General Squadron Build-Arounds

[Jason Waddell]

In another thread we were discussing Living Death, which I consider to be an awful cube card by virtue of having no home. Sure, it's a "build-around", but there's really no redundancy. Lack of redundancy leads to lack of incentive to properly build-around the card, as, if you truly commit, your deck sucks ass when you don't draw said build-around. And if you don't commit hard, the card can just suck anyways.

This may be a terrible idea, and I am sure MTGS would hate it, but what do we think about the Squadron Hawk approach to build-arounds. e.g. Spend 1 pick, get multiples.



Are there cards that would be viable with this approach? Is it really fucking stupid? How likely is it that some random visitor sees this thread and vows to never return here. Or better, links this elsewhere to snicker over "what those morons are up to now".

I have to go to sleep now.

 

[James Stevenson]

Why bother with Opposition? In my experience it's pretty nutty, maybe too nutty. Part of playing against that deck with Opposition in it is hoping they don't draw it. You don't need to build around it you just put it in a deck with creatures. Hopefully some token makers too.

Squadron Hawk looks really fun to me but I never got around to warping the rules for it. I'm sure it would work with hawk, maybe even better in a peasant cube. Someone who's done this should chime in.

Maybe Birthing Pod? I like having three in the cube and looking to pick up the other ones the normal way.
Hey what about Mystical Teachings? That card is totally sweet. Squadroning it could be really fun! Maybe it should just be doubled up on.
hehe, Genesis Wave? No.
Sphinxes Revelation? That card gets amazing in multiples.

Maybe there's some weird solution here to making storm work in a good cube. Maybe I'm only curious about that because of LSV's video today.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I've been running Replenish and its been extremely hit or miss. You really can't play a replenish deck with one copy and replenishing for value is iffy. This is a card that would be great in a squadron.

Other cards that might work well here are ion storm (though I haven't run it as a single yet), wildfire, horn of greed, mana flare or heartbeat of spring, Nissa Revane (squadroning her with with elfs), ashen ghoul. . . I'll probably think of more later.

Definitely not opposition, though.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah, the single copy of oppo is fine.

The difference between this approach and the gravecrawler approach is better for some cards, worse for others. People won't play a single copy of squadron hawk, but they'll definitely play a single pod or a single gravecralwer.

Maybe Kindle and co?

 

[CML]

Opposition, as a card that is not only good in decks with creatures, but amazingly good, is like the worst example you coulda chosen here, but nbd.

The Hawks are (even as everyone is on the Hawks bandwagon -- I also dunno why MTG players are so polarized between "give all the fucks about sports" and "give no fucks at all") getting less commonly played up here, though cards like ... er, ok, Opposition ... anyway, you've gotta have something to do with the Hawks to make them good, such as turning them into cards with JTMS or beaters with equips / auras / anthems. (I'm pleased to report Bonesplitter has been quite good on its reintroduction, I must have osmosed something from the Wadds Cube!)

When I did a search for cards like this I just did the "~" thing, maybe there's some other search constraint that brings up more suitable non-self-referential cards, but I can't think of any. Most of the cards that are the right power level in Cube are the right power level with 1 or 4, not with 4 only, which means you just get one at a time and that's fine. This is aside from the new-player-barrier-to-entry issues.

I've been interested in these for some time, though, so I hope y'all find more. Kindle and Flame Burst, lame

Notable successes:

 

[Konge]

It's not expressively what you asked for, and I don't know whether "squadroning" covers it. But how about pick Trinket Mage, get a nifty little package to go along with him? Like, an artifact land of each color, some capsules, sylvok lifestaff, and a spellbomb or two. Shouldn't be anything which is worth a normal pick, like Bonesplitter.

 

[Jason Waddell]

What if instead of Opposition the OP had:


The point was less to focus on that card (I wrote it immediately before sleeping) and more about me being stupid.

 

[CML]

For something like Living Death I'd just rather throw in some more tutors (I may do this anyway), like rather than doubling up on a particular Funsies Land I just added Expedition Map and boom you can build around a land. Maybe we should talk about tutors ITT too, since I don't think grandaddy Demonic Tutor would be particularly OP in yours or mine, even

 

[Goldenpineapple]

I've played with multiple lists that have this effect and I dislike it.

I think it cheapens deckbuilding, drafting, and managing your list. This tactic is mostly used to make storm "more draftable" and to let people have hawk-like cards that reference themselves but I've seen everything from '2 explores lol' to almost every aggro card giving doubles so the list didn't have to be full of them. Just the dynamic of using a single pick for up to 4 spots in your 22-24 when everyone else is 1:1 is silly IMO.

Basically my train of thought is:
Every card should be a pick
Unless you always draft 100% of your cube you can't guarantee every copy will be there
You could force them to be there by 'rigging' them into the shuffle every time, but who wants to do that?
Where do the special rules you have to tell your drafters end? (I played a cube where the owner had a printed sheet of special rules/draft bonuses)
More trouble than it's worth IMO. If you want your cube drafts to be like watching everyone solve a puzzle and constantly look at "what you get with trinket mage" or asking you "how many hawks/other do I get again?" Then you got it, but as a cube simpleton/purist who just wants to sit down and play, even with magic newbies, there's no way I could do this.

 

[Eric Chan]

Not exactly on topic, but last night, a guy in my draft assembled this. I don't have any special rules here, so.. he spent five real picks on his collection of birds.



I was immensely entertained. His opponents were not.

 

[Jonas]

I'm not a fan of squadroning while drafting, feels like you don't have to work for it, and it gets a bit too easy.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm not a fan of squadroning while drafting, feels like you don't have to work for it, and it gets a bit too easy.

I think it relies on cards which as a single card are not worth the pick, but a playset brings them over that edge.

It does seem like a short list though

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, I'm not really into the idea of a package of cards. Goldenpineapple summed it up very well: custom drafting rules add complexity to an already complex process, which may or may not be worth the payoff. Supporting packages by breaking singleton and doubling up (or quintupling up, as it were) on certain cards is as far as I'm willing to go.

Even with Squadron Hawks, they're not high picks, so if you table two of them, that's probably enough of a signal to start spending real picks on them. But given that you have 45 picks in any particular draft, and only 23 spells make your maindeck, I don't really buy the argument that some cards aren't 'worth a pick' in cube. I mean, there's going to be at least ten spells you've drafted that will not see the light of day, even if you nab ten nonbasics. If you spend some of those wheel picks on lower-value third and fourth copies of a card, rather than spells that wouldn't make your deck regardless, you aren't actually wasting picks.

 

[CML]

I think "the hawks" are a nice touch, 4 at once isn't even that good so passing individual copies can't be worth the space, unless your cube is really low-powered and pretty big.

The counterargument to what it does to the drafting process is that "the 4 AK's, 4 Hawks, 3 Demigods" is intuitive enough, new drafters understand why and think it's funny, and being able to fill 3-4 spell slots in your deck means you can pick more sideboard options or more nonbasics or more utility-oriented funsies lands in that draft, too. I'm a fan

I share Eric's feelings about Trinket Mage 'packages,' just pick up that Executioner's Capsule, Engineered Explosives, Academy Ruins and you'll feel great about yourself

 

[Chris Taylor]

Watch people pick trinket mage, look at the package, and take trinket mage out of their deck

Wait, I could have this, or I could just run the other removal spell that came with it?

 

[DreamPaint]

I run a Zoologist package. When you draft the Zoologist you can cash it in for Kird Ape, Loam Lion, and Wild Nacatl. The change has been great, it buffed the zoo archetype without overdoing it. I have been considering dabbling around with a really zany Trinket Mage package. I was thinking about having 20-25 cards set aside as part of the package and a point value associated with each of them. For example, Seat of the Synod would be 0.5 points and Engineered Explosives 3 points; however, the point values of individual cards in this package can range from 0.5 to 6. After the draft, the player who drafted the Trinket Mage rolls a 6-sided dice to determine how many points they have to "buy" cards from this predetermined package. In other words, if I rolled a 4 then I would have 4 points to spend on buying cards for my deck. I could purchase 2x Seats (1 point) and the EE (3 points) or any other permutation of cards who's point value does not exceed 4. I know its pretty wonky but I might test it out.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I run a Zoologist package. When you draft the Zoologist you can cash it in for Kird Ape, Loam Lion, and Wild Nacatl. The change has been great, it buffed the zoo archetype without overdoing it. I have been considering dabbling around with a really zany Trinket Mage package. I was thinking about having 20-25 cards set aside as part of the package and a point value associated with each of them. For example, Seat of the Synod would be 0.5 points and Engineered Explosives 3 points; however, the point values of individual cards in this package can range from 0.5 to 6. After the draft, the player who drafted the Trinket Mage rolls a 6-sided dice to determine how many points they have to "buy" cards from this predetermined package. In other words, if I rolled a 4 then I would have 4 points to spend on buying cards for my deck. I could purchase 2x Seats (1 point) and the EE (3 points) or any other permutation of cards who's point value does not exceed 4. I know its pretty wonky but I might test it out.

Love the Zooligist Idea, that's super cute

So is sol ring in the trinket mage package, it just costs 7?

 

[OCPunisher]

When I read this thread, my first thought was Tinker, and to a lesser extent Goblin Welder. Both strike me as being similar to Living Death in the sense that you can build around them, but they don't really have a home.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I guess I live in a different world, but people take all those zoologist cards on their own and multicolor aggro decks are always getting played here. Getting all three with one pick would be OP in my cube. .

 

[Chris Taylor]

I guess I live in a different world, but people take all those zoologist cards on their own and multicolor aggro decks are always getting played here. Getting all three with one pick would be OP in my cube. .

Yup, but I've cut all but wild nacatl, so maybe.

I'm not a fan of complicating the draft process in general. My drafters have enough of a problem with 5 packs of 9 instead of 3 packs of 15, let alone special rules or a utility land draft on top of all that

 

[Aoret]

I'd been thinking about this for a while myself off and on and couldn't really ever reach a conclusion on it. I'm glad everyone else is a mixed up as I am about it

I get the position that folks like Goldenpineapple are taking on this in that you don't want to have to hand out a rules sheet before the draft. OTOH I don't really want to dismiss the idea completely. As CML points out, there are a number of cards where this "squadroning" process is totally intuitive. The problem is that if you limit yourself to self-referentials, your cube has to already be at the exact power level necessary for that card, in that quantity, to be appropriate.

I think that (at least for me) the correct approach is to keep this idea in your back pocket and look for places where it might be appropriate, regardless of whether the card is a self-referential. I'm a fan of the "cram x copies of the card in a sleeve" method of squadroning as I feel it is the most self-explanatory way to go, particularly for non self referential cards. I will definitely be looking for opportunities to do this with my cube, even just for the sake of trying it out.

 

[CML]

I'd been thinking about this for a while myself off and on and couldn't really ever reach a conclusion on it. I'm glad everyone else is a mixed up as I am about it

I get the position that folks like Goldenpineapple are taking on this in that you don't want to have to hand out a rules sheet before the draft. OTOH I don't really want to dismiss the idea completely. As CML points out, there are a number of cards where this "squadroning" process is totally intuitive. The problem is that if you limit yourself to self-referentials, your cube has to already be at the exact power level necessary for that card, in that quantity, to be appropriate.

I think that (at least for me) the correct approach is to keep this idea in your back pocket and look for places where it might be appropriate, regardless of whether the card is a self-referential. I'm a fan of the "cram x copies of the card in a sleeve" method of squadroning as I feel it is the most self-explanatory way to go, particularly for non self referential cards. I will definitely be looking for opportunities to do this with my cube, even just for the sake of trying it out.

This ran into the physical constraint of the sleeve breaking every draft / people looking for the pack with the big scrotum-like bulge in the middle.

I share Wadds's ideas about them 1-drops

 

[Lucre]

2by3 or 3by2 packs of hawks please!

I'm super down for more of these guys that give you weird to utilize extra cards. Lootings and packrat feel way more fun with crap like this around and those are the kinda things I think are fun to build upon. I was just texting Eric about how much fun it would be to get both cultivates and a packrat or something rolling. Squadron Hawks remind me an awful lot of cultivate except you have to spend more picks on them. lol.

 

[Chris Taylor]

2by3 or 3by2 packs of hawks please!

I'm super down for more of these guys that give you weird to utilize extra cards. Lootings and packrat feel way more fun with crap like this around and those are the kinda things I think are fun to build upon. I was just texting Eric about how much fun it would be to get both cultivates and a packrat or something rolling. Squadron Hawks remind me an awful lot of cultivate except you have to spend more picks on them. lol.

I mean there's multiple cultivates in the average cube because of kodama's reach, but why is this ramp spell like mr card advantage suntail hawk over here?

 

[Lucre]

I discard my dumb ass land to make a rat chris.