As I was cruising other people's cubes for ideas to fine tune my own, I came up with a few questions regarding dedicated support slots, and I wanted to pick your brains.
How many cards (or what percentage of your cards) in a certain theme/archetype do you need before it's worth running a dedicated support card? I'm talking things like Favorable Winds and Intangible Virtue. On their own, they do absolutely nothing, so there's got to be a threshold amount before it's worth considering.
I'd be inclined to be a lot more lenient with something like Thunderclap Wyvern because in a vacuum, it's still a flash flying 2/3 body. Or Mardu Woe-Reaper, which is primarily a 2/1 for W but offers a secondary gravehate/lifegain ability with Warrior synergy.
I would imagine this also depends on the size of the cube - a 360 has to run a lot tighter than a 720, so regardless of the percentage, it may not be worth running a dedicated support card (unless that's the only archetype you support in a given color).
i would never ever include a card that does nothing on its own, because even if you get the archetype together, it will still be a horrible topdeck. borerline cards can be added when you archetype supports 2 decks, so about 20-30cards.
I think it's fine to run support cards, as long as there are not too many of them. E.g., I do run [[Intangible Virtue]]. In my perspective, it's okay if these cards either support multiple archetypes (e.g., my cube supports both Boros go-wide token aggro, as well as Selesnya "big tokens", both of which will play intangible virtue), or are so strong for their archetype that I accept a dead card otherwise. The latter is especially true for guild cards.
I rarely find that anyone is short on playables in my cube, so having a few narrower cards is completely fine I think. I definitely started out with way more archetype specific cards in the beginning though and cut them down over time, since drafts felt too much "on rails".
How many cards (or what percentage of your cards) in a certain theme/archetype do you need before it's worth running a dedicated support card? I'm talking things like Favorable Winds and Intangible Virtue. On their own, they do absolutely nothing, so there's got to be a threshold amount before it's worth considering.
I'd be inclined to be a lot more lenient with something like Thunderclap Wyvern because in a vacuum, it's still a flash flying 2/3 body. Or Mardu Woe-Reaper, which is primarily a 2/1 for W but offers a secondary gravehate/lifegain ability with Warrior synergy.
I would imagine this also depends on the size of the cube - a 360 has to run a lot tighter than a 720, so regardless of the percentage, it may not be worth running a dedicated support card (unless that's the only archetype you support in a given color).
What are your thoughts?
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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I rarely find that anyone is short on playables in my cube, so having a few narrower cards is completely fine I think. I definitely started out with way more archetype specific cards in the beginning though and cut them down over time, since drafts felt too much "on rails".