Had an interesting discussion with some friend this weekend about how to craft and build the cube.
He was stating that some cubes, without considering the power or unpower state of it, were craft using a unfair shell while others use a fair one. I was a bit confuse at first, because I thought he was only referring to the power aspect of it. But after we discuss about it, I understand that he meant something completly different. To make you guys understand, I will state some examples of cards that we talked about.
For him, cards like Hero of Bladehold and Polukranos, World Eater are just too much fair to be played into cubes that want to force unfairness, like strong control, combos and stuff. Even cards like Thundermaw Hellkite, Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath and at some point, the majority of other 4-drop/5-drop dudes seems to be too much fair for his dutties. For him, they don’t fit into any decks.
My friend then adds that those cards are replace by others that have the purpose, while being narrow, of pushing the cube’s archetypes more and more into the unfair stuff. Muddle the Mixture is a example of that. Other narrow stuff have been added as well, such as Pattern of Rebirth, one card that can be found in the MTGO Holiday Cube list. Also, less creatures are used and the focus seems to be more on spells and cheat stuff, while midrange seems to be completly absent from it.
He also states that classic fair cube does play a lot of unfair card, but couldn’t be consider as unfair cube though because the unfair cards were so much dilluated in the majority of fair cards that are running around. I was, and still is, sceptical about it because the majority of cornerstone cards that he mention and that are played in his unfair cube seems to be also find in mine and in the majority of classic powered ones. The only true diffrence between both kinds of cube is that cards that he consider fair in mine are replace by some kind of narrow helpers for the unfair strategies in his.
Do you guys ever heard about or see any of those unfair cube list? Do you have any other example of narrow cards that are listed in those? What a typical list of unfair cube looks like? Is it that so much different from classic ones?
I think you need a mixture of both for a successful cube. The unfair decks can mitigate a Hero of Bladehold, but in the same sense Hero forces those unfair decks to put up or shut up, i.e. you either do your unfair ***** now or you die. I think it's possible to support the unfair strategies without having to force too many of the narrow cards that are great in these unfair strategies into your cube.
I prefer cubing with fair decks that use unfair cards. The strategies don't result in instant wins. Combat is relevant. Stabilization and comeback wins are possible. And even decks that are doing seemingly unfair things like cheating big monsters into play and stuff can still be interacted with by the "fair" strategies in the cube. I think it makes for more compelling gameplay than the "unfair" cubes that revolve around non-interactive avenues to victory that either go off and instantly win (Storm, Twin, Vault, etc) competing against "fair" decks (generic aggro, midrange, control decks, etc).
So I prefer powered caliber cards, performing in a role that supports fun and largely interactive games. By a lot of people's definitions, that would be "fair" cube design.
People define "fair" in a really strange way. I read it as "doesn't break my perceptions of what's good and bad." A coin flip is "fair" in the game-theory sense, so even a cube so degenerate that whoever goes first always wins is "fair."
If the cube is built as a pile of "the best cards in a vacuum," mid-range is pretty much the only viable strategy. People include objectively bad cards (ie. Worldspine Wurm) in their cubes just because they're good in the context of another card. For example, Emrakul is nearly worthless without some means of cheating his cost or Channel.
I would be really interested if someone could share a example of a typical unfair cube list here to actually see what it looks like. I'm curious about the identity of some cards that don't appear in classic lists. I understand that those list run stuff like Vault, Storm and Kikki combos, but what else?
The mtgo powered cube would be a good example. If your deck has channel+emrakul and tinker + blightsteel, decks that have threats that powerful are going to be the better decks. I maintain that cards that threaten to win the game on their own (like thundermaw hellkite), will always be at minimum in a powered cube. It's the archetype support cards, like savannah lions and serendib efreet that get crushed when the archetype that they're supposed to fit in just isn't good any more.
I would just use the words combo, uninteractive, and high power level, instead of "unfair". Like you said yourself, unfair can mean any of these, so it's just confusing.
I would say for example, that the fast mana in the form of moxen or lotus have somewhat "unfair" power level, but that's fine because there are only a few of them and you normally won't get more than 1 or 2 of them in a draft.
But it sounds like your friend was talking about a cube with lots of combo support. An instant win combo is highly uninteractive, but it doesn't have to be unfair if it requires many, maybe mana-intensive, cards to pull it off. I don't have much experience with combos, but I don't think that there are many that are good enough to actually perform well against the classic cube archetypes aggro, midrange and control. There isn't much you can pull off consistently in a singleton format.
Yeah, I have a way different definition of "unfair". Is turn one entomb, turn 2 animate deadGriselbrand fair or unfair? That's a matter of opinion I think with no right or wrong answer. But knowing where your players stand on that is key.
With all the power creep of recent sets, I feel there is a ton of design space for rare cubes these days. So much so, that the idea of categorizing them all together and using simplistic differentiations like "powered" vs "unpowered" is bordering on nonsensical at this point. I run a rare cube with plenty of broken stuff going on, but it's a turn slower than most contemporary lists and so it plays very different from other unpowered cubes (forget about comparing it to powered - that's night and day).
All of this is going to be largely play group dependent too, so it's hard to be black and white about some of these classifications. There are guys who have posted heavily combo based cubes with cards that I would find too narrow for my group. But it clearly works for them (things like storm for example).
At the end of the day, what kind of cube you choose to run has to be largely a personal choice. As a general rule, you want to encourage whatever your players will find the most fun. But "fun" is going to potentially be a very different beast depending on who you ask. In my mind, that's the hard part about being a cube designer... figuring out what your group likes and doesn't like and crafting a meta that scratches the most itches for everyone while being as balanced as possible.
At the end of the day, what kind of cube you choose to run has to be largely a personal choice. As a general rule, you want to encourage whatever your players will find the most fun. But "fun" is going to potentially be a very different beast depending on who you ask. In my mind, that's the hard part about being a cube designer... figuring out what your group likes and doesn't like and crafting a meta that scratches the most itches for everyone while being as balanced as possible.
Yeah, exactly this.
I have only ever had to axe three cards out of my cube for "unfun"-ness, and all three fall into the "combo" and "high power level" fields of the discussion:
Sylvan is probably perfectly fine in faster environments, but it's banned in EDH for a very good reason. I don't think anyone would argue about the power level of RN or Tinker.
And, to be fair to all three of those cards, they may well be back some day - if the power level of the rest of the cube continues to rise (which it inevitably does), it will eventually get to the point where these three become acceptable again and are allowed back in (and I suppose are deemed "fun" once more).
He was stating that some cubes, without considering the power or unpower state of it, were craft using a unfair shell while others use a fair one. I was a bit confuse at first, because I thought he was only referring to the power aspect of it. But after we discuss about it, I understand that he meant something completly different. To make you guys understand, I will state some examples of cards that we talked about.
For him, cards like Hero of Bladehold and Polukranos, World Eater are just too much fair to be played into cubes that want to force unfairness, like strong control, combos and stuff. Even cards like Thundermaw Hellkite, Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath and at some point, the majority of other 4-drop/5-drop dudes seems to be too much fair for his dutties. For him, they don’t fit into any decks.
My friend then adds that those cards are replace by others that have the purpose, while being narrow, of pushing the cube’s archetypes more and more into the unfair stuff. Muddle the Mixture is a example of that. Other narrow stuff have been added as well, such as Pattern of Rebirth, one card that can be found in the MTGO Holiday Cube list. Also, less creatures are used and the focus seems to be more on spells and cheat stuff, while midrange seems to be completly absent from it.
He also states that classic fair cube does play a lot of unfair card, but couldn’t be consider as unfair cube though because the unfair cards were so much dilluated in the majority of fair cards that are running around. I was, and still is, sceptical about it because the majority of cornerstone cards that he mention and that are played in his unfair cube seems to be also find in mine and in the majority of classic powered ones. The only true diffrence between both kinds of cube is that cards that he consider fair in mine are replace by some kind of narrow helpers for the unfair strategies in his.
Do you guys ever heard about or see any of those unfair cube list? Do you have any other example of narrow cards that are listed in those? What a typical list of unfair cube looks like? Is it that so much different from classic ones?
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So I prefer powered caliber cards, performing in a role that supports fun and largely interactive games. By a lot of people's definitions, that would be "fair" cube design.
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If the cube is built as a pile of "the best cards in a vacuum," mid-range is pretty much the only viable strategy. People include objectively bad cards (ie. Worldspine Wurm) in their cubes just because they're good in the context of another card. For example, Emrakul is nearly worthless without some means of cheating his cost or Channel.
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I would say for example, that the fast mana in the form of moxen or lotus have somewhat "unfair" power level, but that's fine because there are only a few of them and you normally won't get more than 1 or 2 of them in a draft.
But it sounds like your friend was talking about a cube with lots of combo support. An instant win combo is highly uninteractive, but it doesn't have to be unfair if it requires many, maybe mana-intensive, cards to pull it off. I don't have much experience with combos, but I don't think that there are many that are good enough to actually perform well against the classic cube archetypes aggro, midrange and control. There isn't much you can pull off consistently in a singleton format.
With all the power creep of recent sets, I feel there is a ton of design space for rare cubes these days. So much so, that the idea of categorizing them all together and using simplistic differentiations like "powered" vs "unpowered" is bordering on nonsensical at this point. I run a rare cube with plenty of broken stuff going on, but it's a turn slower than most contemporary lists and so it plays very different from other unpowered cubes (forget about comparing it to powered - that's night and day).
All of this is going to be largely play group dependent too, so it's hard to be black and white about some of these classifications. There are guys who have posted heavily combo based cubes with cards that I would find too narrow for my group. But it clearly works for them (things like storm for example).
At the end of the day, what kind of cube you choose to run has to be largely a personal choice. As a general rule, you want to encourage whatever your players will find the most fun. But "fun" is going to potentially be a very different beast depending on who you ask. In my mind, that's the hard part about being a cube designer... figuring out what your group likes and doesn't like and crafting a meta that scratches the most itches for everyone while being as balanced as possible.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
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http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Yeah, exactly this.
I have only ever had to axe three cards out of my cube for "unfun"-ness, and all three fall into the "combo" and "high power level" fields of the discussion:
And, to be fair to all three of those cards, they may well be back some day - if the power level of the rest of the cube continues to rise (which it inevitably does), it will eventually get to the point where these three become acceptable again and are allowed back in (and I suppose are deemed "fun" once more).
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