When is the blue ranking going to start? I am going to be out of town from 5/7/2015 to 5/11/2015 and would send in a list if I am going to miss it.
BLUE voting opens tomorrow. WHITE has enough votes already so I'll not extend it.
So, in roughly 24 hours from now, I'll be closing the White voting thread, and then immediately I'll start the Blue one. Then I'll do the last checking of the white votes and post the white results thread as soon as possible.
You'll be able to vote Blue before you go, and will be back in time to still vote Black. Don't worry.
I'm just curious. Does everyone classify the cardscards in The Top 20 just by preference/personnal evaluation or some does have a elaborate system to reckoning it?
I'm just curious. Does everyone classify the cardscards in The Top 20 just by preference/personnal evaluation or some does have a elaborate system to reckoning it?
You are supposed to vote based simply on what you would pick as your first card in a draft, in the first pack:
Quote from me »
* Voters are to rank the Top 20 cards for the WHITE group according to what they would take at Pack 1, Pick 1 (P1P1) in a regular draft. Partial lists will not be accepted.
Assume you are drafting a regular cube. You open the first pack. What card (of the group being voted) is the most likely to become your first pick in the whole draft? Would you first pick a Balance above any other white card, or perhaps Elspeth 1 or Armageddon or Stoneforge? That would be the first in your White Top 20. Then, if that #1 white card isn't there, what would you pick above the rest? And so on.
I, personally, just list the ~30 best white cards and go ranking them based on what I would pick over the others. It feels very natural to me at least, so that I was already done with all groups within a day or two so that I could focus on managing the project when I volunteered.
So yes, it is a bit personal. Is Balance objectively stronger than Land Tax in a deck? Perhaps. But I like very much taking Land Tax first, because I like the way it makes the early game runs smoothly. StP is white best spot-removal option and many people rank it very high (it got a couple of #3s and #4s so far), but I don't feel like single-target removal (that I can take more, if worse, later) is what I want for my first pick in most cases.
Ok I understand. For myslef, so many factors can influence the first pick in a draft. What I've played last draft, my tendancy in the moment, cards that are in the pack and pool, the color's balance in the pack, etc.
But at the end, personnal evaluation is based on how you power rank them. And in order to that, I decided to create a system that classify cards by "picking order" and that evaluate them by card advantage, egde provide and raw power. At the end, I ponderate the notes according to the CMC. It did a pretty nice job and I ended up with a Top 5 that looks like the average. Pretty satisfied.
You are supposed to vote based simply on what you would pick as your first card in a draft, in the first pack:
Quote from me »
* Voters are to rank the Top 20 cards for the WHITE group according to what they would take at Pack 1, Pick 1 (P1P1) in a regular draft. Partial lists will not be accepted.
I'm going to go ahead and make some edits to my rankings!
I'm moving the discussion from Blue Voting to here so it doesn't clutter the thread even more (and to not make other voters unwelcome to vote the way they see fit).
I'm not changing the voting rules or anything at this point. As a compromise, if Ancestral Recall/Time Walk indeed lose the first places, I'll give a second ranking without the "unpowered" votes for those interested. It will not be the 'official' result for the project, just a showing of the data.
In all fairness, I forgot to vote for some cards not on my list. For example, I don't play Time Spiral but would certainly pick it over Opposition given the option. It just didn't occur to me to vote for it since I was looking at my personal Cube list for cards. Timetwister is another one.
wtwlf123 made some good points about card evaluation skills and Time Walk and Ancestral Recall in the voting thread for blue power rankings. Between the two, I'm honestly not sure which is the better pick if I had to choose between them P1P1, but since wouldn't run either in my cube even if I had them because they'd be unbalancing it's a bit ingenuous for me to say they're anything other than above all 20 of the cards on my current list, so I'm going to revise my vote accordingly.
Timetwister is a lot murkier. I don't think it's more powerful than, say Jitte or Snapcaster Mage which I do run, but never having seen it or anything like it in play I don't feel comfortable ranking it.
To be honest I'm going to have a similar problem with fast manafacts and Library of Alexandria when it comes time to vote for colorless cards. I guess I'd put them ahead of everything else I run now, but the exact order is going to be a bit arbitrary. Does that seem like a sensible way to handle it?
Finally, I'm going to reiterate the requests made in the planning thread that we really should have the overall Power Rankings be a top 30 instead of a top 20. This will not only be more useful for unpowered cubers who won't be running about half the cards on a top 20 list, but I'm sure the info on the 21-30 spots will be helpful for everyone.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Thank you for your revisions. By your comments here and on the other thread, both of your new rankings are truly what this project is about, so this is very much appreciated and will generate more helpful results.
To be honest I'm going to have a similar problem with fast manafacts and Library of Alexandria when it comes time to vote for colorless cards. I guess I'd put them ahead of everything else I run now, but the exact order is going to be a bit arbitrary. Does that seem like a sensible way to handle it?
That seems fine to me. I had to do that first time the Power Rankings happened because I hadn't ever drafted a powered cube before then. Just give it your best guess.
Just picture yourself drafting a cube you know nothing about, and you open an Ancestral Recall in the first pack. Would you pass it simply because you don't have experience with it, or because you don't run it in your own list? Or would you take it because you know it's the best card? For some cards, it may be hard to evaluate. But for others, it's pretty easy. People should vote for what they want, and vote for what they're comfortable with. But give some thought to cards you might not play, and keep them in mind when you're voting. It may help out future powered cube drafters.
I'm looking over the Red Power Ranking votes so far and am realizing I don't have a good chunk of what people are voting for. Zurgo, Wheel, Sneak Attack, Daretti, Feldon, Welder (though my artifact section is weak), a couple others that have shown up occasionally. I've never been impressed with wildfire, but man people seem to love it. These results are surprising to me. Maybe red is due for an overhaul.
I'm looking over the Red Power Ranking votes so far and am realizing I don't have a good chunk of what people are voting for. Zurgo, Wheel, Sneak Attack, Daretti, Feldon, Welder (though my artifact section is weak), a couple others that have shown up occasionally. I've never been impressed with wildfire, but man people seem to love it. These results are surprising to me. Maybe red is due for an overhaul.
This year was very nice for red-based or red-splashing artifact decks and reanimation. Daretti alone made many people bring Goblin Welder back into their cubes!
As for Wildfire... it is one of those cards that you build your deck around. The deck simply tries to still have mana (by using mana artifacts, also useful to get the 6-mana spell cast sooner) and board presence (using planeswalkers, 5+ toughness creatures, suspended Greater Gargadon...) after resolving Wildfire/Burning of Xinye, while the opponent has neither so they can't react.
Zurgo is just a very efficient aggro one-drop, something like an Isamaru with an upside and a not very relevant drawback.
Wheel of Fate is sometimes a discard outlet for reanimation, and constantly just a discard 0-2 cards to draw 7 pure card advantage.
Sneak Attack is a very abusable way to cheat things into play - then put then on the graveyard to be cheated again (he's the reason modern similar effects exile the creature).
If I had larger than a 360 cube I'd try the artifact reanimation. I've had wildfire in for a while. Just need to make actually try to make a deck around it. Thanks everyone.
While my rankings for W, U and B stayed very similar to those from last year, my R ranking changed quite a bit. Not only because it got more new cards than the other three colors, but also because many of the older cards moved around a lot.
And unlike those other three colors, R has nearly no cards that are insane in all kinds of decks. It has cards that are insane in specific archetypes (in which case, your first pick clearly steers your draft into that specific direction) or merely good in several archetypes.
While everyone supports red aggro, not everyone supports the more narrow archetyps like Wildfire, artifacts (+ reanimation), fatty sneaking or tokens. It is not suprising that the cornerstone cards for those archetypes don't show up in every list.
Some words on Wheel of Fortune: Last year, I let myself get peer pressured into including that card into my top 20 list, because everyone included it and because it is a strong card in theory (Draw up to 7 cards for only 3 mana? Wow!). However, it is a constant last pick in my cube, gets rarely played and has been on the chopping block for two years, always narrowly avoiding to be cut. I just can't put such a card into my top 20 with good conscience.
It is funny, I still hold Flametongue Kavu in high regard and scoff at Wheel, but recently saw Hicham and Fredo cut the Kavu while singing the praise of Wheel.
I'm actually really excited for the Red results. There is more variance in opinion here than any of the others so far. I'm not sure what this says about red. Is red just less established in terms of defining powerful cards for the color or does it just have more great options?
It is certainly the one that'll change the most compared to the previous year, that is certain.
Like Star Slayer said, Red has less "universally good" cards like white's removal, blue's P9 pieces (not you, timetwister) or black's tutors. It has many deck-defining cards, but those vary more on how much someone likes to play, say, Wildfire.dec as it is virtually not playable outside of it.
Not only that, but Red has a good number of new cards wanting to enter the ranking this year (while W and U had 1 new card each, and B none, R is shaping to include 3-4 of those), and people tend to vote on those new cards with more variance than other cards, maybe because it has no previous ranking to use as a reference. Even Jace TMS had some weird votings on his first year.
@Star Slayer, I can understand someone not liking Wheel, but I'm more curious about you letting Young Pyromancer out of your ranking.
Unless you specifically draft a high number of instants and/or sorceries for your deck, Young Pyromancer is a Borderland Marauder on average. I really see no reason to pick him that highly. Nor do I think that he is all that powerful. (In cube, that is. He is obviously great in Legacy and Modern constructed decks.)
As for Wheel of Fortune, it's not only me who isn't a huge fan of the card. We are a group of roughly ten regular drafters and nobody picks it highly. I wouldn't consider cutting it if it saw regular play in other players' decks, but it consistently sits around in sideboards.
@Star Slayer, I can understand someone not liking Wheel, but I'm more curious about you letting Young Pyromancer out of your ranking.
Unless you specifically draft a high number of instants and/or sorceries for your deck,
Well, yes? That's the plan, when you first pick him you then try drafting instants and sorceries. If I first pick Sneak Attack, I'll try to draft fatties. If I first pick Wildfire, I'll look for mana rocks and planeswalkers. Same thing.
I really see no reason to pick him that highly. Nor do I think that he is all that powerful.
I feel similarly about Wheel of Fortune. It makes my top 20 because I like and play it regularly. I'll put it into pretty much all of my aggro lists. It doesn't rank highly, though, because there's too much variance with it. I've lost to giving my opponent seven new cards enough that I can't rank the card super high like others do.
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BLUE voting opens tomorrow. WHITE has enough votes already so I'll not extend it.
So, in roughly 24 hours from now, I'll be closing the White voting thread, and then immediately I'll start the Blue one. Then I'll do the last checking of the white votes and post the white results thread as soon as possible.
You'll be able to vote Blue before you go, and will be back in time to still vote Black. Don't worry.
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You are supposed to vote based simply on what you would pick as your first card in a draft, in the first pack:
Assume you are drafting a regular cube. You open the first pack. What card (of the group being voted) is the most likely to become your first pick in the whole draft? Would you first pick a Balance above any other white card, or perhaps Elspeth 1 or Armageddon or Stoneforge? That would be the first in your White Top 20. Then, if that #1 white card isn't there, what would you pick above the rest? And so on.
I, personally, just list the ~30 best white cards and go ranking them based on what I would pick over the others. It feels very natural to me at least, so that I was already done with all groups within a day or two so that I could focus on managing the project when I volunteered.
So yes, it is a bit personal. Is Balance objectively stronger than Land Tax in a deck? Perhaps. But I like very much taking Land Tax first, because I like the way it makes the early game runs smoothly. StP is white best spot-removal option and many people rank it very high (it got a couple of #3s and #4s so far), but I don't feel like single-target removal (that I can take more, if worse, later) is what I want for my first pick in most cases.
But at the end, personnal evaluation is based on how you power rank them. And in order to that, I decided to create a system that classify cards by "picking order" and that evaluate them by card advantage, egde provide and raw power. At the end, I ponderate the notes according to the CMC. It did a pretty nice job and I ended up with a Top 5 that looks like the average. Pretty satisfied.
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
Zetsu's Ebay MTG Online Store
Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
I'm going to go ahead and make some edits to my rankings!
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
Zetsu's Ebay MTG Online Store
Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
*shrug* It's not like I know how the voters actually produce their own lists.
As long as you post a list of 20 cards, numbered in order and of the right 'color' on the voting thread, it will be counted.
BLUE Voting: open!
WHITE Results: posted!
I'm not changing the voting rules or anything at this point. As a compromise, if Ancestral Recall/Time Walk indeed lose the first places, I'll give a second ranking without the "unpowered" votes for those interested. It will not be the 'official' result for the project, just a showing of the data.
Timetwister is a lot murkier. I don't think it's more powerful than, say Jitte or Snapcaster Mage which I do run, but never having seen it or anything like it in play I don't feel comfortable ranking it.
To be honest I'm going to have a similar problem with fast manafacts and Library of Alexandria when it comes time to vote for colorless cards. I guess I'd put them ahead of everything else I run now, but the exact order is going to be a bit arbitrary. Does that seem like a sensible way to handle it?
Finally, I'm going to reiterate the requests made in the planning thread that we really should have the overall Power Rankings be a top 30 instead of a top 20. This will not only be more useful for unpowered cubers who won't be running about half the cards on a top 20 list, but I'm sure the info on the 21-30 spots will be helpful for everyone.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
That seems fine to me. I had to do that first time the Power Rankings happened because I hadn't ever drafted a powered cube before then. Just give it your best guess.
Cheers,
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This year was very nice for red-based or red-splashing artifact decks and reanimation. Daretti alone made many people bring Goblin Welder back into their cubes!
As for Wildfire... it is one of those cards that you build your deck around. The deck simply tries to still have mana (by using mana artifacts, also useful to get the 6-mana spell cast sooner) and board presence (using planeswalkers, 5+ toughness creatures, suspended Greater Gargadon...) after resolving Wildfire/Burning of Xinye, while the opponent has neither so they can't react.
Zurgo is just a very efficient aggro one-drop, something like an Isamaru with an upside and a not very relevant drawback.
Wheel of Fate is sometimes a discard outlet for reanimation, and constantly just a discard 0-2 cards to draw 7 pure card advantage.
Sneak Attack is a very abusable way to cheat things into play - then put then on the graveyard to be cheated again (he's the reason modern similar effects exile the creature).
Purphoros
Kiki-Jiki
Zurgo
Wheel
Sneak Attack
If I had larger than a 360 cube I'd try the artifact reanimation. I've had wildfire in for a while. Just need to make actually try to make a deck around it. Thanks everyone.
While my rankings for W, U and B stayed very similar to those from last year, my R ranking changed quite a bit. Not only because it got more new cards than the other three colors, but also because many of the older cards moved around a lot.
And unlike those other three colors, R has nearly no cards that are insane in all kinds of decks. It has cards that are insane in specific archetypes (in which case, your first pick clearly steers your draft into that specific direction) or merely good in several archetypes.
While everyone supports red aggro, not everyone supports the more narrow archetyps like Wildfire, artifacts (+ reanimation), fatty sneaking or tokens. It is not suprising that the cornerstone cards for those archetypes don't show up in every list.
Some words on Wheel of Fortune: Last year, I let myself get peer pressured into including that card into my top 20 list, because everyone included it and because it is a strong card in theory (Draw up to 7 cards for only 3 mana? Wow!). However, it is a constant last pick in my cube, gets rarely played and has been on the chopping block for two years, always narrowly avoiding to be cut. I just can't put such a card into my top 20 with good conscience.
It is funny, I still hold Flametongue Kavu in high regard and scoff at Wheel, but recently saw Hicham and Fredo cut the Kavu while singing the praise of Wheel.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
It is certainly the one that'll change the most compared to the previous year, that is certain.
Like Star Slayer said, Red has less "universally good" cards like white's removal, blue's P9 pieces (not you, timetwister) or black's tutors. It has many deck-defining cards, but those vary more on how much someone likes to play, say, Wildfire.dec as it is virtually not playable outside of it.
Not only that, but Red has a good number of new cards wanting to enter the ranking this year (while W and U had 1 new card each, and B none, R is shaping to include 3-4 of those), and people tend to vote on those new cards with more variance than other cards, maybe because it has no previous ranking to use as a reference. Even Jace TMS had some weird votings on his first year.
As for Wheel of Fortune, it's not only me who isn't a huge fan of the card. We are a group of roughly ten regular drafters and nobody picks it highly. I wouldn't consider cutting it if it saw regular play in other players' decks, but it consistently sits around in sideboards.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
Well, yes? That's the plan, when you first pick him you then try drafting instants and sorceries. If I first pick Sneak Attack, I'll try to draft fatties. If I first pick Wildfire, I'll look for mana rocks and planeswalkers. Same thing.
Ok, then. That's a good reason, cheers.
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