So our last conversation was pretty cool, and I have some follow-up thoughts, as sullivan's first article hit some interesting notes on TSP-RAV standard vs. efficient cantrips..
Namely it had never occurred to me that TSP-RAV standard was defined by
sifting effects rather than efficient
cantrip effects, and the extent that this shaped control identity in the format, as well as the implications this can have for cube.
One thing that always seemed interesting to me for blue based answer decks from that period, was the extent that they were able to thrive in an extremely diverse format. Answers weren't unusually ubiquitous in that format, and the mix/match quiz of consistantly finding the right answer to the question being asked becomes harder the more varied the questions and less ubiquitous the answers.
Often times its much easier to just shift to a more assertive game plan, perhaps using counters as disruption rather than as answers.
However, sifting cards lets you run a great diversity of cards intended for different matchups or phases of the game, but retain the option to exchange them for more relevant cards, if they show up at the wrong time or place. They naturally enable reactive gameplay rather than proactive gameplay, because you want to wait a little bit to see what does or does not line-up in the matchup, and this is reflected in generally higher mana costs. In addition, many of these cards will also contain some sort of conditional card advantage clause. Smoothing was something that happened in the mid or late game, as a response to what had happened in the early game, and thus had a very strong mechanical identity, of working best in slower, reactive decks, whose strategic posture would revolve around in-game restructuring while finding the best way to garner value off of the sifting.
And this was reflected in the format, where you had the aforementioned baron decks that used blessings to essentially recalibrate the deck in real-time to the matchup, or the UB dralnu decks that used teachings and flashback from dralnu to structure a removal suite, the more aggressive solar flare decks that broke symmetry by dropping a selection of controlling ETB fatties into the yard for reanimation, or the firemane angel decks that used the sifting to get rid of redundant copies of narrow cards/drop its namesake card into the yard for synergistic value that could be recurred later.
Smoothing, in this era, was generally the province of
think twice, which generally fits better on a control plan, and brilliantly has flashback for added synergy with the sifting cards.
Just a really cool way to link the hand and the graveyard in a way that gave tremendous identity to control, and it never occurred to me before how this simple choice of card design was so foundational.
The efficient cantrips on the other hand, are really good cards, but have very weak mechanical identity. They can be ran in any blue deck, they don't care if the strategy is pro-active or re-active, they are good at any point in the game, and the only mechanic they link to is shuffling (arguably the most miserable) for which they essentially require fetchlands. Most significantly, the tend to focus on manipulating the TOL rather than the hand, which is a problem for control decks that want to restructure situational cards that have been drawn. This (in conjunction with other NWO factors) can easily create a bias towards proactive rather than reactive strategies in blue, and mana points 4cc or less, as reprograming the hand becomes much harder and clunky high CC spells more of a liability. This is especially true if your removal is more conditioned rather than unconditioned.
The only exception to this is brainstorm with a shuffle effect, but which still allows the card to be re-drawn.
My point here (and this is perhaps one of the paths by which a power max metric can lead to good stuff in these types of formats) is that one set of cards pushes a strong mechanical and format identity, and the other set of cards do not.
For example, one way I could choose (as a cube designer) to structure my blue draw would be to focus on sifting cards in the 3-4CC slot, and than big mana draw at 6CC + (stuff like stroke of genius), rather than running something like
ponder alongside
fact or fiction, which ask nothing of the drafter during the actual draft or deck building phase.
The former creates very strong mechanical identity, firmly stating that card selection is going to be reactive in nature, and that card advantage will require slower game play. The intersection with the graveyard suggests specific control configurations: solar flare and baron at a minimum, creating a deeper drafting experience that just assembling removal + card draw + threat.
The important thing here is that this diversifies significant mana points. The ponder-FOF setup gives you everything exciting by 4 mana, while the other approach invites a game of early answers into a calibration puzzle to setup for a 6+ mana payoff.
This bleeds the formats mana point identity out, creating a reason to think of mana point 6 based strategies as being distinct from mana point 4 based strategies.
The realization that this is even a design option, is rather exciting.
Though speaking of diversified gameplay and bleeding out mana points. I'm increasingly of the opinion that traditional ways of thinking of aggro-midrange-and control from constructed are just horrible for cube. The reason being that if a cube or a deck are just an index of cards, you can never bias a cube towards specific mana points in the same way you can a deck. In a constructed deck, you just concentrate all of your spells at a certain mana point and call it a day, while a cube (while the vast majority of cubes) demand broader mana point representation, and 2s fold naturally into 4s.
Aggro, control, or midrange identity largely comes from the incentives to draft at different mana points, and a big part of the cube designers role is creating those incentives.
For example, with aggro, all of these CMC or power/toughness of 2 or less cards are great, because in sufficient density they establish a clear incentive to draft around a lower mana point. And those cards offer
tremendous utility, meaning: aggro can be more grindy or controlling, gain consistency from library manipulation, be recursive in nature, build large board states, or build up to an aggro-combo finish by several means--all
in addition to being a source of early assertive board presence, which is something that comes naturally as a by-product of the low CC deck existing in a format.
As far as communicating your format intent with your drafters by means of the draft, its far more important to include clear incentives to
lead them to any given mana point, rather than mechanically filling out the cube's mana point's quota and just walking away, hoping they figure it out.
TOL manipulators? The Library is obvious, but also 
