Dovetailing off the recent thread I made in the forum, I wanted to post the list I've been tinkering with and the design parameters I established. All this is subject to change of course.
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/60453
My Primary motivation for exploring this idea is a general feeling of dissatisfaction with modern Magic. This isn't news to anyone that knows me. I started a cube many years ago after reading about the format and it was an extremely fun experience that has progressively become less and less fun over time as my list has evolved. So part of this is getting back to basics. What did my list look like when I first started my cube? Well, it looked a lot like the above list because it was 2008.
Design Goals / Constraints:
1. Only brown card frame artifacts. This limits the card pool to pre-mirrodin and dramatically lowers the power of artifact creatures in particular. It also removes equipment entirely (I'm not going to run the foil swords printed in old bordered frames). Primary reason for this constraint is cosmetics. I am very partial to the brown artifact card design. But I'm also sort of excited to see artifacts take a back seat in drafting outside very specific decks that want them. No more auto picking the power artifact because it's good in virtually everything and doesn't require any color commitment.
2. Limited to mechanics pre-M10. Limiting the cube to old bordered is going to produce a list that I think will be missing out on a ton of very creative and inspired cards which came after. It's not where I want to be. But it's a slippery slope too. Part of my current dissatisfaction with my cube stems from the obscene level of value that basically every card needs to have to justify a slot. And this has warped the game horribly IMO into something unrecognizable. This also includes key wording. If the keyword wasn't established before M10, it is not eligible for inclusion. Period. My current list must have 100 different key words on all the cards. I want a list with a quarter of that.
3. Card wording must be pre-M10. Cards from post M10 can be included if the wording on the cards is consistent with 6th edition wording. So no reference to "exile" or the "battlefield". I can see an exception creeping in already (blood artist - uses the term "dies" which I believe is post M10, but the card is just so much fun to build around). This restriction is going to gut almost all the creature power creep cards from consideration. There are a handful of exceptions, and they may end up forming a small group of build around cards for creature strategies. More on that below.
4. No new new card borders (the shitty one with the black at the bottom and stupid ass hologram). Not sure when that went into effect, but this limitation means the pool of cards is effectively closed so the cube list once finalized won't be changed due to new cards being printed (only swaps if something isn't working). Being a finite card pool, it can actually be "finished". That alone is enough incentive to have this constraint (that and really hating the new card frame).
Few things worth pointing out with this initial list:
1. Notable creature cards from Llorwyn and after (in my mind, the true start of creature power creep).
Final Thoughts
Anyway. Enjoy all that. Feedback welcome of course.
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/60453
My Primary motivation for exploring this idea is a general feeling of dissatisfaction with modern Magic. This isn't news to anyone that knows me. I started a cube many years ago after reading about the format and it was an extremely fun experience that has progressively become less and less fun over time as my list has evolved. So part of this is getting back to basics. What did my list look like when I first started my cube? Well, it looked a lot like the above list because it was 2008.
Design Goals / Constraints:
1. Only brown card frame artifacts. This limits the card pool to pre-mirrodin and dramatically lowers the power of artifact creatures in particular. It also removes equipment entirely (I'm not going to run the foil swords printed in old bordered frames). Primary reason for this constraint is cosmetics. I am very partial to the brown artifact card design. But I'm also sort of excited to see artifacts take a back seat in drafting outside very specific decks that want them. No more auto picking the power artifact because it's good in virtually everything and doesn't require any color commitment.
2. Limited to mechanics pre-M10. Limiting the cube to old bordered is going to produce a list that I think will be missing out on a ton of very creative and inspired cards which came after. It's not where I want to be. But it's a slippery slope too. Part of my current dissatisfaction with my cube stems from the obscene level of value that basically every card needs to have to justify a slot. And this has warped the game horribly IMO into something unrecognizable. This also includes key wording. If the keyword wasn't established before M10, it is not eligible for inclusion. Period. My current list must have 100 different key words on all the cards. I want a list with a quarter of that.
3. Card wording must be pre-M10. Cards from post M10 can be included if the wording on the cards is consistent with 6th edition wording. So no reference to "exile" or the "battlefield". I can see an exception creeping in already (blood artist - uses the term "dies" which I believe is post M10, but the card is just so much fun to build around). This restriction is going to gut almost all the creature power creep cards from consideration. There are a handful of exceptions, and they may end up forming a small group of build around cards for creature strategies. More on that below.
4. No new new card borders (the shitty one with the black at the bottom and stupid ass hologram). Not sure when that went into effect, but this limitation means the pool of cards is effectively closed so the cube list once finalized won't be changed due to new cards being printed (only swaps if something isn't working). Being a finite card pool, it can actually be "finished". That alone is enough incentive to have this constraint (that and really hating the new card frame).
Few things worth pointing out with this initial list:
1. Notable creature cards from Llorwyn and after (in my mind, the true start of creature power creep).
- Evoke creatures (mulldrifter, shriekmaw, reveillark, briarhorn). Evoke is such a sweet mechanic. It's absolutely powerful though and these creatures are leagues better than cards printed before them at their respective mana cost. That's OK though. Drafters will gravitate towards them and do well playing them. These are all P1P1 and will probably define most of the creature based decks that are drafted. Feels OK in small doses.
- Gravecrawler, blood artist are cornerstones of my current black sacrifice deck. It's supremely fun to play. It's also guaranteed to suck people into black in this list when your other options are janky shit like Withered Wretch. I'd run Gary if it weren't for a couple words on the card (battlefield/devotion). Bob is also leagues better than most other creature options, so again more reason to run black aggro. Smallpox and Death Cloudalong with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge for more recursive/stax options. Pet cards.
- Red has the goblin deck using mostly pre-M10 cards. Goblin Guide is head and shoulders better than every other one drop, along with Hellrider (which looks ridiculous in this list). If you have a creature deck in pretty much any color and you see hellrider, you will almost certainly want to make your deck Rx to run it. Which again feels fine to me. Having one card like that versus every damn card to where Hellrider feels pedestrian. Guttersnipe and Kiln Fiend to try and keep the Izzet spells matters deck alive (along with Wee Dragonauts). Young Pyromancer disqualified for using profanity (battlefield), which is a bummer because I like that card a lot. And Prowess is out. That one hurts a bit, but it is what it is.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Daring Skyjek. Wish I could do more for you white. You sort of suck. Lots of protection dudes here and anthems. Red is screwed in this matchup. I tried to limit the protection guys. Just one soltari. Just one knight (well, two I guess). Quicksand to the rescue? Take what you can get RDW. So maybe white is good enough in a list like this? Anyone with more input on how to make this section less vomit inducing, let me know.
- Green has an aimless elf theme but I don't really know what to do with this section. Top end cards are just not very good, so what are you ramping into? I need to dig and find some worthwhile top end green cards that you genuinely get excited about casting. Arbor Elf is a super synergistic effect with things like Wild Growth and Squirrel Nest. So it has to be included I feel. Oracle of Mul Daya is also redundancy for exploration. I had fastbond here, but that's probably going too far.
- An old list like this, it doesn't feel appropriate to strip combo. I would normally be against trying to do things like make storm work or goblin piledriver, etc. It almost pains me to include some of this. But with fewer creatures (less than 40% of the cube... wow!) and a much lower average quality of those creatures, what else are you going to support?
- Hellkite Overlord and Cruel Ultimatum are both absurd cards. The first is reanimator/natural order support. Second is storm/big mana. I don't know if they belong (hellkite in particular), especially with GRBS cards like Recurring Nightmare and even something like Reanimate. Dralnu, Lich Lord is a card with such a horrendous drawback that I have spoken out against on numerous occasions, I just don't know why I have it in the list. But it can do a snapcaster impression (who is banned on account of wording) and part of me wants to see if you can break super bad Dralnu in a storm deck.
- Speaking of storm.... I can't draft this for shit or play it either really. Not sure who will try it or if the slots are just being wasted. But if any list wanted this archetype, it feels like this one does. I've been tempted by storm on numerous occasions and thought better of it each time. But I think I'm pulling the trigger finally. Crash and burn baby. You only live once.
- Stuff that most (myself included) proclaim GRBS... those are gracing this list. Opposition, Recurring Nightmare, Tinker. The list goes on. These cards probably won't get passed. It's all auto P1P1 stuff. Whatever. I could strip all this out, but that just leaves me back at "the midrange cube", and with the lower creature power level, what is that accomplishing beyond what my current list is giving me? Certain cards are probably just bad for the meta no matter what else you run (looking at you opposition). Others feel a lot more muted in a list like this. Again, what are you tinkering for? Nothing you can tinker for is truly game winning. Recurring Nightmare? There are not a plethora of ETB effects in this list. Sacing a dude to get back another dude. It's not a value play in a cube list this. It's only a combo play and you have to set it up. You can certainly build a seriously nasty Recurring Nightmare deck here. But you can't sleepwalk into that list I don't feel. Here though is where certain really strong finishers are going to potentially ruin things. Simic Sky Swallower in this list looks downright terrifying.
Final Thoughts
- I did a few sample drafts. Made some bad choices (classic me) and wound up with probably only one really decent deck. But I'm not a great drafter to begin with and I wasn't sure how to draft this list effectively so I was winging it pretty hard. What I will say though is there were very clear signals I felt that pulled me in a specific direction. I liked that. Even when I went in trying to force something, I would see things I couldn't pass and I wound up somewhere I didn't intend.
- And while many of the cards are narrow and somewhat linear, which prevents you from just good-stuffing the packs. If I wasn't already into white, I had to skip most of the creature options because WW is impossible on T2 in a RB deck. While too much of that is bad (railroading), this felt sort of nice as it made my early choices matter a lot more.
- In contrast to all this, my current list is so ridiculously splashable, it feels like you can make almost any decision and it will just work out in the end. It's EZ-mode drafting to an extreme (made worse by the way we are module drafting). By comparison, drafting this list felt a bit more like early choices were effectively locking me out of later options but not preventing me from building a playable list. In the end, I had at least one pile of cards I could have built more than one way too. Neither was particularly great mind you, but the fact that I didn't just have only one playable deck in the end I think means things aren't as overly narrow as they might seem. Then again, it was just like 4 sample drafts against AI that probably makes questionable choices (some of the wheel cards felt pretty off to me).
Anyway. Enjoy all that. Feedback welcome of course.
