General Your Evolving Meta

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, now that I have a semi-static format, I was wondering what you guys thought about meta evolution.

1) How has your meta evolved or changed as players became more familiar with it? Which archetypes have grown or fallen out of favor?
2) Have certain cards moved up or down in your pick order?
3) At what point do you consider an archetype oppressive? Or do you give the players time to try to find a meta solution?
4) How often do you think it’s healthy to change your format? Do players get tired of large scale swaps, or do they enjoy the freshness it can bring.
5) In vintage, they have the idea of "format pillars." Would you say your format has certain cards that act as "pillars" for entire parts of the meta? And if so, what are they?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I'm writing a year in review of my cube right now that indirectly addresses many of these question. However, some concise thoughts:

My cube has gotten aggressive. If you can't fight early, you can't win. Tangentially, this makes removal the highest draft priority because basically every deck wants it, but control decks NEED it for early interaction.

With all of the weird synergy going on, a lot of "randomly good" cards aren't as high priority as they would normally be. Fact or Fiction is still useful, but its not a priority effect and goes really late to the one person at the table who wants it.

When a deckstyle is too strong, I remove redundancy or cards that are really powerful in the deck for no reason. When white/blue heroic was winning without even getting Geist of Saint Traft, it was clear that the card didn't belong in my cube.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Do you mean that its tempo focused, where early play sequencing in response to pressure is important, or that its just a fast format?

I used to run FOF as well, but cut it because it was very low in the pick order (and it kind of went against the cube's themes). There is a lot of early pressure here, and FOF was generally something you didn't have time to cast due in the early/mid game. I was pretty surprised by this.

How do you feel about having removal selection being such a commanding part of the draft? Thats interesting, and not something I would have suspected. Was that a gradual evolution, or did they just figure out that picking removal would allow them to punish certain interactions?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Tempo is important, I guess, but I wouldn't call it tempo focused. Some of the decks are just surprisingly explosive and you have to take them into account as part of the meta or you're going to lose. There's no powering out 6 drops super early to circumvent the need to interact.

I'm starting to become of the opinion that there is always going to be a draft chokepoint in your cube and I think having on (creature) removal is as good a place as any. I mean, I could shove in more removal and loosen it up. The revelation seemed to happen all at once, but the actual phenomenon that caused it was likely gradual.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think I agree with that. One thing that I would see continuously asserted on ars arcanum was that formats are defined by what is difficult to obtain rather than by what is plentiful. Ultimately, I think it’s just a question of being happy with the way those gaps translate over into the draft and gameplay.

 

[ahadabans]

I would agree completely with the importance of removal, and that has become more and more clear as my cube has evolved. Because we are playing with 50-60% (or more) rare cards, essentially everything that gets played can practically win the game on it's own if left alone. So games would devolve very quickly into "who has inevitability?" if there weren't an abundance of answers (that and the randomness of the draw).

I'm sure there is an upper limit to removal - where it becomes oppressive and damaging to the game - but I haven't found it yet personally. In fact, I am always inclined to add more answers and get nervous when I take those cards out because of how pivotal a role they tend to play. Take a simple WW deck as an example. Each dude that gets played is pretty harmless by itself, but when you start adding them together (even something simple like Champion into Silverblade = 8 power right there with virtually no effort at all). It has an exponential effect. If you do not draw removal immediately, I don't care how great your deck is, you are losing to that.

This is a big reason why I started thinking about how to increase consistency (i.e. the ability to find both answers and new threats) without trying to find some perfect balance of removal to non-removal in the cube. That I posted in another thread (idea of adding an exile/draw step to the game), and I'll likely be playing that when my group gets back together (whenever that happens - we are on hiatus right now).

With all that said, I think one of the biggest limiters in the game is overly efficient removal. Having answers is one thing. Having answers that nets you massive amounts of tempo is quite another as the later completely ruins fringe deck strategies. So while I want a lot of removal, I don't play the truly broken stuff (Dismember, STP, I don't even run Lighting Bolt anymore). I'm also starting to cut back on some of the super value (auto 2 for 1) cards. They are great but I don't want every play to have built in tempo advantage to it.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Did you find that people were drafting around removal in their pick order? I know you mentioned you had some really powerful graveyard decks, and that would shift me down the STP, Path road, in an effort to control those threats.

I could see why people would start to draft around removal in FSR's format, because he has a lot of aggresive guys, and not a lot of great blockers to stem an initial rush (at least from glancing over the list). Combined with generally weakneed removal, it seems like a natural evolution, to focus on drafting viable, cheap, spot removal.

 

[ahadabans]

Did you find that people were drafting around removal in their pick order? I know you mentioned you had some really powerful graveyard decks, and that would shift me down the STP, Path road, in an effort to control those threats.

I could see why people would start to draft around removal in FSR's format, because he has a lot of aggresive guys, and not a lot of great blockers to stem an initial rush (at least from glancing over the list). Combined with generally weakneed removal, it seems like a natural evolution, to focus on drafting viable, cheap, spot removal.

I wasn't watching it closely enough to say. The graveyard deck problem I was having had more to do with the fact that I over-supported re-animator and had very few ways to deal with those threats. I took some enabling cards away (mostly the fast versions like Reanimate and the broken ones like Recurring Nightmare), and that I think will have a positive effect by slowing the deck down. It's now less about cheating something on turn two and more about getting something nasty in on turn 4 or getting extra action out of especially powerful/useful dudes.

 

[Lucre]

I wana hear what eric has to say on this subject

My Meager Insights:
The more cube I've been playing (across various types) the more I've been confirming the starcraft rule. Being able to spend your mana productively every turn is so important. I feel like this is one of the biggest issues with midranged and control decks in most classic cubes, the awkward colourless mana, the shallow pool of draw fixing, curves with weird saturations, overabundant resource denial and how inconsistently they are able to get beyond the point of merely playing one spell (relevant or no) per turn.

These cubes really rely on doom blades and bolts because their control and midranged cards tend to cost 4-6 mana and path or an elf are really the only way they are ever going to be moving forward while casting deep anlysis/ etc. I've also found in these cubes that your 3cc spells take up a full turn waaaaay too much of the time. I'm not sure why this is the case. Maybe it's fixing issues and being forced into 3 colours (overabundant colourless mana) or maybe it's wastelands and braids etc. Maybe it's because it's hard to find a lot of 1 and 2cc spells that are usually relevant on any given turn in a draft.

I found from playing Eric's cube and various peasant cubes that being able to spend mana consistently and productively is double important. Things like snapcaster mage become more awkward than you'd think because you feel a lot of trepidation about the use of it, as opposed to just say, compulsive researching into a better hand. Things with activated abilities like DRS, Ooze, Any solid bestow or monstrosity creature, equipment or flashback spells feel so much more relevant to me. I feel like this is because I rely waaaay less on trying to make advantageous trades in these cubes and I feel like I need to be proactive where ever I can. Any silly combo loop I can put together will probably be powerful and I feel like I have way less control over in what order I play my spells unless my curve is super super low. If I have the Oring in hand, and he plays a threat, I probably want to kill the threat with the oring, unless I have a relevant blocker in my hand to play, saving things for later is way less important. A lot of this has to do with the compressed power level. I don't need the oring to kill a jitte here. I need it to not die to 2-3 drops.

The one exception to that rule is how often you encounter voltron decks in peasant formats, where if you get even the faintest wiff of one, you want to save your removal to do something tricky.

So yeah, mana sinks, and having a lower curve, even for control and midranged, is almost as good as having access to more card advantage a lot of the time. Decks have way less oppertunity to have interesting turns when your cards cost more or you don't have ways to spend small amounts of mana outside of your hand. You get into slugfest magic, and that isn't the loopy interactive good time I am looking for. It's odd the way these flattened curve out cubes have encouraged me to play every combo I find but, I end up discovering way fewer of them or fewer opportunities to create interesting interactions between me an my opponent. Paradoxical.

 

[ahadabans]

Great post Lucre.

You hit on something that I totally neglected for a long time - mana curve (specifically having enough 1 and 2 CC cards). That was a problem for a long time, with guys having a hard time filling their curves. Everyone had an overabundance of 3 and 4 drops, but when it came what to do on turn 1, guys playing control decks were either passing or (worse) tossing illogical stuff in their deck just because they didn't want to concede all that tempo.

I made concerted efforts to fix that in subsequent builds of the cube. I'm now running 75 cards of 1CC or less and 95 cards of 2CC in a 400 card cube. And that has helped drafts immensely.

And it's also worth noting that increasing 1CC and 2CC cards does not automatically mean a faster (more aggro focused) cube. A lot of what I added was more control oriented (condemn) or synergystic in nature (undying evil), so the meta still plays heavy midrange its just decks have improved and drafts end with enough playables along the whole curve and not just part of it.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, I think part of what you are identifying is the difference between a well-built tempo driven format and a poorly built card advantage driven format.

Tempo is just play sequencing, and much of the decision density that we want in our cubes comes from it. In tempo driven formats the way you sequence plays is essential to both how you exert pressure and your ability to survive the pressure being exerted against you. That’s often a fun, exciting, and interactive puzzle.

Card advantage is just a resource advantage that comes from your access to more live draws. Card advantage formats just come down to your ability to trade resources, until you are able to refill your hand in a superior manner relative to your opponent, capitalizing on the disparity in card resources. Too much focus on card advantage can create a boring durdle format.

The advantage that lower power environments natively have in construction, is that most of WOTZs mechanics connecting the early and late game were developed for lower powered limited formats. Mechanics like cycling, flashback, bestow, and monstrosity, all carry with them an inherent sequencing puzzle, offering both a relevant early game mode and a relevant late game mode. This increases the late game resiliency of non-blue decks, and helps to ensure appropriately costed hands capable of exerting early game pressure, thereby driving the tempo puzzle.

That’s an interesting observation on classic cubes though. I do think that a lot of those classic cubes (while having ample sources of card advantage) are (at least attempting to be) very tempo driven: usually by trying to sequencing in a high power threat in an early point in the game (reanimation/ramp strategies). It sounds like a lot of that sequencing gets disrupted by really poor design: bad color fixing, poor curve structure, excessive resource denial—which is funny in a sad sort of way.

 

[Lucre]

Hmmm where do I start

• I think it's important to remember that going smaller isn't solving the problem. Being able to spend your mana on interesting plays when you have it is part of the fun. You can fix this by giving ready access to sinks and card advantage or at least card selection, but advantage is better because it allows you greater depth in your turns after it's been accrued. Not spending your mana because your cards take up too much of your turn is just as bad as not spending your mana because the cards in your hand aren't taking up enough of your turn (and you only get one such per turn). You might end up with something like jason's cube which emulates a draft legacy format of sorts.
  
  
• I think cutesy synergy cards allow you to suffer the same problems as described here. Recall my cumbersome snapcaster example? Having an undying evil in hand when it feels suboptimal doesn't really lead to you consistently utilizing your mana (turns, tempo, what have you). The same can often be said for reactive spells like tricks (stifle, shadow), removal, or counters if you either make them too bad or you make your format too resilient to them.
  
  
• I'm not sure where to start with grillo's reply. There's a lot of given's he uses I just don't agree with. I have no idea where someone thinks that flashback formats or cycling formats were less powerful, maybe through the mists of time they seem weak? I think many monstrosity creatures are just flat better analogues of draft staples of yesteryear and bestow was an incredibly powerful and frustrating mechanic to appear on 1/3-1/2 of your creatures. If by powerful you mean fast, than I agree, I like it when abilities like kicker or cycling get to be utilized because you have time in between plays where you aren't curving out to save your life and turns become more complex, but if you mean powerful as in the costing of spells and effects to have tempo advantageous trades or so that small increments of advantage can be consistently had, I think there is a lot left to talk about. Theros for example was a very interesting format but one plagued by bad bad bad games, much in the area that they had to take a while to figure out how to make it interactive enough outside of the combat step. Sequencing puzzles are fine but they are draw dependent by nature and to flourish they sometimes require huge cuts to other areas of the game which play into the tempo and spending issues I mentioned in my previous post.
  
  
• I really don't feel like there are such odds between card advantage and tempo in a format. I feel like any side can be taken too much into extreme at the expense of the other, and that they have a natural balancing impact on each other and roles to fill in a comfortable format. Having access to more cards is one of the best ways to ensure you are spending your manas. Investing in more cards is usually a huge tempo deficit. It reminds me a lot of the cost of tapping 3 for stone rain vs denying your opponent something potentially relevant to his curving out. How much was the investment worth?
  
  
• I feel like the impression of card advantage as merely a resource attrition game that decides the end of the game is an oversimplification. Formats without ready card advantage are often terrible bores and unless they have terrible curving issues become rather rote after seeing who develops to the best of their abilities. Much synergy goes under utilized in a card scarce format because even card selection keeps you in the same spot during any given turn you're topdecking, it just ensures a better topdeck, it doesn't allow for you to change the sequence of your plays or create something dynamic. I think it's also a weird oversimplification in that it overlooks a lot of avenues that are more or less card advantage equivalent. Do you really think doubling your creatures power with monstrous is not a form of card advantage? When you have two wolves or a 4/4 beast do you think of them that differently? How many tattermunge maniacs is a ravenous baloth worth? is a tattermunge maniac really worth the same as an oblivion ring? If we can all remember standard affinity decks for a second that deck was really sweet and sick to play because it was a blue deck. It would have been so dull if it weren't for cards like chromatic sphere, thoughtcast, skullclamp or counterspells. Not only did it have free creatures and card advantage but it had virtual card advantage in the form of disciples of the vault and incredible tempo advantageous trades in the form of shrapnel blast and mana leak.
  
  
• If my removal spells cost 3-5 mana I'm probably just not beating the champion of the parrish deck unless I'm making my own goldfish superguys, and I'm not sure how far I'd have to go before I started thinking that was particularly interactive magic. If I don't have access to card advantage at reasonable prices, I'm not sure I'll be able to see my internal synergies flourish at all, and if it's expensive, if I'll have time to sort it out for my deck and make up time.
  
  
• Remember card advantage doesn't just bury a player, it digs you out of losing situations too. And if monstrous and flashback are any example, it's not easy to simply keep piling it on if you have any control over your design. Your extra cards are unlocked through the course of an eventful game and are not abundant or relevant all at once. We are talking about the difference between ancestral recall and gravedigger here. To my purposes I'd rather have something in between in cube though. Gravedigger is a plodding card that takes a whole turn that you only get access to it's meager advantage when you've already lost something of a very specific type, that you must then pay for AGAIN to be of any use. Ancestral recall gives you a million fresh cards at the very minimum cost more or less fresh to use the moment you've drawn them because you've only spent 1 mana, ready to completely overwhelm your opponent, whether they cost an advantageous or convenient amount of mana to use or not.
  

I'm not sure where the in-between that is best but I feel like there is much more negotiation to be had. Especially if we are filling our cubes with 2/1s that dont die, creatures 1 drops that get bigger through the course of the game and any number of above the curve 2 drops.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I feel that you're inferring to me some positions that I've not taken. I will try to clarify.

• I'm not sure where to start with grillo's reply. There's a lot of given's he uses I just don't agree with. I have no idea where someone thinks that flashback formats or cycling formats were less powerful, maybe through the mists of time they seem weak? I think many monstrosity creatures are just flat better analogues of draft staples of yesteryear and bestow was an incredibly powerful and frustrating mechanic to appear on 1/3-1/2 of your creatures. If by powerful you mean fast, than I agree, I like it when abilities like kicker or cycling get to be utilized because you have time in between plays where you aren't curving out to save your life and turns become more complex, but if you mean powerful as in the costing of spells and effects to have tempo advantageous trades or so that small increments of advantage can be consistently had, I think there is a lot left to talk about. Theros for example was a very interesting format but one plagued by bad bad bad games, much in the area that they had to take a while to figure out how to make it interactive enough outside of the combat step. Sequencing puzzles are fine but they are draw dependent by nature and to flourish they sometimes require huge cuts to other areas of the game which play into the tempo and spending issues I mentioned in my previous post.

By powerful, I just mean riptide titan power level. I am also not broadly judging the power level of individual mechanics or relativizing them. What I mean is that if you take a lot of mechanics and look at the available pool, most of the cards were designed for a lower power draft format. The entire cycling mechanic, for example, is more or less stuck at peasant/pauper levels. Morph has a similar problem. Thus, lower power formats often times have a greater density of effects to choose from which connect the early and late game. The mechanics can be a hit or a miss, some have huge problems just in the way they were implemented--e.g. monstrosity costs were often too high. Flashback, on the other hand, has a lot of diversity and good power level options (mostly due to innistrad block). The advantage of those kinds of mechanics is that they provide proportional mana sinks for both the early and late game. We both agree that this is beneficial to a format, as it keeps players active and making decisions that feel (and are, hopefully) meaningful.

I view sequencing and tempo as being the same thing: the order in which you are able to advance your board state. It’s not necessarily an aggro concept, and yes, it can bleed over into ideas of card advantage. I've written a lot about how the idea of flashback as a source of card advantage influenced my own cube design.

• I really don't feel like there are such odds between card advantage and tempo in a format. I feel like any side can be taken too much into extreme at the expense of the other, and that they have a natural balancing impact on each other and roles to fill in a comfortable format. Having access to more cards is one of the best ways to ensure you are spending your manas. Investing in more cards is usually a huge tempo deficit. It reminds me a lot of the cost of tapping 3 for stone rain vs denying your opponent something potentially relevant to his curving out. How much was the investment worth?

I agree. This article buttresses that position. However, I always found it helpful to keep the two concepts distinct, as card advantage can often times carry a heavy sequencing cost that can be interesting (as you have also noted). Chainer's edict is an example of this.

I don't know if you remember the old brian weissman explanation of card advantage; but it was basically that the most important thing you do in a turn is draw a card, thus drawing a card is roughly equivalent to taking a turn, and thus if you draw cards more efficiently you win the game.

Thats an oversimplification of course, but what was going on, back in the day, was that the game was much slower and more attrition based (also terrible mulligan rules). So, once we burned through our opening 7, if I could draw better than you, I was more likely to win. Those really card advantage driven formats I don't care for.

On the same note, I think Zendikar took the idea of early pressure to force proper play sequencing, as an extreme. And yes, a format without any card advantage outlets is a bore.

So, in sum I think we both basically agree with one another, though you still seem to think my format consists of 3-6cc removal spells and unchecked champions of the parish ravaging the countryside.