General Broad Archetypes

[NimbusToad]

Hello all.

Do people have experience designing cubes around a small number of broad archetypes? I have been thinking that it might be interesting to eschew the typical 10 guilds/10 archetypes view of synergy clusters and, instead, have 2-3 umbrella archetypes that players can explore across various theatres and colour combinations.

So, maybe it would look something like:

Madness: (Can exist as control, agro/midrange, or tempo)
Artifacts: (Could exist as aggro, control, tempo)
Landfall: (Etc. etc.)

I guess I am just searching for ways to heavily reward synergy decks while also avoiding drafting on rails. I think that this approach might begin to feel a little bit more like retail limited. I would imagine this kind of format would aggresively break singleton.

Any thoughts?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thats exactly what I've been doing, except clustering the broad mechanics more in shards/wedges, that can taper down into 2-4 more specific guild strategies.

I.m.o its the way to go.

 

[Mad Prophet]

This is roughly how I have been approaching cube design for a couple years. I spend a lot of time thinking in general terms about mechanics or synergies that have the breadth and depth to be bedrock themes. Often, two archetypes or themes will conflict. They perhaps will be too orthogonal to each other to overlap much, or they might exist at two wildly different power levels. Sometimes I'll patch things up with a couple custom cards, but usually i just scrap one of the ideas and keep brainstorming.​

​

Once i have a few well supported themes nailed down I start scouring Gatherer, my memory, my collection, and this fine forum for the following:​

• Archetype core and incentive cards.
  • I like to get an early handle on the motivating cards or deck plans that will drive players in different directions. It's all well and good to say you have an artifact theme, but a KCI package and a Steel Overseer Package are going to have completely different incentives and intersections with other themes.
  • My madness list might start like this: Squee, Faithless looting, Merfolk Looter, Cryptbreaker, Asylum Visitor, Arrogant Wurm, Stromkirk Occultist.
• Cross archetype support.
  • I find this to be the stickiest part of the early design process. I'm always on the lookout for overlap between core themes, and particularly on the hunt for cards that are valued by different archetypes for different reasons. (See Daretti+artifacts versus Daretti+madness) In my opinion, this is key to a fun and dynamic draft experience. It helps keep synergy at the forefront, and prevents the formation of an obvious pick-order, since every deck wants different cards at different points in the draft.
  • Given madness, artifacts, and landfall as themes by list might begin: Life from the loam, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Tireless tracker, Bloodghast, Drownyard Temple, Molten-Tail Masticore, Bouncelands.

• Broadly playable Archetype support
  • These cards are hopefully playable by anyone who can cast them, but are particularly exciting in the hands of the right drafter. I imagine most of a cube's final list by mass will be cards that fit into this category.
  • For landfall the list may start like this: Emeria Angel, Lotus Cobra, Plated Geopede, Undergrowth Champion, Fetchlands.
• Niche role-players and build-arounds/draft quests
  • Not every card is going to fit well into multiple plans. But narrow, powerful cards like Tendrils and Exploration can really excite your drafters and can be counted on to make it to the interested party.
  • Sometimes you can create an entire plan by adding just a couple cards. Kiki Pestermite is the obvious example, but some of my favorites are Laboratory Maniac+Stinkweed Imp, Imperial Recruiter+any damn thing, Auriok Salvagers+ LED and Blasphemous Act+Boros Reckoner. These little shoot the moon packages add flavor and variety to your cube, while taking up a minimum of space. It's hard to get the power level right, but it's easy enough to just cut a module like this when it isn't working out.

I usually add the the cards from these initial explorations to a cubetutor list, often two or three each of the best fits. I want the list to be draftable as quickly as possible, and I tend to trim down on the duplicates as I find other cards that fit the same bill.​

I've been thinking for a while that we should have a thread here to discuss and document our design processes at the most abstract and broadly applicable level. I don't want to hijack your thread but maybe it should be here. I feel this topic is one where Riptidelab has a lot of decentralized or un-articulated wisdom.​

Now, if you'll excuse me, I find this level of lucidity highly taxing. I think i need to go shout at some strangers about their Impending Doom.​

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Yeah, I think this is the way to go, as I think it provides more opportunities for creative drafting, deckbuilding and interesting play. I do think however there's a limit to the number of archetypes that work/have the support to do this, but maybe I just haven't explored it enough. The ones that we see with any consistency are artifact matters, graveyard matters and counters. I'm not sure what else is broad enough to work.

Mad Prophet - I like your comment about these smaller build arounds, they're really interesting and don't always add a lot of space (though I find they can warp your card selection) - demonic pact is a good example. They often force players to look to draft something different from what you might ordinarily get in that archetype. If a colour pair can support three or more different approaches to deckbuilding, that's gotta be cool, right?

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Dredging this back up.. what are some of the best shard, wedge, or broader archetypes out there?

I've been thinking for a while that we should have a thread here to discuss and document our design processes at the most abstract and broadly applicable level. I don't want to hijack your thread but maybe it should be here. I feel this topic is one where Riptidelab has a lot of decentralized or un-articulated wisdom.​

My impression since coming here is that the good design stuff is deep in a cube blog somewhere or a tangent like in this thread.

 

[Velrun]

Has anyone made a thread about Aristocrats?

Also is it too much to have four colors in your cube more or less support the archetype?

 

[Rowan_CB]

I've been meaning to update my cube blog about this forever, but my cube has been overhauled recently to be based on a quartet of four-color broad archetypes, as follow:

- Artifacts
- Discard (essentially madness/cycling)
- Graveyard
- Lands

I've found the results to be very satisfying, although I still need more testing. Essentially, these broad archetypes allow for a lot of flexibility in how color pairs can come together, and can lead to multiple distinctive deck possibilities to be present even within a single color pair. I have found that there is still some room to support a few additional archetypes that don't fall within these four themes (e.g., there is still a UR spells theme, a WB lifegain theme, etc.) but not enough space for every color pair to have one of these additional archetypes.

I would think aristocrats would be another theme broad enough to be supported in four colors, but I don't have much experience with it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I've been meaning to update my cube blog about this forever, but my cube has been overhauled recently to be based on a quartet of four-color broad archetypes, as follow:

- Artifacts
- Discard (essentially madness/cycling)
- Graveyard
- Lands

I've found the results to be very satisfying, although I still need more testing. Essentially, these broad archetypes allow for a lot of flexibility in how color pairs can come together, and can lead to multiple distinctive deck possibilities to be present even within a single color pair. I have found that there is still some room to support a few additional archetypes that don't fall within these four themes (e.g., there is still a UR spells theme, a WB lifegain theme, etc.) but not enough space for every color pair to have one of these additional archetypes.

I would think aristocrats would be another theme broad enough to be supported in four colors, but I don't have much experience with it.

I think that would be the combination without blue actually, incidentally the only one you didn't list

 

[Rowan_CB]

I think that would be the combination without blue actually, incidentally the only one you didn't list

Hmmmmm good point!

 

[CaptnIrony]

I've done this a lot of cubes I've theorized, these are the ones I've often come to:

- Madness, Big graveyard (Spider Spawning, Rise of the Tides), Graveyard stuff usually
- Aristocrats, Human Tribal, Tokens
- Defenders, Voltron-like
- +1/+1 Counters, Spirit Tribal, Enchantments
- Artifacts

I'm doing this based on memory, and may have forgotten a few.

I need to start posting more.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I've done this a lot of cubes I've theorized, these are the ones I've often come to:

No idea what's up there, but your post is broken!

 

[CaptnIrony]

No idea what's up there, but your post is broken!

My bad, missed a tag, ty.
Fixed.

 

[Velrun]

Welcome back CaptnIrony

What is Voltron?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Suit up one guy and beat them to death with it

 

[Jason Waddell]

Has anyone made a thread about Aristocrats?

Also is it too much to have four colors in your cube more or less support the archetype?

I don't think it's a problem at all to have 4 colors supporting an archetype. It creates layered demand, and lots of different ways to configure decks in ways that feel quite different based on the colors drafted.

 

[CaptnIrony]

Welcome back CaptnIrony

What is Voltron?

Thanks

Here's it in a bit more detail, but like, in 30 minutes:

- Madness, Big graveyard (Spider Spawning, Rise of the Tides), Graveyard stuff usually
Madness:
Red is obvious, it has discard outlets and the cards you want to discard. Mostly madness cards, with a bit of flashback.
Black has a few discard outlets, mostly good in agro (Heir of Falkenrath, Olivia's Dragoon, Stromkirk Condemned), and a decent amount of madness cards, a lot of which are about cheating costs.
Blue also works, but does something differently, blue madness is less about using madness to cheat costs, and more about not losing value. Just the Wind (save ), Obsessive Search, Nagging Thoughts, Broken Concentration, so on... are all about using looters without discard "for real", and as such I like it with control. Doesn't fit well with black, as black tries to be aggressive.
Green's outlets are good for aggro, and its madness is all about cheating costs. Like black it seems to do well in aggressive decks, but with a bit higher curve (higher midrange) (Wild Mongrel, Noose Cosntrictor, Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm, Roar of the Wurm, Honored Hydra)
Big graveyard and Graveyard stuff:
Two examples above. I found a sad anti-synergy between Burning Vengeance / Delve decks and here (wanting to keep the big graveyard). On could try to resolve this by making two colour combinations (I felt like having 4 of the 6 possible supported from groups of 4 colours was nice) that do one or the other. One might have GB Spider Spawning, UG Delve, UB Rise of the Tides, RG Burning Vengeance (Green actually has more cards than Blue with Flashback, Aftermath, Retrace ... (fo:"you may cast this card from your graveyard" or o:aftermath) ). I also like only giving two of UBG self mill. Depends on what you want in the rest of the cube.
- Aristocrats, Human Tribal, Tokens
Aristocrats / Tokens:
White I theorized as actually not getting tokens.

Spoiler

They get weenies, and artifact synergy with plenty of artifact creatures (Bonded Construct, Foundry Inspector) or baubles (Chromatic Star, Alchemist's Vial, Solemn Simulacrum) to carve their own destiny. They also get anthems
Black provides the sac outlets, the self recuring guys, and some death triggers.
Red gives tokens, mass pump, some sac, some death triggers.
Green has some death triggers, can have some tokens, some saccing aswell the big mass pump (Overrun, but hopefully not GRBS). It also gets big creatures tied to little ones, I've got a soft spot for Root-Kin Ally.
Human Tribal we all know, if not, RB has a sac human theme, WG has human pump agro. WB humans is known, RG humans is werewolves.
- Defenders, Voltron-like
I like my cube's RG "high power" defender theme, I feel like it could be made a bit better. But here are the payoffs. I am reaching a bit.
Voltron is enchantress, its "stack equipments on one creature". But this can also represent heroic, prowess, beserkers. It can be those combos where you buff a huge creature and make it unblockable, it can be when you get those creatures that get bigger for each spell cast. You can do RG power matters here.
- +1/+1 Counters, Spirit Tribal, Enchantments+1/+1 Counters is Abzan (the clan) + Simic (the guild). You can add artifacts as well.
Spirit tribal is a mix between UW aggressive spirits and BG soulshift. This would need to be a lower powered cube (perfect for me). WB becomes Ghost Dad like tempo (one of my favourite decks) and I wonder if you can make UG spirits a thing, I'd like to see a value deck that recurs its pieces with soulshift. Big ask though.
Enchantments can be cool. You can use enchantress and recursion in WG. From then you do the normal things with Auras. You can use enchantments as removal in the cube and so adding W or G to B or U to get removal spells that cantrip sounds really cool as well. Maybe black does an exactly one + recursive creatures finish. UG might enchant lands as ramp and untap them. Use enchantments as methods of card advantage rather than sorceries or isntants that draw.
- Artifacts
Yeah. WU WR UB have all been shown as artifact based agro decks in various sets. I can see all of them as value decks. UB could play the improvise game with cantriping artifacts (think Alchemists's Vial). White does recursion for value. Red and Black can do an artifact-aristocrat type thing. There's a lot here. I'd refer to

Chasing the "Artifact Deck"​

post. A lot of it is aligned with my thoughts, other stuff is a bit too high powered for something I'd do, but it's a good read regardless.

 

[Nanonox]

I'm necroing this thread since I have a relevant question (I think)!

When designing your broad archetypes how deep do you go? For example I'm making a broad token theme in . What I've done is lay out more or less what cards I want to include and from there a few sub-themes emerged:

Pump

: Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Spear of Heliod, Angel of Invention
: Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Garruk Relentless, Overwhelming Stampede
: Shaman of the Great Hunt, Ogre Battledriver
Multi: Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Rally the Peasants, Sarkhan Vol

Sacrifice

: Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Flesh Carver, Braids, Cabal Minion, Marionette Master
: Outpost Siege, Goblin Bombardment, Goblin Sharpshooter
: Evolutionary Leap, Garruk Relentless
Multi: Deathreap Ritual, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, Judith, the Scourge Diva, Sarkhan Vol

From there with a few choice payoff cards and the right token makers, I can have a Mardu theme based around artifacts:

Artifacts

: Weaponcraft Enthousiast, Marionette Master
: Pia Nalaar, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Feldon of the Third Path
: Shrine of Loyal Legions, Blade Splicer, Sram's Expertise, Angel of Invention
Multi: Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, Hidden Stockpile

???

There is no real theme emerging from this combination. However, each guild already exists in the other shards/wedges so I don't think it's a problem.
I could see myself adding a few cards like Drana, Liberator of Malakir so that black dips into the pump theme, a Vital Splicer so that green goes into artifacts or an Extricator of Sin so that white has some sacrifice, but I don't think it's really necessary.

So back to the original question: How deep do you go?

In a normal Triangle archetype (see this great post from japhan), I would break down each shard/wedge into 3 guilds and assign each of them an identity.

However with this broad theme, I'm planning to stop the process here at shard/wedge level and let the cards sort themselves out into decks of the appropriate guild/shard/wedge as otherwise I fear things will get too specialized and feel too on the rails (for example : broad token theme -> Jund token sacrifice theme -> Rakdos token sacrifice burn theme).

I'd love feedback on this approach I'm taking. How do you design your broad (4+ colors) archetypes?

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

If you're looking for an Abzan spin on tokens, maybe lifegain would do the trick? There's tons of overlap there, from lifelinking tokens to sacrifice effects/ETB triggers that get better with a lot of bodies. Abzan is also generally the best wedge for the life theme and has lots of incidental support.

 

[Nanonox]

That is a good angle that I didn't think of. I'm also thinking about GY tokens as a possible theme for Abzan.

But all that is secondary to my question. Do you think that in a broad archetype, separating the colors into shards/wedges is deep enough or do you go by guild or more generally by individual colors?

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

I think it partially depends on your mana fixing and the speed of the archetype you're considering. If people are regularly playing 3-color decks anyways, I would leave it at shards because that will be the most likely place for the theme to show up. Going by guild is important if strict 2-color decks are predominant in your environment, or in the case of an aggro deck/archetype that probably doesn't want to splash.

I look at individual colors mainly to determine if they're pulling their weight in a wedge or tetrahedron archetype (man we need a shorter name for this new archetype shape term. Maybe 'tetra'?). Or in the case of a pivot archetype where that color comprises almost the entirety of the theme. The more specific you get though, the more you're drifting into theorycraft that won't be nearly as helpful as just drafting and seeing which decks are successful.

 

[japahn]

I officially approve of "tetra".

Abzan +1/+1 Counters sounds reasonable, but I think that setting triangle subthemes inside the tetra archetype is indistinguishable from a triangle archetype outside it. It will play more like another layer of archetypes over the tetra archetypes.