It's been a while since I've played Magic or even owned Magic cards. And, I left the US so it's unlikely I physically play magic with anyone in the near future. But, for some reason I got possessed with the idea to start exploring this design space. I figured I might as well fool around with it and perhaps do a digital mock-up at some point along the way.
I had a hard time digging up the original sources of the idea, but I'll take care to update this post and refer back to them if you kind folks can help me find them.
Anyways, the "Split Cube" is a cube that's comprised of custom "split" cards like Fire // Ice. The twist is that they're custom-made pairs of existing magic cards, one common example (I think from the first person to develop around this idea) is Squee, Goblin Nabob // Terramorphic Expanse. Each person's approach to this will of course depend on their preferences, some people want cards to be "either-or" where an Aggro player and a Combo player are fighting over the same cards in the draft, while others focus on "synergy" designs like Squee and Terramorphic Expanse, and there are even folks who want to pair Elite Vanguard and Goblin Guide to make a guaranteed solid one-drop for aggro.
As someone who leans towards the Johnny-Timmy side of things, I'm personally hoping to create a more convoluted and synergistic, but still interactive form of Magic. I want to give Spike busted tools for making combo-y, fast aggressive decks with a Vengevine but have Tempo and Control options that can actually withstand that kind of pressure. Custom-making split cards from existing singletons allows for fundamentally warping the way cards behave because we can stitch together mechanics like Cycling and Madness, among others.
The purpose of this thread is currently pretty general, I'm trying to gauge (and hopefully stoke) interest in this idea and open up some discussion. Here are some personal opinions and ideas I have about the "Split Cube," let's have some back-and-forth!
I believe split cards should have no more than one side be a permanent. Once two or three cards in play have multiple permanent "modes", it starts to become a pretty big headache tracking what's what. I'd rather avoid that altogether than try to come up with a solution like using paperclips or whatever else.
I also believe that, in general, cards should have "one color identity." What I mean by that is if one half of a card is green, the other half should be green. This makes numerically organizing and tracking the cube a lot simpler, and it puts some level of constraint on the hugely open-ended design space. Multicolor cards, I think, should have the same color identity on both sides. (Therefore, Momentary Blink is White/Blue, and Resounding Scream is Blue/Black/Red.)
This puts artifacts in an awkward place. There is a very limited selection of colorless Instants and Sorcery. I'm not sure how to reconcile this for artifacts that don't have a colored color identity. (Mox Ruby is effectively red, so it can have a red Instant/Sorcery on the other half.)
Some cards seem like they could create interesting opportunities for synergy if they did break either my only one permanent per card rule or my color identity rule. Squee being paired with Terramorphic being one example...
These cards each have one color in their color identity, and don't directly benefit from having different color identities on their other halves, but they have a pretty simple and fun recursion mechanic that encourages you to start picking different cards. The cards themselves are pretty generally weak, and you'd probably never want to cast them, but the recursion trigger should be pretty easy to hit if you're accommodating it. IF these cards were to be included as a cycle, what should their other halves be?
The last link refers to @UsmanTheRad, who posts here sometimes (usually during spoiler season these days) but is definitely readily accessible on twitter and would prob love to talk about the pros/cons of the project if he hasn't written about it somewhere already. (@UsmanTheRad)
Thanks for the links, Salmo. I had glanced through those before making my post! It's unlikely I will holler at UsmanTheRad on Twitter, as I have never used that service before and am not too interested in it.
That said, for better or worse, I've kind of lost interest in this project for the time being as I'm enjoying thinking about a tribal cube a lot more. Part of it is just how much easier it is to manage and share (I can just use Cube Tutor, I don't need to work through something like MSE), but also I'm kind of feeling like I'm taking a unique approach to it at the moment. I'll probably be making a thread about it soon, I'm sure my initial list will need a lot of tuning and tweaking.
The guy who came up with the initial list is Stuart Fleischer. I said hi to Todd Anderson in GP Memphis and said that I was a fan of his work and said "hey, you should talk to my friend Stuart, who's a huge cube fan." Brought me over to Stuart and rifled through a bunch of cards and my mind was just blown. He's made some changes (he's at @SplitCardCube on twitter, you don't need the app to look at his tweets, but I generally find Twitter to be decent to talk about cube.)
"I believe split cards should have no more than one side be a permanent. Once two or three cards in play have multiple permanent "modes", it starts to become a pretty big headache tracking what's what. I'd rather avoid that altogether than try to come up with a solution like using paperclips or whatever else."
As far as I know, the only exceptions to that rule are the Terramophic ones, since Squee almost never got hardcast. 2x permanents makes things awkward, though.
It's been a while since I've played Magic or even owned Magic cards. And, I left the US so it's unlikely I physically play magic with anyone in the near future. But, for some reason I got possessed with the idea to start exploring this design space. I figured I might as well fool around with it and perhaps do a digital mock-up at some point along the way.
I had a hard time digging up the original sources of the idea, but I'll take care to update this post and refer back to them if you kind folks can help me find them.
Anyways, the "Split Cube" is a cube that's comprised of custom "split" cards like Fire // Ice. The twist is that they're custom-made pairs of existing magic cards, one common example (I think from the first person to develop around this idea) is Squee, Goblin Nabob // Terramorphic Expanse. Each person's approach to this will of course depend on their preferences, some people want cards to be "either-or" where an Aggro player and a Combo player are fighting over the same cards in the draft, while others focus on "synergy" designs like Squee and Terramorphic Expanse, and there are even folks who want to pair Elite Vanguard and Goblin Guide to make a guaranteed solid one-drop for aggro.
As someone who leans towards the Johnny-Timmy side of things, I'm personally hoping to create a more convoluted and synergistic, but still interactive form of Magic. I want to give Spike busted tools for making combo-y, fast aggressive decks with a Vengevine but have Tempo and Control options that can actually withstand that kind of pressure. Custom-making split cards from existing singletons allows for fundamentally warping the way cards behave because we can stitch together mechanics like Cycling and Madness, among others.
The purpose of this thread is currently pretty general, I'm trying to gauge (and hopefully stoke) interest in this idea and open up some discussion. Here are some personal opinions and ideas I have about the "Split Cube," let's have some back-and-forth!
Another example, and my first crack at a open-ended "one-half" suggestion is the Eidolons from Dissension. Aurora Eidolon, Enigma Eidolon, Entropic Eidolon, Sandstorm Eidolon, and Verdant Eidolon.
These cards each have one color in their color identity, and don't directly benefit from having different color identities on their other halves, but they have a pretty simple and fun recursion mechanic that encourages you to start picking different cards. The cards themselves are pretty generally weak, and you'd probably never want to cast them, but the recursion trigger should be pretty easy to hit if you're accommodating it. IF these cards were to be included as a cycle, what should their other halves be?
http://www.azmagicplayers.com/articles/split-card-cube/
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/designing-split-cards.355/
http://mtgphilly.forumotion.com/t711-usman-s-split-cube
The last link refers to @UsmanTheRad, who posts here sometimes (usually during spoiler season these days) but is definitely readily accessible on twitter and would prob love to talk about the pros/cons of the project if he hasn't written about it somewhere already. (@UsmanTheRad)
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
That said, for better or worse, I've kind of lost interest in this project for the time being as I'm enjoying thinking about a tribal cube a lot more. Part of it is just how much easier it is to manage and share (I can just use Cube Tutor, I don't need to work through something like MSE), but also I'm kind of feeling like I'm taking a unique approach to it at the moment. I'll probably be making a thread about it soon, I'm sure my initial list will need a lot of tuning and tweaking.
The guy who came up with the initial list is Stuart Fleischer. I said hi to Todd Anderson in GP Memphis and said that I was a fan of his work and said "hey, you should talk to my friend Stuart, who's a huge cube fan." Brought me over to Stuart and rifled through a bunch of cards and my mind was just blown. He's made some changes (he's at @SplitCardCube on twitter, you don't need the app to look at his tweets, but I generally find Twitter to be decent to talk about cube.)
"I believe split cards should have no more than one side be a permanent. Once two or three cards in play have multiple permanent "modes", it starts to become a pretty big headache tracking what's what. I'd rather avoid that altogether than try to come up with a solution like using paperclips or whatever else."
As far as I know, the only exceptions to that rule are the Terramophic ones, since Squee almost never got hardcast. 2x permanents makes things awkward, though.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)