IMO there are other approaches here that don't allow for either extreme to warp the format.
3) What is the 'extreme' here? I don't consider anything extreme about attempting to balance the format so that there is equal representation between the three major deck types. What I would consider 'extreme' is a format where aggro decks don't make up enough of the meta, allowing control to become the favourable draft by default.
What other approaches are available that ensure a format doesn't have a default 'best deck', and which don't result in a warped format?
I don't run auto win conditions for control. You can't drop your 6 drop and win the game in my meta.
4) I do not know of any 'auto-win' six-drops. If that is the case, then you simply need to add universal answers to those cards. In any case, a deck reaching six mana should win a decent proportion of games on the back of that play. If the six drops are of poor quality, aggro has no incentive to get going early with aggressive plays.
By the same token, you are going to have a hard time putting together a constructed quality aggro deck with a consistent turn 3/4 clock.
5) It is difficult in most cubes to achieve such a fast regular clock. My cube has a particularly low curve, but turn 4 kills aren't very commonplace.
Because I don't want either of those decks in my meta.
6) This is actually the crux of the matter. There's nothing wrong with this approach; if you don't like aggro or control decks, that's your prerogative as a drafter or cube-builder. However, if the only deck type is midrange, then the format will certainly be balanced. That hardly sounds like a compelling environment to draft or play though, with the tension of dealing for the challenge of various deck types removed.
My cube is far from perfect
7) The cube is perfect, if you and your group enjoy drafting with it and are happy with the balance. That's the main thing here.
but it's goal is to soften the extreme sides of the game and reward synergy in deck building.
8) By that, you mean reduce the efficacy of aggro and control? As long as those archetypes still exist in equal measures, the balance will be preserved. I would expect midrange to hold an advantage though, since you would exclude the best control and aggro cards.
By the way, synergy in deck-building is not an exclusive feature of midrange. There's so much more to synergy than picking up Rec-Sur in a draft.
I want games to be interactive.
9) The existence of a balanced three-pronged format and interactive games and interaction are not mutually exclusive concepts. We all want interaction in our cubes. In fact the most 'interactive' format is aggro. You are forced to interact with the creatures through spells or blocking. The least would be combo such as Storm, which is not a commonly played cube archetype. It runs in a bubble until it either achieves its win-con or dies. 'Interactive', to me, does not imply a midrange slug-fest with the odd Reveillark recurring some Deranged Hermits.
You're all free to build super competitive spike cubes and recreate a constructed meta but I'm not interested in that. That's what drove me from magic in the first place.
10) What is a 'super competitive spike cube'? My cube is staggering non-competitive. At the end of the day, I couldn't care less whether I won, drew or lost, as long as the drafting was varied and fun. The only 'competitive' element is each archetype with the next one, in terms of each being of equal strength and capable of winning its games. What I don't want is midrange ramping to 8 and then face-rolling every single game. If I hamstring aggro and control for some perceived lack of interaction, that's the result, unless someone can convince me that you can achieve a balance without the major theaters roughly equally represented. At the end of the day though, the cube is nothing but a personalised draft format. No-one here will tell you you're wrong for doing something different. I might suggest ways to improve balance, but that's all
This has been a pretty good discussion, but I see a lot of people running into barriers that my personal professional experiences have been engineered to avoid, so I'd like to present a few ideas on this issue. First, a communicative note on the nature of what is true or not:
Everything is true in some approximation. It is an apparent truth in our reality that language and algorithms in general behave as constructive, proof-preserving transformations of information, locally converging to tools to be applied in the recursive construction of a greater ability to articulate the nature of relevance. Pedantic mumbo-jumbo aside, the lesson here is that it is always more important to explain how you are right, rather than that you are right. (It doesn't matter if you are right if you aren't demonstrating relevance and competence.) The generation of knowledge is a step-by-step incremental process where we are continually laying the bricks of a new foundation to build upon tomorrow, and things that are mostly true today will become less true tomorrow, as better approximations are developed and more information is processed. The truth of an idea is, in the big picture, secondary to the relevance that idea.
Back on topic, what I want to talk about is the idea of a 'balanced' cube, and what that means in terms of 'archetype' or 'theater' support. There are two conditions of 'balance' in a cube:
* The ideally balanced cube: Each card in the cube appears in winning decks with the same frequency, and each supported archetype and theater appears in winning decks with the same frequency.
* The pragmatically balanced cube: Each card appears in winning decks with the frequency proportional to it's (relative) power level, and each supported archetype and theater appears in winning decks with the same frequency.
(Naturally, the frequency is to be taken in the limit of infinite games played by perfect players, and "winning decks" can be generalized to an extrapolation of "win/loss" ratios.)
The common denominator here is that, whichever way you want to balance your cube, You want your supported archetypes to be competitive with each other. This also gives you a means of evaluating the contribution of individual cards to cube balance, which is the primary problem with card selection in cube. In your typical dragon cube, for instance, you could argue that aggro decks are not supported, which gives rise to a definition of balance that is primarily concerned with control and mid-range archetypes. If these archetypes have comparable winning records, it would be hard to argue that this cube is not balanced, but only that aggro strategies are not supported.
Now, this is fine if you don't include cards like Grafted Wargear and Elite Vanguard, but if you do include these cards, then you are improperly supporting aggro, since these cards will show up in winning decks with a disproportionately low frequency, meaning either they should be cut because their relative power level is too low, or you should attempt to support aggro better.
In a traditional contemporary cube, when evaluating the role of a card in cube, you want to ask "does this card support an archetype that has a relatively low winning record, and will this card show up in winning decks more frequently than other cards I could choose." This process will lead to the following facts about the kinds of cards in these cubes:
They are objectively powerful. (Able to create wins in multiple decks.)
They support a wide variety of decks and archetypes.
They support decks that need their effects more than decks that can merely use them.
A note on the Rock/Paper/Scissors structure:
I don't think this kind of analysis is very useful in cube discussion. If you have a balanced aggro/mid-range/control supported cube, then these decks will all have equal winning records against each other. It doesn't matter at all whether or not mid-range beats aggro 70% of the time, even if this is incidentally true. It has nothing to do with building a balanced cube, and more to do with building a winning deck in a particular meta game.
If, in a given pool of cards, you can see R/P/S structure, you can try to exploit it to an advantage. In the big picture, as long as your cube is balanced, you would by trying to slide into an available archetype regardless. So, if you can see that more players are playing control than mid-range, you will want to pick an aggro build if the R/P/S structure is there. But even if it isn't, you will want to be aggro because nobody else is, and you'll probably get better cards.
I'm enjoying this discussion immensely and I can certainly appreciate the differing viewpoints. No one's opinion here has been without merit.
I especially appreciate Retra's contribution as I think Retra brought up two keys points that apply not just to this discussion but every discussion about magic and the nature of debate itself.
1. It is certainly easier to say you are correct than say why and cite examples. This is a fundamental problem with debate in general especially on the Internet where things tend to devolve into "I'm right and your wrong" at which point ideas stop being exchanged and we all end up wasting our breath.
2. Magic is a really dynamic game. Varying perspectives are not uncommon. If the game were simple I don't think any of us would still be playing it. War was a fun game but I moved on from that pretty quickly.
With all that in mind, I'll try to share what my intents are in my cube. For me, the ideal scenario would be for ever archetype or theatre to have exactly a 50/50 chance of beating every other archetype or theatre. And the games would essentially be about who drafted the best deck and who made the fewest play mistakes. I don't it to be about drafting paper because everyone at the table is playing rock.
This is why I do not like the classic rock/paper/scissors nature of aggro/midrange/control. IMO, that is a weakness of the game. Not a strength. Winning a match because you had a gun and your opponent brought a knife is about the worst way to win.
Although it is not possible to completely eliminate that from the game, my goal is to minimize its impact by encouraging a more midrange approach. You can still draft aggro and you can still draft control but I've tried to make it so you can't easily make extreme decks that go all in on one specific approach. Aggro decks invariably need to grab a few 5 drops thus becoming more midrange and control decks have to do things to get control of the board and keep it. They can't just get to turn 6 and auto win.
Part of why this has worked is my play group. They tend in that direction anyway so it has been a fairly organic process. With that said, I can see how a very competitive player could potentially break my environment by finding ways to exploit the heavy focus on midrangy strategies.
For me, the ideal scenario would be for ever archetype or theatre to have exactly a 50/50 chance of beating every other archetype or theatre.
I've played a lot of cubes that have tried to make this happen, but my experiences have shown that it doesn't work. You can have a midrange-centric cube list that tries to imitate this, but the traditional control tools are so good in that environment that control is just too good not to force and win with it. This left us with a feeling of an imbalanced environment. Unless you cut all the cards that control uses to beat random midrange decks with (which would be almost impossible because so many good midrange cards can be used to create powerful control decks) you'll wind up with this fundamental matchup advantage for one of the theaters. The only way to combat this was to have enough powerful aggro decks at the table that forcing control doesn't put you at a natural matchup advantage.
As Fredo pointed out earlier in the thread, a true R/P/S doesn't occur, because even advantageous matchups are far from a sure thing. But regardless, when all you're playing with is Rocks and enough tools for Paper to get drafted, there's always going to be a fundamental matchup advantage for those things, which creates a nasty imbalance that most cubes struggle to overcome. Why draft Scissors when there's 2 Papers and 5 Rocks at the table? The 8 Rock table is something that a lot of cube designers have tried to work towards, but unless you cut all the counterspells, cost-efficient removal, cheap CA/selection spells and all the wraths, Paper decks will show up, and when they do, it trashes that perfect 50/50 matchup ratio you strive for.
WtWlf - your argument is solid and it is something always in the back of my mind when I make updates to my cube.
I don't want to give the idea that I am trying to completely shut down aggro or nerf control (which is certainly harder to do if not impossible). It's a delicate process and i rely a lot on this forum for sense checks.
My cube list is heinously out of date here but I fully intend on updating it at some point. Your feedback would be appreciated. It has some unique parameters but really isn't dramatically far from the norm despite how my arguments may be sounding.
I think part of the disagreement we have centers around definitions. To me, limited environments blur the line when it comes to theaters. We are talking about aggro vs midrange vs control like they are mutually exclusive, but I never feel this is truly the case outside constructed. Maybe that's my weak drafting skills which give me that idea, but even in cube it just feels like there is so much power and so many broken interactions that I just never feel like games boil down to aggro win by turn 5 or auto lose to control. And if that is true, it matters much less whether I have aggro proportionally balanced.
It goes back to play groups and what people enjoy. I can get away with more I think. My players don't try and break my environment. They see fun cards and the build around them. People have fun.
On a related note, is it ever really possible to balance cube when you have mind twist people's hands away turn 2 or completely turn the game around with balance? There are hundreds more examples where those came from.
So I missed all of the discussion leading up to the birth of this thread and a member's suspension, so I went back and read through it all mainly hoping for some entertainment. Unfortunately, wtwlf is really good at self-editing and so there wasn't much to be had aside from a few wildly declarative statements made by others that made me laugh. About half way through, though, I began to wonder where Gubbe85 was coming from. There was a level of consistency to his argumentation that actually outlined a concrete idea, though it did get strangely verbose and was often meaningless, intentional or otherwise.
His point that the R/P/S metagame doesn't have to apply to cube isn't necessarily wrong. That doesn't mean that it doesn't apply. It absolutely does, at least in dueling anyway. Only that it doesn't have to. If no members of the group orient their drafting and deck construction strategy in line with the R/P/S meta environment, then such a meta environment won't exist.
A gut level reaction to this statement is to claim that the meta environment exists whether we acknowledge its existence or not. However, that's not necessarily true. As Fredo said, the R/P/S meta environment concept is a tool. It is an abstract model that categorizes differing methods of resource allocation and how each type can lead to either victory or defeat in relation to the other categories. That doesn't make it a concrete reality in the game of magic, only a strategic orientation. The fact that it's a rather effective one lends credence to its ubiquitous presence and staunch defenders.
There is room in the game of magic for strategic approaches that differ from the R/P/S orientation. Whether or not these strategic approaches are as effective is another matter. However, arguing that the only way magic can be approached is from an R/P/S orientation is rather close-minded. Additionally, when a person claims to have an orientation in which R/P/S doesn't apply, attempting to couch their approach in terms of the R/P/S orientation is essentially just as close-minded, even if it often is the best we can manage in trying to communicate. That entire discussion was an example of this.
A perspective that takes an inherently different approach to the game of magic won't necessarily appear balanced when analyzed from a different orientation. That doesn't mean it isn't balanced, only that it doesn't appear balanced. Understanding its balance is only possible from within its own framework. In academia, the closest applicable concept is referred to as cultural relativism, which, ironically enough, is also an orientation that has been hotly debated over the years.
At any rate, I'm hoping that this will help the community avoid a repeat performance of this last series of events the next time a radical concept regarding cube balance is proposed on the forum. I think it would be rather beneficial to the people who support Gubbe's perspective to create a thread much like this one so they can discuss and refine their ideas through communication with like-minded individuals. To that end, I think this thread should be named differently, maybe call it "The Rock/Paper/Scissors Theory of Cube Management." At least that way it gives the appearance that other theories may exist even if we haven't found them here yet.
Because you don't seem to get why it's similar to rock paper scissors, allows me to tell you.
Here's the basic characteristic of the 3 main deck type.
Aggro: Put down threat early, kill the opponent before they have a chance to do anything.
Midrange: Contains many creatures with 3-6 mana cost. And some 2.
Control: Try to survive early game and dominate late game.
There's of course variation and so forth depending on the pick, but that's basically what it come down to. So, here is how the match up would work. I would say in theory, but I have play many Magic games, and I feel it's rather accurate.
Aggro, with its early game pressure, can't get pass Midrange because Midrange put too many stopper in its way before Aggro can reduce the opponent life to low enough amount. Midrange creatures will soon grow to the same amount as aggro, not to mention that it's all bigger.
Midrange, because it doesn't put down enough threats at the beginning of the game, give control free leeway to set up and save removal as it please. Control can then save those removal for the late game creature that come down and bring the game to late game where it dominates.
Control, although the best decks in late game, is unable to deal with every single threats that aggro bring down. Aggro also have tools to keep the game in early state for long as possible, such as by using cards like Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, or any land destruction.
In the cube where aggro doesn't exist, or exist in low quantity, this means that since control>midrange, it's pretty much very tempting to go control. If players in that cube haven't done this, it just mean they don't realize that control>midrange.
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Control deck is more trickly, but it exists as well. Cube is a format with a high density of removal and very strong finisher. Combine that with some creature to keep you alive, and there'll be control deck in your cube.
Control and Midrange exist naturally. Hence why without pushing something to keep Control in check, there's no reason to not draft control if a player know enough about Magic.
Storm can keep control in check, but if Storm happen naturally as you say and there's less than 2-3 Storm player at a table, then storm did not keep control in check, since there's not enough deck.
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A lot of people here like their cube to not be that way, though. Me included. I want my cube to be the environment that's balance.
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I see most of your point but if two playersdraftmidgrange while 6 draft control, the midrange decks willhave agreater average strength which could very easily make up for the matchup weakness.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Your idea aren't new. It's actually call Dragon cube or combo cube. It's just a different cube. Standard cube is this way because it's what people prefer.
If 6 player manage to draft control, then it's more likely for those decks to become more midrange than control, I'll say. Then it's just midrange match, not a match between control and midrange. If I fail to make an aggro deck or reaninator deck, it's not an aggro deck or reaninator deck. It'll just be an attempt to be those decks. And I don't want 8 midrange decks at the table either. That's just boring to me. Maybe it's not to you.
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People here are generally discussing standard cube because it's what they have. I don't hear people saying Guardian of Guildpact is a staple and must pick and top card in any cube. It is a staple and probably even 180 card in pauper. But that's a different format.
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They don't have to, but the majority of cubers find a balanced format more FUN and that is the be all and end all of any argument you can throw at this topic. A control dominant cube would be despicable to mid range-prefering players and vice versa, and etc etc. In the end, the correct cube design is the one most fun to the most people who play your cube, which in most cases is a regular playgroup. For those of us who often play with new cubers and randoms, you don't want to make any assumptions to player preferences so a balanced cube caters to more preferences than an unbalanced one.
The general idea I think is that control beats midrange. Why is that? Let's start there IN SPECIFICS and talk about how much of that applies to cube.
My personal feeling is that some of what we apply to the traditional rock/paper/scissors thing doesn't actually exist in cube.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Although I've played Magic for many years, I would not consider myself an exceptionally good player. I'm above average probably and I think I understand the fundamentals well enough. I'm not a super competitive player who has done tournaments or anything. I mostly play casually for fun with friends of similar mindset. So I realize my real world experience may be somewhat limited.
From my time playing and studying the game, I am of the opinion that every single game of magic is won via card advantage. Whether that takes the form of virtual card advantage or actual card advantage depends on what deck you are playing and whether you are the aggressor or not (which is all about match ups).
This is where the whole theatre thing comes in. Aggro uses tempo to gain virtual card advantage. There basic goal is to play more cards than their opponent, gaining enough virtual card advantage via tempo to win the game before their opponent stabilizes. This is most effective against very slow decks (control decks) because the tempo advantage is the largest. Midrange decks generally are faster so neutralize the tempo advantage of aggro. Midrange decks often focus on card quality (another form of virtual card advantage), which is very effective against aggro but is less effective against control (which typically uses real card advantage. i.e. drawing more cards than one's opponent).
That basically sums up the rock/paper/scissors argument at a high level.
But how much of that exists in cube? What really separates a midrange deck from a control deck in cube? IMO, there is very little (if any true distinction), and the reason for that has to do with the power of the cards in cube. They are all broken.
Almost every card I run in my cube either has built in card advantage (you get another card out of it or your opponent loses a card either via discard, removal, etc.), or it is way over the power curve, or it's just broken to pieces (via synergy with other cards in the cube). In short, pretty much every decently built deck in cube can produce gross amounts of card advantage (virtual and real) to the point where even traditional control decks simply lose a lot of their advantage in the long game. Take Genesis for example. Do people consider a deck built around that card a control deck? I would classify it as a midrange strategy, and yet the card advantage engine it produces is as good as anything you can get going in cube. So where again is control's advantage exactly?
Now, I realize many of you have cubed longer than me and have probably played magic at a higher level. So maybe you can build control decks in cube that simply will always beat your average midrange deck. And if that is the case, I'd love to see what cards you are using in particular that give you that large advantage over all the other broken midrange stuff in cube.
This is an honest inquiry. I genuinely want to know how you build a control deck in cube that will run over these busted midrange decks I see people build.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
In our cube, any deck is capable of beating any other deck, regardless of which phase of the game it wants to dominate. Control beats aggro all the time, and the same is true for midrange vs control and aggro vs midrange. However, this doesn't mean there aren't match-ups that are favorable for one or the other deck. And often, an aggro deck will have the edge against control, midrange against aggro, and control against midrange (assuming similar deck quality).
To beat a well-built control deck, the deck with the best shot at doing so is a well-built aggro deck. A great green ramp/Eureka deck can have a good chance to take the draft, but it has a noticable disadvantage against the deck with 5+ counters. Etcetera, etcetera.
It is not a hard and fast rules by any means, but it is a tool to balance a well-designed cube.
This is exactly what we found to be the case. And the more I played cube lists back in the day, the more I found that typical lists were assembled to cater to midrange. Which made drafting control the advantageous thing to do. Did it win every draft? Of course not. But it certainly gave you the best chance at winning a given draft. We didn't like that aspect of typical cube lists. Aggro was too underrepresented to challenge control with more than maybe one solid aggro deck at the table, and that simply wasn't enough of a concern to control to not force it and win with it.
It wasn't until aggro made up ~1/3 of the decks at the table that control really started to be challenged at the drafts. As it stands now, aggro, midrange and control each win roughly a third of our drafts, and that's the kind of balanced results we were looking for from the start.
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I figured the Ux control deck would be the one that got brought up as a foil to specific midrange strategies, and I don't disagree. But what about a genesis deck? Depending on how you build it (I tend to go GB with a lot of smaller utility type creatures). I feel like that is still midrange (I'm trying to get threats going early and then recur them with Genesis). Counters are not going to really hurt that deck very much (which that said, I certainly don't want some flavor of UR running Pyroclasm and Wildfire).
So I suppose what I'm trying to get at is the idea that maybe the line is blurred more in cube between aggro, midrange and control? Almost every deck I build can do two of those things reasonably well simply because of the power level of the cards.
Even when I really try to draft aggro, I generally add a couple 5 drops to my deck which gives me some options if the deck doesn't get a fast start. I'm always looking for ways to add versatility to every deck I build. And I think that's more important in cube than it is in standard because of the one of each card thing. You aren't going to be able to build super consistent decks in cube that goldfish like constructed decks (even if the effectiveness of cube decks is more on a constructed level than limited). It's IMO still apples and oranges.
I feel in cube it's less about the rock/paper/scissors thing you see in constructed and more about specific match-ups. Like re-animator not wanting to see graveyardhate.dec, etc. Is that really about midrange vs control though? Or just a case of having your primary strategy countered by something that is particularly effective against what you are trying to do?
I agree with this. And I have one friend that likes aggro a lot. I certainly wouldn't suggest removing it from cube. I also agree that many cubes are too heaving biased towards midrange and control (dragon cubes), and that IS an issue.
Ultimately, I just want to play the best cards at all cc levels. And I want to have a solid balance (number) of cards at each cc. But I'm not specifically aiming for 3:2:1 aggro/midrange/control. I don't really care about that.
My cube has gone through massive changes since I started it. Much of which was inspired by posts and cube lists I've seen on this forum. I don't post a lot, but I've read a massive number of posts and sucked up a ton of information - I've been around a long time.
One thing I ended up doing which has worked amazingly well is I went through an exercise where I literally took every single card in the cube and put it into a deck. Every card. And what I found was that previous iterations of my cube didn't have enough 1 and 2 cc cards. I ended up running out of them and so some decks had a nice curve and others didn't have anything to do for several turns (i.e. they were garbage). I then restructured my cube to have this ratio:
1cc: 60 cards
2cc: 90 cards
3cc: 75 cards
4cc: 60 cards
5cc: 40 cards
6+cc: 20 cards
Including lands and the 5 moxes, I ended up with 410 cards, which made exactly 15 decks all with a reasonably solid mana curve. The decks weren't perfectly balanced of course, but they all were playable. It vastly improved the quality of drafts because people weren't suddenly struggling to find cards to plug holes in their decks at certain cc.
So for me, it became less about balancing aggro/midrange/control and more about balancing how many cards I see at each casting cost so that everyone has enough things to do at all stages of the game (without being forced to pick up wild mongrel in a deck that doesn't want it just so that they are not sitting on their hands turn two).
Again, I want to run the best 60 1cc cards in the game ("best" being somewhat subjective in that they support the things I want to push in my cube - Goblin Welder is a very powerful 1 drop which I would certainly rank in the top 60 1 drops, but I don't run it right now because he doesn't really have a great home and I'd rather use his spot for something else). Many of those one drops are aggro cards, but a good number are not. I let that happen organically though. But it makes it easier for me to justify not running bad aggro cards (like Wild Dogs) just because I'm trying to enforce a specific threshold for traditional aggro when I look at it in this perspective. What are the 60 one drops I want in here that do the most for the most number of decks?
If Wizards prints a green goblin guide, it will end up in my 60 1cc and green's identity could shift a bit. Until then, green is getting birds, et al because they are better cards and simply do more for more decks.
My 2 cents.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Whereas I feel like constructed displays less of the effect of Rock/Paper/Scissors than limited environments do. I think constructed is more about the specific matchup, and limited (cube included) is more about how well the pace of your deck matches the pace of your opponent's deck.
Genesis is a perfect example of the exception to the rule. Genesis' value is what it is because of the R/P/S dynamic. Genesis is a midrange card that is specifically played to shore up the weakness against control. All theaters play cards that shore up their weaknesses, because of how important it is in limited to do that. Genesis is one example of a midrange card that helps out against control.
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That's interesting. My experiences are different, but my playgroups have never consisted of high level players. From my experience, I have seen more rock/paper/scissors in constructed simply because you can make more focused decks. My friend always plays aggro, and those decks tear up my control decks. I can beat them with my midrange decks and I can sometimes race him in the aggro mirror (though he is better than I am, so I lose more than I win).
In limited, it never seemed possible to build strong aggro or control decks. The card pool never supported it. All decks that won ended up some flavor of midrange, so it was like Limited had paper and nothing else. In a way that was cool (because all games were close and competitive), but variety was certainly lacking.
So what do you define as the strongest control strategies in your cube? Serious question. Which cards tend to find their way into control decks your group plays - i.e. which cards do you feel really make those decks shine?
I'm trying to get at what about control in cube is the key to it's dominance over midrange in your meta.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
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!
AMEN! Build your cube to give each archetype the tools it needs to be strong. One of the largest things most cubes I have seen, are aggro centric cards, especially cards that support and give utility to aggro creatures.
Great one and two drops get there, but great equipment, enchants, and other spells, are what can give aggro that punishing edge.
I'd argue the same is true for any other archetype; give them the tools they need to be great!
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What you describe actually supports my argument. In constructed, deck X always beats deck Y but auto loses to deck Z. Whether that falls exactly into the traditional aggro beats control which beats midrange which beats aggro is immaterial. It's still rock/paper/scissors and its what drove me from constructed.
On the other hand, in cube control decks and aggro decks are both inherently weaker as you said due to lack of redundancy. So that should weaken the rock/paper/scissors not strengthen it.
Again, show me how you draft true aggro or control in limited? It's impossible because the redundancy and card quality simply isn't there. Cube is ultimately a limited format even if the power level is closer to constructed.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
This isn't true at all. A properly built cube has the redundancy required to build those archetypes. That's a little more difficult feat for aggro, but that's the point of this whole thread. That's the reason why you need a decent number of 2 power one-drops and aggro-exclusive beaters in each colour in order for aggro to be draftable. That is your redundancy, which comes from multiples of similar cards rather than multiples of the same card. 'True aggro' can use plenty of cards used by everyone else, but you need those aggro guys to be prevalent.
If you build the cube badly, those archetypes won't be draftable. But you can't then use the argument that you can't support true aggro or control when you didn't enable them in the first place. That's circular logic. As for card quality being not high enough - that's a ludicrous suggestion when you have all the good aggro beaters ever printed at your disposal. You need to draft a few of those and some support cards, and that's a great aggro deck.
It's not clear what you want here. Decklists? Advice on adds? You can both of those all over the forum with minimal effort.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
It's not circular logic at all. My argument is and always has been that there is more than one way to build a healthy cube environment.
If you want super efficient aggro decks, you stuff the cube full of 2 power one drops. You want crazy powerful control decks? You jam the cube full of sweepers, counters and anti-aggro tech.
In short, if you want rock/paper/scissors you can certainly make that your meta
But IMO there are other approaches here that don't allow for either extreme to warp the format. I don't run auto win conditions for control. You can't drop your 6 drop and win the game in my meta. By the same token, you are going to have a hard time putting together a constructed quality aggro deck with a consistent turn 3/4 clock. Because I don't want either of those decks in my meta.
My cube is far from perfect but it's goal is to soften the extreme sides of the game and reward synergy in deck building. I want games to be interactive.
You're all free to build super competitive spike cubes and recreate a constructed meta but I'm not interested in that. That's what drove me from magic in the first place.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
1) That's fine. What are the other ways of building a healthy cube environment? See my point 3.
2) You were just saying that you can't draft 'true' aggro and 'true' control in cube, and that rock-paper-scissors couldn't apply. Now you're saying that you can, but that's it's undesirable. I'm glad we agree on the first point!
3) What is the 'extreme' here? I don't consider anything extreme about attempting to balance the format so that there is equal representation between the three major deck types. What I would consider 'extreme' is a format where aggro decks don't make up enough of the meta, allowing control to become the favourable draft by default.
What other approaches are available that ensure a format doesn't have a default 'best deck', and which don't result in a warped format?
4) I do not know of any 'auto-win' six-drops. If that is the case, then you simply need to add universal answers to those cards. In any case, a deck reaching six mana should win a decent proportion of games on the back of that play. If the six drops are of poor quality, aggro has no incentive to get going early with aggressive plays.
5) It is difficult in most cubes to achieve such a fast regular clock. My cube has a particularly low curve, but turn 4 kills aren't very commonplace.
6) This is actually the crux of the matter. There's nothing wrong with this approach; if you don't like aggro or control decks, that's your prerogative as a drafter or cube-builder. However, if the only deck type is midrange, then the format will certainly be balanced. That hardly sounds like a compelling environment to draft or play though, with the tension of dealing for the challenge of various deck types removed.
7) The cube is perfect, if you and your group enjoy drafting with it and are happy with the balance. That's the main thing here.
8) By that, you mean reduce the efficacy of aggro and control? As long as those archetypes still exist in equal measures, the balance will be preserved. I would expect midrange to hold an advantage though, since you would exclude the best control and aggro cards.
By the way, synergy in deck-building is not an exclusive feature of midrange. There's so much more to synergy than picking up Rec-Sur in a draft.
9) The existence of a balanced three-pronged format and interactive games and interaction are not mutually exclusive concepts. We all want interaction in our cubes. In fact the most 'interactive' format is aggro. You are forced to interact with the creatures through spells or blocking. The least would be combo such as Storm, which is not a commonly played cube archetype. It runs in a bubble until it either achieves its win-con or dies. 'Interactive', to me, does not imply a midrange slug-fest with the odd Reveillark recurring some Deranged Hermits.
10) What is a 'super competitive spike cube'? My cube is staggering non-competitive. At the end of the day, I couldn't care less whether I won, drew or lost, as long as the drafting was varied and fun. The only 'competitive' element is each archetype with the next one, in terms of each being of equal strength and capable of winning its games. What I don't want is midrange ramping to 8 and then face-rolling every single game. If I hamstring aggro and control for some perceived lack of interaction, that's the result, unless someone can convince me that you can achieve a balance without the major theaters roughly equally represented. At the end of the day though, the cube is nothing but a personalised draft format. No-one here will tell you you're wrong for doing something different. I might suggest ways to improve balance, but that's all
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Back on topic, what I want to talk about is the idea of a 'balanced' cube, and what that means in terms of 'archetype' or 'theater' support. There are two conditions of 'balance' in a cube:
* The ideally balanced cube: Each card in the cube appears in winning decks with the same frequency, and each supported archetype and theater appears in winning decks with the same frequency.
* The pragmatically balanced cube: Each card appears in winning decks with the frequency proportional to it's (relative) power level, and each supported archetype and theater appears in winning decks with the same frequency.
(Naturally, the frequency is to be taken in the limit of infinite games played by perfect players, and "winning decks" can be generalized to an extrapolation of "win/loss" ratios.)
The common denominator here is that, whichever way you want to balance your cube, You want your supported archetypes to be competitive with each other. This also gives you a means of evaluating the contribution of individual cards to cube balance, which is the primary problem with card selection in cube. In your typical dragon cube, for instance, you could argue that aggro decks are not supported, which gives rise to a definition of balance that is primarily concerned with control and mid-range archetypes. If these archetypes have comparable winning records, it would be hard to argue that this cube is not balanced, but only that aggro strategies are not supported.
Now, this is fine if you don't include cards like Grafted Wargear and Elite Vanguard, but if you do include these cards, then you are improperly supporting aggro, since these cards will show up in winning decks with a disproportionately low frequency, meaning either they should be cut because their relative power level is too low, or you should attempt to support aggro better.
In a traditional contemporary cube, when evaluating the role of a card in cube, you want to ask "does this card support an archetype that has a relatively low winning record, and will this card show up in winning decks more frequently than other cards I could choose." This process will lead to the following facts about the kinds of cards in these cubes:
They are objectively powerful. (Able to create wins in multiple decks.)
They support a wide variety of decks and archetypes.
They support decks that need their effects more than decks that can merely use them.
A note on the Rock/Paper/Scissors structure:
If, in a given pool of cards, you can see R/P/S structure, you can try to exploit it to an advantage. In the big picture, as long as your cube is balanced, you would by trying to slide into an available archetype regardless. So, if you can see that more players are playing control than mid-range, you will want to pick an aggro build if the R/P/S structure is there. But even if it isn't, you will want to be aggro because nobody else is, and you'll probably get better cards.
I especially appreciate Retra's contribution as I think Retra brought up two keys points that apply not just to this discussion but every discussion about magic and the nature of debate itself.
1. It is certainly easier to say you are correct than say why and cite examples. This is a fundamental problem with debate in general especially on the Internet where things tend to devolve into "I'm right and your wrong" at which point ideas stop being exchanged and we all end up wasting our breath.
2. Magic is a really dynamic game. Varying perspectives are not uncommon. If the game were simple I don't think any of us would still be playing it. War was a fun game but I moved on from that pretty quickly.
With all that in mind, I'll try to share what my intents are in my cube. For me, the ideal scenario would be for ever archetype or theatre to have exactly a 50/50 chance of beating every other archetype or theatre. And the games would essentially be about who drafted the best deck and who made the fewest play mistakes. I don't it to be about drafting paper because everyone at the table is playing rock.
This is why I do not like the classic rock/paper/scissors nature of aggro/midrange/control. IMO, that is a weakness of the game. Not a strength. Winning a match because you had a gun and your opponent brought a knife is about the worst way to win.
Although it is not possible to completely eliminate that from the game, my goal is to minimize its impact by encouraging a more midrange approach. You can still draft aggro and you can still draft control but I've tried to make it so you can't easily make extreme decks that go all in on one specific approach. Aggro decks invariably need to grab a few 5 drops thus becoming more midrange and control decks have to do things to get control of the board and keep it. They can't just get to turn 6 and auto win.
Part of why this has worked is my play group. They tend in that direction anyway so it has been a fairly organic process. With that said, I can see how a very competitive player could potentially break my environment by finding ways to exploit the heavy focus on midrangy strategies.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I've played a lot of cubes that have tried to make this happen, but my experiences have shown that it doesn't work. You can have a midrange-centric cube list that tries to imitate this, but the traditional control tools are so good in that environment that control is just too good not to force and win with it. This left us with a feeling of an imbalanced environment. Unless you cut all the cards that control uses to beat random midrange decks with (which would be almost impossible because so many good midrange cards can be used to create powerful control decks) you'll wind up with this fundamental matchup advantage for one of the theaters. The only way to combat this was to have enough powerful aggro decks at the table that forcing control doesn't put you at a natural matchup advantage.
As Fredo pointed out earlier in the thread, a true R/P/S doesn't occur, because even advantageous matchups are far from a sure thing. But regardless, when all you're playing with is Rocks and enough tools for Paper to get drafted, there's always going to be a fundamental matchup advantage for those things, which creates a nasty imbalance that most cubes struggle to overcome. Why draft Scissors when there's 2 Papers and 5 Rocks at the table? The 8 Rock table is something that a lot of cube designers have tried to work towards, but unless you cut all the counterspells, cost-efficient removal, cheap CA/selection spells and all the wraths, Paper decks will show up, and when they do, it trashes that perfect 50/50 matchup ratio you strive for.
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I don't want to give the idea that I am trying to completely shut down aggro or nerf control (which is certainly harder to do if not impossible). It's a delicate process and i rely a lot on this forum for sense checks.
My cube list is heinously out of date here but I fully intend on updating it at some point. Your feedback would be appreciated. It has some unique parameters but really isn't dramatically far from the norm despite how my arguments may be sounding.
I think part of the disagreement we have centers around definitions. To me, limited environments blur the line when it comes to theaters. We are talking about aggro vs midrange vs control like they are mutually exclusive, but I never feel this is truly the case outside constructed. Maybe that's my weak drafting skills which give me that idea, but even in cube it just feels like there is so much power and so many broken interactions that I just never feel like games boil down to aggro win by turn 5 or auto lose to control. And if that is true, it matters much less whether I have aggro proportionally balanced.
It goes back to play groups and what people enjoy. I can get away with more I think. My players don't try and break my environment. They see fun cards and the build around them. People have fun.
On a related note, is it ever really possible to balance cube when you have mind twist people's hands away turn 2 or completely turn the game around with balance? There are hundreds more examples where those came from.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
His point that the R/P/S metagame doesn't have to apply to cube isn't necessarily wrong. That doesn't mean that it doesn't apply. It absolutely does, at least in dueling anyway. Only that it doesn't have to. If no members of the group orient their drafting and deck construction strategy in line with the R/P/S meta environment, then such a meta environment won't exist.
A gut level reaction to this statement is to claim that the meta environment exists whether we acknowledge its existence or not. However, that's not necessarily true. As Fredo said, the R/P/S meta environment concept is a tool. It is an abstract model that categorizes differing methods of resource allocation and how each type can lead to either victory or defeat in relation to the other categories. That doesn't make it a concrete reality in the game of magic, only a strategic orientation. The fact that it's a rather effective one lends credence to its ubiquitous presence and staunch defenders.
There is room in the game of magic for strategic approaches that differ from the R/P/S orientation. Whether or not these strategic approaches are as effective is another matter. However, arguing that the only way magic can be approached is from an R/P/S orientation is rather close-minded. Additionally, when a person claims to have an orientation in which R/P/S doesn't apply, attempting to couch their approach in terms of the R/P/S orientation is essentially just as close-minded, even if it often is the best we can manage in trying to communicate. That entire discussion was an example of this.
A perspective that takes an inherently different approach to the game of magic won't necessarily appear balanced when analyzed from a different orientation. That doesn't mean it isn't balanced, only that it doesn't appear balanced. Understanding its balance is only possible from within its own framework. In academia, the closest applicable concept is referred to as cultural relativism, which, ironically enough, is also an orientation that has been hotly debated over the years.
At any rate, I'm hoping that this will help the community avoid a repeat performance of this last series of events the next time a radical concept regarding cube balance is proposed on the forum. I think it would be rather beneficial to the people who support Gubbe's perspective to create a thread much like this one so they can discuss and refine their ideas through communication with like-minded individuals. To that end, I think this thread should be named differently, maybe call it "The Rock/Paper/Scissors Theory of Cube Management." At least that way it gives the appearance that other theories may exist even if we haven't found them here yet.
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