I would like some help from you expert cubers as I am currently reworking my cube.
My friends and I built a cube some years ago together with our most flashy/powerfull cards. I maintained it and over the years tried to improve this pile of goodstuff into a balanced, cruved out legacy cube.
Some of my friends don't play a lot of magic anymore, but with those who do we thought that rethinking the cube from the ground up could be a good idea.
One of my friend suggested we build around archetypoes for every guild and we decided on:
With the adition of having some mono colored synergies
White - Human
Blue - Arifact
Black - zombie
Red - gobelins
green - elves
My questions were:
Do you build with this archetypes in mind first or is it more important to you to prioritise the theatres (aggro/control/midrange)?
Do you clearly define an archetype as being in one particular theatre (like selesnia counters is going to be aggro and golgari dredge is going to be midrange)?
Do you restrain some colors to specific theatre? (is it possible to support both aggro and control in mono-white/white based decks? Do you always have some control cards to your red cards?)
I try to favorise cards slotting in multiple archetypes like shipwreck dowser being in prowess and reanimator to recur a spell from the graveyard, but what if these archetypes are in totaly different theatre? does this makes sense? (If my prowess archetype is aggro doesn't shipwreck droawner come too late?)
Does having highly visible archetypes like this turn drafting into an on-rail experience?
Where does plain good cards fit in these kind of cubes and aren't they too powerfull for ahigh synergy cube? (like a jace the mind sculptor?)
Where do Ramp and Combo fit in ? Is it too messy to have a splinter twin combo scattered in Jeskai even if it does not synergise with the archetypes?
I don't really want to have all decks drafted looking like midrange, I just followed the archetype, type of decks but I know some of my friends can be lost in a too complex draft environment. But while trying to had cards that fit one or multiple archetypes I find it difficult to find spots for cards like Zurgo Bellstriker.
Sorry for all the questions... but I feel like the more I try to improve and clarify our cube the more I'm lost :D.
Welcome to the cube forum! I'll start by saying there's no "right" way to make a cube. So what follows will be my personal opinions on how to design a cube, but it's definitely not the only way!
Do you build with this archetypes in mind first or is it more important to you to prioritise the theatres (aggro/control/midrange)?
Short answer, prioritize the theaters first. Longer answer, most modern Magic sets are designed such that every color pair has its own archetype, so if you've ever drafted any of them, you'll have a good sense of what a cube designed in the same way will be like. I'm not a fan of this approach to designing a pool to draft from, as it causes the draft to revolve around picking the cards that perform well in the largest number of decks and identifying which archetypes are open.
Do you clearly define an archetype as being in one particular theatre (like selesnia counters is going to be aggro and golgari dredge is going to be midrange)?
While it'll likely turn out that certain archetypes will only ever be employed in one specific theater, I wouldn't restrict myself into thinking that way.
Do you restrain some colors to specific theatre? (is it possible to support both aggro and control in mono-white/white based decks? Do you always have some control cards to your red cards?)
This is a tough question. The best way I can think of to answer is to share with you my growing pains in trying to design a cube. When I first started out, I thought of White and Red as the aggro colors, Black and Green as the midrange colors, and Blue as the control color. And what ended up happening was that I never ever drafted Blue. If Blue was filled with control tools, and no other color wanted them or had anything to offer to control, there was no reason to touch Blue. It took me a LONG time to solve this problem. And the solution was to stop thinking of each color as only contributing to a single theater. Yes, a lot of Blue cards were made for control, but you need to also play the ones that work in the other theaters. Same with Red and aggro.
That all being said, you shouldn't set out to make sure that every single color contributes equally to aggro, midrange, and control equally. Certain colors do lend themselves to certain theaters, so you should cater to their strengths. So how much should each color support each theater? That's the million dollar question, and well... I don't really know. It really just depends on what you're wanting out of cube. Like it sounds ideal that there'd be equal amounts of aggro, midrange, and control decks in every draft, but I'm not convinced that achieving a perfect balance is that important. And I would wager that trying to achieve perfect theater balance would cause the cube to suffer in other aspects. So to sum it all up, don't think that a certain color or color combination only supports a single theater, but also don't force yourself to support multiple theaters in a single color. Yes, I know I'm very helpful
I try to favorise cards slotting in multiple archetypes like shipwreck dowser being in prowess and reanimator to recur a spell from the graveyard, but what if these archetypes are in totaly different theatre? does this makes sense? (If my prowess archetype is aggro doesn't shipwreck droawner come too late?)
So in your given example, there's two ways of solving the dilemma: 1) Given that your Prowess archetype is aggro-oriented, you would just concede that Shipwreck Dowser doesn't actually support that archetype, or 2) You modify/expand your Prowess archetype so that it doesn't function purely as an aggressive deck. The second method is usually preferable, but there's only so much room in a cube!
Does having highly visible archetypes like this turn drafting into an on-rail experience?
This is pretty much the point I was trying to get at in my answer to your first question, and it's why I get bored of playing Limited quickly. The more archetype-specific cards you include in the cube, the less choices you have when it comes to drafting. Now, you can support archetypes without sacrificing draft freedom if you minimize the number of roleplayers (cards only good within respective archetypes) and maximize the number of cards that play well in multiple decks (in this old MTGS guide the author refers to them as anchors)
Where does plain good cards fit in these kind of cubes and aren't they too powerfull for ahigh synergy cube? (like a jace the mind sculptor?)
Short answer, it depends on how you feel about them. Longer answer, I want to have as many decisions as possible in the draft, and in order to achieve that, I want the cards to be as close to equally desirable as possible. Generally, the more decks that a card can function well in, the more desirable it is to draft. That means narrower cards have to be more powerful to make up for this deficit. If a card is both versatile AND powerful, it'll be highly sought after, and if it's competing against narrower AND weaker cards then there's no contest. So, for a cube which is focused on assembling synergies, I would recommend NOT including generically powerful cards (because they will ALWAYS get picked first).
Where do Ramp and Combo fit in ? Is it too messy to have a splinter twin combo scattered in Jeskai even if it does not synergise with the archetypes?
Ramp gave me a headache when I was starting out, and even now the only experience I have with combo is the Persist combo. I think you have to treat ramp as its own archetype. You need to give ramp its own set of enablers and payoffs, and ideally these cards are also strong on their own and/or work well in other archetypes. I think I'll leave it to someone with more experience with combo in cube to answer the rest of your question.
Thanks a lot for all these answers.
I read a lot of things on this forum and never took the time to post something.
Thanks a lot for the welcome and the advices.
I think I see the main differences in the two approaches.
As always the correct answer seems to be to talk with my friends and define what we want as cube experience.
I do find recent set draft to be too dirigiste and too archetype defined.
My commander cube is already in this mindset so for this one I'll try to see what I can do with prioritizing balancing the theatres.
Thanks a lot for your advices, and if anyone as more insights on the subjects, I'll take them with pleasure
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I would like some help from you expert cubers as I am currently reworking my cube.
My friends and I built a cube some years ago together with our most flashy/powerfull cards. I maintained it and over the years tried to improve this pile of goodstuff into a balanced, cruved out legacy cube.
Some of my friends don't play a lot of magic anymore, but with those who do we thought that rethinking the cube from the ground up could be a good idea.
One of my friend suggested we build around archetypoes for every guild and we decided on:
Azorius - Blink
Orzhov - death and taxes
Boros - Equipment
Selesnya - counters
Dimir - Reanimator
Izzet - prowess
Simic - Flash
Rakdos - sacrifice
Golgari - Dredge/graveyard
Gruul - Power matters
With the adition of having some mono colored synergies
White - Human
Blue - Arifact
Black - zombie
Red - gobelins
green - elves
My questions were:
I don't really want to have all decks drafted looking like midrange, I just followed the archetype, type of decks but I know some of my friends can be lost in a too complex draft environment. But while trying to had cards that fit one or multiple archetypes I find it difficult to find spots for cards like Zurgo Bellstriker.
Sorry for all the questions... but I feel like the more I try to improve and clarify our cube the more I'm lost :D.
For anyone interested here is the current list of the cube : https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/24145
And here is our current state of progress on the new list: https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/173248
Thanks a lot!
That all being said, you shouldn't set out to make sure that every single color contributes equally to aggro, midrange, and control equally. Certain colors do lend themselves to certain theaters, so you should cater to their strengths. So how much should each color support each theater? That's the million dollar question, and well... I don't really know. It really just depends on what you're wanting out of cube. Like it sounds ideal that there'd be equal amounts of aggro, midrange, and control decks in every draft, but I'm not convinced that achieving a perfect balance is that important. And I would wager that trying to achieve perfect theater balance would cause the cube to suffer in other aspects. So to sum it all up, don't think that a certain color or color combination only supports a single theater, but also don't force yourself to support multiple theaters in a single color. Yes, I know I'm very helpful
540 Version: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/zza
I read a lot of things on this forum and never took the time to post something.
Thanks a lot for the welcome and the advices.
I think I see the main differences in the two approaches.
As always the correct answer seems to be to talk with my friends and define what we want as cube experience.
I do find recent set draft to be too dirigiste and too archetype defined.
My commander cube is already in this mindset so for this one I'll try to see what I can do with prioritizing balancing the theatres.
Thanks a lot for your advices, and if anyone as more insights on the subjects, I'll take them with pleasure