After discussion in the Official Cube Discussion Thread, Allred123 and I will be running this year's Power Rankings, with voting to begin October 9th. The original organizer, Silent Edge, hasn't posted in this forum since December 2014 and last year's organizer, willdice, says he will not have the time for this project until sometime in November, we're stepping in to organize the project this year. We are counting on the community's help and input to have the voting process run as smoothly as always.
For reference, the previous Power Ranking threads: 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015.
In the Official Cube Discussion Thread some changes were suggested that we discussed as a community which are enumerated at the bottom of this post, and the results of this discussion were incorporated into this year's Power Rankings:
* The first thread will be created next Sunday, October 9th.
* Each voting thread will stay open 4 days, or 5 if it opens or would close in a weekend day. The only exception to this will be the Overall Power Rankings, as they will fall during American Thanksgiving weekend. As there will be so much more to digest both literally and figuratively, we're giving the Overall rankings a full week. The next voting thread will be created as soon as the previous one is closed, and then there will be a secondary thread with the closed one's results, as soon as we finish calculating them.
* There will be 11 threads: one for each color, then one for colorless cards (mostly artifacts, but also other nonland cards such as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon), one for lands, three for multicolored cards (allied pairs, then enemy pairs, and then cards of three or more colors), and finally one for overall voting on all cards.
* The vote consists of a Top 20 cards based on how effectively they contribute to game wins in a traditional cube environment. For the guilds, it will be a Top 10 instead, for 3+ color cards it will be a Top 20 and for the Overall voting it will be a Top 30.
* The votes will be tallied with each card receiving a score in the inverse order of the votes - so, in a Top 20 ranking the #1 card gets 20 points, the #2 gets 19 points and so on. The final score will be equal to the sum of all scores divided by the number of voters.
Classification Rules and Frequently Asked Questions
* How will be cards with similar effects be handled?
If the card has the exact same type, cost and effect, they are considered a single card and must be voted as a single entry. For example, when voting for white cards, Armageddon and Ravages of War are considered the same card so they must take the same place in your ranking, but Wrath of God and Day of Judgment are different cards that must be ranked separately.
For cases where the difference between cards is small enough, as a rule of thumb you should ask: there is another cube card that cares about this difference? Assume a regular cube, powered or not; we're not voting for pauper, peasant, commander, block or tribal-themed cubes here.
For example, Torch Fiend and Reckless Reveler have difference creature types, but no regular cube runs cards with Devil or Satyr tribal interactions. If you want to include them in your Top 20 Red cards, they'll be a single entry in your ranking.
As a counter-example, Savannah Lions and Elite Vanguard are considered different cards, because a reasonable number of human (and, to a lesser extent, soldier) tribal interactions exist in regular cubes. If you want to put Vanguard higher than the Lions because of Champion of the Parish or lower because of Stromkirk Noble is up to you, but they must be ranked separately.
When in doubt, feel free to ask. A list of commonly included cards that fall within this rule will be given at the beginning of each voting thread.
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* Must I vote for cards I don't run in my own cube?
It's up to you. You can vote based on your experience drafting other player's cubes, for example. But if you've never played with that card or just aren't sure how to rank it, feel free to not include it at all in your ranking. However, if you are excluding a card from your own cube because you believe it is powerful enough to be unbalancing in your own cube environment (e.g. Sol Ring or Ancestral Recall for an unpowered cube), it probably should not be excluded from your rankings in this project because you have already made an assessment about its power level.
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* How are some cards classified?
It works a little like Color Identity rules from Commander/EDH. Basically, assume a card is all the colors on all of its costs of any type (mana cost, additional or alternate casting costs, and costs of activated or triggered abilities). Hybrid mana counts as both colors. Additionally, if a nonland card has an ability that works when you control lands of a certain basic land type (e.g. Kird Ape) or permanents of a certain color, or even that you play spells of a certain color, it will also be of that color.
Just having a color without costing mana of that color or requiring lands of that type doesn't count as being of that color for the purposes of this project. The same for producing tokens of a certain color; that's still not enough to count as being of that color.
Notice these rules apply even for lands and other mana sources (see below for more on them):
Cards that produce mana are a special case. In addition to the rules above about costs, and to stay consistent with the previous Rankings:
* Lands that produce mana of a single color will be listed as being of that color. Gaea's Cradle is green.
* Lands that can produce only colorless mana, or mana of two or more colors, are to be voted in the Lands ranking, except for those that fall in the above rules about "costing" mana. Notice that most dual (and triple) land cycles fall into the "same card" rule.
- The following cycles are included in the Lands voting: ABU Duals, ONS/ZEN Fetches, RAV Shocklands, M10/ISD Checklands, ICE/AP Painlands, MI Slow fetches, RAV Guildlands, SHM Filters, SOM Fastlands, THS Temples, ALA/KTK Triplelands, BFZ Tango Lands, SOI Peek Lands, LW Vivids.
- Other lands voted in Lands: Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse, Wasteland and other strictly colorless lands; City of Brass, Mana Confluence and other "any color" lands; Murmuring Bosk, Horizon Canopy, Paliano, the High City
- Some lands that fall into other categories: Raging Ravine (Gruul) and the other WWK/BFZ/OGW Manlands; Treetop Village (Green) and other UL Manlands; Academy Ruins and Faerie Conclave (Blue), Volrath's Stronghold (Black), Gaea's Cradle (Green), Slayers' Stronghold (Boros), Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree (Selesnya)...
* Colorless artifacts that produce mana of two or three colors are included in the respective guild or the 3+ color section
* The other artifacts that produce colorless mana, mana of a single color or mana of all colors are classified as colorless
* The rules about costing mana or requiring land types still apply to mana artifacts
- Azorius Signet and Talisman of Progress are both Azorius (white/blue) cards.
- Worn Powerstone and Coalition Relic are Colorless.
- Mox Pearl is Colorless, but Thunder Totem is White.
Just put a list, numbered 1-20 (or whatever number of cards is being voted), inside a Spoiler tag. That's all.
As a random example from 2014's Green rankings:
1 Survival of the Fittest
2 Natural Order
3 Sylvan Library
4 Garruk Relentless
5 Eternal Witness
6 Garruk Wildspeaker
7 Rancor
8 Noble Hierarch
9 Tarmogoyf
10 Fauna Shaman
11 Birds of Paradise
12 Regrowth
13 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
14 Thrun, the Last Troll
15 Lotus Cobra
16 Kalonian Hydra
17 Hornet Queen
18 Acidic Slime
19 Courser of Kruphix
20 Deranged Hermit
That's it, 20 cards ranked, starting with the one you're more likely to draft as P1P1.
Additional tags such as Card or Deck are optional (but certainly useful for others reading your vote).
You are free to edit your vote as many times as you need, up until the moment when the thread is closed. Please make a complete ranking; partial votes will be ignored.
Outside of that, please try to keep the voting post clean. A few comments aren't a problem, but if you want to talk, use this thread or the respective Results one.
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* Yeah, but what cards can I vote on?
Essentially, any released Magic card from Kaladesh or earlier that is DCI approved for one or more formats of competitive Constructed Magic can be included in your voting. In previous iterations of the Power Rankings Conspiracy-type cards and silver-bordered cards were permitted to be voted for and ranked but after discussion the community voted to exclude them from this year's rankings. They will now be voted on in a separate category after the OVERALL voting has finished.
However, spell cards that affect and are affected by the draft from Conspiracy and Conspiracy: Take the Crown (e.g. Deal Broker and Arcane Savant) will be voted on according to their color identity like any other cards (and Paliano, the High City as a Land card), as well as in the Overall Power Rankings.
The following sets have been released since last year's Power Rankings:
Magic Origins
Battle For Zendikar
Commander 2015
Oath of the Gatewatch
Shadows over Innistrad
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy: Take the Crown
Kaladesh
Unreleased cards aren't legal, so please refrain from voting on any cards for post-Kaladesh sets that may be spoiled. Commander 2016 will be released in the middle of the voting (November 11th), but please do not vote on them during this year's voting cycle. We can vote on them next year once everyone's gotten an opportunity to playtest them.
Now, some other things that aren't cards for this project: Planes, Schemes, Vanguard and anything else that isn't regular-card-sized; Theros's Hero cards and Challenge Deck cards are also excluded.
Several points were discussed to be changed to this year's power rankings, but they have been resolved by discussion or vote and incorporated into the rest of this post. You can find initial discussion of those points here:
Here are the changes that have been suggested so far in the Official Cube Discussion Thread, that I would like to see the community discuss and try to come to an agreement on. I will elaborate on pros and cons and other discussion mentioned so far on each point in spoiler text.
1. Categorize the Fate Reforged tri-brids like Soulfire Grandmaster as mono-colored cards based on their casting costs.
From Allred123:
As for tribrid cards, the reason I am pushing for including them in their mono colored section is I want to know where cards like Soulfire Grand Master rank compared to the rest of the cards in their respective color.
maybe if we have a top 10 shard / wedge section this year we could have it included in both?
I don't agree on changing categorization for the FRF tribrids, as they're just vanilla or French vanilla creatures without access to one of the appropriate colors of off-color mana. It's impossible to come up with a truly satisfying way of categorizing them, but because they do so much less without access to at least one additional color of mana I think considering them as part of a larger 3+ color card category is the best we can do here.
2. Categorize cards with colored casting costs that produce off-colored mana (e.g. Noble Hierarch) by their casting cost.
I am pushing for including them in their mono colored section is I want to know where cards like noble Hierarch rank compared to the rest of the cards in their respective color. I already know Noble Hierarch is one of the best cards in it's tri-color combination.
Allred, I hope I'm not putting too many words in your mouth here.
I think there is a valid argument to be made for categorizing cards based on their costs and basic lands/colored permanents required in play to get full value from them. I don't think anyone considers whether or not to include Noble Hierarch based on how good it is compared to, say, Roon of the Hidden Realm, but instead based on how good it is as a green 1-drop. Noble Hierarch may not be at its best in a Gruul ramp deck, but it would do enough in a Gruul deck to compete with Llanowar Elves for inclusion. We count Mox Pearl and Mox Jet as colorless, why not Avacyn Pilgrim or Elves of the Deep Shadow as green?
No cons mentioned yet, but this idea just came up.
3. Categorize cards with costs requiring C mana with other colorless cards.
Pros: No one's come up with a better idea yet.
Cons: The costs of 3 and 2C function very differently.
4. Create a 12th category for Un-cards, Conspiracies, and draft-matters cards from the Conspiracy sets.
I don't think a separate Un/Conspiracy card metric provides information that's particularly useful. Knowing that, say, Backup Plan is a better card than Chaos Confetti doesn't say anything about how good either card is in the context of cube. The fact that Backup Plan is a strong enough card to be drafted P1P1 over Jace, the Mindsculptor and Sword of Fire and Ice, and Wurmcoil Engine is a metric worth being aware of even for cube managers who might prefer to exclude it due to flavor considerations. I don't think anyone should feel obligated to vote for them at all if they are cards that they would not pick in a draft, and I think it's OK that the lower ranking they end up with than pure power warrants reflects some members' disdain for this type of card. However, this project is meant to evaluate the most powerful cards in print for cube based on this community's judgment and experience with these cards. Quite a few people are running these cards either in their cubes or in a separate module, and when they're drafting they will never ever open a pack that consists entirely of Un/Conspiracy cards, so it's worth considering how they fit into the larger context of cube.
However, not including uncards or conspiracy cards seems wrong. As others have said, what good are these lists if they don't actively reflect the possibilities that you could have within your cube? The metric IMO is less important than inclusion/exclusion of cards to choose from.
5. Change the voting for Shards and Wedges from a top 3-5 for each to a Top 10 or 20 with all cards that are 3+ colors.
I'd change the voting for shards and wedges into a single Top 10 or Top 20 with all cards that are three or more colors. Most of last year's ten Top 3s were useless.
I like this idea, too many 3 color combinations have absolutely nothing worth considering, and few cube managers bother with including one of each combination. This would also give us a category to rank 4-5 color cards like Progenitus and the Nephilim.
No Cons have been mentioned yet.
6. Change the standard for voting from "cards you are most likely to draft Pack 1 Pick 1 out of a cube booster" to "best" or "most powerful" cube cards.
I'm saving the best for last here. We really need to settle this question in order to determine the meaning of this project.
It would be nice to have a defined statement for what power is, and specifically have it be "best overall cards" or something instead of "Best first picks." If I remember correctly that was a point of confusion/frustration last year.
I've been advocating for the last couple cycles to change the metric from "top P1P1 cards" to overall "favorite" cube cards from each section ...allowing players to vote on whatever cards they consider to be their "best" (or favorite) cards, regardless of metric. I think it removes the pressure of having to rank strictly on P1P1 choices (which winds up collecting a lot of "generic goodstuff" anyways, even if they're mediocre P1P1 choices) and I think that giving the voters the choice to place cards on the list wherever they like removes a lot of the contentious debates and leaves for a more open voting format. Players can vote for whichever cards they consider to be the best cards, regardless of what metric they want to apply to how they came up with their list. This balances P1P1 build-around cards, generically powerful cards, group favorites and any other metric you want to measure the cards by to all be legitimate cards for having a card make the list. Just ask players to rank the best cards, and leave it up to them to determine how they decide which ones make the list.
I've actually thought the P1P1 metric is quite elegant, as it requires us to balance raw power vs. versatility in a context we're all quite familiar with. I'm open to the possibility of changing the standard for voting on and ranking cards, but I'm not sure how meaningful our votes will be if we're not even clarifying what the metric is that we're voting on.
The biggest issue with the P1P1 metric is the lack of accountability. One person could be using that metric specifically, and another voter may just be throwing their favorite cards on a list. It won't change things dramatically, but it allows voters the freedom to put what they consider to be the best cube cards of that respective color on the list, regardless of how strict or loose they are with the metrics being used to determine them. It also makes the voting a little more relaxed. There always seems to be voters that are worried about casting votes because their lists look different, or responses like "really? You'd P1P1 that?" ...this new way of voting would eliminate all that.
Lastly, there honestly aren't 20 cards in each section worth first-picking. So the top 7-13 cards matter, and the rest of the slots are just filled in with generic goodstuff cards. Which are powerful, but probably aren't accurate representations of what should be taken as your first pick in the draft. By changing the metric to "best", each voter can use whatever metric they want to determine that. Be it P1P1-ability, synergy, power, fun-factor, MD% ...it's all valid.
I like keeping it as P1P1 for the ranking as that way we aren't having someone saying Squire as the #1 white card because its their favorite ever card to draft. I know that is an extreme example but I would rather have a list of the most powerful cards and not a list of everyones favorites. Favorites isn't really that useful for information.
I also think that if we decide on voting using a certain metric then everyone should follow it instead of just doing what they want as there was an issue with that last time where people were openly voting using different metrics just because they wanted to.
People ignore the metrics anyways. And voting for "best" allows players to use multiple metrics to determine it. I think we'll get more accurate information that way, especially since most of the common top-rated cards don't necessarily make for good P1P1 cards anyways. It doesn't have to be "favorites", but I think we'll get better and more accurate results with a "best" vote, allowing players to determine their own metrics (since they're using them anyways).
Frankly I don't think it *really* matters what we choose. Personally I've never looked at any of these lists and been like "this is ridiculous and is not helpful at all." And frankly, no matter WHAT metric we choose, there will be some number of people doing whatever they want, a fact that we just have to accept. Of course there is a change of tone/etc. depending on what is chosen, but at the end of the day the list will be the list and it will be great and we're not idiots so we'll make it work.
As an aside, at first I agreed with the not enough cards for top 20 p1p1, but looking at past lists a lot of the colors do have pretty full top 20s. Even our rankings from 2014 (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/558915-power-rankings-2014-cube-power-rankings#) still stand the test of time in terms of P1P1 quality. Of course some colors have some reaches in them, but not embarrassing by any means. If I'm misunderstanding how that 2014 list was done so be it, but worth considering if not.
I think this would change things very dramatically, to the point where I'm not sure what the rankings would even mean if the standard is nothing clearer than the cards we like best in cubes. What you're suggesting doesn't even reference the power of the cards anymore, so it doesn't even sound like it should be called the Power Rankings at that point. The most obvious example is the top cards for powered cubes. Since I do not run the Power 9, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other fast mana I wouldn't vote for them on any top 20 list of favorite cards as I choose not to even run them. We have cube managers on this forum who prefer deliberately underpowered lists, their overall 30 favorite cards would look even more different from previous Power Rankings than mine. However, if the metric is cards I would consider most highly as a drafter who is trying to win a draft I respect the power of the Power 9, etc. enough to make an honest effort to evaluate where they belong on the Power Rankings.
There is probably a compromise, like "Top Cards", "Most Powerful Cards", something like that which doesn't imply P1P1 but also doesn't imply choices due to personal preference and not considering power level. Like, it would be insane for someone to imply that Sol Ring or Mana Crypt is not a top card, but I could totally understand someone not voting for those as a favorite for the reasons you state. Something like Power Ranking w/o the P1P1 metric attached would be enough.
I guess what it comes down to is that if a user is going to vote for something clearly not top 20 as a top 20 card because it's a favorite, then no matter what we choose their votes probably wouldn't be helpful, so it's probably better to keep it to powerful/best so that's represented vs. a P1P1 metric where 80% do it the right way and 20% do it their own way and it's all ****ed because of that.
I guess I've always seen the P1P1 metric as just shorthand for the most important cards to have in your cube if power level matters to you.
Which is exactly why we should remove the metric. That's how a lot of people vote, and it has nothing at all to do with a card's P1P1 value. Half the cards that make the lists by every voter (myself included) are terrible P1P1 cards, but they're all great cube cards. There's a big difference, and I think we should just clarify for the first time that players should vote on what they consider the "best" cards to be, with P1P1 value being only one of the many metrics that should go into creating such a list.
Quote from Salmo »
There is probably a compromise, like "Top Cards", "Most Powerful Cards", something like that which doesn't imply P1P1 but also doesn't imply choices due to personal preference and not considering power level.
My suggestion would be "best" cards ...and letting the voter balance all the metrics they can apply to come up with the list. It incorporates everything that makes a cube card good; P1P1 value, synergy, intrinsic powerlevel, MD%, cube importance ...all the things that are important when coming up with a balanced list. Right now, people are already balancing all those metrics into their lists (instead of exclusively using the suggested P1P1 metric) so we might as well open the voting up so that everybody is voting the same way.
I incorrectly used the term "favorite" earlier, and that's not right, and not really what I'm suggesting. I want voters to be able to vote for any cards they feel are the "best" cube cards for that respective section, with all the factors that go into evaluating them playing a role (not just the P1P1 metric).
Oblivion Ring makes the top 20 every year. Because it's a great cube card. It's flexible, and it has a really high maindeck percentage in white decks. But if I'm taking an Oblivion Ring P1P1, it's because I'm looking at the single worst cube pack imaginable.
Generic goodstuff picks make terrible P1P1 choices. The powerlevel isn't nearly good enough to justify that early of a pick, there's no real synergy to be extracted, and it's not the centerpiece of a deck where you can go on to make it the most powerful card in your deck. Flexibility is important, but it's important for your mid-pick cards. High maindeck percentage is not a metric that determines good P1P1 cards. In fact, you can argue exactly the opposite. "Safe" picks often have high maindeck percentages. They make a lot of final 40s, and they're flexible. But they aren't broken in the right deck. Those are the cards that have relatively low MD% stats; things like Wildfire and Oath and Tezzeret and Living Death. Cards that can't just be tossed into any deck of their color, but can be completely busted in decks designed to abuse them. Those are the more important qualities of good P1P1 cards ...they pass the "take and break" test.
Replacement level effects should be the thing that sets the bar. Can I take something else later on that can do this card's job (even if it's slightly worse at it)? If the answer is yes, it probably doesn't need to be taken P1P1. Take cards that are either A) so broken that the ability to build around alternative picks still won't increase their powerlevel enough to compete with the card your taking, or B) take a card you can "take and break" ...a card that doesn't have a particularly high intrinsic powerlevel, but when you can sculpt a strategy around it, it winds up competing for the title of best card in your deck. If a card doesn't do one of those two things for me, it's safe to pass.
Going back over the lists over the years, we've done a solid job of identifying the "best" cards from he given sections, but we've all done (myself included) a relatively poor job of identifying a group of cards that should be taken P1P1. Our results will be similar to past results if we change the metric to "best". But if we keep it as a P1P1 metric, I know my lists will look very different than they have in the past (and rightfully so).
Well, it is called the Power rankings for a reason, the metric should be "the strongest/most powerful cards" or something that directly relates to that (like P1P1). "Best" is too subjective IMO.
But strongest under what context? Most powerful under what context? P1P1 is only one metric for determining which cards are the "best". "Best" may be too subjective, but P1P1 is too far the opposite way. We need something that encompasses all the attributes that make a card the "best" card to include in a given color/section. I don't think the lists will provide the best data they can if we limit voters to a single metric (and they actually follow it).
What about: Rank the top 20 cards of the given color Strongest to weakest under the context of when you are drafting and building your deck, how important is this to your deck?
This would take into consideration the strength of super strong build around me cards, the flexibility of cards that can fit into multiple decks, the mana cost etc, the impact it has on the rest of your draft, the impact the card has on how you construct your deck.
I see what you mean about safe P1P1 picks often not being the most powerful.
"Powerful" is certainly subjective, but it's certainly clearer than "best". Perhaps we can come to some kind of consensus on a working definition of "powerful". One possible working definition for the metric of power would be how much does a particular card contribute to winning games during cube matches. Quite a lot is baked into that, including efficiency, effectiveness at development, card advantage, versatility, tempo advantage, how quickly it ends a game, ease of casting, viability as a build-around, quality as a late game topdeck, etc. Thoughts?
I'm okay with the subjectivity, and feel that players should be able to vote for whatever they want. Since a lot of voters are gonna do that anyways, leave the metric off, and let players put down whatever they feel constitutes the "best" cube cards for that section and move on.
[quote from="Spike Rogue »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/191128-the-official-cube-discussion-thread?comment=11471"]
This is making the perfect the enemy of the good. While subjectivity is inevitable as card evaluation in cube design is as much an art form as it is a science, making no attempt to establish a clear definition of what people are voting for beyond "best" and "whatever they want" won't produce rankings that mean much beyond the winners of a popularity contest. This has been called the "power" rankings because we want to know what cards are strong enough to produce exciting and competitive games in an environment that generally consists of the most powerful cards in the history of MTG.
As I manage an unpowered cube, cards that are most powerful are not among the best for my cube because they would produce games that are too uninteractive, so they would not crack my ranking of the "best" cards for my environment. However, even though I am not considering the Power 9 and most fast mana cards for my cube it is still helpful to know what is ranked near them so that I can keep an eye on cards that are at or near the ceiling for possible inclusion or exclusion based on what I've deemed the appropriate ceiling of power for my cube. Therefore, I propose this as a working definition of "powerful" as we rank the how powerful cube cards are in the Power Rankings:
"How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
There's a lot to evaluate here, as different cards contribute to winning games in different ways, including card advantage, board impact, card selection, damage output, mana efficiency, ease of casting, set up cost, and mana fixing. I expect there to be a high correlation between P1P1 value and maindeck percentage and this definition of "powerful", but they're not necessarily identical. No metric for subjective evaluation will ever be perfect, and some people may well violate the spirit of this voting in one way or another, but I think that on the whole we can trust the community on this forum to do a good job of adhering to this metric in good faith as we vote in this year's Power Rankings.
I would like to see the community discuss and come to an agreement on each of these points as well as any new suggestions before voting begins on October 9th. If a general agreement doesn't appear to be forthcoming on any of the outlined points within the next few days, I'll create a poll and incorporate the result of that vote into the voting guidelines for the Power Rankings.
Many thanks to Allred123 and willdice for your help and advice on this project so far, to everyone in the community who has contributed to the discussion of changes, and to Silent Edge for creating the Power Rankings, and reviving them in 2014.
[b]Trivia, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
With a change in voting standard (P1P1 to contributes most effectively to game wins) as well as the release of many new cards, we can expect some big changes from last year's results, but these results show us there's still room for plenty of surprises in this year's Power Rankings.
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Brimaz, King of Oreskos (2.94) and Enlightened Tutor (2.65). Every single vote counts!
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Balance tops the list again! By any metric, it still easily tops the charts with 24 #1 votes.
* [b]Comeback #2[/b] - Armageddon/Ravages of War takes back the #2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Armageddon last held the #2 spot in 2010.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Balance and Wrath of God are the only cards to receive votes from everyone this year. It looks like one thing we can all agree on is the power of a good board wipe!
* [b]Rookie of the Year[/b] - Gideon, Ally of Zendikar was the only new White card to make the list this year.
* [b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same[/b] - Balance, Swords to Plowshares, and Stoneforge Mystic all held the exact same ranking they did last year, and 19 out of 20 White cards from this year's Top 20 were on last year's Top 20. Considering the change in voting standard as well as the variety of new cards being voted on, this is some pretty eerie consistency.
* 56 cards received votes this year.
A full list of results, with all cards that received votes, can be found on this Google spreadsheet.
[b]Thanks to all 29 voters![/b]
Allred123, Salmo, wtwlf123, steve_ice, Bo5Dey, bondafong, Tactuz, AntiPox, willdice, voiddisciple, Visserdix, cuttups, Dhaos Dragmire, Steve_man, Ennex, Spike Rogue, Star Slayer, stonecrowe, pillar, LucidVision, Zetsu_Sensei, Shivan_Knight, Mike Pemulis, Dr.Tom, rantipole, Merfolk Magic, qlogan, calibretto, Hicham, psly4mne, sunshinesoldier, Sower of Temptation, KMAYER, Krazedkarl
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Arcane Savant (2.76), Mystical Tutor (2.50), Tolarian Academy (2.06)
* [b]Returning Champions[/b] - Ancestral Recall and Time Walk remain undefeated at the #1 and #2 spots since the beginning of the Power Rankings in 2009.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Upheaval are the only Blue cards that received votes from everyone this year.
* [b]Rookies of the Year[/b] - Mystic Confluence and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy are the only cards printed since last year's Power Rankings to crack this year's list.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Show and Tell and Consecrated Sphinx have been in print for years, but are appearing in the Blue Top 20 for the first time this year.
* [b]Biggest Riser[/b] - Opposition moved from #16 in last year's Power Rankings to #9 this year.
* [b]Fall From Grace[/b] - Vedalken Shackles and took the hardest fall (from #10 to #18) while remaining in this year's Top 20. Fact or Fiction (1.94), Phyrexian Metamorph (1.74), Venser, Shaper Savant (0.91), and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror (0.44)
* [b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same[/b] - In spite of all the changes since last year Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Tinker, Upheaval, Treachery, Snapcaster Mage, and Bribery all kept the exact same spots in the Power Rankings that they held last year.
* [b]Is this really part of the Power 9?[/b] - Timetwister received NO votes in this year's Power Rankings.
* 46 Blue cards received votes in this year's Power Rankings
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Animate Dead (2.54) and Ophiomancer (1.92) didn't quite make the cut this year
* [b]Flip-Flop at the Top[/b] - Mind Twist beat last year's champion Recurring Nightmare for the #1 spot, bringing both back to the #1 & #2 spots they'd held in 2009, 2010, and 2014.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - This year's top 6 cards all received votes from everyone this year, as well as Toxic Deluge and Grave Titan.
* [b]Rookie of the Year[/b] - Languish (#20) is the only Black card printed since last year's Power Rankings to crack this year's Top 20.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Entomb is cracking the list for the first time this year despite having been in print for years.
* [b]Bi-Polar Award[/b] - Entomb made the Top 20 despite only receiving votes from 10 out of 26 people this year.
* [b]Greatest Riser[/b] - Hymn to Tourach rose from #20 in last year's Power Rankings to #14
* [b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same[/b] - In spite of everything that's changed in the past year, Demonic Tutor (#3), Vampiric Tutor (#4), Dark Confidant (#7), Toxic Deluge (#8), and Grave Titan (#9) all kept the same places they held last year.
* 45 Black cards received votes this year.
So looking at the break down, Sulfuric Vortex is once again our winner,
Looking at the next 4 card, Goblin guide scored the next highest average, but Chandra, Torch of Defiance had the next highest median score, and tied with wildfire for the next highest mode. Sneak attack also falls in this upper echelon as well. This Variation probably has to do partly with how new Chandra is, and people are finding her to be good, but there is not a concensus yet of how good she is. you can see this through her higher standard deviation.
Inferno Titan managed to move up from # 10 last year Lightning Bolt seems to randomly strike a different spot every year, this year it went up 4 spots from 13 to 9
The Biggest Losers
Koth of the hammer, which ranked last year at # 3 fell 5 places. most likely due to the new Chandra making koth less desirable Flametongue Kavu, dropped from 11 to 17 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker dropped off the list this year as did the previously mentioned Siege-gang commander.
[b]Thanks to all 28 voters![/b]
Bondafong, MikePemulis, psly4mne, willdice, Dr. Tom, Steve_ice, Zetsu_Sensei, LucidVision, cuttups, SowerOfTemptation, Visserdrix, Allred123, Spike Rogue, Rantipole, Steve_man, Torggo, pillar15, Groglord, wtwlf123, Bo5dey's, Star Slayer, Hicham, Tactuz, Calibretto, Goodking, Salmo, sunshinesoldier, Shivan_Knight
[b]Returning Champions:[/b] Sulfuric Vortex and Goblin Guide maintain the #1 and #2 spots they held last year.
[b]Pandemonium:[/b] NO Red cards received votes from everyone this year.
[b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same:[/b] Sulfuric Vortex, Goblin Guide, and Wildfire retain their slots from last year.
The community has spoken! Here are this year's Power Rankings for Green, they are now open for discussion.
[b]Thanks to all 28 voters![/b]
bondafong, wtwlf123, pillar15, Ennex, Bo5dey, Goodking, KMAYER, willdice, LucidVision, Spike Rogue, Salmo, worldleviathan, Star Slayer, cuttups, calibretto, steve_man, SowerOfTemptation, Visserdrix, Rantipole, Shivan_Knight, Zetsu_Sensei, Dr. Tom, Pellanor, Mike Pemulis, Tactuz, Torggo, Hicham, voiddisciple
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Tooth and Nail (3.10), Green Sun's Zenith (2.52) didn't quite make the cut this year.
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Survival of the Fittest has continued to hold the top spot since 2014, and also held it in 2009.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Natural Order and Eternal Witness received votes from everyone.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Gaea's Cradle and Oath of Druids crack the list for the first time this year in spite of having been in print since the 1990's. Newly reclassified-as-green Noble Hierarch goes from last year's top Bant card to tying with Plow Under as this year's #13 Green card.
* [b]Biggest Rise[/b] - Plow Under has returned after not cracking last year's Top 20 to this year's #13.
* [b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same[/b] - Survival of the Fittest and Birds of Paradise both maintain the same spots they held last year.
b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Sword of Light and Shadow 2.3, Mimic Vat (1.5) didn't quite make the cut this year.
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Sol Ring.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Moxen, Batterskull, Black lotus, Sol Ring, Sword of Fire and Ice, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Umezawa's Jitte, Wurmcoil Engine all got votes.
[b]Thank you to all 23 voters - A NEW FORUM RECORD[/b]!
wtwlf123, willdice, voiddisciple, Spike Rogue, MikePemulis, pillar15, Ennex, MerfolkMagic, Shivan_Knight, Star Slayer, rantipole, calibretto, bondafong, cuttups, LucidVision, Tactuz, allred123, steve_man, Zetsu_Sensei, Salmo, psly4mne, SowerOfTemptation, TheAngryhermit
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings and Facts (TURF)[/b]
[b]Undisputed Champion[/b] - Library of Alexandria has been the #1 land card in the Power Rankings every year, but this is the first time the vote was unanimous. The vote was very nearly unanimous for Strip Mine at #2, with only 2 members voting for it as their #3 choice.
[b]Greatest Rise[/b] - Ancient Tomb moved from #19 in last year's Power Rankings to #11.
[b]Rookie of the Year[/b] - None. All cards have been in print since last year's Power Rankings.
[b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Mishra's Workshop and the Pain Lands are cracking the list for the first time this year despite having been in print since the 1990's.
[b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same[/b] - Library of Alexandria, Strip Mine, Mana Confluence, ABU Duals, Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Shock Lands, Horizon Canopy, and Gemstone Mine. In fact, other than City of Ass, which is no longer being voted on in this category, and Ancient Tomb, no card moved more than 2 spots from its spot in last year's Power Rankings.
[b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same:[/b] The top 5 of the entire Dimir guild remains completely unchanged since last year. Aside from the Returning Champions, Qasali Pridemage was the only other card to hold it's position from last year.
[b]Run the Cycle:[/b] Every card in the Worldwake manland cycle was voted into the top 5 of its guild.
27 Azorious cards received votes this year. 19 Dimir cards received votes this year. 19 Rakdos cards received votes this year. 25 Gruul cards received votes this year. 24 Selesnya cards received votes this year.
[b]Thanks to all 20 voters![/b]
Zetsu_Sensei, wtwlf123, willdice, Dr. Tom, Steve_man, MikePemulis, Visserdrix, calibretto, Ennex, Bo5dey, pillar15, Spike Rogue, voiddisciple, Metamind, Salmo, bondafong, cuttups, LucidVision, rantipole, Shivan_Knight
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
Once again, for brevity's sake TURF will only discuss the Top 10 cards in each guild.
[b]Returning Champions & Runners-up:[/b] The number 1 & 2 spots in every guild remain unchanged since last year's Power Rankings.
[b]Run the Cycle:[/b] Each card BFZ/OGW manland dual cycle (e.g. Shambling Vent) has made the Top 5 in its respective guild, just as the WWK manland allied duals (e.g. Raging Ravine) did.
[b]Rookies of the Year:[/b] Along with the manland duals, Anguished Unmaking and Kiora, Master of the Depths were printed since the last Power Rankings vote, and are debuting in the Top 5 of their guilds.
[b]Dead Heat:[/b] While Edric, Spymaster of Trest absolutely crushed its competition for the #1 spot in Simic (9.84), the rankings for the next 3 Simic spots are fractions of a point apart. 22 Orzhov cards received votes this year. 20 Golgari cards received votes this year. 21 Simic cards received votes this year. 18 Izzet cards received votes this year. 19 Boros cards received votes this year.
[b]Thank you to all 12 voters![/b]
Ennex, Willdice, wtwlf123, voiddisciple, pillar15, Zetsu_Sensei, Shivan_Knight, MikePemulis, calibretto, rantipole, Spike Rogue, Steve_man
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
[b](Almost) Undisputed Champion:[/b] Tasigur, the Golden Fang absolutely crushed it in this year's vote, with 10 votes for #1 and 2 votes for #2.
[b]Dead Heat for Second Place:[/b] Not only was there a tie for 3rd place, but both cards were only 0.17 points behind Alesha for the #2 spot.
[b]Multicolor Power Nine:[/b] The top 9 cards in this list all received votes from everyone who voted of at least 11th place. As a result, there's more than a 4-point gap between 9th place and 10th.
[b]Color Balance:[/b] The Top 9 cards of this list are surprisingly well color balanced with WUBR each represented in 5 cards and G in 4. Anyone considering creating a rainbow section for their cube could do a lot worse than adding the top 9 cards of this list.
37 cards received votes in this category.
The community has spoken! Here are the results of the vote for Overall. The results were tabulated in this Google Docs spreadsheet.
[b]Thanks to all 14 voters![/b]
Salmo, wtwlf123, LucidVision, Ennex, Spike Rogue, cuttups, metamind, calibretto, bondafong, pillar15, Star Slayer, rantipole, Mike Pemulis, Hicham
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
[b]Returning Champion:[/b] Sol Ring remains at the top of the list, although its lead over Library of Alexandria widened considerably since last year (29.64 to 28.43 this year, vs. 29.1 to 28.8 last year)
[b]Greatest Risers:[/b] Grim Monolith climbed from #20 to #28 since last year, and Mox Diamond rose from #22 to #16.
[b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same:[/b] Sol Ring (#1), Library of Alexandria (#2), Black Lotus (#3), Ancestral Recall (#4), and Sulfuric Vortex (#18) all retain the same spots they held last year. This is surprisingly little change considering....
[b]Rookie of the Year:[/b] No newly printed cards cracked the Top 30 this year. In fact, the only newly printed card to receive any votes at all was Chandra, Torch of Defiance (#37).
[b]Better Late Than Never:[/b] Wildfire/Burning of Xinye (#29) and Natural Order (#30) have been around since the '90s, but they're making the Overall list for the first time this year.
[b]Colors Ranked by Power:[/b] Based on their inclusion in this year's Overall Top 30, the here's how the colors of the traditional cube environment measure up:
Cards: 12, Total Power Rankings Score: 224.56 (Note that this also includes two Lands: Library of Alexandria and Strip Mine) U Cards: 7, Total Power Rankings Score: 111.93 B Cards: 4, Total Power Rankings Score: 50.28 W Cards: 3, Total Power Rankings Score: 32.49 R Cards: 2, Total Power Rankings Score: 14.00 G Cards: 2, Total Power Rankings Score: 6.93
1. I think the P1P1 metric should be changed. I like your suggestion here:
Quote from Spike Rogue »
"How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
Even if this isn't perfect, it's less subjective than "best" and certainly better than "P1P1 value" ...so I'd be okay using this metric for this year's voting. At least it encompasses more than just one small aspect of cube card evaluation.
What basically equates to "Wins Above Replacement" is a good idea. How much better is this card for you than if it were to be replaced with an "average" quality card in the same vein? If the answer is "it's absurd how much better it is than other similar cards", or "you can't replace this with something else because there's nothing else that can do its job" ...that makes for a good top 20 candidate.
2. I think tribrid cards should be voted as part of the tricolor shard/wedge section.
3. Same goes for cards that function "intrinsically best" in certain color combinations (like Noble Hierarch).
4. Cards that require C to function should be voted on independently. They're colorless cards, but they function completely the opposite way that truly colorless cards do.
5. I personally feel that cards that aren't Vintage legal should be voted on in their own category. Especially conspiracies, which function completely different than other cards.
..........
Thanks for tackling this project! It's a big undertaking, and I appreciate you guys stepping up.
Thanks for your feedback, and your support for my suggestion on the definition of "powerful".
I had a problem with the Spoiler tags, so I had to rearrange the numbered points, apparently while you were already writing your post. For clarity's sake, I'm reordering and numbering your post:
1. I think tribrid cards should be voted as part of the tricolor shard/wedge section.
2. Same goes for cards that function "intrinsically best" in certain color combinations (like Noble Hierarch).
3. Cards that require C to function should be voted on independently. They're colorless cards, but they function completely the opposite way that truly colorless cards do.
4. I personally feel that cards that aren't Vintage legal should be voted on in their own category. Especially conspiracies, which function completely different than other cards.
6. I think the P1P1 metric should be changed. I like your suggestion here:
Quote from Spike Rogue »
"How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
Even if this isn't perfect, it's less subjective than "best" and certainly better than "P1P1 value" ...so I'd be okay using this metric for this year's voting. At least it encompasses more than just one small aspect of cube card evaluation.
What basically equates to "Wins Above Replacement" is a good idea. How much better is this card for you than if it were to be replaced with an "average" quality card in the same vein? If the answer is "it's absurd how much better it is than other similar cards", or "you can't replace this with something else because there's nothing else that can do its job" ...that makes for a good top 20 candidate.
Thanks for tackling this project! It's a big undertaking, and I appreciate you guys stepping up.
You're quite welcome!
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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.
I don't agree that Noble Hierarch should be in a wedge section. It may be optimal in Bant but most decks that play it don't happen to be Bant but generally have at least 2 of the colors Hierarch produces.
Which would make it function similarly to a Tribrid card; which you want voted on in the shard/wedge section...
Quote from =sunshinesoldier »
What if the criteria was most effective/most impactful? Something like that. I don't want "powered" referenced as part of this criteria. We know that the Moxen or Ancestral Recall are among the best cards in their respective sections without putting the question that way. This phrasing discourages people with unpowered cubes from participation in the project.
Agreed. Could be rephrased to just say "traditional cube environment" and leave the powered part out of it. If you're playing any traditional cube environment and you see a Black Lotus, I think you can evaluate it as a good card without the need to specify that the cube has to be powered.
Thanks for doing this whole project. It seems massive.
1. The tribrids are tough because you'd play a Soulfire Grandmaster in WR, whereas you wouldn't play Jeskai Ascendency in a deck without all three colors. That makes the tribrids considerably more flexible than cards that actually cost 3 colors. It's the old Kird Ape / Tattermunge Maniac debate again. How often has Alesha gone into a Mardu deck, for instance? Whereas I play it in RB or WR all the time.
But I'm not sure there's a better solution. Certainly they don't play as monocolored cards. Probably 3-color is where they belong for now.
2. For stuff like Noble Hierarch, I think I favor putting them in mono-color sections. Why? They may be at their best in a deck that needs the colors they produce. But something like Braids plays better with some colors than others, and we don't consider Braids a four-color card excluding U. Unlike the tribrids, the multicolor part of something like Noble Hierarch is a marginal upside in most decks.
3. If there were a proliferation of C cards, I could see having a separate section, but right now, I don't think it's necessary.
4. Because we're doing powered cube rankings, I think that Conspiracies and all that belong in with the rest of the cards. If these rankings excluded power, I could see having a separate section for Conspiracies and whatnot.
In the future I may try to make the argument that we shouldn't even include power in our rankings, since all of those cards minus Timetwister just rocket to the top of every category, and it'd be more interesting to find out what cards #18-20 would be in U if we excluded Time Walk and Ancestral Recall than to know that those cards are somewhere in the top 3 of U. It's especially true with the artifact mana: Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Lotus, and the Moxen take up 25% of the colorless rankings, and for me, it'd be more interesting to find out what #15-20 would be if those things were excluded. But then I don't run power, so I'm incredibly biased.
5. Love the idea of a top 10 or 20 of all 3+ color cards. It simplifies and keeps us from going to Gatherer to find out what the 3rd best Jeskai card might be, even though no one plays it.
6. I love the idea of keeping the criteria loose and subjective. In general I think people look way too hard for objective measures of subjective things, and ultimately this is. But I also think that something like baseball's Wins Above Replacement is a great middle ground between my subjectivity-fest and arguing about P1P1 vs inclusion in greatest percentage of decks vs etc. Whatever we go with here is fine, but wtwlf's suggestion of WAR seems quite good to this baseball fan.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
So can we work with "How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional cube environment" as our definition for "powerful"?
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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.
But something like Braids plays better with some colors than others, and we don't consider Braids a four-color card excluding U.
All cards function best in a particular color combination, deck or archetype. But the question for their identity is, is there something intrinsic to the card that provides an advantage in a particular guild/shard/wedge? In the case of Braids, there's not. The interactions aren't intrinsic. In the example of Hierarch, there is. It provides mana for specific color combinations and not others.
Also, there are sweet UB tempo shells that can use Braids to full effect. There are no GR or GB decks where Hierarch can intrinsically provide all your colors of mana for you.
Quote from Spike Rogue »
So can we work with "How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional cube environment" as our definition for "powerful"?
I think it's the simplest definition I've seen suggested so far. So for this voting cycle, I like it.
1. Tribrids should be included in their respective wedge slot. It makes the voting cleaner and more concise, even if you don't personally slot them there in your specific cube list. If you want to sort them in a monocolor section in your cube, you can use the results here to get ideas for those cards. However, for those of us that don't sort them that way, these cards might not even show up on a lot of lists if they are relegated to their respective mana cost colors.
2. I also think this is true of something like Noble Hierarch. While she does see play in a Selesnya or Simic deck, her stock goes up exponentially in a Bant deck. And again, would she even show up on a top 20 green cards list? Maybe, but she'll definitely show up in a top 20 shard/wedge list or a top 3 Bant list.
3. In terms of sorting my cube, I toss the colorless mana cards into their respective color. I honestly don't think there are enough of them that are actually good to warrant a seperate vote or section devoted specifically to them. Even with all the colorless rocks and lands in my cube, I still find them hard to support and most of them not good enough to warrant the extra effort. I've since cut all but the true colorless ones and Eldrazi Displacer from my cube.
4. A 12th category for non-Vintage legal cards is a great idea and the best way to go about voting for them. It is good to see them all represented together somewhere for those that would find that information useful. Putting them into their colors will likely just mean they get left out all together.
5. I like the idea of a top 20 vote for all shards/wedges. There's not currently enough in either to warrant an actual top 3. A cube would have to be extremely large or heavily multicolor focused before it would need to look for a third option in these sections.
6. I like the game winning effectiveness metric. Thinking about these cards in terms of P1P1 only makes sense for the first few cards on the list. If none of the top four or five white cards show up in your P1P1, you're probably looking to pick something from a different color.
1. I categorize everything by its casting cost (Phyrexian Metamorph is in blue, Vedalken Shackles is in colorless), so I would be in favor of putting those tribid cards into monocolor. Not really caring about them though.
2. Noble Hierarch is a green card. It is perfectly functional in a mono-green deck and does not need to be in Bant deck.
3. I don't think there are enough C-cost cards to warrent their own section. Just put Eldrazi Displacer in white and Reality Smasher in colorless. Just regard their need for C as a card-specific drawback in their respective sections.
4. I am in favor of creating a 12th category for non-Vintage-legal card. Putting conspiracies into colorless really pushed a lot of cool colorless cards out of those rankings. Draft-matters cards that are legal in Vintage can be voted for normally accordinng to their cost, but conspiracies are just so different and often so powerful that they would skew the ratings if lumped together with normal Magic cards. Not being legal in Vintage is a good characteristic to sperate the problematic cards from the normal ones.
5. Using a unified top 20 ranking for all shard and wedge cards sounds good.
6. I would also like to change the old P1P1 metric to the suggested "How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment.", because the old system didn't really work on certain types of cards and led to confusion. It pretended to be an objective metric, but was actually just as subjective as almost any other method for ranking the cards.
1. I agree that tri-brids are best off in a 3+ color section, they lose way too much functionality without access to specific additional colors of mana. I actually classify them as guild cards in my own cube to keep down my overall gold count, but I see no reason to suggest that for the Power Rankings.
2. The more I think about it, the less satisfying I find any method of categorizing green mana dorks that produce non-green mana. The decision to put Noble Hierarch in 3+ color but not Birds of Paradise seems to be really arbitrary, Avacyn's Pilgrim and Elves of Deep Shadow are worse than Boreal Druid in decks that don't want white or black mana, and they don't make the cut for me as green or guild cards. On the other hand, Noble Hierarch is still better in a Gruul deck than Llanowar Elves, so it's a slam dunk in my green section, and I don't really care how it stacks up to other Bant cards because there are no Bant-specific slots in my cube. The saving grace on Noble Hierarch (and Rattleclaw Mystic in some formats) is that it makes green mana, so it does help some color requirements even if it's not living up to its full potential in a deck with no use for W or U. I think it would be interesting to see how Noble Hierarch stacks up as a mono-green card, but I don't think it's a big deal either way.
3. I don't think it's worth the trouble to add an additional section for C cards. I think we can rank cards like Eldrazi Displacer by the color of their casting cost, and C casting cost cards like Reality Smasher as colorless. If we get more of these cards in the future that are strong enough to make the cut in most cubes, we can re-evaluate then.
4. Categorizing Conspiracy and Un-cards separately and ranking them only in relation to each other is tantamount to not voting for them at all, because it tells us nothing about how they compare to other cards in the cube. By evaluating these cards based on our understanding of their power level is in no way requiring anyone who doesn't like them to run them in their cube any more than consistently giving top rankings to the Power 9 requires anyone to run a powered cube. I get the distaste for the flavor of these cards, and I've moved the Conspiracy cards in my own cube, to a separate module for that very reason, but I was happy to see where they ranked compared to other cards that are already in my cube, and I am curious how CN2 cards compare in the greater context of cube. I was also convinced to try City of Ass based on how it compared to other lands I already ran in last year's Power Rankings. There is no other type of card that we do this with, and for good reason, the data it would give is basically meaningless. We should be categorizing cards based on color, not flavor, and ranking them by power level.
As a compromise, I would accept Willdice's suggestion of leaving out Un-cards but leaving CNS/CN2 mechanic-based cards in the main rankings.
As an aside, draft-altering constructs like Cogwork Librarian and draft-referencing spells like Arcane Savant and Regicide are Vintage legal, but I assume the Un-/Conspiracy separatists don't want those as part of the (main) Power Rankings either.
This is why the Overall Power Rankings were expanded from 20 to 30 last year, so we're not just comparing powered cube cards to each other. Knowing #21-#30 seems to be useful for powered and unpowered cube managers alike. I'll be sure to include a few more "just missed" cards in the TURF comments for Blue and Colorless as well for the benefit of unpowered cube managers.
5. I just want to be clear that what's being suggested here isn't a single category for all Shard/Wedge cards, it's a single category for all 3 or more color cards, so we'd be comparing Progenitus alongside Siege Rhino. Are we cool with ranking them together?
6. I'm glad we're seeing a growing consensus on this point. I'm not much of a sports guy, though, so I'm not familiar enough with the Wins Above Replacement metric to be able to apply this to cube. Could someone clarify this for me with some cube card examples?
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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.
1. Categorize the Fate Reforged tri-brids like Soulfire Grandmaster as mono-colored cards based on their casting costs.
No.
From Allred123:
As for tribrid cards, the reason I am pushing for including them in their mono colored section is I want to know where cards like Soulfire Grand Master rank compared to the rest of the cards in their respective color.
Well, to put it bluntly, I don't.
Soulfire is a pretty bland monowhite card, but a good boros card and an interesting azorius card. I wouldn't rank Soulfire among my Top 20 white cards, at all.
2. Categorize cards with colored casting costs that produce off-colored mana (e.g. Noble Hierarch) by their casting cost.
My pro: it simplify the rules. The same rules that apply to, say, Signets being guild cards would apply to Hierarch and others.
My con: it's not how I classify Hierarch, personally. Unlike Soulfire and such, Hierarch is a card playable in monogreen or any Gx combination.
Here I'm pretty neutral honestly. I'll vote accordingly any way.
3. Categorize cards with costs requiring C mana with other colorless cards.
Well, yes, of course. No other place to put them, and we definitively don't need yet another separated ranking.
4. Create a 12th category for Un-cards, Conspiracies, and draft-matters cards from the Conspiracy sets.
Those cards are so different I can't even understand the reasoning behind grouping them together.
5. Change the voting for Shards and Wedges from a top 3-5 for each to a Top 10 or 20 with all cards that are 3+ colors.
I suggested this, so of course I'm agreeing here.
6. Change the standard for voting from "cards you are most likely to draft Pack 1 Pick 1 out of a cube booster" to "best" or "most powerful" cube cards. "How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
5. I personally feel that cards that aren't Vintage legal should be voted on in their own category. Especially conspiracies, which function completely different than other cards.
My problem with this is that Cube is not Vintage. And, as pointed already, the draft-matters cards from CNS and CN2 (without the conspiracy type) ARE Vintage-legal. Mostly useless, but valid.
Not all Vintage banlist cards are there for the same reasons. Un-cards don't work within the framework of the rules. Conspiracies do; they are banned because they can only be used in Limited formats. Vintage is Constructed, Cube is Limited. And that's it for me.
The decision to put Noble Hierarch in 3+ color but not Birds of Paradise seems to be really arbitrary, Avacyn's Pilgrim and Elves of Deep Shadow are worse than Boreal Druid in decks that don't want white or black mana, and they don't make the cut for me as green or guild cards.
In my mind, this way of sorting doesn't feel arbitrary at all. Birds of Paradise is best in any deck that has access to green mana. Noble Hierarch is best in decks with a need for a Bant mana dork. Obviously, you'd still play Hierarch in a Gruul deck, but it wouldn't be at it's best there. I do understand where you're coming from, though. I get this type of feedback from my group a lot while sorting the cards after drafting. This same comparison has come up on multiple occasions.
I think including these types of cards in their respective color for voting purposes means a lot of them will miss out on being voted for at all. If I'm a new cube manager who sorts my cube by casting cost only, I can still make that choice when I see Noble Hierarch doing well in the Bant or 3+ color voting. If I'm a new cube manager who sorts my cube by where cards play best, I might not even see Noble Hierarch on a Top 20 Green results and miss it all together or make an incorrect assumption that it's not that great.
Categorizing Conspiracy and Un-cards separately and ranking them only in relation to each other is tantamount to not voting for them at all, because it tells us nothing about how they compare to other cards in the cube.
For what it's worth, I think it's difficult to compare something like Worldknit to something like Umezawa's Jitte to each other on a raw power level. Also, I think it's relatively easy for an unpowered cuber to rank power on these lists with only an idea of how they might play in cube. It seems much harder to try to rank Conspiracies, draft altering constructs, and Un-cards without having played with them. This is especially true for Conspiracies. We saw that first hand on these boards as a few of them flew under the radar until folks started trying them and reporting back about how powerful they actually were. Including them in the colorless vote seems like you'll get a lot of skewed lists where some people vote for them and some people choose not to because they don't know how to evaluate them. Voting separately allows those people to not participate if they don't want and it provides results that are relevant to those of us who do run a separate "Conspiracy Module" in our lists.
As someone who does run such a module, I don't really care how Worldknit compares to Jitte. I just want to know which cards I should be considering for that module and how they compare to each other.
As a compromise, I would accept Willdice's suggestion of leaving out Un-cards but leaving CNS/CN2 mechanic-based cards in the main rankings.
So City of Ass wouldn't be included in the vote, but Worldknit would? I don't like that at all. Again, I'd be more interested in seeing what the Top X of these types of cards are so I would have that data for ideas about my own Conspiracy Module. Adding these to the colorless vote only skews the results and adds even more cards that some amount of us have no interest in playing.
As an aside, draft-altering constructs like Cogwork Librarian and draft-referencing spells like Arcane Savant and Regicide are Vintage legal, but I assume the Un-/Conspiracy separatists don't want those as part of the (main) Power Rankings either.
This is correct. Earlier I did refer to this as "non-Vintage legal" and that was wrong. I feel like anything with this type of effect that changes how you normally draft or requires you to reveal it before you start the game should be included here.
I just want to be clear that what's being suggested here isn't a single category for all Shard/Wedge cards, it's a single category for all 3 or more color cards, so we'd be comparing Progenitus alongside Siege Rhino. Are we cool with ranking them together?
Yes. I'm cool with that.
One thing that I've not seen mentioned is if we should be including Kaladesh in this vote. It is included in the OP for sets released since the last rankings, but I'm not sure it's been out long enough for us to have a good amount of data as to where these cards should be ranked. I'm happy to include it if that's the consensus, but I thought it deserved a mention.
Just a real quick response here, but I agree with wtwlf in regards to cards like Conspiracies having a separate category outside of colorless. I also agree with Spike Rogue in that Noble Hierarch should be categorized as green as the Bant classification does indeed feel both arbitrary and unnecessary. If the card isn't cracking most people's top TEN much less twenty, then I'll be extremely surprised. I know the arguments of those opposed, but just putting a vote in for this style of classification if it is indeed up for debate prior to the actual voting.
5. I just want to be clear that what's being suggested here isn't a single category for all Shard/Wedge cards, it's a single category for all 3 or more color cards, so we'd be comparing Progenitus alongside Siege Rhino. Are we cool with ranking them together?
For what it's worth, I think it's difficult to compare something like Worldknit to something like Umezawa's Jitte to each other on a raw power level. Also, I think it's relatively easy for an unpowered cuber to rank power on these lists with only an idea of how they might play in cube. It seems much harder to try to rank Conspiracies, draft altering constructs, and Un-cards without having played with them. This is especially true for Conspiracies. We saw that first hand on these boards as a few of them flew under the radar until folks started trying them and reporting back about how powerful they actually were. Including them in the colorless vote seems like you'll get a lot of skewed lists where some people vote for them and some people choose not to because they don't know how to evaluate them. Voting separately allows those people to not participate if they don't want and it provides results that are relevant to those of us who do run a separate "Conspiracy Module" in our lists.
If it's difficult to evaluate Conspiracies for veteran cube managers, how much more difficult is it for newer cube managers? That's all the more reason for all of us to give it our best shot. I'm not recommending you vote for anything you have no idea how to evaluate. All I ask is that if you're banning a card for being too powerful, give it the vote it deserves on that basis. Not sure? Feel free to abstain. As an unpowered cube manager, I give my best guess about the cards I can and eliminate others from my vote entirely. I have no problem for voting for Time Walk and Ancestral Recall as my Nos. 1 & 2 in blue because I know they'd be unbalancingly strong if I ran them. I'd try Timetwister if it weren't a $1000 card because it doesn't seem much more insane than Wheel of Fortune, but don't ask me how it'd fit since I have 0 experience with the card. Not sure how Worldknit fits because it seems to obnoxious to try? Fine, abstain from voting on it. Banned it based on experience or other feedback because it's too strong? Then you've already evaluated its power level, please share that with the community.
So City of Ass wouldn't be included in the vote, but Worldknit would? I don't like that at all.
I don't really like it either, but I'm trying to meet you halfway. However, Conspiracy cards were specifically designed for draft formats, and some of them are extremely powerful in the context of cube, and cube drafters who may be considering including these cards as part of their main cube will likely be interested in how they rate, especially since a new crop of them was printed this year. I also get the impression that there's more disdain for Un-cards than Conspiracy cards.
One thing that I've not seen mentioned is if we should be including Kaladesh in this vote. It is included in the OP for sets released since the last rankings, but I'm not sure it's been out long enough for us to have a good amount of data as to where these cards should be ranked.
Thanks for bringing this up. Allred and I discussed it, and we figured that by the time the first round of voting ends (October 13th) most people will have had some chance to playtest KLD cards. We also didn't really expect there to be that many serious contenders for top 20 spots aside from Chandra, Torch of Defiance and maybe Angel of Invention. However, if the consensus it that it's too soon to be ranking KLD cards we can save them for next year.
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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.
Maybee i have mis understood the primary pourpse of these rankings? Is it to help cube managers in their cube design or to help cube players see how they are evaluating the strength of cards? I always understood the power rankings as a way for drafters to see how they rank specific cards when drafting where as the project rank everything was more designed to help cube managers optimize there cube? Is this a correct assumption? If it is, then arbitrarily assigning noble hierarch to bant zeems wrong since I might draft it before I know I am in those colors, but it might help pursuade me to move to those colors. Basically, i have always thought this as more of a guide to drafting and i want to know if i am takning noble hierarch to early or late etc.
If we lump all the 3+ colors together, it might help people on designing their cube, but it will provide little if any information as a tool to evaluate myself with as a drafter.
If on the other hand the primary purpose is to help people in cube design then what is the point of doing a project rank everything?
2nd, then yes we should include cards like hiearch and the other tribrid cards in the 3 color section. It then makes sense to lump this section together as a list for cube managers to scroll through and figure out what they want to do.
I would think that lumping the multicolor cards together would help drafters, if anything. Knowing how well they stack up against all the other 3+ color cards is far more important in the early stages of the draft than knowing what the best Mardu card is, for example.
I think the purpose is to help in all aspects of cube. Knowing what the best cards are helps you draft better (especially outside of the 1st pick) and then also helps managers see what the most important cards are to include.
I believe that the intent was always to tell players what the "best" cards are in each section. But we just historically assigned a relatively poor metric to it. Now we're fixing it, and drafters and managers will both benefit more from the new way we plan to organize the card order. There are FAR more important things to consider when drafting than just what the best 1st pick is. Because once you'e outside of your first few picks, you now need to know what the best cards are for the colors/strategies you're in ...not what the best 1st picks were, once you're outside of that part of the draft process.
Last time around, conspiracies were drastically underrated in the overall rankings. I don't think anyone could look at the list objectively and disagree with that. Given the very low placement of Booster Tutor and the absence of Jack-in-the-Mox, it's fair to say un-cards were pretty underrated too. I think that's largely an artifact of (1) people excluding the cards from their rankings because they don't play with them and (2) people rating the cards low because they don't play with them and don't know how good they are.
I don't know if there's a good solution for both, but the system of counting exclusions as 0, in combination with "if you've never played with that card or just aren't sure how to rank it, feel free to not include it at all in your ranking", obviously makes the rankings meaningless for any cards that not everyone voted on.
In any case, including conspiracy and draft-affecting cards in the list but ranking them wildly inaccurately is probably more harmful than just excluding them.
What if the criteria was most effective/most impactful? Something like that.
Cubetutor rankings seem to suggest that most of the cubes there are unpowered, but that lumps together cubes trying to include the best cards along with C/Ubes and all manner of wacky cubes. So I don't know what the stats are here, but my guess is that it is still true most cubes are unpowered. Given that, I don't think including "powered" as a qualifier makes sense.
In the future I may try to make the argument that we shouldn't even include power in our rankings, since all of those cards minus Timetwister just rocket to the top of every category...
I like the idea of putting the creme de la creme into a "hall of fame." We acknowledge they are the best and want to see the rest. Library has been the best land every time. Ancestral topped the blue rankings. Sol Ring topped artifacts. I think we could safely keep the list pretty conservative at Library of Alexandria, Ancestral Recall, Sol Ring, Jitte, Time Walk, Lotus, Moxen. Heck, it might be fun to pull out all those perennial category winners and put them into a separate voting category and rank them. The point is that including them in the individual sections is rather uninteresting because we know those cards are good, and irrelevant for many cubers because they've excluded them for power reasons. I suppose there is some value in having those cards anchor the scale, but I, personally would rather see them in their own ranking.
1. I think the P1P1 metric should be changed. I like your suggestion here:
Quote from Spike Rogue »
"How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
Even if this isn't perfect, it's less subjective than "best" and certainly better than "P1P1 value" ...so I'd be okay using this metric for this year's voting. At least it encompasses more than just one small aspect of cube card evaluation.
What basically equates to "Wins Above Replacement" is a good idea. How much better is this card for you than if it were to be replaced with an "average" quality card in the same vein? If the answer is "it's absurd how much better it is than other similar cards", or "you can't replace this with something else because there's nothing else that can do its job" ...that makes for a good top 20 candidate.
2. I think tribrid cards should be voted as part of the tricolor shard/wedge section.
3. Same goes for cards that function "intrinsically best" in certain color combinations (like Noble Hierarch).
4. Cards that require C to function should be voted on independently. They're colorless cards, but they function completely the opposite way that truly colorless cards do.
5. I personally feel that cards that aren't Vintage legal should be voted on in their own category. Especially conspiracies, which function completely different than other cards.
..........
Thanks for tackling this project! It's a big undertaking, and I appreciate you guys stepping up.
Agree with this almost entirely. The only point I'm not sympatico on is the P1P1 metric. It's been used before so it's nice to be consistent, but I'm open to other ways to measure cards, such as the way wtwlf suggests. Basically, I'm more or less ambivalent about this topic and will likely be fine with whatever the consensus is, as long as the criteria for voting are clearly stated at the beginning of the project.
If it's difficult to evaluate Conspiracies for veteran cube managers, how much more difficult is it for newer cube managers? That's all the more reason for all of us to give it our best shot. I'm not recommending you vote for anything you have no idea how to evaluate. All I ask is that if you're banning a card for being too powerful, give it the vote it deserves on that basis. Not sure? Feel free to abstain. As an unpowered cube manager, I give my best guess about the cards I can and eliminate others from my vote entirely. I have no problem for voting for Time Walk and Ancestral Recall as my Nos. 1 & 2 in blue because I know they'd be unbalancingly strong if I ran them. I'd try Timetwister if it weren't a $1000 card because it doesn't seem much more insane than Wheel of Fortune, but don't ask me how it'd fit since I have 0 experience with the card. Not sure how Worldknit fits because it seems to obnoxious to try? Fine, abstain from voting on it. Banned it based on experience or other feedback because it's too strong? Then you've already evaluated its power level, please share that with the community.
I don't think people should not be voting for something simply because they don't run it. I do, however, think that it's easier to assume the power of a Time Walk without ever having cast it than it is to assume the power of a Conspiracy without ever having played with it. It makes more sense to me to have a separate vote that voters can abstain from all together if they choose than to have some entries contain Un/Conspiracy cards and others not contain them. Just being honest, but if we end up going with ranking them all together, I'll probably leave them off my list. I'd rather see them left out completely, than lumped together. These are not cards that we draft with every single time we cube. How powerful they are vs cube mainstays is somewhat irrelevant, imo.
I don't really like it either, but I'm trying to meet you halfway.
Having these cards in their own separate vote means they both get voted on and neither are left out. Why is that a negative thing?
Having these cards in their own separate vote means they both get voted on and neither are left out. Why is that a negative thing?
As I've already explained, I'm against this because voting on them separately removes them from the context that makes these comparisons in the Power Rankings meaningful in the first place. I'll try to clarify with an example. When planeswalkers were newer, there were plenty of cube managers who did not include them in their cubes because they disliked the mechanic, their impact on the game, and the flavor of what they represented. In Kaladesh, we also have Vehicles that have a pretty absurd feel to them. After all, what business do planes, trains and automobiles have in Magic the Gathering? Now let's say there were enough people who didn't like either of these types of cards that there was a push to have a new voting category of Planeswalkers and Vehicles for people who are interested in playing this type of card. Once voting concludes, we would probably learn that the community agrees that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is stronger than Gideon Jura, which is stronger than Fleetwheel Cruiser, which is stronger than Chandra, Pyromaster, which is stronger than Renegade Freighter, which is stronger than Nissa Revane, etc.
Is this information completely useless to players who might be interested in running Planeswalkers and Vehicles? I suppose not. Do our Planeswalker and Vehicles Power Rankings tell us anything at all about how good JtMS or Nissa Revane is compared to the other 465 cards in my cube or the other 60 cards in my blue or green section compared to other cards I might run instead?
The analogy doesn't seem airtight to me. Planeswalkers and vehicles function a lot like other Magic cards, and aren't all that difficult to evaluate if you don't play them. People have been making the same argument about power: even if you've never cast Time Walk, because it functions like other Magic cards, it's not a stretch to guess at how it might work.
Something like Worldknit or Sovereign's Realm seems totally different. I might be able to understand how Double Stroke might play out because that's an effect we've seen before, but many of the conspiracies have effects most of us have never played with. Ones that radically change how the game plays. I don't know how to vote on those. I would prefer not to have to vote on them, because while I've never cast Time Walk, I have a good guess of how good it is, but I haven't got the foggiest notion of how good something like Advantageous Proclamation plays.
Seems like you could combine them all in the overall results, and us cowards could take courage and try our best to evaluate them there.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I'd like to keep the Conspiracy/Un-cards/Draft Matters/etc. separate because to many players they don't feel like playing actual Magic. They are excluded from cubes on that basis. I think even most of us that run them have them in a separate module we can add in when our group feels like it. They violate some of the fundamental ways cards are played and drafted and seem outside the normal scope of Magic. I strongly want them to be voted on separately. If we really want to rank them alongside other cards, I don't think there's much problem with having two final lists, one with these cards and one without. Magic players tend to like to rank things, so it's not like it will be a burden.
After discussion in the Official Cube Discussion Thread, Allred123 and I will be running this year's Power Rankings, with voting to begin October 9th. The original organizer, Silent Edge, hasn't posted in this forum since December 2014 and last year's organizer, willdice, says he will not have the time for this project until sometime in November, we're stepping in to organize the project this year. We are counting on the community's help and input to have the voting process run as smoothly as always.
For reference, the previous Power Ranking threads: 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015.
In the Official Cube Discussion Thread some changes were suggested that we discussed as a community which are enumerated at the bottom of this post, and the results of this discussion were incorporated into this year's Power Rankings:
* The first thread will be created next Sunday, October 9th.
* Each voting thread will stay open 4 days, or 5 if it opens or would close in a weekend day. The only exception to this will be the Overall Power Rankings, as they will fall during American Thanksgiving weekend. As there will be so much more to digest both literally and figuratively, we're giving the Overall rankings a full week. The next voting thread will be created as soon as the previous one is closed, and then there will be a secondary thread with the closed one's results, as soon as we finish calculating them.
* There will be 11 threads: one for each color, then one for colorless cards (mostly artifacts, but also other nonland cards such as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon), one for lands, three for multicolored cards (allied pairs, then enemy pairs, and then cards of three or more colors), and finally one for overall voting on all cards.
* The vote consists of a Top 20 cards based on how effectively they contribute to game wins in a traditional cube environment. For the guilds, it will be a Top 10 instead, for 3+ color cards it will be a Top 20 and for the Overall voting it will be a Top 30.
* The votes will be tallied with each card receiving a score in the inverse order of the votes - so, in a Top 20 ranking the #1 card gets 20 points, the #2 gets 19 points and so on. The final score will be equal to the sum of all scores divided by the number of voters.
Classification Rules and Frequently Asked Questions
* How will be cards with similar effects be handled?
If the card has the exact same type, cost and effect, they are considered a single card and must be voted as a single entry. For example, when voting for white cards, Armageddon and Ravages of War are considered the same card so they must take the same place in your ranking, but Wrath of God and Day of Judgment are different cards that must be ranked separately.
For cases where the difference between cards is small enough, as a rule of thumb you should ask: there is another cube card that cares about this difference? Assume a regular cube, powered or not; we're not voting for pauper, peasant, commander, block or tribal-themed cubes here.
For example, Torch Fiend and Reckless Reveler have difference creature types, but no regular cube runs cards with Devil or Satyr tribal interactions. If you want to include them in your Top 20 Red cards, they'll be a single entry in your ranking.
As a counter-example, Savannah Lions and Elite Vanguard are considered different cards, because a reasonable number of human (and, to a lesser extent, soldier) tribal interactions exist in regular cubes. If you want to put Vanguard higher than the Lions because of Champion of the Parish or lower because of Stromkirk Noble is up to you, but they must be ranked separately.
When in doubt, feel free to ask. A list of commonly included cards that fall within this rule will be given at the beginning of each voting thread.
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* Must I vote for cards I don't run in my own cube?
It's up to you. You can vote based on your experience drafting other player's cubes, for example. But if you've never played with that card or just aren't sure how to rank it, feel free to not include it at all in your ranking. However, if you are excluding a card from your own cube because you believe it is powerful enough to be unbalancing in your own cube environment (e.g. Sol Ring or Ancestral Recall for an unpowered cube), it probably should not be excluded from your rankings in this project because you have already made an assessment about its power level.
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* How are some cards classified?
It works a little like Color Identity rules from Commander/EDH. Basically, assume a card is all the colors on all of its costs of any type (mana cost, additional or alternate casting costs, and costs of activated or triggered abilities). Hybrid mana counts as both colors. Additionally, if a nonland card has an ability that works when you control lands of a certain basic land type (e.g. Kird Ape) or permanents of a certain color, or even that you play spells of a certain color, it will also be of that color.
Just having a color without costing mana of that color or requiring lands of that type doesn't count as being of that color for the purposes of this project. The same for producing tokens of a certain color; that's still not enough to count as being of that color.
Notice these rules apply even for lands and other mana sources (see below for more on them):
Some examples:
- Lingering Souls is an Orzhov (white/black) card because of its white mana cost and black Flashback cost, but Cloistered Youth is just White because you don't need black mana or swamps to transform it.
- Kird Ape will be considered a Gruul (red/green) card, and Chained to the Rocks a Boros (red/white) card.
- Porcelain Legionnaire is a white card. Crystal Shard is blue. Shrine of Burning Rage is red.
- Raging Ravine and Kessig Wolf Run are both Gruul (red/green) cards.
- Alesha, who Smiles at Death is Mardu (white/black/red)
Cards that produce mana are a special case. In addition to the rules above about costs, and to stay consistent with the previous Rankings:
* Lands that produce mana of a single color will be listed as being of that color. Gaea's Cradle is green.
* Lands that can produce only colorless mana, or mana of two or more colors, are to be voted in the Lands ranking, except for those that fall in the above rules about "costing" mana. Notice that most dual (and triple) land cycles fall into the "same card" rule.
- The following cycles are included in the Lands voting: ABU Duals, ONS/ZEN Fetches, RAV Shocklands, M10/ISD Checklands, ICE/AP Painlands, MI Slow fetches, RAV Guildlands, SHM Filters, SOM Fastlands, THS Temples, ALA/KTK Triplelands, BFZ Tango Lands, SOI Peek Lands, LW Vivids.
- Other lands voted in Lands: Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse, Wasteland and other strictly colorless lands; City of Brass, Mana Confluence and other "any color" lands; Murmuring Bosk, Horizon Canopy, Paliano, the High City
- Some lands that fall into other categories: Raging Ravine (Gruul) and the other WWK/BFZ/OGW Manlands; Treetop Village (Green) and other UL Manlands; Academy Ruins and Faerie Conclave (Blue), Volrath's Stronghold (Black), Gaea's Cradle (Green), Slayers' Stronghold (Boros), Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree (Selesnya)...
* Colorless artifacts that produce mana of two or three colors are included in the respective guild or the 3+ color section
* The other artifacts that produce colorless mana, mana of a single color or mana of all colors are classified as colorless
* The rules about costing mana or requiring land types still apply to mana artifacts
- Azorius Signet and Talisman of Progress are both Azorius (white/blue) cards.
- Worn Powerstone and Coalition Relic are Colorless.
- Mox Pearl is Colorless, but Thunder Totem is White.
* Colored cards that produce mana will be categorize only by the colors in their costs, not the types of mana they produce. Noble Hierarch, Rattleclaw Mystic, Elves of Deep Shadow Llanowar Elves, Avacyn's Pilgrim, and Birds of Paradise are all Green. This is a change from previous years that was voted for by the community.
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* How to vote?
Just put a list, numbered 1-20 (or whatever number of cards is being voted), inside a Spoiler tag. That's all.
As a random example from 2014's Green rankings:
2 Natural Order
3 Sylvan Library
4 Garruk Relentless
5 Eternal Witness
6 Garruk Wildspeaker
7 Rancor
8 Noble Hierarch
9 Tarmogoyf
10 Fauna Shaman
11 Birds of Paradise
12 Regrowth
13 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
14 Thrun, the Last Troll
15 Lotus Cobra
16 Kalonian Hydra
17 Hornet Queen
18 Acidic Slime
19 Courser of Kruphix
20 Deranged Hermit
That's it, 20 cards ranked, starting with the one you're more likely to draft as P1P1.
Additional tags such as Card or Deck are optional (but certainly useful for others reading your vote).
You are free to edit your vote as many times as you need, up until the moment when the thread is closed. Please make a complete ranking; partial votes will be ignored.
Outside of that, please try to keep the voting post clean. A few comments aren't a problem, but if you want to talk, use this thread or the respective Results one.
===
* Yeah, but what cards can I vote on?
Essentially, any released Magic card from Kaladesh or earlier that is DCI approved for one or more formats of competitive Constructed Magic can be included in your voting. In previous iterations of the Power Rankings Conspiracy-type cards and silver-bordered cards were permitted to be voted for and ranked but after discussion the community voted to exclude them from this year's rankings. They will now be voted on in a separate category after the OVERALL voting has finished.
However, spell cards that affect and are affected by the draft from Conspiracy and Conspiracy: Take the Crown (e.g. Deal Broker and Arcane Savant) will be voted on according to their color identity like any other cards (and Paliano, the High City as a Land card), as well as in the Overall Power Rankings.
The following sets have been released since last year's Power Rankings:
Magic Origins
Battle For Zendikar
Commander 2015
Oath of the Gatewatch
Shadows over Innistrad
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy: Take the Crown
Kaladesh
Unreleased cards aren't legal, so please refrain from voting on any cards for post-Kaladesh sets that may be spoiled. Commander 2016 will be released in the middle of the voting (November 11th), but please do not vote on them during this year's voting cycle. We can vote on them next year once everyone's gotten an opportunity to playtest them.
Now, some other things that aren't cards for this project: Planes, Schemes, Vanguard and anything else that isn't regular-card-sized; Theros's Hero cards and Challenge Deck cards are also excluded.
Several points were discussed to be changed to this year's power rankings, but they have been resolved by discussion or vote and incorporated into the rest of this post. You can find initial discussion of those points here:
1. Categorize the Fate Reforged tri-brids like Soulfire Grandmaster as mono-colored cards based on their casting costs.
2. Categorize cards with colored casting costs that produce off-colored mana (e.g. Noble Hierarch) by their casting cost.
Allred, I hope I'm not putting too many words in your mouth here.
No cons mentioned yet, but this idea just came up.
3. Categorize cards with costs requiring C mana with other colorless cards.
Cons: The costs of 3 and 2C function very differently.
4. Create a 12th category for Un-cards, Conspiracies, and draft-matters cards from the Conspiracy sets.
5. Change the voting for Shards and Wedges from a top 3-5 for each to a Top 10 or 20 with all cards that are 3+ colors.
No Cons have been mentioned yet.
6. Change the standard for voting from "cards you are most likely to draft Pack 1 Pick 1 out of a cube booster" to "best" or "most powerful" cube cards.
I'm saving the best for last here. We really need to settle this question in order to determine the meaning of this project.
[quote from="Spike Rogue »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/191128-the-official-cube-discussion-thread?comment=11471"]
This is making the perfect the enemy of the good. While subjectivity is inevitable as card evaluation in cube design is as much an art form as it is a science, making no attempt to establish a clear definition of what people are voting for beyond "best" and "whatever they want" won't produce rankings that mean much beyond the winners of a popularity contest. This has been called the "power" rankings because we want to know what cards are strong enough to produce exciting and competitive games in an environment that generally consists of the most powerful cards in the history of MTG.
As I manage an unpowered cube, cards that are most powerful are not among the best for my cube because they would produce games that are too uninteractive, so they would not crack my ranking of the "best" cards for my environment. However, even though I am not considering the Power 9 and most fast mana cards for my cube it is still helpful to know what is ranked near them so that I can keep an eye on cards that are at or near the ceiling for possible inclusion or exclusion based on what I've deemed the appropriate ceiling of power for my cube. Therefore, I propose this as a working definition of "powerful" as we rank the how powerful cube cards are in the Power Rankings:
"How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment."
There's a lot to evaluate here, as different cards contribute to winning games in different ways, including card advantage, board impact, card selection, damage output, mana efficiency, ease of casting, set up cost, and mana fixing. I expect there to be a high correlation between P1P1 value and maindeck percentage and this definition of "powerful", but they're not necessarily identical. No metric for subjective evaluation will ever be perfect, and some people may well violate the spirit of this voting in one way or another, but I think that on the whole we can trust the community on this forum to do a good job of adhering to this metric in good faith as we vote in this year's Power Rankings.
I would like to see the community discuss and come to an agreement on each of these points as well as any new suggestions before voting begins on October 9th. If a general agreement doesn't appear to be forthcoming on any of the outlined points within the next few days, I'll create a poll and incorporate the result of that vote into the voting guidelines for the Power Rankings.
Many thanks to Allred123 and willdice for your help and advice on this project so far, to everyone in the community who has contributed to the discussion of changes, and to Silent Edge for creating the Power Rankings, and reviving them in 2014.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
White Results -- White Voting
Blue Results -- Blue Voting
Black Results -- Black Voting
Red Results -- Red Voting
Green Results -- Green Voting
Colorless Results -- Colorless Voting
Land Results -- Land Voting
Allied Guild Results -- Allied Guild Voting
Enemy Guild Results -- Enemy Guild Voting
3+ Color Results -- 3+ Color Voting
Overall Results -- Overall Voting
Conspiracy Addendum Results -- Conspiracy Addendum Voting
2 Armageddon (Ravages of War) - 17.68
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant - 16.94
4 Wrath of God - 13.00
5 Swords to Plowshares - 12.44
6 Stoneforge Mystic - 11.29
7 Gideon Jura - 10.53
8 Day of Judgment - 10.24
9 Path to Exile - 10.21
10 Moat - 9.62
11 Mother of Runes - 7.94
12 Restoration Angel - 6.50
13 Elspeth, Sun's Champion - 6.24
14 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar - 5.71
15 Land Tax - 5.44
16 Hero of Bladehold - 4.65
17 Reveillark - 4.62
18 Monastery Mentor - 4.21
19 Council's Judgment - 3.21
20 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - 3.00
[b]Trivia, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
With a change in voting standard (P1P1 to contributes most effectively to game wins) as well as the release of many new cards, we can expect some big changes from last year's results, but these results show us there's still room for plenty of surprises in this year's Power Rankings.
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Brimaz, King of Oreskos (2.94) and Enlightened Tutor (2.65). Every single vote counts!
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Balance tops the list again! By any metric, it still easily tops the charts with 24 #1 votes.
* [b]Comeback #2[/b] - Armageddon/Ravages of War takes back the #2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Armageddon last held the #2 spot in 2010.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Balance and Wrath of God are the only cards to receive votes from everyone this year. It looks like one thing we can all agree on is the power of a good board wipe!
* [b]Rookie of the Year[/b] - Gideon, Ally of Zendikar was the only new White card to make the list this year.
* [b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same[/b] - Balance, Swords to Plowshares, and Stoneforge Mystic all held the exact same ranking they did last year, and 19 out of 20 White cards from this year's Top 20 were on last year's Top 20. Considering the change in voting standard as well as the variety of new cards being voted on, this is some pretty eerie consistency.
* 56 cards received votes this year.
2 Time Walk - 19.06
3 Mana Drain - 17.56
4 Tinker - 15.24
5 Jace, the Mind Sculptor - 14.85
6 Upheaval - 14.24
7 Treachery - 12.76
8 Snapcaster Mage - 11.59
9 Opposition - 10.65
10 Mystic Confluence - 8.56
11 True-Name Nemesis - 6.88
12 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy - 6.65
13 Vendilion Clique - 5.53
14 Show and Tell - 4.21
15 Dig Through Time - 4.12
16 Glen Elendra Archmage - 4.00
17 Bribery - 3.68
18 Vedalken Shackles - 3.29
19 Control Magic - 3.21
20 Consecrated Sphinx - 2.85
A full list of results, with all cards that received votes, can be found on this Google spreadsheet.
[b]Thanks to all 29 voters![/b]
Allred123, Salmo, wtwlf123, steve_ice, Bo5Dey, bondafong, Tactuz, AntiPox, willdice, voiddisciple, Visserdix, cuttups, Dhaos Dragmire, Steve_man, Ennex, Spike Rogue, Star Slayer, stonecrowe, pillar, LucidVision, Zetsu_Sensei, Shivan_Knight, Mike Pemulis, Dr.Tom, rantipole, Merfolk Magic, qlogan, calibretto, Hicham, psly4mne, sunshinesoldier, Sower of Temptation, KMAYER, Krazedkarl
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Arcane Savant (2.76), Mystical Tutor (2.50), Tolarian Academy (2.06)
* [b]Returning Champions[/b] - Ancestral Recall and Time Walk remain undefeated at the #1 and #2 spots since the beginning of the Power Rankings in 2009.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Upheaval are the only Blue cards that received votes from everyone this year.
* [b]Rookies of the Year[/b] - Mystic Confluence and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy are the only cards printed since last year's Power Rankings to crack this year's list.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Show and Tell and Consecrated Sphinx have been in print for years, but are appearing in the Blue Top 20 for the first time this year.
* [b]Biggest Riser[/b] - Opposition moved from #16 in last year's Power Rankings to #9 this year.
* [b]Fall From Grace[/b] - Vedalken Shackles and took the hardest fall (from #10 to #18) while remaining in this year's Top 20. Fact or Fiction (1.94), Phyrexian Metamorph (1.74), Venser, Shaper Savant (0.91), and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror (0.44)
* [b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same[/b] - In spite of all the changes since last year Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Tinker, Upheaval, Treachery, Snapcaster Mage, and Bribery all kept the exact same spots in the Power Rankings that they held last year.
* [b]Is this really part of the Power 9?[/b] - Timetwister received NO votes in this year's Power Rankings.
* 46 Blue cards received votes in this year's Power Rankings
2 Recurring Nightmare (18.88)
3 Demonic Tutor (17.92)
4 Vampiric Tutor (16.35)
5 Liliana of the Veil (15.12)
6 Bitterblossom (13.88)
7 Dark Confidant (12.15)
8 Toxic Deluge (11.88)
9 Grave Titan (9.88)
10 Damnation (8.92)
11 Braids, Cabal Minion (8.65)
12 Pack Rat (7.04)
13 Thoughtseize (7.00)
14 Hymn to Tourach (5.73)
15 Imperial Seal (5.42)
16 Griselbrand (4.35)
17 Entomb (3.23)
18 Reanimate (3.04)
19 Shriekmaw (2.85)
20 Languish (2.81)
A full list of results, with all cards that received votes, can be found on this Google spreadsheet.
[b]Thanks to all 26 voters![/b]
Spike Rogue, LucidVision, willdice, bondafong, wtwlf123, Bo5dey, cuttups, Ennex, Goodking, Star Slayer, Sandino, MikePemulis, calibretto, steve_man, tactuz, sunshinesoldier, Torggo, pillar15, rantipole, allred123,SowerOfTemptation, voiddisciple, qlogan, Hicham, Salmo, Shivan_Knight
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Animate Dead (2.54) and Ophiomancer (1.92) didn't quite make the cut this year
* [b]Flip-Flop at the Top[/b] - Mind Twist beat last year's champion Recurring Nightmare for the #1 spot, bringing both back to the #1 & #2 spots they'd held in 2009, 2010, and 2014.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - This year's top 6 cards all received votes from everyone this year, as well as Toxic Deluge and Grave Titan.
* [b]Rookie of the Year[/b] - Languish (#20) is the only Black card printed since last year's Power Rankings to crack this year's Top 20.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Entomb is cracking the list for the first time this year despite having been in print for years.
* [b]Bi-Polar Award[/b] - Entomb made the Top 20 despite only receiving votes from 10 out of 26 people this year.
* [b]Greatest Riser[/b] - Hymn to Tourach rose from #20 in last year's Power Rankings to #14
* [b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same[/b] - In spite of everything that's changed in the past year, Demonic Tutor (#3), Vampiric Tutor (#4), Dark Confidant (#7), Toxic Deluge (#8), and Grave Titan (#9) all kept the same places they held last year.
* 45 Black cards received votes this year.
2 Goblin Guide
3 Sneak Attack
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
5 Wildfire (burning of xinye)
6 Wheel of Fortune
7 Inferno Titan
8 Koth of the Hammer
9 Lightning Bolt
10 Goblin Rabblemaster
11 Rolling Earthquake
12 Young Pyromancer
13 Purphoros, God of the Forge
14 Hellrider
15 Fiery Confluence
16 Daretti, Scrap Savant
17 Flametongue Kavu
18 Chandra, Flamecaller
19 Earthquake
20 Thundermaw Hellkite
So looking at the break down,
Sulfuric Vortex is once again our winner,
Looking at the next 4 card, Goblin guide scored the next highest average, but Chandra, Torch of Defiance had the next highest median score, and tied with wildfire for the next highest mode. Sneak attack also falls in this upper echelon as well. This Variation probably has to do partly with how new Chandra is, and people are finding her to be good, but there is not a concensus yet of how good she is. you can see this through her higher standard deviation.
Just Missed:
Siege-Gang Commander (2.5)
Splinter Twin (2.3)
Rookie Cards:
Fiery Confluence made it this year into a pretty solid position
movers and shakers
Lightning Bolt seems to randomly strike a different spot every year, this year it went up 4 spots from 13 to 9
The Biggest Losers
Flametongue Kavu, dropped from 11 to 17
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker dropped off the list this year as did the previously mentioned Siege-gang commander.
Bondafong, MikePemulis, psly4mne, willdice, Dr. Tom, Steve_ice, Zetsu_Sensei, LucidVision, cuttups, SowerOfTemptation, Visserdrix, Allred123, Spike Rogue, Rantipole, Steve_man, Torggo, pillar15, Groglord, wtwlf123, Bo5dey's, Star Slayer, Hicham, Tactuz, Calibretto, Goodking, Salmo, sunshinesoldier, Shivan_Knight
[b]Returning Champions:[/b] Sulfuric Vortex and Goblin Guide maintain the #1 and #2 spots they held last year.
[b]Pandemonium:[/b] NO Red cards received votes from everyone this year.
[b]The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same:[/b] Sulfuric Vortex, Goblin Guide, and Wildfire retain their slots from last year.
2 Natural Order - 16.83
3 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - 15.55
4 Sylvan Library - 14.31
5 Eternal Witness - 14.21
6 Primeval Titan - 12.41
7 Garruk Wildspeaker - 11.62
8 Birds of Paradise - 7.66
9 Channel - 7.48
10 Joraga Treespeaker - 6.97
11 Gaea's Cradle - 6.69
12 Eureka - 5.83
13 Noble Hierarch - 5.66
13 Plow Under - 5.66
15 Lotus Cobra - 4.79
16 Garruk Relentless - 4.52
17 Regrowth - 4.03
18 Oath of Druids - 3.83
19 Thragtusk - 3.59
20 Deranged Hermit - 3.38
[b]Thanks to all 28 voters![/b]
bondafong, wtwlf123, pillar15, Ennex, Bo5dey, Goodking, KMAYER, willdice, LucidVision, Spike Rogue, Salmo, worldleviathan, Star Slayer, cuttups, calibretto, steve_man, SowerOfTemptation, Visserdrix, Rantipole, Shivan_Knight, Zetsu_Sensei, Dr. Tom, Pellanor, Mike Pemulis, Tactuz, Torggo, Hicham, voiddisciple
[b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Tooth and Nail (3.10), Green Sun's Zenith (2.52) didn't quite make the cut this year.
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Survival of the Fittest has continued to hold the top spot since 2014, and also held it in 2009.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Natural Order and Eternal Witness received votes from everyone.
* [b]Better Late Than Never[/b] - Gaea's Cradle and Oath of Druids crack the list for the first time this year in spite of having been in print since the 1990's. Newly reclassified-as-green Noble Hierarch goes from last year's top Bant card to tying with Plow Under as this year's #13 Green card.
* [b]Biggest Rise[/b] - Plow Under has returned after not cracking last year's Top 20 to this year's #13.
* [b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same[/b] - Survival of the Fittest and Birds of Paradise both maintain the same spots they held last year.
2 Black Lotus -AVG: 19.1 STD: 0.5 MODE: 19 Median: 19
3 ABU Mox -AVG: 17.8 STD: 0.6 MODE: 18 Median: 18
4 Umezawa's Jitte -AVG: 16.1 STD: 1.3 MODE: 16 Median: 16
5 Mana Crypt -AVG: 14.7 STD: 5.7 MODE: 17 Median: 17
6 Mana Vault -AVG: 13.8 STD: 3.2 MODE: 14 Median: 14
7 Skullclamp -AVG: 12.7 STD: 3.3 MODE: 15 Median: 14
8 Grim Monolith -AVG: 10.8 STD: 3.6 MODE: 13 Median: 12
8 Sword of Fire and Ice - AVG: 10.8 STD: 2.9 Mode: 11
10 Mox Diamond -AVG: 10 STD: 5.1 MODE: 15 Median: 12
11 Wurmcoil Engine -AVG: 9.6 STD: 3.6 MODE: 11 Median: 10
12 Batterskull -AVG: 7.8 STD: 4.1 MODE: 10 Median: 9
13 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon -AVG: 6 STD: 3.8 MODE: 1 Median: 6
14 Sword of Body and Mind -AVG: 5 STD: 4.5 MODE: 0 Median: 5
15 Tangle Wire -AVG: 4.2 STD: 4.5 MODE: 0 Median: 3
16 Coalition Relic -AVG: 4.2 STD: 3.6 MODE: 0 Median: 5
17 Karn Liberated -AVG: 4.1 STD: 4.1 MODE: 0 Median: 3
18 Smokestack -AVG: 3.8 STD: 3.8 MODE: 0 Median: 2
19 Winter Orb -AVG: 3.7 STD: 4.1 MODE: 0 Median: 3
20 Crucible of Worlds -AVG: 2.5 STD: 3.1 MODE: 0 Median: 0
b]Tendencies, Useless Rantings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
* [b]Just Missed[/b] - Sword of Light and Shadow 2.3, Mimic Vat (1.5) didn't quite make the cut this year.
* [b]Returning Champion[/b] - Sol Ring.
* [b]Big Hitters[/b] - Moxen, Batterskull, Black lotus, Sol Ring, Sword of Fire and Ice, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Umezawa's Jitte, Wurmcoil Engine all got votes.
2 Strip Mine - 18.91
3 Mana Confluence - 16.00
3 ONS/ZEN Fetch Lands - 16.00
5 City of Brass - 15.00
6 Wasteland - 14.83
7 Maze of Ith - 13.74
8 ABU Dual Lands - 13.43
9 Mishra's Factory - 10.13
10 Mutavault - 9.74
11 Ancient Tomb - 9.70
12 RAV Shock Lands - 8.91
13 Rishadan Port - 8.57
14 Horizon Canopy - 7.22
15 Grand Coliseum - 4.87
16 Gemstone Mine - 4.13
17 Paliano, the High City - 3.65
18 Evolving Wilds / Terramorphic Expanse - 2.78
19 Mishra's Workshop - 2.48
20 ICE/AP Pain Lands - 2.30
[b]Thank you to all 23 voters - A NEW FORUM RECORD[/b]!
wtwlf123, willdice, voiddisciple, Spike Rogue, MikePemulis, pillar15, Ennex, MerfolkMagic, Shivan_Knight, Star Slayer, rantipole, calibretto, bondafong, cuttups, LucidVision, Tactuz, allred123, steve_man, Zetsu_Sensei, Salmo, psly4mne, SowerOfTemptation, TheAngryhermit
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings and Facts (TURF)[/b]
1 Celestial Colonnade -Avg: 9 SD: 1.45 Median: 9 Mode: 10
2 Geist of Saint Traft -Avg: 8.75 SD: 2.08 Median: 9 Mode: 9
3 Supreme Verdict -Avg: 8.2 SD: 1.22 Median: 8 Mode: 8
4 Reflector Mage -Avg: 6.65 SD: 1.14 Median: 7 Mode: 7
5 Detention Sphere -Avg: 4.5 SD: 1.88 Median: 4.5 Mode: 6
6 Spell Queller -Avg: 3.1 SD: 2.38 Median: 3 Mode: 5
7 Talisman of Progress -Avg: 2.75 SD: 2.43 Median: 3 Mode: 0
8 Venser, the Sojourner -Avg: 2.65 SD: 3.01 Median: 1 Mode: 0
9 Sphinx's Revelation -Avg: 2.6 SD: 2.01 Median: 2.5 Mode: 0
10 Dragonlord Ojutai -Avg: 2.3 SD: 2.41 Median: 2 Mode: 1
11 Azorius Signet -Avg: 2.25 SD: 2.77 Median: 1 Mode: 0
12 Dovin Baan -Avg: 0.85 SD: 1.92 Median: 0 Mode: 0
13 Brago, King Eternal -Avg: 0.5 SD: 1.38 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Azorius Charm -Avg: 0.3 SD: 0.97 Median: 0 Mode: 0
15 Cloudblazer -Avg: 0.25 SD: 0.71 Median: 0 Mode: 0
Dimir
1 Creeping Tar Pit -Avg: 9.75 SD: 0.57 Median: 10 Mode: 10
2 Baleful Strix -Avg: 8.65 SD: 0.77 Median: 9 Mode: 9
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas -Avg: 6.15 SD: 2.65 Median: 7 Mode: 7
4 Psychatog -Avg: 5.9 SD: 3.33 Median: 7 Mode: 8
5 Dragonlord Silumgar -Avg: 5.6 SD: 2.09 Median: 6 Mode: 6
6 Shadowmage Infiltrator -Avg: 4.7 SD: 1.54 Median: 5 Mode: 5
7 Talisman of Dominance -Avg: 3.5 SD: 2.68 Median: 4 Mode: 4
8 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver -Avg: 3.25 SD: 2.68 Median: 2.5 Mode: 5
9 Dimir Signet -Avg: 2.8 SD: 2.9 Median: 3 Mode: 0
10 Duskmantle Seer -Avg: 1.75 SD: 1.4 Median: 2 Mode: 2
11 Far // Away -Avg: 1 SD: 1.55 Median: 0 Mode: 0
12 Nightveil Specter -Avg: 0.7 SD: 1.83 Median: 0 Mode: 0
13 Oona, Queen of the Fae -Avg: 0.35 SD: 1.42 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Lim-Dûl's Vault -Avg: 0.25 SD: 0.75 Median: 0 Mode: 0
15 Recoil -Avg: 0.2 SD: 0.55 Median: 0 Mode: 0
1 Kolaghan's Command -Avg: 9.2 SD: 2.36 Median: 10 Mode: 10
2 Rakdos Cackler -Avg: 8.5 SD: 2.2 Median: 9 Mode: 9
3 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast -Avg: 6.7 SD: 2.74 Median: 8 Mode: 8
4 Dreadbore -Avg: 6.35 SD: 2.03 Median: 7 Mode: 8
5 Lavaclaw Reaches -Avg: 5.2 SD: 2.49 Median: 6 Mode: 6
6 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden -Avg: 3.8 SD: 2.31 Median: 4 Mode: 4
7 Murderous Redcap -Avg: 3.7 SD: 2.16 Median: 3.5 Mode: 4
8 Falkenrath Aristocrat -Avg: 3.4 SD: 1.91 Median: 3 Mode: 3
9 Terminate -Avg: 2.85 SD: 1.95 Median: 2.5 Mode: 2
10 Olivia, Mobilized for War -Avg: 1.9 SD: 2.4 Median: 0.5 Mode: 0
11 Blightning -Avg: 0.8 SD: 1.37 Median: 0 Mode: 0
12 Rakdos's Return -Avg: 0.75 SD: 2.57 Median: 0 Mode: 0
13 Rakdos Signet -Avg: 0.55 SD: 1.79 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Olivia Voldaren -Avg: 0.5 SD: 1.69 Median: 0 Mode: 0
15 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury -Avg: 0.45 SD: 2.12 Median: 0 Mode: 0
Gruul
1 Bloodbraid Elf -Avg: 9.9 SD: 0.32 Median: 10 Mode: 10
2 Dragonlord Atarka -Avg: 7.9 SD: 2.32 Median: 9 Mode: 9
3 Raging Ravine -Avg: 6.9 SD: 2.59 Median: 8 Mode: 8
4 Sarkhan Vol -Avg: 5.85 SD: 2.77 Median: 7 Mode: 7
5 Xenagos, the Reveler -Avg: 5.65 SD: 2.23 Median: 6 Mode: 6
6 Huntmaster of the Fells -Avg: 4.05 SD: 2.98 Median: 4.5 Mode: 2
7 Tattermunge Maniac -Avg: 3.1 SD: 2.84 Median: 3 Mode: 0
8 Kird Ape -Avg: 2.4 SD: 2.21 Median: 2 Mode: 0
9 Arlinn Kord -Avg: 2.1 SD: 2.4 Median: 2 Mode: 0
10 Ghor-Clan Rampager -Avg: 1.25 SD: 1.66 Median: 0 Mode: 0
11 Domri Rade -Avg: 1.05 SD: 1.65 Median: 0 Mode: 0
12 Flinthoof Boar -Avg: 0.9 SD: 1.51 Median: 0 Mode: 0
13 Ancient Grudge -Avg: 0.75 SD: 1.58 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Atarka's Command -Avg: 0.65 SD: 2.27 Median: 0 Mode: 0
15 Fires of Yavimaya -Avg: 0.45 SD: 1.47 Median: 0 Mode: 0
1 Kitchen Finks -Avg: 9.9 SD: 0.47 Median: 10 Mode: 10
2 Qasali Pridemage -Avg: 7.95 SD: 1.18 Median: 8 Mode: 9
3 Dryad Militant -Avg: 6.75 SD: 2.33 Median: 7 Mode: 7
4 Mirari's Wake -Avg: 6.45 SD: 2.4 Median: 7 Mode: 8
5 Stirring Wildwood -Avg: 6.05 SD: 2.18 Median: 6.5 Mode: 7
6 Voice of Resurgence -Avg: 5.8 SD: 1.62 Median: 5 Mode: 5
7 Knight of the Reliquary -Avg: 4.05 SD: 2.25 Median: 4 Mode: 4
8 Dromoka's Command -Avg: 2.3 SD: 2.25 Median: 2 Mode: 0
9 Sigarda, Host of Herons -Avg: 1.8 SD: 2.41 Median: 1.5 Mode: 0
10 Gavony Township -Avg: 0.8 SD: 1.1 Median: 0 Mode: 0
11 Armada Wurm -Avg: 0.75 SD: 0.92 Median: 0 Mode: 0
12 Fleecemane Lion -Avg: 0.65 SD: 1.56 Median: 0 Mode: 0
13 Wilt-Leaf Liege -Avg: 0.4 SD: 1.46 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Armadillo Cloak -Avg: 0.3 SD: 1.41 Median: 0 Mode: 0
14 Loxodon Smiter -avg 0.3, SD 0.9, Median: 0 Mode 0
For brevity's sake, I'll only be discussing the top 5 in each guild.
[b]Thanks to all 20 people who voted this year.[/b]
Bondafong, willdice, Bo5dey, MikePemulis, wtwlf123, Ennex, Calibretto, steve_man, cuttups, pillar15, Spike Rogue, Metamind, Shivan_knight, Tactuz, Zetsu_sensei Visserdrix, Voiddisciple, Salmo, rantipole, allred123
2 Lingering Souls - 8.65
3 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - 8.2
4 Shambling Vent - 6.2
5 Anguished Unmaking - 5.9
6 Gerrard's Verdict - 3.1
7 Sorin, Grim Nemesis - 2.9
8 Magister of Worth - 1.8
9 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - 1.6
10 Unburial Rites - 1.55
2 Maelstrom Pulse - 8.45
3 Abrupt Decay - 7.65
4 Deathrite Shaman - 6.3
5 Hissing Quagmire - 6.0
6 Lotleth Troll - 4.45
7 Life // Death - 3.05
8 Meren of Clan Nel Toth - 2.85
9 Garruk, Apex Predator - 1.45
10 Putrefy - 1.2
2 Lumbering Falls - 7.35
3 Trygon Predator - 7.15
4 Mystic Snake - 6.55
5 Kiora, Master of the Depths - 4.85
6 Shardless Agent - 4.35
7 Simic Signet - 3.7
8 Kiora, the Crashing Wave - 3.4
9 Sagu Mauler - 2.75
10 Simic Sky Swallower - 1.65
2 Ral Zarek - 7.9
3 Izzet Charm - 7.35
4 Wandering Fumarole - 6.25
5 Fire // Ice - 5.35
6 Electrolyze - 4.3
7 Izzet Signet - 3.7
8 Saheeli Rai - 3.65
9 Dack's Duplicate - 3.35
10 Keranos, God of Storms - 1.3
2 Figure of Destiny - 8.7
3 Boros Charm - 7.5
4 Lightning Helix - 6.35
5 Needle Spires - 6.3
6 Nahiri, the Harbinger - 5.15
7 Boros Reckoner - 3.25
8 Chained to the Rocks - 2.5
9 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - 1.15
10 Slayers' Stronghold - 1.05
[b]Thanks to all 20 voters![/b]
Zetsu_Sensei, wtwlf123, willdice, Dr. Tom, Steve_man, MikePemulis, Visserdrix, calibretto, Ennex, Bo5dey, pillar15, Spike Rogue, voiddisciple, Metamind, Salmo, bondafong, cuttups, LucidVision, rantipole, Shivan_Knight
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
Once again, for brevity's sake TURF will only discuss the Top 10 cards in each guild.
[b]Returning Champions & Runners-up:[/b] The number 1 & 2 spots in every guild remain unchanged since last year's Power Rankings.
[b]Run the Cycle:[/b] Each card BFZ/OGW manland dual cycle (e.g. Shambling Vent) has made the Top 5 in its respective guild, just as the WWK manland allied duals (e.g. Raging Ravine) did.
[b]Rookies of the Year:[/b] Along with the manland duals, Anguished Unmaking and Kiora, Master of the Depths were printed since the last Power Rankings vote, and are debuting in the Top 5 of their guilds.
[b]Dead Heat:[/b] While Edric, Spymaster of Trest absolutely crushed its competition for the #1 spot in Simic (9.84), the rankings for the next 3 Simic spots are fractions of a point apart.
2 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death - 17.00
3 Warden of the First Tree - 16.83
3 Wild Nacatl - 16.83
5 Sphinx of the Steel Wind - 15.42
6 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - 14.83
7 Yasova Dragonclaw - 14.67
8 Soulfire Grandmaster - 12.92
9 Siege Rhino - 12.33
10 Hellkite Overlord - 7.92
11 Maelstrom Wanderer - 7.00
12 Brutal Hordechief - 6.50
13 Tamiyo, Field Researcher - 6.33
14 Sarkhan Unbroken - 5.67
15 Empyrial Archangel - 4.50
16 Progenitus - 4.08
17 Villainous Wealth - 3.92
18 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest - 3.33
19 Lightning Angel - 3.08
20 Leovold, Emissary of Trest - 2.83
[b]Thank you to all 12 voters![/b]
Ennex, Willdice, wtwlf123, voiddisciple, pillar15, Zetsu_Sensei, Shivan_Knight, MikePemulis, calibretto, rantipole, Spike Rogue, Steve_man
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
2 Library of Alexandria - 28.43
3 Black Lotus - 28.07
4 Ancestral Recall - 26.86
5 ABU Mox - 25.36
6 Time Walk - 25.21
7 Mana Crypt - 23.21
8 Umezawa's Jitte - 20.64
9 Mind Twist - 20.21
10 Balance - 19.21
11 Mana Drain - 17.29
12 Tinker - 16.43
13 Mana Vault - 16.29
14 Recurring Nightmare - 15.57
15 Skullclamp - 14.14
16 Mox Diamond - 12.64
17 Jace, the Mind Sculptor - 12.50
18 Sulfuric Vortex - 10.79
19 Demonic Tutor - 9.86
20 Grim Monolith - 9.64
21 Armageddon (Ravages of War) - 9.14
21 Strip Mine - 9.14
23 Upheaval - 8.21
24 Sword of Fire and Ice - 7.36
25 Treachery - 5.43
26 Vampiric Tutor - 4.64
27 Elspeth, Knight-Errant - 4.14
28 Survival of the Fittest - 3.93
29 Wildfire (Burning of Xinye) - 3.21
30 Natural Order - 3.00
[b]Thanks to all 14 voters![/b]
Salmo, wtwlf123, LucidVision, Ennex, Spike Rogue, cuttups, metamind, calibretto, bondafong, pillar15, Star Slayer, rantipole, Mike Pemulis, Hicham
[b]Tendencies, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)[/b]
[b]Returning Champion:[/b] Sol Ring remains at the top of the list, although its lead over Library of Alexandria widened considerably since last year (29.64 to 28.43 this year, vs. 29.1 to 28.8 last year)
[b]Greatest Risers:[/b] Grim Monolith climbed from #20 to #28 since last year, and Mox Diamond rose from #22 to #16.
[b]The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same:[/b] Sol Ring (#1), Library of Alexandria (#2), Black Lotus (#3), Ancestral Recall (#4), and Sulfuric Vortex (#18) all retain the same spots they held last year. This is surprisingly little change considering....
[b]Rookie of the Year:[/b] No newly printed cards cracked the Top 30 this year. In fact, the only newly printed card to receive any votes at all was Chandra, Torch of Defiance (#37).
[b]Better Late Than Never:[/b] Wildfire/Burning of Xinye (#29) and Natural Order (#30) have been around since the '90s, but they're making the Overall list for the first time this year.
[b]Just Missed:[/b] Batterskull and Wurmcoil Engine tied for #31 this year, with 2.29 points.
[b]Colors Ranked by Power:[/b] Based on their inclusion in this year's Overall Top 30, the here's how the colors of the traditional cube environment measure up:
U Cards: 7, Total Power Rankings Score: 111.93
B Cards: 4, Total Power Rankings Score: 50.28
W Cards: 3, Total Power Rankings Score: 32.49
R Cards: 2, Total Power Rankings Score: 14.00
G Cards: 2, Total Power Rankings Score: 6.93
2 Double Stroke - 8.25
3 Hymn of the Wilds - 5.75
4 Power Play - 5.25
5 Emissary's Ploy - 4.25
6 Worldknit - 4.00
7 Unexpected Potential - 3.75
7 Summoner's Bond - 3.75
9 Muzzio's Preparations - 3.00
10 Sovereign's Realm - 2.25
Please note that this top 10 is based on only 4 votes.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Even if this isn't perfect, it's less subjective than "best" and certainly better than "P1P1 value" ...so I'd be okay using this metric for this year's voting. At least it encompasses more than just one small aspect of cube card evaluation.
What basically equates to "Wins Above Replacement" is a good idea. How much better is this card for you than if it were to be replaced with an "average" quality card in the same vein? If the answer is "it's absurd how much better it is than other similar cards", or "you can't replace this with something else because there's nothing else that can do its job" ...that makes for a good top 20 candidate.
2. I think tribrid cards should be voted as part of the tricolor shard/wedge section.
3. Same goes for cards that function "intrinsically best" in certain color combinations (like Noble Hierarch).
4. Cards that require C to function should be voted on independently. They're colorless cards, but they function completely the opposite way that truly colorless cards do.
5. I personally feel that cards that aren't Vintage legal should be voted on in their own category. Especially conspiracies, which function completely different than other cards.
..........
Thanks for tackling this project! It's a big undertaking, and I appreciate you guys stepping up.
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I had a problem with the Spoiler tags, so I had to rearrange the numbered points, apparently while you were already writing your post. For clarity's sake, I'm reordering and numbering your post:
You're quite welcome!
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Which would make it function similarly to a Tribrid card; which you want voted on in the shard/wedge section...
Agreed. Could be rephrased to just say "traditional cube environment" and leave the powered part out of it. If you're playing any traditional cube environment and you see a Black Lotus, I think you can evaluate it as a good card without the need to specify that the cube has to be powered.
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1. The tribrids are tough because you'd play a Soulfire Grandmaster in WR, whereas you wouldn't play Jeskai Ascendency in a deck without all three colors. That makes the tribrids considerably more flexible than cards that actually cost 3 colors. It's the old Kird Ape / Tattermunge Maniac debate again. How often has Alesha gone into a Mardu deck, for instance? Whereas I play it in RB or WR all the time.
But I'm not sure there's a better solution. Certainly they don't play as monocolored cards. Probably 3-color is where they belong for now.
2. For stuff like Noble Hierarch, I think I favor putting them in mono-color sections. Why? They may be at their best in a deck that needs the colors they produce. But something like Braids plays better with some colors than others, and we don't consider Braids a four-color card excluding U. Unlike the tribrids, the multicolor part of something like Noble Hierarch is a marginal upside in most decks.
3. If there were a proliferation of C cards, I could see having a separate section, but right now, I don't think it's necessary.
4. Because we're doing powered cube rankings, I think that Conspiracies and all that belong in with the rest of the cards. If these rankings excluded power, I could see having a separate section for Conspiracies and whatnot.
5. Love the idea of a top 10 or 20 of all 3+ color cards. It simplifies and keeps us from going to Gatherer to find out what the 3rd best Jeskai card might be, even though no one plays it.
6. I love the idea of keeping the criteria loose and subjective. In general I think people look way too hard for objective measures of subjective things, and ultimately this is. But I also think that something like baseball's Wins Above Replacement is a great middle ground between my subjectivity-fest and arguing about P1P1 vs inclusion in greatest percentage of decks vs etc. Whatever we go with here is fine, but wtwlf's suggestion of WAR seems quite good to this baseball fan.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
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All cards function best in a particular color combination, deck or archetype. But the question for their identity is, is there something intrinsic to the card that provides an advantage in a particular guild/shard/wedge? In the case of Braids, there's not. The interactions aren't intrinsic. In the example of Hierarch, there is. It provides mana for specific color combinations and not others.
Also, there are sweet UB tempo shells that can use Braids to full effect.
I think it's the simplest definition I've seen suggested so far. So for this voting cycle, I like it.
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2. I also think this is true of something like Noble Hierarch. While she does see play in a Selesnya or Simic deck, her stock goes up exponentially in a Bant deck. And again, would she even show up on a top 20 green cards list? Maybe, but she'll definitely show up in a top 20 shard/wedge list or a top 3 Bant list.
3. In terms of sorting my cube, I toss the colorless mana cards into their respective color. I honestly don't think there are enough of them that are actually good to warrant a seperate vote or section devoted specifically to them. Even with all the colorless rocks and lands in my cube, I still find them hard to support and most of them not good enough to warrant the extra effort. I've since cut all but the true colorless ones and Eldrazi Displacer from my cube.
4. A 12th category for non-Vintage legal cards is a great idea and the best way to go about voting for them. It is good to see them all represented together somewhere for those that would find that information useful. Putting them into their colors will likely just mean they get left out all together.
5. I like the idea of a top 20 vote for all shards/wedges. There's not currently enough in either to warrant an actual top 3. A cube would have to be extremely large or heavily multicolor focused before it would need to look for a third option in these sections.
6. I like the game winning effectiveness metric. Thinking about these cards in terms of P1P1 only makes sense for the first few cards on the list. If none of the top four or five white cards show up in your P1P1, you're probably looking to pick something from a different color.
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2. Noble Hierarch is a green card. It is perfectly functional in a mono-green deck and does not need to be in Bant deck.
3. I don't think there are enough C-cost cards to warrent their own section. Just put Eldrazi Displacer in white and Reality Smasher in colorless. Just regard their need for C as a card-specific drawback in their respective sections.
4. I am in favor of creating a 12th category for non-Vintage-legal card. Putting conspiracies into colorless really pushed a lot of cool colorless cards out of those rankings. Draft-matters cards that are legal in Vintage can be voted for normally accordinng to their cost, but conspiracies are just so different and often so powerful that they would skew the ratings if lumped together with normal Magic cards. Not being legal in Vintage is a good characteristic to sperate the problematic cards from the normal ones.
5. Using a unified top 20 ranking for all shard and wedge cards sounds good.
6. I would also like to change the old P1P1 metric to the suggested "How effectively a cube card contributes to winning games when included in a traditional powered cube environment.", because the old system didn't really work on certain types of cards and led to confusion. It pretended to be an objective metric, but was actually just as subjective as almost any other method for ranking the cards.
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
2. The more I think about it, the less satisfying I find any method of categorizing green mana dorks that produce non-green mana. The decision to put Noble Hierarch in 3+ color but not Birds of Paradise seems to be really arbitrary, Avacyn's Pilgrim and Elves of Deep Shadow are worse than Boreal Druid in decks that don't want white or black mana, and they don't make the cut for me as green or guild cards. On the other hand, Noble Hierarch is still better in a Gruul deck than Llanowar Elves, so it's a slam dunk in my green section, and I don't really care how it stacks up to other Bant cards because there are no Bant-specific slots in my cube. The saving grace on Noble Hierarch (and Rattleclaw Mystic in some formats) is that it makes green mana, so it does help some color requirements even if it's not living up to its full potential in a deck with no use for W or U. I think it would be interesting to see how Noble Hierarch stacks up as a mono-green card, but I don't think it's a big deal either way.
3. I don't think it's worth the trouble to add an additional section for C cards. I think we can rank cards like Eldrazi Displacer by the color of their casting cost, and C casting cost cards like Reality Smasher as colorless. If we get more of these cards in the future that are strong enough to make the cut in most cubes, we can re-evaluate then.
4. Categorizing Conspiracy and Un-cards separately and ranking them only in relation to each other is tantamount to not voting for them at all, because it tells us nothing about how they compare to other cards in the cube. By evaluating these cards based on our understanding of their power level is in no way requiring anyone who doesn't like them to run them in their cube any more than consistently giving top rankings to the Power 9 requires anyone to run a powered cube. I get the distaste for the flavor of these cards, and I've moved the Conspiracy cards in my own cube, to a separate module for that very reason, but I was happy to see where they ranked compared to other cards that are already in my cube, and I am curious how CN2 cards compare in the greater context of cube. I was also convinced to try City of Ass based on how it compared to other lands I already ran in last year's Power Rankings. There is no other type of card that we do this with, and for good reason, the data it would give is basically meaningless. We should be categorizing cards based on color, not flavor, and ranking them by power level.
As a compromise, I would accept Willdice's suggestion of leaving out Un-cards but leaving CNS/CN2 mechanic-based cards in the main rankings.
As an aside, draft-altering constructs like Cogwork Librarian and draft-referencing spells like Arcane Savant and Regicide are Vintage legal, but I assume the Un-/Conspiracy separatists don't want those as part of the (main) Power Rankings either.
5. I just want to be clear that what's being suggested here isn't a single category for all Shard/Wedge cards, it's a single category for all 3 or more color cards, so we'd be comparing Progenitus alongside Siege Rhino. Are we cool with ranking them together?
6. I'm glad we're seeing a growing consensus on this point. I'm not much of a sports guy, though, so I'm not familiar enough with the Wins Above Replacement metric to be able to apply this to cube. Could someone clarify this for me with some cube card examples?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
No.
Well, to put it bluntly, I don't.
Soulfire is a pretty bland monowhite card, but a good boros card and an interesting azorius card. I wouldn't rank Soulfire among my Top 20 white cards, at all.
My pro: it simplify the rules. The same rules that apply to, say, Signets being guild cards would apply to Hierarch and others.
My con: it's not how I classify Hierarch, personally. Unlike Soulfire and such, Hierarch is a card playable in monogreen or any Gx combination.
Here I'm pretty neutral honestly. I'll vote accordingly any way.
Well, yes, of course. No other place to put them, and we definitively don't need yet another separated ranking.
Those cards are so different I can't even understand the reasoning behind grouping them together.
I suggested this, so of course I'm agreeing here.
I approve this one.
===
My problem with this is that Cube is not Vintage. And, as pointed already, the draft-matters cards from CNS and CN2 (without the conspiracy type) ARE Vintage-legal. Mostly useless, but valid.
Not all Vintage banlist cards are there for the same reasons. Un-cards don't work within the framework of the rules. Conspiracies do; they are banned because they can only be used in Limited formats. Vintage is Constructed, Cube is Limited. And that's it for me.
===
It should be an yearly project, but I just counldn't reserve the time for it this year. Thanks, again, Spike Rogue for stepping foward.
In my mind, this way of sorting doesn't feel arbitrary at all. Birds of Paradise is best in any deck that has access to green mana. Noble Hierarch is best in decks with a need for a Bant mana dork. Obviously, you'd still play Hierarch in a Gruul deck, but it wouldn't be at it's best there. I do understand where you're coming from, though. I get this type of feedback from my group a lot while sorting the cards after drafting. This same comparison has come up on multiple occasions.
I think including these types of cards in their respective color for voting purposes means a lot of them will miss out on being voted for at all. If I'm a new cube manager who sorts my cube by casting cost only, I can still make that choice when I see Noble Hierarch doing well in the Bant or 3+ color voting. If I'm a new cube manager who sorts my cube by where cards play best, I might not even see Noble Hierarch on a Top 20 Green results and miss it all together or make an incorrect assumption that it's not that great.
For what it's worth, I think it's difficult to compare something like Worldknit to something like Umezawa's Jitte to each other on a raw power level. Also, I think it's relatively easy for an unpowered cuber to rank power on these lists with only an idea of how they might play in cube. It seems much harder to try to rank Conspiracies, draft altering constructs, and Un-cards without having played with them. This is especially true for Conspiracies. We saw that first hand on these boards as a few of them flew under the radar until folks started trying them and reporting back about how powerful they actually were. Including them in the colorless vote seems like you'll get a lot of skewed lists where some people vote for them and some people choose not to because they don't know how to evaluate them. Voting separately allows those people to not participate if they don't want and it provides results that are relevant to those of us who do run a separate "Conspiracy Module" in our lists.
As someone who does run such a module, I don't really care how Worldknit compares to Jitte. I just want to know which cards I should be considering for that module and how they compare to each other.
So City of Ass wouldn't be included in the vote, but Worldknit would? I don't like that at all. Again, I'd be more interested in seeing what the Top X of these types of cards are so I would have that data for ideas about my own Conspiracy Module. Adding these to the colorless vote only skews the results and adds even more cards that some amount of us have no interest in playing.
This is correct. Earlier I did refer to this as "non-Vintage legal" and that was wrong. I feel like anything with this type of effect that changes how you normally draft or requires you to reveal it before you start the game should be included here.
Yes. I'm cool with that.
One thing that I've not seen mentioned is if we should be including Kaladesh in this vote. It is included in the OP for sets released since the last rankings, but I'm not sure it's been out long enough for us to have a good amount of data as to where these cards should be ranked. I'm happy to include it if that's the consensus, but I thought it deserved a mention.
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Yes, I'd be fine with ranking them together.
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If it's difficult to evaluate Conspiracies for veteran cube managers, how much more difficult is it for newer cube managers? That's all the more reason for all of us to give it our best shot. I'm not recommending you vote for anything you have no idea how to evaluate. All I ask is that if you're banning a card for being too powerful, give it the vote it deserves on that basis. Not sure? Feel free to abstain. As an unpowered cube manager, I give my best guess about the cards I can and eliminate others from my vote entirely. I have no problem for voting for Time Walk and Ancestral Recall as my Nos. 1 & 2 in blue because I know they'd be unbalancingly strong if I ran them. I'd try Timetwister if it weren't a $1000 card because it doesn't seem much more insane than Wheel of Fortune, but don't ask me how it'd fit since I have 0 experience with the card. Not sure how Worldknit fits because it seems to obnoxious to try? Fine, abstain from voting on it. Banned it based on experience or other feedback because it's too strong? Then you've already evaluated its power level, please share that with the community.
I don't really like it either, but I'm trying to meet you halfway. However, Conspiracy cards were specifically designed for draft formats, and some of them are extremely powerful in the context of cube, and cube drafters who may be considering including these cards as part of their main cube will likely be interested in how they rate, especially since a new crop of them was printed this year. I also get the impression that there's more disdain for Un-cards than Conspiracy cards.
Thanks for bringing this up. Allred and I discussed it, and we figured that by the time the first round of voting ends (October 13th) most people will have had some chance to playtest KLD cards. We also didn't really expect there to be that many serious contenders for top 20 spots aside from Chandra, Torch of Defiance and maybe Angel of Invention. However, if the consensus it that it's too soon to be ranking KLD cards we can save them for next year.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
If we lump all the 3+ colors together, it might help people on designing their cube, but it will provide little if any information as a tool to evaluate myself with as a drafter.
If on the other hand the primary purpose is to help people in cube design then what is the point of doing a project rank everything?
2nd, then yes we should include cards like hiearch and the other tribrid cards in the 3 color section. It then makes sense to lump this section together as a list for cube managers to scroll through and figure out what they want to do.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
I think the purpose is to help in all aspects of cube. Knowing what the best cards are helps you draft better (especially outside of the 1st pick) and then also helps managers see what the most important cards are to include.
I believe that the intent was always to tell players what the "best" cards are in each section. But we just historically assigned a relatively poor metric to it. Now we're fixing it, and drafters and managers will both benefit more from the new way we plan to organize the card order. There are FAR more important things to consider when drafting than just what the best 1st pick is. Because once you'e outside of your first few picks, you now need to know what the best cards are for the colors/strategies you're in ...not what the best 1st picks were, once you're outside of that part of the draft process.
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I don't know if there's a good solution for both, but the system of counting exclusions as 0, in combination with "if you've never played with that card or just aren't sure how to rank it, feel free to not include it at all in your ranking", obviously makes the rankings meaningless for any cards that not everyone voted on.
In any case, including conspiracy and draft-affecting cards in the list but ranking them wildly inaccurately is probably more harmful than just excluding them.
Cubetutor rankings seem to suggest that most of the cubes there are unpowered, but that lumps together cubes trying to include the best cards along with C/Ubes and all manner of wacky cubes. So I don't know what the stats are here, but my guess is that it is still true most cubes are unpowered. Given that, I don't think including "powered" as a qualifier makes sense.
I like the idea of putting the creme de la creme into a "hall of fame." We acknowledge they are the best and want to see the rest. Library has been the best land every time. Ancestral topped the blue rankings. Sol Ring topped artifacts. I think we could safely keep the list pretty conservative at Library of Alexandria, Ancestral Recall, Sol Ring, Jitte, Time Walk, Lotus, Moxen. Heck, it might be fun to pull out all those perennial category winners and put them into a separate voting category and rank them. The point is that including them in the individual sections is rather uninteresting because we know those cards are good, and irrelevant for many cubers because they've excluded them for power reasons. I suppose there is some value in having those cards anchor the scale, but I, personally would rather see them in their own ranking.
Agree with this almost entirely. The only point I'm not sympatico on is the P1P1 metric. It's been used before so it's nice to be consistent, but I'm open to other ways to measure cards, such as the way wtwlf suggests. Basically, I'm more or less ambivalent about this topic and will likely be fine with whatever the consensus is, as long as the criteria for voting are clearly stated at the beginning of the project.
Thanks again for tackling this project.
Cheers,
rant
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I don't think people should not be voting for something simply because they don't run it. I do, however, think that it's easier to assume the power of a Time Walk without ever having cast it than it is to assume the power of a Conspiracy without ever having played with it. It makes more sense to me to have a separate vote that voters can abstain from all together if they choose than to have some entries contain Un/Conspiracy cards and others not contain them. Just being honest, but if we end up going with ranking them all together, I'll probably leave them off my list. I'd rather see them left out completely, than lumped together. These are not cards that we draft with every single time we cube. How powerful they are vs cube mainstays is somewhat irrelevant, imo.
Having these cards in their own separate vote means they both get voted on and neither are left out. Why is that a negative thing?
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As I've already explained, I'm against this because voting on them separately removes them from the context that makes these comparisons in the Power Rankings meaningful in the first place. I'll try to clarify with an example. When planeswalkers were newer, there were plenty of cube managers who did not include them in their cubes because they disliked the mechanic, their impact on the game, and the flavor of what they represented. In Kaladesh, we also have Vehicles that have a pretty absurd feel to them. After all, what business do planes, trains and automobiles have in Magic the Gathering? Now let's say there were enough people who didn't like either of these types of cards that there was a push to have a new voting category of Planeswalkers and Vehicles for people who are interested in playing this type of card. Once voting concludes, we would probably learn that the community agrees that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is stronger than Gideon Jura, which is stronger than Fleetwheel Cruiser, which is stronger than Chandra, Pyromaster, which is stronger than Renegade Freighter, which is stronger than Nissa Revane, etc.
Is this information completely useless to players who might be interested in running Planeswalkers and Vehicles? I suppose not. Do our Planeswalker and Vehicles Power Rankings tell us anything at all about how good JtMS or Nissa Revane is compared to the other 465 cards in my cube or the other 60 cards in my blue or green section compared to other cards I might run instead?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Something like Worldknit or Sovereign's Realm seems totally different. I might be able to understand how Double Stroke might play out because that's an effect we've seen before, but many of the conspiracies have effects most of us have never played with. Ones that radically change how the game plays. I don't know how to vote on those. I would prefer not to have to vote on them, because while I've never cast Time Walk, I have a good guess of how good it is, but I haven't got the foggiest notion of how good something like Advantageous Proclamation plays.
Seems like you could combine them all in the overall results, and us cowards could take courage and try our best to evaluate them there.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
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Cheers,
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Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963