Could also see them reprinting some old legacy cards (not reserved list of course) that they've long thought would be fine for modern but never felt able to allow to spend time in Standard. There's some speculation on reddit (that I endorse) suggesting Elvish Spirit Guide might get this treatment. The art for the MTGO promo ESG by Anna Steinbauer is too pretty to not get paper printing, and I was surprised when it went though 2018 (M25 and ElvesVsInventors and Battlebond and UMA) unreprinted.
Honestly SM your presence in this forum is completely inappropriate. You obviously know that [insert random unplayable card] is not valid for tuned Pauper Cube. Which, you may have neglected to notice, is the primary thrust of Pauper Discussion.
Also, Tidal Wave's not really that "fun" in practice since its pretty much a generic kill effect as Al already pointed out. But thematically it is cool and it has defender which makes it a possible include in a Wall theme. Interestingly I think this card has functional errata (which they claim to not do, ha!) since in Mirage the token was a Wall. But you need a relaxed, non-competitive environment to get the most out of cards like this one.
"The stakes could not be higher."
Good joke, considering the plot armor most of the protagonists have. There's no way Wizards would hurt their "most popular" characters too much, not to mention all the hanging plot threads, and the same goes for the most popular plane. Hell, I doubt even Bolas will kick the bucket, they will probably want to reuse such a popular villain.
the most revolutionary thing that will happen (I think) will be that from 10 guilds we will have 5 (by fusing guilds in couples).
This will allow to have single sets for returning to Ravnica and shake up the flavour a little.
For as much as I love the 10 guilds, they were thought for a 3sets-block design and unless they want to spend at least 2 sets every time they return to Ravnica, some of the guilds must go.
Interestingly, this idea is almost certainly the only way to do "four color" guilds.
Define a pair of Ravnica Guilds as a Super Guild (SG).
To do 4 colors, each of the 5 Super Guilds must obviously be deficient by a different color (Not U, Not W, etc)
Furthermore, since it would be wonky to have some SGs be composed of two enemy guilds while others are composed of two allied guilds, we can assume that each SG would consist of one enemy guild and one allied guild.
It turns out there is exactly ONE combination that works in that case:
EDIT: and the combinatorics isn't as hairy as you'd think
Also, these would be easy to flavor
Gruul/Orzhov would become Druids (church of the wilds) or possibly early Christianity themed (gutter religion)
Selesnya/Izzet would be the individuated collective with its own creative power (Captain Planet) or something like the German philosophical concept of Geist
Dimir/Boros would be the Deep State (intelligence+military)
Rakdos+Simic would be body hackers
Azorius+Golgari would be the seizing of power from below (think Reign of Terror or Zombie dictatorship of the Proletariat)
Just like with every single card people tend to loosely call 'op' Flood can be perfectly balanced by giving making other things stronger. Your flood won't do much against 3 aggressive creatures on turn 4 with you having like 3 blue sources in play, but it will surely dominate games in formats where people durdle around.
Yeah, that's the thing: "is Flood good?" isn't really the question. The question is "how does your Cube play out"? I think powered pauper is a pretty bad format for Flood personally but that is meaningless if all your players want to durdle instead.
The idea that Shroud is better than Hexproof doesn't make sense to me (and I do realize you mean better in "gameplay" terms). Shroud is just a defensive ability that doesn't have much design space to play with -- there are no playable hexproof creatures that could be viewed as defacto shroud creatures.
Put on your amateur game design hats (berets..) if you must, but IMO if they'd kept shroud around there would be precisely zero extra shroud creatures in anyone's cube absent SaltMaster or someone deciding to make a Shroud of Turin theme Cube.
Personally (and this is me putting on my own beret) I think hexproof is a fallout from the fact that it would've been nigh impossible for Garfield et al to realize that Auras should probably attach on resolution (and I really mean *impossible* since "attach", "aura" etc were not even Magic concepts for a long time to come). Not to mention how strange it would be.
but I have never gotten the sense that they left because they were done talking.
They're never done talking and even if they were they would probably just find an old phone book and start reading from that. Despite which, there is definitely a limit where discourse ceases to be productive. After that, its just verbiage (quack quack quack)
EDIT: also, I don't have a concrete philosophy of Cube because I don't have a fixed Cube. I have a bunch of commons set aside in specially colored sleeves that more or less comprise all of the cards I and/or my small group would consider Pauper Cube material. To be honest, the most success we've had getting Cube sessions going is with an Unserious Cube of all rarities. The biggest thing is that it turns out that probably the entire Top 20 most broken cards ever printed in Magic are Unserious.
I think that this forum's elitist and unpleasant attitude has cut us off from popularity that really is ours to claim if we want it.
I for one can't wait to claim all of the extra "popularity" that entails even more people call us elist pricks. You can't honestly think you're the first Critical Cube Critics to hit these forums. For the most part they say their piece (we can check that part off the list) which includes much air of grievances (again, big checkmark) before they retire to their own gated communities to further discuss their thoughts of what Cube should be and denounce anyone who isn't there brand of Cube libertine.
Could the guys who want to write 1000 word posts possibly start their own thread or perhaps a Subforum called Philosophy of Cube? "Challenging the parameters" is fine but you already did that about a million words ago. I want to say there is nothing more to be said here but that doesn't seem to be an obstacle..
Unless he is Cubing by himself, there needs to be an entire group of players who are onboard choosing cards based on fun, artwork/aesthetics, (fleeting) novelty, nostalgia, je ne se quoi, the stars, drawing straws, entrails of the beast, quantum entanglement..
..you get the idea.
In practice it's hard to believe this is true, making his project a largely theoretical exercise and a bit of a strange platform for a(n oversized) soapbox.
Why would you ignore half of my cube? I'm serious, what's wrong with it? What are some cards that you consider to be unplayable? Name the 15 cards in the pack you get and tell me which are ones you'd ignore: http://www.cubetutor.com/samplepack/129072
If your concept of a bad card is Healing Salve or Giant Growth or Invigorate, then I don't what to say to you. There are plenty of powerful cards in my cube. Just no bombs or cards that single handedly blow your opponent out.
In my first sample pack, I got Ebony Horse and Healing Salve. The Horse seems laugh out loud bad. The rest were all regulars in most Cubes or close enough (Dead Ringers seems iffy)
Perhaps at common to match Simian Spirit Guide
I strongly hope there is still a booklet
Also, Tidal Wave's not really that "fun" in practice since its pretty much a generic kill effect as Al already pointed out. But thematically it is cool and it has defender which makes it a possible include in a Wall theme. Interestingly I think this card has functional errata (which they claim to not do, ha!) since in Mirage the token was a Wall. But you need a relaxed, non-competitive environment to get the most out of cards like this one.
Interestingly, this idea is almost certainly the only way to do "four color" guilds.
Define a pair of Ravnica Guilds as a Super Guild (SG).
To do 4 colors, each of the 5 Super Guilds must obviously be deficient by a different color (Not U, Not W, etc)
Furthermore, since it would be wonky to have some SGs be composed of two enemy guilds while others are composed of two allied guilds, we can assume that each SG would consist of one enemy guild and one allied guild.
It turns out there is exactly ONE combination that works in that case:
Gruul/Orzhov
Selesnya/Izzet
Dimir/Boros
Rakdos/Simic
Azorius/Golgari
EDIT: and the combinatorics isn't as hairy as you'd think
Also, these would be easy to flavor
Gruul/Orzhov would become Druids (church of the wilds) or possibly early Christianity themed (gutter religion)
Selesnya/Izzet would be the individuated collective with its own creative power (Captain Planet) or something like the German philosophical concept of Geist
Dimir/Boros would be the Deep State (intelligence+military)
Rakdos+Simic would be body hackers
Azorius+Golgari would be the seizing of power from below (think Reign of Terror or Zombie dictatorship of the Proletariat)
Yeah, that's the thing: "is Flood good?" isn't really the question. The question is "how does your Cube play out"? I think powered pauper is a pretty bad format for Flood personally but that is meaningless if all your players want to durdle instead.
It also wouldn't hurt if he struck a deal with a publishing house so they would assign him an editor to get his word count down
4 card opening hand
free land play for turn 1,2,3
after that you have to skip your draw to get a land
~25 card deck
Put on your amateur game design hats (berets..) if you must, but IMO if they'd kept shroud around there would be precisely zero extra shroud creatures in anyone's cube absent SaltMaster or someone deciding to make a Shroud of Turin theme Cube.
Personally (and this is me putting on my own beret) I think hexproof is a fallout from the fact that it would've been nigh impossible for Garfield et al to realize that Auras should probably attach on resolution (and I really mean *impossible* since "attach", "aura" etc were not even Magic concepts for a long time to come). Not to mention how strange it would be.
They're never done talking and even if they were they would probably just find an old phone book and start reading from that. Despite which, there is definitely a limit where discourse ceases to be productive. After that, its just verbiage (quack quack quack)
EDIT: also, I don't have a concrete philosophy of Cube because I don't have a fixed Cube. I have a bunch of commons set aside in specially colored sleeves that more or less comprise all of the cards I and/or my small group would consider Pauper Cube material. To be honest, the most success we've had getting Cube sessions going is with an Unserious Cube of all rarities. The biggest thing is that it turns out that probably the entire Top 20 most broken cards ever printed in Magic are Unserious.
I for one can't wait to claim all of the extra "popularity" that entails even more people call us elist pricks. You can't honestly think you're the first Critical Cube Critics to hit these forums. For the most part they say their piece (we can check that part off the list) which includes much air of grievances (again, big checkmark) before they retire to their own gated communities to further discuss their thoughts of what Cube should be and denounce anyone who isn't there brand of Cube libertine.
..you get the idea.
In practice it's hard to believe this is true, making his project a largely theoretical exercise and a bit of a strange platform for a(n oversized) soapbox.
In my first sample pack, I got Ebony Horse and Healing Salve. The Horse seems laugh out loud bad. The rest were all regulars in most Cubes or close enough (Dead Ringers seems iffy)