Actually, Calibretto, we have a saying in our cube "you never lose to on-board tricks". We will rewind clearly dumb mistakes like that. There is no real victory there when your opponent misses obvious information. Winning due to absent mindedness is lame.
You never stated why you feel the need to keep your artifact section at an arbitrary number. It seems especially intrusive. Have you ever tried running less?
My most experienced friend and i found that having too many colorless cards diluted the cardpool. Not enough bang for your pack, it seemed.
---------------
And I'm sorry Calibretto but the main purpose of the thread's existence is so there is a place to discuss what people do with new cards, in detail. We use it however we please, which is and has always been fine. I only outwardly moved the discussion twice.
Once because it was potentially a fairly deep topic and I had a choice between going through it and losing where we were in the relevant conversation; interrupting it and not going over it fully; or civilly asking to just wait a little bit of time before we go over it in detail. Which we will. I don't think there is any way to ask someone to stop talking that doesn't come off as bossy, but I tried. I even added a little "for science" inside joke to ease tension (assuming, perhaps wrongly, that people here have played portal 2.)
The second time I did it was because I honestly knew we would get nowhere. I gave us a day and a half of extra time to spend time on it because tReason and Big Jim hadn't really had a say. I didn't want the thread to become a stubborn logic match, so I ***** smacked it out of the way. If you look at the two cases, I hope you'll see that this isn't as big a deal as you think it is.
I want us to talk about what pieces move out of each of our lists and for what reason. You say that you figure that the relevant conversation about the topic had run its course, and if this was any other thread, then you may have been right. But I'm fairly certain that from the get-go I made it clear that we weren't supposed to be just writing in any other thread. This was the thread for depth and detail and defining/defending your reasoning. So when someone says that they like Galvanic juggernaut, at some point in time the idea is to go into why, how it'll play, what is it better than, pros and cons, etc. The entire site is rife with casual analysis, and I'm guilty of it too. But this thread wasn't supposed to do that as much, which is why I wanted to keep us focused more than normal - because that was the entire point. Especially now.
I wish I didnt have to reiterate, but i really dont mind having side conversations. This should havent had been an issue.
The reasons why I wanted to move past the phyrexian mana discussion by tomorrow is because
A: I know he and I won't ever agree on phyrexian cards, so it just becomes me saying stuff, him rebutting, and me attacking his rebuttal. Rinse repeat so on. I feels less.... friendly.
B: Tomorrow is the last day before cards are in sleeves and testing starts. The phyrexian debates can and do drag on ad infinatum (at least if im in it), so that particular topic would have cut into the prime time for the thread. It was a smaller issue with Jim's rare discussion. I had no idea how long that would go, and it seemed to kinda spring up in the middle of the main discussion. Jim, I do want to finish that because I had a similar issue, but it seemed to me at the time to be bad timing. I don't want to be totalitarian, of course, but I obsess over the new card discussion. One of the problems is, like you said, it is impossible to tell when topics end sometimes, so its hard to know what to do in order to keep all four of us happy, while also letting the randoms find the thread and talking about topics related to the title.
-----------------------
I am a builder. I get my enjoyment not necessarily out of playing the cube, but out of making a perfect machine. That's why I like the nuts and bolts talk so much. Why this over that. The pros and cons of redundancy. What to replace. Etc. For example, while we all said what we would like to test, nobody talked about what cards would have to get the boot. Well, calibretto did on his thread, to be fair.
I mean, we all want Diregraf ghoul and Reckless Waif, but what spots do they take? Why? That's where I was hoping to carry the thread over the next couple of days.
--------------
Now take tReason's question. That looks like a fairly straightforward query. The last two offshoots may have been three or four days of discussion material apiece (or not, who knows), so I was merely transposing them until later next week when the season died down. I don't think that is too much to ask. Also, I have made sure nor to shut down other queries without at least allowing some back and forth. I like the talks as much as the next guy. But I made this thread for these four times of year, and this is when I care most.
ANYWAY
TReason, how many cards of those get you multiple colors of mana? My cube is a bit over 500 I believe, and I have the vivids, refuges, shardlands, panoramas, terramorphic twins, city of brass and gemstone mine. When I get a mirrodins core, that'll push my fixing lands to 25 (tryin to remember off the top of my head). As for nongreen fixers, I have a ragtag bunch of cards like pilgrims eye and sphere of suns, but only the blue signets. Since I have them in their color combination section, fitting the other signets was hard. Blue decks wanted them the most, but besides b/w, I hardly ever saw them in play (useful) outside of 3+ color control, which doesn't happen a whole lot. Even still, most of those decks are blue aligned anyway.
In any case, it is like this. I want my decks with fewer colors to run more smoothly than my more powerful 4 color decks. I want that trade. I also want green to be special like that. Calibretto is on the other side of the fence; he wants as little interference between his spells and casting them.
If your cube plays in a way you want it to then you have a good thing going. I suppose you can try a philosophy and see if It's enjoyable. Me, I like cutthroat games and drafts, because I do absolutely nothing in a way that can be considered casual. My friends are all very, very competitive, and we love to weigh pros and cons in the intricacies. Everything is very precise.
I don't know what exactly to give you besides that. Talk to your group. If anything, you can up your land count to 45 and see if you guys hate it or not.
To reiterate, I don't mind talking about many things in here, I just didn't want to get totally derailed. I want this thread to live for longer than I will be active in it, and keeping you guys coming in here is the only way to do so. I don't want to alienate anyone, at all.
You can definitely try alchemy. I am too. Just imagine it is thirst for knowledge every time you play it and see if it is worth it. And of course, flashback is a thing, which helps.
I need to find a mistral charger.
As I described in my thread, our cardpools are really small. sometimes, all you got is a black knight. You may not have that problem.
Cali, why do need to have your artifact section set at a specific number? Their numbers can grow or shrink with zero effect on balance (except for the capacity of drafting a monocolored deck). Everybody has more options, everybody has less options, it's fine. You could ignore a lot of awkward misplaced numbers by putting them where they should go and having an artifact section that just isn't a round number. It is logical. Things like having crystal shard and faerie conclave not in blue with zero extra cards for white are blatant imperfections that statistically add up. A few percentage points is not insignificant. Those are wins and losses. There are some things that we can't solve, but we should still try to have as many of the discrepancies ironed out as possible.
Jim, at first I didn't like the system you put up, but in the end I like it more than the one I saw in calibretto's list. At least it gives a nod to color balancing. I try to use my cold hard numbers to solve every issue (because there is nary a nonhuman problem that isn't solved by numbers), but at least this gives me some breathing room when I want to categorize cards like dismember. The issue here would be the same as having a big enemy colored section. I don't want to play X or Y, but I do want to play Z so I have to even out the numbers. It is, however, not a bad direction.
I draft as follows.
Each player takes a pack of 6 cards, chooses 1, and passes the other 6 cards. When you pass, you pass them in two piles (which we can call known and unknown). Now you look at your known pile, and choose between any 1 card from there or you can instead take the entire unknown pile. Most splits are 4/1, but you can split them up however you want.
All cards that were not chosen become trashed and a new round begins. 16 rounds means that you get about 33 cards to work with. Allowing 2-3 packs with no good cards for you, 0-1 picks for hatedrafting, 3-5 picks for perhaps switching a color, and 1-3 picks for whatever else can happen that I missed, you average 24 cards in your pool if you change color, 28 if you don't. Of course, you see drafts where someone is being forced to splash a color to get those last two playables, or drafts where someone has to cut 10 cards. But it is this strict numerical structure that makes me so opinionated on the categorization of cards. Being short one playable is the difference between being able to hate a card or not, taking a land over a spell, or having to splash a color. I need to have the colors as even as humanly possible or else the imbalances are very apparent. I need as close to a perfect system as I can create.
I am always tweaking the draft format but the basic pick-pass-trash structure has been in use by my group for over a year now.
Most decks get between 1 and 3 forms of nongreen fixing. Some get zero, some get more. I have it set up this way to give green more identity, to make lands more valuable in drafting for those who need them, and to make the two color and mono colored decks run smoother than the more powerful three and four color arrangements.
Now
I want to get past this discussion by tomorrow so we can focus on the title of the thread, or we can put it on hiatus (just as I asked Jim to do) until we hit the next lull season.
wait, why do you say cards should get categorized where they are best, but put wall of tanglecord in artifacts, the colored manlands in lands, crystal shard in artifacts, Shrine of burning rage in artifacts, and forbidden alchemy in blue?
*Shakes fist at your inconsistentcy*
Also, the color order in which my phyrexian mana cards get picked and played are as follows:
Porcelain Legionnaire and Spined thopter
Green
Black
Red
White
Blue (significantly less)
Act of aggression
Red
Blue
White/black (controlling builds, significantly less)
Green (this card has been behaving oddly)
Mutagenic growth
green
all other colors fairly evenly
Tezzerets Gambit
All colors fairly evenly (preference in nonaggro)
Dismember
All nonwhite colors fairly evenly
white
So, from what I've seen, the cards have been behaving as I predicted (except act of aggression). As the usefulness of the card increases, colors that would want access to the card pick it much more frequently than colors who don't value that effect as much due to the fact that they can get similar abilities out of cheaper cards and more cards. Green jumps on spined thopter and porcelain legionnaire because those cards at 2 mana are way more relevant than whatever fatties it can spend the rest of the draft picking up. Blue based decks take dismember and act of aggression like they need it to live. And most decks don't need a pump spell, so mutagenic growth gets all of its pick value out of the options.
...
I know I ran this thought experiment with you months ago. Imagine if half of the cards in a color (say, white) were phyrexian, and they were all high caliber cards. If you wanted to build a white deck, you get significantly less cards because everyone else is taking them away from you. If I'm building a red deck, I go from 20% of the spells being in my color to 25%. That's significant.
I also went over another issue. The life payment don't matter very often. What I mean is this; The life payment only matters if you are forced to pay the two life and you actually lose the game ENTIRELY because you had two less life. This is a very, very, very specific case, and I'd argue that it's as rare (if not rarer) than not being able to block fliers with wall of tanglecord. It requires you to
A: Be in a situation where you can pay 3 instead of 2.
B: want to pay 3 instead of 2.
C: Lose the game by being put to exactly 0 or -1.
D: (This is the most important thing) Definitively would have won the game if A, B, and C had not occurred.
That's all that matters. If all of those things happen often, then it would have relevance. But it doesn't. Since it's mana cost has next to zero relevance on both picking habits and game outcomes, I can't do anything but put it in artifacts.
I don't know how anyone can look at all this data and see it differently.
I have anurid maybe deal me a little less than that much damage, but it usually beats my opponent for double that much before it finally hits his funeral. Maybe our environments are just that different. I do have more spells to creatures in my nonblue colors, which by itself could be the difference.
My twisted abomination dies... maybe... one quarter of the time, if I round up. It isn't very often that he loses in my cube. He is one of the more consistent high end dudes for my cube, especially in black. I wish I knew why our experiences are so wildly different.
There are plenty of good reasons for keeping black knight. Things like, "not all my black decks are aggro" and "It doesn't die to about 40% of all the creatures in the cube." are the frontrunners. Some decks want an early drop to hold the fort, and it looks as though you are very rapidly running out of black creatures that can be defensive. There are times where you really just want to invalidate a hellspark elemental, and Id rather there be enough options there to do so.
Thirst isn't even in my cube anymore, so I'm not attached to it or anything. I'm just saying that if your hand has cards A B and C and you cast Thirst, you can lose cards D and A while keeping E and F. With this, yes you get to see G but you still only 1 for 1. Just because the cards aren't in your hand Now doesn't make them less relevant; cards you can see are worth just as much as the ones you hold. You lose the flexibility of choice to dig one deeper, not to mention the off chance to pitch a signet or something to really get sick value.
Discarding two out of the entire pool you end up with (3+initial hand size) is mathematically not as backbreaking so long as your hand already has a single card in it, since with Alchemy you are "discarding" 3 cards out of a smaller pool (fixed at 4). Numbers don't lie.
Wow. where is my thirst for knowledge.
Like I said, I'm not attached to Thirst or anything, I just wanted to show all of the facts.
I don't think unicorn is needed. I have been happy with it... close to never. Enchantment hate is not as vital as artifact hate, I have learned.
there are a few other oddballs in the CMC department, like capsize not being in at 6.
I never posted my cube. No way I'm typing all of that out on my phone. not without cash incentives, at least.
You and I will forever disagree on the categorization of the phyrexian mana cards, so I wont even bring that up further.
Interestingly we both put wall of tanglecord in as a nongreen creature though.
The main thing that stands out is the saturation of mana fixing in your cube. My drafts are 98.5% of the time between two people, in a nonwinston manner, so perhaps that's why our numbers are so incredibly different... but I only have;
Shardlands
Refuges
Vivids
terramorphic twins
the panoramas
gemstone mine
city of brass
sphere of suns
armillary sphere
the four blue signets
Pilgrims eye
manalith (which should be darksteel ingot)
in my cube. Mirrodins core and warfarers bauble will both go in when found, but at first blush I appear to be running nearly THIRTY less cards in my cube to fix mana. Why do you feel this abundance of mana fixing to be necessary? In my cube, one can reasonably assume a deck has 1-2 fixing pieces in it on average, though it isn't uncommon to see decks with zero or three or four. I like the stress of knowing that this kazandu refuge might be important enough to draft over a beastbreaker of bala ged because I want to feel better about splashing this late Fireball I just scooped up. There is always a bit of a tense moment when a land is taken over a spell, and to increase their value I increased their scarcity.
Also, this may be why my aggro fares so well in my cube. Less lands = more chances to pick up that second or third one drop.
I play the panoramas because they make plated geopede, steppe lynx, and Top better, as well as serving a role as another set of enemy lands.
wretched anurid had probably been one of the best aggressive creatures in my whole cube. Not just black. I can't imagine what's been happening to you to cut it.
I definitely prefer Twisty over Banshee. Twisty never dies, is a reanimation target, and helps fix mana! Twisty for life!
Interloper for black knight is tough. I don't want your whole black two drop slot to be evasive 2 power guys. there has to be Some variance, right?
The blue changes are ok. Thirst does work better than alchemy in a hand with cards in it though, that's a tough call. I also was counting it as monoblue, since the flashback will be a nonfactor while I'm drafting.
Red changes are ok. Flame javelin out for anything is ballsy, though.
also, I never liked the unicorn.. tried to, only killed centaur glade and a mind control. disenchant ran better...
trepanation blade is probably the worst equipment I've read since the comically bad Razor Boomarang. I'm paying how much mana to get +2/+0 on only an attacking creature? More than 2. More than 2 by 3?
Underestimated the interloper. However, I'd like to point out that it seems as though everyone else is psyched about making their black aggro better, while my black aggro is easily my best aggro. I need more support in red, actually.
Cali, would you run the 2/3 over the mini spectral procession?
Big Jim, correction, the skaabs are supported by reanimator, not the other way around.
If you could only pick one, which would it be?
Fume spitter
Dead weight
Disfigure
I chose options A because it can do the most work.
Bramblebrush is worse than creeping mold, since it hits planeswalkers but not artifact creatures. Wrong cube, cali
The waif is easily the best werewolf for us. It definitely doesn't want to have to deal with Top, though. Shudder...
cloistered youth is probably the best card for us in the whole set. She is crazy.
fiend hunter will see a test but I don't know what to replace. Kor hookmaster has been good, but this is sick with blink.
Vampire interloper is lucky that I'm probably upping the card count by about 3 per color, or else he'd be in direct competition with fledgling djinn, and to me it loses that battle. Even though the jump from 1 to 2 toughness is minor, blocking is a nice option.
Midnight haunting does a great spectral procession impression, and will certainly give celestial crusader job security.
The Demonmail looks subpar to me. Grafted wargear is absolutely stellar and it would appear to me that I'd rather not force myself to pick up random token generators.
galvanic juggernaut will be tested in mine, even though that drawback is harsh. 5/5s for 4, however, are terrifying. We'll see.
Forbidden alchemy is going in faster than I can say "forbidden alchemy is going in faster than I can say..."
Stitched Drake has direct competition with serendib efreet. I don't know what to do on this one, as much as I like bluggro,there is too much of a good thing.
Crossway vampire is iffy for me. the double red makes it hard for the big green, white and black two drops to be helped by her. The effect would've been more helpful on a hasted 4 drop.
I have a lot of green tricks which give rangers guile trouble. Withstand death is comparable in effectiveness, and I don't play that.
I prefer trusty machete to silver-inlaid dagger, for statistical reasons.
Dead weight or disfigure... I don't know which is better, but I do know that I'm not currently running disfigure. They both have to match up to fume spitter, and its a hard fight. I'm not exactly sure which upside are more important.
the 2/3 flier Chapel Geist is going to be amazing in innistrad, but I'm not sold on it for the cube.
Skaab Goliath (to my knowledge) is the only blue creature at this rarity that straight up doesn't lose to any creature in the cube besides Artisan of Kozilek (if you run the big guy). In fact, the only other nonevasive creatures I can think of that can attack into him and not die are pellakka wurm and ravenous baloth.
As much as I defend the virtues of peasant cube, it is true that creatures attack block and die a bit more here. He should never not have food for casting.
Finally, it is one more reason for me to reconsider adding Undead Warcheif (scary thought, that).
<3
I am feverishly awaiting both of these guys.
As for the others
I brought up thraben sentry because I thought it was borderline, and those are most interesting. 2/2 vigilance at 4 is Obv poor, and even spending a turn at that size is potentially too long. I, as usual, will test this guy, but won't be surprised if he can't make it in.
Intangible Virtue will mostly be paired with green obviously, though it isn't entirely impossible to see a few subpar red couplings. I think the colors in which it is useful keep it out, but I'll hold a copy in my reserves pile for the day this one can shine.
Those three drops are questionable, I'll admit. However, the red one dodges all of our sweepers in the baby form, so I would like to see if it can be a red defensive creature for the decks that want such a thing. I still use the 2 drop blue merfolk leveler that becomes a 6/6 (Yeah... totally forgot the name) and this guy would be trying to serve the same purpose in a way.
Gastaf Shepherd is definitely going to be tried, no persuasion needed.
Viper just doesn't deal with enough creatures. And it sucks when your removal loses to pretty much every spell.
By the way, I finally took Master Thief out. I swear his ability is far, far better than it looks (take lightning greaves wooooooo birthday!), but nobody picked him up out of suspicion. Even me somehow.
EDIT
Full set spoiled. Please, let's spend some time on cards individually, as always was the idea.
Well Jim, if I could change the title of my thread to "peasant cube hub", I would. New cards are the main focus, and this is new card season, but side conversations keep the thread alive in downtime. This, however, is not downtime. Just remember this topic and bring it up again when it is a better time.
In the meantime, let's analyze the cards I brought up. For science.
Also, I play hammer of bogardan in unpowreed cubes.
the issue I have is that once you get rid of rarity... what's the cutoff? is Vendillion clique fair enough to help my blue aggro? What about cards that had no business being rare, like serra sphinx? Sangromancy? I can't use price obviously, so where could it stop?
I generally don't mind off-beat suggestions, such as cards that are uncommon in online magic. But without some written boundary I don't think such a thing could work.
My aggro hasn't had any issues. Perhaps my green based aggro thanks to midrange being so much better for me in the color, but overall aggro has been fine. What hasn't been working for you to consider something so radical?
Also. I dumped the bounce lands a long long time ago. Land destruction is a thing, and losing a game entirely because I placed Azorius Chancery on the table was a little ridiculous. Perhaps cutting them entirely could alleviate your issue? Less cards for control = more cards for aggro as far as ratios are concerned.
In other news, the waif does look promising. On the play, this is a 3/2.
I am most excited for skaab goliath. Holy crap, Batman.
thraben sentry looks half decent, if only because that backside is Completely Off the Chain.
That intangible pump enchantment (for tokens) is making me think. I have lots of token producers in green and white. This looks pretty Damn pretty next to a Squirrels Nest or a Cenn's Enlistment. Hell, I've even been eying Roc egg for a while now. Just sayin.
The red 1/5>5/5 3 drop werewolf and the green 2/3>4/6 3 drop werewolf may be playable. Turn three on the draw seems like it may be a turn late to get a consistent activation, but perhaps not. It's so hard to tell... this is information I've never had to never had to track before.
However, gastaf shepherd (2/2>3/3 intimidate), upon further review, could be bananas on turn two. I've kept a lot of hands with a 1 drop, a 2 drop and a 4 drop in my life. That space is potentially scary all of a sudden.
Scourge of geier reach (3/3 elemental 5 drop) was something I was going to watch. unfortunately, the more I think about it, it looks worse and worse. It's a 4/4 minimum under most circumstances, but I don't think that I'd even play with a vanilla 6/6 for 5. Sad...
Ambush viper is probably outclassed by virtually every other green two drop in cube, but if I think of it as a kill spell (obv intent of the card) it looks better.
Oh, nevermind.
Still not enough. "1G destroy a nonflying, nonfirst strike, nonshadow attacking creature unless your opponent has a kill spell" seems a bit sketchy at best. That, and trample still smiles at you. At least it kills the derm brothers...
Overall... Still need at least one more zombie for Undead warchief and another creature for corpse connisuer to care about. Need... subtheme.. support.
You never stated why you feel the need to keep your artifact section at an arbitrary number. It seems especially intrusive. Have you ever tried running less?
My most experienced friend and i found that having too many colorless cards diluted the cardpool. Not enough bang for your pack, it seemed.
---------------
And I'm sorry Calibretto but the main purpose of the thread's existence is so there is a place to discuss what people do with new cards, in detail. We use it however we please, which is and has always been fine. I only outwardly moved the discussion twice.
Once because it was potentially a fairly deep topic and I had a choice between going through it and losing where we were in the relevant conversation; interrupting it and not going over it fully; or civilly asking to just wait a little bit of time before we go over it in detail. Which we will. I don't think there is any way to ask someone to stop talking that doesn't come off as bossy, but I tried. I even added a little "for science" inside joke to ease tension (assuming, perhaps wrongly, that people here have played portal 2.)
The second time I did it was because I honestly knew we would get nowhere. I gave us a day and a half of extra time to spend time on it because tReason and Big Jim hadn't really had a say. I didn't want the thread to become a stubborn logic match, so I ***** smacked it out of the way. If you look at the two cases, I hope you'll see that this isn't as big a deal as you think it is.
I want us to talk about what pieces move out of each of our lists and for what reason. You say that you figure that the relevant conversation about the topic had run its course, and if this was any other thread, then you may have been right. But I'm fairly certain that from the get-go I made it clear that we weren't supposed to be just writing in any other thread. This was the thread for depth and detail and defining/defending your reasoning. So when someone says that they like Galvanic juggernaut, at some point in time the idea is to go into why, how it'll play, what is it better than, pros and cons, etc. The entire site is rife with casual analysis, and I'm guilty of it too. But this thread wasn't supposed to do that as much, which is why I wanted to keep us focused more than normal - because that was the entire point. Especially now.
I wish I didnt have to reiterate, but i really dont mind having side conversations. This should havent had been an issue.
A: I know he and I won't ever agree on phyrexian cards, so it just becomes me saying stuff, him rebutting, and me attacking his rebuttal. Rinse repeat so on. I feels less.... friendly.
B: Tomorrow is the last day before cards are in sleeves and testing starts. The phyrexian debates can and do drag on ad infinatum (at least if im in it), so that particular topic would have cut into the prime time for the thread. It was a smaller issue with Jim's rare discussion. I had no idea how long that would go, and it seemed to kinda spring up in the middle of the main discussion. Jim, I do want to finish that because I had a similar issue, but it seemed to me at the time to be bad timing. I don't want to be totalitarian, of course, but I obsess over the new card discussion. One of the problems is, like you said, it is impossible to tell when topics end sometimes, so its hard to know what to do in order to keep all four of us happy, while also letting the randoms find the thread and talking about topics related to the title.
-----------------------
I am a builder. I get my enjoyment not necessarily out of playing the cube, but out of making a perfect machine. That's why I like the nuts and bolts talk so much. Why this over that. The pros and cons of redundancy. What to replace. Etc. For example, while we all said what we would like to test, nobody talked about what cards would have to get the boot. Well, calibretto did on his thread, to be fair.
I mean, we all want Diregraf ghoul and Reckless Waif, but what spots do they take? Why? That's where I was hoping to carry the thread over the next couple of days.
--------------
Now take tReason's question. That looks like a fairly straightforward query. The last two offshoots may have been three or four days of discussion material apiece (or not, who knows), so I was merely transposing them until later next week when the season died down. I don't think that is too much to ask. Also, I have made sure nor to shut down other queries without at least allowing some back and forth. I like the talks as much as the next guy. But I made this thread for these four times of year, and this is when I care most.
ANYWAY
TReason, how many cards of those get you multiple colors of mana? My cube is a bit over 500 I believe, and I have the vivids, refuges, shardlands, panoramas, terramorphic twins, city of brass and gemstone mine. When I get a mirrodins core, that'll push my fixing lands to 25 (tryin to remember off the top of my head). As for nongreen fixers, I have a ragtag bunch of cards like pilgrims eye and sphere of suns, but only the blue signets. Since I have them in their color combination section, fitting the other signets was hard. Blue decks wanted them the most, but besides b/w, I hardly ever saw them in play (useful) outside of 3+ color control, which doesn't happen a whole lot. Even still, most of those decks are blue aligned anyway.
In any case, it is like this. I want my decks with fewer colors to run more smoothly than my more powerful 4 color decks. I want that trade. I also want green to be special like that. Calibretto is on the other side of the fence; he wants as little interference between his spells and casting them.
If your cube plays in a way you want it to then you have a good thing going. I suppose you can try a philosophy and see if It's enjoyable. Me, I like cutthroat games and drafts, because I do absolutely nothing in a way that can be considered casual. My friends are all very, very competitive, and we love to weigh pros and cons in the intricacies. Everything is very precise.
I don't know what exactly to give you besides that. Talk to your group. If anything, you can up your land count to 45 and see if you guys hate it or not.
To reiterate, I don't mind talking about many things in here, I just didn't want to get totally derailed. I want this thread to live for longer than I will be active in it, and keeping you guys coming in here is the only way to do so. I don't want to alienate anyone, at all.
I need to find a mistral charger.
As I described in my thread, our cardpools are really small. sometimes, all you got is a black knight. You may not have that problem.
Jim, at first I didn't like the system you put up, but in the end I like it more than the one I saw in calibretto's list. At least it gives a nod to color balancing. I try to use my cold hard numbers to solve every issue (because there is nary a nonhuman problem that isn't solved by numbers), but at least this gives me some breathing room when I want to categorize cards like dismember. The issue here would be the same as having a big enemy colored section. I don't want to play X or Y, but I do want to play Z so I have to even out the numbers. It is, however, not a bad direction.
I draft as follows.
Each player takes a pack of 6 cards, chooses 1, and passes the other 6 cards. When you pass, you pass them in two piles (which we can call known and unknown). Now you look at your known pile, and choose between any 1 card from there or you can instead take the entire unknown pile. Most splits are 4/1, but you can split them up however you want.
All cards that were not chosen become trashed and a new round begins. 16 rounds means that you get about 33 cards to work with. Allowing 2-3 packs with no good cards for you, 0-1 picks for hatedrafting, 3-5 picks for perhaps switching a color, and 1-3 picks for whatever else can happen that I missed, you average 24 cards in your pool if you change color, 28 if you don't. Of course, you see drafts where someone is being forced to splash a color to get those last two playables, or drafts where someone has to cut 10 cards. But it is this strict numerical structure that makes me so opinionated on the categorization of cards. Being short one playable is the difference between being able to hate a card or not, taking a land over a spell, or having to splash a color. I need to have the colors as even as humanly possible or else the imbalances are very apparent. I need as close to a perfect system as I can create.
I am always tweaking the draft format but the basic pick-pass-trash structure has been in use by my group for over a year now.
Most decks get between 1 and 3 forms of nongreen fixing. Some get zero, some get more. I have it set up this way to give green more identity, to make lands more valuable in drafting for those who need them, and to make the two color and mono colored decks run smoother than the more powerful three and four color arrangements.
Now
I want to get past this discussion by tomorrow so we can focus on the title of the thread, or we can put it on hiatus (just as I asked Jim to do) until we hit the next lull season.
*Shakes fist at your inconsistentcy*
Also, the color order in which my phyrexian mana cards get picked and played are as follows:
Porcelain Legionnaire and Spined thopter
Green
Black
Red
White
Blue (significantly less)
Act of aggression
Red
Blue
White/black (controlling builds, significantly less)
Green (this card has been behaving oddly)
Mutagenic growth
green
all other colors fairly evenly
Tezzerets Gambit
All colors fairly evenly (preference in nonaggro)
Dismember
All nonwhite colors fairly evenly
white
So, from what I've seen, the cards have been behaving as I predicted (except act of aggression). As the usefulness of the card increases, colors that would want access to the card pick it much more frequently than colors who don't value that effect as much due to the fact that they can get similar abilities out of cheaper cards and more cards. Green jumps on spined thopter and porcelain legionnaire because those cards at 2 mana are way more relevant than whatever fatties it can spend the rest of the draft picking up. Blue based decks take dismember and act of aggression like they need it to live. And most decks don't need a pump spell, so mutagenic growth gets all of its pick value out of the options.
...
I know I ran this thought experiment with you months ago. Imagine if half of the cards in a color (say, white) were phyrexian, and they were all high caliber cards. If you wanted to build a white deck, you get significantly less cards because everyone else is taking them away from you. If I'm building a red deck, I go from 20% of the spells being in my color to 25%. That's significant.
I also went over another issue. The life payment don't matter very often. What I mean is this; The life payment only matters if you are forced to pay the two life and you actually lose the game ENTIRELY because you had two less life. This is a very, very, very specific case, and I'd argue that it's as rare (if not rarer) than not being able to block fliers with wall of tanglecord. It requires you to
A: Be in a situation where you can pay 3 instead of 2.
B: want to pay 3 instead of 2.
C: Lose the game by being put to exactly 0 or -1.
D: (This is the most important thing) Definitively would have won the game if A, B, and C had not occurred.
That's all that matters. If all of those things happen often, then it would have relevance. But it doesn't. Since it's mana cost has next to zero relevance on both picking habits and game outcomes, I can't do anything but put it in artifacts.
I don't know how anyone can look at all this data and see it differently.
Mana fixing done when my phone stops buggin out.
My twisted abomination dies... maybe... one quarter of the time, if I round up. It isn't very often that he loses in my cube. He is one of the more consistent high end dudes for my cube, especially in black. I wish I knew why our experiences are so wildly different.
There are plenty of good reasons for keeping black knight. Things like, "not all my black decks are aggro" and "It doesn't die to about 40% of all the creatures in the cube." are the frontrunners. Some decks want an early drop to hold the fort, and it looks as though you are very rapidly running out of black creatures that can be defensive. There are times where you really just want to invalidate a hellspark elemental, and Id rather there be enough options there to do so.
Thirst isn't even in my cube anymore, so I'm not attached to it or anything. I'm just saying that if your hand has cards A B and C and you cast Thirst, you can lose cards D and A while keeping E and F. With this, yes you get to see G but you still only 1 for 1. Just because the cards aren't in your hand Now doesn't make them less relevant; cards you can see are worth just as much as the ones you hold. You lose the flexibility of choice to dig one deeper, not to mention the off chance to pitch a signet or something to really get sick value.
Discarding two out of the entire pool you end up with (3+initial hand size) is mathematically not as backbreaking so long as your hand already has a single card in it, since with Alchemy you are "discarding" 3 cards out of a smaller pool (fixed at 4). Numbers don't lie.
Wow. where is my thirst for knowledge.
Like I said, I'm not attached to Thirst or anything, I just wanted to show all of the facts.
I don't think unicorn is needed. I have been happy with it... close to never. Enchantment hate is not as vital as artifact hate, I have learned.
I never posted my cube. No way I'm typing all of that out on my phone. not without cash incentives, at least.
You and I will forever disagree on the categorization of the phyrexian mana cards, so I wont even bring that up further.
Interestingly we both put wall of tanglecord in as a nongreen creature though.
The main thing that stands out is the saturation of mana fixing in your cube. My drafts are 98.5% of the time between two people, in a nonwinston manner, so perhaps that's why our numbers are so incredibly different... but I only have;
Shardlands
Refuges
Vivids
terramorphic twins
the panoramas
gemstone mine
city of brass
sphere of suns
armillary sphere
the four blue signets
Pilgrims eye
manalith (which should be darksteel ingot)
in my cube. Mirrodins core and warfarers bauble will both go in when found, but at first blush I appear to be running nearly THIRTY less cards in my cube to fix mana. Why do you feel this abundance of mana fixing to be necessary? In my cube, one can reasonably assume a deck has 1-2 fixing pieces in it on average, though it isn't uncommon to see decks with zero or three or four. I like the stress of knowing that this kazandu refuge might be important enough to draft over a beastbreaker of bala ged because I want to feel better about splashing this late Fireball I just scooped up. There is always a bit of a tense moment when a land is taken over a spell, and to increase their value I increased their scarcity.
Also, this may be why my aggro fares so well in my cube. Less lands = more chances to pick up that second or third one drop.
I play the panoramas because they make plated geopede, steppe lynx, and Top better, as well as serving a role as another set of enemy lands.
I definitely prefer Twisty over Banshee. Twisty never dies, is a reanimation target, and helps fix mana! Twisty for life!
Interloper for black knight is tough. I don't want your whole black two drop slot to be evasive 2 power guys. there has to be Some variance, right?
The blue changes are ok. Thirst does work better than alchemy in a hand with cards in it though, that's a tough call. I also was counting it as monoblue, since the flashback will be a nonfactor while I'm drafting.
Red changes are ok. Flame javelin out for anything is ballsy, though.
also, I never liked the unicorn.. tried to, only killed centaur glade and a mind control. disenchant ran better...
also
you have breath of darigaaz in at 6cmc
Underestimated the interloper. However, I'd like to point out that it seems as though everyone else is psyched about making their black aggro better, while my black aggro is easily my best aggro. I need more support in red, actually.
Cali, would you run the 2/3 over the mini spectral procession?
Big Jim, correction, the skaabs are supported by reanimator, not the other way around.
If you could only pick one, which would it be?
Fume spitter
Dead weight
Disfigure
I chose options A because it can do the most work.
The waif is easily the best werewolf for us. It definitely doesn't want to have to deal with Top, though. Shudder...
cloistered youth is probably the best card for us in the whole set. She is crazy.
fiend hunter will see a test but I don't know what to replace. Kor hookmaster has been good, but this is sick with blink.
Vampire interloper is lucky that I'm probably upping the card count by about 3 per color, or else he'd be in direct competition with fledgling djinn, and to me it loses that battle. Even though the jump from 1 to 2 toughness is minor, blocking is a nice option.
Midnight haunting does a great spectral procession impression, and will certainly give celestial crusader job security.
The Demonmail looks subpar to me. Grafted wargear is absolutely stellar and it would appear to me that I'd rather not force myself to pick up random token generators.
galvanic juggernaut will be tested in mine, even though that drawback is harsh. 5/5s for 4, however, are terrifying. We'll see.
Forbidden alchemy is going in faster than I can say "forbidden alchemy is going in faster than I can say..."
Stitched Drake has direct competition with serendib efreet. I don't know what to do on this one, as much as I like bluggro,there is too much of a good thing.
Crossway vampire is iffy for me. the double red makes it hard for the big green, white and black two drops to be helped by her. The effect would've been more helpful on a hasted 4 drop.
I have a lot of green tricks which give rangers guile trouble. Withstand death is comparable in effectiveness, and I don't play that.
I prefer trusty machete to silver-inlaid dagger, for statistical reasons.
Dead weight or disfigure... I don't know which is better, but I do know that I'm not currently running disfigure. They both have to match up to fume spitter, and its a hard fight. I'm not exactly sure which upside are more important.
the 2/3 flier Chapel Geist is going to be amazing in innistrad, but I'm not sold on it for the cube.
As much as I defend the virtues of peasant cube, it is true that creatures attack block and die a bit more here. He should never not have food for casting.
Finally, it is one more reason for me to reconsider adding Undead Warcheif (scary thought, that).
<3
I am feverishly awaiting both of these guys.
As for the others
I brought up thraben sentry because I thought it was borderline, and those are most interesting. 2/2 vigilance at 4 is Obv poor, and even spending a turn at that size is potentially too long. I, as usual, will test this guy, but won't be surprised if he can't make it in.
Intangible Virtue will mostly be paired with green obviously, though it isn't entirely impossible to see a few subpar red couplings. I think the colors in which it is useful keep it out, but I'll hold a copy in my reserves pile for the day this one can shine.
Those three drops are questionable, I'll admit. However, the red one dodges all of our sweepers in the baby form, so I would like to see if it can be a red defensive creature for the decks that want such a thing. I still use the 2 drop blue merfolk leveler that becomes a 6/6 (Yeah... totally forgot the name) and this guy would be trying to serve the same purpose in a way.
Gastaf Shepherd is definitely going to be tried, no persuasion needed.
Viper just doesn't deal with enough creatures. And it sucks when your removal loses to pretty much every spell.
By the way, I finally took Master Thief out. I swear his ability is far, far better than it looks (take lightning greaves wooooooo birthday!), but nobody picked him up out of suspicion. Even me somehow.
EDIT
Full set spoiled. Please, let's spend some time on cards individually, as always was the idea.
In the meantime, let's analyze the cards I brought up. For science.
Also, I play hammer of bogardan in unpowreed cubes.
I generally don't mind off-beat suggestions, such as cards that are uncommon in online magic. But without some written boundary I don't think such a thing could work.
Also. I dumped the bounce lands a long long time ago. Land destruction is a thing, and losing a game entirely because I placed Azorius Chancery on the table was a little ridiculous. Perhaps cutting them entirely could alleviate your issue? Less cards for control = more cards for aggro as far as ratios are concerned.
In other news, the waif does look promising. On the play, this is a 3/2.
I am most excited for skaab goliath. Holy crap, Batman.
thraben sentry looks half decent, if only because that backside is Completely Off the Chain.
That intangible pump enchantment (for tokens) is making me think. I have lots of token producers in green and white. This looks pretty Damn pretty next to a Squirrels Nest or a Cenn's Enlistment. Hell, I've even been eying Roc egg for a while now. Just sayin.
The red 1/5>5/5 3 drop werewolf and the green 2/3>4/6 3 drop werewolf may be playable. Turn three on the draw seems like it may be a turn late to get a consistent activation, but perhaps not. It's so hard to tell... this is information I've never had to never had to track before.
However, gastaf shepherd (2/2>3/3 intimidate), upon further review, could be bananas on turn two. I've kept a lot of hands with a 1 drop, a 2 drop and a 4 drop in my life. That space is potentially scary all of a sudden.
Scourge of geier reach (3/3 elemental 5 drop) was something I was going to watch. unfortunately, the more I think about it, it looks worse and worse. It's a 4/4 minimum under most circumstances, but I don't think that I'd even play with a vanilla 6/6 for 5. Sad...
Ambush viper is probably outclassed by virtually every other green two drop in cube, but if I think of it as a kill spell (obv intent of the card) it looks better.
Oh, nevermind.
Still not enough. "1G destroy a nonflying, nonfirst strike, nonshadow attacking creature unless your opponent has a kill spell" seems a bit sketchy at best. That, and trample still smiles at you. At least it kills the derm brothers...
Overall... Still need at least one more zombie for Undead warchief and another creature for corpse connisuer to care about. Need... subtheme.. support.