The EDH Cube discussion was from 4/10 so I started this new thread.
We played a Commander Cube last night, here are some thoughts:
Construction: I took our normal 450 card Cube and supplemented it with "Commander" friendly cards. This included most of the new Commander set along with some cards that work well with multiplayer. This added about 30 cards to each color. We made sure that these Commander cards made it into the draft and then where we needed more cards we added from the standard Cube.
Draft: We started by taking all the cards that could be Commanders (about 50 total) and randomly gave 5 to each player. From those five each player selected one to be their Commander. The Commanders ended up being:
As you can see, no player grabbed picked a red Commander so no red cards were drafted. We then proceeded to draft 60 cards each as 100 seemed like way too much.
Gameplay:
We then played standard Commander rules: 40 starting life, Commander zone, multiplayer free for all.
Thoughts:
1. Turns out 60 cards may be too much. People were complaining that the draft took too long. I didn't think it was that bad, it took maybe an extra 10-15 minutes.
Others didn't really work: Propaganda and Ghostly Prison were effective but ultimately slowed the game down and annoyed other players. Celestial Force got silly as someone played Rite of Replication and had five of them so he was gaining 15 life during each player's turn.
Bottom line was the game was really fun but lasted a bit too long. I think starting at 40 life was too much and people were gaining too much life. At one point the life totals were: 56, 63, 48 and 17. So in the future we may do away with all life gain or just start the game at 20 life. It was really hard to kill someone unless everyone ganged up on them, which isn't much fun.
The game ended when I played Shared Trauma for 17 and then the next turn someone played Memory Jar. Everyone got milled and we all laughed.
I can sympathise with your buddies' opinion on the defensive cards. Constructed multiplayer decks will often pack a lot of defensive cards to survive a long game and send unwanted attention elsewhere. My cube gets used for multiplayer quite a lot and I gradually removed a lot of the defensive cards. This forces the game to be more aggressive and requires players to develop long term synergies rather than relying on individual cards. Your mileage may vary, but we find this more enjoyable.
I agree with bondafog about when commanders should be chosen. If players have 5 commanders pre-draft, they have a few options as to where their draft can go. Knowing when to move to different colours a few picks in is an interesting part of drafting. If I have picked GAAIV as my commander I know I will be forcing WU control. Less fun, particularly if the right cards don't show up.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I'm working on a Commander rules mod for use during Cube drafting, and it may help those of you that currently Commander Cube. I've come up with this alternate rule: You may reduce your starting life total by 3 in order to have your deck exist outside of it's color identity by one step. So, for example (and no, this won't be one of my available commanders) if your Commander is Norin the Wary, you can start at 37 and your deck can be R/B. I've also considered allowing additional life payments to allow additional flexibility in reference to color identity. Does that sound like a good idea?
I'm going to be experimenting with a multiplayer commander variant with my cube. I'll be making some changes to the rules/drafting, like you, but might have some differences from yours.
I want to encourage some aggressive strategies, which my cube is already designed for, even in multiplayer, so I would probably reduce the starting life total to something like 30.
I may add a selection of multiplayer-friendly cards, like you mention (Verdant Force cycle, maybe something like Vision Skeins or the join forces mechanic, etc.) into the regular draft portion.
For commanders, I'm going to have a pre-draft of a variety (like 5 per player) of non-typical commander cards that you just use as your commander, that should be useful as the game goes on with repeatable abilities, or good finisher creatures. They don't have to be legendary, and you don't have to modify your deck to a color identity, other than you must select one of the commanders you drafted that you could actually cast in your deck (like, you simply have to be able to cast Madrush Cyclops for him to be your commander).
Some examples of cards I'll include in the 'commander draft' include:
Obviously, there's going to be a lot of variance in power between cards, and this is fine. It's a multiplayer format, really casual, etc. I think it might be neat to pit some crazy cards against each other that would never normally see play.
Thanks everyone for the responses. I will try the Commander after the draft theory but to me it doesn't make sense. You would have to choose from way more than 5 commanders for it to work, imho.
The way I understood EDH constructed is that people start with a Commander in mind and then build a deck around him. My fear with post-draft choosing a Commander is that you build a W/U deck and then say "oh, GAAIV is W/U, I'll pick him as my commander". Even though he may not have any synergy with what your deck is doing.
We wanted players to build a deck around their commanders. This is hard to do if you don't know who your commander is. I guess it depends on what you're going for. Our goal was to make a fun multiplayer Cube format. I'm not real concerned about the games being overly competitive. More casual is more better in this format.
P.S. - I also resolved the "no one drafted red" problem by building the commander packs with specific color combos so that each color is represented. For instance, for 3 players the packs would look like this:
BR, BRG, BRW
GU, BGU, RGU
WU, BWU, RWU
With 2 commanders per color combination so each player chooses from 6 possible commanders.
I think that you're misreading the suggestion. Give each person five commanders, which they look at and are fully aware of the colors and abilities. Next, run the draft. Then let people choose their final commander. This lets people change plans during the draft rather than being locked in no matter what.
Give each person five commanders, which they look at and are fully aware of the colors and abilities. Next, run the draft. Then let people choose their final commander.
That makes more sense. That may fix the problem of a color being ignored. If someone noticed that Red was open they could switch Commanders part way through the draft. The way we've done the color balancing of Commanders each player is stuck with a certain combination of colors.
We're going to try and play again this weekend. I will let everyone know how it goes. I think this could be a really fun Cube alternate when you have 3 or 5 players. I'm really sick of watching two other people play a 20-30 minute game.
Yeah, I definitely recommend letting people have multiple options for their commanders during the actual draft and only choosing one of them after the draft.
I think this could be a really fun Cube alternate when you have 3 or 5 players. I'm really sick of watching two other people play a 20-30 minute game.
We used to play more multiplayer when we had an odd number of drafters for precisely this reason. It doesn't quite work though. It is entirely possible for someone in a multiplayer game to be knocked out early and then be sat watching a locked board state with the remaining four players for ages. We actually did some timed play sessions and found that there was less downtime with duels, and it was also more broken up (so it felt less frustrating).
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
It is entirely possible for someone in a multiplayer game to be knocked out early and then be sat watching a locked board state
Yeah, we were toying with the idea of having each player have the goal of killing another player in the game. For example, 3 players A,B,C. A must kill B, B must kill C and C must kill A.
As soon as B dies, A wins the game. This promotes even more cooperation among players because not only does C want to kill A but he needs to keep B alive in order to win.
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We played a Commander Cube last night, here are some thoughts:
Construction: I took our normal 450 card Cube and supplemented it with "Commander" friendly cards. This included most of the new Commander set along with some cards that work well with multiplayer. This added about 30 cards to each color. We made sure that these Commander cards made it into the draft and then where we needed more cards we added from the standard Cube.
Draft: We started by taking all the cards that could be Commanders (about 50 total) and randomly gave 5 to each player. From those five each player selected one to be their Commander. The Commanders ended up being:
As you can see, no player grabbed picked a red Commander so no red cards were drafted.
Gameplay:
We then played standard Commander rules: 40 starting life, Commander zone, multiplayer free for all.
Thoughts:
1. Turns out 60 cards may be too much. People were complaining that the draft took too long. I didn't think it was that bad, it took maybe an extra 10-15 minutes.
2. Some cards were really fun during the game:
Others didn't really work:
Propaganda and Ghostly Prison were effective but ultimately slowed the game down and annoyed other players. Celestial Force got silly as someone played Rite of Replication and had five of them so he was gaining 15 life during each player's turn.
Bottom line was the game was really fun but lasted a bit too long. I think starting at 40 life was too much and people were gaining too much life. At one point the life totals were: 56, 63, 48 and 17. So in the future we may do away with all life gain or just start the game at 20 life. It was really hard to kill someone unless everyone ganged up on them, which isn't much fun.
The game ended when I played Shared Trauma for 17 and then the next turn someone played Memory Jar. Everyone got milled and we all laughed.
Thus you can adapt if you get a load of red cards for instance.
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I agree with bondafog about when commanders should be chosen. If players have 5 commanders pre-draft, they have a few options as to where their draft can go. Knowing when to move to different colours a few picks in is an interesting part of drafting. If I have picked GAAIV as my commander I know I will be forcing WU control. Less fun, particularly if the right cards don't show up.
My 380 Beginners’ Cube on Cube Tutor
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Yeah, or if your just unlucky and the guy in front of you have Ith as commander. That would be a very boring second pick draft all the way.
My Tribal cube
My 93/94 old school cube
My Artifact cube
My Hearthstone Quiz App for iOS
I agree, though you may need to provide more than 5 options or draft more than 60 cards.
Not only did nobody play red, but everyone is trying to play blue.
I want to encourage some aggressive strategies, which my cube is already designed for, even in multiplayer, so I would probably reduce the starting life total to something like 30.
I may add a selection of multiplayer-friendly cards, like you mention (Verdant Force cycle, maybe something like Vision Skeins or the join forces mechanic, etc.) into the regular draft portion.
For commanders, I'm going to have a pre-draft of a variety (like 5 per player) of non-typical commander cards that you just use as your commander, that should be useful as the game goes on with repeatable abilities, or good finisher creatures. They don't have to be legendary, and you don't have to modify your deck to a color identity, other than you must select one of the commanders you drafted that you could actually cast in your deck (like, you simply have to be able to cast Madrush Cyclops for him to be your commander).
Some examples of cards I'll include in the 'commander draft' include:
Artifact creatures at varying casting costs (Alloy Myr, Pilgrim's Eye, Yotian Soldier, Juggernaut, Karn, Silver Golem, Triskelion, Pentavus, etc.) and a good number of them so that there is always an available commander to each player that may be drafted early
Hybrid creatures for each color combination (Augury Adept, Boros Guildmage, Desecrator Hag, etc.) with repeatable effects or EtB effects
Powerful multicolor finishers that simply don't make it in the cube otherwise (maybe some of the shard/wedge dragons)
Single color creatures that simply don't make it in the cube otherwise (Sphinx of Uthuun, Silvos, Rogue Elemental, Flameblast Dragon, Forgotten Ancient, etc.)
Obviously, there's going to be a lot of variance in power between cards, and this is fine. It's a multiplayer format, really casual, etc. I think it might be neat to pit some crazy cards against each other that would never normally see play.
My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter
The way I understood EDH constructed is that people start with a Commander in mind and then build a deck around him. My fear with post-draft choosing a Commander is that you build a W/U deck and then say "oh, GAAIV is W/U, I'll pick him as my commander". Even though he may not have any synergy with what your deck is doing.
We wanted players to build a deck around their commanders. This is hard to do if you don't know who your commander is. I guess it depends on what you're going for. Our goal was to make a fun multiplayer Cube format. I'm not real concerned about the games being overly competitive. More casual is more better in this format.
P.S. - I also resolved the "no one drafted red" problem by building the commander packs with specific color combos so that each color is represented. For instance, for 3 players the packs would look like this:
BR, BRG, BRW
GU, BGU, RGU
WU, BWU, RWU
With 2 commanders per color combination so each player chooses from 6 possible commanders.
Awesome.
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That makes more sense. That may fix the problem of a color being ignored. If someone noticed that Red was open they could switch Commanders part way through the draft. The way we've done the color balancing of Commanders each player is stuck with a certain combination of colors.
We're going to try and play again this weekend. I will let everyone know how it goes. I think this could be a really fun Cube alternate when you have 3 or 5 players. I'm really sick of watching two other people play a 20-30 minute game.
My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter
We used to play more multiplayer when we had an odd number of drafters for precisely this reason. It doesn't quite work though. It is entirely possible for someone in a multiplayer game to be knocked out early and then be sat watching a locked board state with the remaining four players for ages. We actually did some timed play sessions and found that there was less downtime with duels, and it was also more broken up (so it felt less frustrating).
My 380 Beginners’ Cube on Cube Tutor
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Yeah, we were toying with the idea of having each player have the goal of killing another player in the game. For example, 3 players A,B,C. A must kill B, B must kill C and C must kill A.
As soon as B dies, A wins the game. This promotes even more cooperation among players because not only does C want to kill A but he needs to keep B alive in order to win.