Yeah, look, I'm not really going to defend aesthetic preferences as a major draft metric. Those are going to depend entirely on the Cube designer and the group. I'm focusing my thoughts pretty much exclusively on objectively weaker cards that he found more interesting or that might play well. I don't think that giving advice for a desired play experience is beyond our collective talents here. Power level was never particularly important to that desired play experience (very mixed signals here, given his insistence on using the word "Powerful," but he also regularly cut staples when he thought that they were overwhelming), and it felt like a lot of the feedback to him assumed that it was the most important part of the Cube to him.
Art criticism, though... That's not really our jam. I hope he finds a group who both plays with him and is willing to have those conversations.
I think that introducing to more open formats is fine, but I really, really don't think "maybe Cube isn't for you" is anywhere in the ballpark or even same sport of a neutral statement. What is or is not a Cube is a broad concept, one that my "basically your personal Magic set" doesn't even encompass. Exposure to new formats is good, but the "maybe this broad format isn't for you" statement is hard for me to read as anything other than very negative, especially when all he really wanted to seem to do was design a Cube differently from you.
I might roll it again, but every part of Tier 2 feels like bad regular cube designed by someone who doesn't want the same stuff from Magic that I do. That's fine, almost everyone likes regular Cube more than I do and I am sure that it has its audience, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't like its design philosophy.
I think Toman1 is basically where I'm at. I quit playing EDH because I got tired of people asking "why would you even do that?" when I built decks that spoke to my very specific preferences. That is the format that is explicitly supposed to be about just building a deck that lets you play the Magic that you want to play with little emphasis on winning! I gravitated toward Cube because it basically let me define the type of Magic that I was playing with everybody on the same page. That does not really seem to be the spirit in this forum. Just to make it explicit, I think that Styb's Cube is more popular than any of ours because it is more fun to play for more people. We don't need to design our Cubes to appeal to anyone other than ourselves, but I think that it's worth remembering what a niche product we're creating whenever we decide to make the Cube better tailored to our interests.
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the only reason styborskis cube is popular is because he has set up his own home page and was one of the early people having one at all. its just the first hit on google.
you might like it, but we pretty much suspect party why our format is such a niche because a lot of interested players run into his one first and then turn away after trying his. nobody wants to play an unfocused limited without any deeper strategies or synergies usually. and i really wonder what exactly is it that you like about his cube. if you like random metas, dont bother building a cube and just throw together a bunch of commons and draft them, which is basically what he did.
when it comes to design philosophy on this forum, pretty much all of us want to give the players the most possible options to find their preferred playstyle. at best the cube supports something for the spike, the timmy and the johnny and roughly contains the major archetypes aggro, midrange, control and to an extend even combo. our approach is defintely not to force our preferred playstyle down the throats of the players, because usually they wont be playing again then, unless they share the same likings. again playing such a toned down version of magic is pretty niche in the first place, no reason to tighten it even further.
i also dont understand why you would chose to create a paupercube for that purpose in the first place anyway. like i said, i also run a very flavor and fringe card driven cube with my medieval, but having all rarities available makes it soo much more interesting for everyone to play the version of magic i think it should be like.
at least in my experience players like to find the (rewarding) hidden interactions and synergies and "solve" the meta, very few have fun seeing vanilla-bear beats gray-ogre-with-a-drawback, then draw go for 3 turns and play an overcosted permanent that basially does nothing. sure there might be some hidden interactions as well, but they need to feel better than just gain 2 life or something in the lines of that.
when it comes to designing a powered cube is not just throwing together the best commons, because a lot of discussions here revolve around how cards interact with each other and influence their powerlevel. balancing the evolving archetypes against each other and how meanwhile keeping the game still fun and interesting is also necessary.
I'm sorry for calling everyone knuckle dragging Yu-Gi-Oh players.
I used to play a game called X-Wing Miniatures. That game was perpetually broken despite having fantastic game mechanics. Like, "I'm chucking spears and you have thermonuclear missiles" broken. When I finally got fed up with the game, I made a format that cut out most of the problems with the game and forced everyone to play fun, fair, vanilla X-Wing. But it wasn't balanced, I had left one broken thing in that dominated that alternative format. So when I removed that one last broken thing all of a sudden no one wanted to play the format anymore despite it being fixed.
This coupled with arguing with the entire /r/pauper subreddit about how clearly broken and unfun decks like Tron (and then getting banned for stating these basic truths) basically solidified the idea in my head that most players of most "constructed collectible games" (say, Magic, X-Wing, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc.) don't actually want to interact with their opponents, just have easy wins handed to them by broken nonsense.
I sealed drafted my cube with the local Tron player. He made an Azorius deck and played Cessation. When he swung in I warned him that my creature could still block, and he said, "Wait, what? I didn't read this card. Yeah, this card is really bad." Then he proceeded to fish through his sideboard and just swapped it for another card mid game.
Modern 'eurogame' board games frustrate me too. Most modern board games are just arbitrary, "I can combine red cubes and blue cubes into purple cubes, and then trade 3 purple cubes in for victory points better than you!" contests. They have zero interaction in them, and everyone is in reality playing solitaire games and after 40 minutes everyone pulls out their phones and the person with the highest number on their calculator wins. Neat. Look at how Five Tribes and Quadropolis work.
So this sort of, "Multiplayer Solitaire" has also seeped into Magic. I show up to the game night to play Magic and my opponent showed up to play solitaire with Bogles, Tron, Kiln Fiend, Storm, etc. This is frustrating.
So I instantly go into defense mode and get angry. I begin arguments just assuming that my opponent doesn't actually enjoy playing Magic, just eating glue. I feel encroached upon by someone else's poor taste, because even the simple removal of a some busted staple like Ghostly Flicker and the addition of a card like Dash Hopes could theoretically spell the end of me getting to play with my cube. It spelled the end of No Uniques, No Duplicates X-Wing for me.
The first cube I actually got was Adam Styborski's cube. I got to draft it like 2.5 times. The guy with aspergers in our playgroup exclaimed, "This cube is ******* terrible I'd never draft it again" and the other players felt the same way. So I built Othesemo's cube upon recommendation of one of my friends and have been altering it to my tastes ever since.
My opinion on Adam's cube is that it is kind of bad actually. One player gets Elephant Ambush and the other player gets Pestilence, Guardian of the Guildpact, Custodi Squire, and Prismatic Strands. But if those peices of power were taken out then it's probably okay. It's one thing if there are some B or D cards in a sea of C cards, it's another when there are A+ cards in a sea of C cards.
I do listen to some suggestions. When a card is truly unplayable I do take it out. I've taken out Sunken City and Mightstone upon recommendation from someone in this thread.
Yeah, so one thing you should know about me is that I don't take "it's more popular because he advertises better" particularly seriously. I mean, it is the case some amount of the time, but usually stuff is popular or unpopular for a reason and the better advertising question is an easy cop-out that avoids any meaningful introspection or self-evaluation. It would never be my first guess about why reactions to things are different, and it certainly wouldn't be my second guess based on that response. Have you looked at his Cube or his blog? His Cube is not so different from ours, although there are clear differences. He goes through and explains his process regularly, sometimes going into great detail when he makes a particularly controversial pick (for example, recently cutting Dinrova Horror over Recoil). He's more interested in regular turn-over in his Cube, almost like people like to play with new cards and there's some value to seeing current limited powerhouses in a more historical context rather than putting the burden on newer cards to break in to an entrenched metagame. His popularity also means he gets more (and IMO better) feedback from a wider variety of people, and he takes that feedback into consideration when he makes choices. I don't even particularly like his Cube. I think it's fine. But I think his general approach is much, much healthier than ours.
I think every comment after that basically reflects what my problem is with this general ethos. It's not particularly important that you understand why a person designs their Cube a particular way. It matters once you're trying to help them accomplish their goal, since you want to clarify what those goals are, but the response here seems to generally be "you should have a different goal." The complete refusal to acknowledge that maybe someone has a reason for doing something differently than you do other than incompetence is extremely off-putting. You might not feel like you force a particular style of play down players' throats, but I sure feel that way about conversations here. It's just a different style of play that you like more.
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there will always be the player that wants to play the solitaire game, because over time it has proven, its the most efficient way to actually win the game. again, here comes the problem with the cube format, the spike will always draft the strongest cards, no matter what and ignore the rest. and he will probably refuse to play the cube if everything is "fair" as you experienced yourself.
so at least in my logic i will provide him with the solitaire deck but balance the cube so its not beating everything else. the blink combo deck in my t2 is strong once you get the combo pieces together, but it completely folds to early aggression. there once was the idea of the magic trinity combo> beats control> beats aggro> beats combo. while midrange is somewhere in between and has a shot against everything. its a pretty good approach to cube design in my book.
again, solitaire is as much part of magic as the drawn out durdle game you prefer. I actually cant stand those endless standoff games where 20 creatures stare each other and the game wont go anywhere for x turns, because actually nobody is playing magic then. thats why i absolutely despise EDH btw.
@waymarsh: thing is, if you want to run a cube solely based on personal preferences and card choices why bother discussing it? if you feel youre way is the right way to build the cube there is nothing to argue about. there is no common ground we stand on and can discuss card choices. and i dont even exactly know where you want to go with your cube in the first place. so far all i remember is you want to slam together a goodstuff cube without any particular focus on any archetypes while also extremly picky on mana symbol balance.
besides, i doubt styborski gets more feedback on his cube than i got on mine. like just running it on xmage for 2 weeks gives me feedback from like 80 players on the latest version and who bothers to contact him anyway?
SaltMaster, I do appreciate wanting to tone down on swingy-ness. However, I also think swingy game play is a big part of Magic and most game. It's part of what goes missing in Battlebox, it's why the mana system is regularly replicated even though it obviously leads to inconsistent games, and the fact that some people like it doesn't make them worse people. It's a tight balance, and one you have to define a bit on your own. I dislike regular Cube because IMO, it's pretty much all swing. It's also why I don't like Tier 2. But I do think there's some room for swing in there. FWIW, I personally would have a hard time working with your group from the sounds of it.
Humphrey, how very appropriate for you to bring something into the conversation that wasn't really under discussion! The reason to talk about it in a forum is so that you can find people who might try to appreciate the different thing that you are going for and give suggestions based on your stated preferences and goals. I feel like there are many right ways to build Cube. I think there are better and worse ways to talk about Cube, and this forum follows one of the worse ways. What my Cube is going for is not actually super relevant to this conversation, or relevant at all? This was a conversation about why users feel unwelcome here. The fact that you have responded by bringing up my (not really under discussion right now) Cube in about the most negative light possible and mis-characterize the color requirements (if anything, I think I'm the opposite of picky about color requirements) speaks to why that might be the case.
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Chess isn't swingy unless you earn it or your opponent makes a big blunder and that's the best game of all time.
Things can still swing games in my cube, but they're more often things like a key protection spell or removal spell or counter spell at the right time, or something like Standard Bearer. I had some incredibly close games with Mono black against my opponent's Big Dumb Simic Beaters deck. I had him down to three life and our boards were locked except for the fact that I had Vault Skirge that's a flier. But he had Ulamog's Crusher and put a Rancor on it. I was a bit low on life too so I ended up being a damage short, I just couldn't hold out for one more turn.
Just before that I had dropped a big Gary (peace be upon him) and thought I was winning.
These sorts of close games get less and less likely as there are more blowouts. If the door closes on turn 4 that's it, no more game. If I had access to Pestilence or he to Flicker or whatever, that game wouldn't have been as close or exciting as it was.
I don't see why I should have to cater to people who only want to play solitaire and break the game.
this leads to nowhere though. first of all, we shouldnt be too sensitive when it comes to criticizing each other point of view on cubedesign. you are pretty much also just saying our approach is ***** and yours is the next cool thing
idk, we established a common ground here, based on years of playing with lots of different people. i think we pretty much filtered quite well what works and brings players back to the table. so yeah, it might seem elitist or whatever, but its kinda tough to reinvent the wheel.
So if you dont want to follow our baseline and adjust it with personal preferences, me at least cant help there much. at one point everyone has to go through all the available commons on gatherer or the evaluation topic by himself i guess and make decisions. otherwise although it brings activity to the forum it also occupies our attention on things we cant really contribute to.
I think that's the core of the disagreement, SaltMaster. I think chess is a wonderful game that I like, but if I want to play Chess, I play Chess. When I want to play Magic, I play Magic. A big part of the difference is that Magic can swing in a way that Chess cannot. I think trying to sand off Magic's edges in an attempt to make it Not Quite Chess can go astray very quickly. I know I'm falling into the Battlebox problem here, but if your problem with Magic is that it is not enough like Chess, then I would strongly, strongly recommend Battlebox. I get the sense that you actually like swingyness a little bit more than you let on (your mana fixing very much reflects this), but in a different way than raw power. Hence, I think Cube is still a good call for you. But BB may be worth a shot as well.
I'm not sure why Flicker would have changed your game. Pestilence, sure. It's a balancing act, and you have to draw the line for you. However, given that your concern seems to be losing your playgroup, I think you need to design your Cube with enough concessions to their preferences at least. That basically sounds like where you're at, but it's also worth keeping in mind when you wonder why people respond a certain way to you or your Cube. I feel like I basically get what you're going for and try to cater my recommendations to that style, but I do feel like I have to second-guess every recommendation because my tolerance for swingy games is a little bit off from yours.
EDIT: Humphrey, I guess in my mind, my approach is "be more open minded" while yours is "be more close minded." If that is the dichotomy, then yes, I think that's a vein of criticism this forum could stand to hear more often. This forum only has like four people in it because only four people seem to really enjoy this type of conversation. I would like to see more people come in here having a variety of conversations that don't necessarily all include you or any other person.
4 active old people plus like 4 new people is actually an insane amount of activity during no-spoiler season lol. usually this forum is dead for month. paupercube is the nichest of the nichest cube and you also wont find any discussions regarding that topic anywhere else. every blue moon someone will post something on reddit about it, but thats it.
and as pyredream said, there is diminishing returns in discussions, since the old cards are sorted and usually only a handful of sidegrades enter the pool with latest sets. but yeah sure, feel free to open a topic about the beauty of the grind or so ^^
Yep, I think we're basically done here. Your attitude feels a bit like "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to me. The fact that four people is a generous estimate, on top of anything else, says to me that this system is incredibly broke. We're niche, but we're not that niche. Pauper is having its moment in a big way right now, and I have generally found Pauper Cube a pretty welcome format for a large variety of groups. There is something about playing with all commons that people like, even if they don't like it as much or in the same way as I do. I think that a more open environment would foster far more and better discussion, which is basically what I think Styb is getting that we are not. I hope that we find a way to get more of those voices in here.
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sure, id like to have more ppl around here and i usually promote this sub when i come across a reddit post. pauper constructed though is a quite good format actually that can pull of insane plays, not much worse than vintage and pretty on par with legacy while also being much much cheaper. its also supported in modo, where i guess it has the highes popularity.
but we aint constructed and as a long time paupercube enthusiast i must admit that the flavor of the new washes off pretty quickly, thats why i would always suggest going 540 or 720 when aiming for long(er) term satisfaction. unlinke vintage cubes, our format allows for only so much different iterations of the archetypes and you will see the same decks/cards pretty soon often enough. something that happens way less in my t2 btw, because there are quite a few cross-synergies.
btw checking styborskis cube, the latest version looks definitely a lot better than how its used to look. there are still some very questionable inclusions in there, some roleplayers are missing imho and the gold section seems a little too much, but okay. he is running the weird number of 409 cards though which tbh thats still just a little lazy design to me.
That's really the point of all of this. I don't think it matters how much you advertise if the forum is always going to work the way that it works right now. I knew about this forum for ages, I just didn't want to participate in it.
Pauper Limited and Pauper Constructed are very different formats, it's true. I still think the core appeal is very similar.
Cube size is an extremely important question. I think an underrated aspect of Pauper Cube is that there are certain cards that people just want to play when they show up to play. It's the same reason that MTGO Cube and MTGO Holiday Cube are different sizes. Both are going to be drafted so often that you want some variety. Holiday is smaller because if you're not going to draft power when drafting a power cube, what's even the point? Personally, there are some Pauper cards that very much fall into that "if I can't play with this or something like this, what's the point?" zone, which is why 450 is and likely always will be my goal.
It seems less lazy than less formalistic to me. I think that this is a good decision that I embrace. I don't see a serious reason to dilute Cube size just so you can have a square number of cards in it.
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Waymarsh, I am going with Humphrey's T1 cube. The reasons I decided to go with his is because it is 360 and higher on the power scale. I do not know who the cube will end up going to, so I can't build to their taste. I feel like his cube will appeal to the larger chunk of my playgroup.
Went through some of my left over Peasant cube cards I replaced with foils and found some cards. I haven't even started through my bulk yet. A lot of work ahead of me. Haha.
Day 1 progress 31/360.
420 is my cube size. I had 375 to support booster tutor at the full 8 players, then realized that 45+375 is 420 lol.
What's a battlebox? I like drafting, what got me into cube was drafting a vintage cube after the Pauper game night. I didn't really like the cards themselves, but the drafting process is cool.
I also have plenty of constructed Pauper decks, like 10-15 put together at any one time.
I like Cube, mine just doesn't have to have any dumb bombs in it. To me, the express purpose of cube is to play with cards you like and want to play with, not include X card because X card is a Pauper staple. I like quirky interactions and fun, fair, interactive Magic.
So when I swing with a creature, Oasis it to save it, and then my opponent taps Gravel Slinger to kill it in response, that's exciting to me.
@SaltMaster: Yeah, I kind of figured that you liked the drafting process, which is why I was hesitant to recommend Battlebox. Unfortunately, high variance is a big part of the draft experience as well. Here are some rules for it. But basically, you have a set of lands that you play from, 1 of each Basic and 5 gates in some sorts of GOR/RNA alignment. You play from a communal deck consisting of sweet two for ones and interesting tricks. A properly designed Battlebox eliminates as much of the variance in Magic as it can. Also, win rates with Battlebox generally line up much better with relative play skill than in most other formats (so the better player wins when playing Battlebox the VAST majority of the time). It's like Magic and Chess had a baby, but it's different enough from Magic that I'm not entirely sure I even consider it the same game.
I'm not a casual. The idea of a communal deck is a turn off.
Generally casuals think that a fun game involves alternative formats with zany rules instead of just fixing the default game itself to be more fun. This results in having to play dumb formats that are often more broken than the default game.
I don't hate variance. I just hate broken nonsense.
Look, I think you'll like Battlebox. It's probably the most competitive (depending on how you define "competitive"), chess-like Magic variant that there is. It is not my favorite format because I like the parts of Magic that make Magic Magic. That includes swingy effects that you don't like. Your definition of "broken nonsense" (your definition is extraordinarily broad, IMO) and "casual" (your definition seems like it would require some editing or very narrow definition of some other stuff to not include behavior that you have said that you engage in) both feel like they do not mean to you what they mean to me. That's fine, I don't really have skin in the game whether you like it or not and I still basically think your Cube goal is a solid one, but it's a solid suggestion based on what you claim to enjoy.
EDIT: OK, I want to get into this one more because it does feel like part of the problem here. The cards that you keep using as examples are almost definitionally casual Magic cards. Cards like Healing Salve and Dash Hopes weren't even particularly good, much less playable, in their original, fairly low-power draft environment. Healing Salve is a low impact trick that only really elevates something from a trade to a better trade. You can talk about how hard the decision on Dash Hopes is all you want, but the reason that I do not run the card Dash Hopes in either Cube or Toshiro is that I do not enjoy playing the card Dash Hopes. The decision on what you do with the card is never all that hard, IMO. It's an unreliable counterspell or an unreliable burn spell, and there just aren't all that many matchups where both modes do anything relevant enough to make the decision difficult. You like them and think that they play well, and that is great! There is room in the world to design a Cube that both has some real power and that makes these cards not feel so out of place (Those cards were right next to Pyrohemia and Calciderm in Planar Chaos, albeit at a different rarity). However, if that is what you're going to do, it doesn't do much good to define yourself out of that word and then get angry with people when they suggest running cards that do not play at the lower power level that you are shooting for. Your insistence on not wanting to play stronger cards, but some weaker cards so that there's nice, fair Magic, is almost word for word what most casual players say. That is OK! You admit to regularly warping games and metas to meet your definition of what the good version of the game is. This is exactly what casual players do! But I think denying this is what is leading to a lot of the communication breakdown here.
My hatred of Tron is from competitive constructed Pauper. The competitive game would be better off without Ghostly Flicker because it makes playing the game less fun.
I love playing competitive Pauper. Here is my Mono Black Control deck that I top foured a Pauper 1k with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20757&d=337081&f=PAUIf I had the opportunity to fire paid draft events with my cube, I would.
If the game is fun and fair and interactive at a competitive level, it will be fun and fair at the casual level.
When casuals get together and make a format, the result is a 100 card singleton format that's only held together by gentleman's agreement. Or in X-Wing's case, it's Mario Kart X-Wing.
I don't see why I can't build a cube -sans degeneracy- and play cards that simply do interesting things simply because they do interesting things. Coal Stoker? Huh, that card looks interesting, I'll put that into my cube.
I've won two games with Dash Hopes. Last time I played White I used Healing Salve on Standard Bearer and my Standard Bearer survived a Bolt. Last time I drafted my cube, I was playing Simic and had 5 Splice Onto Arcane cards. In two consecutive games my Splice cards did a ton of work. These cards are okay and seem to work just fine.
I understand that some (Splice Onto) Arcane cards in my cube aren't really that good, like Psychic Puppetry. But I'm hesitant to take them out since they give you extra copies of other, better Splice cards. Being able to play your Horobi's Whisper or Kodama's Might multiple times over the course of a game in a singleton cube is pretty good.
Battlebox is not my thing. I hated DC 10, I hated Commander. I hate playing my friend's Legacy/Vintage (not sure which one it is) cube and only play it out of fairness to him. I only like Magic that's fun, fair, and interactive.
My hatred of Tron is from competitive constructed Pauper. The competitive game would be better off without Ghostly Flicker because it makes playing the game less fun.
If the game is fun and fair and interactive at a competitive level, it will be fun and fair at the casual level.
When casuals get together and make a format, the result is a 100 card singleton format that's only held together by gentleman's agreement. Or in X-Wing's case, it's Mario Kart X-Wing.
I don't see why I can't build a cube -sans degeneracy- and play cards that simply do interesting things simply because they do interesting things. Coal Stoker? Huh, that card looks interesting, I'll put that into my cube.
I've won two games with Dash Hopes. Last time I played White I used Healing Salve on Standard Bearer and my Standard Bearer survived a Bolt. Last time I drafted my cube, I was playing Simic and had 5 Splice Onto Arcane cards. In two consecutive games my Splice cards did a ton of work. These cards are okay and seem to work just fine.
I understand that some (Splice Onto) Arcane cards in my cube aren't really that good, like Psychic Puppetry. But I'm hesitant to take them out since they give you extra copies of other, better Splice cards. Being able to play your Horobi's Whisper or Kodama's Might multiple times over the course of a game in a singleton cube is pretty good.
Battlebox is not my thing. I hated DC 10, I hated Commander. I hate playing my friend's Legacy/Vintage (not sure which one it is) cube and only play it out of fairness to him. I only like Magic that's fun, fair, and interactive.
I do not have a problem with the fact of how you build your cube or what cards you choose, however if you evaluate your cards in a this is not broken or this is a fun card kind of way. You should always add that to your question, otherwise it will result into a which card is the best, which obviously is not what you want for your cube. I have always been a more janky cube builder than the rest of the group here, trying things like an enchantment based cube, etc. But can you please consider the logic from the other side of the argument as well? This is for discussion of the cube itself and the last 3-4 pages have been a rather spiteful conversation.
So let's start over what is your main goal for this pauper cube?
Then we can maybe pitch in with our own advice, even if it is more related to pet cards than to staples.
Btw I do like the attempt with the splice cards, however in my view it is one of those mechanics where if you don't get enough of them during a draft you get stuck with the less playable ones. But then again I don't know with how many players your cube gets drafted regularly and hence what percentage gets left out. It's one of the mechanics in the group with infect, +1/+1 counters matter, etc. that I would love to play but that has too few playable cards in my eyes to truely make a draftable deck. If they ever return to Kamigawa however this might change drastically
Edit: unrelated to the previous paragraphs I can't remember can we get downshifts in the guild decks? Or do these remain the same?
Woah been gone for a couple of days and had to read alot :D.
First of all I hope that Charity thing turned out alright.
Secondly As everyone else basically stated in their own ways this seems like a huge miscommunication between all of us.
One guy stated that upon returning to competetive play he came across some elitist people telling him what he can ant can't play. And I feel the need to apologize because that is something I actually to in my casual playgroups as well (I do give my resoning for why I think some cards are "unplayable" IMO, but also say if you wanna play it play it). That is also my approach here. I already said I don't like statements without the resoning behind them because that helps noone.
In the end Everyone will build their cube the way they want it we can say what problems one might run into based on our own expierience, and tell how we solved/tried to solve those. I do think we can all get something from this discussion, so I hope we can continue calmly without the spite. And I apologize if I made some comments that sounded spiteful, that was not the intend.
Look, there's really nothing wrong with interpreting Cube as a draftable collection of cards that contains your personal favorites instead of the most powerful cards (which was originally the motivation of Cube btw).
But if you do that and you know that you've come to a forum where people have been testing the entire Gatherer up and down for what must be over 10 years now trying to find the 'better' and 'worse' cards and strategies, you can't be surprised if people disagree with your philosophy. Humphrey doesn't come out here to get feedback on his Medieval cube either. If I make a tree-flavored cube, because I like trees, I also wouldn't come here asking people how good they think Scarwood Treefolk was, expecting positive feedback on a card that is totally irrelevant in terms of power level. If you show up to a Vintage tournament with Gilded Lotus over Black Lotus just because you like gold things, do you really expect people to be open minded and accept your preference instead of turning you into the meme of the day?
The original idea behind cubes was to create a limited environment with the 'best' cards available. Soon people would figure out that 'best' doesn't mean 'most powerful' per se, because things like mana curves, deck archetypes and whatnot work their way into the equation as well, but the goal was always to facilitate the strongest possible decks.
Now, of course it may be true that this original idea has been becoming less prevalent and important over the years, however, keep in mind what the purpose of something like this forum is and how a discussion about a 'format' can only work. We've been using the power level argument for literally everything - every new set spoilers thread, every This or That thread, etc - for the past X years because that's the only common ground we have on which to discuss card choices. What's the purpose if someone opens a topic about the best blue 4-drop and answers range from 'Illusionary Forces, because I like dreadlocks' over 'Ghost Ship, because my Cube is pirate-flavored' to 'I don't run blue cards in my cube cause I'm Republican oxlol'.
Either we dissolve this entire forum and call it 'forum for anyone who has some draftable pile of cards' in which noone can share opinions on anything because there's no common ground, or we try to find the best common ground and accept that anything that is garbage on that common ground will be called garbage by other posters. Well then, if anyone can think of a more suitable common ground than power level, feel free to enlighten us. Till then, I'll be the old fashioned and outdated guy who actually enjoys trying to get the most power out of commons and try to balance the best cards out by making other things more powerful through synergies instead of banning the best cards one after the other until gray ogres bash into bears and squires. If I draft someone else's cube and the decks I'm getting will lose to an average deck from my own cube 75% of the time, I'll take that as a sign that I (in my personal cube philosophy, which is also the original cube philosophy) did a better job than that person and I'd rather draft my own cube again. Pretty sure this phenomenon is also what occurred to Humphrey when he saw say Guardian of the Guildpact alongside a bunch of tier 5 commons in the same pack. I don't fault him for that.
You should've got the memo by now... but common ground is literally everything that matters. Other formats have a common ground too, and anyone who's willing to discuss that format has to accept that common ground or sit down at that kitchen table over there and talk to someone who wants to listen.
SaltMaster, I think this is still very much in the same wheelhouse. The fact that you can/do play some version of the game at a competitive level does not make you not "a casual." The contempt with which you treat that term, when your general goals with your Cube so closely align with casual goals, is my only issue with your last statement, because I think it speaks to why things get so heated when talking with you.
If you can count the games that you won with one card on one hand, there's a pretty decent chance that it's not a particularly strong Magic card. Your use of Healing Salve is pretty much the card's best case scenario that similar cards that are even in the same cycle (Giant Growth) can accomplish as well, with considerably more upside. I have said repeatedly that there is room in the world for a Cube that runs lower power level cards like those and higher power level cards, and even gave an example of a printed expansion that basically did that. I even think it's a worthwhile goal. But that does not change the fact that those cards are fairly low power level. We do not play these cards because there are many stronger options. It's OK if you want to build a Cube that supports these kinds of cards, and I'm happy to help you with it to the extent that I can. But we also have to remember that that is what we're trying to do.
The Battlebox thing is a good example of where my issue comes in. Humphrey gave a solid possible format for you to explore, I think it also lines up with the Magic that you describe wanting and support this recommendation as a Plan B, you don't want to try it. That's fine. But the way in which you don't want to try it is dripping with contempt, for a class of player that you frankly seem to align very closely with, and actively ignores my repeated efforts to work with your stated goals.
And yeah, I want to apologize for my part in where this is at as well. I wanted to defend SaltMaster a little bit, because I definitely saw where he was coming from, but also recognized why people were responding so negatively to him. On a personal level, I feel like this comes through, but just to make it explicit: I followed this forum off and on for at least three years, and did not join because I found the prospect of interacting with one player specifically draining and joyless. So there is some pent up aggression in my interactions with that player, which have basically lived up to the hype. However, I do think that this forum has a great deal of potential, it just needs some occasional self regulation when behavior that scares people away in the same way that it scared me away for three years happens.
EDIT: I disagree with pretty much every part of Izor's post. I think there is plenty of room for the sorts of discussions that he is talking about, so long as we are all on the same page about the specific Cube that we are talking about. It doesn't even require the dissolution of the forum. I think the fact that that does seem necessary speaks to just how incredibly insular this forum has become. Maybe we should talk about it in other threads, I don't know (although I personally don't think this). But the idea that it is just unreasonable to talk about anything other than power when the (generally, seemingly, much more popular, friendly, and active) Peasant thread is right there seems... Pretty disingenuous. At this point I'm almost tempted to just say post off-beat Pauper cubes in the Peasant thread because they might actually be helpful, but I think that's extremely unfair to the Peasant people. We can and should be doing that work.
SaltMaster, I think this is still very much in the same wheelhouse. The fact that you can/do play some version of the game at a competitive level does not make you not "a casual." The contempt with which you treat that term, when your general goals with your Cube so closely align with casual goals, is my only issue with your last statement, because I think it speaks to why things get so heated when talking with you.
If you can count the games that you won with one card on one hand, there's a pretty decent chance that it's not a particularly strong Magic card. Your use of Healing Salve is pretty much the card's best case scenario that similar cards that are even in the same cycle (Giant Growth) can accomplish as well, with considerably more upside. I have said repeatedly that there is room in the world for a Cube that runs lower power level cards like those and higher power level cards, and even gave an example of a printed expansion that basically did that. I even think it's a worthwhile goal. But that does not change the fact that those cards are fairly low power level. We do not play these cards because there are many stronger options. It's OK if you want to build a Cube that supports these kinds of cards, and I'm happy to help you with it to the extent that I can. But we also have to remember that that is what we're trying to do.
The Battlebox thing is a good example of where my issue comes in. Humphrey gave a solid possible format for you to explore, I think it also lines up with the Magic that you describe wanting and support this recommendation as a Plan B, you don't want to try it. That's fine. But the way in which you don't want to try it is dripping with contempt, for a class of player that you frankly seem to align very closely with, and actively ignores my repeated efforts to work with your stated goals.
And yeah, I want to apologize for my part in where this is at as well. I wanted to defend SaltMaster a little bit, because I definitely saw where he was coming from, but also recognized why people were responding so negatively to him. On a personal level, I feel like this comes through, but just to make it explicit: I followed this forum off and on for at least three years, and did not join because I found the prospect of interacting with one player specifically draining and joyless. So there is some pent up aggression in my interactions with that player, which have basically lived up to the hype. However, I do think that this forum has a great deal of potential, it just needs some occasional self regulation when behavior that scares people away in the same way that it scared me away for three years happens.
EDIT: I disagree with pretty much every part of Izor's post. I think there is plenty of room for the sorts of discussions that he is talking about, so long as we are all on the same page about the specific Cube that we are talking about. It doesn't even require the dissolution of the forum. I think the fact that that does seem necessary speaks to just how incredibly insular this forum has become. Maybe we should talk about it in other threads, I don't know (although I personally don't think this). But the idea that it is just unreasonable to talk about anything other than power when the (generally, seemingly, much more popular, friendly, and active) Peasant thread is right there seems... Pretty disingenuous. At this point I'm almost tempted to just say post off-beat Pauper cubes in the Peasant thread because they might actually be helpful, but I think that's extremely unfair to the Peasant people. We can and should be doing that work.
I forgot to state another reason behind my contempt for casuals.
X-Wing is played competitively by many people who only play the game because certain characters are in it or only because they like Star Wars or because they like oogling at certain ship models, not because they actually like the core game mechanics. So what happens is that when they release something broken for the game, you have a bunch of players who don't give a **** about how terrible the game plays because Dash Rendar's YT-2400 Freighter can ignore all of the game's rules and carry them and Shadows of the Empire on N64 is their favorite game. The game is pre-painted and pre-assembled despite being a miniatures game, so the barrier to entry is real low.
So what happens is that they take their beer and pretzels attitude to competitive events. If they miss a trigger they will get genuinely angry with you and tell you to, "Fly casual" and start insulting you. Someone telling you to stop taking the game so seriously as their scolding you over something that to them is, "just a game bro" is irritating, to say the least.
Also, when intentional draws were legalized in the game's rules, the first major tournament after the ID legalization had the entire top 8 of the tournament ID into the cut. One of these players was the three time consecutive world champion for the game. A large portion of the community started insulting these players, even the first world champion called the 3 time world champion a "******* disgrace" or something like that, I'm paraphrasing.
All of this coupled with the fact that the only alternative formats to the broken game were poorly thought out broken Griffball nonsense makes me despise casuals.
Casuals routinely engage in hating the player, not the game. All win at all costs (WAAC) players I've ever met have been polite, professional, and friendly.
If you've ever read Ender's Game, Bonzo Madrid is basically the epitome of casual to me.
I don't want to go too far into this, because I don't see how it lends itself to Cube discussion. But, I do have to ask: Do you seriously not think that's how you come across here?
Art criticism, though... That's not really our jam. I hope he finds a group who both plays with him and is willing to have those conversations.
I think that introducing to more open formats is fine, but I really, really don't think "maybe Cube isn't for you" is anywhere in the ballpark or even same sport of a neutral statement. What is or is not a Cube is a broad concept, one that my "basically your personal Magic set" doesn't even encompass. Exposure to new formats is good, but the "maybe this broad format isn't for you" statement is hard for me to read as anything other than very negative, especially when all he really wanted to seem to do was design a Cube differently from you.
I might roll it again, but every part of Tier 2 feels like bad regular cube designed by someone who doesn't want the same stuff from Magic that I do. That's fine, almost everyone likes regular Cube more than I do and I am sure that it has its audience, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't like its design philosophy.
I think Toman1 is basically where I'm at. I quit playing EDH because I got tired of people asking "why would you even do that?" when I built decks that spoke to my very specific preferences. That is the format that is explicitly supposed to be about just building a deck that lets you play the Magic that you want to play with little emphasis on winning! I gravitated toward Cube because it basically let me define the type of Magic that I was playing with everybody on the same page. That does not really seem to be the spirit in this forum. Just to make it explicit, I think that Styb's Cube is more popular than any of ours because it is more fun to play for more people. We don't need to design our Cubes to appeal to anyone other than ourselves, but I think that it's worth remembering what a niche product we're creating whenever we decide to make the Cube better tailored to our interests.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
you might like it, but we pretty much suspect party why our format is such a niche because a lot of interested players run into his one first and then turn away after trying his. nobody wants to play an unfocused limited without any deeper strategies or synergies usually. and i really wonder what exactly is it that you like about his cube. if you like random metas, dont bother building a cube and just throw together a bunch of commons and draft them, which is basically what he did.
when it comes to design philosophy on this forum, pretty much all of us want to give the players the most possible options to find their preferred playstyle. at best the cube supports something for the spike, the timmy and the johnny and roughly contains the major archetypes aggro, midrange, control and to an extend even combo. our approach is defintely not to force our preferred playstyle down the throats of the players, because usually they wont be playing again then, unless they share the same likings. again playing such a toned down version of magic is pretty niche in the first place, no reason to tighten it even further.
i also dont understand why you would chose to create a paupercube for that purpose in the first place anyway. like i said, i also run a very flavor and fringe card driven cube with my medieval, but having all rarities available makes it soo much more interesting for everyone to play the version of magic i think it should be like.
at least in my experience players like to find the (rewarding) hidden interactions and synergies and "solve" the meta, very few have fun seeing vanilla-bear beats gray-ogre-with-a-drawback, then draw go for 3 turns and play an overcosted permanent that basially does nothing. sure there might be some hidden interactions as well, but they need to feel better than just gain 2 life or something in the lines of that.
when it comes to designing a powered cube is not just throwing together the best commons, because a lot of discussions here revolve around how cards interact with each other and influence their powerlevel. balancing the evolving archetypes against each other and how meanwhile keeping the game still fun and interesting is also necessary.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I used to play a game called X-Wing Miniatures. That game was perpetually broken despite having fantastic game mechanics. Like, "I'm chucking spears and you have thermonuclear missiles" broken. When I finally got fed up with the game, I made a format that cut out most of the problems with the game and forced everyone to play fun, fair, vanilla X-Wing. But it wasn't balanced, I had left one broken thing in that dominated that alternative format. So when I removed that one last broken thing all of a sudden no one wanted to play the format anymore despite it being fixed.
This coupled with arguing with the entire /r/pauper subreddit about how clearly broken and unfun decks like Tron (and then getting banned for stating these basic truths) basically solidified the idea in my head that most players of most "constructed collectible games" (say, Magic, X-Wing, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc.) don't actually want to interact with their opponents, just have easy wins handed to them by broken nonsense.
I sealed drafted my cube with the local Tron player. He made an Azorius deck and played Cessation. When he swung in I warned him that my creature could still block, and he said, "Wait, what? I didn't read this card. Yeah, this card is really bad." Then he proceeded to fish through his sideboard and just swapped it for another card mid game.
Modern 'eurogame' board games frustrate me too. Most modern board games are just arbitrary, "I can combine red cubes and blue cubes into purple cubes, and then trade 3 purple cubes in for victory points better than you!" contests. They have zero interaction in them, and everyone is in reality playing solitaire games and after 40 minutes everyone pulls out their phones and the person with the highest number on their calculator wins. Neat. Look at how Five Tribes and Quadropolis work.
So this sort of, "Multiplayer Solitaire" has also seeped into Magic. I show up to the game night to play Magic and my opponent showed up to play solitaire with Bogles, Tron, Kiln Fiend, Storm, etc. This is frustrating.
So I instantly go into defense mode and get angry. I begin arguments just assuming that my opponent doesn't actually enjoy playing Magic, just eating glue. I feel encroached upon by someone else's poor taste, because even the simple removal of a some busted staple like Ghostly Flicker and the addition of a card like Dash Hopes could theoretically spell the end of me getting to play with my cube. It spelled the end of No Uniques, No Duplicates X-Wing for me.
The first cube I actually got was Adam Styborski's cube. I got to draft it like 2.5 times. The guy with aspergers in our playgroup exclaimed, "This cube is ******* terrible I'd never draft it again" and the other players felt the same way. So I built Othesemo's cube upon recommendation of one of my friends and have been altering it to my tastes ever since.
My opinion on Adam's cube is that it is kind of bad actually. One player gets Elephant Ambush and the other player gets Pestilence, Guardian of the Guildpact, Custodi Squire, and Prismatic Strands. But if those peices of power were taken out then it's probably okay. It's one thing if there are some B or D cards in a sea of C cards, it's another when there are A+ cards in a sea of C cards.
I do listen to some suggestions. When a card is truly unplayable I do take it out. I've taken out Sunken City and Mightstone upon recommendation from someone in this thread.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
I think every comment after that basically reflects what my problem is with this general ethos. It's not particularly important that you understand why a person designs their Cube a particular way. It matters once you're trying to help them accomplish their goal, since you want to clarify what those goals are, but the response here seems to generally be "you should have a different goal." The complete refusal to acknowledge that maybe someone has a reason for doing something differently than you do other than incompetence is extremely off-putting. You might not feel like you force a particular style of play down players' throats, but I sure feel that way about conversations here. It's just a different style of play that you like more.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
so at least in my logic i will provide him with the solitaire deck but balance the cube so its not beating everything else. the blink combo deck in my t2 is strong once you get the combo pieces together, but it completely folds to early aggression. there once was the idea of the magic trinity combo> beats control> beats aggro> beats combo. while midrange is somewhere in between and has a shot against everything. its a pretty good approach to cube design in my book.
again, solitaire is as much part of magic as the drawn out durdle game you prefer. I actually cant stand those endless standoff games where 20 creatures stare each other and the game wont go anywhere for x turns, because actually nobody is playing magic then. thats why i absolutely despise EDH btw.
@waymarsh: thing is, if you want to run a cube solely based on personal preferences and card choices why bother discussing it? if you feel youre way is the right way to build the cube there is nothing to argue about. there is no common ground we stand on and can discuss card choices. and i dont even exactly know where you want to go with your cube in the first place. so far all i remember is you want to slam together a goodstuff cube without any particular focus on any archetypes while also extremly picky on mana symbol balance.
besides, i doubt styborski gets more feedback on his cube than i got on mine. like just running it on xmage for 2 weeks gives me feedback from like 80 players on the latest version and who bothers to contact him anyway?
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Humphrey, how very appropriate for you to bring something into the conversation that wasn't really under discussion! The reason to talk about it in a forum is so that you can find people who might try to appreciate the different thing that you are going for and give suggestions based on your stated preferences and goals. I feel like there are many right ways to build Cube. I think there are better and worse ways to talk about Cube, and this forum follows one of the worse ways. What my Cube is going for is not actually super relevant to this conversation, or relevant at all? This was a conversation about why users feel unwelcome here. The fact that you have responded by bringing up my (not really under discussion right now) Cube in about the most negative light possible and mis-characterize the color requirements (if anything, I think I'm the opposite of picky about color requirements) speaks to why that might be the case.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
Things can still swing games in my cube, but they're more often things like a key protection spell or removal spell or counter spell at the right time, or something like Standard Bearer. I had some incredibly close games with Mono black against my opponent's Big Dumb Simic Beaters deck. I had him down to three life and our boards were locked except for the fact that I had Vault Skirge that's a flier. But he had Ulamog's Crusher and put a Rancor on it. I was a bit low on life too so I ended up being a damage short, I just couldn't hold out for one more turn.
Just before that I had dropped a big Gary (peace be upon him) and thought I was winning.
These sorts of close games get less and less likely as there are more blowouts. If the door closes on turn 4 that's it, no more game. If I had access to Pestilence or he to Flicker or whatever, that game wouldn't have been as close or exciting as it was.
I don't see why I should have to cater to people who only want to play solitaire and break the game.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
idk, we established a common ground here, based on years of playing with lots of different people. i think we pretty much filtered quite well what works and brings players back to the table. so yeah, it might seem elitist or whatever, but its kinda tough to reinvent the wheel.
So if you dont want to follow our baseline and adjust it with personal preferences, me at least cant help there much. at one point everyone has to go through all the available commons on gatherer or the evaluation topic by himself i guess and make decisions. otherwise although it brings activity to the forum it also occupies our attention on things we cant really contribute to.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I'm not sure why Flicker would have changed your game. Pestilence, sure. It's a balancing act, and you have to draw the line for you. However, given that your concern seems to be losing your playgroup, I think you need to design your Cube with enough concessions to their preferences at least. That basically sounds like where you're at, but it's also worth keeping in mind when you wonder why people respond a certain way to you or your Cube. I feel like I basically get what you're going for and try to cater my recommendations to that style, but I do feel like I have to second-guess every recommendation because my tolerance for swingy games is a little bit off from yours.
EDIT: Humphrey, I guess in my mind, my approach is "be more open minded" while yours is "be more close minded." If that is the dichotomy, then yes, I think that's a vein of criticism this forum could stand to hear more often. This forum only has like four people in it because only four people seem to really enjoy this type of conversation. I would like to see more people come in here having a variety of conversations that don't necessarily all include you or any other person.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
and as pyredream said, there is diminishing returns in discussions, since the old cards are sorted and usually only a handful of sidegrades enter the pool with latest sets. but yeah sure, feel free to open a topic about the beauty of the grind or so ^^
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
but we aint constructed and as a long time paupercube enthusiast i must admit that the flavor of the new washes off pretty quickly, thats why i would always suggest going 540 or 720 when aiming for long(er) term satisfaction. unlinke vintage cubes, our format allows for only so much different iterations of the archetypes and you will see the same decks/cards pretty soon often enough. something that happens way less in my t2 btw, because there are quite a few cross-synergies.
btw checking styborskis cube, the latest version looks definitely a lot better than how its used to look. there are still some very questionable inclusions in there, some roleplayers are missing imho and the gold section seems a little too much, but okay. he is running the weird number of 409 cards though which tbh thats still just a little lazy design to me.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Pauper Limited and Pauper Constructed are very different formats, it's true. I still think the core appeal is very similar.
Cube size is an extremely important question. I think an underrated aspect of Pauper Cube is that there are certain cards that people just want to play when they show up to play. It's the same reason that MTGO Cube and MTGO Holiday Cube are different sizes. Both are going to be drafted so often that you want some variety. Holiday is smaller because if you're not going to draft power when drafting a power cube, what's even the point? Personally, there are some Pauper cards that very much fall into that "if I can't play with this or something like this, what's the point?" zone, which is why 450 is and likely always will be my goal.
It seems less lazy than less formalistic to me. I think that this is a good decision that I embrace. I don't see a serious reason to dilute Cube size just so you can have a square number of cards in it.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
Went through some of my left over Peasant cube cards I replaced with foils and found some cards. I haven't even started through my bulk yet. A lot of work ahead of me. Haha.
Day 1 progress 31/360.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/36546
My Peasant Cube Forum
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/682833-360-peasant-hasteds-cube
My Riviera Live Draft Cube
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/35647
What's a battlebox? I like drafting, what got me into cube was drafting a vintage cube after the Pauper game night. I didn't really like the cards themselves, but the drafting process is cool.
I also have plenty of constructed Pauper decks, like 10-15 put together at any one time.
I like Cube, mine just doesn't have to have any dumb bombs in it. To me, the express purpose of cube is to play with cards you like and want to play with, not include X card because X card is a Pauper staple. I like quirky interactions and fun, fair, interactive Magic.
So when I swing with a creature, Oasis it to save it, and then my opponent taps Gravel Slinger to kill it in response, that's exciting to me.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
@SaltMaster: Yeah, I kind of figured that you liked the drafting process, which is why I was hesitant to recommend Battlebox. Unfortunately, high variance is a big part of the draft experience as well. Here are some rules for it. But basically, you have a set of lands that you play from, 1 of each Basic and 5 gates in some sorts of GOR/RNA alignment. You play from a communal deck consisting of sweet two for ones and interesting tricks. A properly designed Battlebox eliminates as much of the variance in Magic as it can. Also, win rates with Battlebox generally line up much better with relative play skill than in most other formats (so the better player wins when playing Battlebox the VAST majority of the time). It's like Magic and Chess had a baby, but it's different enough from Magic that I'm not entirely sure I even consider it the same game.
EDIT: Given your... Strong position on aesthetics, I might recommend looking at this one to start. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/introducing-the-old-school-battle-box/.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
Generally casuals think that a fun game involves alternative formats with zany rules instead of just fixing the default game itself to be more fun. This results in having to play dumb formats that are often more broken than the default game.
I don't hate variance. I just hate broken nonsense.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
EDIT: OK, I want to get into this one more because it does feel like part of the problem here. The cards that you keep using as examples are almost definitionally casual Magic cards. Cards like Healing Salve and Dash Hopes weren't even particularly good, much less playable, in their original, fairly low-power draft environment. Healing Salve is a low impact trick that only really elevates something from a trade to a better trade. You can talk about how hard the decision on Dash Hopes is all you want, but the reason that I do not run the card Dash Hopes in either Cube or Toshiro is that I do not enjoy playing the card Dash Hopes. The decision on what you do with the card is never all that hard, IMO. It's an unreliable counterspell or an unreliable burn spell, and there just aren't all that many matchups where both modes do anything relevant enough to make the decision difficult. You like them and think that they play well, and that is great! There is room in the world to design a Cube that both has some real power and that makes these cards not feel so out of place (Those cards were right next to Pyrohemia and Calciderm in Planar Chaos, albeit at a different rarity). However, if that is what you're going to do, it doesn't do much good to define yourself out of that word and then get angry with people when they suggest running cards that do not play at the lower power level that you are shooting for. Your insistence on not wanting to play stronger cards, but some weaker cards so that there's nice, fair Magic, is almost word for word what most casual players say. That is OK! You admit to regularly warping games and metas to meet your definition of what the good version of the game is. This is exactly what casual players do! But I think denying this is what is leading to a lot of the communication breakdown here.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
My hatred of Tron is from competitive constructed Pauper. The competitive game would be better off without Ghostly Flicker because it makes playing the game less fun.
I love playing competitive Pauper. Here is my Mono Black Control deck that I top foured a Pauper 1k with: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20757&d=337081&f=PAUIf I had the opportunity to fire paid draft events with my cube, I would.
If the game is fun and fair and interactive at a competitive level, it will be fun and fair at the casual level.
When casuals get together and make a format, the result is a 100 card singleton format that's only held together by gentleman's agreement. Or in X-Wing's case, it's Mario Kart X-Wing.
I don't see why I can't build a cube -sans degeneracy- and play cards that simply do interesting things simply because they do interesting things. Coal Stoker? Huh, that card looks interesting, I'll put that into my cube.
I've won two games with Dash Hopes. Last time I played White I used Healing Salve on Standard Bearer and my Standard Bearer survived a Bolt. Last time I drafted my cube, I was playing Simic and had 5 Splice Onto Arcane cards. In two consecutive games my Splice cards did a ton of work. These cards are okay and seem to work just fine.
I understand that some (Splice Onto) Arcane cards in my cube aren't really that good, like Psychic Puppetry. But I'm hesitant to take them out since they give you extra copies of other, better Splice cards. Being able to play your Horobi's Whisper or Kodama's Might multiple times over the course of a game in a singleton cube is pretty good.
Battlebox is not my thing. I hated DC 10, I hated Commander. I hate playing my friend's Legacy/Vintage (not sure which one it is) cube and only play it out of fairness to him. I only like Magic that's fun, fair, and interactive.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
I do not have a problem with the fact of how you build your cube or what cards you choose, however if you evaluate your cards in a this is not broken or this is a fun card kind of way. You should always add that to your question, otherwise it will result into a which card is the best, which obviously is not what you want for your cube. I have always been a more janky cube builder than the rest of the group here, trying things like an enchantment based cube, etc. But can you please consider the logic from the other side of the argument as well? This is for discussion of the cube itself and the last 3-4 pages have been a rather spiteful conversation.
So let's start over what is your main goal for this pauper cube?
Then we can maybe pitch in with our own advice, even if it is more related to pet cards than to staples.
Btw I do like the attempt with the splice cards, however in my view it is one of those mechanics where if you don't get enough of them during a draft you get stuck with the less playable ones. But then again I don't know with how many players your cube gets drafted regularly and hence what percentage gets left out. It's one of the mechanics in the group with infect, +1/+1 counters matter, etc. that I would love to play but that has too few playable cards in my eyes to truely make a draftable deck. If they ever return to Kamigawa however this might change drastically
Edit: unrelated to the previous paragraphs I can't remember can we get downshifts in the guild decks? Or do these remain the same?
Brainz Archetypes/Synergies Thread [WIP]
First of all I hope that Charity thing turned out alright.
Secondly As everyone else basically stated in their own ways this seems like a huge miscommunication between all of us.
One guy stated that upon returning to competetive play he came across some elitist people telling him what he can ant can't play. And I feel the need to apologize because that is something I actually to in my casual playgroups as well (I do give my resoning for why I think some cards are "unplayable" IMO, but also say if you wanna play it play it). That is also my approach here. I already said I don't like statements without the resoning behind them because that helps noone.
In the end Everyone will build their cube the way they want it we can say what problems one might run into based on our own expierience, and tell how we solved/tried to solve those. I do think we can all get something from this discussion, so I hope we can continue calmly without the spite. And I apologize if I made some comments that sounded spiteful, that was not the intend.
But if you do that and you know that you've come to a forum where people have been testing the entire Gatherer up and down for what must be over 10 years now trying to find the 'better' and 'worse' cards and strategies, you can't be surprised if people disagree with your philosophy. Humphrey doesn't come out here to get feedback on his Medieval cube either. If I make a tree-flavored cube, because I like trees, I also wouldn't come here asking people how good they think Scarwood Treefolk was, expecting positive feedback on a card that is totally irrelevant in terms of power level. If you show up to a Vintage tournament with Gilded Lotus over Black Lotus just because you like gold things, do you really expect people to be open minded and accept your preference instead of turning you into the meme of the day?
The original idea behind cubes was to create a limited environment with the 'best' cards available. Soon people would figure out that 'best' doesn't mean 'most powerful' per se, because things like mana curves, deck archetypes and whatnot work their way into the equation as well, but the goal was always to facilitate the strongest possible decks.
Now, of course it may be true that this original idea has been becoming less prevalent and important over the years, however, keep in mind what the purpose of something like this forum is and how a discussion about a 'format' can only work. We've been using the power level argument for literally everything - every new set spoilers thread, every This or That thread, etc - for the past X years because that's the only common ground we have on which to discuss card choices. What's the purpose if someone opens a topic about the best blue 4-drop and answers range from 'Illusionary Forces, because I like dreadlocks' over 'Ghost Ship, because my Cube is pirate-flavored' to 'I don't run blue cards in my cube cause I'm Republican oxlol'.
Either we dissolve this entire forum and call it 'forum for anyone who has some draftable pile of cards' in which noone can share opinions on anything because there's no common ground, or we try to find the best common ground and accept that anything that is garbage on that common ground will be called garbage by other posters. Well then, if anyone can think of a more suitable common ground than power level, feel free to enlighten us. Till then, I'll be the old fashioned and outdated guy who actually enjoys trying to get the most power out of commons and try to balance the best cards out by making other things more powerful through synergies instead of banning the best cards one after the other until gray ogres bash into bears and squires. If I draft someone else's cube and the decks I'm getting will lose to an average deck from my own cube 75% of the time, I'll take that as a sign that I (in my personal cube philosophy, which is also the original cube philosophy) did a better job than that person and I'd rather draft my own cube again. Pretty sure this phenomenon is also what occurred to Humphrey when he saw say Guardian of the Guildpact alongside a bunch of tier 5 commons in the same pack. I don't fault him for that.
You should've got the memo by now... but common ground is literally everything that matters. Other formats have a common ground too, and anyone who's willing to discuss that format has to accept that common ground or sit down at that kitchen table over there and talk to someone who wants to listen.
Back to the shadows we go.
- Last Word
If you can count the games that you won with one card on one hand, there's a pretty decent chance that it's not a particularly strong Magic card. Your use of Healing Salve is pretty much the card's best case scenario that similar cards that are even in the same cycle (Giant Growth) can accomplish as well, with considerably more upside. I have said repeatedly that there is room in the world for a Cube that runs lower power level cards like those and higher power level cards, and even gave an example of a printed expansion that basically did that. I even think it's a worthwhile goal. But that does not change the fact that those cards are fairly low power level. We do not play these cards because there are many stronger options. It's OK if you want to build a Cube that supports these kinds of cards, and I'm happy to help you with it to the extent that I can. But we also have to remember that that is what we're trying to do.
The Battlebox thing is a good example of where my issue comes in. Humphrey gave a solid possible format for you to explore, I think it also lines up with the Magic that you describe wanting and support this recommendation as a Plan B, you don't want to try it. That's fine. But the way in which you don't want to try it is dripping with contempt, for a class of player that you frankly seem to align very closely with, and actively ignores my repeated efforts to work with your stated goals.
And yeah, I want to apologize for my part in where this is at as well. I wanted to defend SaltMaster a little bit, because I definitely saw where he was coming from, but also recognized why people were responding so negatively to him. On a personal level, I feel like this comes through, but just to make it explicit: I followed this forum off and on for at least three years, and did not join because I found the prospect of interacting with one player specifically draining and joyless. So there is some pent up aggression in my interactions with that player, which have basically lived up to the hype. However, I do think that this forum has a great deal of potential, it just needs some occasional self regulation when behavior that scares people away in the same way that it scared me away for three years happens.
EDIT: I disagree with pretty much every part of Izor's post. I think there is plenty of room for the sorts of discussions that he is talking about, so long as we are all on the same page about the specific Cube that we are talking about. It doesn't even require the dissolution of the forum. I think the fact that that does seem necessary speaks to just how incredibly insular this forum has become. Maybe we should talk about it in other threads, I don't know (although I personally don't think this). But the idea that it is just unreasonable to talk about anything other than power when the (generally, seemingly, much more popular, friendly, and active) Peasant thread is right there seems... Pretty disingenuous. At this point I'm almost tempted to just say post off-beat Pauper cubes in the Peasant thread because they might actually be helpful, but I think that's extremely unfair to the Peasant people. We can and should be doing that work.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
I forgot to state another reason behind my contempt for casuals.
X-Wing is played competitively by many people who only play the game because certain characters are in it or only because they like Star Wars or because they like oogling at certain ship models, not because they actually like the core game mechanics. So what happens is that when they release something broken for the game, you have a bunch of players who don't give a **** about how terrible the game plays because Dash Rendar's YT-2400 Freighter can ignore all of the game's rules and carry them and Shadows of the Empire on N64 is their favorite game. The game is pre-painted and pre-assembled despite being a miniatures game, so the barrier to entry is real low.
So what happens is that they take their beer and pretzels attitude to competitive events. If they miss a trigger they will get genuinely angry with you and tell you to, "Fly casual" and start insulting you. Someone telling you to stop taking the game so seriously as their scolding you over something that to them is, "just a game bro" is irritating, to say the least.
Also, when intentional draws were legalized in the game's rules, the first major tournament after the ID legalization had the entire top 8 of the tournament ID into the cut. One of these players was the three time consecutive world champion for the game. A large portion of the community started insulting these players, even the first world champion called the 3 time world champion a "******* disgrace" or something like that, I'm paraphrasing.
All of this coupled with the fact that the only alternative formats to the broken game were poorly thought out broken Griffball nonsense makes me despise casuals.
Casuals routinely engage in hating the player, not the game. All win at all costs (WAAC) players I've ever met have been polite, professional, and friendly.
If you've ever read Ender's Game, Bonzo Madrid is basically the epitome of casual to me.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)