Stranger Cube

[ossa]

Hey guys, I've been lurking a while, using the knowledge here to hone my first cube (360 unpowered, modern framed, occasionally breaking singleton) that was just played between my housemates. Now I'm in a new town, that cube has been broken down, and I'm looking to build a new 360 to share with any players I can find.

Cube on cubetutor
Design Goals

• Accessible for players new to magic, new to drafting, or new to cube.

I want to introduce as little complexity as possible, whilst creating maximum depth. I'll be sticking to cards printed with modern frames, avoiding cards/abilities that are difficult to grok (e.g. protection, regeneration etc), avoiding split and flip cards, and making sure anything that's non-evergreen is used multiple times throughout the cube.

• Deep enough to hold the interest of veteran or competitive players.

Although I want the experience to be streamlined, it still has to be deep with interactions and with decent replay value.

• Minimise risk and impact of theft.

This will be played with anyone who wants to, so I'll be avoiding foil goyfs and judge promos to make stuff less likely to go missing, and if it does, it's no biggie. Aiming to average £0.50 to £1.00 per card across the cube, maximum per card around £4 (the price of a booster).


Fixing


Aiming for any colour pair to be possible, colour pair and splash if you're feeling greedy. Fetches and Shocks break the budget constraint, Checks and Pains are next best. Sulfur Falls is outside the budget too, but the rest of the cycle is fine so it's a small compromise. Not sure if I want to include trilands and scrylands.

Edit 1:

Seems like it'll be too difficult to get a critical mass of cards that fit the complexity constraints, especially if the size is scaled up. I'll be breaking singleton, but want it to be obvious to drafters, so very similar effects will be switched to multiples.

Llanowar Elves out, not sure if I want to go with Elvish Mystics which play more elegantly, or Arbor Elves for land enchantment shenanigans.

Playing with keeping symmetrical removal in black, and targeted in white:


Drown in Sorrow, Stab Wound, and most of the red burn makes the difference between 2 and 3 toughness huge.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

This is an interesting idea. Do you think some of the cards like meadowboon might lead to too much onboard complexity?

 

[PlaidMagic Cube]

While my concern based on your description was that you may head into a realm of providing an environment which is not conducive to growth as a drafter/player for your less knowledgeable drafters, the actual list does include some more complicated mechanics, with an apparent (and I'm assuming intentional) use of cards which actually have reminder text for slightly more complicated mechanics. Perhaps some of the new exploit cards would be beneficial, as I think the true value in a cube of this nature and intention should be one that educates the less seasoned players, and something like exploit is powerful enough to be piloted by an elder dragon, there is that simple moment of "Oh, I can sacrifice the creature itself" which is something that I find to be fruitful in my playgroup.

Disclosure: My regular cube playgroup consists of 4 players who've been playing since 94 and own and play with P9 and 4 players who have been playing Innistrad.

I like what you are doing here, and I think at any level the goal of a cube designer is also one of education/growth.

 

[James Stevenson]

Ooh, pound signs! Where do you live?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You might be able to filch some ideas from the Penny Pincher cube, which is built partly on the same premise.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Yeah, I think with budget constraints to start from the bottom (ie the fixing) and working your way up is the best way to go about this. Bounce lands Kahn lands and Scry lands is a neat configuration of lands that interact with each other to give depth to the environment but also put some constraints to how fast a multicolor deck can get operational. You might be able to use pains as a way to get some more speed in there. Either way you do it, the mana base sort of dictates the speed the cube will play at and what cards are appropriate because of it.

 

[ossa]

First tentative version is complete. The plan is to tweak and adjust while I track down the bits I don't have, then get it drafted.

This is an interesting idea. Do you think some of the cards like meadowboon might lead to too much onboard complexity?

I didn't keep meadowboon, I was just playing with the evoke mechanic. I don't mind it, what I like is that it's very simple to parse what it does and it has decent skill ceiling. You might be right about complex board states, maybe you could mitigate it by improving/increasing removal?

While my concern based on your description was that you may head into a realm of providing an environment which is not conducive to growth as a drafter/player for your less knowledgeable drafters, the actual list does include some more complicated mechanics, with an apparent (and I'm assuming intentional) use of cards which actually have reminder text for slightly more complicated mechanics. Perhaps some of the new exploit cards would be beneficial, as I think the true value in a cube of this nature and intention should be one that educates the less seasoned players, and something like exploit is powerful enough to be piloted by an elder dragon, there is that simple moment of "Oh, I can sacrifice the creature itself" which is something that I find to be fruitful in my playgroup.

Disclosure: My regular cube playgroup consists of 4 players who've been playing since 94 and own and play with P9 and 4 players who have been playing Innistrad.

I like what you are doing here, and I think at any level the goal of a cube designer is also one of education/growth.

Thanks man, yeah I'm not trying to build a core set here, just want to round the edges off of the cube experience. I've been trying to keep the wording and card style as consistent as possible, and avoiding wall-o-text as much as possible.

Exploit seems like a good idea, works cross colour (with RB for steal 'n' sac, UBg zombies/selfmill/reanimator), I'll see if I can fit it in, wary of adding too many mechanics though, most blocks run 8-12, and I'm already on the high end of that.

Ooh, pound signs! Where do you live?

At the moment I'm mostly in Southend and occasionally London, spent about 6 years in Leicestershire before that. There doesn't seem to be too much of a scene down here unfortunately.

You might be able to filch some ideas from the Penny Pincher cube, which is built partly on the same premise.

Thanks man, love stealing ideas from lower power cubes.

Yeah, I think with budget constraints to start from the bottom (ie the fixing) and working your way up is the best way to go about this. Bounce lands Kahn lands and Scry lands is a neat configuration of lands that interact with each other to give depth to the environment but also put some constraints to how fast a multicolor deck can get operational. You might be able to use pains as a way to get some more speed in there. Either way you do it, the mana base sort of dictates the speed the cube will play at and what cards are appropriate because of it.

Karoos and Scrys sound like they'd play really nicely, I'd just be worried about it nerfing the aggro decks. I've tried to keep colour intensity pretty low here to make fixing a shade easier to counteract the lack of perfect fetch-shock-dual manabase. Any ideas for synergies that might work with pains or checks?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I didn't keep meadowboon, I was just playing with the evoke mechanic. I don't mind it, what I like is that it's very simple to parse what it does and it has decent skill ceiling. You might be right about complex board states, maybe you could mitigate it by improving/increasing removal?

I'm not really sure where exactly the solution falls, I remember reading MARO talking about NWO design, and them finding that the complex board states which Lorwyn generated was a problem for newer players.

Board Complexity

Here was the problem that reared its head during Lorwyn and Morningtide. This type of complexity isn't about what cards can do but rather about how they interact with one another while they are on the battlefield. This problem was most noticeable to R&D during the employee Prerelease forMorningtide. The casual players were quitting after one or two rounds and we kept watching people who stayed in suffer as they couldn't figure out what they had to do. There was just too much dependent interaction.

Another important lesson about board complexity was that it didn't take very many cards with this style of complexity to cause problems. Just one card, for example, can change the design tree from a few choices to a double-digit number of choices.

Magic is a game about interactions. This type of complexity stresses that too much interaction can be just as taxing mentally as cards that take multiple readings to comprehend.

Karoos and Scrys sound like they'd play really nicely, I'd just be worried about it nerfing the aggro decks. I've tried to keep colour intensity pretty low here to make fixing a shade easier to counteract the lack of perfect fetch-shock-dual manabase. Any ideas for synergies that might work with pains or checks?

I've found it to be fine. In these lower power formats, there isn't really a density of crushing midrange bombs and planeswalkers that come down and really condense the game. Bouncelands mean that there is a time price being paid to develop, and if the aggro decks end up coming out swinging turn 2, thats fine.

Bouncelands also do a number of things to help newer players both enjoy the game and develop as players:

1.) They ensure games are not too condensed and that they regularly enter the midgame. This gives players time to draw out of mana screw or mana flood, and gives them space to make mistakes, without the consequences being too severe.
2.) They directly address issues of mana screw and mana flood, meaning those players' decks are less likely to self-destruct.
3.) They provide a way to ramp and color fix, which means new players can build in directions they often find fun and expressive, rather than being punished for not building around an abstract set of criteria they don't understand.
4.) This provides the best entry way I've found to introduce players to negative variance and how to reduce it. Explaining to them how bouncelands made their deck more fun, is a better starting point than going into an abstract discussion about why their deck was terrible.

They also scale with player skill: the better you understand the math behind them, the more you can start doing crazy things like building 15 land ramp decks.

You really want to cut down on your powered 1 drops, and narrow the power band a bit. x3 champion, c2 stromkirk noble, and x3 gravecrawler is a very punishing array for this type of format. Those are established aggro strategies built for cubes with a corresponding power level in midrange and control strategies, which aren't present here. All that they will do is condense the game in an unfun manner, especially for newer players.

There are a few bomby midrange and control cards that are way over the power threshold of the rest of the cube and should be cut: King Thragtusk, wolfir silverheart, hornet queen, zealous conscripts, siege-gang commander, and deadeye navigator. Deadeye Navigator seems especially bad, as it not only crushes dreams, but it leads to board state complexity and card comprehension issues. Krenko, Mob Boss is more the direction I think you would want to go: fun, intuitive, and appeals to a more casual creative type.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Would I be too greedy in proposing a manafixing split card?
Like bounceland/fastland or something?