I don't even think I'd say our archetypes are less sophisticated than limited ones. Maybe they are, but I think it's less sophisticated and just a lot more subtle. I like that subtlety, personally, which is why I'm not wild about Pauper archetypes in general. The worst set I've ever drafted was Battle for Zendikar, while (one of) the best was Rise of the Eldrazi. I think a great example of the difference between the two is the card Shared Discovery. The card is unremarkable in ROE, because it's not really in an Eldrazi Spawn friendly color. However, every so often you drafted the deck that wanted it, and that was immensely satisfying. Shared Discovery could not exist in BFZ, where each color pair had a clearly defined archetype with very little mechanical overlap (particularly in Green, which is why it was so famously awful there). I would expect Pauper Cube cards to be better than Shared Discovery was in ROE, but that's much closer to the experience that I would look for when discussing a "Pauper archetype."
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I would say maybe 1/3 of those (Maybe Bogle, maybe Rally, Cyclops, Dragonauts, Shell, Salvage) really give the level of direction that I'm talking about. The rest point in the vague direction of a strategy, but there's nothing as explicit as, say, Rona in Dominaria draft (UB cares about long games with Historic permanents). What exactly an archetype card is can be an open question worth defining if you're pursuing this further, though. How do you signal to newer players what they're supposed to be doing? Will they pick up on your hints, or are they too subtle?
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I tried to do the "one archetype in each color pair" for a while, and quickly found that it encouraged me to run cards that I didn't really like and that nobody played in order to support them. It also really limited the discovery aspect of my Cube. The problem with Pauper "archetypes" is that the modern archetype model is built on signpost uncommons that basically scream, "THESE TWO COLORS DO THING X," and we don't really get many of those types of cards at Common. It's also built on the idea that each pair reflects a different aspect of what a set is "about," and that's hard to really pin down for a bigger-picture set like Cube unless you are specifically building for a theme.
I am much more interested in synergy among strong cards that makes you realize how different pieces of the game work together in interesting ways. For instance, Extort is a powerful mechanic, and is basically my WB "Archetype" because I want almost every card with the mechanic in my Cube (poor, poor Syndicate Enforcer). All of those cards are pretty decent on their own, though- Tithe Drinker is probably the closest to a proper archetype card. Once you pick up a couple of Extort creatures, though, other things start to seem a lot more appealing, particularly low-cost spells and/or cards that are inexpensive to use. This means flashback cards that are already decent on their own, like Prismatic Strands, get a LOT better since they have a 4+ life swing attached to them. It also means that you might look more closely at stuff like Gitaxian Probe. These sorts of cards can also be helpful for spells matter cards. This is also why my Cube runs a little long on Dash creatures- WB, RW, or BR Extort-Dash isn't exactly a deck, but it can be a surprisingly spicy piece of synergy for your players to discover.
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Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
I am much more interested in synergy among strong cards that makes you realize how different pieces of the game work together in interesting ways. For instance, Extort is a powerful mechanic, and is basically my WB "Archetype" because I want almost every card with the mechanic in my Cube (poor, poor Syndicate Enforcer). All of those cards are pretty decent on their own, though- Tithe Drinker is probably the closest to a proper archetype card. Once you pick up a couple of Extort creatures, though, other things start to seem a lot more appealing, particularly low-cost spells and/or cards that are inexpensive to use. This means flashback cards that are already decent on their own, like Prismatic Strands, get a LOT better since they have a 4+ life swing attached to them. It also means that you might look more closely at stuff like Gitaxian Probe. These sorts of cards can also be helpful for spells matter cards. This is also why my Cube runs a little long on Dash creatures- WB, RW, or BR Extort-Dash isn't exactly a deck, but it can be a surprisingly spicy piece of synergy for your players to discover.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)