If it's not easy for you, it's probably more a lack of experience with a powered cube vs anything else, as I imagine most would windmill slam the moxen like I would. I think you're underrating moxen, especially as p1p1 material. Moxen are kinda above typical mana acceleration, like other power is, since what you get for what you pay is huge.
It plays well with all those cards mentioned above if any wheeled--like the smokestack, which you can bet money on wheeling, and the wildfire which is pretty likely to wheel too--along with having a ton of other synergies with other types of decks, along with being free mana acceleration. If you were to take just about any opening hand with the right amount of lands/spells and replaced one of those lands with a moxen, it would be *noticeably* better, like night and day.
I guess the major point is: why am I taking an archetype enabler over literal power in cube for p1p1, when there are a million powerful archetype/direction cards that are massively improved when I have the explosive-play inducing moxen? When I inevitably get passed what is being open, I'll be so much more happy to have the 'powered' version of that archetype with the mox already in tow vs an unpowered version. I'll also never have a dead first pick, which is less noticeable overall in cube, but *is* noticeable when you're always playing the moxen but you might not end up playing the Burning/etc since the moxen goes everywhere and not only that plays extremely well in those places. When you take the moxen and wheel the Burning, you feel great; when you don't but you go into the open deck and you have the moxen anyways, you still feel great.
On top of that, you can't really afford to pass other players in a pod power if your goal is to win, since them having power in their hands makes winning that much tougher for your. Inversely, any time someone passes you power or you open additional pieces, the power exponentially builds off each other. Having 2-3 pieces of power is a lot better than having 1, since there are so many more hands that can have busted starts and you have the real ceiling of having something like Mox Mox and five other cards, which is a tough hand to beat.
It's easy to discredit power because of it's lacking late-game application of them being pretty much just land at that point, but that's a mistake that your opponents will punish you for more so than not.
I’m drawing a lot of parallels from Vintage and my own experience so far with Powered Cubes:
- I’ll typically P1P1 a moxen in weaker packs, but I don’t always play every Mox that I draft. Of Course I’ll always play it if it’s on color.
- In P3P1 scenarios, I generally won’t take a Mox if there’s an important piece I need from that pack. Depending on the scenario, I might take the mox I if it’s on color.
- Many Vintage decks only play on color moxen in their decks, and it’s possible to succeed / go far with a tuned unpowered list. I’ve definitely heard of high-caliber players forsaking Black Lotus in some decks because they want more permanent mana sources that aren’t easily disrupted.
- Mox Diamond / Chrome are just as explosive as any other moxen. Yes, there are costs associated with it, but the tempo advantage is far from unbeatable. I’m not saying Chrome / Diamond is equal or greater than OG moxen, but they still create similar scenarios. I’m much more afraid of Sol Ring level ramp.
I don’t think Mox Pearl is NOT the correct choice, but I can totally see myself going Garruk / Wildfire / Smokestack. As of right now I like Garruk in this pack.
You should probably always, if not almost always, be playing every mox you draft. And this isn't P3P1.
And Vintage does not really translate over in the way you're translating it over. If you're forsaking Black Lotus because you want more permanent mana sources in vintage cube, you're making a *massive* mistake. Hitting reliable mana sources is a lot more important in vintage where you don't have as many mana sources and your mana all tapping for color is important, the same way you aren't playing a ton of non duals/any at all outside of wasteland (which is mostly a spell) in RUG Delver or something because all your lands need to tap for multiple sources. That's still important in limited, but you're a lot closer to 50-50 lands/spells at 17/23 than you are in vintage, so you can definitely afford to give your deck explosive power that wins you games due to playing ahead of the curve at no cast.
And yes, the tempo advantage is far from unbeatable, but I don't get how that discredits me wanting the powerful explosive leaves-me-open card vs the narrow (at least, in comparison) archetype cards. Garruk and Wildfire are far from unbeatable too. Everything in that pack is far from unbeatable, Mox Pearl enables to help them become unbeatable in a lot more windows than they would have on their own.
I hope I'm sitting to your left lol please pass me all those moxen for 4 and 6 mana cards
Mox is the obvious choice. If we ignore that, it's more difficult. I'd likely go with Smokestack because I'm an anus. I love the Wildfire deck, but passing Garruk and Nissa makes me feel that wouldn't be that great of a choice. Dark Confidant is there if you want to do black aggro, which might tempt me to passing the Smokestack. But I'll go with Smokestack.
I can't imagine drafting an original Mox and not playing it. I've left Diamond/Chrome out before, because those are inherently more fair and sometimes aren't worth playing. But the originals are practically a Time Walk in the early game. Everything you were doing before is probably one turn faster now, even if it's off-color to your deck. Your aggro becomes more aggro. Your control gets to stabilize with that sweeper or counter a turn faster. Not to mention that being an artifact can be a big deal. They synergize with Upheaval, with Wildfire, with Armageddon, with Tinker, with Goblin Welder... many of the most broken things you can do become more broken with a Mox.
In cube context, I'd consider library and Sol ring power. IMO power is what you'd include in a powered cube but wouldn't in an unpowered cube. Leads to some room for interpretation, but it's a bit easier than saying 'well sol ring isn't power but I wouldn't play it in an unpowered cube'
Been experimenting a lot with a powered version of my cube over the past week and prioritizing moxen higher during drafts. Can't say much if it affected my W/L ratio, but I can say for certain that power overall bores the hell out of me during the draft. I thought using my cube over the MTGO vintage cube would help, but power removes more from the draft / game experience than it adds to it, IMO.
I might experiment with a powered cube excluding Black Lotus / Sol Ring / Mana Crypt / Mana Vault and see how that goes to find a nice middle ground between power / unpowered. I don't mind moxen in game play, but I don't think I was able to groan louder every time my opponent had the Black Lotus start and I didn't. At least in Vintage I have a chance to play my own Lotus or have a much higher percentage to counter it with either FoW, Chalice at 0, Null Rod, Phyrexian Revoker, etc.
Anyways, end rant. Pack of the day, what's your P1P1?
Opposition, Strip Mine, or I'm forcing the hell out of the elf/Hoof deck with Cradle. JVP is probably the smarter choice but HOOOOOOOOOOF.
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It is between Stripmine and Opposition; Opposition is definitely the more interesting pick though and gives me some direction but Stripmine will never fail no make my main deck.
In the end I think I would go for the fun build around card over generic power.
Power isn't for everyone. For every time my opponent lotuses me out, I have my own sweet games, and then in reality most games aren't like that. I don't get how it really ruins the draft experience since it's like typically 2 picks at most in an 8 man that are automatic and the rest of the time you're doing what you would in any other draft, but I'm sure that'll be a situation where we agree to disagree since arguing experiences is pointless. After years of playing with powered cubes, it seems like you're either suffering from a small sample size or it's just not for you in which case to each one's own.
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Strip Mine because it's as powerful as anything else while being colorless, then opposition/jace.
Power isn't for everyone. For every time my opponent lotuses me out, I have my own sweet games, and then in reality most games aren't like that. I don't get how it really ruins the draft experience since it's like typically 2 picks at most in an 8 man that are automatic and the rest of the time you're doing what you would in any other draft, but I'm sure that'll be a situation where we agree to disagree since arguing experiences is pointless. After years of playing with powered cubes, it seems like you're either suffering from a small sample size or it's just not for you in which case to each one's own.
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Strip Mine because it's as powerful as anything else while being colorless, then opposition/jace.
Ruins the early picks for me, and those early picks carry the most weight for me.
I'm pretty happy to start my draft on p1p2 if the first pick is power, and it's more rare than not that you start out with two pieces of power in a row. It ruins, like, one pick usually, and ruin is pretty subjective. If anything I think it keeps you open to literally everything and thats exciting when reading what's being passed since you're able to jump into a lot of the artifact archetypes too or at least have a possible foot in the door. I dunno, I guess agree to disagree, but I've been drafting powered cubes for years and rarely do things feel uninteresting during the draft because I p1p1 a mox or lotus.
Ruins the early picks for me, and those early picks carry the most weight for me.
I feel the opposite. I feel that power makes early picks far more interesting. Instead of taking the Opposition or Nightmare or Balance or Twist or Drain or whatever, there's a mox in the pack creating a real choice. Without the top tier cards creating real competition, choices are far less meaningful, IMO. I sacrifice nothing to take that P1P1 JTMS in an unpowered cube. If I have to pass a Mox Emerald to scoop him up, things just got interesting. The smaller number of elite-tier cards there are in the cube, the smaller % chance there is for one of those difficult decisions to arise.
Yeah definitely, sometimes you have picks like Mind Twist vs Moxen or moxen v jitte, where both are super powerful and worth debating over. There are a number of archetype defining cards that are close or on level to moxen that weren't present in that pack, like I think skullclamp v moxen is a real choice as well. And then if it is mindless, then a pack of 14 cards is going to probably have as close to a p1p1-type choice to be made more often than not.
I think the 'mindless' nature of drafting powered cubes is generally overblown when drafting with 8 players since it's so hard in those drafts to have power and get passed power and power again, unlike something like winston drafting or even sometimes glimpse/burn drafting. You tend to play your first pick more in cube than other limited formats, so there is more weight on putting your flag in the ground but, eh, I dunno, a lot of flags to plant when there are 14 cards too.
It was pretty funny to be honest. Especially just how much Salmo's first comment flew over my head.
Returning to my original query: P1P1 I can't see myself not picking power over pretty much every other cube card (I count Sol Ring and Library as power here). When my deck is more solidified, I can afford to pick up strong cards with superior synergy. I have always assumed that if I proxied power for my cube I'd potentially make P1P1's more linear but later picks a lot more interesting.
For cubers who draft power cubes, has this been your experience?
As much as I gave the examples, I tend to take the power too. So many decks in cube are powerful, so I'd rather have an archetype with power involved vs taking that archetype card p1p1. There are some cards I might take to build around because they're so powerful, but that's not a long list and even then it's a close choice.
That being said, you're not cracking power every p1p1, no matter what type of drafting you're doing. It would be awesome if that were the case because I think powered starts are a lot of fun, it's the main appeal when you play power is to do the 'power plays', but that's not always how it is.
For what its worth, adding conspiracies also increases the percentage of 'power' cards available. I have taken cards like Backup Plan or Power Play along with others p1p1 over moxen and don't question those decisions at all, and I think that the more power when you go in that direction the better. There are a lot of hurdles to adding conspiracies (some people don't like them in practice for a variety of reasons, they don't work online) but they are absolutely on the same level as power, or a decent amount of them are.
I'll generally take the power too, especially P1P1. But it comes with a price. You have to pass the other bonkers tier-1 cube card in order to take it. Which is what I like about keeping the powerlevel of the draft high.
I feel my cube's power level is already very high, adding power to it just feels warped to me. Balance / Upheaval / Recurring Nightmare / Natural Order / Sulfuric Vortex / Umezawa's Jitte / Skullclamp / etc are all bonkers cards, but there's an opportunity cost and a certain level of commitment in order to achieve the payoff.
Mark Rosewater wrote in an article about how a lot of people ragged on him about not making the level up ability be activated at instant speed. One of the things he said in this article is probably most important thing I've taken away from Mark's column:
"Games are about making interesting decisions. Games are about mentally challenging yourself and finding solutions in the midst of obstacles. What makes games fun is the restrictions. I often talk in Making Magic about how "restrictions breed creativity." Well, it turns out that restrictions also breed good game play."
Take Black Lotus for example: there's absolutely zero risk / opportunity cost in drafting it and slotting it into your deck. It's all payoff with zero risk which is rather poor game design. It makes me feel like I'm playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at one of those all you can play arcades where you pay a flat fee and everything is set to free play (I live 20 minutes away from the largest arcade in North America, The Galloping Ghost in the Chicago suburbs). Since the machine is set to free play, I can literally just mash my way through the game like a maniac without repercussion because I'll eventually get through the game as long as I have infinite lives. A fighting game like Street Fighter is a different story: no matter how many lives I have, I still need to meet a certain skill threshold and make choices if I actually want to beat the game.
I don't hate powered cube, but the added groans far outweighed the any additional satisfying "ahh"s that playing with power gave me. I'm still going to keep it around to break out occasionally on xMage, but I don't want it to be my bread and butter. I will say though that I do like how playing with power unleashes the full potential of certain cards like Monastery Mentor / Young Pyromancer / draw 7s.
Anyways, regarding yesterday's pack: Strip Mine / JVP / Opposition are all great. I personally would probably go Gaea's Cradle just because I love building around it. I can also see myself going Opposition because that's one build-around card I need to get more experience with.
Sword of Body and Mind for me. This pack's got great reanimator support, so you could make a case for one of the black cards with the hope to get something useful on the wheel. But I'd rather snag the Sword and stay flexible.
I’m drawing a lot of parallels from Vintage and my own experience so far with Powered Cubes:
- I’ll typically P1P1 a moxen in weaker packs, but I don’t always play every Mox that I draft. Of Course I’ll always play it if it’s on color.
- In P3P1 scenarios, I generally won’t take a Mox if there’s an important piece I need from that pack. Depending on the scenario, I might take the mox I if it’s on color.
- Many Vintage decks only play on color moxen in their decks, and it’s possible to succeed / go far with a tuned unpowered list. I’ve definitely heard of high-caliber players forsaking Black Lotus in some decks because they want more permanent mana sources that aren’t easily disrupted.
- Mox Diamond / Chrome are just as explosive as any other moxen. Yes, there are costs associated with it, but the tempo advantage is far from unbeatable. I’m not saying Chrome / Diamond is equal or greater than OG moxen, but they still create similar scenarios. I’m much more afraid of Sol Ring level ramp.
I don’t think Mox Pearl is NOT the correct choice, but I can totally see myself going Garruk / Wildfire / Smokestack. As of right now I like Garruk in this pack.
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And Vintage does not really translate over in the way you're translating it over. If you're forsaking Black Lotus because you want more permanent mana sources in vintage cube, you're making a *massive* mistake. Hitting reliable mana sources is a lot more important in vintage where you don't have as many mana sources and your mana all tapping for color is important, the same way you aren't playing a ton of non duals/any at all outside of wasteland (which is mostly a spell) in RUG Delver or something because all your lands need to tap for multiple sources. That's still important in limited, but you're a lot closer to 50-50 lands/spells at 17/23 than you are in vintage, so you can definitely afford to give your deck explosive power that wins you games due to playing ahead of the curve at no cast.
And yes, the tempo advantage is far from unbeatable, but I don't get how that discredits me wanting the powerful explosive leaves-me-open card vs the narrow (at least, in comparison) archetype cards. Garruk and Wildfire are far from unbeatable too. Everything in that pack is far from unbeatable, Mox Pearl enables to help them become unbeatable in a lot more windows than they would have on their own.
I hope I'm sitting to your left lol please pass me all those moxen for 4 and 6 mana cards
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I might experiment with a powered cube excluding Black Lotus / Sol Ring / Mana Crypt / Mana Vault and see how that goes to find a nice middle ground between power / unpowered. I don't mind moxen in game play, but I don't think I was able to groan louder every time my opponent had the Black Lotus start and I didn't. At least in Vintage I have a chance to play my own Lotus or have a much higher percentage to counter it with either FoW, Chalice at 0, Null Rod, Phyrexian Revoker, etc.
Anyways, end rant. Pack of the day, what's your P1P1?
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Modern: UGR Delver
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In the end I think I would go for the fun build around card over generic power.
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Strip Mine because it's as powerful as anything else while being colorless, then opposition/jace.
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Ruins the early picks for me, and those early picks carry the most weight for me.
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I feel the opposite. I feel that power makes early picks far more interesting. Instead of taking the Opposition or Nightmare or Balance or Twist or Drain or whatever, there's a mox in the pack creating a real choice. Without the top tier cards creating real competition, choices are far less meaningful, IMO. I sacrifice nothing to take that P1P1 JTMS in an unpowered cube. If I have to pass a Mox Emerald to scoop him up, things just got interesting. The smaller number of elite-tier cards there are in the cube, the smaller % chance there is for one of those difficult decisions to arise.
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I think the 'mindless' nature of drafting powered cubes is generally overblown when drafting with 8 players since it's so hard in those drafts to have power and get passed power and power again, unlike something like winston drafting or even sometimes glimpse/burn drafting. You tend to play your first pick more in cube than other limited formats, so there is more weight on putting your flag in the ground but, eh, I dunno, a lot of flags to plant when there are 14 cards too.
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I'm taking Recurring Nightmare every time
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As much as I gave the examples, I tend to take the power too. So many decks in cube are powerful, so I'd rather have an archetype with power involved vs taking that archetype card p1p1. There are some cards I might take to build around because they're so powerful, but that's not a long list and even then it's a close choice.
That being said, you're not cracking power every p1p1, no matter what type of drafting you're doing. It would be awesome if that were the case because I think powered starts are a lot of fun, it's the main appeal when you play power is to do the 'power plays', but that's not always how it is.
For what its worth, adding conspiracies also increases the percentage of 'power' cards available. I have taken cards like Backup Plan or Power Play along with others p1p1 over moxen and don't question those decisions at all, and I think that the more power when you go in that direction the better. There are a lot of hurdles to adding conspiracies (some people don't like them in practice for a variety of reasons, they don't work online) but they are absolutely on the same level as power, or a decent amount of them are.
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Mark Rosewater wrote in an article about how a lot of people ragged on him about not making the level up ability be activated at instant speed. One of the things he said in this article is probably most important thing I've taken away from Mark's column:
"Games are about making interesting decisions. Games are about mentally challenging yourself and finding solutions in the midst of obstacles. What makes games fun is the restrictions. I often talk in Making Magic about how "restrictions breed creativity." Well, it turns out that restrictions also breed good game play."
Take Black Lotus for example: there's absolutely zero risk / opportunity cost in drafting it and slotting it into your deck. It's all payoff with zero risk which is rather poor game design. It makes me feel like I'm playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at one of those all you can play arcades where you pay a flat fee and everything is set to free play (I live 20 minutes away from the largest arcade in North America, The Galloping Ghost in the Chicago suburbs). Since the machine is set to free play, I can literally just mash my way through the game like a maniac without repercussion because I'll eventually get through the game as long as I have infinite lives. A fighting game like Street Fighter is a different story: no matter how many lives I have, I still need to meet a certain skill threshold and make choices if I actually want to beat the game.
I don't hate powered cube, but the added groans far outweighed the any additional satisfying "ahh"s that playing with power gave me. I'm still going to keep it around to break out occasionally on xMage, but I don't want it to be my bread and butter. I will say though that I do like how playing with power unleashes the full potential of certain cards like Monastery Mentor / Young Pyromancer / draw 7s.
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Anyways, regarding yesterday's pack: Strip Mine / JVP / Opposition are all great. I personally would probably go Gaea's Cradle just because I love building around it. I can also see myself going Opposition because that's one build-around card I need to get more experience with.
Pack of the day: what's your P1P1?
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