MTG Salvation

Quote from Carom

My first thought about Jeleva was that half the Johnny's I know are going to spend two months trying to build janky Shrieking Drake combos with her.

At first I thought that you were mistaken about how the card worked. Then, to my horror, I slowly realized that you were talking about abusing her ETB ability. I sat there in panic for a few minutes trying to come up with an alternative solution for the sake of my personal sanity. "Nah, no one could build a deck that bad, I must be missing something."

...

...

You've ruined me :nod:.

Quote from Zteel

I have slowly started to find cards using your guides to make a multiplayer cube with 360 cards and I have a question.

What of kind of converted mana cost distribution should I aim for in a color?

When in doubt stick to a bell-cuvre :3. Seriously though, focus a lot on 3-6 and sporadically add 1-2s and 7-9s when you're talking about uber-powerful cards that are worth taking a chance on. Don't go crazy on early game stuff since games will run long so it's pointless to jam 1 drops in most of your decks but I mean people should have access to a bit of early game stuff. If my deck has a single 1 drop (a good one) that's more than enough in my mind. Same thing with say 8-9 drops. You'll always play the first but beyond that... you're pushing your luck a bit lol.

Quote from Giblets

Why am I most excited right now about Purphoros, God of the Forge? Probably because red is so overdue. Thanks for the write up.

First of all, np :).

Secondly, I wholeheartedly agree that Red has needed a solid finisher for a long time now. Purphoros is absurd though. Like, he triggers off of ANY creature coming into play under your control. That is... just wow lol. Having a big 6 power beater than can't die is never a bad thing to have either. Pumping your power for 3 mana isn't great, that much is clear, but I see that as a nice "free" bonus. By no means does it need to be relevant for the card to be powerful.

That feel when you didn't know that Bestow didn't get crushed by instant-speed removal :3. I'll be updating some of my previous entries for that little mixup XD.

Quote from Miaou

I agree with your green review, except for the Bow. If the ability was just deathtouch then that would be great. But since it is only attacking creatures that benefit from it, I don't think it's that great.

Again, my initial reaction to the card was "meh." That being said I can see why I could easily be wrong about it. Like, it's 3 mana, has 4 modes and provides a relevant persistent effect. That's not too shabby. Off the top of my head it makes Predator Ooze, Strangleroot Geist, any Troll (Thrun, Troll Ascetic, etc), Solemn Simulacrum and whatever else into fairly relevant beaters. I also want to point out how good it is with Kessig Wolf Run. Like, your 1/1 mana elf can now basically not be blocked and will Fireball your opponent. It didn't blow me away, but really, how bad could it actually be?

Let's be clear about something. I'm not really assuming that we're talking about ultra competitive games filled with combos and broken interactions. I'm assuming reasonable people sitting down to play 15-20 turns of Magic or something close to that. It's pretty hard for that kind of card to be terrible in a long, drawn-out game.

Quote from Carom

Bestow seems okay, too, especially since you aren't opening yourself up for a blowout like you ordinarily are with enchantments.

Spot removal still kind of gets you sadly. It's never going to be amazing in that sense. That's why I'm only rating the bestow creatures who I could see myself playing for their regular bodies. Granted, the Archon duder isn't amazing, but I mean a 5 mana 4/4 flying first striker is playable (I've seen worse cards do relevant things) and giving something an Angelic Destiny of sorts will be relevant some % of the time. A 3 mana Mortivore is still a 3 mana Mortivore. If you can abuse Bestow, awesome, but these are not unplayable cards even if you remove the keyword.

Quote from Miaou

Thanks for the cube rating
However, I don't quite agree with the black god being all that good in cube unless you actively support a drain theme.
In cube he is obviously harder to get online than in a monoB deck, so he loses value there too.
It's going to be tough to make cuts for this set. I might have to expand!

I pretty much assume that you're fielding some amount of Black drain in your Cubes lol. That's not much of a requirement in my mind. With respect to supporting him, again, that's not difficult insofar as you're running good creatures XD. All of the Gods seem perfectly playable to me even with minor support.

Quote from Miaou

I was thinking, when you have 9-10 players for a cube draft, do you do one giant FFA battle or split into two 4-5 player games? Are there other alternatives that you use?

And I can't believe that I haven't proxied a Rolling Earthquake yet! I can even make it black bordered

Thanks for the guide so far!

We've never split into smaller groups.

The main piece of information that I gathered from this post is that you loved how Brawl moved away from wave-dashing and more towards tripping and that you're looking forward to seeing more of those kinds of changes again in the near future :).

Quote from Zteel

Awesome, looking forward to the rest of the series, I just have a few quick questions

Do you use/draft the cube differently, when you don't have exactly 8 players to draft with?
Have you tried to do Winston Draft or Sealed with the cube, when you're only a few people together?

No and no.

If we only have 3 players then we draft with 3. If we have 6 then we do 6. If we have 10 then we do 10. We're going to have a blast no matter which way we slice it.

With respect to the other formats, nah, they just don't interest us.

Quote from Blueduck

I'm worried that my group sizes tend to fluctuate a lot. Sometimes I'll be playing with a group of 5 and other times we can have 14 people at our sessions with multiple tables. Do cubes have to tailored to a specific (general) size? Obviously I can always just make the cube bigger but it somehow seems like it wouldn't work very well for 5 people to draft a cube that was large enough for 10. But maybe that's not true. But I also wouldn't want to have to tell people that they can't come because the draft is full.

Cube size is only a concern if you're looking to build something that supports many small, nice archetypes. Take one of my favorite draft archetypes for example, Dragon Force. If I were to draft a 360 card cube with 8 people I would basically always be able to grab Wildfire, Burning of Xinye and Destructive Force. I'd clearly be able to grab some number of big dumb things as well and from there I could always play my deck.

Conversely, the same cannot be said for a 720 card Cube. I would only see 1.5 of those cards on average (assuming an 8 man draft) which would it make it much more difficult to optimize my list.

Now, this is not inherently a bad thing. The only thing that it really means is that you have to carefully consider what archetypes to support in large Cubes. A good example of an archetype that you can still easily support is GW Tokens. There's enough "tokens matter" effects out there to make it work because you're not relying on 2-3 cards that you may or may not ever see. Insofar as you have a critical mass of redundant effects at your disposal then it doesn't matter if your Cube is 360, 720 or 1000+ cards.

Quote from Blueduck

Flexibly seems like it may be an advantage of constructed decks. Not only can you always add another person to the group (even if you have to start another table), but we rarely have a night where everyone shows up at the same time. That would be a problem with a draft but if they're bringing a deck, they can just jump into the next game. Do you deal with problems like this?

Let me start off by saying that Cubing (and drafting in general) has clear disadvantages over building constructed decks. Some clear examples of that have been mentioned earlier in this thread and you bring up another valid concern as well. I am not trying to hide that fact. You are all absolutely right that it has some shortcomings.

With that in mind, I want to stress that you should still invest in one anyways. Flexibility is both a blessing and a curse. I've been playing multiplayer Magic for 12 years and if it's one thing that I've learned it's that you can't fight human nature. What you can do is work alongside it though. If your meta has 14 or more players I'm willing to wager that there's a noticeable power disparity between some of their decks. It's entirely possible that you're all seasoned pros and that I'm mistaken but I'm willing to bet that there's no clear baseline for power level. This, to me, is where a Cube shines. A Cube is its own metagame and so you get to create one that you (and hopefully others!) can consider as balanced and fun.

To give you an idea, my Cube doesn't have Sol Ring, Skullclamp, infinite combos, Power, etc. That is, I don't use cards that can create insurmountable advantages for people in the opening turns. I also go out of my avoid adding protection effects (such as Swords of X and Y). Why? I want to play long, fun, interactive games. When people bring constructed decks they often have cards such as Standstill, Winter Orb, Swords of X and Y, Sol Ring, das Clamp, etc. that can end and/or ruin games. There is nothing more boring than seeing the UR mage getting beat on by a Sword of Fire and Ice because there's just nothing interactive about it. It's also equally obnoxious to see someone go Land, Sol Ring, Dimir Signet or whatever and a drop a Vorapede on turn 2. It's exceptionally difficult to regulate power and ensure fun, interactive games when people are allowed to build their own decks. It's obviously possible that everyone could adhere to some set of guidelines to ensure that it happens but I mean it seems fairly unlikely to me.

In that sense, Cubing is tackling different problems from a unique angle. If you're looking for the fastest, easiest solution then it's clearly not going to be your best option. I hope that much is clear.

Quote from Miaou

The problem is introducing it to my playgroup. Nobody other than me has ever drafted any set and I'm not sure about how to get them to play.
Do I do a mock draft with cards face up explaining picks?
Do I try a sealed deck experience first to get used to the cards?

Nah. All of that sounds boring. The best way to learn is to play and the best way to sell someone something is to put product in their hands. Now you know why that pretty girl at the salon always has a bottle that she'll hand to you while she's rubbing that cream on your hands. Anyways, get people to build their 3 piles of 15 cards, stack them up and have everyone grab one. Give them a quick run-down of what a draft is and get things rolling with the real thing. Put the cards in their hands and don't waste time with mock drafts. Don't teach them how to build Sealed decks either because that will simply confuse them. You will teach them exactly what they need to do and nothing else. The idea here isn't to overload people with details. Focus on playing; not teaching. People will get the hang of it after a few sessions. It really doesn't matter if everyone sucks at drafting initially because that's a handicap that you'll all share so the guy blindly picking cards isn't that much better off than the person trying to think the perfect pick through. Besides, my cubes are never very cerebral. Just take the card that appeals to you the most and roll with it. You can't go wrong when every pick is a winner.

Quote from Miaou

I'm also in the same scenario as Indalecio where we have pretty short sessions. How long does the draft process and actual game take for you guys on average?

Varies on player number and experience. If it's just the 3 pros then we've done as many as 14 in 6 hours. If there's 9 of us including a whack of newbies then we'll usually do a draft + 2 games across a 2.5-3 hour timespan. At the end of the day is boils down to player number and experience above all else and so there's no great way to answer this question. What I will say is that if you're looking for something quick and dirty then Cubing isn't the way to go. You have to treat it like a special occasion. It's like going to the movies or whatever. Have snacks, have drinks, have fun, bring good people. If you're unwilling or incapable of making an experience out of it then you're doing it wrong.

Quote from Indalecio

1- I don't know how quick your group is in terms of drafting but unless you´re up for a veeery long time you can't get that many games played compared to Constructed because of the time you "lose" to drafting and deck construction. Of course, you could see this as part of the fun as well, but I´m guessing people want to play the game at some point. Moreover, even if a Cube is a huge bunch of cards in essence, you´re still drafting the same cards so it theoritically isn't as fun as drafting a set since it's not fully random (as people know what's in your Cube)? I know the power level of the cards mitigates that risk cause I would also think it'd be cool to get a hand full of god-like spells without having to consider what I´m gonna get after the game is over. My point is that Cube might be an awesome way of playing Magic, but if you´re like me with 50% of our sessions below 2.5-3 hours then it might not be the most effective way to entertain us given the time frame.

Drafting a real set requires large, continuous investments from people. A pre-constrcuted Cube requires one fairly large initial investment but has very little upkeep expenses. In addition, most draft formats are weak and lead to slow, boring games in which massive board stalls emerge that cannot reasonably be broken. Drafting a bunch of 3/3s for 4 and 2/2s for 2 does not lead to fun, fast, explosive games.

With respect to "fun," well, I can only speak from experience and tell you that drafting is most certainly a vital part of the process. Everyone is different, I understand that, but I've personally never met the person who didn't fall in love with that aspect of the game after giving it a go. I personally find it to be incredibly fun and so have all of the people who I've interacted with so far. To give you an idea, we have never "lost" someone because of Cubing. If someone comes over and Cubes once you better believe they were back the next week to do it again. It's something that appeals to pros and newbs alike and that's a powerful thing.

With respect to time, that question is harder to answer. You can probably get a draft + 2 games in for a 2.5-3 hour session which is likely smaller than the number of games that you would yield playing pre-constructed decks. That being said, there's something to be said about the quality of those 2 games. Imagine a world in which there were no boring locks, no infinite combos and no advantage for having deeper pockets. Imagine being able to play Magic the Gathering for 20 turns against your friends and family. Everyone gets to do fun, powerful things and everyone gets to build a powerful deck that can take it all. Even though you'll assuredly play fewer games I can almost assure you that people will enjoy them more. This is especially true if you even wish to fold new people in to your group.

Quote from Indalecio

2- How do you shuffle your Cube from a pure practical perspective? I mean how the **** do you properly shuffle 1000 cards if you don't toss the bunch in the air and gather the pieces?

The same way that the dealers at Vegas do it. You swirl them on a clear, flat surface to the best of your abilities. The process isn't so bad if everyone pitches it to gather them up once they're sufficiently randomized and builds their own piles of cards. Don't forget that you can do it while you're watching TV or whatever too at some point during the week. It doesn't take any focus nor much effort. The Cube Master has some light maintenance duties to attend to and this can certainly be considered as one of them.

Quote from Indalecio

3- Do you play with sleeves and if so do different people have different sleeves sets? I was thinking that you may want to protect your expensive cards.

Of course you use sleeves! Just look for something quick and dirty that will get the job done and that you can purchase in bulk. Don't forget that you'll need a whack of extras for lands, broken sleeves, future modifications, etc. You should literally be buying hundreds more than you actually need and even then it won't be enough. You probably think that I'm being hyperbolic but you'll thank me down the road.

Quote from Indalecio

4- A bit like 3-. How do you manage these players who are careless about the cards, in terms of bending them or leaving them at spots where they shouldn't be? I know this sounds picky but I often lend cards and decks to my fellow players and unfortunately not all of them are that respectfull of the material.

I don't have a good answer to this question because it's never been a concern for us. Cards are meant to be played, not hoarded and sold, and so none of us have ever given it a second thought. I legitimately have nothing else to offer you.

Sigh. I know. Did I mention how lazy I am? If not, it's very. Ugh.

Also, ;~;.

Quote from mata666

Damn, you got me with this one... For a second I thought you were really about to discuss history

Baited and outsmarted :3.

Quote from mata666

Anyway, I read a post "Who to target first - the weaker or the stronger players" (or something like that) a while ago on the forums. For me, this blog entry was much clearer and more understandable, although I am probobly not the newest player.

Hmmm. Thanks for the insight. I might have to revisit that topic at some point then.

Quote from mata666

After reading this, I immediately went to the guides at the top of the multiplayer forum to check for improvements for my decks. Those are basicly more detailed parts of this article (regarding deck construction and card choice). I don't know who your target audiance is, but maybe you'd like to link those somewhere (in case someone doesn't know about them)?

That's probably wise. Hmmm.

Quote from mata666

In the end, I found the information in this article usefull and don't regret reading it. Thanks!

Man. '"I didn't totally regret this." Score one for the good guys! Kidding :P. Thanks, glad that you found it useful :).