One nice thing I feel about cards like this in cube is even if your deck sucks, you can still get cheap wins by simply drawing cards like this. It helps even the playing field somewhat between your weaker and better players since anyone can rip a card like this and just beat you with it regardless of what else you might be doing.
This is probably one of the main reasons I like cube so much. If I draft a train wreck in most retail limited formats, I have a train wreck. In cube, it will probably be worse than other decks at the table, but the deck should still have bombs and the potential to win on the back of those. Very rarely do I feel like my worst decks have no shot, and very rarely are my best decks unbeatable, and I think that's a good thing for all skill levels. People often say that cube isnt the best for inexperienced/new players, but once you improve the basics of your game it's a great way to get free continual practice at limited and the concepts involved with magic, all the while having cards that can still win you the game and keep you coming back.
I've always loved Bribery for or against because it's such an intense, mental card. Game 1 when you bribery someone with a good amount of cards in their hand, there's so much information to figure out from both players. What have they seen? Do they know what I have? What conclusions can be drawn from what's in there and what isn't? It's a back-breaking play in some match ups and kinda meh in others, but I absolutely love cards that test you so mentally like Bribery does, as it pretty much shoves information in your face and makes you test your memory for what's in there or not. Sure, sometimes the games end quickly, but that's OK since you learn so much by what they take, what they react to, what they comment on, etc etc etc.
That is a bit less intensive when playing it online since you can just screen shot.
That's an interesting point. Do you all feel like this? Because I actually want pretty much the opposite from my particular cube. That's actually one of the reasons, I went for a lower power level: I don't wan't cards that give you a cheap win or win the game by their own. I want skillfull, synergistic deck building to be as important as possible.
I think my current list represents this quite well, but you're also correct about the downside. When we draft with less skilled players, they often lose a lot, like really a lot.
I'm torn personally. I like the idea of lowering negative variance in general, but the reality is there's a large skill gap in my group. I take the game a lot more serious than most others, I design the cubes we play and do most of the testing so I have a natural advantage. I have another friend who is very good at the game and we both tend to win a lot when we take it seriously. High variance can be useful in balancing this even while it can lead to a lower overall quality of Magic played. If I had a more consistent and dedicated group, I'd be solidly on your side of the argument FWIW. As it stands for me though, if my meta gets too skill intensive people are going to be less inclined to play it because they simply aren't that invested.
The mothership wrote an article that touched a bit on this. More focused if I recall on the variance from the randomness the game has versus super broken cards ruining games of Magic. But it's under the same umbrella. Sometimes you make a play mistake and it's easier to blame the draw or Mind Twist for why you lost. At least in cube though, sometimes you really did lose to Mind Twist and for no other reason. I think they both can be OK and serve a useful function and contribute to fun.
Yikh. I don't want Mind Twist in my cube. Hymn to Tourach is bad enough. I'm constantly asking myself "Does this card enrich or diminish my cube experience?" Just today, that question came up with Spark Trooper. It's a damn powerful card, and I happen to have a foil copy, but does anyone ever enjoy it? It's a constant struggle.
I like it when my opponent plays Who/What/When/Where/Why. It gets me wondering in which way I'm screwed. I've not enjoyed facing down Inferno Titan, and I'm considering cutting it for the "unfun" factor.
The existence of powerful cards doesn't make skillful, synergistic deckbuilding less important.
Once the core of your team is built around your offensive and defensive line play, it doesn't hurt to pick up some good skill position players though.
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Parallax Wave is one of the more powerful cards I had to cut due to competition at the CMC. It's in the most stacked slot in the cube, and unfortunately I just can't find room. Great card though.
A Welder/Daretti/Wheel deck designed to deck the opponent. It won the draft too.
Parallax Wave... lots of great stories with that card in cube. It's very powerful and flexible. You can use it offensively or defensively. I've seen a ton of creative plays with it. Gameplay is deep. Sad to see it getting pushed out of power cubes though. That's a bummer.
Blink and bounce are both super strong effects and wave in particular was too powerful for my lower powered midrange list. It's also out of place in my retro cube based on how I designed the parameters (much weaker creature suite so this effect is too good for the mana cost despite being itself a retro card). I sort of miss running Wave though. Card is definitely sweet and fun to play with.
Weirdest deck... so one guy drafted this pile of basically random cards. It was like 4 colors, a "good stuff" deck I suppose but totally aimless and nonsensical. It had aggro creatures with wrath effects, other random things that didn't go together at all. It made no sense. I swear he did some kind of secret stipulation draft with himself and didn't tell anyone. But it was his night I guess and he just pulled every card he needed when he needed it like voodoo. I wish I saved the deck list to this ridiculous thing.
Parallax wave is in one of the most competitive slots in cube, so I've never actually tried it, but it looks pretty good.
The weirdest deck that has ever been drafted in my cube was a 33 land 7 card deck that was made for a free for all game, it did nothing while other people fought, played knight of the reliquary into Armageddon then murdered everyone, it objectively wasn't a good deck by any means, but that doesn't matter if it won.
One nice thing I feel about cards like this in cube is even if your deck sucks, you can still get cheap wins by simply drawing cards like this. It helps even the playing field somewhat between your weaker and better players since anyone can rip a card like this and just beat you with it regardless of what else you might be doing.
This is probably one of the main reasons I like cube so much. If I draft a train wreck in most retail limited formats, I have a train wreck. In cube, it will probably be worse than other decks at the table, but the deck should still have bombs and the potential to win on the back of those. Very rarely do I feel like my worst decks have no shot, and very rarely are my best decks unbeatable, and I think that's a good thing for all skill levels. People often say that cube isnt the best for inexperienced/new players, but once you improve the basics of your game it's a great way to get free continual practice at limited and the concepts involved with magic, all the while having cards that can still win you the game and keep you coming back.
That's an interesting point. Do you all feel like this? Because I actually want pretty much the opposite from my particular cube. That's actually one of the reasons, I went for a lower power level: I don't wan't cards that give you a cheap win or win the game by their own. I want skillfull, synergistic deck building to be as important as possible.
I think my current list represents this quite well, but you're also correct about the downside. When we draft with less skilled players, they often lose a lot, like really a lot.
This is part of the reason I ran a pauper cube for a while too. I see your line of thought and agree that's important, and frankly in regular cube it happens more often than not. Like, I used to play with a guy who was a genius player. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn't, he's just great with game theory, when cube is on MODO he regularly gets to 1900+ rating, he was an amazing RTS player, the best chess player I've personally known, etc. And in powered cube, he still dominates.
He would win more often than not, and always playing powered cube against him was both always mentally demanding and usually a losing effort. And this is in powered cube, where other players are allowed to have broken unbeatable starts too.
So when it came down to it, I had to make a decision: we can play lower powered lists where he and other good players will dominate and the variance is greatly reduced, OR we could play powered cube and he will still more often than not but every once in a while a newer/worse player can win in the back of their own craziness.
It's also kind of the reason why I don't like going lower powered, since I feel like the free wins aren't a problem. If I was playing less it would be more noticeable, but just like in actual vintage I feel like the free wins are way less often and games typically come down to the better player/plays and not the better cards. So if I'm going to cube and he and other players are going to win a lot anyways, it seems like the best choice to go high power and let worse players make sick decks that can combat what is already an uphill battle. The closer you bring the game to chess (exaggeration but still) the less fun it is for new/worse players to sit down and want to.draft knowing they are going to lose a lot.
EDIT: Also, Black Lotus/Ancestral Recall/Time Walk/etc are fun. There are few places you can use them, and for me it's really enjoyable to draft a deck and do disgusting stuff. Ignoring player quality completely, it's so much fun in a format that's a lot of fun without them.
I think it's important to approach design from both angles. Cubes should have powerful synergy and also powerful cards. If cards can't win games outside of specific shells, the draft process gets really boring. "Archetype carousels" make for terrible drafting experiences, and that's what you get when every deck has to be archetype-specific and good stuff generic theater shells can't compete. Cutting the best of the cards from the cube for more archetype support makes deck synergy more important, but it also eliminates a huge part of what makes Magic a great game. And I think it completely wrecks the drafting and deckbuilding processes. I've heard people argue for years that cutting the best cards makes the experience richer; I've experienced the exact opposite phenomenon.
Paralax Wave has always interested me; I seems to play well in most archtypes with some shell turning it into an all star. Unfortunately I have no experience with it.
Can't really think of a weird deck, just janky one like jamming Goblin Welder and an artifact package into an agro deck as a back-up plan or random 5-colour goodstuff decks that are just jamming raw power despite conflicting directions.
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I used to want to add Mind Twist for its raw power but after many years of Hymn to Tourach I don't think its something I want in my cube.I love Hymn, and it can also ruin your day but it is a set amount of cards where as Mind Twist scales in a way that seems very unfun by potentially taking an opponents hand at any stage in the game.
It is definitely a very powerful card but to me it just feel a but too unfun. The excitement of casting it doesn't (for me) outweigh the potential feel bads it's gonna cause. Additionally, since I run 3-way games a lot of the time and its a card that is most effective when played early and requires a single target Mind Twist is basically gonna screw one player out of the game without ending the game like it might in two player (i.e. opponent scooping) so whoever got the X=4 Mind Twist in the early game just has to hang on whilst the remaining two players actually get to play magic.
I honestly don't see how this could make the drafting/deckbuilding worse.
What I've noticed with cubes that have intentionally lowered powerlevels is that decks that aren't archetype centric can't really compete. It's hard enough in fully powered cubes with all the broken stuff for a generic goodstuff deck to be able to go toe-to-toe with a well-oiled archetype deck. In fact, the only thing that keeps those decks in the game is the ability to allow the card quality to shoulder some of the weight. Otherwise the deck synergy and interactions will just dominate. And don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. Rewarding synergy-centric deckbuilding is important. But drafts get boring and formats get solved when that's the only way to remain competitive. Having individually powerful cards that are good enough to turn a game around are imperative for fostering an environment with balance, in my experience. Seems counter-intuitive, but it self-regulates the railway drafting/archetype carousel and provides a reasonable counter for streamlined archetypes.
Obviously, YMMV. There's more than one way to achieve a balance between powerlevel and archetype play, but I wanted to share my opinion that reducing the powerlevel doesn't automatically solve all the problems some folks think it does. And it can actually create new problems. You just have to decide what's best for your playgroup, and go with that. Neither method addresses all the problems designers ultimately have to deal with. You have to balance out swinginess/variance vs having "good-stuff" decks becoming just "stuff" decks.
I agree with WTWLF here to a large degree. Having experimented with a wide range of power levels, I see pitfalls and flaws with each approach (along with benefits to each). Magic is an inherently flawed game and so I don't know if there is a perfect solution to all of the games issues. Therefore, it's going to be largely dependent on a group's preference as to which approach works best.
My take on rare cubing is you have three viable approaches:
Power cubing: This is mainstream cubing and encompasses both P9 and "unpowered" (complete misnomer IMO) cubing. Discussion on this forum focuses largely on this approach. For the most part, the best and most powerful cards are run in these lists. Because the power band between the best cards and the worst cards is so large, you get the benefit WTWLF describes. There is a natural balance that happens when 25 or so of the cards in your cube are that much better than everything else - the scarcity of the effect works to your advantage here. On the negative end of this is that most of the gameplay revolves around those degenerate high powered cards. Synergy drafting that doesn't involve those cards is heavily suppressed as a result. And the less restraint on power level the more severe this effect tends to be. It's not that you can't win with a deck with zero degenerate cards, but you are going to be playing very much behind the 8 ball. 2 power 1 drop aggro becomes a critical equalizer and has to be supported heavily in most of these types of lists or you wind up with the MTGO Vintage cube and haymaker Magic.
Low power cubing: Tends to revolve heavily around synergies since individual cards are generally weak on their own. Done correctly though, it is possible to create a very rich environment with deep decision density and very diverse deck building choices. This doesn't have to be a meta that is easily solvable, in fact it can be extremely dynamic (think OG Innistrad block). The problems though with this approach... First, each of these metas is highly custom since the card pool for this type of cube is absolutely massive - no two people will do it the same way and gameplay will often vary greatly between them (and be wildly different from power cubing above). As a result, you are building a very specific environment that requires a ton of testing and a diverse group to get it right. You cannot really rely very much on outside information (forums, etc), since much of this data will not easily apply to what you are doing. That's the largest drawback for me and why I never really got down quite this low in power (though I flirted with it for awhile). Sadly, I personally don't have the resources or time to make this work the way I would want.
Somewhere in the middle: Keep power level relatively high but try and infuse synergy/archetypes as the focus versus raw power. I like synergy drafting and I like powerful cards, and so I've tried to have my cake and eat it too to varying degrees of success (I think a lot of people end up here FWIW). There's always a compromise to be made somewhere though. If the overall power level is too high and the power range is too low, you wind up with something IMO even worse than on-the-rails archetype drafting. I call it the "good stuff" problem. Essentially everything is equally playable in pretty much anything (because all cards are above curve but nothing is truly broken), so decks draft themselves. This is great for casual players - anyone with a pulse can draft this type of list - but IMO it's very unsatisfying for those looking for depth during a draft. One nice upside is that gameplay tends to have high decision density due to a much flatter power curve (much like lower power cubing), but again the draft and deck building experience is just painfully bad (for me at least) to the point that it ruins most of my enjoyment. I absolutely love deck building (even more than playing the actual games) so if the drafting experience itself sucks I'm not going to want to cube. Alternatively, you can lower average power level to remove good stuff drafting and move more towards archetypes/synergies, but the more you bend this way the more you suffer from the type of drafting WTWLF mentions (draft archetype deck "X" or you have a pile of unplayable garbage and you lose). Game decision density can also suffer since archetype cards often have less flexibility than general good stuff cards - in other words, you build a deck that does X and that's basically all it really does - you only have the illusion of choice on your turns since you are really just sequencing out your strategy versus interacting with your opponent and making meaningful decisions. I've been experimenting with combo elements recently to try and bridge the gap of these two extremes (good stuff drafting vs on rails archetype drafting), but too much degeneracy and you undermine incremental gameplay which hurts synergy decks and discourages exploration and creativity during drafting in much the same way archetype drafting does. Feels like I keep robbing Peter to pay Paul.
It's very easy to get overwhelmed by cube design.
TLDR:
Every approach to cube design has benefits and drawbacks. No one approach is perfect. Each group has to experiment and see what works best for them.
My philosophy is that creativity should come from the players and not the cube designer. We provide the canvas and they draw. I dislike being led down into archetypes as a drafter. Synergies are good and important, as they provide a moment of discovery and give variation, but they are not the main thing about the experience. There is a lot of depth to be had with the individual basic effects of and in my opinion that should be the bread and butter of cube - should I remove that creature, should I counter that spell, am I overextending, can I afford to cast that card given my mana base.
As a result my cube prominently features two kinds of synergies. The first are "incidental" - both cards are good enough to see play at least some of the time without the synergy, but get much better when you have it. Those are lenticular cards - new drafters can just play them at face value, while the more invested will occasionally try and squeeze more out of them. Primeval Titan falls into this category, as can Honored Hydra. The second is build-around cards, that are a base for new types of decks but do not require you to play with a different subset of cards than you normally would.
A flat power level, or complete balance, creates many problems. It makes games more sensitive to mana screws and floods, and it is harder to get a comeback. When everything is equal, the person that draws more gas wins. It will also ultimately make some decisions not as important, especially in regards to answers. I am not saying making a cube flatter than a powered cube is a bad decision. I do however think that a very flat powerlevel should not be the design goal.
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Mind Twist is strong but I think it is generally overrated here (and strangely enough underrated in my playgroup). There is usually a small window in which Mind Twist is great and outside of that it is either weak or irrelevant. Too early, and the card does little to nothing. Too late and their hand is nearly empty. Optimally it should be cast for X=3/4 and deplete their hand, but against fast decks passing your fourth turn without affecting the board can be suicide. Against permission decks it is powerful but not special, it is just another expensive expensive spell they counter on sight. It is best against midrange decks, but again, unless you pair it with fast mana, your opponent has enough time to play before that so it doesn't feel unfair.
Paralax wave is one of those cards that I currently keep in because I like how unique it is. As space gets tighter though I will be sad when I have to find a cut for it, for example when I add Gideon now that his $ is dropping as he comes out of standard.
I will throw my 2 cents in on power level discussion as well. I like having some cards more powerful than others. It's always fun to open a new pack and be excited that you opened ____ insert powerful card here _____. If all the cards in cube are equal power level its hard to feel i pack 1 that you are picking the right cards. Because it incentives people to pick the strongest cards it allows you to read better what colors the people next to you are in as well
In terms of strangest deck anyone has ever drafted? I can't think of anything to far fetched to tell you the truth.
Since there has not been a new card in a while I thought I would add this one up.
Sorry if it has come up before, but I don't think there is anything wrong with revisiting cards on here multiple times and see what new discussions come up
Besides cube, do you play any other eternal formats?
Bonus question, What are the coolest interactions you have seen with eternal witness in cube? What shells do you like to run her in?
Eternal Witness is the quintessential green 3. I cannot imagine a cube concept where I wouldn't run this in the list (a "no green" cube I guess?). It scales with power level too. It's just a really great cube card. There are obtuse ETB effects (and too many cards like this in some cubes IMO), and then there's sweet ETB's like this one. It's the goldilocks of ETB creatures. I don't think there's a better designed one honestly.
Best play is probably looping Eternal Witness for a time walk effect. I don't run time walk but I do run Time Warp. A lot more expensive obviously, but still just as good if you can get there.
Eternal Witness is just a good creature. Creates good value, and it also part of multiple 3-card infinite combos! Even though that's really rare.
The only non-cube formats I play are Old School formats. 93/94 variants of any kind. Lately it's been Encyclopedia Magic (essentially Alpha - Alliances) and I've been having a lot of fun with that.
Witness is my favorite creature in Magic. Does so much for so little.
Theoretically, you can do the Time Walk/Mimic Vat combo in my cube but I've never assembled it. I once created a soft lock with Witness, Waterfront Bouncer, and Mana Drain. That was good times.
I play 60-card casual, EDH, cube, and Momir Semi-Basic, a format I created based on the Momir Basic online format. I'll go to a store and draft once in a while.
Not really anything to say about Witness. There was a time that my green 3-drops were scewed too heavily toward tiny utility dudes and heavy green costs, but even then she wasn't ever on the chopping block.
I mostly play retail limited and pickup games with a 16-deck pauper battle box. Then, obviously, cube, and occasionally EDH.
Witness usually goes in GB rock shells. I think she's one of the best possible hits off a Genesis Wave, which isn't really intuitive, as she costs well under s million mana.
Booster Tutor is pretty good. It usually equates to about a 1-mana Impulse for the average 2-color deck, which is obviously great. And in 4/5-color control decks, it's bonkers.
I have it as part of my conspiracy module, and make sure that it goes in with at least 14 other additional cards, so that even if the entire cube is drafted, there's enough cards left over in the box to create a fresh pack for BT. Same goes for Lore Seeker, which is why my expansion module is exactly 30 cards.
This is probably one of the main reasons I like cube so much. If I draft a train wreck in most retail limited formats, I have a train wreck. In cube, it will probably be worse than other decks at the table, but the deck should still have bombs and the potential to win on the back of those. Very rarely do I feel like my worst decks have no shot, and very rarely are my best decks unbeatable, and I think that's a good thing for all skill levels. People often say that cube isnt the best for inexperienced/new players, but once you improve the basics of your game it's a great way to get free continual practice at limited and the concepts involved with magic, all the while having cards that can still win you the game and keep you coming back.
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That is a bit less intensive when playing it online since you can just screen shot.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
I'm torn personally. I like the idea of lowering negative variance in general, but the reality is there's a large skill gap in my group. I take the game a lot more serious than most others, I design the cubes we play and do most of the testing so I have a natural advantage. I have another friend who is very good at the game and we both tend to win a lot when we take it seriously. High variance can be useful in balancing this even while it can lead to a lower overall quality of Magic played. If I had a more consistent and dedicated group, I'd be solidly on your side of the argument FWIW. As it stands for me though, if my meta gets too skill intensive people are going to be less inclined to play it because they simply aren't that invested.
The mothership wrote an article that touched a bit on this. More focused if I recall on the variance from the randomness the game has versus super broken cards ruining games of Magic. But it's under the same umbrella. Sometimes you make a play mistake and it's easier to blame the draw or Mind Twist for why you lost. At least in cube though, sometimes you really did lose to Mind Twist and for no other reason. I think they both can be OK and serve a useful function and contribute to fun.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I like it when my opponent plays Who/What/When/Where/Why. It gets me wondering in which way I'm screwed. I've not enjoyed facing down Inferno Titan, and I'm considering cutting it for the "unfun" factor.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Once the core of your team is built around your offensive and defensive line play, it doesn't hurt to pick up some good skill position players though.
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Parallax Wave is one of the more powerful cards I had to cut due to competition at the CMC. It's in the most stacked slot in the cube, and unfortunately I just can't find room. Great card though.
A Welder/Daretti/Wheel deck designed to deck the opponent. It won the draft too.
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!
Blink and bounce are both super strong effects and wave in particular was too powerful for my lower powered midrange list. It's also out of place in my retro cube based on how I designed the parameters (much weaker creature suite so this effect is too good for the mana cost despite being itself a retro card). I sort of miss running Wave though. Card is definitely sweet and fun to play with.
Weirdest deck... so one guy drafted this pile of basically random cards. It was like 4 colors, a "good stuff" deck I suppose but totally aimless and nonsensical. It had aggro creatures with wrath effects, other random things that didn't go together at all. It made no sense. I swear he did some kind of secret stipulation draft with himself and didn't tell anyone. But it was his night I guess and he just pulled every card he needed when he needed it like voodoo. I wish I saved the deck list to this ridiculous thing.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Lots of decisions, lots of power, real deep gameplay and a healthy dose of nostalgia have that card locked in.
The weirdest deck that has ever been drafted in my cube was a 33 land 7 card deck that was made for a free for all game, it did nothing while other people fought, played knight of the reliquary into Armageddon then murdered everyone, it objectively wasn't a good deck by any means, but that doesn't matter if it won.
thats my cube
This is part of the reason I ran a pauper cube for a while too. I see your line of thought and agree that's important, and frankly in regular cube it happens more often than not. Like, I used to play with a guy who was a genius player. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn't, he's just great with game theory, when cube is on MODO he regularly gets to 1900+ rating, he was an amazing RTS player, the best chess player I've personally known, etc. And in powered cube, he still dominates.
He would win more often than not, and always playing powered cube against him was both always mentally demanding and usually a losing effort. And this is in powered cube, where other players are allowed to have broken unbeatable starts too.
So when it came down to it, I had to make a decision: we can play lower powered lists where he and other good players will dominate and the variance is greatly reduced, OR we could play powered cube and he will still more often than not but every once in a while a newer/worse player can win in the back of their own craziness.
It's also kind of the reason why I don't like going lower powered, since I feel like the free wins aren't a problem. If I was playing less it would be more noticeable, but just like in actual vintage I feel like the free wins are way less often and games typically come down to the better player/plays and not the better cards. So if I'm going to cube and he and other players are going to win a lot anyways, it seems like the best choice to go high power and let worse players make sick decks that can combat what is already an uphill battle. The closer you bring the game to chess (exaggeration but still) the less fun it is for new/worse players to sit down and want to.draft knowing they are going to lose a lot.
EDIT: Also, Black Lotus/Ancestral Recall/Time Walk/etc are fun. There are few places you can use them, and for me it's really enjoyable to draft a deck and do disgusting stuff. Ignoring player quality completely, it's so much fun in a format that's a lot of fun without them.
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My 630 Card Powered Cube
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That said, I havent slotted Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and I have to make a cut. Might cut original Ajani Goldmane.
Can't really think of a weird deck, just janky one like jamming Goblin Welder and an artifact package into an agro deck as a back-up plan or random 5-colour goodstuff decks that are just jamming raw power despite conflicting directions.
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I used to want to add Mind Twist for its raw power but after many years of Hymn to Tourach I don't think its something I want in my cube.I love Hymn, and it can also ruin your day but it is a set amount of cards where as Mind Twist scales in a way that seems very unfun by potentially taking an opponents hand at any stage in the game.
It is definitely a very powerful card but to me it just feel a but too unfun. The excitement of casting it doesn't (for me) outweigh the potential feel bads it's gonna cause. Additionally, since I run 3-way games a lot of the time and its a card that is most effective when played early and requires a single target Mind Twist is basically gonna screw one player out of the game without ending the game like it might in two player (i.e. opponent scooping) so whoever got the X=4 Mind Twist in the early game just has to hang on whilst the remaining two players actually get to play magic.
What I've noticed with cubes that have intentionally lowered powerlevels is that decks that aren't archetype centric can't really compete. It's hard enough in fully powered cubes with all the broken stuff for a generic goodstuff deck to be able to go toe-to-toe with a well-oiled archetype deck. In fact, the only thing that keeps those decks in the game is the ability to allow the card quality to shoulder some of the weight. Otherwise the deck synergy and interactions will just dominate. And don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. Rewarding synergy-centric deckbuilding is important. But drafts get boring and formats get solved when that's the only way to remain competitive. Having individually powerful cards that are good enough to turn a game around are imperative for fostering an environment with balance, in my experience. Seems counter-intuitive, but it self-regulates the railway drafting/archetype carousel and provides a reasonable counter for streamlined archetypes.
Obviously, YMMV. There's more than one way to achieve a balance between powerlevel and archetype play, but I wanted to share my opinion that reducing the powerlevel doesn't automatically solve all the problems some folks think it does. And it can actually create new problems. You just have to decide what's best for your playgroup, and go with that. Neither method addresses all the problems designers ultimately have to deal with. You have to balance out swinginess/variance vs having "good-stuff" decks becoming just "stuff" decks.
Anyways, all the best. Cheers, and happy cubing.
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!
My take on rare cubing is you have three viable approaches:
Power cubing: This is mainstream cubing and encompasses both P9 and "unpowered" (complete misnomer IMO) cubing. Discussion on this forum focuses largely on this approach. For the most part, the best and most powerful cards are run in these lists. Because the power band between the best cards and the worst cards is so large, you get the benefit WTWLF describes. There is a natural balance that happens when 25 or so of the cards in your cube are that much better than everything else - the scarcity of the effect works to your advantage here. On the negative end of this is that most of the gameplay revolves around those degenerate high powered cards. Synergy drafting that doesn't involve those cards is heavily suppressed as a result. And the less restraint on power level the more severe this effect tends to be. It's not that you can't win with a deck with zero degenerate cards, but you are going to be playing very much behind the 8 ball. 2 power 1 drop aggro becomes a critical equalizer and has to be supported heavily in most of these types of lists or you wind up with the MTGO Vintage cube and haymaker Magic.
Low power cubing: Tends to revolve heavily around synergies since individual cards are generally weak on their own. Done correctly though, it is possible to create a very rich environment with deep decision density and very diverse deck building choices. This doesn't have to be a meta that is easily solvable, in fact it can be extremely dynamic (think OG Innistrad block). The problems though with this approach... First, each of these metas is highly custom since the card pool for this type of cube is absolutely massive - no two people will do it the same way and gameplay will often vary greatly between them (and be wildly different from power cubing above). As a result, you are building a very specific environment that requires a ton of testing and a diverse group to get it right. You cannot really rely very much on outside information (forums, etc), since much of this data will not easily apply to what you are doing. That's the largest drawback for me and why I never really got down quite this low in power (though I flirted with it for awhile). Sadly, I personally don't have the resources or time to make this work the way I would want.
Somewhere in the middle: Keep power level relatively high but try and infuse synergy/archetypes as the focus versus raw power. I like synergy drafting and I like powerful cards, and so I've tried to have my cake and eat it too to varying degrees of success (I think a lot of people end up here FWIW). There's always a compromise to be made somewhere though. If the overall power level is too high and the power range is too low, you wind up with something IMO even worse than on-the-rails archetype drafting. I call it the "good stuff" problem. Essentially everything is equally playable in pretty much anything (because all cards are above curve but nothing is truly broken), so decks draft themselves. This is great for casual players - anyone with a pulse can draft this type of list - but IMO it's very unsatisfying for those looking for depth during a draft. One nice upside is that gameplay tends to have high decision density due to a much flatter power curve (much like lower power cubing), but again the draft and deck building experience is just painfully bad (for me at least) to the point that it ruins most of my enjoyment. I absolutely love deck building (even more than playing the actual games) so if the drafting experience itself sucks I'm not going to want to cube. Alternatively, you can lower average power level to remove good stuff drafting and move more towards archetypes/synergies, but the more you bend this way the more you suffer from the type of drafting WTWLF mentions (draft archetype deck "X" or you have a pile of unplayable garbage and you lose). Game decision density can also suffer since archetype cards often have less flexibility than general good stuff cards - in other words, you build a deck that does X and that's basically all it really does - you only have the illusion of choice on your turns since you are really just sequencing out your strategy versus interacting with your opponent and making meaningful decisions. I've been experimenting with combo elements recently to try and bridge the gap of these two extremes (good stuff drafting vs on rails archetype drafting), but too much degeneracy and you undermine incremental gameplay which hurts synergy decks and discourages exploration and creativity during drafting in much the same way archetype drafting does. Feels like I keep robbing Peter to pay Paul.
It's very easy to get overwhelmed by cube design.
TLDR:
Every approach to cube design has benefits and drawbacks. No one approach is perfect. Each group has to experiment and see what works best for them.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
As a result my cube prominently features two kinds of synergies. The first are "incidental" - both cards are good enough to see play at least some of the time without the synergy, but get much better when you have it. Those are lenticular cards - new drafters can just play them at face value, while the more invested will occasionally try and squeeze more out of them. Primeval Titan falls into this category, as can Honored Hydra. The second is build-around cards, that are a base for new types of decks but do not require you to play with a different subset of cards than you normally would.
A flat power level, or complete balance, creates many problems. It makes games more sensitive to mana screws and floods, and it is harder to get a comeback. When everything is equal, the person that draws more gas wins. It will also ultimately make some decisions not as important, especially in regards to answers. I am not saying making a cube flatter than a powered cube is a bad decision. I do however think that a very flat powerlevel should not be the design goal.
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Mind Twist is strong but I think it is generally overrated here (and strangely enough underrated in my playgroup). There is usually a small window in which Mind Twist is great and outside of that it is either weak or irrelevant. Too early, and the card does little to nothing. Too late and their hand is nearly empty. Optimally it should be cast for X=3/4 and deplete their hand, but against fast decks passing your fourth turn without affecting the board can be suicide. Against permission decks it is powerful but not special, it is just another expensive expensive spell they counter on sight. It is best against midrange decks, but again, unless you pair it with fast mana, your opponent has enough time to play before that so it doesn't feel unfair.
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
I will throw my 2 cents in on power level discussion as well. I like having some cards more powerful than others. It's always fun to open a new pack and be excited that you opened ____ insert powerful card here _____. If all the cards in cube are equal power level its hard to feel i pack 1 that you are picking the right cards. Because it incentives people to pick the strongest cards it allows you to read better what colors the people next to you are in as well
In terms of strangest deck anyone has ever drafted? I can't think of anything to far fetched to tell you the truth.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Sorry if it has come up before, but I don't think there is anything wrong with revisiting cards on here multiple times and see what new discussions come up
Besides cube, do you play any other eternal formats?
Bonus question, What are the coolest interactions you have seen with eternal witness in cube? What shells do you like to run her in?
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Best play is probably looping Eternal Witness for a time walk effect. I don't run time walk but I do run Time Warp. A lot more expensive obviously, but still just as good if you can get there.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I like her in any BG with Pod, Green Sun's Zenith, Erratic Portal, or Recurring Nightmare deck. Add U to recur counterspells.
The only non-cube formats I play are Old School formats. 93/94 variants of any kind. Lately it's been Encyclopedia Magic (essentially Alpha - Alliances) and I've been having a lot of fun with that.
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!
Theoretically, you can do the Time Walk/Mimic Vat combo in my cube but I've never assembled it. I once created a soft lock with Witness, Waterfront Bouncer, and Mana Drain. That was good times.
I play 60-card casual, EDH, cube, and Momir Semi-Basic, a format I created based on the Momir Basic online format. I'll go to a store and draft once in a while.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
I mostly play retail limited and pickup games with a 16-deck pauper battle box. Then, obviously, cube, and occasionally EDH.
Witness usually goes in GB rock shells. I think she's one of the best possible hits off a Genesis Wave, which isn't really intuitive, as she costs well under s million mana.
How do you handle the logistics of this card?
How do you feel about cards with a pretty random outcome?
I have it as part of my conspiracy module, and make sure that it goes in with at least 14 other additional cards, so that even if the entire cube is drafted, there's enough cards left over in the box to create a fresh pack for BT. Same goes for Lore Seeker, which is why my expansion module is exactly 30 cards.
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!