Various limited environments have shown that it's not raw power level that makes a fun environment, it's rich and deep interactions. I'm also interested in building a low power-level cube, but if it's just a bunch of random bad cards without cohesion, it won't be fun. Therein lies the challenge.
The key isn't overall power level; it's balance. My working definition of balance is I want each color and each color pair to be roughly equal in power. I also want balance in strategy, with control, midrange, and aggro all playable with combo/niche decks possible as well. Finally, I want each color/color pair to be fun to play.
All that said, I run a cube that overlaps 90% with most unpowered cubes. I cut the usual offenders, power, Sol Ring, Mind Twist, but also a few other people run like Treachery, and I cut down on the 5+ mana creatures in blue. I found blue control to be too good, and Gx midrange having a hard time keeping up. Dropping a good 4-5 drop and then having it Treachery'd was emblematic of why. Generally speaking though, I think what you see as lack of creativity is actually refinement. Everyone is out there tuning their cube to their group, refining what the standard cube is, like we are all working on creating the greatest reprint set of all time. It's basically a crowd-sourced set designed with only limited in mind.
I do have a few ideas for how to make lower-powered cubes that are fun though. Part of the thrill of Magic is feeling powerful. This is the way of the Timmy, and cube definitely scratches that itch. However, you can do that with powerful synergies too. The most beloved limited environments usually let you be clever and assemble things in new ways. I've thought about making a new cube using one of the following ideas:
Assign an archetype to each color pair.
Assign an archetype to a wedge/shard or 4-color combo so that there is overlap, maybe with separate archetypes assign to the pairs.
Get a list of fun limited deck archetypes and include the 15 best cards from each. That way, players can't just draft that deck, but have to mix and match. Balance the colors overall though.
Shard/wedge cubes: focus on a subset of colors maybe with a mechanical theme, e.g., Sultai graveyard cube.
The Desert Cube: one of the more creative cubes out there, oozing with flavor, but maybe not super fun all the time. Good for inspiration.
Stipulation cube: players are given different stipulations on their draft (e.g., card names must include every letter of the alphabet); cube is designed to be fun and allow players to complete the stipulations.
Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are each better than a Signet most of the time, but they're only 2 cards. Running the full cycle of 10 Signets has a stronger impact on your environment and what decks can look like in your cube.
This is right on. I didn't really get this until watching LSV draft on MTGO, but you can see how highly he picks signets or cards that go well in a deck with signets. Because he knew signets were in the draft, he could draft decks that took advantage of them. Signets have the effect of making blue control better, pushing out some other strategies.
FWIW, I run both Mana Vault and Grim Monolith in my unpowered cube. I was worried when I put them in about them being broken, but haven't had any complaints yet. They have been good, but there's a lot of good cards in there like Skullclamp, Swords, etc.
In the groups that I play with, people are more likely to pick Ashiok early over Shadowmage Infiltrator. One of my cube design principles is that multicolor cards should either pull you in to that combo or really reward the player for being in that combo. I think Ashiok is about as good of a reward, but a better pull. My group has a number of newer players, which I think partly accounts for the preference. The reason this cut was hard was because Shadowmage (and Psychatog, which I also cut) are iconic parts of Magic's history. My philosophy is to weigh the power of a card when it's good, and how often it's good/how many decks it's good in. I think Ashiok scores higher than Shadowmage in both regards.
I have been tinkering with various Ux Control decks ever since Sword of the Meek was unbanned, and wanted to share my progress. The unbanning of both Sword and Ancestral Vision help control, and the Eye of Ugin banning hurts the various flavors of Tron, previously terrible match-ups. This is going to be a long-form post laying out my thinking about this deck.
My initial thinking was that the Thopter Foundry-Sword combo would fit well into either a Tezzeret or Ux Control shell. After tinkering with some lists, I felt like the Tezzeret decks were too all-in on the combo. Stony Silence is a powerful hoser that will surely see more play, and is terrible for the deck. Additionally, Affinity emerges from the bans unscathed, and is certainly one of, if not the best, deck in the format. So there is extra incentive for running Ancient Grudge or other artifact hate. In addition to artifacts possibly turning on these high-value cards from the opponent, Tezzeret, especially the UB incarnation, requires running a relatively high density of artifacts, typically signets/talismans, which push out interactive cards. This is a personal preference, but I prefer the draw-go, counter spell/answer heavy control decks over the tap out style.
As a long-time Twin player, I've learned the value of having multiple paths to victory. Twin almost had two plan Bs, as neither the combo or the tempo/burn plan was as good as a dedicated deck could do it, but it was so flexible. Although I felt Tezzeret builds were more flexible, I also felt like all their plans were artifact-based and folded to the same hate. Similarly, I think the current versions of Gifts Ungiven-based Thopter-Sword decks that include the Unburial Rites combo are all vulnerable to graveyard hate. I expect Relic of Progenitus to be a popular card going forward. It was heavily played in the early Eldrazi decks, and is mainboarded in a number of decks, as it's good against Goyfs, Snapcasters, Griselshoal Combo, and various other decks in the format.
So I decided I wanted to go with a more traditional control shell and have the Thopter-Sword combo as more of a way to close out a game rather than something I was rushing to put together. I looked at old UW, Esper, and Jeskai control decks, as well as Thopter-Sword decks in Legacy for inspiration. One card that caught my eye was Esper Charm. EC has been held back because Jeskai has been a better control deck than Esper for a while, but the card is interesting in this context. Drawing 2 is about on par with Thirst for Knowledge, and the destroy enchantment mode answers Stony Silence or other enchantments. Lingering Souls is also in the color combo and a solid card in various match-ups. The other card that caught my eye was Condemn. The Thopter-Sword combo can snowball quickly, and when it does, even 10+ life from the opponent doesn't matter. It has a lot of advantages of Path to Exile, being cheap and answering problematic creatures, without the downside of giving them another land. Although I still think an Esper shell was interesting, I ultimately decided to just start with UW. Being 2 colors allowed me to play 4 Ghost Quarters, as more answers to man-lands and to fight Tron/Eldrazi.
The deck has 2 ways to win: Thopter-Sword and Snapcaster/Colonnade beat-down (I suppose decking via Academy Ruins recursion is another one)
Locally, I expect more aggro decks, and so the deck is tilted towards that, with 4 Path, 3 Condemn, and 2 Supreme Verdict to shut down opposing creatures.
The counter spell suite is mainly to stop combo and non-creature threats. Spell Snare seems particularly well positioned now as both a counter to 2cmc threats and a way to protect Cryptic Command from opposing counter spells. Since I'm expecting the game to go long, I run Remand over Mana Leak. No card in the deck becomes dead over a long game, save for extra copies of Sword/Foundry. I also only run 2 Remands (and zero Leaks) because of the anti-synergy with Path to Exile. Giving them lands makes Remand and Leak less effective.
The sideboard is still a work in progress, but it allows you to board in additional win conditions and/or answers depending on the match-up. I'm tuning it to my local metagame, which is fairly reflective of the metagame as a whole, except I don't see much Jund/midrange. That's where I'm at now. As I play the deck a bit more, I'll try to come back and give updates here. Definitely could be refined more, but it feels good where it is now.
I don't think Wizards should produce Cube-specific products. I lost a lot interest in playing EDH once they started to support it with specific product. For me, the fun of casual formats derives from the aspect of making something unintentional out of a given product. By producing stuff intended for that casual format this aspects gets undermined.
Shadows over Innistrad and most recent sets proofed that the Standard sets offer plenty support even for a powerful format like Cube.
Getting cards more accessible, especially for newcomers, would be a very preferable approach on the other hand.
I agree with this. When EDH first started, it was so cool to sit down and see a general you'd never faced. I specifically picked Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker because it seemed so different from what other people were doing. I think, over time, EDH got stale. The commander cards created more conformity. I wouldn't want to see a cube product define what cube is. There's a plus in how most cubes here overlap 85+%. We can all talk about cards and essentially collectively design a cube format, but with conformity comes a bit of staleness. Pretty much any of the Legacy plants in supplemental products are cube contenders anyway, so I don't think we need a special product.
My first impression is that she's very close to Xenagos. Certainly seems good, but not insane. While Arlinn has overall more useful abilities, Xenagos' ramp synergizes more with RG than pumping creatures. Not being able to come down and bolt something that turn also weakens Arlinn. Certainly, she's good, but not categorically better than existing options. She has a high cool factor, so I'm sure she will see testing.
Having trouble seeing what cool new design space there might be with level up. Thinking about changing UBRG to care about artifacts. Then it solves the problem of how to make artifacts matter and also eliminates potential confusion with +1/+1 counters.
I have some updates! I know this thread hasn't garnered a ton of interest, but the community here has helped me a bunch with my cube and other things, which informed my game design, so I didn't want to just let this thread die without one more post.
We have a bunch of the final art now on the website. I am just incredibly proud of where the game has gone, and can't wait to launch the Kickstarter! We've had a ton of interest at local events, and as we finish up art and graphics, I'm reflecting back on it.
One thing I love about our game is how different it is from Magic. It's not a game about attacking, which sets it apart from most other customizable card games. It also puts a neat spin on a lot of Magic concepts like tempo and card advantage. We have a card called Political Action Committee that potentially lets you draw three cards each turn for multiple turns. When Magic players see they say, "That's broken." Then they see Super PAC, which lets you draw FOUR cards a turn. I love seeing their brains work as they realize that our "Ancestral Recall" isn't broken at all, and actually quite fair. I am proud of the resource system and the way cards interact. It was a slow, iterative process to get here, but I can say I've never played a game quite like it, and I've played many CCGs and boardgames.
Anyway, this is a small corner of MTGS where I can acknowledge that a lot of the help I got here on my cube or reading threads in the set design forums helped me think about my game. So, thanks MTGS!
I like actually designing the cards, but I don't have a lot of interest in finding art or creating the layouts for cards. Are there people who enjoy the art direction/layout part of making cards who would just help for free? Have others who don't have the interest in doing the art part found ways to work with collaborators?
Edit: I should add that actually printing the cards/assembling the cards isn't the problem, but finding so many pieces of art and putting them in proper Magic templates is what is boring (to me.)
Edit2: Also, I'd like to do something more involved than just getting images from Magic Set Editor. I can, but ideally, I could get them all in one long pdf, with a card per page.
Part of what I think is fun about cube is that it's changed from less of a "custom limited environment" to a community-created limited set. We all work collectively on the format.
That said, I have a lot of fun drafting off-beat cubes. I have a regular "powermax" unpowered cube, and I once made another cube that had no cards in common, but otherwise power-maxed. It was fine, but not more fun than my regular cube. I think what I like to see in non-traditional cubes is more of theme or gimmick. In other words, doing something other than maxing power can be fun. I now have an Innistrad block cube I break out each Halloween (http://imgur.com/a/XKpib).
If I were to design a third cube, I would want one that challenged players' creativity and brewing. I would take assign each color a monocolor archetype, each color pair an archetype, and have three five-color or colorless archetypes. That would give 18 different archetypes. Each one would be allotted 20 cards, with the overall number of cards across the colors/pairs equal or close to it. The point would be to create an environment where players had to combine cards in interesting, synergistic ways without the draft feeling too "on rails". I like my Innistrad cube, but even though I reduced the pack size to 13 (mostly for flavor reasons) the draft can feel kind of easy. With only 20 cards per archetype, it would be hard to draft each archetype exactly each time. I would want the overall power level to be a bit less, so a card like Corpsejack Menace would be good. Some care would have to be taken so that the archetypes weren't too isolated (likely no infect).
The key isn't overall power level; it's balance. My working definition of balance is I want each color and each color pair to be roughly equal in power. I also want balance in strategy, with control, midrange, and aggro all playable with combo/niche decks possible as well. Finally, I want each color/color pair to be fun to play.
All that said, I run a cube that overlaps 90% with most unpowered cubes. I cut the usual offenders, power, Sol Ring, Mind Twist, but also a few other people run like Treachery, and I cut down on the 5+ mana creatures in blue. I found blue control to be too good, and Gx midrange having a hard time keeping up. Dropping a good 4-5 drop and then having it Treachery'd was emblematic of why. Generally speaking though, I think what you see as lack of creativity is actually refinement. Everyone is out there tuning their cube to their group, refining what the standard cube is, like we are all working on creating the greatest reprint set of all time. It's basically a crowd-sourced set designed with only limited in mind.
I do have a few ideas for how to make lower-powered cubes that are fun though. Part of the thrill of Magic is feeling powerful. This is the way of the Timmy, and cube definitely scratches that itch. However, you can do that with powerful synergies too. The most beloved limited environments usually let you be clever and assemble things in new ways. I've thought about making a new cube using one of the following ideas:
This is right on. I didn't really get this until watching LSV draft on MTGO, but you can see how highly he picks signets or cards that go well in a deck with signets. Because he knew signets were in the draft, he could draft decks that took advantage of them. Signets have the effect of making blue control better, pushing out some other strategies.
FWIW, I run both Mana Vault and Grim Monolith in my unpowered cube. I was worried when I put them in about them being broken, but haven't had any complaints yet. They have been good, but there's a lot of good cards in there like Skullclamp, Swords, etc.
My initial thinking was that the Thopter Foundry-Sword combo would fit well into either a Tezzeret or Ux Control shell. After tinkering with some lists, I felt like the Tezzeret decks were too all-in on the combo. Stony Silence is a powerful hoser that will surely see more play, and is terrible for the deck. Additionally, Affinity emerges from the bans unscathed, and is certainly one of, if not the best, deck in the format. So there is extra incentive for running Ancient Grudge or other artifact hate. In addition to artifacts possibly turning on these high-value cards from the opponent, Tezzeret, especially the UB incarnation, requires running a relatively high density of artifacts, typically signets/talismans, which push out interactive cards. This is a personal preference, but I prefer the draw-go, counter spell/answer heavy control decks over the tap out style.
As a long-time Twin player, I've learned the value of having multiple paths to victory. Twin almost had two plan Bs, as neither the combo or the tempo/burn plan was as good as a dedicated deck could do it, but it was so flexible. Although I felt Tezzeret builds were more flexible, I also felt like all their plans were artifact-based and folded to the same hate. Similarly, I think the current versions of Gifts Ungiven-based Thopter-Sword decks that include the Unburial Rites combo are all vulnerable to graveyard hate. I expect Relic of Progenitus to be a popular card going forward. It was heavily played in the early Eldrazi decks, and is mainboarded in a number of decks, as it's good against Goyfs, Snapcasters, Griselshoal Combo, and various other decks in the format.
So I decided I wanted to go with a more traditional control shell and have the Thopter-Sword combo as more of a way to close out a game rather than something I was rushing to put together. I looked at old UW, Esper, and Jeskai control decks, as well as Thopter-Sword decks in Legacy for inspiration. One card that caught my eye was Esper Charm. EC has been held back because Jeskai has been a better control deck than Esper for a while, but the card is interesting in this context. Drawing 2 is about on par with Thirst for Knowledge, and the destroy enchantment mode answers Stony Silence or other enchantments. Lingering Souls is also in the color combo and a solid card in various match-ups. The other card that caught my eye was Condemn. The Thopter-Sword combo can snowball quickly, and when it does, even 10+ life from the opponent doesn't matter. It has a lot of advantages of Path to Exile, being cheap and answering problematic creatures, without the downside of giving them another land. Although I still think an Esper shell was interesting, I ultimately decided to just start with UW. Being 2 colors allowed me to play 4 Ghost Quarters, as more answers to man-lands and to fight Tron/Eldrazi.
So here is my current list:
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Academy Ruins
2 Seachrome Coast
3 Hallowed Fountain
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
Creature
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spell
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Serum Visions
1 Logic Knot
2 Remand
3 Spell Snare
1 Muddle the Mixture
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Path to Exile
3 Condemn
1 Muddle the Mixture
2 Negate
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Dispel
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Spellskite
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Gideon Jura
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Spreading Seas
The deck has 2 ways to win: Thopter-Sword and Snapcaster/Colonnade beat-down (I suppose decking via Academy Ruins recursion is another one)
Locally, I expect more aggro decks, and so the deck is tilted towards that, with 4 Path, 3 Condemn, and 2 Supreme Verdict to shut down opposing creatures.
The counter spell suite is mainly to stop combo and non-creature threats. Spell Snare seems particularly well positioned now as both a counter to 2cmc threats and a way to protect Cryptic Command from opposing counter spells. Since I'm expecting the game to go long, I run Remand over Mana Leak. No card in the deck becomes dead over a long game, save for extra copies of Sword/Foundry. I also only run 2 Remands (and zero Leaks) because of the anti-synergy with Path to Exile. Giving them lands makes Remand and Leak less effective.
The sideboard is still a work in progress, but it allows you to board in additional win conditions and/or answers depending on the match-up. I'm tuning it to my local metagame, which is fairly reflective of the metagame as a whole, except I don't see much Jund/midrange. That's where I'm at now. As I play the deck a bit more, I'll try to come back and give updates here. Definitely could be refined more, but it feels good where it is now.
I agree with this. When EDH first started, it was so cool to sit down and see a general you'd never faced. I specifically picked Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker because it seemed so different from what other people were doing. I think, over time, EDH got stale. The commander cards created more conformity. I wouldn't want to see a cube product define what cube is. There's a plus in how most cubes here overlap 85+%. We can all talk about cards and essentially collectively design a cube format, but with conformity comes a bit of staleness. Pretty much any of the Legacy plants in supplemental products are cube contenders anyway, so I don't think we need a special product.
What would you say would be a fair price?
We have a bunch of the final art now on the website. I am just incredibly proud of where the game has gone, and can't wait to launch the Kickstarter! We've had a ton of interest at local events, and as we finish up art and graphics, I'm reflecting back on it.
One thing I love about our game is how different it is from Magic. It's not a game about attacking, which sets it apart from most other customizable card games. It also puts a neat spin on a lot of Magic concepts like tempo and card advantage. We have a card called Political Action Committee that potentially lets you draw three cards each turn for multiple turns. When Magic players see they say, "That's broken." Then they see Super PAC, which lets you draw FOUR cards a turn. I love seeing their brains work as they realize that our "Ancestral Recall" isn't broken at all, and actually quite fair. I am proud of the resource system and the way cards interact. It was a slow, iterative process to get here, but I can say I've never played a game quite like it, and I've played many CCGs and boardgames.
Anyway, this is a small corner of MTGS where I can acknowledge that a lot of the help I got here on my cube or reading threads in the set design forums helped me think about my game. So, thanks MTGS!
Edit: I should add that actually printing the cards/assembling the cards isn't the problem, but finding so many pieces of art and putting them in proper Magic templates is what is boring (to me.)
Edit2: Also, I'd like to do something more involved than just getting images from Magic Set Editor. I can, but ideally, I could get them all in one long pdf, with a card per page.
That said, I have a lot of fun drafting off-beat cubes. I have a regular "powermax" unpowered cube, and I once made another cube that had no cards in common, but otherwise power-maxed. It was fine, but not more fun than my regular cube. I think what I like to see in non-traditional cubes is more of theme or gimmick. In other words, doing something other than maxing power can be fun. I now have an Innistrad block cube I break out each Halloween (http://imgur.com/a/XKpib).
If I were to design a third cube, I would want one that challenged players' creativity and brewing. I would take assign each color a monocolor archetype, each color pair an archetype, and have three five-color or colorless archetypes. That would give 18 different archetypes. Each one would be allotted 20 cards, with the overall number of cards across the colors/pairs equal or close to it. The point would be to create an environment where players had to combine cards in interesting, synergistic ways without the draft feeling too "on rails". I like my Innistrad cube, but even though I reduced the pack size to 13 (mostly for flavor reasons) the draft can feel kind of easy. With only 20 cards per archetype, it would be hard to draft each archetype exactly each time. I would want the overall power level to be a bit less, so a card like Corpsejack Menace would be good. Some care would have to be taken so that the archetypes weren't too isolated (likely no infect).