Wheel of Fortune does all kind of stuff in The cube and is not on the cut-list for me. Yes, you have to brainstorm a bit to actually realise how you can use it to your own advantage in a particular shell deck but its presence really worth it. Personnally, I love it in Storm and Reanimation strategy. Could also really help burn-aggro finds the last points of damage to need to close a game before opponent could even use the 7 new cards.
Wheel of Fortune is utterly disgusting, and is is a really high quality card in every red archetype. It's literally amazing in every single red deck my cube can produce.
I'm surprised to see Imperial Recruiter in as few lists as it is. A red tutor is pretty sweet, and there is a whole host of goodies it can grab. I guess it is dependent on having the other pieces in your deck; still, I expected to see it place more often than it is.
I'm a big fan, especially if I can get him early. He can get you that silver bullet just when you need it and add consistency to all kinds of decks. Kiki-Jiki, Fires, Spells Matter, Blink, Reanimator... fetching that finisher, artifact/enchantment hate, eternal witness, discard outlet, braids, etc...
Opinions, please: Signets should be voted as colorless cards in a single entry (like always done with ABU Mox), or as individual entries on the guilds (like was done last year)?
Individual for the guilds. The Signets are absolutely not all considered equal, and the difference in their respective color is infinitely more important than that of a Mox for determining powerlevel.
Agreed with wtwlf. A Dimir or Izzet Signet is way more valuable to me than a Boros Signet, whereas a Mox Ruby and a Mox Pearl have near equal value across the board.
I really think that next year we should not have Un-cards and conspiracies voted on in the normal sections. It distorts the value of 'normal' cards but also undervalues their power. If only half votes for conspiracies and even less for Un-cards then the value of the results goes down. It means that people vote for different group of cards.
I propose to add a voluntary extra group next year for these special, not tournament legal cards. People could vote for a top 5 (or 3) in each section, but it should not be obliged to fill all the positions in their ranking. A lot of us don't know 5 cubable un cards in each colour. This way those who would like to run un cards or conspiracies can see which ones are the strongest. Comparing them to normal cards will be harder, but the results they get now are already questionable.
Agreed on that point as well. Conspiracy cards make the voting really hard in the colorless section. I'm not even sure how to dress it up yet because I've no experience with them at all.
So be it. I was going by what was the majority of opinions in the "planning thread" hopefulhawkeye opened last month. I wouldn't mind either way personally, but no objection was raised after I posted the rules here with the conspiracies as colorless so that's how the voting started and will have to stay that way this year.
My problem with the idea is only that it's yet another four-days voting for a project that's already a bit too long to finish. We are still halfway through (6th voting thread out of 11). So if anyone is willing to discuss the rules for the next threads now, it would be better than interrupting an ongoing thread.
Just to point out, as the rules stand today, the next votings are:
* LANDS. Same rules as last year for which lands are voted in other threads (single-color lands were already voted in the color groups; dual manlands and 'utility lands' like Kessig Wolf Run are voted in the guilds).
* GUILDS part 1 - allied pairs. Each guild is a Top 10 rather than a Top 20, so 50 cards total per vote. Same rules as last year for what is valid (so Signets/Talismans, Manlands and Utility Lands are to be voted here).
* GUILDS part 2 - enemy pairs. See above.
* SHARDS and WEDGES. Each group is just a Top 3, so 30 cards total per vote. Otherwise, same rules as GUILDS.
* OVERALL. A Top 30 this year.
In all cases, vintage-banned cards will still be voted as if they were regular cards.
I'm willing to see changes being made to any of those points before their voting starts.
I don't think the votes that are left will be affected by non Vintage legal cards nearly as much as the colorless vote has been. Maybe City of Ass makes it, but one card out of twenty isn't that big of a deal. I do agree that next year these types of cards should be excluded from the other votes and instead get their own vote. There's enough interest in them among cubers that they deserve their own list. I would probably just do a top twenty for that group and not try to separate them by colors. Are there even 20 really good Un/Conspiracies?
It looks like I'm in the minority, but I am very glad that Conspiracies have been included with the rest of the colorless cards this year. Based on the results so far, it looks like I've been seriously undervaluing Backup Plan (some people are ranking it as near or even better than Moxen), and I would not have learned that if I didn't see how people were ranking Conspiracies and Conspiracy constructs alongside the rest of the colorless cards.
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I think that's a good point, but I honestly have no idea how to rank a card like Backup Plan or Double Stroke. I feel like ranking Ancestral Recall or Black Lotus when you've never played them in cube is easier to do than ranking a conspiracy that you have no experience with.
Maybe, but that doesn't seem to be 100% obvious even to powered cubers, much less to anyone who's only run an unpowered cube. At a glance of the votes that have come in so far in the colorless section, there seems to be a fair bit of disagreement about whether Sol Ring or Black Lotus belongs in the top spot, and how moxen rank against Jitte. Other fast mana that only goes into powered cubes like Mana Vault and Mana Crypt are even trickier to evaluate, so I just left those out of my evaluation. This seems to be par for the course as long as we have powered cubers ranking cards along with unpowered cubers.
I don't blame anyone who leaves the Conspiracies and draft-altering constructs out of their power rankings due to lack of experience the way I did with Mana Vault, but since these cards are played in quite a few cubes, they're only played in cubes, and they rival some of the most powerful cards in the cube I'd say it's pretty important for us as a community to do our best to rank their power level as part of this project.
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It distorts the value of 'normal' cards but also undervalues their power. If only half votes for conspiracies and even less for Un-cards then the value of the results goes down. It means that people vote for different group of cards.
While I wish that all the non-Vintage legal cards would be in their own section, how is this any different from unpowered voters excluding the best cards from their lists simply because they don't like them? Voters excluded Mind Twist from their list because they hate it, regardless of what its power is. Those kinds of votes also skew the data too, and it's happened in every voting group. If I have to assume that I can stumble upon Backup Plan in a pack and vote for it accordingly, unpowered drafters should assume they can stumble upon broken stuff, and vote on them accordingly too. But not everybody does.
I made a recommendation last year to have players vote for their 20 favorite cards of each category, with no limit to the metrics you wanted to use to get the cards onto that list. Just your 20 favorite, in alphabetical order. Then we compile all those lists, and mane a "top 20" list based on the cards that showed up the most frequently. We would get similar results, but there'd be no arguing/debating over which metric was applied to create the list, and whacky voting wouldn't impact the list nearly as much, since card positioning doesn't matter. The list would then display the 20 cards that received the most votes, and were therefore considered a favorite cube card by the most playgroups.
It distorts the value of 'normal' cards but also undervalues their power. If only half votes for conspiracies and even less for Un-cards then the value of the results goes down. It means that people vote for different group of cards.
While I wish that all the non-Vintage legal cards would be in their own section, how is this any different from unpowered voters excluding the best cards from their lists simply because they don't like them? Voters excluded Mind Twist from their list because they hate it, regardless of what its power is. Those kinds of votes also skew the data too, and it's happened in every voting group. If I have to assume that I can stumble upon Backup Plan in a pack and vote for it accordingly, unpowered drafters should assume they can stumble upon broken stuff, and vote on them accordingly too. But not everybody does.
I made a recommendation last year to have players vote for their 20 favorite cards of each category, with no limit to the metrics you wanted to use to get the cards onto that list. Just your 20 favorite, in alphabetical order. Then we compile all those lists, and mane a "top 20" list based on the cards that showed up the most frequently. We would get similar results, but there'd be no arguing/debating over which metric was applied to create the list, and whacky voting wouldn't impact the list nearly as much, since card positioning doesn't matter. The list would then display the 20 cards that received the most votes, and were therefore considered a favorite cube card by the most playgroups.
There are differences I think. It is a lot harder to guess how strong Muzzio Preperations or Double Stroke are exactly without having played them. You don't have to be a card evaluation genius to understand that Time Walk and Ancestral are the best blue cards, even if you have never played them.
For me the problem with un cards is that I find it hard where to draw the line. Either I allow them all in my ranking or none. This means even the sillier dexterity or word play cards, which can be pretty broken. And then we are not even discussing the cheat card (I forgot how that is named). I know most people ignore the more unner cards (yes that seems to be a word now), but who decides what still is Magic and what becomes another game?
I don't agree that favourite=powerfull=first pick. I don't first pick my favourite cards, I first pick brute power or killer archetype cards. Elves of Deep Shadow is one of my favourite cards, but far from first pick quality. I love Necropotence but it isn't even in my cube.
The system as it is now is decent, but removing un cards and conspiracies might make it better. I think we should also make it clear that people should vote for all cards even if their cube doesn't run them (like we did in blue this year). This only leaves people hating cards (Mind Twist, Moat,...) and powerful cards that might be harder to evaluate (Mana Crypt might be hard to evaluate if you've never payed it for example).
Another difference between un/conspiracies and power is that the percentages are quite different. Only a minority votes for un cards, while the majority votes for power. The more people include a card in their 'eligible cards', the more correct its evaluation will be.
There are certainly differences. But the attitude has always been (despite the P1P1 metric we have set) to vote for whatever you're comfortable with, and for whatever cards you want. Those parameters better lend themselves to doing a "favorite" cube cards vote rather than the most "powerful" cube cards, since players seem to exclude great cards from their votes simply because they don't like them, or default to the "lack of experience" excuse to exclude them. The results we get are a bit disingenuous because of that, and while the "favorite" metric might not be as useful as the data we're trying to extrapolate, the data would be far more pure and more accurate.
I don't know if you are willing to put in the extra time, but it would be nice if the outlier votes didn't punish cards in the top 5 so aggressively
If 18/20 people vote a card in first place, and 2/20 don't include it in their lists, or vote it irrationally low, it pulls it's value down a little too hard relative to it's competitors.
One simple solution would be to take the average of the highest 90% of votes or something, but I'm sure there are better statistical models to dampen the effect of the outliers.
Least squared analysis I think?
This would improve the problem of people not voting for a particular card (conspiracies/power), as well as reducing the impact of "troll" votes.
I hate to be an ********, but it's clear a couple of the voters have little idea how to evaluate cards and their opinion weighting on the top cards is very significant.
IE if you have 20 voters. There's 1 ultra powerful best card of all time, clearly votes 1st, another card that clearly votes 2nd and another one that clearly votes 3rd. All it takes is 2 non votes to turn a card that should be first, into third place. That gives the outlier votes a very strong weighting.
I find it hard to believe that people can't evaluate most of the conspiracies in their head. Doubling an instant or sorcery, playing a card for any color mana, getting an extra +1/+1 counter, costing less, etc are all easy to imagine applied to the best or worst cards in your cube.
I find it hard to believe that people can't evaluate most of the conspiracies in their head. Doubling an instant or sorcery, playing a card for any color mana, getting an extra +1/+1 counter, costing less, etc are all easy to imagine applied to the best or worst cards in your cube.
This is true of all the cards that are banned from typical unpowered cube lists, but voters still exclude/underrate those cards all the time.
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I propose to add a voluntary extra group next year for these special, not tournament legal cards. People could vote for a top 5 (or 3) in each section, but it should not be obliged to fill all the positions in their ranking. A lot of us don't know 5 cubable un cards in each colour. This way those who would like to run un cards or conspiracies can see which ones are the strongest. Comparing them to normal cards will be harder, but the results they get now are already questionable.
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My problem with the idea is only that it's yet another four-days voting for a project that's already a bit too long to finish. We are still halfway through (6th voting thread out of 11). So if anyone is willing to discuss the rules for the next threads now, it would be better than interrupting an ongoing thread.
Just to point out, as the rules stand today, the next votings are:
* LANDS. Same rules as last year for which lands are voted in other threads (single-color lands were already voted in the color groups; dual manlands and 'utility lands' like Kessig Wolf Run are voted in the guilds).
* GUILDS part 1 - allied pairs. Each guild is a Top 10 rather than a Top 20, so 50 cards total per vote. Same rules as last year for what is valid (so Signets/Talismans, Manlands and Utility Lands are to be voted here).
* GUILDS part 2 - enemy pairs. See above.
* SHARDS and WEDGES. Each group is just a Top 3, so 30 cards total per vote. Otherwise, same rules as GUILDS.
* OVERALL. A Top 30 this year.
In all cases, vintage-banned cards will still be voted as if they were regular cards.
I'm willing to see changes being made to any of those points before their voting starts.
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I don't blame anyone who leaves the Conspiracies and draft-altering constructs out of their power rankings due to lack of experience the way I did with Mana Vault, but since these cards are played in quite a few cubes, they're only played in cubes, and they rival some of the most powerful cards in the cube I'd say it's pretty important for us as a community to do our best to rank their power level as part of this project.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
While I wish that all the non-Vintage legal cards would be in their own section, how is this any different from unpowered voters excluding the best cards from their lists simply because they don't like them? Voters excluded Mind Twist from their list because they hate it, regardless of what its power is. Those kinds of votes also skew the data too, and it's happened in every voting group. If I have to assume that I can stumble upon Backup Plan in a pack and vote for it accordingly, unpowered drafters should assume they can stumble upon broken stuff, and vote on them accordingly too. But not everybody does.
I made a recommendation last year to have players vote for their 20 favorite cards of each category, with no limit to the metrics you wanted to use to get the cards onto that list. Just your 20 favorite, in alphabetical order. Then we compile all those lists, and mane a "top 20" list based on the cards that showed up the most frequently. We would get similar results, but there'd be no arguing/debating over which metric was applied to create the list, and whacky voting wouldn't impact the list nearly as much, since card positioning doesn't matter. The list would then display the 20 cards that received the most votes, and were therefore considered a favorite cube card by the most playgroups.
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There are differences I think. It is a lot harder to guess how strong Muzzio Preperations or Double Stroke are exactly without having played them. You don't have to be a card evaluation genius to understand that Time Walk and Ancestral are the best blue cards, even if you have never played them.
For me the problem with un cards is that I find it hard where to draw the line. Either I allow them all in my ranking or none. This means even the sillier dexterity or word play cards, which can be pretty broken. And then we are not even discussing the cheat card (I forgot how that is named). I know most people ignore the more unner cards (yes that seems to be a word now), but who decides what still is Magic and what becomes another game?
I don't agree that favourite=powerfull=first pick. I don't first pick my favourite cards, I first pick brute power or killer archetype cards. Elves of Deep Shadow is one of my favourite cards, but far from first pick quality. I love Necropotence but it isn't even in my cube.
The system as it is now is decent, but removing un cards and conspiracies might make it better. I think we should also make it clear that people should vote for all cards even if their cube doesn't run them (like we did in blue this year). This only leaves people hating cards (Mind Twist, Moat,...) and powerful cards that might be harder to evaluate (Mana Crypt might be hard to evaluate if you've never payed it for example).
Another difference between un/conspiracies and power is that the percentages are quite different. Only a minority votes for un cards, while the majority votes for power. The more people include a card in their 'eligible cards', the more correct its evaluation will be.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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If 18/20 people vote a card in first place, and 2/20 don't include it in their lists, or vote it irrationally low, it pulls it's value down a little too hard relative to it's competitors.
One simple solution would be to take the average of the highest 90% of votes or something, but I'm sure there are better statistical models to dampen the effect of the outliers.
Least squared analysis I think?
This would improve the problem of people not voting for a particular card (conspiracies/power), as well as reducing the impact of "troll" votes.
I hate to be an ********, but it's clear a couple of the voters have little idea how to evaluate cards and their opinion weighting on the top cards is very significant.
IE if you have 20 voters. There's 1 ultra powerful best card of all time, clearly votes 1st, another card that clearly votes 2nd and another one that clearly votes 3rd. All it takes is 2 non votes to turn a card that should be first, into third place. That gives the outlier votes a very strong weighting.
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This is true of all the cards that are banned from typical unpowered cube lists, but voters still exclude/underrate those cards all the time.
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!