Drafting style, archetype balance, personal preference, aggro support... basically every decision you can make when sculpting what your meta looks like can contribute to saturation/falling short on playables in certain cmc sections. And how your playgroup likes to draft also has a big part to do with the balance too. Whether or not you support sealed deck, just regular draft, etc. What percentage of the cube sees each draft iteration. There is no one thing that determines if you have too many 4-drops for your group. Just like there's no set way to calculate how many 2-power 1-drops a cube needs, or how much removal is too much ...all of those things are going to vary greatly from one group to the next, for a multitude of reasons.
I'm sorry it's not as simple as you want it to be, but it's not. You're gonna have to figure some things out by actually drafting the cube and finding out what works.
I understand. I never meant to come across like I wanted it to be simple, for the record. I just want to understand what it is and what is involved in finding it. And when something works, I’m happy that it does, but I’m equally interested in understanding WHY it does. Like, why did 9 4 drops in Black work as the best number and what are the underlying principles that made that so?
I think there's too many variables to pinpoint an answer. It's just as much reason A as it is reason Z, and I don't think you can figure out a single underlying cause for it.
If you do, let me know! I've been trying to pinpoint specific causes for certain CMC saturations/deficiencies for years, and couldn't figure out any real way to "solve" it other than just playtesting and fixing on-the-go.
We did two 8 man drafts with your cube this past saturday, and I didn't realize it until last night/this morning. Went to a buddy's house for all-day cube and one of the guys there had just proxied out an entire cube that he found off cubetutor's most drafted cubes. We drafted twice, and the whole time I was kinda like 'this is familiar...how many powered cubes are running Jungle Lions and Treasure Map?' and then after thinking about it on and off yesterday I compared your actual list to what I remember and everything we saw is in your cube. Makes sense as your cube is one of the most drafted on cubetutor, but it was just like, what are they odds?! My friend just texted me back to confirm it, it's pretty cool/hilarious/etc.
Also: it was a lot of fun! 1st draft's finals were BW midrange vs Bant super ramp, with BW midrange taking it down on the back of removal, efficient creatures, + Elspeth. (Also, it was her second time cubing, which was impressive.) 2nd draft was Grixis Wildfire vs Bant super ramp (same player, loves green, actually has a green cube) with the Bant super ramp exploding onto the board faster than Grixis could wipe/wildfire everything away. People were ragging on the green aggro cards, but otherwise everyone had a great time. All the decks were really solid, I ended up going UG twice myself with the first time being super ramp into natural order + upheaval, and the second was a less-good midrangey value deck that could assemble the time walk + eternal witness + crystal shard combo, which happened a few times.
Ya, green aggro is a personal choice. My playgroup loves it, and Jungle Lion tempo decks with Edric and the like are crowd favorites. If they don't want to use 'em, they don't have to.
And Treasure Map has been good. Not surprised to see it having some success in Standard.
Ya, green aggro is a personal choice. My playgroup loves it, and Jungle Lion tempo decks with Edric and the like are crowd favorites. If they don't want to use 'em, they don't have to.
And Treasure Map has been good. Not surprised to see it having some success in Standard.
Yeah, totally. I was less commenting on the quality of the cards and more so that your list is unique in that regard at this point in time, so some subconscious bells went off while drafting where I knew I knew the cube but I couldn't put a finger on it. I think they're going to end up cutting the green aggro package, but otherwise the list played really well without anything but good things to say. There were a number of new(er) players who had never seen a Portal card before, so everyone had a laugh about 'cant intercept' and 'how many shields does that creature have?'
Treasure Map was alright when it was played. In the slower games it was explosive, but when pressure was put on it was a little slow. I could see how it played well, but I could also see it being cut.
That's disappointing because I'd have been interested in seeing what you added to yours from Unstable. However, I totally understand the reasoning. We use ours nearly every time we cube and my group loves it. Actually looking to finally take the dive into silver borders with Unstable. I've got a Booster Tutor going in for this weekend's draft.
Ya, I just couldn't keep up the charade anymore. We don't like using Un- cards and Conspiracies and stuff, and there was no reason to have the Conspiracy Module collecting dust. Just not enjoyable Magic for us. Not having to care about Unstable is a relief and a well-timed upside for finally giving up on the Conspiracy Module altogether.
In a hypothetical world where these are black bordered cards, would you include any? Like, alternate universe where this is an actual set that is standard legal/etc., what does upside-down-world you consider?
I’m thinking about picking up a Desolation Angel and throwing it in Orzhov. I’ve been trying to get my BW drafters something to build towards in the slower BW decks. 6 mana Sorin seems pretty good but I couldn’t get anyone to actually play with it...
How has Angel played for you lately, and is the presence of the full signet/talisman cycle alongside Angel a coincidence? Seems like a natural pairing strategically.
Desolation Angel is not the 4th best card. But it's a pet card of mine, and we enjoy playing it and have good success with it. Orzhov Signet has been a big help towards its success, as you mentioned. It wins the vast majority of games it resolves in. In fact, I don't think I can recall and instance where it hasn't gone on to win the game. Strapping a 5-power flying creature to your Armageddon for 3 mana isn't a bad place to be. It usually pushes board parity into an advantage for you (or turns a small advantage to a huge one) and then prevents the opponent from being able to recover. Plus, mine is a Sephiroth, so I can't go wrong there.
I know Angel is not the 4th best card in the guild, my idea was to just add something kinda splashy that was fun so as to entice drafters to go in a bigger direction. I'll probably hold pat with Verdict for now since it is well liked and pick up an Angel for the bench to pinch hit occasionally.
A couple other questions this morning if you don't mind:
1) Shelldock Isle. Better since reinclusion or still too slow to bank on the great value? I've always liked it but I'll admit that sometimes it doesn't do much.
2) What are your thoughts overall regarding narrow and/or situational cards? What are the essential criteria for inclusion and what are the damming features that might merit exclusion?
3) Do you have any concrete methods for creating your manabases (# and fixing) for decks? I've worked with some basic methods derived from Dr. Frank Karsten's articles, which have worked well enough for me. I was curious if you just eyeballed it and used your intuition developed from years of cubing, or if you had something more systematic that you applied to deckbuilding. Care to share?
1) I think the speed of the average deck and the size of the average win-con have both gotten slower/bigger over the recent years. Both of those factors have helped Shelldock's performance.
2) To justify a narrow card, I want it to be either A) So good that it immediately becomes the best card in its respective deck, or B) It need to be important enough to the respective archetype it supports to actively pull me into that deck when I see it in a pack. I don't like to play narrow cards that are only good in one archetype, and I'd already have to be in that deck in order to consider taking the card (think Putrid Imp, for example).
3) I use the information in my article on constructing cube manabases when I ...construct cube manabases. Link in sig.
...would you say that the value of countermagic has slightly increased in the relevant matchups due to the factors you mentioned?
2) That makes sense. Cards like Collective Brutality, Searing Blaze, and Curse of Predation are attractive cards to my eye, as they can do some really strong things, but maybe not powerful enough to justify the lack of flexibility they possess in one way or another (types of decks they go in, color requirements/land drops, type of strategy opponent is playing, etc).
3) Yes, of course. The info in your article regarding color requirements is very helpful and I have used that for awhile now. What about total amount of lands? Say you are building a super ramp deck with lots of fatties and many dorks/rocks, how do you decide if you need 16/17/18 lands etc.
3a) On a tangential note, do these color requirements in deckbuilding inform your decision making when it comes to the total amount of mana fixing (duals, rocks, 5c lands, etc) you include in your cube? If so, how did you calculate?
1) Aggro is just as fast as ever. But with midrange decks becoming more rock-heavy, the value of counterspells has gone up in the control vs midrange matchup, yes.
2) I generally value flexibility over power to reduce narrowness, except for in cases where the cards really push me into certain archetypes.
3) Every deck is different, and it depends a lot on the composition to determine total lands. I first try to satisfy my color requirements with 17 lands. If I can, and I need all the sources I'm using, I'll default to a 17/23 setup. Control decks with few/no mana rocks might move to 18 if I have multiple cards that cost 6 or more mana. Aggro decks can default to 16 if they meet their mana demand without the 17th land in there, and there's no 5cc cards. If the aggro deck only has 1-2 4cc cards as finishers, they can go all the way down to 15 lands (again, assuming that colored mana demand can be satisfied within those 15). Other factors, like 2-3+ cheap mana rocks and/or mana dorks can drop my total number of sources by 1, assuming I meet my colored mana demand.
3a) It's not calculated; it's something that has to be felt out. I want to include enough mana fixing so that IF players value them highly/appropriately, they'll be able to satisfy their mana demands. Without running so much fixing that players can build 3+ color decks without having to prioritize mana during the draft. Since every group will draft differently, there's no calculation you can use that applies to each individual playgroup.
The cube underwent a massive change over the weekend. Dropped to 405 cards!
There's a lot of information and data that I'll post later, and tomorrow I plan to update the OP. But for now, the CubeTutor link is up to date, and shows the cuts to 405 in each section.
The cube underwent a massive change over the weekend. Dropped to 405 cards!
There's a lot of information and data that I'll post later, and tomorrow I plan to update the OP. But for now, the CubeTutor link is up to date, and shows the cuts to 405 in each section.
Geez, big set of changes. Look at all the great alters that are on the cutting room floor.
I was viewing your cube on cube tutor and was so confused by the 405 cards. I kept trying to adjust settings and refresh the page to make the missing cards show up. Glad to see this was intentional. I am very curious as to the thinking behind the size change.
Sorry for the confusion; the size change was definitely intentional.
I'm updating the OP right now. Later today, I'll post a detailed breakdown of the numbers, sizes and draft types which went into the justification for the cube size change.
..........
Edit: OP fully updated with the current 405 list. I'll continue to work out kinks and tinker with the exact list over the next several months, but the basic structure is there, and the current list is probably 95% where I want it to be.
The basic reason for the change was the implementation of Sight Drafting into our event structure. It changed the ideal draft numbers for our commonly played events rather significantly, which drove the desire for the change. Here's the event breakdown:
Current Event Structures (at 405 cards):
2-player: Glimpse Draft (67% of the cube pool)
3-player: Glimpse Draft (100% of the cube pool)
4-player: Sight Draft (89% of the cube pool)
5-player: Booster Draft (56% of the cube pool)
6-player: Booster Draft (67% of the cube pool)
7-player: Booster Draft (78% of the cube pool)
8-player: Booster Draft (89% of the cube pool)
Old Event Structures (at 540 cards):
2-player: Glimpse Draft (50% of the cube pool)
3-player: Glimpse Draft (75% of the cube pool)
4-player: Glimpse Draft (100% of the cube pool)
5-player: Sight Draft (83% of the cube pool)
6-player: Sight Draft (100% of the cube pool)
7-player: Booster Draft (58% of the cube pool)
8-player: Booster Draft (67% of the cube pool)
As you can see, the overall percentages are rather similar. When you factor in all the events from 2-8 players, the change is minimal. But when you focus on the change it makes to the average 2-4 player events, there's a pretty significant pool % increase after the drop to 405. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, is the increase in the quality of the Sealed Deck event. Which went from 17% (540) to 22% (405). The average draft quality at 540 for 2-4 player events went from 75% to 85%, which is a huge increase in draft quality. Most importantly, our 2-man Glimpse Drafts went from an event structure low of 50% to a very respectable 67%. It's important to note that all cube sizes between 360 and 720 (in every 45 card increase) were factored into the decision-making process, and 405 provided the strongest numbers for the 2-4 player events without sacrificing the quality of the 2-8 player overall % values. I've been working on the numbers and the cuts for months, and finally arrived at a list I think will perform well for us.
I had to sacrifice a lot to get down, most notably the loss of the artifact.dec as an archetype and green aggro as a base 2-color theater (not to mention some cool alters and several "pet" cards). But in doing so, the overall card quality increased significantly, and the quality of the other archetypes will be a lot better.
Nissa is one of the best ways to help green enable token shells. Since a few other token/anthem support cards were cut, I wanted to keep one powerhouse enabler for that specific deck. Even though she's not a great card for generic green decks.
I love Wildfire shells so much that I wanted to keep the extra 5cc threat in red that works so well in those decks.
Treasure Cruise: Is this that good? Do you need this many draw spells at 405?
Treasure Cruise is a good card, particularly in tempo shells. But to answer the latter question ...maybe. I'll have to test the configuration for a while and see how it plays with the current concentration of draw spells.
Keg is an answer to manlands, and all 14 of 'em survived the cut. Bomb can answer 'walkers instead, but it's not nearly as good at doing so. Keg is an immediate way to keep manlands at bay when they're actively pressuring you. Whereas Bomb is too slow to deal with an opposing Elspeth/Gideon/Chandra before you're dead to them. Between the two, Keg can be a topdecked answer to something control struggles against, and Bomb is just a rough topdeck when you're actively being pressured by the one thing it can answer that Keg can't. And against cheap creatures, tokens, moxen and cheap utility cards, they both perform the same.
I'm sorry it's not as simple as you want it to be, but it's not. You're gonna have to figure some things out by actually drafting the cube and finding out what works.
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Also: it was a lot of fun! 1st draft's finals were BW midrange vs Bant super ramp, with BW midrange taking it down on the back of removal, efficient creatures, + Elspeth. (Also, it was her second time cubing, which was impressive.) 2nd draft was Grixis Wildfire vs Bant super ramp (same player, loves green, actually has a green cube) with the Bant super ramp exploding onto the board faster than Grixis could wipe/wildfire everything away. People were ragging on the green aggro cards, but otherwise everyone had a great time. All the decks were really solid, I ended up going UG twice myself with the first time being super ramp into natural order + upheaval, and the second was a less-good midrangey value deck that could assemble the time walk + eternal witness + crystal shard combo, which happened a few times.
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Ya, green aggro is a personal choice. My playgroup loves it, and Jungle Lion tempo decks with Edric and the like are crowd favorites. If they don't want to use 'em, they don't have to.
And Treasure Map has been good. Not surprised to see it having some success in Standard.
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Yeah, totally. I was less commenting on the quality of the cards and more so that your list is unique in that regard at this point in time, so some subconscious bells went off while drafting where I knew I knew the cube but I couldn't put a finger on it. I think they're going to end up cutting the green aggro package, but otherwise the list played really well without anything but good things to say. There were a number of new(er) players who had never seen a Portal card before, so everyone had a laugh about 'cant intercept' and 'how many shields does that creature have?'
Treasure Map was alright when it was played. In the slower games it was explosive, but when pressure was put on it was a little slow. I could see how it played well, but I could also see it being cut.
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Honestly though, I'm not sure. There are a lot of non-Vintage-legal cards that'd be up for consideration if they were printed as real cards.
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How has Angel played for you lately, and is the presence of the full signet/talisman cycle alongside Angel a coincidence? Seems like a natural pairing strategically.
On the other hand, Gerrard’s Verdict has been solid and liked as Orzhov card #4, and there is always the big token strategy in BW available with stuff like Grave Titan, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (not to mention the haymaker Catastrophe).
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A couple other questions this morning if you don't mind:
1) Shelldock Isle. Better since reinclusion or still too slow to bank on the great value? I've always liked it but I'll admit that sometimes it doesn't do much.
2) What are your thoughts overall regarding narrow and/or situational cards? What are the essential criteria for inclusion and what are the damming features that might merit exclusion?
3) Do you have any concrete methods for creating your manabases (# and fixing) for decks? I've worked with some basic methods derived from Dr. Frank Karsten's articles, which have worked well enough for me. I was curious if you just eyeballed it and used your intuition developed from years of cubing, or if you had something more systematic that you applied to deckbuilding. Care to share?
2) To justify a narrow card, I want it to be either A) So good that it immediately becomes the best card in its respective deck, or B) It need to be important enough to the respective archetype it supports to actively pull me into that deck when I see it in a pack. I don't like to play narrow cards that are only good in one archetype, and I'd already have to be in that deck in order to consider taking the card (think Putrid Imp, for example).
3) I use the information in my article on constructing cube manabases when I ...construct cube manabases. Link in sig.
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1-drop < 2-for-1 < Big Spell < Counterspell < 1-drop
(Goblin Guide < Kitchen Finks < Elesh Norn < Forbid < Goblin Guide)
...would you say that the value of countermagic has slightly increased in the relevant matchups due to the factors you mentioned?
2) That makes sense. Cards like Collective Brutality, Searing Blaze, and Curse of Predation are attractive cards to my eye, as they can do some really strong things, but maybe not powerful enough to justify the lack of flexibility they possess in one way or another (types of decks they go in, color requirements/land drops, type of strategy opponent is playing, etc).
3) Yes, of course. The info in your article regarding color requirements is very helpful and I have used that for awhile now. What about total amount of lands? Say you are building a super ramp deck with lots of fatties and many dorks/rocks, how do you decide if you need 16/17/18 lands etc.
3a) On a tangential note, do these color requirements in deckbuilding inform your decision making when it comes to the total amount of mana fixing (duals, rocks, 5c lands, etc) you include in your cube? If so, how did you calculate?
2) I generally value flexibility over power to reduce narrowness, except for in cases where the cards really push me into certain archetypes.
3) Every deck is different, and it depends a lot on the composition to determine total lands. I first try to satisfy my color requirements with 17 lands. If I can, and I need all the sources I'm using, I'll default to a 17/23 setup. Control decks with few/no mana rocks might move to 18 if I have multiple cards that cost 6 or more mana. Aggro decks can default to 16 if they meet their mana demand without the 17th land in there, and there's no 5cc cards. If the aggro deck only has 1-2 4cc cards as finishers, they can go all the way down to 15 lands (again, assuming that colored mana demand can be satisfied within those 15). Other factors, like 2-3+ cheap mana rocks and/or mana dorks can drop my total number of sources by 1, assuming I meet my colored mana demand.
3a) It's not calculated; it's something that has to be felt out. I want to include enough mana fixing so that IF players value them highly/appropriately, they'll be able to satisfy their mana demands. Without running so much fixing that players can build 3+ color decks without having to prioritize mana during the draft. Since every group will draft differently, there's no calculation you can use that applies to each individual playgroup.
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My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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There's a lot of information and data that I'll post later, and tomorrow I plan to update the OP. But for now, the CubeTutor link is up to date, and shows the cuts to 405 in each section.
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Geez, big set of changes. Look at all the great alters that are on the cutting room floor.
[Developing] 430+ Peasant Cube Thread --- [and on Cube Cobra]
UBR Thraximundar, the Who's Who of Red, Black, and Blue
RWU Zedruu, The Political Player's Personification
URG Animar, The Deck for When You Just Want to Play Creatures
I'm updating the OP right now. Later today, I'll post a detailed breakdown of the numbers, sizes and draft types which went into the justification for the cube size change.
..........
Edit: OP fully updated with the current 405 list. I'll continue to work out kinks and tinker with the exact list over the next several months, but the basic structure is there, and the current list is probably 95% where I want it to be.
The basic reason for the change was the implementation of Sight Drafting into our event structure. It changed the ideal draft numbers for our commonly played events rather significantly, which drove the desire for the change. Here's the event breakdown:
Current Event Structures (at 405 cards):
2-player: Glimpse Draft (67% of the cube pool)
3-player: Glimpse Draft (100% of the cube pool)
4-player: Sight Draft (89% of the cube pool)
5-player: Booster Draft (56% of the cube pool)
6-player: Booster Draft (67% of the cube pool)
7-player: Booster Draft (78% of the cube pool)
8-player: Booster Draft (89% of the cube pool)
Old Event Structures (at 540 cards):
2-player: Glimpse Draft (50% of the cube pool)
3-player: Glimpse Draft (75% of the cube pool)
4-player: Glimpse Draft (100% of the cube pool)
5-player: Sight Draft (83% of the cube pool)
6-player: Sight Draft (100% of the cube pool)
7-player: Booster Draft (58% of the cube pool)
8-player: Booster Draft (67% of the cube pool)
As you can see, the overall percentages are rather similar. When you factor in all the events from 2-8 players, the change is minimal. But when you focus on the change it makes to the average 2-4 player events, there's a pretty significant pool % increase after the drop to 405. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, is the increase in the quality of the Sealed Deck event. Which went from 17% (540) to 22% (405). The average draft quality at 540 for 2-4 player events went from 75% to 85%, which is a huge increase in draft quality. Most importantly, our 2-man Glimpse Drafts went from an event structure low of 50% to a very respectable 67%. It's important to note that all cube sizes between 360 and 720 (in every 45 card increase) were factored into the decision-making process, and 405 provided the strongest numbers for the 2-4 player events without sacrificing the quality of the 2-8 player overall % values. I've been working on the numbers and the cuts for months, and finally arrived at a list I think will perform well for us.
I had to sacrifice a lot to get down, most notably the loss of the artifact.dec as an archetype and green aggro as a base 2-color theater (not to mention some cool alters and several "pet" cards). But in doing so, the overall card quality increased significantly, and the quality of the other archetypes will be a lot better.
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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I don't see a list of everything you cut in the change log. Am I no looking in the right place?
Mostly, what I see remaining doesn't surprise me. I have questions about the cards below, if you are so inclined to discuss.
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker: I don't run these at 450 and am surprised to see them making the cut at 405. Should I retest them? Are they in mostly for archetype support?
Treasure Cruise: Is this that good? Do you need this many draw spells at 405?
Abbot of Keral Keep: I'd like to fit another creature or two in red. Should I give this guy another look? Maybe over Release the Gremlins?
Powder Keg over Ratchet Bomb: What's the thought here?
Thanks!
Cheers,
rant
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I'd look on the cubetutor blog, which will list all the cuts in one place.
Nissa is one of the best ways to help green enable token shells. Since a few other token/anthem support cards were cut, I wanted to keep one powerhouse enabler for that specific deck. Even though she's not a great card for generic green decks.
I love Wildfire shells so much that I wanted to keep the extra 5cc threat in red that works so well in those decks.
Treasure Cruise is a good card, particularly in tempo shells. But to answer the latter question ...maybe. I'll have to test the configuration for a while and see how it plays with the current concentration of draw spells.
I quite like Abbot. It's a way for red to generate mid-curve card advantage, and the prowess works well in spells matters shells. He's a solid B- guy.
Keg is an answer to manlands, and all 14 of 'em survived the cut. Bomb can answer 'walkers instead, but it's not nearly as good at doing so. Keg is an immediate way to keep manlands at bay when they're actively pressuring you. Whereas Bomb is too slow to deal with an opposing Elspeth/Gideon/Chandra before you're dead to them. Between the two, Keg can be a topdecked answer to something control struggles against, and Bomb is just a rough topdeck when you're actively being pressured by the one thing it can answer that Keg can't. And against cheap creatures, tokens, moxen and cheap utility cards, they both perform the same.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!