This is best told as a story, which I’ll start trying to keep brief, but will spiral out of control. Skip down to the TL;DR, if you are in a hurry.
The anectode starts like that:
I hadn’t played Magic in years, for a lack of money and friends who were into it. In 2010 I started working at a videogame company and met people who didn’t play yet but were super interested - as long as it didn’t cost them money, because game company. The solution was trying the new cool thing (of 2010) and build a cube - which was free since I already had a collection of random cheap cards.
They absolutely loved it - and so did I, even though I’d played Magic since 1997. These were the best games I’d ever played, with the coolest decks I made in the same day in a minigame called drafting! That time was awesome and for about 2 years, we drafted most weekends. I even had a blog about it, where I’d often write an analysis of the decks of the week.
Life moved on, the company exploded (because game company), most of these friends moved, and we drafted only sporadically. In 2013 I got a new, well-paid job but had to move to far away from there. At this new city/job, I found people who were into MtG, and when I was finally not struggling with cash anymore and could afford more than $15 a month, I got a lot of new shiny things for my cube, which had to that point been powermax, limited to budget. And then it was just powermax.
Fig 1. Cards that feel like cheating
I got everyone to try my new shiny cube, and they did try out this weird idea. Much to my disappointment, it was bad. GRBS is real - game-ruining bullshit (all rights to riptidelab.com). Grave Titan was ridiculous and had no answers. Whip of Erebos was impossible to race against. Managorger Hydra was a 7/7 trample for 3. Sword of Body and Mind finished the game in 2 hits. You get the idea. They didn’t like it
So I went to the drawing board, removed some of the worst offenders, and turned to Riptide principles (where I already lurked though didn’t post) going from generic good-stuff cube to archetypes cube. After all, archetypes were synergistic enough that you could play bad cards and win over good cards, right? Turns out that no.
I thought the problem was the archetypes, so I developed Modular Cube technology to make them better (the payoff cards for a given archetype either all show up or do not). And so they became playable, but not all of them. Many were just low tier decks that lost to Jeskai Goodstuff. I would need to make them super poisonous to have a chance.
At that point, the cube was where I really, really didn’t want it to be. The best decks were either random good stuff (think Wall of Omens + Wrath of God + Lightning Helix + Mulldrifter) or super focused archetype decks unshuffled from the boosters.
I looked back to the first cube and thought: why does a cheap cube plays better than an expensive cube? And the answer was power. Cards are expensive because of demand, and demand is there because they are strong. I did have some strong cards (had Fact or Fiction, Sulfuric Vortex, Celestial Colonnade, and by themselves they were not oppressive), but having all strong cards? That could’ve been a good idea in the past, when good cards were ones you had to break. But now, power creep and especially versatile card power creep has made strong cards just plain boring and blunt.
The solution was obvious: going down in power. Some strong cards were removed, but mostly it was about diluting the cube with worse, situational and slow cards. You can call them durdly as a bad thing, but being repetitive with strong cards (Recurring Nightmare) feels cheap, being repetitive with bad cards (Kiku, Night’s Flower) feels like you deserved it.
Fig 2. Cards that don't feel like cheating
Note that this was not much of a reduction in maximum power level of the cube, but a significant one of the average power level, and a large increase in the variance of power level. So I went from a flat power goal to a wider power goal. Not as wide as regular limited, but enough that there are not 15 first-picks in your booster, but 3.
So what happened? A lot of good things:
But most importantly, and these things I only found out afterwards:
Fig 3. Cards are happy to be playable
Magic isn’t fun because the cards are strong. 20 damage for R isn’t fun. It’s fun because it’s a mental challenge. It’s a creative challenge.
TL;DR; I started with a “powermax cube with budget restrictions”, and was happy with it. Removing the budget constraints - along with the direction the game went - moved it towards modern powermax. I hated it and tried to save it with archetypes. When nothing worked out, I went back to where I started by changing the philosophy to “low power, interesting cards”. This made the games and draft more fun and interesting.
Sample decklists after the changes:
The anectode starts like that:
I hadn’t played Magic in years, for a lack of money and friends who were into it. In 2010 I started working at a videogame company and met people who didn’t play yet but were super interested - as long as it didn’t cost them money, because game company. The solution was trying the new cool thing (of 2010) and build a cube - which was free since I already had a collection of random cheap cards.
They absolutely loved it - and so did I, even though I’d played Magic since 1997. These were the best games I’d ever played, with the coolest decks I made in the same day in a minigame called drafting! That time was awesome and for about 2 years, we drafted most weekends. I even had a blog about it, where I’d often write an analysis of the decks of the week.
Life moved on, the company exploded (because game company), most of these friends moved, and we drafted only sporadically. In 2013 I got a new, well-paid job but had to move to far away from there. At this new city/job, I found people who were into MtG, and when I was finally not struggling with cash anymore and could afford more than $15 a month, I got a lot of new shiny things for my cube, which had to that point been powermax, limited to budget. And then it was just powermax.
Fig 1. Cards that feel like cheating
I got everyone to try my new shiny cube, and they did try out this weird idea. Much to my disappointment, it was bad. GRBS is real - game-ruining bullshit (all rights to riptidelab.com). Grave Titan was ridiculous and had no answers. Whip of Erebos was impossible to race against. Managorger Hydra was a 7/7 trample for 3. Sword of Body and Mind finished the game in 2 hits. You get the idea. They didn’t like it
So I went to the drawing board, removed some of the worst offenders, and turned to Riptide principles (where I already lurked though didn’t post) going from generic good-stuff cube to archetypes cube. After all, archetypes were synergistic enough that you could play bad cards and win over good cards, right? Turns out that no.
I thought the problem was the archetypes, so I developed Modular Cube technology to make them better (the payoff cards for a given archetype either all show up or do not). And so they became playable, but not all of them. Many were just low tier decks that lost to Jeskai Goodstuff. I would need to make them super poisonous to have a chance.
At that point, the cube was where I really, really didn’t want it to be. The best decks were either random good stuff (think Wall of Omens + Wrath of God + Lightning Helix + Mulldrifter) or super focused archetype decks unshuffled from the boosters.
I looked back to the first cube and thought: why does a cheap cube plays better than an expensive cube? And the answer was power. Cards are expensive because of demand, and demand is there because they are strong. I did have some strong cards (had Fact or Fiction, Sulfuric Vortex, Celestial Colonnade, and by themselves they were not oppressive), but having all strong cards? That could’ve been a good idea in the past, when good cards were ones you had to break. But now, power creep and especially versatile card power creep has made strong cards just plain boring and blunt.
The solution was obvious: going down in power. Some strong cards were removed, but mostly it was about diluting the cube with worse, situational and slow cards. You can call them durdly as a bad thing, but being repetitive with strong cards (Recurring Nightmare) feels cheap, being repetitive with bad cards (Kiku, Night’s Flower) feels like you deserved it.
Fig 2. Cards that don't feel like cheating
Note that this was not much of a reduction in maximum power level of the cube, but a significant one of the average power level, and a large increase in the variance of power level. So I went from a flat power goal to a wider power goal. Not as wide as regular limited, but enough that there are not 15 first-picks in your booster, but 3.
So what happened? A lot of good things:
- Archetypes can be balanced because there wasn’t room to go down. Modern good stuff cards are meant to be better than constructed combo decks (because WotC hates combo at the moment), so they are made at such a power level. However, we are in limited and not constructed, so the combo deck already are worse off. If we run these modern strong cards, the combo decks simply cannot exist. Tone down the generic cards enough and combo becomes stronger. There is, though, room for combo to go down now, and the archetypes can be balanced, and not run at 100% of the possible power.
- Archetypes that are downright unplayable at higher power levels may becomes playable. I’m trying the Hondens, for example. And Madness. And I’m pushing for aggro-control to be a thing, because it’s fun!
- Signaling works. If halfway through a pack you see amazing green cards, green is probably open!
- Players actually get excited when opening Mulldrifter.
- Hate drafting makes less sense, as wasting your picks hurts more when you are not guaranteed to draft 23 good spells and still have room for non-basics.
But most importantly, and these things I only found out afterwards:
- A lot of fun cards can come back. Throat Slitter is a Rat Ninja that comes from fucking nowhere and slits someone’s throat! Azorius Guildmage is a wizard that conjures bureaucracy!
- Combos that are cute but not game-breaking actually do something, when there’s time for cute stuff. You can build mini synergies in your deck and it’ll be worth it.
- More cards are played, there is more time to see them match up against each other, and interesting interactions happen more often.
- The tempo is lower and there is more time to find answers. More answers = more back and forth.
Fig 3. Cards are happy to be playable
Magic isn’t fun because the cards are strong. 20 damage for R isn’t fun. It’s fun because it’s a mental challenge. It’s a creative challenge.
TL;DR; I started with a “powermax cube with budget restrictions”, and was happy with it. Removing the budget constraints - along with the direction the game went - moved it towards modern powermax. I hated it and tried to save it with archetypes. When nothing worked out, I went back to where I started by changing the philosophy to “low power, interesting cards”. This made the games and draft more fun and interesting.
Sample decklists after the changes:
RG Aggro - Overwhelming Stampede from CubeTutor.com
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Mardu Midrange - Zurgo Helmsmasher from CubeTutor.com
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Orzhov Aggro-Control - Zealous Persecution from CubeTutor.com
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Uw Draw-Go Control - Cryptic Command from CubeTutor.com
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). Enjoyment is in the eye of the beholder. If things aren't working, make radical changes to see if that makes it better, if not, then at least you have learnt something and can try a different approach.
