Unfortunate maybe. But we are all catering to our individual groups that a single unified conversation seems moot. The goals are all very specific and tailored to the people who play - I avoid tutors and combo, Wildfire does not.
That's fair, it honestly just makes it really hard to design a cube without basically copying somebody else's. Ah well, I guess I'll just have to test like crazy.
I've sketched out what I think is a good foundation for the cube design. I've basically broken it down into ten "archetypes", the shards and wedges (every combination of 3 colors, basically). I've tried to give each combination a somewhat unique identity, but still making enough overlap for one- and two-color cards to fit into multiple three-color themes. For example, BRG (Jund) has a main theme of saccing creatures/permanents, while it's close relative UBG (Sultai) has a theme of graveyard manipulation/interaction and self-mill. This means a lot of BG cards should fit both archetypes.
I know that sketching this out might seem silly, but I really do like that I've given it an identity and purposeful design. I've already got about 500 cards so I'm sure I'll be doing a LOT of pruning.
Thank you, Galspanic and Wildfire393, for all your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. You've both been great helps!
Pickles was a deck back in TSP block that revolved around getting a Brine Elemental to lock your opponent(s) down, and then having a Vesuvan Shapeshifter copy it every turn. It scales incredibly well into Commander, since it's "each opponent", it doesn't target, and it's in blue so it's easy to protect. It's really easy to do in Momir Vig, Simic Visionary decks because basically all you have to do is play two blue/green creatures to tutor for both of them. You could do it with a lot of other commanders as well (since the "combo" is monoblue), but I've seen it work best in Momir Vig decks.
First, thanks for explaining why you prefer to draft generals in the cube itself- that makes a lot of sense, and I'll definitely try it. I imagine you're correct in that it makes the draft a bit more skill-intensive, so maybe that'll be a good thing to just start with. It also makes it way easier to have additional legendary creatures in the card pool. Perhaps I'll start with your idea and switch if I don't like it, as it does solve the logistic/design headache of having other legendary creatures in the "regular" card pool.
You won't find too much writing about the construction or design because it's all implied in the card choice. But we'll all explain why we have what we have.
That's really unfortunate to hear, honestly- I love talking about design. I guess I really prefer top-down design in this regard over "bottom-up" if you can call it that here; having a solid foundation and then filling that in with smart card choices seems so much easier (and more balanced) to me.
After reading some stuff about cube in general, now I'm torn about whether or not to simply have powerful "goodstuff" cards in this cube or not. Since everything I've read about it has been biased, does anybody have a reasonably objective argument for including cards simply because they are powerful?
Every local Momir Vig list I've seen eventually turns into "tutor for Pickles-lock", and thanks to green, I've seen the lock go down on turn 4. It's incredibly consistent in my experience.
Sisay is so overtly powerful that I hardly need to say anything. There are so many good W/G legendary targets, especially hosers- things like Iona, Elesh Norn, Gaddock Teeg,Linvala, etc- you just tutor for whatever shuts them down and then you win.
Also, I have mono-colored legends in there and they are there because they are good creatures - just twice I've had someone go mono-colored and he was doing it to be funny more than anything else. There's really no reason to exclude them since the rest of the Cube dictates how people will build and draft.
How do you place monocolored Legendary creatures, then? Just as a "regular" card? I want to run cards like Venser or Mageta, the Lion maybe (just examples), but I don't think I can justify having them in "regular" slots. This has given me a lot of headache- do I just have the commanders drafted in "regular" packs? What happens if somebody doesn't really see any legendary creatures? I feel like it's pretty important to do the commander draft separately, especially so people can start picking cards for the commanders they have.
Besides that, I'm starting to see that 20 of every multicolor is a bit much. I'll go down to 10 of each guild and something like 3 of each shard/wedge.
I have been trying to look at lists (been reading that EDH/Multiplayer cube thread for a while now, but frankly it's almost useless- very, very little actual discussion about design/construction), I'll start with your sig. Thanks!
[edit]
I just saw you replied while I was typing this up, Wildfire393. I get what you're saying about duals now- I guess I didn't think about including lands in the multicolor section, but yeah I guess that makes sense. And you definitely have a point on how cards fit in to different decks, I'll have to find a way to include more monocolor cards. It's just that I like so many multicolor cards that I like not having to cut so many, lol. But yeah, in a pseudo-limited environment like cube, it's probably more important to, you know, actually cast your spells. Thanks for the clarification!
Looking at your numbers, 20 2-color is INSANE, way too many. If you're including dual lands here, you're still probably 10 cards too many. I'd recommend 5-6 non-duals for each color pair and 4-5 duals for 10 total.
I guess I can understand this, but with no monocolor commanders, doesn't it make sense to have a bunch of multicolor cards? Also, I'm unsure what you mean by "non-duals" and "duals" for each color pair.
I'll tune down my multicolor numbers for now to get a better idea of where I should be. Thanks for your input! A 640-card cube for 8 players miiiiiiight be a bit larger than I'd like (as I'd prefer to ensure all cards get drafted in a 4-player group), but again, I'll look at numbers.
Hi mtgsalvation, hope you guys can help me out. For years I've wanted to build a commander cube- something that I realize is not particularly possible or easy, but I love both cubing and EDH- but when KTK was announced as a "wedge set" I decided to delay my decision for a while. I knew it would have a lot of cards that would affect my build, so just to play it safe I waited. Life happened, whatever, and now I'm finally able to start working on my cube! For one thing, I'm not entirely sure if there's an "accepted" methodology for Commander Cube-ing, so here's been what I've either found online or decided for myself. If anything is abjectly wrong, let me know, because some of these things affect the cube's design.
1) The cube is pretty strictly 4-player; it's not meant for 2, though games are possible, and it isn't meant for 8 (isn't nearly big enough). The cube is designed around 4 people playing.
2) Commanders are drafted first, in packs of ten; draft proceeds to the left so pack one of the "regular cards" begins as normal, to the right.
3) You choose your commander at the very end, out of all the commanders you've drafted. You can use other commanders in your deck as "normal" cards but they must fit your commander's color identity (as per regular commander); similarly, no cards in your deck may deviate outside of your commander's color identity. Color identity is as per typical rules (Bosh is a red card, Yasova is RUG, etc).
4) I haven't really found anything for deck sizes so I'm improvising a bit- currently I'm looking at doing 70-card decks (including your commander). This is pretty close to the decksize difference between limited and constructed (60 to 40 scales up to 100 and 67) to allow for a similar feel. Because of this I'm undecided on how large the cube should actually be- right now, each player winds up with 135 total cards, 10 of which are their potential commanders. Normally in limited, you have 45 picks that you condense into a 40-card deck. Having 135 cards that you scale down into a 70 card deck is a MUCH larger pick density, and I'm unsure if that's too large or not- due to color identity rules in commander, it may be beneficial to have more cards to pick from when assembling your deck. With 135 cards, honestly, I could probably turn it into a normal commander deck of 100 cards. Since it isn't built, I can't test, and finding details on commander cube that I agree with can be tough.
So far, I've sketched out some basics:
-540 cards total, 40 of which are commanders
-20 2-color commanders and 20 3-color commanders (2 of each combination)
After this, this leaves 500 cards and the breakdown I'm currently leaning towards is as follows:
-20 cards for each 2-color combination (200 cards)
-40 cards for each monocolor
-60 lands
-40 artifacts
As far as design goals, I want the cube to be pretty underpowered. No 4-mana sweepers. No Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Counterspell, etc cards (i.e. no cards that "every deck wants", for the most part). Cards that create interesting situations and plays are preferred over overtly powerful ones (i.e. Fated Retribution over Wrath of God, or Demonic Collusion over Demonic Tutor). No stupid cards (Possibility Storm, Knowledge Pool, Warp World, etc). A big reason for all this is the fact that aggressive decks have to contend with 3 other players, and your deck will simply not be tuned to take them all out. Slowing the format down a bit helps out the more aggressive decks, and also lets me play cards that are more "fun" to play. It also lets me force my friends (who are all total Spikes) to play cards that they would normally otherwise never even touch.
I'm not really looking for individual card selections, but some suggestions in that department to get me started would be nice. I'm mostly just looking from some other experienced cubers, especially anybody who has build a Commander Cube, in regards to basic structure, balance, and design.
Thanks in advance, everyone.
[edit]
I should say that I tried to find an appropriate place to put this but couldn't really find one. If this needs to get moved, feel free to do so, I just didn't really know where to post this!
My personal favorite interaction is Glimpse the Sun God (and now Icy Blast). Especially awesome because you can target your own guys to trigger Heroic abilities... and it costs one white mana to tap any number of creatures!
That's fair, it honestly just makes it really hard to design a cube without basically copying somebody else's. Ah well, I guess I'll just have to test like crazy.
I've sketched out what I think is a good foundation for the cube design. I've basically broken it down into ten "archetypes", the shards and wedges (every combination of 3 colors, basically). I've tried to give each combination a somewhat unique identity, but still making enough overlap for one- and two-color cards to fit into multiple three-color themes. For example, BRG (Jund) has a main theme of saccing creatures/permanents, while it's close relative UBG (Sultai) has a theme of graveyard manipulation/interaction and self-mill. This means a lot of BG cards should fit both archetypes.
I know that sketching this out might seem silly, but I really do like that I've given it an identity and purposeful design. I've already got about 500 cards so I'm sure I'll be doing a LOT of pruning.
Thank you, Galspanic and Wildfire393, for all your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. You've both been great helps!
That's really unfortunate to hear, honestly- I love talking about design. I guess I really prefer top-down design in this regard over "bottom-up" if you can call it that here; having a solid foundation and then filling that in with smart card choices seems so much easier (and more balanced) to me.
After reading some stuff about cube in general, now I'm torn about whether or not to simply have powerful "goodstuff" cards in this cube or not. Since everything I've read about it has been biased, does anybody have a reasonably objective argument for including cards simply because they are powerful?
Sisay is so overtly powerful that I hardly need to say anything. There are so many good W/G legendary targets, especially hosers- things like Iona, Elesh Norn, Gaddock Teeg,Linvala, etc- you just tutor for whatever shuts them down and then you win.
How do you place monocolored Legendary creatures, then? Just as a "regular" card? I want to run cards like Venser or Mageta, the Lion maybe (just examples), but I don't think I can justify having them in "regular" slots. This has given me a lot of headache- do I just have the commanders drafted in "regular" packs? What happens if somebody doesn't really see any legendary creatures? I feel like it's pretty important to do the commander draft separately, especially so people can start picking cards for the commanders they have.
Besides that, I'm starting to see that 20 of every multicolor is a bit much. I'll go down to 10 of each guild and something like 3 of each shard/wedge.
I have been trying to look at lists (been reading that EDH/Multiplayer cube thread for a while now, but frankly it's almost useless- very, very little actual discussion about design/construction), I'll start with your sig. Thanks!
[edit]
I just saw you replied while I was typing this up, Wildfire393. I get what you're saying about duals now- I guess I didn't think about including lands in the multicolor section, but yeah I guess that makes sense. And you definitely have a point on how cards fit in to different decks, I'll have to find a way to include more monocolor cards. It's just that I like so many multicolor cards that I like not having to cut so many, lol. But yeah, in a pseudo-limited environment like cube, it's probably more important to, you know, actually cast your spells. Thanks for the clarification!
I guess I can understand this, but with no monocolor commanders, doesn't it make sense to have a bunch of multicolor cards? Also, I'm unsure what you mean by "non-duals" and "duals" for each color pair.
I'll tune down my multicolor numbers for now to get a better idea of where I should be. Thanks for your input! A 640-card cube for 8 players miiiiiiight be a bit larger than I'd like (as I'd prefer to ensure all cards get drafted in a 4-player group), but again, I'll look at numbers.
I appreciate your insights!
1) The cube is pretty strictly 4-player; it's not meant for 2, though games are possible, and it isn't meant for 8 (isn't nearly big enough). The cube is designed around 4 people playing.
2) Commanders are drafted first, in packs of ten; draft proceeds to the left so pack one of the "regular cards" begins as normal, to the right.
3) You choose your commander at the very end, out of all the commanders you've drafted. You can use other commanders in your deck as "normal" cards but they must fit your commander's color identity (as per regular commander); similarly, no cards in your deck may deviate outside of your commander's color identity. Color identity is as per typical rules (Bosh is a red card, Yasova is RUG, etc).
4) I haven't really found anything for deck sizes so I'm improvising a bit- currently I'm looking at doing 70-card decks (including your commander). This is pretty close to the decksize difference between limited and constructed (60 to 40 scales up to 100 and 67) to allow for a similar feel. Because of this I'm undecided on how large the cube should actually be- right now, each player winds up with 135 total cards, 10 of which are their potential commanders. Normally in limited, you have 45 picks that you condense into a 40-card deck. Having 135 cards that you scale down into a 70 card deck is a MUCH larger pick density, and I'm unsure if that's too large or not- due to color identity rules in commander, it may be beneficial to have more cards to pick from when assembling your deck. With 135 cards, honestly, I could probably turn it into a normal commander deck of 100 cards. Since it isn't built, I can't test, and finding details on commander cube that I agree with can be tough.
So far, I've sketched out some basics:
-540 cards total, 40 of which are commanders
-20 2-color commanders and 20 3-color commanders (2 of each combination)
After this, this leaves 500 cards and the breakdown I'm currently leaning towards is as follows:
-20 cards for each 2-color combination (200 cards)
-40 cards for each monocolor
-60 lands
-40 artifacts
As far as design goals, I want the cube to be pretty underpowered. No 4-mana sweepers. No Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Counterspell, etc cards (i.e. no cards that "every deck wants", for the most part). Cards that create interesting situations and plays are preferred over overtly powerful ones (i.e. Fated Retribution over Wrath of God, or Demonic Collusion over Demonic Tutor). No stupid cards (Possibility Storm, Knowledge Pool, Warp World, etc). A big reason for all this is the fact that aggressive decks have to contend with 3 other players, and your deck will simply not be tuned to take them all out. Slowing the format down a bit helps out the more aggressive decks, and also lets me play cards that are more "fun" to play. It also lets me force my friends (who are all total Spikes) to play cards that they would normally otherwise never even touch.
I'm not really looking for individual card selections, but some suggestions in that department to get me started would be nice. I'm mostly just looking from some other experienced cubers, especially anybody who has build a Commander Cube, in regards to basic structure, balance, and design.
Thanks in advance, everyone.
[edit]
I should say that I tried to find an appropriate place to put this but couldn't really find one. If this needs to get moved, feel free to do so, I just didn't really know where to post this!