As the new conspiracy rolls out I'd like to get other people's opinions on the original set of draft matters cards.
Constructs canal dredger just didn't do anything as a body while being really bad in small drafts. cogwork grinder fun with canal dredger but it needed to be like a 11/11 to be worth it as a vanilla cube creature, and nobody burns 11 cube cards. aether searcher loads of fun, tinkering out bolas or ugin is great, never really found him missing a worthwhile target, worst I can remember was a toxic deluge, wish he had the new blue 5 drops wording though, as getting him twice means he's just a craw wurm. Replaced him when we got loads of new huge eldrazi though he might come back. cogwork librarian was picked a lot, was kind of annoying seeing him in every other pack though so he's on the bench right now just to make drafting quicker. deal broker there's no haggling in our group so lots of time this misses a trade, has a high main deck inclusion as its usually picked up by a control deck or cheaty deck. Love the body honestly. lore seeker good card, free first pick on your fourth pick is nice, never included in a maindeck, removed it when I needed to use the extra pack as a regular pack due to expanding my draft, will probably add it back in. paliano, the high city I'll be honest I never tried this because I thought it would be a headache and I had a decent amount of 5 color lands with the addition of mana confluence. Might be great, dunno.
Conspiracies worldknit this card is really hard for me to evaluate as its really fun to draft around, but usually ends up causing the pile that is drafted to be horrendous, I've seen hornet queen in aggro now.
double stroke is insane, almost any instant or sorcery you use in cube is already very efficient, two of them is just bonkers, most common targets, timewalk, lightning bolt.
[card] iterative analysis[card] usually sees play on a tutor that puts a card on top of library or a flashback spell, very satisfied with this. power play it's fun going first, worth a pick, so I think it's worth a slot in cube backup plan never picked a copy up, don't need to to know its bonkers. sentinel dispatch I forgot about this but it's amazing. The tinker shell LOVES it and control likes a blocker that can trade with one drops.
That's all I really thought was fun, great, or close. What about you?
Only one I run is Lore Seeker, which I used to introduce a 15-card "flex section". It's been incredible fun.
The 15 cards are currently made up of hard-to-cast stuff (e.g. Sorin Markov, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker), and stuff has been drafted and decked out of there. I have the big tick from the playgroup to change the contents on a whim, and I'm currently considering a booster full of anthems (as I've almost got the complete cycle of ten Shadowmoor/Eventide Lieges), as well as a booster full of Eldrazi. It's as much fun as you want it to be. Can't wait to change the contents soon, have someone blindly take the Lore Seeker booster expecting it to be the same, and watch their eyes light up.
Lore Seeker is always exciting when it comes out, but it does slow the draft down. I've never seen it played for its body.
Deal Broker whiffs on actually making a trade happen about 50% of the time. It's kind of a low pick outside of reanimator decks and some control decks, tbh.
Canal Dredger was more trouble than it was worth. Making everyone remember to pass their last picks to someone bogged down the draft, and the person trying to build their deck with sometimes 20+ extra cards was also slowed down sorting through their extra chaff and making extra cuts. I was happy to cut it.
Aether Searcher was pretty cool when it got played, but was never as popular as other reanimation/Tinker targets. People often didn't want to draft it not knowing what it was actually going to do in their decks. I cut it due to unpopularity.
Cogwork Librarian is always popular, and once it comes out everyone can't wait to see it passed their way. It adds a fun element to the draft and makes multiple decks better even if it never makes a single main deck. It may not be the most powerful Conspiracy, but as a cube designer, it's my favorite.
Power Play caused a lot of people to get bent out of shape. I think people overrated its actual power, but having to go second after losing the previous match led to some serious cases of the feel-bads. I cut it due to multiple complaints.
Backup Plan is by far the most powerful conspiracy, it's almost impossible to lose with a free mulligan. I cut it due to being unbalancingly strong.
Advantageous Proclamation is the only non-Hidden Agenda Conspiracy I still run. It's really strong in reanimator, combo, and RDW decks for the consistency it enables. However, it's often passed up or even un-used by players who have trouble making cuts down to even 40 cards.
Double Stroke is ridiculously strong, it makes almost any already efficient spell completely broken. It's on my watchlist due to power concerns.
Muzzio's Preparations is often underrated, but you can always find a creature worth buffing with this. I have a special bounty on offer for anyone who manages to go infinite with this, a Persist creature, and a sac outlet.
Unexpected Potential is probably my favorite Hidden Agenda because it leads to some great surprise plays, like a counterspell from a white weenie deck, Brimaz in an RDW deck.
On the whole, the Conspiracy package in my cube has turned out to be deeply controversial. There are several people I play with who still consider them to be like Un- cards, and have asked me to remove them. Others absolutely love them, and say I should never cut them. I may end up making them a module that comes and goes depending on who I plan to be cubing with, or as part of a Holiday Cube style expansion that also includes proxied power.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
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I dislike Lore Seeker because the player who benefits most from it being taken is not the player who took it, but the player they're passing to. If Lore Seeker is in the draft, someone will get a free second pick and someone else will get a free 7th pick or so, and there is nothing you can do to try to be in the more advantageous position.
I also dislike Deal Broker because in addition to feel-bad moments when your offer is rejected, it creates kingmaking situations and it essentially improves a random person's pool. I don't think that's something I need in my format.
I don't see Lurking Automaton listed, and that's one that has been a lot of fun for my group. It's a vanilla creature, but it can get quite big (usually 8/8-10/10) and it's always exciting to get it late. What I really like about it from a design perspective is that it will (usually) get as big as it needs to be to justify spending a pick on it, so it scales very nicely with the power of the format.
Backup Plan is the only conspiracy I cut for being too powerful. Double Stroke may be just as good, but casting a doubled spell is so much more exciting than having an extra choice of hand each game.
The rest of the section (including a couple customs) has been doing its job well and I'm quite happy with it, but I'm also excited to update and expand it with Conspiracy 2.
Worldknit decks have not lost any matches so far in my group. Its also really fun to play with a bunch of cards that dont seem to fit together some times. Two people in my group will always pick it really early.
How do playgroups handle hidden agendas? I only have the conspiracy card type in my combo cube. To make the process easy for all, I ask players to choose the cards named by hidden agendas before round 1 starts and always use the same cards. With the fact that it is only combo cube that we draft rarely it's not a big deal to be inflexible. But I am highly considering a Conspiracy module for my unpowered cube and was curious how people keep track of the hidden agendas each game.
We take little bits of paper, write the card on it, and stick it in the sleeve. It's effective and the only problem we've run into is "where's the pen?" which is not a problem at all.
Alternatively, my group has also just declared the named card with hidden agendas on occasion. We usually do the paper thing, but the hidden agendas don't exactly need to be a secret to be good.
@Salmo Do players change the card named each game? That is my biggest concern since technically they are allowed to change the hidden card name each game over the course of minimum 6 games.
We do, and it's not really a logistical problem either. Just change the slip of paper in the sleeve during sideboarding. Also, you do have to reveal hidden agendas at the end of each game, but not what's been named with it. I just put my thumb over the slip when I reveal the card.
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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.
@Salmo Do players change the card named each game? That is my biggest concern since technically they are allowed to change the hidden card name each game over the course of minimum 6 games.
Yes, and what's the concern? It's pretty easy and takes almost no effort.
That's the official rule. From the MTG Comprehensive Rules:
702.105e If a player leaves the game, all face-down conspiracy cards controlled by that player must
be revealed to all players. At the end of each game, all face-down conspiracy cards must be
revealed to all players.
Think of it as being similar to Morphs, where all Morphs in play have to be revealed at the end of each game to prove that you haven't been cheating by representing a face down card as something it isn't.
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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.
Lore Seeker will probably be removed since it doesn't function well with some draft formats we play. But it's a good card as a way to access more playables for a specific deck style, during a draft.
Aether Searcher remains a premier big robot target, and it functions well with reanimator, Sneak/Show/Eureka, artifact.dec, and is hardcastable for control or ramp. Generally comes with a 4 CMC Planeswalker genre of target or better, and I still can't remember having had it whiff. One of my favourite cheaty cards and big targets for all kinds of deck.
Deal Broker sometimes whiffs with the trade option, but usually players can agree on a swap - and the 2/3 looter does see play as well, which is an area where the likes of Lore Seeker and Canal Dredge fall short. It's a playable creature for reanimator and artifact builds.
Double Stroke was cut for power reasons, and Backup Plan may also be removed for this reason. They could come back with fast mana in the future. DS is game-breaking most times it's played though.
Power Play is almost as useful as the former, especially for aggro, but not quite on the same level IMO. However I am likely to cut it for reasons of being kind of uninteresting with no build-around requirements.
Brago's Favor is a lot more interesting than it appears, since you can subtly tweak your curve at a certain point to get a 5 or 6 drop into playable range for aggro, or just promote a four drop to three drop for a G/x aggro deck (for example) where options or your picks were lacking. It's also an awesome foil.
Unexpected Potential is super fun and lets you get away with a one-off pick of a random off-color card in your deck. Probably my fave conspiracy and a reason why four colour commander cards might be of some interest later this year (that, and we often splash a 3rd/4th colour anyway). Always gets an interesting reaction. The new Emissary's Ploy is similar, but for multiple cards, although they all have to be creatures and all at a set CMC (which also has to be 1, 2 or 3). So much wider but much more restrictive - so I think we will enjoy it.
Sentinel Dispatch is just a brilliant pick for the artifact deck or any control deck. So subtle but a free artifact can yield interesting value with Tezz or Tinker, or it can just block and kill a 2/1.
I ran Worldknit but it was very strong and a bit weird to play at times when you had some incongruous cards in the deck. May come back since it's a blast to draft.
Those are the ones I'm currently running. Looking at Hymn of the Wilds, Emissary's Ploy, Assemble the Rank and Vile, Weight Advantage and Summoner's Bond from the new set from the Conspiracy side of things, plus Arcane Savant, Volatile Chimera and Caller of the Untamed as the other draft-altering creatures.
I'd like to bounce this thread, as I see a little bit of talk about Conspiracy modules in some people's cubes following the release of CNS2.
I will keep Lore Seeker in my main 360, but my playgroup would also like to have a separate 15-card Conspiracy module filled with CNS/CNS2 cards. They're primarily looking at the Monarch cards (e.g. Skyline Despot, Custodi Lich), but I am also leaning heavily towards Volatile Chimera, Arcane Savant, Caller of the Untamed and some of the other draft-matters cards.
What are others running in their Conspiracy modules?
And if you were building a 15-card module from scratch (with some semblance of a Monarch theme to it), what do you think you would throw in it?
Constructs
canal dredger just didn't do anything as a body while being really bad in small drafts.
cogwork grinder fun with canal dredger but it needed to be like a 11/11 to be worth it as a vanilla cube creature, and nobody burns 11 cube cards.
aether searcher loads of fun, tinkering out bolas or ugin is great, never really found him missing a worthwhile target, worst I can remember was a toxic deluge, wish he had the new blue 5 drops wording though, as getting him twice means he's just a craw wurm. Replaced him when we got loads of new huge eldrazi though he might come back.
cogwork librarian was picked a lot, was kind of annoying seeing him in every other pack though so he's on the bench right now just to make drafting quicker.
deal broker there's no haggling in our group so lots of time this misses a trade, has a high main deck inclusion as its usually picked up by a control deck or cheaty deck. Love the body honestly.
lore seeker good card, free first pick on your fourth pick is nice, never included in a maindeck, removed it when I needed to use the extra pack as a regular pack due to expanding my draft, will probably add it back in.
paliano, the high city I'll be honest I never tried this because I thought it would be a headache and I had a decent amount of 5 color lands with the addition of mana confluence. Might be great, dunno.
Conspiracies
worldknit this card is really hard for me to evaluate as its really fun to draft around, but usually ends up causing the pile that is drafted to be horrendous, I've seen hornet queen in aggro now.
double stroke is insane, almost any instant or sorcery you use in cube is already very efficient, two of them is just bonkers, most common targets, timewalk, lightning bolt.
[card] iterative analysis[card] usually sees play on a tutor that puts a card on top of library or a flashback spell, very satisfied with this.
power play it's fun going first, worth a pick, so I think it's worth a slot in cube
backup plan never picked a copy up, don't need to to know its bonkers.
sentinel dispatch I forgot about this but it's amazing. The tinker shell LOVES it and control likes a blocker that can trade with one drops.
That's all I really thought was fun, great, or close. What about you?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
The 15 cards are currently made up of hard-to-cast stuff (e.g. Sorin Markov, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker), and stuff has been drafted and decked out of there. I have the big tick from the playgroup to change the contents on a whim, and I'm currently considering a booster full of anthems (as I've almost got the complete cycle of ten Shadowmoor/Eventide Lieges), as well as a booster full of Eldrazi. It's as much fun as you want it to be. Can't wait to change the contents soon, have someone blindly take the Lore Seeker booster expecting it to be the same, and watch their eyes light up.
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Deal Broker whiffs on actually making a trade happen about 50% of the time. It's kind of a low pick outside of reanimator decks and some control decks, tbh.
Canal Dredger was more trouble than it was worth. Making everyone remember to pass their last picks to someone bogged down the draft, and the person trying to build their deck with sometimes 20+ extra cards was also slowed down sorting through their extra chaff and making extra cuts. I was happy to cut it.
Aether Searcher was pretty cool when it got played, but was never as popular as other reanimation/Tinker targets. People often didn't want to draft it not knowing what it was actually going to do in their decks. I cut it due to unpopularity.
Cogwork Librarian is always popular, and once it comes out everyone can't wait to see it passed their way. It adds a fun element to the draft and makes multiple decks better even if it never makes a single main deck. It may not be the most powerful Conspiracy, but as a cube designer, it's my favorite.
Power Play caused a lot of people to get bent out of shape. I think people overrated its actual power, but having to go second after losing the previous match led to some serious cases of the feel-bads. I cut it due to multiple complaints.
Backup Plan is by far the most powerful conspiracy, it's almost impossible to lose with a free mulligan. I cut it due to being unbalancingly strong.
Advantageous Proclamation is the only non-Hidden Agenda Conspiracy I still run. It's really strong in reanimator, combo, and RDW decks for the consistency it enables. However, it's often passed up or even un-used by players who have trouble making cuts down to even 40 cards.
Double Stroke is ridiculously strong, it makes almost any already efficient spell completely broken. It's on my watchlist due to power concerns.
Muzzio's Preparations is often underrated, but you can always find a creature worth buffing with this. I have a special bounty on offer for anyone who manages to go infinite with this, a Persist creature, and a sac outlet.
Unexpected Potential is probably my favorite Hidden Agenda because it leads to some great surprise plays, like a counterspell from a white weenie deck, Brimaz in an RDW deck.
On the whole, the Conspiracy package in my cube has turned out to be deeply controversial. There are several people I play with who still consider them to be like Un- cards, and have asked me to remove them. Others absolutely love them, and say I should never cut them. I may end up making them a module that comes and goes depending on who I plan to be cubing with, or as part of a Holiday Cube style expansion that also includes proxied power.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I also dislike Deal Broker because in addition to feel-bad moments when your offer is rejected, it creates kingmaking situations and it essentially improves a random person's pool. I don't think that's something I need in my format.
I don't see Lurking Automaton listed, and that's one that has been a lot of fun for my group. It's a vanilla creature, but it can get quite big (usually 8/8-10/10) and it's always exciting to get it late. What I really like about it from a design perspective is that it will (usually) get as big as it needs to be to justify spending a pick on it, so it scales very nicely with the power of the format.
Backup Plan is the only conspiracy I cut for being too powerful. Double Stroke may be just as good, but casting a doubled spell is so much more exciting than having an extra choice of hand each game.
The rest of the section (including a couple customs) has been doing its job well and I'm quite happy with it, but I'm also excited to update and expand it with Conspiracy 2.
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Hidden Agendas work just fine in a singleton cube. You don't need more than one Double Stroked Unexpectedly Absent, Cryptic Command, Malicious Affliction, Fireblast, Call of the Herd, or Lingering Souls in your deck for it to be completely insane.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Yes, and what's the concern? It's pretty easy and takes almost no effort.
@Spike Rogue is that a real rule or house rule?
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
That's the official rule. From the MTG Comprehensive Rules:
Think of it as being similar to Morphs, where all Morphs in play have to be revealed at the end of each game to prove that you haven't been cheating by representing a face down card as something it isn't.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Aether Searcher remains a premier big robot target, and it functions well with reanimator, Sneak/Show/Eureka, artifact.dec, and is hardcastable for control or ramp. Generally comes with a 4 CMC Planeswalker genre of target or better, and I still can't remember having had it whiff. One of my favourite cheaty cards and big targets for all kinds of deck.
Deal Broker sometimes whiffs with the trade option, but usually players can agree on a swap - and the 2/3 looter does see play as well, which is an area where the likes of Lore Seeker and Canal Dredge fall short. It's a playable creature for reanimator and artifact builds.
Double Stroke was cut for power reasons, and Backup Plan may also be removed for this reason. They could come back with fast mana in the future. DS is game-breaking most times it's played though.
Power Play is almost as useful as the former, especially for aggro, but not quite on the same level IMO. However I am likely to cut it for reasons of being kind of uninteresting with no build-around requirements.
Brago's Favor is a lot more interesting than it appears, since you can subtly tweak your curve at a certain point to get a 5 or 6 drop into playable range for aggro, or just promote a four drop to three drop for a G/x aggro deck (for example) where options or your picks were lacking. It's also an awesome foil.
Unexpected Potential is super fun and lets you get away with a one-off pick of a random off-color card in your deck. Probably my fave conspiracy and a reason why four colour commander cards might be of some interest later this year (that, and we often splash a 3rd/4th colour anyway). Always gets an interesting reaction. The new Emissary's Ploy is similar, but for multiple cards, although they all have to be creatures and all at a set CMC (which also has to be 1, 2 or 3). So much wider but much more restrictive - so I think we will enjoy it.
Sentinel Dispatch is just a brilliant pick for the artifact deck or any control deck. So subtle but a free artifact can yield interesting value with Tezz or Tinker, or it can just block and kill a 2/1.
I ran Worldknit but it was very strong and a bit weird to play at times when you had some incongruous cards in the deck. May come back since it's a blast to draft.
Those are the ones I'm currently running. Looking at Hymn of the Wilds, Emissary's Ploy, Assemble the Rank and Vile, Weight Advantage and Summoner's Bond from the new set from the Conspiracy side of things, plus Arcane Savant, Volatile Chimera and Caller of the Untamed as the other draft-altering creatures.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I will keep Lore Seeker in my main 360, but my playgroup would also like to have a separate 15-card Conspiracy module filled with CNS/CNS2 cards. They're primarily looking at the Monarch cards (e.g. Skyline Despot, Custodi Lich), but I am also leaning heavily towards Volatile Chimera, Arcane Savant, Caller of the Untamed and some of the other draft-matters cards.
What are others running in their Conspiracy modules?
And if you were building a 15-card module from scratch (with some semblance of a Monarch theme to it), what do you think you would throw in it?
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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