I have a powered Cube for some month now and just built a lower powered cube. It is aimed to play 1vs1, because that is what I usually do. I got frustrated by the randomness of the P9 and other autopicks. But I wonder why one would limit themselves to Commons and Uncommons.
I mean, it is no constructed format, and a lot of commons and uncommons are as strong as rares. If you want to avoid bombs, you can allways do that.
Can someone give me an explanation of the fascination?
1) Power level
Like you said, you could just try and shave off the nonsense from a traditional cube. But by dropping into peasant you get a prepackaged format with a community that already has done that work, and now you have other people to talk to in this predefined space.
Fwiw, there really are very few true uncommons that breach the power level concerns. Mostly mistake artifacts like Sol ring or skullclamp.
2) Price
Self explanatory.
3) Novel experience
Peasant has a much more "magic" feel than the other formats, imo. The power level is a lot like a casual deck, and you get to play with nostalgic or memorable cards that dont make sense in other formats, like curse of predation. Some people even call them "aggro cubes" or "combat cubes".
Ive had mine for over 10 years. Highly recommended
I personally choose pauper, because I love limited and turn 2 Channel into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Time Vault/Voltaic Key doesn't feel like limited at all. These are just prebuilt combos, that people aim to draft and decks from powered cubes have a lot less variance. It's mostly about assembling the right pieces together and archiving, what the cube builder intended. That's not a creative process.
Limited is mostly made up of commons, and for someone like me who drafted for years now it just feels great to see all the top commons from past sets coming together to form new decks in a balanced environment. I can only speak for pauper in that way, but there are no degenerate bombs at common level. There are strong cards, but no God-Eternal Oketra or Chandra, Awakened Inferno, to take some recent examples, that are nearly unbeatable on their own and only reward a player for being lucky enough to open them. There are obviously some staples, but nothing, that can't be dealt with and the staples aren't that much stronger than the average cubeable.
Another thing I love especially about Pauper is this: "OMG, this thing was common at some point?", which comes up every now and then. An eternal pauper cube is also a history lesson and people get to learn new cards from magics past and can have a better appreciation for the much improved understanding from WOTC of how powerful a common actually should be. It's also great, when there are some synergies between cards from way back then and nowadays, that people can discover on their own. I personally get surprised often enough with decks and synergies I haven't even thought of, when building the cube.
Edit: Pauper is not only fun for new players, who discover the old cards for the first time, but also great nostlagy for older player. When I suggest drafting my pauper cube, people are often not interested at first, because when they think about commons they mostly think of boring cards like Centaur Courser, but when we are actually drafting I often get responses like: "Hey, I used to play this 10-15 years ago in draft or standard".
Pauper is especially interesting in the way, that it has the highest discrepancy between the powerlevel of creatures and noncreature spells, which makes it feel more like the older days of magic.
By restricting yourself to C/U you also have to get creative. Sometimes you won't have the exact card you'd want (say lands), so you figure out how to make it work anyway. The power level overall is also much more even compared to rares, so there are not that many default inclusions and each new set gives you lots of new options (many of which you'll end up with anyway if you draft, so you get to repurpose those cards instead of shoving them into a box and never looking at them again). There are also fewer people creating peasant/pauper lists, another reason the lists are less standardized overall.
Absolutely agree with several of the points above.
- Restrictions breed creativity
- Far more wallet-friendly price
- More even power level
- Novel experience and card choices
But to add to that, official WOTC strategy is to make commons and uncommons the workhorses of limited formats (makes sense, given they are seen more often in limited). Rares and Mythics are designed more for constructed.
Along the novel experience point, it's fun to hear my cube drafters get excited over cards they don't normally play (they are Commander/Standard players, but my cube allows lots of cards to shine that aren't seen in those formats).
And, honestly, peasant cube has ruined booster drafts for me. When I pay for packs and then open them only to say "I don't really want anything from this pack," it feels bad. When I look at a "booster" from my peasant cube, I often have a hard time deciding what to keep (because there are too many good options) and what to pass (because I don't want to give the good cards to my opponents).
For me it's primarily 2 things: ease of access and return to core mtg mechanics.
It's really easy for someone who has played mtg for a while to put together a C/Ube. I started mine by just putting together a bunch of solid limited cards I had just lying around. Then improving it is easy enough as a ton of people have strong C/Us laying around and they aren't expensive.
The most interesting part of mtg gameplay to me is the combat, card advantage, and tempo. Rares often let you ignore those parts of the game. Wraths for example can let you ignore all three, and planeswalkers (with + abilities) do something similar in a lot of cases. C/Ubes force you to juggle these three things whereas more traditional cubes often have combat be mostly irrelevant and card advantage be mostly trivial to get.
I'm of the opinion that C/Ube is the best way to play the core game of mtg, as you are forced to win through core mechanics alone instead of also having to play a "who can't answer a threat" subgame in traditional cube or learning deck matchups like you do in constructed.
The only format of Magic that I play is Pauper, so a Pauper cube just seemed natural to me. I've only been playing for a year, so I'm only familiar with the 7,000~ Pauper cards.
I do make exceptions to Pauper legality for some ante cards, uncards, and 5 color rainbow creatures. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game, so that's partly why I play them.
It's not that I hate the MTGO Vintage cube, it's that I hate dumb stuff like Tinker -> Blightsteel Colossus. Apart from that I like the Vintage cube.
It's not that I only like Pauper, it's that I only like fun, fair, interactive Magic as Richard Garfield intended and Pauper cubes for the most part are inherently like that. Other types of cubes can be fun, fair, and interactive but aren't like that inherently.
If I had been playing MtG for longer, I'd probably have a cube that wasn't Pauper. It's just what I'm familiar with.
I view cube not as a showcase for the maximally powerful cards, but just a custom limited set of cards that you like. Additionally, I hate the Ghostly Flicker + Tron hellhole that constructed Pauper is currently stuck in, so I see my Pauper cube as a way to play fun Pauper cards that would never see the light of day in constructed. Like Benalish Hero or Sapprazzan Outrigger or Timmerian Fiends.
So, I am a masochist who manages three cubes. I have a powered cube, an unpowered tier-2 ish cube, and a peasant cube. Of the three the peasant cube feels the most like true limited. The cards can be powerful while not being broken and most games still tend to be very combat focused.
Thaks for the explanations. Still, I do not understand it. A card like Prismatic Vista just adds to the fun imho. And cards like Skullclamp are way too good. So why draw a line here. If you are on a budget, there are lots and lots of interesting and fun rares you can get for under a dollar.
But sure, if you own several cubes, it could be an interesting restriction.
A card like Prismatic Vista just adds to the fun imho.
How is Vista fun? And how is it any different from Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse. I know that some people have discussed an exception to the rarity rule for fixing, which doesn't affect the balancing much.
In Peasant you have to specifically not run cards for being to powerful. Pauper doesn't have that problem. The most broken card is probably Sprout Swarm.
If you are on a budget, there are lots and lots of interesting and fun rares you can get for under a dollar.
I think the difference between a rarity-restricted-cube and a well designed and balanced low budget cube is not that big. It depends on your personal preference. It depends if you aim for a very official limited/masters set-like experience rarity restrictions are the way to go, but if you want to create your totally own thing with the powerlevel you want, go for it.
You can absolutely create a cube that plays like a peasant or even pauper cube while using rares and mythics. But it would be much harder to balance since almost no one has a cube like that and you'd have to test all the cards yourself. And you have no one to talk to and discuss with. To me that's part of the fun.
Personally I have one rare per color in my peasant cube to fill holes I can't fill with uncommons or commons and I break the singleton rules for lands because color fixing just sucks in peasant and pauper. This still allows me to discuss new (and old) cards with other peasant cubers and I could build my initial cube from a well tested list without knowing much about CU/be.
If you can play multiple times a week, if your cube is something you want to put a lot of work into and if you don't care much about discussing cards with other people then making a low power level (as in far from the typical powered or unpowered rare cubes) cube out of all rarities may even be better than just building a pauper or peasant cube. But for most people it's way easier and more fun to play/build in a specific already tested environment.
Lots of people make exceptions for fixing and include rare lands.
Most people cut cards for powerlevel outside of rarity, but C/Us only is the big one that will make every C/Ube play similarly. Skullclamp is good, but most people cut it as it is too powerful for an uncommon (same with Library of Alexandria or Sol Ring). Same idea as not putting Sol Ring in an unpowered cube: it creates non-games and is always 1st picked.
C/U only isn't an unbreakable rule nor is it the only thing determining what you play. Every cube has powerful cards they don't run, and what cards people don't run vary wildly between cubes.
If you want to add rares to a C/Ube no ones going to stop you, but the number of cards you have to keep in mind increases dramatically. And whenever you want to add one of those cards you need to make sure that the environment isn't changing away from the gameplay innate to a C/Ube, which is quite a bit more thinking than adding a common or uncommon.
Thaks for the explanations. Still, I do not understand it. A card like Prismatic Vista just adds to the fun imho. And cards like Skullclamp are way too good. So why draw a line here. If you are on a budget, there are lots and lots of interesting and fun rares you can get for under a dollar.
But sure, if you own several cubes, it could be an interesting restriction.
I honestly kind of agree with you. Pauper is just an arbitrary cube building restriction. But there is a reason for it:
Some people have this obnoxious Laissez-Faire attitude towards banning cards. At Pauper the best cards you can get are Sprout Swarm or Pestilence or the like. There are about 15-20 Pauper limited bombs and the rest of the cards are basically French Vanilla creatures and removal. So you can kind of just throw all of those cards together and you'll end up with a somewhat balanced limited environment. It's not as balanced as it would be if you removed some of those cards, but it's fine.
If you take that zero to sixty, laissez-faire attitude into a vintage cube environment, they aren't going to consider those interesting budget cards. I don't think anyone here is capable of say, including Tinker in their cube and only having fair targets for it.
After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance. A card is either a, "good card" or, "unplayable trash" with no in between. Simply apply that logic to cube construction instead of deck construction and there you go.
Even when suggesting Pauper cards that are merely okay like Tidal Wave I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360.
Ignoring what Magic players tell you isn't the answer, it's listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. When they complain about banding? Include more banding. They think Splice Onto Arcane is parasitic? Play 47 Arcane cards in your cube, even some of the bad ones. They don't like sideboard-y cards like disenchant? Include them, make sure that they're Arcane while you're at it. They think that a package deal of 9 Tron lands is too good? Also include a package deal of 6Post. They wanted you to cut Ebony Horse? Put it back in and go to 541 cards just for it.
Play with whatever cards you want.
Remember, Wizards listened to Magic players and replaced the elegantly designed Shroud mechanic with Hexproof. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game.
The reason I stick with Pauper is because I'm only familiar with the Pauper card pool. I've made some exceptions here and there for some oddities or fixing that I specifically searched for. But I would make more exceptions to Pauper rarity if I played other formats and was aware of these fun budget rares of which you speak.
In Peasant you have to specifically not run cards for being to powerful.
Not entirely true – you just have to provide answers so that powerful cards don’t run away with the game. I don’t ban any cards for power level – I run Skullclamp, Loxodon Warhammer, Sol Ring, etc., and we’ve never had an issue. Creature removal and artifact removal go a long way toward balancing these, all the while making for more interactive games.
After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance. A card is either a, "good card" or, "unplayable trash" with no in between. Simply apply that logic to cube construction instead of deck construction and there you go.
Even when suggesting Pauper cards that are merely okay like Tidal Wave I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360.
Ignoring what Magic players tell you isn't the answer, it's listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. …. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game.
Let’s not even go there – the pauper cube discussion thread was locked for a few days a while back after you instigated a fairly heated “debate.”
Yes, testing things and making your own choices is the way to go. Not every cube should be a clone of the average.
But you probably shouldn’t blindly accuse everyone else of being “incapable of nuance” just because they disagree with you. And if we take your advice literally (as you, too, are a Magic player), are we to ignore what you say and do the opposite?
As for “Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game,” well, that’s just wrong. We’d hate for the game to die, and that would be the exact opposite of good. We’d hate for power creep to get so far out of control that all of our old cards were obsoleted, but we’d also hate it if they only ever printed strictly worse versions of cards we currently have. We’d hate it if one of the main deck archetypes (aggro, control, combo, midrange) was unanswerable and the only way to play. We expect constant change, but it has to be balanced – that is good for the game.
Thaks for the explanations. Still, I do not understand it. A card like Prismatic Vista just adds to the fun imho.
Most important word in bold. People have different tastes. You can understand why people would go down the peasant path without wanting to go there yourself.
In Peasant you have to specifically not run cards for being to powerful.
Not entirely true – you just have to provide answers so that powerful cards don’t run away with the game. I don’t ban any cards for power level – I run Skullclamp, Loxodon Warhammer, Sol Ring, etc., and we’ve never had an issue. Creature removal and artifact removal go a long way toward balancing these, all the while making for more interactive games.
After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance. A card is either a, "good card" or, "unplayable trash" with no in between. Simply apply that logic to cube construction instead of deck construction and there you go.
Even when suggesting Pauper cards that are merely okay like Tidal Wave I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360.
Ignoring what Magic players tell you isn't the answer, it's listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. …. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game.
Let’s not even go there – the pauper cube discussion thread was locked for a few days a while back after you instigated a fairly heated “debate.”
Yes, testing things and making your own choices is the way to go. Not every cube should be a clone of the average.
But you probably shouldn’t blindly accuse everyone else of being “incapable of nuance” just because they disagree with you. And if we take your advice literally (as you, too, are a Magic player), are we to ignore what you say and do the opposite?
As for “Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game,” well, that’s just wrong. We’d hate for the game to die, and that would be the exact opposite of good. We’d hate for power creep to get so far out of control that all of our old cards were obsoleted, but we’d also hate it if they only ever printed strictly worse versions of cards we currently have. We’d hate it if one of the main deck archetypes (aggro, control, combo, midrange) was unanswerable and the only way to play. We expect constant change, but it has to be balanced – that is good for the game.
I've met a lot of Magic players with that zero to sixty, laissez-faire attitude towards bannings or card inclusions. It's probably the majority of Magic players.
At the very least it's the majority of the forum goers in the general thread.
I mean, one time I said that Volcanic Hammer and Lab Rats were not far off in power level from Lightning Bolt and Sprout Swarm and basically the same cards and that was enough to trigger them, so anything opinion I say instigates some sort of fight. Last time it was me asking about exceptions to Pauper rarity. It sparked some interesting discussion, and then Izor threw a fit so now there isn't any discussion happening in the thread at all.
Nah, Magic players don't want what's best for the game, they want what's best for them. This is why Hexproof replaced Shroud. The game moved away from balanced symmetrical effects to, "Let me show you My Cool Thing(tm) and you can't stop me".
I've seen a modern player talk about selling his cards and no longer having any interest in the game after something was banned from his degenerate Hogaak deck. If he actually liked the game as opposed to only enjoying cheating at it with degeneracy, maybe the bans wouldn't bother him.
I've never met anyone that didn't want power creep. On /r/Pauper before Gush was banned, people would regularly say that instead of banning things they should just print more answers.
Before this game, I played a game called X-Wing Miniatures. In the first 3 releases for the game, the game was fun, fair, interactive as Jay Little (the designer) intended. After that, the game went from one degeneracy to another for years. Nothing ever got banned, just more answers would get printed that were just as, if not more cancerous than the original problem. The game was a Russian nesting doll of dumb ***** that ignored literally everything that made the game special- it's core game mechanics.
So when I played X-Wing, I was known in the community for being a contrarian and always disagreeing. I've simply ported that viewpoint to Magic. One of the criticisms of cancerous, post Wave 3 X-Wing was that it turned into a naunceless card game where the miniatures didn't matter anymore.
So yeah, I see the same attitudes prevalent in the X-Wing community and in the Magic community. A bunch of people that don't actually enjoy the core game mechanics of the game and playing the fun, fair, vanilla base game, only cheating as many of the game's rules as possible with degeneracy and having fun at their opponent's expense. IE, the Bogles player mentality.
So I kind of view myself as an outsider. The Bogles player mentality ruined X-Wing and it's the #1 problem with Magic.
My experiences with the Magic community aren't what yours are. I've never seen people that want a balanced game, just people that deny that the format is unbalanced when it's a dumpster fire.
I'd argue that anyone that likes Arena actively does want the game to die, btw. It's the year 2019 and things have less features and look prettier. Everything is turning into the bathroom sink with the IR sensor instead of the knobs and Arena is just the Magic equivalent of that. Can you see why people hate me? Because I have an opinion.
I largely associate magic's success with the fact that you can play all these different formats with all these varied ways to play, degenerate and linear as some of those ways may be.
Power cube can be really degenerate as a format, but I enjoy it a decent bit (even if I prefer Peasant). But that's what some people prefer; you have to acknowledge different people like different things. You can always play less degenerate formats if you don't like degenerate formats.
But that's what some people prefer; you have to acknowledge different people like different things. You can always play less degenerate formats if you don't like degenerate formats.
This is my argument, I'm acknowledging that. That most Magic players only enjoy the degenerate cheaty type of Bogles Magic.
So you apply the Bogles player mentality to cube construction and there you go. Everything must be full power and cards are either Good or Unplayable Trash with zero inbetween. Pauper allows you to have a pretty balanced cube at max power level by default without having to do any balancing at all.
When I proxied up a Kamigawa cube, I was immediately inundated with, "Does it have Umezawa's Jitte in it?". When the answer was no, they were disappointed because they couldn't ruin the game with it.
It's this attitude that prevents people from making cubes without arbitrary restrictions. It's not possible for them to conceive of a Kamigawa cube without Jitte in it.
"I'd argue that anyone that likes Arena actively does want the game to die, btw."
"Lab Rats is not far off in power level from Sprout Swarm"
"I've never seen people that want a balanced game"
" It's probably the majority of Magic players.
At the very least it's the majority of the forum goers in the general thread."
and the coup de grace
"listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. …. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game."
all before this:
"Can you see why people hate me? Because I have an opinion."
...well
it's not because you have *an* opinion.
/
Nice derailment, though.
"and then (someone) threw a fit so now there isn't any discussion happening in the thread at all."
Somehow I can sense some commonality incoming. Somehow
The level of delusion is absolutely shocking. Like, he hasn't changed a single thing in his thought process despite people patiently trying to discuss cubing rationale with someone who clearly hasn't been playing for long. Instead, he's doubled down on the victim attitude. He's hell-bent on taking the absolute worst things that happened to him in Magic, or that people have said to him, and pretending it's the default environment. Or using any opportunity to go on tirades with his hate-filled nonsense theory of Magic players. It would be sad to see if it weren't so darn insulting.
At this point, I seriously fear that the poster has some sort of mental problem that extends beyond their hobby (Bogles "ruined" their previous hobby, they're "ruining" Magic now, Bogles will probably find ways to ruin their future hobby, and somehow this person is the only one with the "right" opinion about them). If you think everyone around you is the problem, maybe you're the problem. The forum does not have a responsibility to humor trolls like this, and constantly derailing threads with this nonsense is getting tiresome.
I didn't derail the thread, I pointed out why I thought that people stuck with Pauper rarity for their cubes. Saying true things that people don't want to hear isn't allowed of course, so I'm being branded a troll despite me genuinely holding these views.
Considering that it's considered trolling around here to suggest that Lab Rats is almost as good as Sprout Swarm in Pauper limited, basically every opinion I have about cube is reacted to with hostility. So don't get mad when I make a statement like, "Always do the exact opposite of what a Magic player says."
I think it's amusing that not a single person has addressed the example that I used as proof of my argument. If Magic players do want what's best for the game, why did Hexproof replace Shroud?
Let's even grant the premise that the move to hexproof was a misstep. Good for you, a point in your favor.
Meanwhile, there is all this other stuff to talk about. Ignoring the hyperbolic tangent around banding and splice that you went on.
Let's start with the claim that you're a troll. No, I dont think you're a troll. I think trolls aren't genuine when they talk, and I think you are. Which is probably worse.
Why worse? Because when you say things like this...:
"I didn't derail the thread, I pointed out why I thought that people stuck with Pauper rarity for their cubes"
...after basically leading with this unforced error...:
"Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game, so that's partly why I play them."
...and then later have these things to say before anyone addresses you...:
"After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance."
"I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360."
...it means you don't notice that you're being a provacatour. Without responding to anyone in particular, without keeping on topic, and without anyone else talking about you, you made this thread about *you*. And then you feel capable of being the victim here, even though you dragged in all this baggage that nobody asked for.
I've gotten into some extremely heated discussions with the pauper people through the years. To the point where I have very little love for that side of the forum. So when even I am siding with them, consider that evidence that it's unlikely to be entirely a problem on their end.
I didn't derail the thread, I pointed out why I thought that people stuck with Pauper rarity for their cubes. Saying true things that people don't want to hear isn't allowed of course, so I'm being branded a troll despite me genuinely holding these views.
It's less what you say and more how you say it. Being abrasive isn't the same as being truthful. I'm totally fine with people having opinions that oppose my own - but when they declare their own opinion as self-evident truth and act like every one else is an idiot, it gets really obnoxious.
Considering that it's considered trolling around here to suggest that Lab Rats is almost as good as Sprout Swarm in Pauper limited, basically every opinion I have about cube is reacted to with hostility. So don't get mad when I make a statement like, "Always do the exact opposite of what a Magic player says."
It's not even close to being as good - they fill a similar space (repeatable tokens), but Lab Rats is strictly worse than Sprout Swarm in every way unless you have tribal considerations. Sorcery speed versus Instant speed, plus the whole Convoke difference. One can be used as a combat trick, the other cannot. You have to have five mana for each rat, while you don't for the saprolings. Five saprolings can even pay for a "free" sixth one, but the rats can never do that. To say that the one is almost as good as the other is to ignore any and all levels of nuance relevant to the game, and is therefore seen as either trolling or ignorance.
The funny thing is that I actually agree with you on some things (I also run Tidal Wave as a pet card even though I know there are better options), but I am often pushed away by how you victimize yourself and make blanket statements about other groups of people.
I think it's amusing that not a single person has addressed the example that I used as proof of my argument. If Magic players do want what's best for the game, why did Hexproof replace Shroud?
Very simple - Magic players didn't make that decision - corporate designers did. We didn't get to vote on it. We weren't all asked for our opinions. And they (the powers that be) are known for making choices and later reversing them. Just look at protection; we were told no more protection because it was too complicated, it got replaced with "hexproof from", yet lo and behold, M20 just brought back protection (largely because the play design team advised them to bring it back).
But now that we've driven away Bumibu by derailing his thread about the reasons we like Pauper and Peasant and showing him instead that we may not be the funnest people to hang around, we should probably drop the thread or swing it back around to it's original purpose.
Thaks for the explanations. Still, I do not understand it. A card like Prismatic Vista just adds to the fun imho. And cards like Skullclamp are way too good. So why draw a line here. If you are on a budget, there are lots and lots of interesting and fun rares you can get for under a dollar.
But sure, if you own several cubes, it could be an interesting restriction.
I agree that there are tons of interesting cheap rares. You could make a super interesting cube running only cards under a dollar - that's just a different restriction to go by. And restrictions breed creativity. Using cards that you don't often see played opens up a new dynamic. I personally have three cubes, and the peasant one is my main one. I also have a silver-bordered Un-cube and a 2HG micro-cube They're all fun, but I get the most consistent fun, interactive, balanced games from the peasant cube. I've considered building another, but I honestly don't feel like it would be any more fun than the peasant cube.
Magic players didn't change shroud to hexproof wizards did. And altough I dont like hexproof from a design perspektive I like shroud even less whats less interaction than only one play being able to interact with something if no one can. Both are bad design but at least hexproof you can build around shroud not so much.
Where did you get considered as a troll for suggesting that? I would like the context for that one before i say sth about that. In Germany we have a saying that the way you scream in the forest is the way it will scream back. And while not all bust most of the interaction I had with you you were also hostile towards others and their opinions.
And with stuff like
Some people have this obnoxious Laissez-Faire attitude towards banning cards.
it seems to like you are trying to provoke reactions which is the definition of trolling.
That is enough of my own derailing.
For me I got started with pauper due to MTGO and my unwillingnes to pay twice (paper and MTGO) so i just seached for free cards and found pauper. I made my first cube after that fact and a pauper cube is also a good cube for cube beginners as its rather cheap while still offering lots of variety.
I have a powered Cube for some month now and just built a lower powered cube. It is aimed to play 1vs1, because that is what I usually do. I got frustrated by the randomness of the P9 and other autopicks. But I wonder why one would limit themselves to Commons and Uncommons.
I mean, it is no constructed format, and a lot of commons and uncommons are as strong as rares. If you want to avoid bombs, you can allways do that.
Can someone give me an explanation of the fascination?
Like you said, you could just try and shave off the nonsense from a traditional cube. But by dropping into peasant you get a prepackaged format with a community that already has done that work, and now you have other people to talk to in this predefined space.
Fwiw, there really are very few true uncommons that breach the power level concerns. Mostly mistake artifacts like Sol ring or skullclamp.
2) Price
Self explanatory.
3) Novel experience
Peasant has a much more "magic" feel than the other formats, imo. The power level is a lot like a casual deck, and you get to play with nostalgic or memorable cards that dont make sense in other formats, like curse of predation. Some people even call them "aggro cubes" or "combat cubes".
Ive had mine for over 10 years. Highly recommended
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Limited is mostly made up of commons, and for someone like me who drafted for years now it just feels great to see all the top commons from past sets coming together to form new decks in a balanced environment. I can only speak for pauper in that way, but there are no degenerate bombs at common level. There are strong cards, but no God-Eternal Oketra or Chandra, Awakened Inferno, to take some recent examples, that are nearly unbeatable on their own and only reward a player for being lucky enough to open them. There are obviously some staples, but nothing, that can't be dealt with and the staples aren't that much stronger than the average cubeable.
Another thing I love especially about Pauper is this: "OMG, this thing was common at some point?", which comes up every now and then. An eternal pauper cube is also a history lesson and people get to learn new cards from magics past and can have a better appreciation for the much improved understanding from WOTC of how powerful a common actually should be. It's also great, when there are some synergies between cards from way back then and nowadays, that people can discover on their own. I personally get surprised often enough with decks and synergies I haven't even thought of, when building the cube.
Edit: Pauper is not only fun for new players, who discover the old cards for the first time, but also great nostlagy for older player. When I suggest drafting my pauper cube, people are often not interested at first, because when they think about commons they mostly think of boring cards like Centaur Courser, but when we are actually drafting I often get responses like: "Hey, I used to play this 10-15 years ago in draft or standard".
Pauper is especially interesting in the way, that it has the highest discrepancy between the powerlevel of creatures and noncreature spells, which makes it feel more like the older days of magic.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
- Restrictions breed creativity
- Far more wallet-friendly price
- More even power level
- Novel experience and card choices
But to add to that, official WOTC strategy is to make commons and uncommons the workhorses of limited formats (makes sense, given they are seen more often in limited). Rares and Mythics are designed more for constructed.
Along the novel experience point, it's fun to hear my cube drafters get excited over cards they don't normally play (they are Commander/Standard players, but my cube allows lots of cards to shine that aren't seen in those formats).
And, honestly, peasant cube has ruined booster drafts for me. When I pay for packs and then open them only to say "I don't really want anything from this pack," it feels bad. When I look at a "booster" from my peasant cube, I often have a hard time deciding what to keep (because there are too many good options) and what to pass (because I don't want to give the good cards to my opponents).
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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It's really easy for someone who has played mtg for a while to put together a C/Ube. I started mine by just putting together a bunch of solid limited cards I had just lying around. Then improving it is easy enough as a ton of people have strong C/Us laying around and they aren't expensive.
The most interesting part of mtg gameplay to me is the combat, card advantage, and tempo. Rares often let you ignore those parts of the game. Wraths for example can let you ignore all three, and planeswalkers (with + abilities) do something similar in a lot of cases. C/Ubes force you to juggle these three things whereas more traditional cubes often have combat be mostly irrelevant and card advantage be mostly trivial to get.
I'm of the opinion that C/Ube is the best way to play the core game of mtg, as you are forced to win through core mechanics alone instead of also having to play a "who can't answer a threat" subgame in traditional cube or learning deck matchups like you do in constructed.
I do make exceptions to Pauper legality for some ante cards, uncards, and 5 color rainbow creatures. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game, so that's partly why I play them.
It's not that I hate the MTGO Vintage cube, it's that I hate dumb stuff like Tinker -> Blightsteel Colossus. Apart from that I like the Vintage cube.
It's not that I only like Pauper, it's that I only like fun, fair, interactive Magic as Richard Garfield intended and Pauper cubes for the most part are inherently like that. Other types of cubes can be fun, fair, and interactive but aren't like that inherently.
If I had been playing MtG for longer, I'd probably have a cube that wasn't Pauper. It's just what I'm familiar with.
I view cube not as a showcase for the maximally powerful cards, but just a custom limited set of cards that you like. Additionally, I hate the Ghostly Flicker + Tron hellhole that constructed Pauper is currently stuck in, so I see my Pauper cube as a way to play fun Pauper cards that would never see the light of day in constructed. Like Benalish Hero or Sapprazzan Outrigger or Timmerian Fiends.
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.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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But sure, if you own several cubes, it could be an interesting restriction.
In Peasant you have to specifically not run cards for being to powerful. Pauper doesn't have that problem. The most broken card is probably Sprout Swarm.
I think the difference between a rarity-restricted-cube and a well designed and balanced low budget cube is not that big. It depends on your personal preference. It depends if you aim for a very official limited/masters set-like experience rarity restrictions are the way to go, but if you want to create your totally own thing with the powerlevel you want, go for it.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
Personally I have one rare per color in my peasant cube to fill holes I can't fill with uncommons or commons and I break the singleton rules for lands because color fixing just sucks in peasant and pauper. This still allows me to discuss new (and old) cards with other peasant cubers and I could build my initial cube from a well tested list without knowing much about CU/be.
If you can play multiple times a week, if your cube is something you want to put a lot of work into and if you don't care much about discussing cards with other people then making a low power level (as in far from the typical powered or unpowered rare cubes) cube out of all rarities may even be better than just building a pauper or peasant cube. But for most people it's way easier and more fun to play/build in a specific already tested environment.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Most people cut cards for powerlevel outside of rarity, but C/Us only is the big one that will make every C/Ube play similarly. Skullclamp is good, but most people cut it as it is too powerful for an uncommon (same with Library of Alexandria or Sol Ring). Same idea as not putting Sol Ring in an unpowered cube: it creates non-games and is always 1st picked.
C/U only isn't an unbreakable rule nor is it the only thing determining what you play. Every cube has powerful cards they don't run, and what cards people don't run vary wildly between cubes.
If you want to add rares to a C/Ube no ones going to stop you, but the number of cards you have to keep in mind increases dramatically. And whenever you want to add one of those cards you need to make sure that the environment isn't changing away from the gameplay innate to a C/Ube, which is quite a bit more thinking than adding a common or uncommon.
I honestly kind of agree with you. Pauper is just an arbitrary cube building restriction. But there is a reason for it:
Some people have this obnoxious Laissez-Faire attitude towards banning cards. At Pauper the best cards you can get are Sprout Swarm or Pestilence or the like. There are about 15-20 Pauper limited bombs and the rest of the cards are basically French Vanilla creatures and removal. So you can kind of just throw all of those cards together and you'll end up with a somewhat balanced limited environment. It's not as balanced as it would be if you removed some of those cards, but it's fine.
If you take that zero to sixty, laissez-faire attitude into a vintage cube environment, they aren't going to consider those interesting budget cards. I don't think anyone here is capable of say, including Tinker in their cube and only having fair targets for it.
After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance. A card is either a, "good card" or, "unplayable trash" with no in between. Simply apply that logic to cube construction instead of deck construction and there you go.
Even when suggesting Pauper cards that are merely okay like Tidal Wave I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360.
Ignoring what Magic players tell you isn't the answer, it's listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. When they complain about banding? Include more banding. They think Splice Onto Arcane is parasitic? Play 47 Arcane cards in your cube, even some of the bad ones. They don't like sideboard-y cards like disenchant? Include them, make sure that they're Arcane while you're at it. They think that a package deal of 9 Tron lands is too good? Also include a package deal of 6Post. They wanted you to cut Ebony Horse? Put it back in and go to 541 cards just for it.
Play with whatever cards you want.
Remember, Wizards listened to Magic players and replaced the elegantly designed Shroud mechanic with Hexproof. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game.
The reason I stick with Pauper is because I'm only familiar with the Pauper card pool. I've made some exceptions here and there for some oddities or fixing that I specifically searched for. But I would make more exceptions to Pauper rarity if I played other formats and was aware of these fun budget rares of which you speak.
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.
Let’s not even go there – the pauper cube discussion thread was locked for a few days a while back after you instigated a fairly heated “debate.”
Yes, testing things and making your own choices is the way to go. Not every cube should be a clone of the average.
But you probably shouldn’t blindly accuse everyone else of being “incapable of nuance” just because they disagree with you. And if we take your advice literally (as you, too, are a Magic player), are we to ignore what you say and do the opposite?
As for “Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game,” well, that’s just wrong. We’d hate for the game to die, and that would be the exact opposite of good. We’d hate for power creep to get so far out of control that all of our old cards were obsoleted, but we’d also hate it if they only ever printed strictly worse versions of cards we currently have. We’d hate it if one of the main deck archetypes (aggro, control, combo, midrange) was unanswerable and the only way to play. We expect constant change, but it has to be balanced – that is good for the game.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
Most important word in bold. People have different tastes. You can understand why people would go down the peasant path without wanting to go there yourself.
I've met a lot of Magic players with that zero to sixty, laissez-faire attitude towards bannings or card inclusions. It's probably the majority of Magic players.
At the very least it's the majority of the forum goers in the general thread.
I mean, one time I said that Volcanic Hammer and Lab Rats were not far off in power level from Lightning Bolt and Sprout Swarm and basically the same cards and that was enough to trigger them, so anything opinion I say instigates some sort of fight. Last time it was me asking about exceptions to Pauper rarity. It sparked some interesting discussion, and then Izor threw a fit so now there isn't any discussion happening in the thread at all.
Nah, Magic players don't want what's best for the game, they want what's best for them. This is why Hexproof replaced Shroud. The game moved away from balanced symmetrical effects to, "Let me show you My Cool Thing(tm) and you can't stop me".
I've seen a modern player talk about selling his cards and no longer having any interest in the game after something was banned from his degenerate Hogaak deck. If he actually liked the game as opposed to only enjoying cheating at it with degeneracy, maybe the bans wouldn't bother him.
I've never met anyone that didn't want power creep. On /r/Pauper before Gush was banned, people would regularly say that instead of banning things they should just print more answers.
Before this game, I played a game called X-Wing Miniatures. In the first 3 releases for the game, the game was fun, fair, interactive as Jay Little (the designer) intended. After that, the game went from one degeneracy to another for years. Nothing ever got banned, just more answers would get printed that were just as, if not more cancerous than the original problem. The game was a Russian nesting doll of dumb ***** that ignored literally everything that made the game special- it's core game mechanics.
So when I played X-Wing, I was known in the community for being a contrarian and always disagreeing. I've simply ported that viewpoint to Magic. One of the criticisms of cancerous, post Wave 3 X-Wing was that it turned into a naunceless card game where the miniatures didn't matter anymore.
So yeah, I see the same attitudes prevalent in the X-Wing community and in the Magic community. A bunch of people that don't actually enjoy the core game mechanics of the game and playing the fun, fair, vanilla base game, only cheating as many of the game's rules as possible with degeneracy and having fun at their opponent's expense. IE, the Bogles player mentality.
So I kind of view myself as an outsider. The Bogles player mentality ruined X-Wing and it's the #1 problem with Magic.
My experiences with the Magic community aren't what yours are. I've never seen people that want a balanced game, just people that deny that the format is unbalanced when it's a dumpster fire.
I'd argue that anyone that likes Arena actively does want the game to die, btw. It's the year 2019 and things have less features and look prettier. Everything is turning into the bathroom sink with the IR sensor instead of the knobs and Arena is just the Magic equivalent of that. Can you see why people hate me? Because I have an opinion.
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.
Power cube can be really degenerate as a format, but I enjoy it a decent bit (even if I prefer Peasant). But that's what some people prefer; you have to acknowledge different people like different things. You can always play less degenerate formats if you don't like degenerate formats.
This is my argument, I'm acknowledging that. That most Magic players only enjoy the degenerate cheaty type of Bogles Magic.
So you apply the Bogles player mentality to cube construction and there you go. Everything must be full power and cards are either Good or Unplayable Trash with zero inbetween. Pauper allows you to have a pretty balanced cube at max power level by default without having to do any balancing at all.
When I proxied up a Kamigawa cube, I was immediately inundated with, "Does it have Umezawa's Jitte in it?". When the answer was no, they were disappointed because they couldn't ruin the game with it.
It's this attitude that prevents people from making cubes without arbitrary restrictions. It's not possible for them to conceive of a Kamigawa cube without Jitte in it.
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.
Oh my
Havent seen one of these in a while...
"I'd argue that anyone that likes Arena actively does want the game to die, btw."
"Lab Rats is not far off in power level from Sprout Swarm"
"I've never seen people that want a balanced game"
" It's probably the majority of Magic players.
At the very least it's the majority of the forum goers in the general thread."
and the coup de grace
"listening to what they say and doing the exact opposite that's the correct move. …. That's all you need to know about Magic players. Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game."
all before this:
"Can you see why people hate me? Because I have an opinion."
...well
it's not because you have *an* opinion.
/
Nice derailment, though.
"and then (someone) threw a fit so now there isn't any discussion happening in the thread at all."
Somehow I can sense some commonality incoming. Somehow
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
The level of delusion is absolutely shocking. Like, he hasn't changed a single thing in his thought process despite people patiently trying to discuss cubing rationale with someone who clearly hasn't been playing for long. Instead, he's doubled down on the victim attitude. He's hell-bent on taking the absolute worst things that happened to him in Magic, or that people have said to him, and pretending it's the default environment. Or using any opportunity to go on tirades with his hate-filled nonsense theory of Magic players. It would be sad to see if it weren't so darn insulting.
At this point, I seriously fear that the poster has some sort of mental problem that extends beyond their hobby (Bogles "ruined" their previous hobby, they're "ruining" Magic now, Bogles will probably find ways to ruin their future hobby, and somehow this person is the only one with the "right" opinion about them). If you think everyone around you is the problem, maybe you're the problem. The forum does not have a responsibility to humor trolls like this, and constantly derailing threads with this nonsense is getting tiresome.
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Considering that it's considered trolling around here to suggest that Lab Rats is almost as good as Sprout Swarm in Pauper limited, basically every opinion I have about cube is reacted to with hostility. So don't get mad when I make a statement like, "Always do the exact opposite of what a Magic player says."
I think it's amusing that not a single person has addressed the example that I used as proof of my argument. If Magic players do want what's best for the game, why did Hexproof replace Shroud?
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.
Meanwhile, there is all this other stuff to talk about. Ignoring the hyperbolic tangent around banding and splice that you went on.
Let's start with the claim that you're a troll. No, I dont think you're a troll. I think trolls aren't genuine when they talk, and I think you are. Which is probably worse.
Why worse? Because when you say things like this...:
"I didn't derail the thread, I pointed out why I thought that people stuck with Pauper rarity for their cubes"
...after basically leading with this unforced error...:
"Anything that Magic players hate is good for the game, so that's partly why I play them."
...and then later have these things to say before anyone addresses you...:
"After playing Magic for a year, I've learned that Magic players are incapable of nuance."
"I've been accused of trolling because I disagreed with The Council's decision on The One True 360."
...it means you don't notice that you're being a provacatour. Without responding to anyone in particular, without keeping on topic, and without anyone else talking about you, you made this thread about *you*. And then you feel capable of being the victim here, even though you dragged in all this baggage that nobody asked for.
I've gotten into some extremely heated discussions with the pauper people through the years. To the point where I have very little love for that side of the forum. So when even I am siding with them, consider that evidence that it's unlikely to be entirely a problem on their end.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
The funny thing is that I actually agree with you on some things (I also run Tidal Wave as a pet card even though I know there are better options), but I am often pushed away by how you victimize yourself and make blanket statements about other groups of people. Very simple - Magic players didn't make that decision - corporate designers did. We didn't get to vote on it. We weren't all asked for our opinions. And they (the powers that be) are known for making choices and later reversing them. Just look at protection; we were told no more protection because it was too complicated, it got replaced with "hexproof from", yet lo and behold, M20 just brought back protection (largely because the play design team advised them to bring it back).
But now that we've driven away Bumibu by derailing his thread about the reasons we like Pauper and Peasant and showing him instead that we may not be the funnest people to hang around, we should probably drop the thread or swing it back around to it's original purpose. I agree that there are tons of interesting cheap rares. You could make a super interesting cube running only cards under a dollar - that's just a different restriction to go by. And restrictions breed creativity. Using cards that you don't often see played opens up a new dynamic. I personally have three cubes, and the peasant one is my main one. I also have a silver-bordered Un-cube and a 2HG micro-cube They're all fun, but I get the most consistent fun, interactive, balanced games from the peasant cube. I've considered building another, but I honestly don't feel like it would be any more fun than the peasant cube.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
Where did you get considered as a troll for suggesting that? I would like the context for that one before i say sth about that. In Germany we have a saying that the way you scream in the forest is the way it will scream back. And while not all bust most of the interaction I had with you you were also hostile towards others and their opinions.
And with stuff like it seems to like you are trying to provoke reactions which is the definition of trolling.
That is enough of my own derailing.
For me I got started with pauper due to MTGO and my unwillingnes to pay twice (paper and MTGO) so i just seached for free cards and found pauper. I made my first cube after that fact and a pauper cube is also a good cube for cube beginners as its rather cheap while still offering lots of variety.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t