General Utility Everything Draft

[Diakonov]

This idea has been brought up before: can we find a reasonable way to include nonland cards in the Utility Land Draft that are interesting, but much too narrow to occupy regular cube slots?

Currently, the way I run my ULD is to have certain cards during the draft that allow you to search through the Utility Land Binder and take two picks. This has proven to be a method my drafters are content with, so it seems like a natural step to simply throw some other nonland cards into the binder.

Here are some examples of what I’m considering. The key is that the cards must be very narrow and would otherwise be very low picks.



Plus CIPT tri-lands, perhaps.

I’d be happy to hear other suggestions.

 

[James Stevenson]

Could be a good way to support artifact themes. Like, perhaps Goblin Welder should be man cube, but all the random support artifacts should be in the UED. I dunno.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think this is a good direction, even if some picks seem a little suspect. As long as the focus stays on cards that are narrow and enabling I think it's got solid rationale.

 

[Goldenpineapple]

I'd be game for this system if only the very most fringe/niche things were in- not extra rewards for tribal, extra cards for in-draft archetypes, or cards that are good enough to act as filler (or even help) for a poor draft. Making drafters choose between enablers and rewards is too important to put either (or both) in an extra bonus round draft IMO (About half the BUG cards are for the same deck). I'm a little confused about how something like Zur or Doran is playable enough for people to ever want to take, but too unplayable for the main list. Honestly a lot of these look like cards you want to play with but your drafters refuse or they're below par on your 'true' power level.

Brewing draft systems is sweet, this just seems like too much to me.

 

[James Stevenson]

I dunno, Goldie P, this just seems like the natural progression of the ULD to me. If that worked so well for people, why couldn't this? Of course, it could be that getting it right requires omniscient forethought and a subtle understanding of MTG, both of which elude me completely, or perhaps I elude completely.

I really like this idea:

Currently, the way I run my ULD is to have certain cards during the draft that allow you to search through the Utility Land Binder and take two picks. This has proven to be a method my drafters are content with, so it seems like a natural step to simply throw some other nonland cards into the binder.

Maybe I'll think about having a Utility Something Draft, doing it this way seems elegant and natural to me. It's an interesting mesh of drafty draft and rotisserie draft.

 

[CML]

Please try it and see whats up

 

[Chris Taylor]

I remember being against Azorious signet in the ULD, but hey
don't make the draft process basically Rotissire. It's cool, but nobody ALWAYS wants to play rotissire

 

[Eric Chan]

Right, I think there's a delicate line between booster draft and rotisserie draft that the utility land draft walks, and it lands on the right side by currently stocking mostly non-basics that otherwise wouldn't be valued highly enough to be worth a pick. While I think this idea has some merit, it's a real tightrope balancing act to make sure that the cards in this rotisserie section are ones that wouldn't legitimately be picked otherwise.

 

[Diakonov]

Thanks for the responses, everyone!

Could be a good way to support artifact themes. Like, perhaps Goblin Welder should be man cube, but all the random support artifacts should be in the UED. I dunno.

I should have clarified about Goblin Welder: I currently run a double-squad pick of Goblin Welder in the main, so this would be a standalone third Welder.

I'd be game for this system if only the very most fringe/niche things were in- not extra rewards for tribal, extra cards for in-draft archetypes, or cards that are good enough to act as filler (or even help) for a poor draft. Making drafters choose between enablers and rewards is too important to put either (or both) in an extra bonus round draft IMO (About half the BUG cards are for the same deck). I'm a little confused about how something like Zur or Doran is playable enough for people to ever want to take, but too unplayable for the main list. Honestly a lot of these look like cards you want to play with but your drafters refuse or they're below par on your 'true' power level.

Brewing draft systems is sweet, this just seems like too much to me.

To be honest, all I did was go through my binder and find cards that were kinda nichey, either mechanically or due to being multi-colored. This is very much just a preliminary list to get conversation started. Cards like Zur and Doran I threw in because they are 3-color cards with at least some “build around me” potential.

Right, I think there's a delicate line between booster draft and rotisserie draft that the utility land draft walks, and it lands on the right side by currently stocking mostly non-basics that otherwise wouldn't be valued highly enough to be worth a pick. While I think this idea has some merit, it's a real tightrope balancing act to make sure that the cards in this rotisserie section are ones that wouldn't legitimately be picked otherwise.

Getting the balance right is certainly going to be difficult, but I’m willing to try it if it results in more interesting decks. I’ve found that this has been true for utility lands anyway, since although they are underpowered they aren’t occupying the same slots your normal picks would be and therefore can be picked a bit higher later on in the draft.

This is partly due to an inherent issue of cube draft, in my opinion, where with 15 cards per pack you end up with way more picks than you really need and might have a glut of creatures to build from. How often do you find yourself taking a lot of stuff at the end of packs 2 and 3 and saying to yourself, “I’ve already filled these slots and have absolutely no use for these cards.” I’ve considered lowering the pack size, but I’ve brought that up before and that’s a conversation for another thread.

I sometimes have trouble differentiating between enablers and rewards. For example: Enduring Renewal or Furnace Celebration. Technically you would say these are rewards for having a sac outlet, but they enable an entire strategy. I definitely agree that we should remove anything that is too blatantly a reward (Promise of Bunrei, Mortician Beetle?) or could work as filler for a bad draft (Yavimaya Elder).

I should narrow this down by removing some stuff that's redundant and hopefully find some other interesting gems to throw in. For example, I probably don't need both Entomb and Buried Alive in here. I’d appreciate any help I can get with this part, particularly for finding narrow enablers in white.

Sacrifice



Fill the Graveyard / Mill



Artifacts



+1/+1 Counters



Spells



RG Haste



Other



Please let me know if you can think of anything else!

 

[RavebornMuse]

I'm very intrigued by this idea, as I've had a similar thought (except in my version, you get a choice of a few random enabler bundles mid-draft, ie, 2~3 cards that bolster a particular strategy like Welder and Ichor Wellspring), but I'm surprised to see Entomb and Squee among your options. Both of those cards have a lot of play to them and Entomb is a pretty high pick for me. That said, you seem to be on the right track. I look forward to hearing your results!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Yeah this actually looks pretty focused! Hope to hear from a play test. Maybe try tightening it up even more? Something like 4-5 for each section so it looks kinda neat when your players open up the binder for the first time? Also, the cards I think should be there are the ones that really feel like the give a unique spin to a deck while also being to niche and or poisonous for the main draft.

 

[Diakonov]

Yeah this actually looks pretty focused! Hope to hear from a play test. Maybe try tightening it up even more? Something like 4-5 for each section so it looks kinda neat when your players open up the binder for the first time? Also, the cards I think should be there are the ones that really feel like the give a unique spin to a deck while also being to niche and or poisonous for the main draft.

Good call. Perhaps I'll start with 5 per color and see how that goes.

Help me narrow these down to 5 each. (Just a note: my cube contains more artifacts than the average riptide cube)

White



Blue



Black



Red



Green



I'm planning for now to have fewer than 5 colorless options, and a few more than 5 multi-colored options.

Colorless



Multi-colored

 

[James Stevenson]

Triangle of War is an interesting one. Anyone tried it?

 

[Diakonov]

Triangle of War is an interesting one. Anyone tried it?

Haven't yet, but could be interesting with Trinket Mage and Auriok Salvagers.

 

[Tyrole]

Brilliant idea to evolve the ULD! Question -- how do you intend to define the line between "build around me" cards and "narrow UED" cards? I'm guessing there is a way to do it elegantly, but a number of the cards on your UED list are ones I have in my cube as build-around-me. It would seem archetype signalers are crucial to ensure drafting happens in a direction and with a goal in mind, not just generically taking cards of certain colors. What criteria should a UED card meet to ensure it's not harming the draft experience by not being in the cube-proper?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

That seems like a tricky question to make less subjective since it depends so much on the cube environment, yeah?

 

[Diakonov]

I would say try to consider how narrow the card is first as a "build-around-me" strategy for your environment. For example, Birthing Pod is a relatively wide build-around-me sort of card, where you're generally interested in a lot of cards that have a tendency to generate mid-range value anyway. With Hermit Druid, you better be doing something pretty weird to make that card worth it, but the effect is so dramatic that it could be killer in the right deck.

Just out of curiosity, which do you include as build-around-me's in your regular cube?

 

[James Stevenson]

I'm not really a good enough cube designer to take full advantage of a ULD or UED, so the way I would approach it would be really simple. Just throw the UED together from all those cards you wish you could run in your cube, but don't really have space for. We could play with brushwagg!

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm not really a good enough cube designer to take full advantage of a ULD or UED, so the way I would approach it would be really simple. Just throw the UED together from all those cards you wish you could run in your cube, but don't really have space for. We could play with brushwagg!

TFW Brushwagg is actually brushwagg...

 

[Tyrole]

Here are the build-around-mes that I was able to pull out quickly (would probably be more interesting in context...I should really get around to posting my full cube):



So as I was looking through my list trying to find build-arounds, I quickly realized that I might not have a good definition for build-around. The majority of cards in my cube (most of which I didn't even bother listing) are cards that tend to be good independent of context, but can be great when drafted for synergy. Most riptide cubes seem to be synergy-based on a relatively flat power curve. Synergy drafting strategies are inherently build-around-me, so you can get the most out of the cards you have.

This said, it would seem that a requirement for UED cards is that their use is narrow enough that they cannot be useful to a wide variety (more than 1?) of cube strategies. The question I will ask myself when considering a card for UED is: "Would I ever use this card in more than one way?" This is basically what Diakonov said originally, but reviewing for build-around cards definitely helped develop my thought process. Looking above, I think there are several cards on my current list that would fit the UED criteria (oops).

For example, Birthing Pod should stay in the main cube, but Splinterfright would go to the UED binder. So on Diakonov's list, Hermit Druid is definitely UED, but in my cube Momentary Blink is consistently useful in the cube itself due to my ETB density.

Once I convince my drafters to stop being afraid of change, UED seems like a great way to enable several completely new archetypes within my cube without actually changing my list!