MTG Salvation

Q: What is a Re-Experience Cube?

A: It's an attempt to re-create past drafting experiences of set no longer in print, it is also meant to cut the chaff out of previous block experiences, such as the always-in-the-sideboard Caregiver or Dromad Purebred or cards of similar low power level. Only the best and brightest make it in.

Q: What's it look like?

A: The cubes are always 720 cards total, but not entirely singleton. You see, in order to closely resemble an actual limited experience, commons must be the bulk of the cube. This way strategies used in previous limited formats can flourish, as they are mostly based on the commons of the set. In addition, commons are where most of the flavor of a specific block remain.

Having said that, the cube contains 3 of the chosen commons, 2 of the chosen uncommons and 1 of each chosen Mythic/Rare. This gives somewhere between 340-360 unique cards.

Q: Why did you need to post this on Salvation?

A: Mostly as an online way to keep track of all of my cubes and manage them , but also to discuss the cube itself, and previous limited experiences people have had with said set and to have a place for people to simply check them out.

Q: Cool, Anything Else?

A: My long-Term intention is to have them all from Mirage to whatever set is current at the time. I have almost all the lists done virtually and several finished or near-finished physically. I also have bent the rules a little in some cases. If a card is clearly from a specific plane, but not printed in the set, I may allow it to be in, if it is good enough. An example is Gigantoplasm who was not printed in Ravnica block, but a commander series. He is allowed to be in because he is clearly from the block and is definitely able to make the cut among the other cards.

Another rule I bent is for downgraded rarities on reprints. If a card was an uncommon in the set, but was reprinted as a common in another, I will allow it to be used 3 times like the commons are. An example is Skarrgan Firebird was printed as rare originally, but was reprinted as an uncommon in Modern masters, so it goes in as a uncommon.

Finally, I added 5 planeswalkers that I thought fit the plane for sets that have none.

Without any further ado, here is the first Re-Experience Cube for Ravnica: City of Guilds Block:

Food for thought: do you need planeswalkers? Doesn't really seem to add anything to the play of the original block, especially since Planeswalkers tend to warp/feel out of place in all limited formats. I would recommend not adding them, as the reasons to add them seem arbitrary, or rather just doing it to do it without considering the play they bring.

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

I'll admit, it is a little arbitrary and definitely not obligatory. It's just pretty exciting to open one and i figured it adds more to the cube. The ones added are pretty low powered, so i don't think they are going to warp things too much.

Plus it feels a little unfair that other sets get planeswalkers and the early sets don't. (Granted there are not enough extra planeswalkers to fillup all the old sets.) I was also considering getting all the planeswalkers and just choosing 5 random ones in different colors each time we draft.

In this particular block it doesn't bother me much, because the amount of good playables was drying up anyway, black was looking to add Hex as its next best rare and blue just has a million Control Magic variants, the other colors didn't have much more inspiring to add.

But I'll see more with my local playgroup, if they don't like it, I can be convinced to remove them.

I think there are some questions you need to ask yourself re: planeswalkers--

1) How many answers do I have? Can a player reliably at least see an answer in every draft, and if not is that due to the options available? The colors they're in? Rememher that this wasn't a set that had planeswalkers, there was no consideration for them in designing the original set.

2) What types of planeswalkers do I want to add? Am I adding planeswalkers that take over the game, like Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and if so am I ok with the non-games that come with those? Am I going to add planeswalkers that are more support than the actual wincon itself, like Jace Beleren? (those are just examples, not suggestions, but I would *not* include Elspeth unless you want every game with her to be a groan-fest.)

3) What is the actual excitement involved with opening a planeswalker? Does it comes with what the card is? Is it based on a lack of exposure from your playgroup to playing with planeswalkers in general, like the ooo-aaa factor that comes with seeing something for the first time? Is it the excitement of picking a bomb, and if so would the same excitement be achieved with running +1 of a creature bomb i.e. something with more answers? Is there some kind of subconscious involved with the 'cha-ching' aspect of magic, i.e. opening packs is pretty close to gambling, so is it derived from that built-in 'I'm a winner!' feel that lit-up slot machines instill?

These are questions that standard cubes don't have to answer since there are more planeswalkers around, more answers, and strategies that can beat planeswalkers. However, limited is a different animal, and for all purposes you're recreating the limited experience of OG Ravnica.

These are also questions you don't have to explicitly answer here; at the end of the day, if everyone in your playgroup wants to add planeswalkers to the cube, then power to you. But with the ultimate goal of cubes being to creature a draft format that after construction is cheap to maintain and free to draft again and again, you need to make sure the players will be willing to draft your cube again and again and planeswalkers are one of those things that are loved or hated by some, and when less people can get them the more extreme their effects can be (both negative and positive).

Definitely fair points. It will really come down to feedback from my playgroup. When it boils down in the end, what ever I think might be good for the cube, may in fact not be so. If I encounter several groans from players not being able to deal with planeswalkers.

It's easy for me to say, ''Well, we have creatures and burn as answers to planeswalkers'', but the honest truth it's not easy to evaluate how easy planeswalkers are to deal with in a given set, as there are various ways that may or may not be easy to accomplish and it's not really easy to tell without a good sample size of drafts.

Game warping cards do happen and people's response to them varies. For example my Kamigawa Block Cube has Umezawa's Jitte, some may say it's a mistake to include it, since it's so hard to deal with and is so game warping. However, many would argue that it's such an iconic part of the block that it's a mistake to not include. I see including planeswalkers as an iconic part of the game, however that amount of iconicness (is that even a word?) is not worth it, if it makes playing magic miserable.

In the end, I build cubes for friends to play. I like receiving feedback and adjusting accordingly. If the majority doesn't like it, then the walkers will hit the curb lightning fast.