Agro wins games without a 1 drop in it's hand. It's not 50%, but it's far from 0%. Other decks stumble too. It's ok for decks to have fail rates >5%. Mediocre agro decks do better than mediocre control decks.
Totally. 8 one drops gives me an 80% chance of having one in my opening 7, thats a pretty big fail rate. I want the deck to be draftable under my preferred parameters 95% of the time. Also, I don't want to build my cube planning for mediocre decks. They will happen, of course, but I want to give my drafters tools to build tight and powerful decks.
Agro decks should mulligan aggressively to good starting hands. 6 cards on the play with a good start has a high win%.
Your math only considered 7 card openers.
I have to hard disagree on this one. Mulligans hurt aggro decks more than they hurt midrange/control decks. Aggro needs every possible resource to close out games on time, so I want to build my aggro decks in a way that minimizes the need for mulligans. 8-12 one drops and a curve that stops at 3 is a great way to do this as decks built in this fashion can keep 1-2 landers easily.
1 mana SPELLS -> 2 drop creature are also viable starting hands. Don't ignore duress, divest, fatal push, lightning bolt etc. when doing your calculation about 1 mana plays. Agro mirror matches happen. Bolting the birds on turn 1 is better than playing a jackal pup. Spells have the added benefit of being archetype flexible.
I think these are instances of situationally relevant plays, but plan A for aggro is usually to play a creature. If I'm sitting on Bolt and 2 drop in my aggro opener I feel sad, even if that Bolt becomes relevant. I'm trying to make my ACS for aggro decks to be as close to BCS as possible.
- 2 color agro decks need better fixing yes, they will lose games to their inconsistency, but so do other decks.
Putting in an extra cycle of fixing for each color pair is a viable alternative to going all in on 1 mana creatures.
Lands like gemstone mine and city of brass are particularly good for agro. Choose cycles like painlands and fastlands over temples and filters for agro colors.
Por que no los dos? I run 6 fixing lands per color pair at 540 (ABU Dual, Shock, Fetch, Horizon/Buddy/Fast, Pain, Manland), along with every good 5 color fixer down to Vivid lands. I'm all in on fixing. Fixing and 1 drop density both help aggro decks, it's not an either/or for me.
If you are consistently doing 6 mans with 540 size cube and are trying to hit a very high 1 drop density each cube, you should consider lowering your cube size. Linear strategies that need specific pieces (1 drops) suffer the lower the % of cube you see each draft.
Totally a valid point. I've strongly considered lowering my cube size due to my small playgroup, but ultimately decided against it. To increase consistency you can fiddle a couple different knobs. One is cube size, another is effect density. I've opted to increase the density of my one drops (and many other key archetype enablers like Wrath effects) instead of lowering my cube size. I could cut down to 450 or below and be able to cut some number of one drops, but I'd have to lose a ton of other sweet cards in the process. My group enjoys diversity.
- Track your win% with archetypes. It's rare I see a cube that supports 1 drops, where agro isn't a top tier archetype. Your cube is a bit different, and perhaps more hostile to agro, but do some data tracking to confirm those suspicions.
Unfortunately, I don't get to cube enough to make this kind of data all that relevant. Thankfully, there are a lot of cube curators out there who cube multiple times a week and track data, so I have the option of relying on their work.
The best 8 one drops are much much much better than the next 8. By including tier 4 one drops, you are barely going to increase the win% for agro, while harming the versatility and flexibility of your environment.
Another hard disagree on this one. The difference between Gravecrawler and Night Market Lookout is there, but the cards are much closer in actual aggro gameplay than they seem on paper. Aggro as an archetype cares more about effect density than it does about card quality. Almost every one drop in my cube is aggro only, with the exception of stuff like Grim Lavamancer, Giver of Runes, and Gideon's Lawkeeper. Sometimes midrange decks want to run a few, but usually they have better things to do on turn one (like Duress, Bolt, or Preordain). Aggro decks comprise a full 1/3 of my cube meta, so I need to make sure they are super well supported in order to foster a healthy environment. On the topic of Foulmire Knight, he is a superbly flexible 1 drop. I'd rather not run him in my aggro deck, but if I need an 8th, or 10th, one drop, he'll 100% get in. Factoring in the card's relevance in control and midrange, this is one of the most flexible one drops we've seen in a long time.
Either this, or experiment with draft variants that use a higher % of the cube pool. For example, a 6-player Sight draft of a 540 card cube uses 100% of the pool. Decks will be phenomenally improved, and it will solve all of your 1-drop and mana fixing woes.
I don't have woes :). I'm happy to support aggro to the extent that I do at my current cube size. Draft alternatives are great and something I love experimenting with, but my cube needs to be able to support all three pillar archetypes in an 8 man, standard, cube draft because that's how I want it to work. I see running this many one drops as a feature of my cube, not an issue that needs solving.
You are seeing 75% of your 720 (when did 720 happen?!) with 3 drafters? I’d love to hear about your draft method. Toss me a link or something if you’ve already written about it.
Drafting more of your cube via glimpse or whatever is definitely a good way to limit the need for redundancy in archetype enablers like one drops. Given that you are using custom draft methods I totally see how you wouldn’t need as many as I do.
I want to enable standard 8 man drafts in my cube and still have enough aggro density for a couple reasons:
-I love glimpse and similar variants but I find you do lose some of the strategic depth that comes with standard drafting when no cards are burned from the packs.
-Sone of the guys in my playgroup are hardcore retail limited players and turn their noses up at change. It’s lame of them but I just want to cube so I roll with it.
-Other guys in my group are relative newbies and can feel overwhelmed by the sheer # of decisions in glimpse-y draft formats.
That said when I sit down w/ one or two others I’m all about custom draft types.
My choice to run so many one drops is influenced by these factors as well as the environmental factors that I’m actively seeking to curate in my meta (as explained above). I may be going overboard, but I’d rather err on the side of too many, and I know u can appreciate that i hope it goes w/o saying that this is all just personal preference and experimentation on my end, it sounds like your methods have been working out great in your environments so more power to you. (@steve[man @wtwlf123).
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana? Aggro decks need waaaay better fixing than midrange/control if they are going to be solidly in two colors, and I’ve found it often is difficult-to-impossible to consistently build a manabase capable of reliably having 2 untapped colors in turn one.
Wtwlf & Steve_Man, how many aggro decks usually come together for you guys in any given 8 man pod? Steve_Man, are your aggro decks usually mono colored or guild?
This is a new leaf for me, up until fairly recently my cube was much more similar to both of yours, in fact it was heavily inspired by them. with 8-12 aggro one drops in W, B and R I’d normally see 1-2 aggro decks in an 8 man pod and almost never saw mono color decks, but even with similar cube lists, different playgroups can have wildly different outcomes, so I’m curious to hear how things play out for you guys.
My impetus for change came mostly from trying to increase the consistency of draft execution for small pods of 2-4. To use aggro as an example, I got tired of drafting aggro only to end up with 5-6 one drops and a too-flat curve. Time walking yourself on turn one due to having the wrong color of mana or no one drop is THE WORST in aggro and super feel bad. In redesigning my cube I’ve relied heavily on math to, hopefully, foster smooth drafting and gameplay and I’ve been moderately surprise at the density of certain effects required to hit my percentage parameter.
The fact that I’ve cut most of the synergy deck support from my cube also means I have plenty of room to pile on the archetype enablers, so the opportunity cost of running so many cheap aggro dweebs is likely less for me.
Also, wtwlf I totally agree that a 1/1 aggro guy is not plan A, but there simply aren’t enough tier 1-2 one drops in black and this guy looks to be near the top of tier 3. Not to mention that it’s totally fine in general midrange/control builds and is an interesting sideboard option, something that few other black one drops offer.
I won't argue with you guys that giving a bunch of slots to aggro one drops is painful, it 100% is. I want to limit cards that only go in a single archetype as much as possible. For aggro though 1 mana beaters are absolutely ESSENTIAL. Let me see if I can explain my though process through math:
Below is an ugly copy/paste from an online hypergeometric calculator showing the chances of having an aggro 1 drop in your opening 7, assuming you have 8 in your deck. This has been an invaluable tool for me and I highly recommend using it to evaluate your own cubes.
(https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx)
Population size
40
Number of successes in population
8
Sample size
7
Number of successes in sample (x)
1
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 1)
0.38884934
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 1)
0.180537194
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 1)
0.569386533
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 1)
0.430613467 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 1)
0.819462806
Basically what this tells me is that with 8 one drops in my deck, 4 out of 5 times (82%) I'll have one in my opening 7. Ideally, I'd like to have that number be higher, but you have to draw the line somewhere. 10 aggro one drops brings my chances up to 90%, but only having six aggro one drops drops my chances to 70%. As a rule of thumb, my target # of aggro one drops is 8, but if I can draft more, great.
How does this information affect my overall cube design? Lets look at more math:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
360
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.075647491
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.047400417
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.123047907
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.876952093 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.952599583
Assuming a normal 8 man pod with 3 packs of 15 (360 total cards seen), there is a 95% chance that at least 8 one drops of any given color will be included in the draft pool. This is pretty much where I want to be. In reality this overstates the chance that any single player will actually see all 8 in a draft because cards are drafted out of packs before you see them.
Why am I only focusing on one color? What about two color aggro decks? Lucidvision, you mentioned that splashing for a second color is an option in aggro, and you are totally right, but I think it's very important to support mono color aggro decks in order for the archetype to thrive. Being heavily in two colors in an aggro deck puts serious strain on the mana. The same hypergeometric calculation I used in above for one drops applies to lands. If I want an 80% chance of having an color source in my opening 7, I need 8 sources in my deck. If I want a 90% chance, I need 10 sources. Add in the fact that aggro decks tend to be light on lands and prioritize untapped mana sources (sorry manlands) and things get real tight, real fast. If I have an evenly split 2 color aggro deck with 4 red one drops and 4 white one drops, to have a high degree of certainty I'll be able to play aggressively on turn one I need 10 untapped sources of each color. If I want to go down to 14-15 lands, I'd need 5 untapped dual lands in that specific guild. That's a big ask. If I'm playing a 2 color aggro deck, I'd much rather splash up the curve at 2, 3, and even 4 mana and keep my one drops as close to mono colored as possible.
Another consideration is the my overall archetype balance. I only support three archetypes in my cube: Aggro, Midrange, and Control. No reanimator, no artifact stuff, no aristocrats, ect. My goal is that for an 8 man draft the cube supports 2-3 of each archetype so in any given pod there will be 3 aggro decks, 2 midrange decks, and 3 control decks, or some similar combination. The desire to support 3 mono-colored (or close to it) aggro decks in a single cube draft necessitates that black, white, and red all have enough aggro beaters to support a deck with at least 8 one drops with a high degree of certainty. Not every deck is going to come together every draft, obviously, and I love variety as much as the next guy, but it's important to me that drafters are able to execute assembling the decks I support more often than not.
This is all well and good, but I also do a lot of 1v1 drafting in my playgroup using the glimpse method (9 packs of 15, pick one burn 2). With 16 aggro one drops per color in my 540 doing a 2 man glimpse draft, the math looks like this:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
270
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.19935343
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.599676715
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.400323285 Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.599676715
60% chance of being able to see 8 aggro one drops in a single color. Not great, but in a 2 man draft we kind of expect decks to be a little less consistent so it's not the end of the world. Still, my own analysis is telling me that I should be running MORE aggro duders, not less.
A couple other things:
I've talked about my overall cube environment elsewhere on MTGS so I'll be super brief here. I run significantly more removal (both sweepers and spot), countermagic, ramp elves, cantrips, and of course aggro beaters than most cubes here. My curve, on average, is a bit lower (nothing above 6 mana, period). Because I don't run synergy decks, it's way easier for me to have redundancy in what I consider key categories. Aggro beaters, midrange ramp, wraths for control, and cheap interaction all around. I also don't run a bunch of cards that I feel create lame, binary, gameplay like Winter Orb, Mind Twist, Armageddon, ect. My goal is to have a balanced environment where a drafter can sit down and have a roughly equal chance of winning a pod drafting any of the archetypes I support. In my environment, durdly decks don't really happen, if they do it's a mistake. Aggro decks tend to curve out at 3 mana, with maybe a 4 drop or two, and should NEVER be running anything 5 mana or above. Midrange is alive and well in my meta, so in order to compete, aggro decks need to be super consistent and able to come out of the gates swinging every game.
All this to say... I need lots of black one drops and thus have room to try Foulmire Knight.
Behold, the best Typhoid Rats ever printed. This card looks pretty humble but I think it could have legs in cube. My thoughts:
-1 drop quality in black is an issue: At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color. Black has some of the best aggressive one drops ever printed, but after the recursive guys and the random 2 power guys the (12-13 depending how you rate Grasping Scoundrel) the power level of black one drops falls off a cliff. Mardu Shadowspear and friends are fine filler, but I think this Foumire Knight is an upgrade. Playing this on turn one in an aggro deck isn't exactly living the dream, but it's better than doing nothing.
-Flexibility. Typhoid Rats isn't a card that's making anyone's cube, but it is a card that pretty much any black deck would be happy to have at many points during the game.
-Adventure is an amazing mechanic: Adventure is the best iteration of split/aftermath we've seen yet. You get either mode from hand and you have the option to get both. It brings baked in card advantage. This is a flexible one drop that can draw a card. If you squint, the adventure mechanic on Foulmire is basically an instant speed Divination that always draws a 1/1 deathtoucher as one of the cards.
I don't think this is a staple by any means, but I think it's a solid, flexible workhorse that will be do work in all manner of black decks and I'm excited to test it.
I think this is one of the best mechanics for cube we've seen in a LONG time. It's like a combo between split cards, fuse, and aftermath. Every single card with adventure gives you the option to "draw a card." I'm guessing we get several good Adventure cards for cube.
All in all, I think this is probably worth swapping out one of the Llanowar Elf variants for a test.
Don't cut a 1 mana dork! Cut a 2 mana dork or, if you are still running them Kodama's Reach/Cultivate. Cheap ramp is amazing and green's single greatest strength
It's an important card for supporting creature-based combo and synergy decks. Since you don't play any of those, it would make sense that it wasn't good for you.
Yea, makes sense. Paying 5 mana for a Wolfir Avenger is pretty bad
I really like Little Rhonas, but your green section needs to have a lot of cheap beef in order to make him good. I'm highly skeptical of this creature. I'm tempted to run it just because the design is so on point, but even in an environment with 10+ 1/1 mana dorks in green, he doesn't seem consistent enough.
Treespeaker is great in that it can get you to 5 mana on turn three all by itself, it it's also a giant lightning rod and forces you to play on curve until turn three, something my green decks are bummed to have to do. I run it, and I think it's fine, but he eats removal in response to the first level up WAY more often than I'm comfortable with. It always sucks to have your "bird bolted", but Treespeaker exacerbates that to the Nth degree and gives your opponent a juicy window to take a dump right in your mouth on turn 2. Goose on the other hand, does exactly what I want my dorks to do 90% of the time: ramp me into a three drop on turn 2. Treespeaker's floor is almost unacceptably low, and he will likely be my cut for Goose.
EDIT: I went too far saying I was going to cut Treespeaker. I think it's worse than the Goose, but still a notch above some of the premium 2 cmc ramp creatures.
Totally. 8 one drops gives me an 80% chance of having one in my opening 7, thats a pretty big fail rate. I want the deck to be draftable under my preferred parameters 95% of the time. Also, I don't want to build my cube planning for mediocre decks. They will happen, of course, but I want to give my drafters tools to build tight and powerful decks.
I have to hard disagree on this one. Mulligans hurt aggro decks more than they hurt midrange/control decks. Aggro needs every possible resource to close out games on time, so I want to build my aggro decks in a way that minimizes the need for mulligans. 8-12 one drops and a curve that stops at 3 is a great way to do this as decks built in this fashion can keep 1-2 landers easily.
I think these are instances of situationally relevant plays, but plan A for aggro is usually to play a creature. If I'm sitting on Bolt and 2 drop in my aggro opener I feel sad, even if that Bolt becomes relevant. I'm trying to make my ACS for aggro decks to be as close to BCS as possible.
Por que no los dos? I run 6 fixing lands per color pair at 540 (ABU Dual, Shock, Fetch, Horizon/Buddy/Fast, Pain, Manland), along with every good 5 color fixer down to Vivid lands. I'm all in on fixing. Fixing and 1 drop density both help aggro decks, it's not an either/or for me.
Totally a valid point. I've strongly considered lowering my cube size due to my small playgroup, but ultimately decided against it. To increase consistency you can fiddle a couple different knobs. One is cube size, another is effect density. I've opted to increase the density of my one drops (and many other key archetype enablers like Wrath effects) instead of lowering my cube size. I could cut down to 450 or below and be able to cut some number of one drops, but I'd have to lose a ton of other sweet cards in the process. My group enjoys diversity.
Unfortunately, I don't get to cube enough to make this kind of data all that relevant. Thankfully, there are a lot of cube curators out there who cube multiple times a week and track data, so I have the option of relying on their work.
Another hard disagree on this one. The difference between Gravecrawler and Night Market Lookout is there, but the cards are much closer in actual aggro gameplay than they seem on paper. Aggro as an archetype cares more about effect density than it does about card quality. Almost every one drop in my cube is aggro only, with the exception of stuff like Grim Lavamancer, Giver of Runes, and Gideon's Lawkeeper. Sometimes midrange decks want to run a few, but usually they have better things to do on turn one (like Duress, Bolt, or Preordain). Aggro decks comprise a full 1/3 of my cube meta, so I need to make sure they are super well supported in order to foster a healthy environment. On the topic of Foulmire Knight, he is a superbly flexible 1 drop. I'd rather not run him in my aggro deck, but if I need an 8th, or 10th, one drop, he'll 100% get in. Factoring in the card's relevance in control and midrange, this is one of the most flexible one drops we've seen in a long time.
I don't have woes :). I'm happy to support aggro to the extent that I do at my current cube size. Draft alternatives are great and something I love experimenting with, but my cube needs to be able to support all three pillar archetypes in an 8 man, standard, cube draft because that's how I want it to work. I see running this many one drops as a feature of my cube, not an issue that needs solving.
Drafting more of your cube via glimpse or whatever is definitely a good way to limit the need for redundancy in archetype enablers like one drops. Given that you are using custom draft methods I totally see how you wouldn’t need as many as I do.
I want to enable standard 8 man drafts in my cube and still have enough aggro density for a couple reasons:
-I love glimpse and similar variants but I find you do lose some of the strategic depth that comes with standard drafting when no cards are burned from the packs.
-Sone of the guys in my playgroup are hardcore retail limited players and turn their noses up at change. It’s lame of them but I just want to cube so I roll with it.
-Other guys in my group are relative newbies and can feel overwhelmed by the sheer # of decisions in glimpse-y draft formats.
That said when I sit down w/ one or two others I’m all about custom draft types.
My choice to run so many one drops is influenced by these factors as well as the environmental factors that I’m actively seeking to curate in my meta (as explained above). I may be going overboard, but I’d rather err on the side of too many, and I know u can appreciate that
How do you guys square the strain that two color decks put on your mana? Aggro decks need waaaay better fixing than midrange/control if they are going to be solidly in two colors, and I’ve found it often is difficult-to-impossible to consistently build a manabase capable of reliably having 2 untapped colors in turn one.
This is a new leaf for me, up until fairly recently my cube was much more similar to both of yours, in fact it was heavily inspired by them. with 8-12 aggro one drops in W, B and R I’d normally see 1-2 aggro decks in an 8 man pod and almost never saw mono color decks, but even with similar cube lists, different playgroups can have wildly different outcomes, so I’m curious to hear how things play out for you guys.
My impetus for change came mostly from trying to increase the consistency of draft execution for small pods of 2-4. To use aggro as an example, I got tired of drafting aggro only to end up with 5-6 one drops and a too-flat curve. Time walking yourself on turn one due to having the wrong color of mana or no one drop is THE WORST in aggro and super feel bad. In redesigning my cube I’ve relied heavily on math to, hopefully, foster smooth drafting and gameplay and I’ve been moderately surprise at the density of certain effects required to hit my percentage parameter.
The fact that I’ve cut most of the synergy deck support from my cube also means I have plenty of room to pile on the archetype enablers, so the opportunity cost of running so many cheap aggro dweebs is likely less for me.
Also, wtwlf I totally agree that a 1/1 aggro guy is not plan A, but there simply aren’t enough tier 1-2 one drops in black and this guy looks to be near the top of tier 3. Not to mention that it’s totally fine in general midrange/control builds and is an interesting sideboard option, something that few other black one drops offer.
Below is an ugly copy/paste from an online hypergeometric calculator showing the chances of having an aggro 1 drop in your opening 7, assuming you have 8 in your deck. This has been an invaluable tool for me and I highly recommend using it to evaluate your own cubes.
(https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx)
Population size
40
Number of successes in population
8
Sample size
7
Number of successes in sample (x)
1
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 1)
0.38884934
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 1)
0.180537194
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 1)
0.569386533
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 1)
0.430613467
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 1)
0.819462806
Basically what this tells me is that with 8 one drops in my deck, 4 out of 5 times (82%) I'll have one in my opening 7. Ideally, I'd like to have that number be higher, but you have to draw the line somewhere. 10 aggro one drops brings my chances up to 90%, but only having six aggro one drops drops my chances to 70%. As a rule of thumb, my target # of aggro one drops is 8, but if I can draft more, great.
How does this information affect my overall cube design? Lets look at more math:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
360
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.075647491
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.047400417
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.123047907
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.876952093
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.952599583
Assuming a normal 8 man pod with 3 packs of 15 (360 total cards seen), there is a 95% chance that at least 8 one drops of any given color will be included in the draft pool. This is pretty much where I want to be. In reality this overstates the chance that any single player will actually see all 8 in a draft because cards are drafted out of packs before you see them.
Why am I only focusing on one color? What about two color aggro decks? Lucidvision, you mentioned that splashing for a second color is an option in aggro, and you are totally right, but I think it's very important to support mono color aggro decks in order for the archetype to thrive. Being heavily in two colors in an aggro deck puts serious strain on the mana. The same hypergeometric calculation I used in above for one drops applies to lands. If I want an 80% chance of having an color source in my opening 7, I need 8 sources in my deck. If I want a 90% chance, I need 10 sources. Add in the fact that aggro decks tend to be light on lands and prioritize untapped mana sources (sorry manlands) and things get real tight, real fast. If I have an evenly split 2 color aggro deck with 4 red one drops and 4 white one drops, to have a high degree of certainty I'll be able to play aggressively on turn one I need 10 untapped sources of each color. If I want to go down to 14-15 lands, I'd need 5 untapped dual lands in that specific guild. That's a big ask. If I'm playing a 2 color aggro deck, I'd much rather splash up the curve at 2, 3, and even 4 mana and keep my one drops as close to mono colored as possible.
Another consideration is the my overall archetype balance. I only support three archetypes in my cube: Aggro, Midrange, and Control. No reanimator, no artifact stuff, no aristocrats, ect. My goal is that for an 8 man draft the cube supports 2-3 of each archetype so in any given pod there will be 3 aggro decks, 2 midrange decks, and 3 control decks, or some similar combination. The desire to support 3 mono-colored (or close to it) aggro decks in a single cube draft necessitates that black, white, and red all have enough aggro beaters to support a deck with at least 8 one drops with a high degree of certainty. Not every deck is going to come together every draft, obviously, and I love variety as much as the next guy, but it's important to me that drafters are able to execute assembling the decks I support more often than not.
This is all well and good, but I also do a lot of 1v1 drafting in my playgroup using the glimpse method (9 packs of 15, pick one burn 2). With 16 aggro one drops per color in my 540 doing a 2 man glimpse draft, the math looks like this:
Population size
540
Number of successes in population
16
Sample size
270
Number of successes in sample (x)
8
Hypergeometric Probability: P(X = 8)
0.19935343
Cumulative Probability: P(X < 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X </= 8)
0.599676715
Cumulative Probability: P(X > 8)
0.400323285
Cumulative Probability: P(X >/= 8)
0.599676715
60% chance of being able to see 8 aggro one drops in a single color. Not great, but in a 2 man draft we kind of expect decks to be a little less consistent so it's not the end of the world. Still, my own analysis is telling me that I should be running MORE aggro duders, not less.
A couple other things:
I've talked about my overall cube environment elsewhere on MTGS so I'll be super brief here. I run significantly more removal (both sweepers and spot), countermagic, ramp elves, cantrips, and of course aggro beaters than most cubes here. My curve, on average, is a bit lower (nothing above 6 mana, period). Because I don't run synergy decks, it's way easier for me to have redundancy in what I consider key categories. Aggro beaters, midrange ramp, wraths for control, and cheap interaction all around. I also don't run a bunch of cards that I feel create lame, binary, gameplay like Winter Orb, Mind Twist, Armageddon, ect. My goal is to have a balanced environment where a drafter can sit down and have a roughly equal chance of winning a pod drafting any of the archetypes I support. In my environment, durdly decks don't really happen, if they do it's a mistake. Aggro decks tend to curve out at 3 mana, with maybe a 4 drop or two, and should NEVER be running anything 5 mana or above. Midrange is alive and well in my meta, so in order to compete, aggro decks need to be super consistent and able to come out of the gates swinging every game.
All this to say... I need lots of black one drops and thus have room to try Foulmire Knight.
Behold, the best Typhoid Rats ever printed. This card looks pretty humble but I think it could have legs in cube. My thoughts:
-1 drop quality in black is an issue: At my size (540) I need at least 16 aggressive one drops per color in order to adequately support aggro strategies in that color. Black has some of the best aggressive one drops ever printed, but after the recursive guys and the random 2 power guys the (12-13 depending how you rate Grasping Scoundrel) the power level of black one drops falls off a cliff. Mardu Shadowspear and friends are fine filler, but I think this Foumire Knight is an upgrade. Playing this on turn one in an aggro deck isn't exactly living the dream, but it's better than doing nothing.
-Flexibility. Typhoid Rats isn't a card that's making anyone's cube, but it is a card that pretty much any black deck would be happy to have at many points during the game.
-Adventure is an amazing mechanic: Adventure is the best iteration of split/aftermath we've seen yet. You get either mode from hand and you have the option to get both. It brings baked in card advantage. This is a flexible one drop that can draw a card. If you squint, the adventure mechanic on Foulmire is basically an instant speed Divination that always draws a 1/1 deathtoucher as one of the cards.
I don't think this is a staple by any means, but I think it's a solid, flexible workhorse that will be do work in all manner of black decks and I'm excited to test it.
I think this is one of the best mechanics for cube we've seen in a LONG time. It's like a combo between split cards, fuse, and aftermath. Every single card with adventure gives you the option to "draw a card." I'm guessing we get several good Adventure cards for cube.
Don't cut a 1 mana dork! Cut a 2 mana dork or, if you are still running them Kodama's Reach/Cultivate. Cheap ramp is amazing and green's single greatest strength
Yea, makes sense. Paying 5 mana for a Wolfir Avenger is pretty bad
and he will likely be my cut for Goose.EDIT: I went too far saying I was going to cut Treespeaker. I think it's worse than the Goose, but still a notch above some of the premium 2 cmc ramp creatures.