7B is so much, but if this resolves it's going to be awesome more likely than not. But 7B is so much for something you can't cheat. But man if it resolves...
What's the average number of creatures one would see in a cube pack?
I can't speak for others, but my cube is 44% creatures, so I'd probably average 6-7 creatures out of this (6.625).
The related question is will that average 6-7 creatures be worth the 8 mana? Maybe just due to the sheer quantity, but is getting 6 1-2 drops worth it?
I can't speak for others, but my cube is 44% creatures, so I'd probably average 6-7 creatures out of this (6.625).
The related question is will that average 6-7 creatures be worth the 8 mana? Maybe just due to the sheer quantity, but is getting 6 1-2 drops worth it?
Follow up question: what are the odds of that happening? I def get the point, and the odds of that def higher than 6 4-7 drops, but the math would be telling.
I can't speak for others, but my cube is 44% creatures, so I'd probably average 6-7 creatures out of this (6.625).
The related question is will that average 6-7 creatures be worth the 8 mana? Maybe just due to the sheer quantity, but is getting 6 1-2 drops worth it?
Follow up question: what are the odds of that happening? I def get the point, and the odds of that def higher than 6 4-7 drops, but the math would be telling.
I have 212 creatures in my cube (excluding 3 "creatures"). Of those, the distribution is:
That's not bad. Sure, hitting a bunch of 2/1s might not be the best, but there are still a number of 1-3s that are really strong when combined with a bunch of other creatures. And, I can't remember the last time I opened a cube pack and it had less than 5 creatures it probably has happened but I imagine the odds aren't in favor of that.
So '7B: put ~5+ essentially random cube creatures from your cube box onto the battlefield'. I like that it's a great control finisher card that doesn't require you to run your own creatures. 7B is so much, but it could be argued that this could have roughly if not more impact than a number of other 8+ mana cards. You can't reanimate it, but it would be a sick win con in big mana decks or as an alt wincon in storm combo. And, outside of what is probably a massive longshot of hitting 3-4 or less creatures or hitting 4-6 mana dorks elves, it seems like at worse you hit a smattering of plain 2/1s for CMC 1 and bears, but that still seems like a decent step-above-floor to be at since that's a lot of P/T across a number of bodies. The biggest hurdle is probably whether or not I actually want an 8 mana sorcery finisher, but this could be both strong and awesome enough to include despite non-guarantee of what you're getting.
It seems really fun, took me a second to see it but chances are you are getting 4-7 creatures in any given pack. Most of my colours run over 50% creatures with more top end that some cubes around here.
It's hard to say how good it will play out but I will keep an eye on my next few drafts and take note of the ammount and quality of the creatures. I'm sure people will do the math but I think I will need to see afew post-draft packs to get a feel for it; depending on how the draft played out the pack you get could vary alot and that is harder to account for.
Proabaly the best black non-creature finisher and usually aces any terminate/vindicate test.
I wonder if we will get this in every colour? A blue one to cast instants/sourceries, a green one to play lands (a 1G one could be interesting), a white one that blows up permenent types that are in the pack, red one to "impulsive draw" the whole pack (like chandra's 0 ability or abbot.
I may or may not play this. It's certainly sure to make for memorable games, but I'm not going to prioritize getting it. I like that it exists if nothing else.
So, I did a lot of very low-level and possibly bad math and came to the conclusion that the average pack should yield ~8.95 mana-worth of creatures.
My cube contains 212 actual creatures out of 480, which is 44.16666667% of the cube, meaning that the average pack should have 6.625 creatures.
The "creature CMC" distribution of my cube is as follows:
268 0-drops (267 noncreatures and the Hangarback Walker nonbo)
42 1-drops
49 2-drops
46 3-drops
21 4-drops
19 5-drops
11 6-drops
6 7-drops
5 8-drops
1 9-drop
2 10-drops
1 15-drop
This adds up to 649 mana across 80 cards, or an average of 1.35 "creature mana" per average card in a completely random pack.
So the average pack should contain ~20.28 mana worth of creatures, probably spread across 6 or 7 creatures. Obviously, this will vary depending on what's leftover after drafting and on pure chance, and the average 20.28 mana doesn't speak to the actual quality of the cards you'll get since not every card is of equal power.
If I'm wildly miscalculating anything, let me know!
EDIT: Some of these values are actually slightly off because I reorganized some cards with morph or phyrexian mana to have a slightly different mana cost - full list here: (Exalted Angel as a 4-drop, Kor Sanctifiers as a 4-drop, Greater Gargadon as a 1-drop, Den Protector as a 3-drop, Porcelain Legionnaire as a 2-drop, and Phyrexian Metamorph as a 3-drop). Using the real mana cost for all of these would result in ~20.63 mana per pack.
So I did some very scientific research by pressing Sample Pack a lot on cube tutor, here are my results
Good - 23
Average - 4
Bad- 3
That is a very rough data; some of the "bad" packs could be great with the right board or were just pretty underwhelming at 8 mana, and some "good" packs wouldn't have been great without one stand out card but in general I was pretty impressed with my results.
Simulated about 50 packs on cubetutor. You can definitely get unlucky occasionally, but it felt like it was often a more powerful effect than Ugin (to compare to another 8 mana card you can’t reanimate).
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
Yea the splashability is a big plus. It makes dropping it into my U/G ramp deck much easier to accommodate without stretching my mana base, unlike something like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker or Griselbrand.
#1 (8 creatures, 7 power of charge, -2/-2 to enemy creatures)
Reality Smasher
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Jungle Lion
Hero of Bladehold
Flesh Carver
Warden of the First Tree
Falkenrath Gorger
#2 (1 creature --- 5 planeswalkers though, too bad it doesn't hit them)
Geist of Saint Traft
#3 (good amount of stats, 3 power of conditional haste)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Warden of the First Tree
Angel of Invention
Elvish Mystic
Bloodghast
#4 (tons of stats, one free instant from graveyard)
Carnage Tyrant
Torrential Gearhulk
Gravecrawler
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Deranged Hermit
Sylvan Advocate
Accorder Paladin
Heir of Falkenrath
#5
Custodi Lich
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Greater Gargadon
Heir of Falkenrath
Stoneforge Mystic
Grim Lavamancer
I did some more. As long as all you want is ~10--15+ power and a lot of random critters, this will usually hit. If you need better than that (haste, removal, lifegain, face damage), it's hit or miss. I got a nice one with Purphoros and Flickerwisp that amounted to 14 face damage though.
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
The issue with looking at it like that is that all of the cards out of the packs you make get picked. There's no leftovers that get stuffed back into the cube, so the packs already made do not actually affect the probabilities involved. You already took 360 cards out, but they're 360 random cards, so your odds of having, say, Purphorus in the 15 cards that weren't part of your draft pod is the same as him being in any of the other packs you saw. I suppose if you're the type to memorize every card you see in a draft, you might be able to tell if this particular card is going to be better or worse than average based on what you saw, but that would be a complex calculation that would likely be too marginal to be worth it, especially in larger cubes.
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
Yea that's the one flaw with it I could see, If you had a creature heavy draft the spell gets worse but the match on that is something I will have to leave to others. Sample pack give you an idea of what could be their, in theory a random pack is a random pack so taking a the extra pack before or after the pack shouldn't effect things too much beyond the normal variance of cube packs too much.
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
The issue with looking at it like that is that all of the cards out of the packs you make get picked. There's no leftovers that get stuffed back into the cube, so the packs already made do not actually affect the probabilities involved. You already took 360 cards out, but they're 360 random cards, so your odds of having, say, Purphorus in the 15 cards that weren't part of your draft pod is the same as him being in any of the other packs you saw. I suppose if you're the type to memorize every card you see in a draft, you might be able to tell if this particular card is going to be better or worse than average based on what you saw, but that would be a complex calculation that would likely be too marginal to be worth it, especially in larger cubes.
True, but you should have some semblance of an idea what is leftover based on what decks were made and what cards you saw during a draft. i.e. you know 2 decks at the table were a g/x ramp deck and a b/x reanimator deck, so you can rule out certain cards based on that, and judge whether or not the card is worth playing in your deck.
But you are correct. Random is random. There shouldn't be any reason the simulation pack couldn't be one of the packs leftover
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
That doesn't really affect what could be in the packs from a theory crafting point of view. As other users have said, random is random and the hypotheticals don't matter until what is missing is known.
While I agree with the assessment of "random is random", this did just remind me of a...logistical question. Currently, I have 2 extra packs - one for Lore Seeker, and one for Booster Tutor. The house rule for Booster Tutor is that there are diminishing returns - you can't reuse the same card from the pack every game, because that gets stale.
However, here, you're using the whole pack at once. While I can limit my cubers to 8 and have a 480 person cube, if 10 people show up, the person basically knows what they're going to get every time, because there just won't be enough leftovers to re-randomize the pack each time. Has anyone put any thought into this? Is anyone planning to expand their cube further to accommodate this (if even just to have one extra pack for this) or do you always have leftovers anyways?
While I agree with the assessment of "random is random", this did just remind me of a...logistical question. Currently, I have 2 extra packs - one for Lore Seeker, and one for Booster Tutor. The house rule for Booster Tutor is that there are diminishing returns - you can't reuse the same card from the pack every game, because that gets stale.
However, here, you're using the whole pack at once. While I can limit my cubers to 8 and have a 480 person cube, if 10 people show up, the person basically knows what they're going to get every time, because there just won't be enough leftovers to re-randomize the pack each time. Has anyone put any thought into this? Is anyone planning to expand their cube further to accommodate this (if even just to have one extra pack for this) or do you always have leftovers anyways?
We always have a lot of cards left over so this has never been an issue, even whenever someone is abusing a Double Stroked Booster Tutor. I't hadn't occurred to me that a lot of people might only have 1 or two packs left over, that definitely put a a crimp in this cards style.
I would recommend a bigger cube, or, having a less popular cube.
Well, the situation that necessitated the restriction on Booster Tutor was unrelated to the size of the cube - it was the interaction with Isochron Scepter (which is no longer in the cube).
Yeahhh, Black.... Selvala’s Stampede?
Time to stock up on packs of Legions!
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
What's the average number of creatures one would see in a cube pack?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
The related question is will that average 6-7 creatures be worth the 8 mana? Maybe just due to the sheer quantity, but is getting 6 1-2 drops worth it?
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Follow up question: what are the odds of that happening? I def get the point, and the odds of that def higher than 6 4-7 drops, but the math would be telling.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
CMC 1: 42 (19.8%)
CMC 2: 49 (23.1%)
CMC 3: 46 (21.5%)
CMC 4: 31 (14.5%)
CMC 5: 19 (9.0%)
CMC 6+: 26 (12%)
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
So '7B: put ~5+ essentially random cube creatures from your cube box onto the battlefield'. I like that it's a great control finisher card that doesn't require you to run your own creatures. 7B is so much, but it could be argued that this could have roughly if not more impact than a number of other 8+ mana cards. You can't reanimate it, but it would be a sick win con in big mana decks or as an alt wincon in storm combo. And, outside of what is probably a massive longshot of hitting 3-4 or less creatures or hitting 4-6 mana dorks elves, it seems like at worse you hit a smattering of plain 2/1s for CMC 1 and bears, but that still seems like a decent step-above-floor to be at since that's a lot of P/T across a number of bodies. The biggest hurdle is probably whether or not I actually want an 8 mana sorcery finisher, but this could be both strong and awesome enough to include despite non-guarantee of what you're getting.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
It's hard to say how good it will play out but I will keep an eye on my next few drafts and take note of the ammount and quality of the creatures. I'm sure people will do the math but I think I will need to see afew post-draft packs to get a feel for it; depending on how the draft played out the pack you get could vary alot and that is harder to account for.
Proabaly the best black non-creature finisher and usually aces any terminate/vindicate test.
I wonder if we will get this in every colour? A blue one to cast instants/sourceries, a green one to play lands (a 1G one could be interesting), a white one that blows up permenent types that are in the pack, red one to "impulsive draw" the whole pack (like chandra's 0 ability or abbot.
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.
Does this compete with cards like UGIN? Probably not unless you have a lot of super fatties in your cube.
It's certainly very fun
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
My cube contains 212 actual creatures out of 480, which is 44.16666667% of the cube, meaning that the average pack should have 6.625 creatures.
The "creature CMC" distribution of my cube is as follows:
268 0-drops (267 noncreatures and the Hangarback Walker nonbo)
42 1-drops
49 2-drops
46 3-drops
21 4-drops
19 5-drops
11 6-drops
6 7-drops
5 8-drops
1 9-drop
2 10-drops
1 15-drop
This adds up to 649 mana across 80 cards, or an average of 1.35 "creature mana" per average card in a completely random pack.
So the average pack should contain ~20.28 mana worth of creatures, probably spread across 6 or 7 creatures. Obviously, this will vary depending on what's leftover after drafting and on pure chance, and the average 20.28 mana doesn't speak to the actual quality of the cards you'll get since not every card is of equal power.
If I'm wildly miscalculating anything, let me know!
EDIT: Some of these values are actually slightly off because I reorganized some cards with morph or phyrexian mana to have a slightly different mana cost - full list here: (Exalted Angel as a 4-drop, Kor Sanctifiers as a 4-drop, Greater Gargadon as a 1-drop, Den Protector as a 3-drop, Porcelain Legionnaire as a 2-drop, and Phyrexian Metamorph as a 3-drop). Using the real mana cost for all of these would result in ~20.63 mana per pack.
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Good - 23
Average - 4
Bad- 3
That is a very rough data; some of the "bad" packs could be great with the right board or were just pretty underwhelming at 8 mana, and some "good" packs wouldn't have been great without one stand out card but in general I was pretty impressed with my results.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Can get a lot of win the game on the spot packs, but also a bit more "fail" packs for my taste.
If you want raw power and run arcane savant, probably worth running this
Difference between this and a card like cruel ultimatum is this at least very close to good enough by itself and is easily splashable.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
#1 (8 creatures, 7 power of charge, -2/-2 to enemy creatures)
Reality Smasher
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Jungle Lion
Hero of Bladehold
Flesh Carver
Warden of the First Tree
Falkenrath Gorger
#2 (1 creature --- 5 planeswalkers though, too bad it doesn't hit them)
Geist of Saint Traft
#3 (good amount of stats, 3 power of conditional haste)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Warden of the First Tree
Angel of Invention
Elvish Mystic
Bloodghast
#4 (tons of stats, one free instant from graveyard)
Carnage Tyrant
Torrential Gearhulk
Gravecrawler
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Deranged Hermit
Sylvan Advocate
Accorder Paladin
Heir of Falkenrath
#5
Custodi Lich
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Greater Gargadon
Heir of Falkenrath
Stoneforge Mystic
Grim Lavamancer
I did some more. As long as all you want is ~10--15+ power and a lot of random critters, this will usually hit. If you need better than that (haste, removal, lifegain, face damage), it's hit or miss. I got a nice one with Purphoros and Flickerwisp that amounted to 14 face damage though.
Yea that's the one flaw with it I could see, If you had a creature heavy draft the spell gets worse but the match on that is something I will have to leave to others. Sample pack give you an idea of what could be their, in theory a random pack is a random pack so taking a the extra pack before or after the pack shouldn't effect things too much beyond the normal variance of cube packs too much.
But you are correct. Random is random. There shouldn't be any reason the simulation pack couldn't be one of the packs leftover
That doesn't really affect what could be in the packs from a theory crafting point of view. As other users have said, random is random and the hypotheticals don't matter until what is missing is known.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
However, here, you're using the whole pack at once. While I can limit my cubers to 8 and have a 480 person cube, if 10 people show up, the person basically knows what they're going to get every time, because there just won't be enough leftovers to re-randomize the pack each time. Has anyone put any thought into this? Is anyone planning to expand their cube further to accommodate this (if even just to have one extra pack for this) or do you always have leftovers anyways?
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
We always have a lot of cards left over so this has never been an issue, even whenever someone is abusing a Double Stroked Booster Tutor. I't hadn't occurred to me that a lot of people might only have 1 or two packs left over, that definitely put a a crimp in this cards style.
I would recommend a bigger cube, or, having a less popular cube.
Draft my cube! (630 cards)