Four color/player Cube

[Knifethrower]

This is the four color/player cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/106096

I am not a cubetutor champion, so it isn't set up quite correctly. The rares are dealt separately, they are currently in the sideboard section. You must manually change number of bots to 3.

The goal is to create a cube that is conventionally draftable by four players.

This is accomplished in several steps:

1: Reduce the number of draftable archetypes from the normal ten color pairs to something smaller. This is to comply with a hypothesis stating that sets draft best when the number of available archetypes is slightly greater than the number of drafters. (a) Eliminating a color reduces the number of color pairs to six. Eliminating white keeps all important game elements in the game. (i.e. card draw, discard, ramp, direct damage, etc.)

2. Choose six vague archetypes that can be made fairly deep and dilute. I choose the four creature-based archetypes (b) for my "allies", plus spells-matter and enchantments-matter for my "enemies". With the help of enchantment creatures from Theros block, I can make all of these themes deep enough even when only 12 packs are opened.

3. To add interest to vague themes, I pushed the idea of draft combos in each color pair. The goal is for the cards in the draft combo to be cards one would use anyway, but that have a lot of synergy with one or two specific other cards. For instance, Act of treason/fling, defy gravity/plummet. This may have gotten out of hand, as you would agree when your opponent has Goblin Tunneler, Mortis Dogs, and Fling.

4. Rarity symbols printed on the cards, match actual rarities. I.E. this is more like a master set than a singleton cube. I doubled up on the multicolor signalers.

 

[Knifethrower]

a: Having too many archetypes means that each archetype may not have enough available cards, hurting all of the archetypes and also disproportionately hurting synergy-based archetypes, throwing off game balance. The environment is also filled with cards no one wants if they are too specific to an unused archetype.

Having too few archetypes may result in lack of player freedom if archetypes=players (players get railroaded into what other people aren't pushing); archetype splitting if archetypes<players (which again disproportionately hurts synergy-based archetypes); and generally poorer signalling because it is harder for an archetype to seem clearly open when players are speculating early.

b: The four creature based archetypes are aggro, beaters, fatties, and flyers. These categories are somewhat descriptive (inherently emergent from the design of magic), and somewhat prescriptive (they are true if I design them to be true.) In the design phase I categorize them thusly:

The aggro deck expects to deal >50% of its damage with creatures that are 1-3 cmc.

The beaters deck expects to deal >50% of its damage with creatures that are 3-5 cmc.

The fatties deck expects to deal >50% of its damage with creatures that are 5-7 cmc.

The flyers deck expects to deal >50% of its damage with creatures that have flying.

The fact that each deck wants different support cards helps differentiate them in the draft/deck construction process. Final products may deviate from the design specs above, which is fine.

 

[Kirblinx]

I decided to upload a copy of your cube on my account to implement your draft profile you mentioned:

http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/64169

This will allow yourself (or others) to draft your cube the way you wanted it to. Although there is some issue with duplicate commons in packs, but it feels close enough.
Like this:

RB Removal from CubeTutor.com

Format seems very low complexity. Feels like a core set draft, which I am not saying is a bad thing. I do like there are a lot of manasinks like kicker and monstrous to make games more interactive, which I am all for.

My main concern at this point is pack size. As having 15 cards per pack means you will see the same pack 4 times. I mean, I didn't want to open that Witch's Familiar the first time, let alone the next three when everyone else keeps passing it around. Changing to smaller packs and increasing the number of packs might be a way to go.

Also with drafting with 4 people and having four colours, is an interesting concept, because each player will probably settle into 2 colours and therefore be fighting with (most likely) 2 different people in those colours. I don't know how it will work in practice but it seems like if you can follow signals, no one will end up struggling for playables.

Also wondering why you don't have any fixing? Don't want people to play more than 2 colours? I always appreciate fixing, and am sad it isn't here.

That will do for now. This is the third time I have written this now as the new chrome update seems to want to reload tabs when I switch between them, which has been very frustrating to say the least.

 

[Knifethrower]

Thanks! I really appreciate this.
I have also assembled a paper copy of the cube, and played it once.

I'd like to reply to the points you brought up.

Format is low complexity; i.e core set.

Yes-ish? The basic themes are low complexity; core-set like. The cards themselves I think have the overall compexity of a typical retail set.



Lots of Manasinks

You know, I have whole theory on manasinks that I would like to lay out, mostly just to have a record of it somewhere. Please indulge me.

c. Basically, most retail sets have at least one mechanic that gives cards an alternate mana cost or provides a mana sink, and it seems that this provides two upsides to the environment. The first thing is that players are less likely to run out of gas as the game goes long; the second is that these cards can occupy multiple points on the mana curve, so that players can curve out well and have a better play experience. (for instance, Sinuous Vermin is fine when you have two mana and fine when you have five mana). Depending on how many of these types of effects you include in your environment, your cube falls onto a spectrum, which I have divided into four sections.

Section 1 - Not Enough. You have only a trivial amount of this class of cards, and your environment doesn't reap the stated benefits. Frankly, most cubes I have played fall into this category, possibly because most of the effects are concentrated on common workhorse cards that are neither splashy nor of the requisite power level for many cube environments.

Section 2 - Just the Right Amount. You have enough mana sinks to keep players busy and well-curved. On the low end of this section, players may have to make an effort to pick them up during draft for this express purpose. Pretty much every retail set falls into section 2.

Section 3 - A Comfortable Excess. You have plenty of these effects, and players should end up with many in their pool without making a special effort. The abundance of ways to spend mana opens up multiple lines of play; mana scarcity may be more relevant than card scarcity. Bounce may have extra bite for this reason. I think Khans of Tarkir falls into this category; with morph, outlast, and off-color-activated-abilites I frequently had a lot of choices on how to spend my mana. This is my target for this cube.

Section 4 - Too Much. I'm not really sure this category exists, and don't have anything to say about it. It seems like it would exist.


Pack size, Number of Packs

I am willing to give 4x11 a go; I would also like having that extra rare in the pool to spice decks up. Witch's Familiar is unusually bad though; I'm waiting for WOTC to print the card I want in that slot.
My rare list is also already in flux since it is the part of the cube I am least happy with; My goal is to have 4 packs with spicy but not overpowering rares. i.e. Rorix Bladewing is probably out and kiki-jiki is probably in.


4 Colors, 4 Players; Signaling

During my one paper draft so far, it was ridiculously obvious when a color was open at the start of the draft. Mostly a matter of proportion; when only one player is taking a color instead of two players, and the same pack goes around and around and around, it's a signal that's hard to miss. It should be easier for less skilled players in this way.


Lack of Color Fixing

This is intentional; I want players making 2 color decks. One concern is that with 4 colors, the environment could go from a six-deck format to a 4-deck format if three color decks are commonplace.
I also disagree strongly with the philosophy of abundant mana fixing that pervades both power-max and riptide cube design, but that is a discussion for another post and time.


Thanks again for making a functional upload of my cube.