Looking for some advice/general conversation around cards that are "unfun" for unpowered cubes due to being too powerful or leading to lopsided/boring/uninteractive matches in cube.
Specifically I am looking for feedback on Wurmcoil Engine and Jace, the Mind Sculptor in unpowered environments. I have already cut Skull Clamp and Sol Ring for being too good and have never included Wurmcoil and JTMS for similar fears.
Do you limit cards in unpowered cube for being too powerful? Or do you simply add more "answers" to these cards?
What other cards have you cut for being too oppresive/"unfun"
As an unpowered cube, I ban the typical stuff like Lotus / Moxen / Sol Ring / Library, etc. I also don't have some borderline power stuff like Skullclamp / Jitte / Moat but allow Grim Monolith / Balance / JTMS / etc.
I don't think Wurmcoil Engine is oppressive in an unpowered environment. If anything, it's weaker because you can't Tinker / ramp up to it as fast.
Jace is borderline to me, really depends on how aggressive your cube is.
It depends on what you call unpowered I guess. If that means just without the classic Power (Lotus, Moxen, Time Walk, Ancestral) I think that nothing much changes about how the cube works. If you do that i would also ban Sol Ring, Library and Mana Crypt.
But those cards are pretty far above 'normal' strong cube cards like Clamp, Wurmcoil or Jace. A normal cube is full of solutions for those cards. You just need to play them. Make sure your decks has answers against artifacts or enchantments. To me this has very little to do with powered vs. unpowered.
If with unpowered you mean low powered (compared with a 'normal' high power cube), then you can ban the top power cards of your cube (Jitte, clamp, Jace,...). It depends how much better they are then the rest of the cube. But again , a lot of people complain of certain cards, but also refuse to maindeck Disenchants or Manic Vandals or o-ring effects. Then the problem is not the power of the cards, but more the play style that doesn't take certain aspects of cube deck construction into account.
Even after going semi-powered, the following are staying out of my 540 for being oppressive:
Griselbrand
Jitte
Skullclamp
Sol Ring / Mana Crypt / Mana Vault
True-Name Nemesis (made some great game states, but players complained)
Emrakul 1.0
Moat effects
Ankh of Mishra (many control decks straight up lose to this because they cannot interact)
Wurmcoil and JtMS are harmless. Wurmcoil costs 6 and every color can answer it; JtMS often dies to bolt or Pulse before a player can untap with it.
Do you limit cards in unpowered cube for being too powerful? Or do you simply add more "answers" to these cards?
What other cards have you cut for being too oppresive/"unfun"
Aside from fast mana, the only cards I ever cut due to player complaints of being unbalanced are Backup Plan and Power Play, and that's because there's absolutely no answer to them. They're now in a separate module. Otherwise, I believe that having a diverse supply of versatile answers as well as broken cards for everyone to get to abuse makes for an exciting draft environment.
Wurmcoil costs 6 and every color can answer it;
Minor nitpick here, most cube black and red sections don't really have single card answers to Wurmcoil Engine (unless you count Thoughtseize) the way white, blue, and green do. It's a pretty tough card for a Rakdos deck to beat.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I think I am going to add Wurmcoil (fingers crossed for opening a masterpiece!)
I've wanted to keep my cube planeswalker free, other than the flip walkers, but I recently opened a JTMS from an eternal Masters pack so I figured what the hell maybe I'll try running one walker per colour.
People often say that balance can be opporessive but I also see a lot of people saying that it takes a lot of work to set up so it isn't as bad.
Also looking at adding timetwister considering it wasn't even voted into the top 20 for blue power rankings. I've never played with it but it seems like a great cube card on the "fun scale"
My 630 Cube is currently powered, but when I was unpowered I didn't run the following cards for fun reasons:
True-Name Nemesis
Mind Twist
Balance
Fast Mana (Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault)
Library of Alexandria
I also ran colorless mana rocks and talismans instead of signets.
But I kept Wurmcoil and Jitte and Papa Jace and didn't really have any complaints. I've also added Time Walk and Timetwister and they were fine (though Time Walk is still dumb). As long as you provide answers...
My 630 Cube is currently powered, but when I was unpowered I didn't run the following cards for fun reasons:
True-Name Nemesis
Mind Twist
Balance
Fast Mana (Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault)
Library of Alexandria
I also ran colorless mana rocks and talismans instead of signets.
But I kept Wurmcoil and Jitte and Papa Jace and didn't really have any complaints. I've also added Time Walk and Timetwister and they were fine (though Time Walk is still dumb). As long as you provide answers...
I added Time Walk to my unpowered cube once to test it out and immediately regretted it.
Timetwister / other draw 7s are perfectly fine in unpowered in my experience.
I used to want to stay planeswalker-free, mostly because I didn't own any. Then I got some, and my cube is better for it. They're powerful cards, mostly, but so is the rest of the cube.
As far as limiting for power: my cube is unpowered, meaning no power 9, Library, Sol Ring, or Mana Crypt. I'm also not running Mana Vault, mostly because I've found Grim Monolith to be about as much acceleration as the artifact and ramp decks need without crushing midrange. I'm open to trying Vault at some point, though. Everything else is fair game: Tinker, Balance, Upheaval, Opposition, Geddon. All require at least a little building around.
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Wurmcoil and Gideon Jura are not good if you want to support aggro in an un-powered environment
Jitte, Mind Twist, Balance, and to a lesser extent, Tinker and Sword of Body and Mind are all good things to remove from your cube to keep a relatively level playing field
Wurmcoil and Gideon Jura aren't too bad for aggro in unpowered. They stop the hurt pretty well, yes. But aggro should have had plenty of time to kill the opponent before they normally come down.
I decided to just copy down the power rankings list and how they've fared in unpowered for us, as those are going to be most of the cards in question anyway.
Sol Ring - Too strong
Library of Alexandria - Too strong
Black Lotus - Too strong
Ancestral Recall - Too strong
ABU Mox - Too strong
Time Walk - Too strong
Mana Crypt - Too strong
Umezawa's Jitte - Too strong
Mind Twist - Too strong
Balance - Fine as long as fast mana is scarce
Mana Drain - Too strong
Tinker - Fine
Mana Vault - Too strong
Recurring Nightmare - Fine
Skullclamp - Too strong
Mox Diamond - Fine
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Fine
Sulfuric Vortex - Fine
Demonic Tutor - Fine
Grim Monolith - Too strong
Armageddon (Ravages of War) - Fine
Strip Mine - Fine, though I prefer Wasteland as it's a bit more friendly
Upheaval - Fine
Sword of Fire and Ice - Fine
Treachery - Too strong
Vampiric Tutor - Fine
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - Fine
Survival of the Fittest - Fine
Wildfire (Burning of Xinye) - Fine
Natural Order - Fine
Mana Drain and Treachery are probably technically fine, but they are just plain unfair. You're already countering my spell/stealing my creature, why should you get free mana for doing it too?
Others that aren't on the list that we don't play for similar reasons are Moat, True-Name Nemesis, Opposition, and Batterskull.
seen a lot of people talk about reccuring nightmare as too strong. Without testing the card, it seems quite annoying and have left it out of my cube for that reason.
Nightmare is very strong and difficult to interact with. However, it (sometimes) requires setup and gives black some repeatable recursion that isn't Phyrexian Reclamation.
Nightmare and skullclamp have been fine for us. I did cut jitte though for being a little too opressive.
Treachery jas been strong, But not too strong yet for us.
I feel like treachery is unfair but still a fun card and definitely not unbeatable. I'm just going to stick with control magic for now but if a treachery appears in a trade binder i might go for it.
how do people feel about bribery? seems like it could feel very unfun/unfair. does it just wreck reanimator/natural order/show and tell/sneak attack decks that are packing the fatties? it seems like it would be strong against those decks in particular because it takes away one of (or potentially only) good target.
against any deck, stealing your opponents biggest bomb and forcing them to use up their own removal on it also just seems crazy.
seen a lot of people talk about reccuring nightmare as too strong. Without testing the card, it seems quite annoying and have left it out of my cube for that reason.
Recurring Nightmare is abusable, but I never saw it as oppressive. I play cube so I can cast cards like Recurring Nightmare since it's banned in EDH and unviable in Legacy / Vintage.
how do people feel about bribery? seems like it could feel very unfun/unfair.
Bribery is fine and can be a sideboard card in certain metas. It most certainly wrecks the cheaty decks, but sometimes the control deck taps five to search their opponent's library for a... Hero of Bladehold? It's more situational in cube than in EDH games (where I'm used to seeing it).
Recurring Nightmare is not an oppressive card if you have aggressive strategies properly supported. Is it a great card in slow mirrors? Absolutely. But when you don't have time to do the chain, it's not a card that can help you get out of the hole. It's a top card, but a proper aggressive deck that sticks around for the Recurring Nightmare chain isn't really losing to the Nightmare but whatever else stabilized the cube.
The goal of my cube is for decks to be able to safely run at least 1 seven drop, and I run about 3 more cards of each guild than most people here.
The most common archetypes drafted are mono-black control, grixis control, boros aggro, birthing pod, Wrb Angels, artifact silliness, finding a way to play Emrakul.
I've only cut a handful of cards because they were too strong or unfun to play against. Sol Ring - I don't know why I ever that thought this was a good idea
Swords of X and Y - These got cut a long time ago as my friends thought they were unfun to play against. Although they asked me to put them in again recently since my cube has gotten more streamlined. Umezawa's Jitte - Same as above Recurring nightmare - My friends found this annoying to play against because non-blue decks basically can't interact with it. I thought it was very strong but not oppressive, but enough complaining got me to remove it.
I'm also going to cut arcane savant soon. It has basically always read "3UU: Win the game" in my experience. I don't think I've ever seen someone cast it and lose.
As for cards that you mentioned some concern about... Wurmcoil Engine - This card is very strong but I've never considered it even close to being too strong. White has millions of answers to it and green/blue have a couple also. Black has enough card advantage to win through the tokens. Red decks lose to it, but meh. Jace, the mind sculpter - This card is top 5 blue cards in my cube, but isn't even the best in my cube (partly because I don't run fetches). I think it's likely weaker than tinker, opposition and arcane savant. It's more comparable to bribery and tamiyo, the moon sage. Bribery - is very strong but very situational. Sometimes you'll play against the Mono-R aggro and it does nothing. Often times it finds a creature that just immedietly eats a removal spell, so you get value but only so much so. Sometimes you get Emrakul and just win.
I'm also going to cut arcane savant soon. It has basically always read "3UU: Win the game" in my experience. I don't think I've ever seen someone cast it and lose.
Thats interesting that Arcane Savant has been so strong for you! I havent gotten to test it yet but just put it in. I dont understand how it can be so strong as its only as good as the card exiled with it and i dont have many instants or sorceries that really end the game on the spot. best target is probably mystical tutor which will just be in the deck instead of exiled with savant.
What has been exiled with it that is so game breaking?
Looking for some advice/general conversation around cards that are "unfun" for unpowered cubes due to being too powerful or leading to lopsided/boring/uninteractive matches in cube.
Specifically I am looking for feedback on Wurmcoil Engine and Jace, the Mind Sculptor in unpowered environments. I have already cut Skull Clamp and Sol Ring for being too good and have never included Wurmcoil and JTMS for similar fears.
Do you limit cards in unpowered cube for being too powerful? Or do you simply add more "answers" to these cards?
What other cards have you cut for being too oppresive/"unfun"
I don't think Wurmcoil Engine is oppressive in an unpowered environment. If anything, it's weaker because you can't Tinker / ramp up to it as fast.
Jace is borderline to me, really depends on how aggressive your cube is.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
But those cards are pretty far above 'normal' strong cube cards like Clamp, Wurmcoil or Jace. A normal cube is full of solutions for those cards. You just need to play them. Make sure your decks has answers against artifacts or enchantments. To me this has very little to do with powered vs. unpowered.
If with unpowered you mean low powered (compared with a 'normal' high power cube), then you can ban the top power cards of your cube (Jitte, clamp, Jace,...). It depends how much better they are then the rest of the cube. But again , a lot of people complain of certain cards, but also refuse to maindeck Disenchants or Manic Vandals or o-ring effects. Then the problem is not the power of the cards, but more the play style that doesn't take certain aspects of cube deck construction into account.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Griselbrand
Jitte
Skullclamp
Sol Ring / Mana Crypt / Mana Vault
True-Name Nemesis (made some great game states, but players complained)
Emrakul 1.0
Moat effects
Ankh of Mishra (many control decks straight up lose to this because they cannot interact)
Wurmcoil and JtMS are harmless. Wurmcoil costs 6 and every color can answer it; JtMS often dies to bolt or Pulse before a player can untap with it.
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Aside from fast mana, the only cards I ever cut due to player complaints of being unbalanced are Backup Plan and Power Play, and that's because there's absolutely no answer to them. They're now in a separate module. Otherwise, I believe that having a diverse supply of versatile answers as well as broken cards for everyone to get to abuse makes for an exciting draft environment.
Minor nitpick here, most cube black and red sections don't really have single card answers to Wurmcoil Engine (unless you count Thoughtseize) the way white, blue, and green do. It's a pretty tough card for a Rakdos deck to beat.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Other fast mana such as Mana Vault and Grim monolith are fine for me as they act as rituals than ramp.
Jitte and Skullclamp are on the fine for me because by being equipment, they are comparatively easy to deal with.
With that said, they can be banned if they turn out to be unfun.
As for Wurmcoil, seems fine for me. 6+ drops should naturally be hard to deal with and can act as finishers.
I think I am going to add Wurmcoil (fingers crossed for opening a masterpiece!)
I've wanted to keep my cube planeswalker free, other than the flip walkers, but I recently opened a JTMS from an eternal Masters pack so I figured what the hell maybe I'll try running one walker per colour.
People often say that balance can be opporessive but I also see a lot of people saying that it takes a lot of work to set up so it isn't as bad.
Also looking at adding timetwister considering it wasn't even voted into the top 20 for blue power rankings. I've never played with it but it seems like a great cube card on the "fun scale"
True-Name Nemesis
Mind Twist
Balance
Fast Mana (Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault)
Library of Alexandria
I also ran colorless mana rocks and talismans instead of signets.
But I kept Wurmcoil and Jitte and Papa Jace and didn't really have any complaints. I've also added Time Walk and Timetwister and they were fine (though Time Walk is still dumb). As long as you provide answers...
Twitter @OrcLibrary
I added Time Walk to my unpowered cube once to test it out and immediately regretted it.
Timetwister / other draw 7s are perfectly fine in unpowered in my experience.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
As far as limiting for power: my cube is unpowered, meaning no power 9, Library, Sol Ring, or Mana Crypt. I'm also not running Mana Vault, mostly because I've found Grim Monolith to be about as much acceleration as the artifact and ramp decks need without crushing midrange. I'm open to trying Vault at some point, though. Everything else is fair game: Tinker, Balance, Upheaval, Opposition, Geddon. All require at least a little building around.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Jitte, Mind Twist, Balance, and to a lesser extent, Tinker and Sword of Body and Mind are all good things to remove from your cube to keep a relatively level playing field
I decided to just copy down the power rankings list and how they've fared in unpowered for us, as those are going to be most of the cards in question anyway.
Sol Ring - Too strong
Library of Alexandria - Too strong
Black Lotus - Too strong
Ancestral Recall - Too strong
ABU Mox - Too strong
Time Walk - Too strong
Mana Crypt - Too strong
Umezawa's Jitte - Too strong
Mind Twist - Too strong
Balance - Fine as long as fast mana is scarce
Mana Drain - Too strong
Tinker - Fine
Mana Vault - Too strong
Recurring Nightmare - Fine
Skullclamp - Too strong
Mox Diamond - Fine
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Fine
Sulfuric Vortex - Fine
Demonic Tutor - Fine
Grim Monolith - Too strong
Armageddon (Ravages of War) - Fine
Strip Mine - Fine, though I prefer Wasteland as it's a bit more friendly
Upheaval - Fine
Sword of Fire and Ice - Fine
Treachery - Too strong
Vampiric Tutor - Fine
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - Fine
Survival of the Fittest - Fine
Wildfire (Burning of Xinye) - Fine
Natural Order - Fine
Mana Drain and Treachery are probably technically fine, but they are just plain unfair. You're already countering my spell/stealing my creature, why should you get free mana for doing it too?
Others that aren't on the list that we don't play for similar reasons are Moat, True-Name Nemesis, Opposition, and Batterskull.
Check out my competitive Ezuri, Claw of Progress primer!
Treachery jas been strong, But not too strong yet for us.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
against any deck, stealing your opponents biggest bomb and forcing them to use up their own removal on it also just seems crazy.
is it too much?
Recurring Nightmare is abusable, but I never saw it as oppressive. I play cube so I can cast cards like Recurring Nightmare since it's banned in EDH and unviable in Legacy / Vintage.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Bribery is fine and can be a sideboard card in certain metas. It most certainly wrecks the cheaty decks, but sometimes the control deck taps five to search their opponent's library for a... Hero of Bladehold? It's more situational in cube than in EDH games (where I'm used to seeing it).
Twitter @OrcLibrary
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
The most common archetypes drafted are mono-black control, grixis control, boros aggro, birthing pod, Wrb Angels, artifact silliness, finding a way to play Emrakul.
The strongest card Pack 1 Pick 1 in my cube is Karn, Liberated with the best cards in every color being Chandra, Flamecaller, Arcane Savant, Liliana of the veil, Primeval Titan, and Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Gideon Jura.
I've only cut a handful of cards because they were too strong or unfun to play against.
Sol Ring - I don't know why I ever that thought this was a good idea
Swords of X and Y - These got cut a long time ago as my friends thought they were unfun to play against. Although they asked me to put them in again recently since my cube has gotten more streamlined.
Umezawa's Jitte - Same as above
Recurring nightmare - My friends found this annoying to play against because non-blue decks basically can't interact with it. I thought it was very strong but not oppressive, but enough complaining got me to remove it.
I'm also going to cut arcane savant soon. It has basically always read "3UU: Win the game" in my experience. I don't think I've ever seen someone cast it and lose.
As for cards that you mentioned some concern about...
Wurmcoil Engine - This card is very strong but I've never considered it even close to being too strong. White has millions of answers to it and green/blue have a couple also. Black has enough card advantage to win through the tokens. Red decks lose to it, but meh.
Jace, the mind sculpter - This card is top 5 blue cards in my cube, but isn't even the best in my cube (partly because I don't run fetches). I think it's likely weaker than tinker, opposition and arcane savant. It's more comparable to bribery and tamiyo, the moon sage.
Bribery - is very strong but very situational. Sometimes you'll play against the Mono-R aggro and it does nothing. Often times it finds a creature that just immedietly eats a removal spell, so you get value but only so much so. Sometimes you get Emrakul and just win.
The Ur-Dragon (WUBRG) - Changeling Combo Tribal
Chromium (WUB) - Artifact Beats
Progenitus (WUBRG) - Dredge
Damia, Sage of Stone (GBU) - Elf-storm Tendrils
My Cube Unpowered
My Peasant-ish/Tribal-ish Cube
Thats interesting that Arcane Savant has been so strong for you! I havent gotten to test it yet but just put it in. I dont understand how it can be so strong as its only as good as the card exiled with it and i dont have many instants or sorceries that really end the game on the spot. best target is probably mystical tutor which will just be in the deck instead of exiled with savant.
What has been exiled with it that is so game breaking?
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