Kuldahar's Main Cube

[Kuldahar]

Hi all.

Below is my cube in it's current status. Like I mentioned in a previous thread it is feeling a bit disjointed atm.

http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/51587

The original cube was a direct copy of Jason's cube when I first discovered Riptide after dealing with the abomination of a cube that MTGS spawned (I remember one game I had a black lotus, mox something, tinker in my opening hand with blightsteel colossus in the deck...).

Over time it has been patched etc. with new themes coming from this forum, as well as player group opinions and suggestions. A lot of the patching recently hasnt had much thought in it, with me just taking cards out and sticking some of the new interesting cards in.

My player group is small in number, and while we have been playing magic for a very long time (19-20 years?) we are still 'filthy casuals' that probably aren't the best at game play. We still have a lot of fun though.

I plan to try and keep logs of decks, patches and ideas here.

Your ideas, opinions, and thoughts however are most welcome.

 

[Kuldahar]

ugh i was in the wrong forum *sigh*

 

[Kuldahar]

Big revamp time.

http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/65822

As I said above, my cube was old and stale. So now it has had a major facelift.

We are usually only a group of three, but sometimes there are four of us. I've designed this cube specifically with us in mind, so perhaps some choices aren't necessarily what other people would pick.

The cube is 405 cards. We make 27 packs of 15 cards. We do what I think is called 'glimpse' drafting? Pick 1, and then burn 2? So we end up with a pool of 45 cards. It kinda feels like the draft pool is too big, but I'm really enjoying the larger card pool in the cube, so it is only a minor compromise in my mind.

Two of us tested it out last night for the first time. I got my bf to sit in and act as a 3rd drafter (he just took out 3 random cards basically lol). So we ended up with a U/W control and a R/G werewolf deck. They were pretty evenly matched, but the U/W won all 3 games mainly due to my friend casting Torrential Gearhulk targeting Mystic Confluence. Bouncing 3 transformed werewolves to my hand was brutal. I had lethal on the board and if he hadn't, he was toast. There was also a game where he countered Chandra, Torch of Defiance and also drew 2 cards with the confluence. That also won him the game, because my deck just ran out of steam, and needed ToD to win the game (he was on 2). Needles to say, the confluence is on the chopping block because it's power is just a wee bit much for a 1 on 1 match.

So this new face lift is definitely a lot more 'fun' than the previous iteration, but I have no doubt there will more tweaks to come as we test it out more.

Edit: Oh with the mana base - it is a bit different to what is on the spoiler.

Basically all the ETB tapped khans lands read like (but with their respective colours)

Cardname
Land
T: Add C to your mana pool.
You may reveal this card at the end of the draft. If you do, you may add a copy of Arid Mesa and a copy of Sacred Foundry to your card pool.

The temples and fastlands will read like

Cardname
Land
T: Add C to your mana pool.
You may reveal this card at the end of the draft. If you do, you may add a copy of Temple of Triumph OR a copy of Inspiring Vantage to your card pool.

Clearly the shock/fetches are better than the temple/fasts but that's ok. Our group tends to not put enough emphasis on picking fixing, so this is an experiment that I hope will assist.

It also allowed for room to be freed up as there are 20 less card slots needed for fixing. Anyway it's an experiment and we will see how it goes.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Cubetutor is down at the moment, but just from the description of the games it suggests a too wide power band, and a blue section that is too strong. That sounds about right though for the first iteration of your first independent design. In my experience, its really hard not accidentally designing an OP blue section.

One thing you can do is just cycle some first picks on cube tutor, and see how often the objective correct first pick is a blue card. Thats usually pretty good for identifying the need to depower parts of the section. The next step is kind of trickier, but basically after running enough reps of the cube, you'll want to take note if non-blue midrange decks are effectively just a worse strategy compared to blue midrange decks. That will prompt you to do some more gutting. I actually don't mind running some deliberately clunky or narrow cards in blue, as it helps bring the color down to a more reasonable level.