Behold, the best Typhoid Rats ever printed. This card looks pretty humble but I think it could have legs in cube. My thoughts:
-1 drop quality in black is an issue: At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color. Black has some of the best aggressive one drops ever printed, but after the recursive guys and the random 2 power guys the (12-13 depending how you rate Grasping Scoundrel) the power level of black one drops falls off a cliff. Mardu Shadowspear and friends are fine filler, but I think this Foumire Knight is an upgrade. Playing this on turn one in an aggro deck isn't exactly living the dream, but it's better than doing nothing.
-Flexibility. Typhoid Rats isn't a card that's making anyone's cube, but it is a card that pretty much any black deck would be happy to have at many points during the game.
-Adventure is an amazing mechanic: Adventure is the best iteration of split/aftermath we've seen yet. You get either mode from hand and you have the option to get both. It brings baked in card advantage. This is a flexible one drop that can draw a card. If you squint, the adventure mechanic on Foulmire is basically an instant speed Divination that always draws a 1/1 deathtoucher as one of the cards.
I don't think this is a staple by any means, but I think it's a solid, flexible workhorse that will be do work in all manner of black decks and I'm excited to test it.
I think this is also a fine control card. The 1/1 deathtouch is a good speedbump, and the instant speed draw ensures it is not a dead draw late game. I'd still likely side this out in the mirror, but it is desirable against aggro and midrange.
He is even a zombie.
Not completely awful because of the cantrip / relevant creature types, but a 1/1 with deathtouch is not what I want in my aggro decks. Deathtouch has never worth the power reduction in an aggressive deck. Thrill-Kill Assassin was decent back in the day because it had a key 3rd toughness to survive most chump blockers, and also there were very few cubeable black 2-drops 7 years ago. This card is often going to be like card number 28-30 in any aggro deck.
At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color.
YMMV, but I've been perfectly happy with half the amount of aggressive one drops at 540. In the Xmage 3-0 archives (now with over 500 decks!), aggro has always held the #2 most winning archetype. Although we don't track every individual deck win / loss ratio, I'm willing to bet that aggro has the best actual win percentage. That many one-drops takes up so much real estate, which has gone up in value so much with the recent sets.
-1 drop quality in black is an issue: At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color.
I'm highly skeptical of this # you came up with. While 1 drops are very important to the success of aggressive archetypes, they come with a steep archetype versatility cost (they are as narrow as they come). You don't need to consistently get 8+ 1 drops in a deck for an agressive deck to be succesful.
If 1 drops are drying up, splashing another color is a viable alternative. Mediocore agro decks still do decently, as they can punish durdly decks, train wrecks and decks weak to agro.
You can tweak the strength of agro by inclusion/exclusion of cards like baneslayer angel, obstinate baloth, sphinx of the steel wind, wrath of gods etc.
I include about the average 1 drop density here, maybe a bit less, and if anything im looking for ways to reduce it (or better yet play 1 drops that are archetype versatile).
I won't argue with you guys that giving a bunch of slots to aggro one drops is painful, it 100% is. I want to limit cards that only go in a single archetype as much as possible. For aggro though 1 mana beaters are absolutely ESSENTIAL. Let me see if I can explain my though process through math:
Below is an ugly copy/paste from an online hypergeometric calculator showing the chances of having an aggro 1 drop in your opening 7, assuming you have 8 in your deck. This has been an invaluable tool for me and I highly recommend using it to evaluate your own cubes.
(https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx)
Population size
40
Number of successes in population
8
Sample size
7
Number of successes in sample (x)
1
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 1)
0.38884934
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 1)
0.180537194
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 1)
0.569386533
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 1)
0.430613467 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 1)
0.819462806
Basically what this tells me is that with 8 one drops in my deck, 4 out of 5 times (82%) I'll have one in my opening 7. Ideally, I'd like to have that number be higher, but you have to draw the line somewhere. 10 aggro one drops brings my chances up to 90%, but only having six aggro one drops drops my chances to 70%. As a rule of thumb, my target # of aggro one drops is 8, but if I can draft more, great.
How does this information affect my overall cube design? Lets look at more math:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
360
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.075647491
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.047400417
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.123047907
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.876952093 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.952599583
Assuming a normal 8 man pod with 3 packs of 15 (360 total cards seen), there is a 95% chance that at least 8 one drops of any given color will be included in the draft pool. This is pretty much where I want to be. In reality this overstates the chance that any single player will actually see all 8 in a draft because cards are drafted out of packs before you see them.
Why am I only focusing on one color? What about two color aggro decks? Lucidvision, you mentioned that splashing for a second color is an option in aggro, and you are totally right, but I think it's very important to support mono color aggro decks in order for the archetype to thrive. Being heavily in two colors in an aggro deck puts serious strain on the mana. The same hypergeometric calculation I used in above for one drops applies to lands. If I want an 80% chance of having an color source in my opening 7, I need 8 sources in my deck. If I want a 90% chance, I need 10 sources. Add in the fact that aggro decks tend to be light on lands and prioritize untapped mana sources (sorry manlands) and things get real tight, real fast. If I have an evenly split 2 color aggro deck with 4 red one drops and 4 white one drops, to have a high degree of certainty I'll be able to play aggressively on turn one I need 10 untapped sources of each color. If I want to go down to 14-15 lands, I'd need 5 untapped dual lands in that specific guild. That's a big ask. If I'm playing a 2 color aggro deck, I'd much rather splash up the curve at 2, 3, and even 4 mana and keep my one drops as close to mono colored as possible.
Another consideration is the my overall archetype balance. I only support three archetypes in my cube: Aggro, Midrange, and Control. No reanimator, no artifact stuff, no aristocrats, ect. My goal is that for an 8 man draft the cube supports 2-3 of each archetype so in any given pod there will be 3 aggro decks, 2 midrange decks, and 3 control decks, or some similar combination. The desire to support 3 mono-colored (or close to it) aggro decks in a single cube draft necessitates that black, white, and red all have enough aggro beaters to support a deck with at least 8 one drops with a high degree of certainty. Not every deck is going to come together every draft, obviously, and I love variety as much as the next guy, but it's important to me that drafters are able to execute assembling the decks I support more often than not.
This is all well and good, but I also do a lot of 1v1 drafting in my playgroup using the glimpse method (9 packs of 15, pick one burn 2). With 16 aggro one drops per color in my 540 doing a 2 man glimpse draft, the math looks like this:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
270
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.19935343
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.599676715
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.400323285 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.599676715
60% chance of being able to see 8 aggro one drops in a single color. Not great, but in a 2 man draft we kind of expect decks to be a little less consistent so it's not the end of the world. Still, my own analysis is telling me that I should be running MORE aggro duders, not less.
A couple other things:
I've talked about my overall cube environment elsewhere on MTGS so I'll be super brief here. I run significantly more removal (both sweepers and spot), countermagic, ramp elves, cantrips, and of course aggro beaters than most cubes here. My curve, on average, is a bit lower (nothing above 6 mana, period). Because I don't run synergy decks, it's way easier for me to have redundancy in what I consider key categories. Aggro beaters, midrange ramp, wraths for control, and cheap interaction all around. I also don't run a bunch of cards that I feel create lame, binary, gameplay like Winter Orb, Mind Twist, Armageddon, ect. My goal is to have a balanced environment where a drafter can sit down and have a roughly equal chance of winning a pod drafting any of the archetypes I support. In my environment, durdly decks don't really happen, if they do it's a mistake. Aggro decks tend to curve out at 3 mana, with maybe a 4 drop or two, and should NEVER be running anything 5 mana or above. Midrange is alive and well in my meta, so in order to compete, aggro decks need to be super consistent and able to come out of the gates swinging every game.
All this to say... I need lots of black one drops and thus have room to try Foulmire Knight.
Aggro is arguably our most powerful and successful archetype, and we calculate hitting our 1-drop saturation based on playing 2-color aggro decks. 16 2-power 1-drops per aggressive color is simply too much, IMO. I think it's twice the value we had tremendous success with at 540. And nobody advocates 2-power 1-drops like me, lol.
We use Impulse/Glimpse/Sight drafts to see a higher % of the cube, and base our 1-drop saturation off of 2-color decks. And it works perfectly. With both a larger cube AND less 1-drops.
Yeah, I don't want anything like that many aggro 1-drops. This card on the other hand, I like a lot.
This is easier to evaluate than most adventure cards: It's basically typhoid rats that cycle for 2B with the upside that you still (essentially) have Typhoid Rats in your hand. That's not a bad upside to a card with an already decent floor.
That said, they have shown willingness to print all manner of Typhoid Rats and Sedge Scorpion variants with upside. This may at some point be surpassed, but it's still sweet.
Wtwlf & Steve_Man, how many aggro decks usually come together for you guys in any given 8 man pod? Steve_Man, are your aggro decks usually mono colored or guild?
This is a new leaf for me, up until fairly recently my cube was much more similar to both of yours, in fact it was heavily inspired by them. with 8-12 aggro one drops in W, B and R I’d normally see 1-2 aggro decks in an 8 man pod and almost never saw mono color decks, but even with similar cube lists, different playgroups can have wildly different outcomes, so I’m curious to hear how things play out for you guys.
My impetus for change came mostly from trying to increase the consistency of draft execution for small pods of 2-4. To use aggro as an example, I got tired of drafting aggro only to end up with 5-6 one drops and a too-flat curve. Time walking yourself on turn one due to having the wrong color of mana or no one drop is THE WORST in aggro and super feel bad. In redesigning my cube I’ve relied heavily on math to, hopefully, foster smooth drafting and gameplay and I’ve been moderately surprise at the density of certain effects required to hit my percentage parameter.
The fact that I’ve cut most of the synergy deck support from my cube also means I have plenty of room to pile on the archetype enablers, so the opportunity cost of running so many cheap aggro dweebs is likely less for me.
Also, wtwlf I totally agree that a 1/1 aggro guy is not plan A, but there simply aren’t enough tier 1-2 one drops in black and this guy looks to be near the top of tier 3. Not to mention that it’s totally fine in general midrange/control builds and is an interesting sideboard option, something that few other black one drops offer.
Wtwlf & Steve_Man, how many aggro decks usually come together for you guys in any given 8 man pod? Steve_Man, are your aggro decks usually mono colored or guild?
An average of two aggro decks per 8-man draft. I'd say about 70% of them are two-colored? Ideally the ratio of an 8-man pod will look something like 2 each of aggro / combo / control / midrange, but that's not always going to be the case, especially since we almost never draft the entirety of my cube at once since I do standard 8-man drafts at 540.
In an 8-man pod, we'd get 2-3 aggro decks. Usually 2-color.
So for us, at 720, seeing 75% of the pool on average, 10 aggro 1-drops per aggressive color will give us a 99.67% chance of having 8 aggro 1-drops in any given 2-color aggro deck. And most of our pools use more than 75% of the cube list. We could probably get away with 8 or 9 aggro 1-drops per color and be fine, but we try to calculate based on the worst case scenario for density. I think the best thing that playgroups can do to increase draft consistency is to experiment with draft formulas that use a higher % of the cube pool. We have a better draft experience with 3 players at 720 than we did with a 6 player conventional draft at 405! It's insane.
You are seeing 75% of your 720 (when did 720 happen?!) with 3 drafters? I’d love to hear about your draft method. Toss me a link or something if you’ve already written about it.
Drafting more of your cube via glimpse or whatever is definitely a good way to limit the need for redundancy in archetype enablers like one drops. Given that you are using custom draft methods I totally see how you wouldn’t need as many as I do.
I want to enable standard 8 man drafts in my cube and still have enough aggro density for a couple reasons:
-I love glimpse and similar variants but I find you do lose some of the strategic depth that comes with standard drafting when no cards are burned from the packs.
-Sone of the guys in my playgroup are hardcore retail limited players and turn their noses up at change. It’s lame of them but I just want to cube so I roll with it.
-Other guys in my group are relative newbies and can feel overwhelmed by the sheer # of decisions in glimpse-y draft formats.
That said when I sit down w/ one or two others I’m all about custom draft types.
My choice to run so many one drops is influenced by these factors as well as the environmental factors that I’m actively seeking to curate in my meta (as explained above). I may be going overboard, but I’d rather err on the side of too many, and I know u can appreciate that i hope it goes w/o saying that this is all just personal preference and experimentation on my end, it sounds like your methods have been working out great in your environments so more power to you. (@steve[man @wtwlf123).
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana? Aggro decks need waaaay better fixing than midrange/control if they are going to be solidly in two colors, and I’ve found it often is difficult-to-impossible to consistently build a manabase capable of reliably having 2 untapped colors in turn one.
I think having to burn cards from packs adds strategic depth, if anything.
You are seeing 75% of your 720 (when did 720 happen?!) with 3 drafters? I’d love to hear about your draft method. Toss me a link or something if you’ve already written about it.
It's in the OP of my cube thread and it's my pinned tweet.
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana?
If you prioritize mana fixing, you should be able to build a consistent manabase with relative consistency. I can't remember the last time I was unable to play a 1-drop. But I really focus on mana when I draft, so maybe it's not the same for everybody.
..........
Best of luck man, I hope you can get everything balanced out for your group.
You are seeing 75% of your 720 (when did 720 happen?!) with 3 drafters? I’d love to hear about your draft method. Toss me a link or something if you’ve already written about it.
Drafting more of your cube via glimpse or whatever is definitely a good way to limit the need for redundancy in archetype enablers like one drops. Given that you are using custom draft methods I totally see how you wouldn’t need as many as I do.
I want to enable standard 8 man drafts in my cube and still have enough aggro density for a couple reasons:
-I love glimpse and similar variants but I find you do lose some of the strategic depth that comes with standard drafting when no cards are burned from the packs.
-Sone of the guys in my playgroup are hardcore retail limited players and turn their noses up at change. It’s lame of them but I just want to cube so I roll with it.
-Other guys in my group are relative newbies and can feel overwhelmed by the sheer # of decisions in glimpse-y draft formats.
That said when I sit down w/ one or two others I’m all about custom draft types.
My choice to run so many one drops is influenced by these factors as well as the environmental factors that I’m actively seeking to curate in my meta (as explained above). I may be going overboard, but I’d rather err on the side of too many, and I know u can appreciate that i hope it goes w/o saying that this is all just personal preference and experimentation on my end, it sounds like your methods have been working out great in your environments so more power to you. (@steve[man @wtwlf123).
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana? Aggro decks need waaaay better fixing than midrange/control if they are going to be solidly in two colors, and I’ve found it often is difficult-to-impossible to consistently build a manabase capable of reliably having 2 untapped colors in turn one.
Without expanding on my reasoning..
- Agro wins games without a 1 drop in it's hand. It's not 50%, but it's far from 0%. Other decks stumble too. It's ok for decks to have fail rates >5%. Mediocre agro decks do better than mediocre control decks.
- Agro decks should mulligan aggressively to good starting hands. 6 cards on the play with a good start has a high win%.
Your math only considered 7 card openers.
- 1 mana SPELLS -> 2 drop creature are also viable starting hands. Don't ignore duress, divest, fatal push, lightning bolt etc. when doing your calculation about 1 mana plays. Agro mirror matches happen. Bolting the birds on turn 1 is better than playing a jackal pup. Spells have the added benefit of being archetype flexible.
- 2 color agro decks need better fixing yes, they will lose games to their inconsistency, but so do other decks.
Putting in an extra cycle of fixing for each color pair is a viable alternative to going all in on 1 mana creatures.
Lands like gemstone mine and city of brass are particularly good for agro. Choose cycles like painlands and fastlands over temples and filters for agro colors.
- If you are consistently doing 6 mans with 540 size cube and are trying to hit a very high 1 drop density each cube, you should consider lowering your cube size. Linear strategies that need specific pieces (1 drops) suffer the lower the % of cube you see each draft.
- Track your win% with archetypes. It's rare I see a cube that supports 1 drops, where agro isn't a top tier archetype. Your cube is a bit different, and perhaps more hostile to agro, but do some data tracking to confirm those suspicions.
-The best 8 one drops are much much much better than the next 8. By including tier 4 one drops, you are barely going to increase the win% for agro, while harming the versatility and flexibility of your environment.
- If you are consistently doing 6 mans with 540 size cube, and are trying to hit a very high 1 drop density each cube, you should consider lowering your cube size. Linear stratgies that need specific pieces (1 drops) suffer the lower the % of cube you see ach draft.
Either this, or experiment with draft variants that use a higher % of the cube pool. For example, a 6-player Sight draft of a 540 card cube uses 100% of the pool. Decks will be phenomenally improved, and it will solve all of your 1-drop and mana fixing woes.
Agro wins games without a 1 drop in it's hand. It's not 50%, but it's far from 0%. Other decks stumble too. It's ok for decks to have fail rates >5%. Mediocre agro decks do better than mediocre control decks.
Totally. 8 one drops gives me an 80% chance of having one in my opening 7, thats a pretty big fail rate. I want the deck to be draftable under my preferred parameters 95% of the time. Also, I don't want to build my cube planning for mediocre decks. They will happen, of course, but I want to give my drafters tools to build tight and powerful decks.
Agro decks should mulligan aggressively to good starting hands. 6 cards on the play with a good start has a high win%.
Your math only considered 7 card openers.
I have to hard disagree on this one. Mulligans hurt aggro decks more than they hurt midrange/control decks. Aggro needs every possible resource to close out games on time, so I want to build my aggro decks in a way that minimizes the need for mulligans. 8-12 one drops and a curve that stops at 3 is a great way to do this as decks built in this fashion can keep 1-2 landers easily.
1 mana SPELLS -> 2 drop creature are also viable starting hands. Don't ignore duress, divest, fatal push, lightning bolt etc. when doing your calculation about 1 mana plays. Agro mirror matches happen. Bolting the birds on turn 1 is better than playing a jackal pup. Spells have the added benefit of being archetype flexible.
I think these are instances of situationally relevant plays, but plan A for aggro is usually to play a creature. If I'm sitting on Bolt and 2 drop in my aggro opener I feel sad, even if that Bolt becomes relevant. I'm trying to make my ACS for aggro decks to be as close to BCS as possible.
- 2 color agro decks need better fixing yes, they will lose games to their inconsistency, but so do other decks.
Putting in an extra cycle of fixing for each color pair is a viable alternative to going all in on 1 mana creatures.
Lands like gemstone mine and city of brass are particularly good for agro. Choose cycles like painlands and fastlands over temples and filters for agro colors.
Por que no los dos? I run 6 fixing lands per color pair at 540 (ABU Dual, Shock, Fetch, Horizon/Buddy/Fast, Pain, Manland), along with every good 5 color fixer down to Vivid lands. I'm all in on fixing. Fixing and 1 drop density both help aggro decks, it's not an either/or for me.
If you are consistently doing 6 mans with 540 size cube and are trying to hit a very high 1 drop density each cube, you should consider lowering your cube size. Linear strategies that need specific pieces (1 drops) suffer the lower the % of cube you see each draft.
Totally a valid point. I've strongly considered lowering my cube size due to my small playgroup, but ultimately decided against it. To increase consistency you can fiddle a couple different knobs. One is cube size, another is effect density. I've opted to increase the density of my one drops (and many other key archetype enablers like Wrath effects) instead of lowering my cube size. I could cut down to 450 or below and be able to cut some number of one drops, but I'd have to lose a ton of other sweet cards in the process. My group enjoys diversity.
- Track your win% with archetypes. It's rare I see a cube that supports 1 drops, where agro isn't a top tier archetype. Your cube is a bit different, and perhaps more hostile to agro, but do some data tracking to confirm those suspicions.
Unfortunately, I don't get to cube enough to make this kind of data all that relevant. Thankfully, there are a lot of cube curators out there who cube multiple times a week and track data, so I have the option of relying on their work.
The best 8 one drops are much much much better than the next 8. By including tier 4 one drops, you are barely going to increase the win% for agro, while harming the versatility and flexibility of your environment.
Another hard disagree on this one. The difference between Gravecrawler and Night Market Lookout is there, but the cards are much closer in actual aggro gameplay than they seem on paper. Aggro as an archetype cares more about effect density than it does about card quality. Almost every one drop in my cube is aggro only, with the exception of stuff like Grim Lavamancer, Giver of Runes, and Gideon's Lawkeeper. Sometimes midrange decks want to run a few, but usually they have better things to do on turn one (like Duress, Bolt, or Preordain). Aggro decks comprise a full 1/3 of my cube meta, so I need to make sure they are super well supported in order to foster a healthy environment. On the topic of Foulmire Knight, he is a superbly flexible 1 drop. I'd rather not run him in my aggro deck, but if I need an 8th, or 10th, one drop, he'll 100% get in. Factoring in the card's relevance in control and midrange, this is one of the most flexible one drops we've seen in a long time.
Either this, or experiment with draft variants that use a higher % of the cube pool. For example, a 6-player Sight draft of a 540 card cube uses 100% of the pool. Decks will be phenomenally improved, and it will solve all of your 1-drop and mana fixing woes.
I don't have woes :). I'm happy to support aggro to the extent that I do at my current cube size. Draft alternatives are great and something I love experimenting with, but my cube needs to be able to support all three pillar archetypes in an 8 man, standard, cube draft because that's how I want it to work. I see running this many one drops as a feature of my cube, not an issue that needs solving.
Totally. 8 one drops gives me an 80% chance of having one in my opening 7, thats a pretty big fail rate. I want the deck to be draftable under my preferred parameters 95% of the time. Also, I don't want to build my cube planning for mediocre decks. They will happen, of course, but I want to give my drafters tools to build tight and powerful decks.
I agree. The more 1 drops you support, the better agro will do and the lower your fail rate.. so, if that is your goal, this is a viable way to achieve it... as long as you are willing to pay the costs that decision makes. Past a certain optimal point, the cost of each additional 1 drop on overall cube archetype versatility is linear (maybe exponential) and the additional effect it has on an archetypes success is marginal (logarithmic).
I have to hard disagree on this one. Mulligans hurt aggro decks more than they hurt midrange/control decks. Aggro needs every possible resource to close out games on time, so I want to build my aggro decks in a way that minimizes the need for mulligans. 8-12 one drops and a curve that stops at 3 is a great way to do this as decks built in this fashion can keep 1-2 landers easily.
This is just not true and I would wager my life savings at bad odds on this point. Mulligans hurt midrange/control decks more than agro decks UNLESS they have some cheap catchup mechanism like balance, ancestral recall, dark confidant, or draw 7.
Midrange/control decks need multiple lands to do anything and their curve is higher. This means they need more resources to execute their gameplan.
I think these are instances of situationally relevant plays, but plan A for aggro is usually to play a creature.
Right. Spell -> creature are still solid opening hands, despite usually not being optimal. My point was to emphasize reasons that the "fail" rate of not meeting your 1 drop quota in a particular draft, only shaves off a couple % from the win % of the agro archetype in that draft. It's not a true fail, like a combo deck not being able to assemble their combo.
Por que no los dos? I run 6 fixing lands per color pair at 540 (ABU Dual, Shock, Fetch, Horizon/Buddy/Fast, Pain, Manland), along with every good 5 color fixer down to Vivid lands. I'm all in on fixing. Fixing and 1 drop density both help aggro decks, it's not an either/or for me.
Fair, that is a lot of fixing. But it's not absurd to consider an extra cycle. I ran 7 cycles of fixing at 540 including double shock/dual/fetch, which means mana bases are notably better than with singleton cycles.. It worked, but felt bordering on too much. Though it's hard to say how much better the mana bases are when a bloodstained mire can act as an extra godless shrine at double the likelihood (and you have double the bloodstained mires).
Totally a valid point. I've strongly considered lowering my cube size due to my small playgroup, but ultimately decided against it. I could cut down to 450 or below and be able to cut some number of one drops, but I'd have to lose a ton of other sweet cards in the process. My group enjoys diversity.
Yeah I don't blame you. It's fun to try new cards when sets come out and play with different cards each cube.
Another hard disagree on this one. The difference between Gravecrawler and Night Market Lookout is there, but the cards are much closer in actual aggro gameplay than they seem on paper. Aggro as an archetype cares more about effect density than it does about card quality. On the topic of Foulmire Knight, he is a superbly flexible 1 drop. I'd rather not run him in my aggro deck, but if I need an 8th, or 10th, one drop, he'll 100% get in.
Fair point, about 1 drop power differential , think my point was exaggerated on this topic. Though I disagree about foulmire knight being anything but a desperation playable in agro. You'd be much better served playing 7 agro 1 drops, and an extra removal spell than have foulmire knight being your 8 agro 1 drop and not playing that spell (or agro 2 drop).
Rather than just quoting everything back to you I'll try and keep it brief. Additional 1 drop slots don't really detract from my overall environment because I only support 3 archetypes. They are parasitic to aggro only, sure, but sweepers are parasitic to control only and mana dorks are parasitic to control only. There is a certain amount of these cards I need to run to support my archetypes, everything else I try to make as flexible as possible.
I could totally see myself going up another cycle of lands at some point, definitely not against it.
My main disagreement here, and I think the one core principal we disagree on, is how detrimental mulligans are to aggro. Midrange decks have the ability to stall with cheap beef out or stick a planeswalker and start accruing value while they dig for lands. Control decks (in my environment) run a multitude of cantrips and cheap draw spells to dig through their libraries and find lands/sweepers/finishers/whatever. Aggro decks compete on consistency and tempo and have very limited ways to break mana parity or increase their card quality. They need to have 7 cards in their opening hand as often as possible because every possible resource is used to get the opponent to 0 life as quickly as possible. Keep in mind, the ideal aggro deck in my environment has 10ish one drops 5-7 two drops, a few 3s and some interaction. They are usually on 15 lands. I wonder if the difference between our draft environments is exacerbating this point.
Aggro decks have a very powerful variant of virtual card advantage: killing the opponent. If my opponent dies with five cards in hand and I have zero, that is a version of card advantage.
While I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, aggro is usually the best deck in cube environments without that kind of support. Even the MTGO cubes keep taking out the best aggro cards and don't have that density and they are still the best archetypes. All I can say is that if I sit down at a 540 cube with 12+ one drops per color, I'm hard forcing aggro because I can push towards the platonic ideal of the best deck. There should be variance. You shouldn't be guaranteed to hit the deck on every axis. You should have to figure out "*****, it's pack three and I only have 5 one-drops, how do I maneuver myself and make decisions to optimize the current situation". This is, of course, my opinion and you don't have to agree. But I do believe playing that many one drops decreases the density of other archetypes because the environment homogenizes between aggressive decks and decks that can compete with 3 one-drops by turn 2.
@Ryansaxe, we are talking apples and oranges here. Aggro is consistently the best deck in the MODO cube because it is only of the only decks that relies on effect density as opposed to synergy payoffs. Also, midrange is undersupported and there is a low amount of available interaction. This is a necessary trade-off that the MODO cube designers have chosen to make. In a cube of any size you have to choose between diversity and consistency. MODO cube runs stuff like Kiki-Twin, storm support, and Daretti in red over redundant burn effects like Volcanic Hammer and loads of one drops. In doing so they support a wide breadth of archetypes. I understand why they do this, it’s fun to draft crazy decks and draw the nuts. I built my cube this way for a long time as well but have recently overhauled my cube to favor consistency over diversity. Gone are Tinker, NO, reanimate, aristocrats, artifact synergies. All of it. I support three archetypes: Aggro, Midrange, Control. My blue section has over 20 cantrips and close to than many counterspells. I run 10 walkers in White and Green, each. I load up on as many 3/3 for 3 mana green stat monsters as I can fit in green. My red section has like 25 burn spells. Aggro. Midrange. Control. Instead of synergy cards (even broken ones) I overload on one drops, mana dorks, sweepers, and interaction. Mid curve threats are almost all chosen because of their stats and ability to apply pressure. In a cube like mine mono color, 10 one drop aggro decks need to be supported in order to compete with midrange decks that are sticking 5 mana walkers consistently on turn 3 and control decks that run 4+ sweepers and 6 variations of Ponder to find them. The danger for me isn’t that I will crowd out other archetypes, but rather that I will undersupport a full 33% of my cube meta.
I’m not knocking the MODO cube or the way you build your cube. I’ve read a lot of your cube content and I respect what you are trying to accomplish. I’m sure my approach seems pretty antithetical to yours
Everything I’ve written in this thread is simply to explain why I do what I do. I’m not trying to tell anyone else they need to follow suit. I personally prefer the bare-knuckle, interaction heavy gameplay that my environment produces over the diverse, synergy driven gameplay of other cubes.
I built my cube this way for a long time as well but have recently overhauled my cube to favor consistency over diversity.
That's all I needed to hear! That environment honestly seems fun, and while it's antithetical to my approach to cube design, I can always appreciate a different lens. Have a good one
Behold, the best Typhoid Rats ever printed. This card looks pretty humble but I think it could have legs in cube. My thoughts:
-1 drop quality in black is an issue: At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color. Black has some of the best aggressive one drops ever printed, but after the recursive guys and the random 2 power guys the (12-13 depending how you rate Grasping Scoundrel) the power level of black one drops falls off a cliff. Mardu Shadowspear and friends are fine filler, but I think this Foumire Knight is an upgrade. Playing this on turn one in an aggro deck isn't exactly living the dream, but it's better than doing nothing.
-Flexibility. Typhoid Rats isn't a card that's making anyone's cube, but it is a card that pretty much any black deck would be happy to have at many points during the game.
-Adventure is an amazing mechanic: Adventure is the best iteration of split/aftermath we've seen yet. You get either mode from hand and you have the option to get both. It brings baked in card advantage. This is a flexible one drop that can draw a card. If you squint, the adventure mechanic on Foulmire is basically an instant speed Divination that always draws a 1/1 deathtoucher as one of the cards.
I don't think this is a staple by any means, but I think it's a solid, flexible workhorse that will be do work in all manner of black decks and I'm excited to test it.
He is even a zombie.
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YMMV, but I've been perfectly happy with half the amount of aggressive one drops at 540. In the Xmage 3-0 archives (now with over 500 decks!), aggro has always held the #2 most winning archetype. Although we don't track every individual deck win / loss ratio, I'm willing to bet that aggro has the best actual win percentage. That many one-drops takes up so much real estate, which has gone up in value so much with the recent sets.
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I'm highly skeptical of this # you came up with. While 1 drops are very important to the success of aggressive archetypes, they come with a steep archetype versatility cost (they are as narrow as they come). You don't need to consistently get 8+ 1 drops in a deck for an agressive deck to be succesful.
If 1 drops are drying up, splashing another color is a viable alternative. Mediocore agro decks still do decently, as they can punish durdly decks, train wrecks and decks weak to agro.
You can tweak the strength of agro by inclusion/exclusion of cards like baneslayer angel, obstinate baloth, sphinx of the steel wind, wrath of gods etc.
I include about the average 1 drop density here, maybe a bit less, and if anything im looking for ways to reduce it (or better yet play 1 drops that are archetype versatile).
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Below is an ugly copy/paste from an online hypergeometric calculator showing the chances of having an aggro 1 drop in your opening 7, assuming you have 8 in your deck. This has been an invaluable tool for me and I highly recommend using it to evaluate your own cubes.
(https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx)
Population size
40
Number of successes in population
8
Sample size
7
Number of successes in sample (x)
1
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 1)
0.38884934
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 1)
0.180537194
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 1)
0.569386533
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 1)
0.430613467
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 1)
0.819462806
Basically what this tells me is that with 8 one drops in my deck, 4 out of 5 times (82%) I'll have one in my opening 7. Ideally, I'd like to have that number be higher, but you have to draw the line somewhere. 10 aggro one drops brings my chances up to 90%, but only having six aggro one drops drops my chances to 70%. As a rule of thumb, my target # of aggro one drops is 8, but if I can draft more, great.
How does this information affect my overall cube design? Lets look at more math:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
360
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.075647491
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.047400417
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.123047907
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.876952093
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.952599583
Assuming a normal 8 man pod with 3 packs of 15 (360 total cards seen), there is a 95% chance that at least 8 one drops of any given color will be included in the draft pool. This is pretty much where I want to be. In reality this overstates the chance that any single player will actually see all 8 in a draft because cards are drafted out of packs before you see them.
Why am I only focusing on one color? What about two color aggro decks? Lucidvision, you mentioned that splashing for a second color is an option in aggro, and you are totally right, but I think it's very important to support mono color aggro decks in order for the archetype to thrive. Being heavily in two colors in an aggro deck puts serious strain on the mana. The same hypergeometric calculation I used in above for one drops applies to lands. If I want an 80% chance of having an color source in my opening 7, I need 8 sources in my deck. If I want a 90% chance, I need 10 sources. Add in the fact that aggro decks tend to be light on lands and prioritize untapped mana sources (sorry manlands) and things get real tight, real fast. If I have an evenly split 2 color aggro deck with 4 red one drops and 4 white one drops, to have a high degree of certainty I'll be able to play aggressively on turn one I need 10 untapped sources of each color. If I want to go down to 14-15 lands, I'd need 5 untapped dual lands in that specific guild. That's a big ask. If I'm playing a 2 color aggro deck, I'd much rather splash up the curve at 2, 3, and even 4 mana and keep my one drops as close to mono colored as possible.
Another consideration is the my overall archetype balance. I only support three archetypes in my cube: Aggro, Midrange, and Control. No reanimator, no artifact stuff, no aristocrats, ect. My goal is that for an 8 man draft the cube supports 2-3 of each archetype so in any given pod there will be 3 aggro decks, 2 midrange decks, and 3 control decks, or some similar combination. The desire to support 3 mono-colored (or close to it) aggro decks in a single cube draft necessitates that black, white, and red all have enough aggro beaters to support a deck with at least 8 one drops with a high degree of certainty. Not every deck is going to come together every draft, obviously, and I love variety as much as the next guy, but it's important to me that drafters are able to execute assembling the decks I support more often than not.
This is all well and good, but I also do a lot of 1v1 drafting in my playgroup using the glimpse method (9 packs of 15, pick one burn 2). With 16 aggro one drops per color in my 540 doing a 2 man glimpse draft, the math looks like this:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
270
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.19935343
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.599676715
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.599676715
60% chance of being able to see 8 aggro one drops in a single color. Not great, but in a 2 man draft we kind of expect decks to be a little less consistent so it's not the end of the world. Still, my own analysis is telling me that I should be running MORE aggro duders, not less.
A couple other things:
I've talked about my overall cube environment elsewhere on MTGS so I'll be super brief here. I run significantly more removal (both sweepers and spot), countermagic, ramp elves, cantrips, and of course aggro beaters than most cubes here. My curve, on average, is a bit lower (nothing above 6 mana, period). Because I don't run synergy decks, it's way easier for me to have redundancy in what I consider key categories. Aggro beaters, midrange ramp, wraths for control, and cheap interaction all around. I also don't run a bunch of cards that I feel create lame, binary, gameplay like Winter Orb, Mind Twist, Armageddon, ect. My goal is to have a balanced environment where a drafter can sit down and have a roughly equal chance of winning a pod drafting any of the archetypes I support. In my environment, durdly decks don't really happen, if they do it's a mistake. Aggro decks tend to curve out at 3 mana, with maybe a 4 drop or two, and should NEVER be running anything 5 mana or above. Midrange is alive and well in my meta, so in order to compete, aggro decks need to be super consistent and able to come out of the gates swinging every game.
All this to say... I need lots of black one drops and thus have room to try Foulmire Knight.
We use Impulse/Glimpse/Sight drafts to see a higher % of the cube, and base our 1-drop saturation off of 2-color decks. And it works perfectly. With both a larger cube AND less 1-drops.
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This is easier to evaluate than most adventure cards: It's basically typhoid rats that cycle for 2B with the upside that you still (essentially) have Typhoid Rats in your hand. That's not a bad upside to a card with an already decent floor.
That said, they have shown willingness to print all manner of Typhoid Rats and Sedge Scorpion variants with upside. This may at some point be surpassed, but it's still sweet.
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This. I can't see this making the final 40 of an aggressive deck unless something went horribly wrong in the draft.
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This is a new leaf for me, up until fairly recently my cube was much more similar to both of yours, in fact it was heavily inspired by them. with 8-12 aggro one drops in W, B and R I’d normally see 1-2 aggro decks in an 8 man pod and almost never saw mono color decks, but even with similar cube lists, different playgroups can have wildly different outcomes, so I’m curious to hear how things play out for you guys.
My impetus for change came mostly from trying to increase the consistency of draft execution for small pods of 2-4. To use aggro as an example, I got tired of drafting aggro only to end up with 5-6 one drops and a too-flat curve. Time walking yourself on turn one due to having the wrong color of mana or no one drop is THE WORST in aggro and super feel bad. In redesigning my cube I’ve relied heavily on math to, hopefully, foster smooth drafting and gameplay and I’ve been moderately surprise at the density of certain effects required to hit my percentage parameter.
The fact that I’ve cut most of the synergy deck support from my cube also means I have plenty of room to pile on the archetype enablers, so the opportunity cost of running so many cheap aggro dweebs is likely less for me.
Also, wtwlf I totally agree that a 1/1 aggro guy is not plan A, but there simply aren’t enough tier 1-2 one drops in black and this guy looks to be near the top of tier 3. Not to mention that it’s totally fine in general midrange/control builds and is an interesting sideboard option, something that few other black one drops offer.
An average of two aggro decks per 8-man draft. I'd say about 70% of them are two-colored? Ideally the ratio of an 8-man pod will look something like 2 each of aggro / combo / control / midrange, but that's not always going to be the case, especially since we almost never draft the entirety of my cube at once since I do standard 8-man drafts at 540.
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In an 8-man pod, we'd get 2-3 aggro decks. Usually 2-color.
So for us, at 720, seeing 75% of the pool on average, 10 aggro 1-drops per aggressive color will give us a 99.67% chance of having 8 aggro 1-drops in any given 2-color aggro deck. And most of our pools use more than 75% of the cube list. We could probably get away with 8 or 9 aggro 1-drops per color and be fine, but we try to calculate based on the worst case scenario for density. I think the best thing that playgroups can do to increase draft consistency is to experiment with draft formulas that use a higher % of the cube pool. We have a better draft experience with 3 players at 720 than we did with a 6 player conventional draft at 405! It's insane.
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Drafting more of your cube via glimpse or whatever is definitely a good way to limit the need for redundancy in archetype enablers like one drops. Given that you are using custom draft methods I totally see how you wouldn’t need as many as I do.
I want to enable standard 8 man drafts in my cube and still have enough aggro density for a couple reasons:
-I love glimpse and similar variants but I find you do lose some of the strategic depth that comes with standard drafting when no cards are burned from the packs.
-Sone of the guys in my playgroup are hardcore retail limited players and turn their noses up at change. It’s lame of them but I just want to cube so I roll with it.
-Other guys in my group are relative newbies and can feel overwhelmed by the sheer # of decisions in glimpse-y draft formats.
That said when I sit down w/ one or two others I’m all about custom draft types.
My choice to run so many one drops is influenced by these factors as well as the environmental factors that I’m actively seeking to curate in my meta (as explained above). I may be going overboard, but I’d rather err on the side of too many, and I know u can appreciate that i hope it goes w/o saying that this is all just personal preference and experimentation on my end, it sounds like your methods have been working out great in your environments so more power to you. (@steve[man @wtwlf123).
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana? Aggro decks need waaaay better fixing than midrange/control if they are going to be solidly in two colors, and I’ve found it often is difficult-to-impossible to consistently build a manabase capable of reliably having 2 untapped colors in turn one.
It's in the OP of my cube thread and it's my pinned tweet.
If you prioritize mana fixing, you should be able to build a consistent manabase with relative consistency. I can't remember the last time I was unable to play a 1-drop. But I really focus on mana when I draft, so maybe it's not the same for everybody.
..........
Best of luck man, I hope you can get everything balanced out for your group.
Cheers, and happy cubing!
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Without expanding on my reasoning..
- Agro wins games without a 1 drop in it's hand. It's not 50%, but it's far from 0%. Other decks stumble too. It's ok for decks to have fail rates >5%. Mediocre agro decks do better than mediocre control decks.
- Agro decks should mulligan aggressively to good starting hands. 6 cards on the play with a good start has a high win%.
Your math only considered 7 card openers.
- 1 mana SPELLS -> 2 drop creature are also viable starting hands. Don't ignore duress, divest, fatal push, lightning bolt etc. when doing your calculation about 1 mana plays. Agro mirror matches happen. Bolting the birds on turn 1 is better than playing a jackal pup. Spells have the added benefit of being archetype flexible.
- 2 color agro decks need better fixing yes, they will lose games to their inconsistency, but so do other decks.
Putting in an extra cycle of fixing for each color pair is a viable alternative to going all in on 1 mana creatures.
Lands like gemstone mine and city of brass are particularly good for agro. Choose cycles like painlands and fastlands over temples and filters for agro colors.
- If you are consistently doing 6 mans with 540 size cube and are trying to hit a very high 1 drop density each cube, you should consider lowering your cube size. Linear strategies that need specific pieces (1 drops) suffer the lower the % of cube you see each draft.
- Track your win% with archetypes. It's rare I see a cube that supports 1 drops, where agro isn't a top tier archetype. Your cube is a bit different, and perhaps more hostile to agro, but do some data tracking to confirm those suspicions.
-The best 8 one drops are much much much better than the next 8. By including tier 4 one drops, you are barely going to increase the win% for agro, while harming the versatility and flexibility of your environment.
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Either this, or experiment with draft variants that use a higher % of the cube pool. For example, a 6-player Sight draft of a 540 card cube uses 100% of the pool. Decks will be phenomenally improved, and it will solve all of your 1-drop and mana fixing woes.
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Totally. 8 one drops gives me an 80% chance of having one in my opening 7, thats a pretty big fail rate. I want the deck to be draftable under my preferred parameters 95% of the time. Also, I don't want to build my cube planning for mediocre decks. They will happen, of course, but I want to give my drafters tools to build tight and powerful decks.
I have to hard disagree on this one. Mulligans hurt aggro decks more than they hurt midrange/control decks. Aggro needs every possible resource to close out games on time, so I want to build my aggro decks in a way that minimizes the need for mulligans. 8-12 one drops and a curve that stops at 3 is a great way to do this as decks built in this fashion can keep 1-2 landers easily.
I think these are instances of situationally relevant plays, but plan A for aggro is usually to play a creature. If I'm sitting on Bolt and 2 drop in my aggro opener I feel sad, even if that Bolt becomes relevant. I'm trying to make my ACS for aggro decks to be as close to BCS as possible.
Por que no los dos? I run 6 fixing lands per color pair at 540 (ABU Dual, Shock, Fetch, Horizon/Buddy/Fast, Pain, Manland), along with every good 5 color fixer down to Vivid lands. I'm all in on fixing. Fixing and 1 drop density both help aggro decks, it's not an either/or for me.
Totally a valid point. I've strongly considered lowering my cube size due to my small playgroup, but ultimately decided against it. To increase consistency you can fiddle a couple different knobs. One is cube size, another is effect density. I've opted to increase the density of my one drops (and many other key archetype enablers like Wrath effects) instead of lowering my cube size. I could cut down to 450 or below and be able to cut some number of one drops, but I'd have to lose a ton of other sweet cards in the process. My group enjoys diversity.
Unfortunately, I don't get to cube enough to make this kind of data all that relevant. Thankfully, there are a lot of cube curators out there who cube multiple times a week and track data, so I have the option of relying on their work.
Another hard disagree on this one. The difference between Gravecrawler and Night Market Lookout is there, but the cards are much closer in actual aggro gameplay than they seem on paper. Aggro as an archetype cares more about effect density than it does about card quality. Almost every one drop in my cube is aggro only, with the exception of stuff like Grim Lavamancer, Giver of Runes, and Gideon's Lawkeeper. Sometimes midrange decks want to run a few, but usually they have better things to do on turn one (like Duress, Bolt, or Preordain). Aggro decks comprise a full 1/3 of my cube meta, so I need to make sure they are super well supported in order to foster a healthy environment. On the topic of Foulmire Knight, he is a superbly flexible 1 drop. I'd rather not run him in my aggro deck, but if I need an 8th, or 10th, one drop, he'll 100% get in. Factoring in the card's relevance in control and midrange, this is one of the most flexible one drops we've seen in a long time.
I don't have woes :). I'm happy to support aggro to the extent that I do at my current cube size. Draft alternatives are great and something I love experimenting with, but my cube needs to be able to support all three pillar archetypes in an 8 man, standard, cube draft because that's how I want it to work. I see running this many one drops as a feature of my cube, not an issue that needs solving.
I agree. The more 1 drops you support, the better agro will do and the lower your fail rate.. so, if that is your goal, this is a viable way to achieve it... as long as you are willing to pay the costs that decision makes. Past a certain optimal point, the cost of each additional 1 drop on overall cube archetype versatility is linear (maybe exponential) and the additional effect it has on an archetypes success is marginal (logarithmic).
This is just not true and I would wager my life savings at bad odds on this point. Mulligans hurt midrange/control decks more than agro decks UNLESS they have some cheap catchup mechanism like balance, ancestral recall, dark confidant, or draw 7.
Midrange/control decks need multiple lands to do anything and their curve is higher. This means they need more resources to execute their gameplan.
Right. Spell -> creature are still solid opening hands, despite usually not being optimal. My point was to emphasize reasons that the "fail" rate of not meeting your 1 drop quota in a particular draft, only shaves off a couple % from the win % of the agro archetype in that draft. It's not a true fail, like a combo deck not being able to assemble their combo.
Fair, that is a lot of fixing. But it's not absurd to consider an extra cycle. I ran 7 cycles of fixing at 540 including double shock/dual/fetch, which means mana bases are notably better than with singleton cycles.. It worked, but felt bordering on too much. Though it's hard to say how much better the mana bases are when a bloodstained mire can act as an extra godless shrine at double the likelihood (and you have double the bloodstained mires).
Yeah I don't blame you. It's fun to try new cards when sets come out and play with different cards each cube.
Fair point, about 1 drop power differential , think my point was exaggerated on this topic. Though I disagree about foulmire knight being anything but a desperation playable in agro. You'd be much better served playing 7 agro 1 drops, and an extra removal spell than have foulmire knight being your 8 agro 1 drop and not playing that spell (or agro 2 drop).
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Rather than just quoting everything back to you I'll try and keep it brief. Additional 1 drop slots don't really detract from my overall environment because I only support 3 archetypes. They are parasitic to aggro only, sure, but sweepers are parasitic to control only and mana dorks are parasitic to control only. There is a certain amount of these cards I need to run to support my archetypes, everything else I try to make as flexible as possible.
I could totally see myself going up another cycle of lands at some point, definitely not against it.
My main disagreement here, and I think the one core principal we disagree on, is how detrimental mulligans are to aggro. Midrange decks have the ability to stall with cheap beef out or stick a planeswalker and start accruing value while they dig for lands. Control decks (in my environment) run a multitude of cantrips and cheap draw spells to dig through their libraries and find lands/sweepers/finishers/whatever. Aggro decks compete on consistency and tempo and have very limited ways to break mana parity or increase their card quality. They need to have 7 cards in their opening hand as often as possible because every possible resource is used to get the opponent to 0 life as quickly as possible. Keep in mind, the ideal aggro deck in my environment has 10ish one drops 5-7 two drops, a few 3s and some interaction. They are usually on 15 lands. I wonder if the difference between our draft environments is exacerbating this point.
While I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, aggro is usually the best deck in cube environments without that kind of support. Even the MTGO cubes keep taking out the best aggro cards and don't have that density and they are still the best archetypes. All I can say is that if I sit down at a 540 cube with 12+ one drops per color, I'm hard forcing aggro because I can push towards the platonic ideal of the best deck. There should be variance. You shouldn't be guaranteed to hit the deck on every axis. You should have to figure out "*****, it's pack three and I only have 5 one-drops, how do I maneuver myself and make decisions to optimize the current situation". This is, of course, my opinion and you don't have to agree. But I do believe playing that many one drops decreases the density of other archetypes because the environment homogenizes between aggressive decks and decks that can compete with 3 one-drops by turn 2.
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I’m not knocking the MODO cube or the way you build your cube. I’ve read a lot of your cube content and I respect what you are trying to accomplish. I’m sure my approach seems pretty antithetical to yours
Everything I’ve written in this thread is simply to explain why I do what I do. I’m not trying to tell anyone else they need to follow suit. I personally prefer the bare-knuckle, interaction heavy gameplay that my environment produces over the diverse, synergy driven gameplay of other cubes.
Thanks and good night
That's all I needed to hear! That environment honestly seems fun, and while it's antithetical to my approach to cube design, I can always appreciate a different lens. Have a good one
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