My plan is to have a separate pool of rares and add 1 to each pack to make it a little closer to regular limited. This way I can just go vanilla peasant when I want and can spice things up when we feel like it or have more players since the rares will increase the card pool a bit.
I want to avoid rares that are played in most traditional/rare cubes but are still powerful enough that they'll see play in peasant. I'm also sticking to rares that have been printed after WotC gave them a gold expansion symbol in order to make them easy to identify and separate at the end of the night.
My goal is to end up with 10-15 cards in each color plus artifacts for a total of 75-100 cards. This means an 9=person draft will see about 1/3 to 1/4 of the total rares each time. I think I'm just going to ignore gold cards completely for this since I want to make sure that most of the rares see play each time they're drafted. Similarly, I'm also capping cards to just double colored mana in order to increase playability. Mythics and Planeswalkers are just right out for my project.
Here's a rough draft of cards I'm looking at in white:
As mentioned above, gimme staples like Wrath of God are being avoided in favor for more flavorful/fun cards that don't see much play in other formats. Wave of Reckoning plays a similar role, but lets you build around high toughness creatures, which seems cool to me.
I hear what you are saying, i like that reasoning, but what would you do if you played w/ less players and wanted to rock 4 packs of 11 or something like that? would you still add just 1 to each pack?
on white, I like a lot of those honestly, as I marked a bunch of them for my own use/testing. I see you have added a bit of a token/human/soldier type theme which is cool. A lot of those cards are somewhat higher casting cost though...
do you think that is a problem that they are weighted on the 4/5/6 cmc side? I feel like white wants to be aggressive where you'd want some good early drops so besides some good flying later rares, I'd want to have some good early drop options...
Here's a rough draft of cards I'm looking at in white:
This made me want to actually do the work and look through white cards to find what my potential adds for peasant+ would be. After looking through white on magiccards.info, here are my first list of cards that I would be considering.
Because some of the cards available in Peasant are the best cards in a regular Cube. (Swords, Path, Lightning Bolt, Bloodbraid Elf, etc.)
Because at that point, if we include Cloudgoat Ranger, why not include Geist-Honored Monk? I think it's arguable that the Ranger is the more powerful card, so why are we not including the Monk? Especially if you're trying to push swarm/token strategies.
But the cards I'm looking to add help flesh the themes I want in my Cube. Ageless Entity helps my lifegain archetype. Ajani's Pridemate can only do so much.
Tibalt, Chandra, and Squee help with assorted madness, threshold, flashback, and other graveyard oriented cards while being interesting on their own. They are not incredibly powerful or game warping, but they help with the structure of the Cube. I also don't think they're automatic first picks or anything.
Erebos would help with a black devotion theme while also being good against said lifegain deck. Bane of the Living adds more to my morph count and adds a much needed sweeper. Hystrodon also adds to my morph count and my magpie count.
calibreto, i marked a bunch of those as well. Though I am not too fond of the great efficient white creatures that have multiple color protections. I think that's a bit too powerful.
I think that it's half the fun trying to figure what is TOO powerful... but for me i try to ask myself if a) will this card pretty much win the game if it is cast and then b) if its cast are there enough things that can deal with it... if i answer those as "yes" and "no" its probably too powerful...
the other option is using rares to create cool niche archetypes in colors... maybe you want to go goblins in red or soldier/knights/kithkin in white or things of that nature then obviously certain rares are powerful but by themselves aren't.
cards that feel too SWINGY i don't like that stuff can stay in powered cubes ... i would just want to supplement or add to the overall cube not necessarily change how my cube plays in essence.
cards that feel too SWINGY i don't like that stuff can stay in powered cubes ... i would just want to supplement or add to the overall cube not necessarily change how my cube plays in essence.
This. Exactly this.
I mean, it's part of the reason why I don't even run some uncommons. I already have a semi-self-imposed banned list. So it all makes sense.
Thundermare -- I think this and the planar chaos mare are TOO strong in peasant... I really LOVE them, but essentially a 5 to the dome card along with any other creatures out can literally win the game with little counter play to it
Rathi Dragon -- this for me is ok, as I like that some of the powerful creatures for lower cost make you sacrifice something (creature/lands).
Verdant Force -- I have been staying away from the all color/color/color spells... just find it harder to get cast in peasant (don't use painlands or other rare lands as too much to afford)
Undiscovered Paradise -- any color is nice, depends on your deck i guess
Soltari Guerrillas -- they are cool... i also kind of stayed away from any multi colored cards at the moment as there are SOOO many and don't want to get all excited about multi's right now.
Volrath's Stronghold -- this is cool i like.
Stronghold Assassin -- he's ok, i don't think overly strong... the repeatable destroy effects, like on Northern Paladins I don't want to have on all my creatures. Though the fact he's 2/1 and you have to tap then sac a creature is alot. he's pretty slow and really fragile.
It is hard to judge all of these possible cards I made a huge list that is obviously subjective to what i think is cool and/or strong but not TOO strong as well as not too expensive to get my hands on. But trying to figure out what card should take what's place is where i start to get overwhelmed.
Thundermare seems ok, but honestly I'm just as happy with Volcanic Dragon and I don't even play that.
My buddy used to get people all the time with Rathi Dragon in his extended (yeah it was that long ago) Sligh deck. I don't know if it'd be worth the two land sacrifice here, though.
Verdant Force is probably fine if you're looking to add more big beefers to green. I prefer Pelakka Wurm to him, though.
Undiscovered Paradise would have to be a judgment call. I wouldn't run it, but only because I'm already running it in my rare cube and it's really good there.
Soltari Guerillas I like. This is probably just better than other popular aggressive Boros guys like Skyknight Legionnaire or Hearthfire Hobgoblin.
Volrath's Stronghold is too good for a peasant list.
Stronghold Assassin has really sweet artwork, but is probably not good enough. He's fragile and his activation cost is hefty.
I think you would almost have to go through the entire pool of cards, decide for sure which rares you'd be willing to allow in, and then build your cube from the normal C/U pool as well as your new rare pool. I think doing it that way would make it a little less daunting.
Thundermare -- I think this and the planar chaos mare are TOO strong in peasant... I really LOVE them, but essentially a 5 to the dome card along with any other creatures out can literally win the game with little counter play to it
Oh, I also just picked up a Vampiric Tutor to put in my cube. Certainly a very powerful rare, and excellent in powered cubes, but a tutor's power scales based on the power of the other cards in the deck. Also, peasant cube is a format of card advantage, so the card disadvantage tutors should be weaker here. Also, its worse than demonic tutor.
I like the decks that tutors support. Good in pestilence, sacrifice, reanimator, etc. all the comboish things. Also, I like the potential combo with cascade spells.
I'd keep my eye on Supreme Verdict and Shadowmage Infiltrator, but other than that those all seem like reasonable choices. I'll be interested to hear how they play when you get a chance to try them.
If you're going to be breaking the rules, you may as well be doing it for something interesting. Absorb would be a waste, and is probably worse than just our regular options in azorius.
Wouldn't be too worried about shadowmage infiltrator. It's just about perfect at being very good without being dumb strong. As far as I can tell. If your 1/3 3 drop goes unanswered for 3 attacks (and/or they don't have an artifact creature) something's up anyway.
I agree that Kavu Titan is probably right in terms of power level, but it's extraordinarily boring. For green options, I really like Ulvenwald Tracker, and I'm kind of curious about Wolfbriar Elemental. I don't think either of them is "too powerful", and they both have interesting qualities to them that you don't normally get with commons/uncommons.
The more I think about it, if I was going to add a four mana Wrath to my otherwise Peasant cube, Supreme Verdict would probably be the one I'd add because it requires a specific two color combination to play it. I'd still watch to see its impact on the format, but it might be fine. Grand Arbiter seems like a reasonable addition; it does something fairly unique, and while it sees play in most rare/powered cubes, I don't think it's a very good card in those environments. Shadowmage Infiltrator isn't overtly powerful, but given that it still sees regular play in powered cubes I'd be wary of its inclusion in a mostly commons/uncommons environment. It does require two specific colors, so it might be fine, but I'd probably try something else first if only for sake of trying something that's an unknown quantity rather than going with something that everyone knows is pretty good.
I want to avoid rares that are played in most traditional/rare cubes but are still powerful enough that they'll see play in peasant. I'm also sticking to rares that have been printed after WotC gave them a gold expansion symbol in order to make them easy to identify and separate at the end of the night.
My goal is to end up with 10-15 cards in each color plus artifacts for a total of 75-100 cards. This means an 9=person draft will see about 1/3 to 1/4 of the total rares each time. I think I'm just going to ignore gold cards completely for this since I want to make sure that most of the rares see play each time they're drafted. Similarly, I'm also capping cards to just double colored mana in order to increase playability. Mythics and Planeswalkers are just right out for my project.
Here's a rough draft of cards I'm looking at in white:
As mentioned above, gimme staples like Wrath of God are being avoided in favor for more flavorful/fun cards that don't see much play in other formats. Wave of Reckoning plays a similar role, but lets you build around high toughness creatures, which seems cool to me.
Thoughts?
on white, I like a lot of those honestly, as I marked a bunch of them for my own use/testing. I see you have added a bit of a token/human/soldier type theme which is cool. A lot of those cards are somewhat higher casting cost though...
do you think that is a problem that they are weighted on the 4/5/6 cmc side? I feel like white wants to be aggressive where you'd want some good early drops so besides some good flying later rares, I'd want to have some good early drop options...
Whobetta's Peasant Cube
My MTGSalvation Cube Thread (last updated 6/29/15)
MY Cube Page
This made me want to actually do the work and look through white cards to find what my potential adds for peasant+ would be. After looking through white on magiccards.info, here are my first list of cards that I would be considering.
There are several cards on this list that I feel would probably be too powerful, but I think a good portion of it fits the idea well.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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Because some of the cards available in Peasant are the best cards in a regular Cube. (Swords, Path, Lightning Bolt, Bloodbraid Elf, etc.)
Because at that point, if we include Cloudgoat Ranger, why not include Geist-Honored Monk? I think it's arguable that the Ranger is the more powerful card, so why are we not including the Monk? Especially if you're trying to push swarm/token strategies.
But the cards I'm looking to add help flesh the themes I want in my Cube. Ageless Entity helps my lifegain archetype. Ajani's Pridemate can only do so much.
Tibalt, Chandra, and Squee help with assorted madness, threshold, flashback, and other graveyard oriented cards while being interesting on their own. They are not incredibly powerful or game warping, but they help with the structure of the Cube. I also don't think they're automatic first picks or anything.
Erebos would help with a black devotion theme while also being good against said lifegain deck. Bane of the Living adds more to my morph count and adds a much needed sweeper. Hystrodon also adds to my morph count and my magpie count.
I think that it's half the fun trying to figure what is TOO powerful... but for me i try to ask myself if a) will this card pretty much win the game if it is cast and then b) if its cast are there enough things that can deal with it... if i answer those as "yes" and "no" its probably too powerful...
the other option is using rares to create cool niche archetypes in colors... maybe you want to go goblins in red or soldier/knights/kithkin in white or things of that nature then obviously certain rares are powerful but by themselves aren't.
cards that feel too SWINGY i don't like that stuff can stay in powered cubes ... i would just want to supplement or add to the overall cube not necessarily change how my cube plays in essence.
Whobetta's Peasant Cube
My MTGSalvation Cube Thread (last updated 6/29/15)
MY Cube Page
This. Exactly this.
I mean, it's part of the reason why I don't even run some uncommons. I already have a semi-self-imposed banned list. So it all makes sense.
Some are probably a bit too good
Rathi Dragon -- this for me is ok, as I like that some of the powerful creatures for lower cost make you sacrifice something (creature/lands).
Verdant Force -- I have been staying away from the all color/color/color spells... just find it harder to get cast in peasant (don't use painlands or other rare lands as too much to afford)
Undiscovered Paradise -- any color is nice, depends on your deck i guess
Soltari Guerrillas -- they are cool... i also kind of stayed away from any multi colored cards at the moment as there are SOOO many and don't want to get all excited about multi's right now.
Volrath's Stronghold -- this is cool i like.
Stronghold Assassin -- he's ok, i don't think overly strong... the repeatable destroy effects, like on Northern Paladins I don't want to have on all my creatures. Though the fact he's 2/1 and you have to tap then sac a creature is alot. he's pretty slow and really fragile.
It is hard to judge all of these possible cards I made a huge list that is obviously subjective to what i think is cool and/or strong but not TOO strong as well as not too expensive to get my hands on. But trying to figure out what card should take what's place is where i start to get overwhelmed.
Whobetta's Peasant Cube
My MTGSalvation Cube Thread (last updated 6/29/15)
MY Cube Page
My buddy used to get people all the time with Rathi Dragon in his extended (yeah it was that long ago) Sligh deck. I don't know if it'd be worth the two land sacrifice here, though.
Verdant Force is probably fine if you're looking to add more big beefers to green. I prefer Pelakka Wurm to him, though.
Undiscovered Paradise would have to be a judgment call. I wouldn't run it, but only because I'm already running it in my rare cube and it's really good there.
Soltari Guerillas I like. This is probably just better than other popular aggressive Boros guys like Skyknight Legionnaire or Hearthfire Hobgoblin.
Volrath's Stronghold is too good for a peasant list.
Stronghold Assassin has really sweet artwork, but is probably not good enough. He's fragile and his activation cost is hefty.
I think you would almost have to go through the entire pool of cards, decide for sure which rares you'd be willing to allow in, and then build your cube from the normal C/U pool as well as your new rare pool. I think doing it that way would make it a little less daunting.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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He taps all of your guys
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
what a moronical I am... reading is fun-DUH-mental...
Ok so its not as good as i thought and now has bigger drawback...
Whobetta's Peasant Cube
My MTGSalvation Cube Thread (last updated 6/29/15)
MY Cube Page
Happens to the best of us my boy.
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
I like the decks that tutors support. Good in pestilence, sacrifice, reanimator, etc. all the comboish things. Also, I like the potential combo with cascade spells.
CubeTutor: www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/72
Thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=512410
Tell that to berserk, snap, keldon marauders, hellspark elemental, arcane denial, and all the other cards in the cube that couldn't care less about your card advantage.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
As far as I can tell
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
The more I think about it, if I was going to add a four mana Wrath to my otherwise Peasant cube, Supreme Verdict would probably be the one I'd add because it requires a specific two color combination to play it. I'd still watch to see its impact on the format, but it might be fine. Grand Arbiter seems like a reasonable addition; it does something fairly unique, and while it sees play in most rare/powered cubes, I don't think it's a very good card in those environments. Shadowmage Infiltrator isn't overtly powerful, but given that it still sees regular play in powered cubes I'd be wary of its inclusion in a mostly commons/uncommons environment. It does require two specific colors, so it might be fine, but I'd probably try something else first if only for sake of trying something that's an unknown quantity rather than going with something that everyone knows is pretty good.
CubeTutor: www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/72
Thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=512410
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
...Tangle?
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Card tags ma dude
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article