General Updated cube vocabulary

[Nanonox]

Having more time to think cube during the summer, I wanted to run by you fine folks an attempt at updating cube vocabulary.

In my experience, enablers, payoffs and glue cards are the most used terms to describe a card's role in a given cube. I think these terms are great at conveying what a card does, but I wonder if we can't push a little deeper now that cards are getting wordier and cubes are getting more refined.

The three words above mix up the intrinsic and contextual properties of a card. Enablers and Glue highly depend on what the rest of the cube looks like. Let's take a classic example



Faithless Looting does many things, including being a draw 2 enabler. However, if you don't have cards like Irencrag Pyromancer, you don't care about that specific angle. Instead, maybe you care about the discard aspect, which is context dependent. Using the Looting again, if you have a GY theme, but don't support spells matter, draw 2 or discard, then what are you even doing Faithless Looting isn't really a glue card, it's just a GY enabler. An enabler is the factor of the relationship between a card and its environment.

Contextual

• Enabler – provides archetypes with access to a resource or condition they rely on.
• Glue – broadly desirable across multiple decks.

One way to view glue cards is asking this question

If I remove this card, do the archetypes still exist?

Usually yes, but the archetypes become less consistent and less intertwined with the rest of the cube.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a payoff is a payoff no matter the cube context. Look at this example



No matter the cube, the power level, the archetypes, Lotus Cobra is a land payoff. You play a land and get rewarded for doing so. However, by itself it isn't a ramp enabler. It's a ramp enabler because your cube has ramp payoffs.

So being an enabler and a glue card are contextual, whereas being a payoff is intrinsic. What I'd like to add are a couple of extra intrinsic card characteristics, that are true whatever the context.

Intrinsic

• Engine – repeatedly generates resources.
• Bridge – converts one resource into another.
• Payoff – rewards a condition or accumulated resource.

We add two extra characteristics that only care about a cards textbox. Why is this important?

1. Because it lets us communicate more precisely. You say "Looking for a discard enabler". That doesn't tell me if you looking for Faithless Looting or Trading Post. Saying "Looking for an engine that is a discard enabler" limits things considerably. I also think that if you are able to narrow down what you want, it probably means a better understanding of what you are trying to build.
2. It lets you parse multifunctional designs more easily. Cards are increasingly more complex and it's easy to get lost in a web of synergies you might not even need.

vs

Both are engines and both are land payoffs. One bridges towards artifacts, the other towards elves and/or elementals.

3. Avoid the dreaded rails. The nightmare for a synergy cube is not having your archetypes communicate with each other. With the bridge identifier, you can objectively see if you connecting your themes.

Some examples,



- Is an engine (repeated resource generation)
- Is a bridge (between lands and artifacts)
- Is a payoff (for lands)

In my cube, he is also
- Is an enabler for the artifact archetype (artifact ETB + artifact sacrifice)
- A medium glue card

Note that I don't have any life gain payoffs, making that part of the card useless for synergy purposes.



- Is not an engine
- Is not a bridge
- Is a payoff (creature sacrifice and artifact sacrifice)

In my cube it is
- An enabler for the artifact archetype
- A medium glue card



- Is not an engine
- Is a bridge (between the GY and counters)
- Is a payoff (cards leaving the GY)

In my cube it is
- an enabler for the discard archetype and the persist combo
- a low glue card

The base rate, the rare archetypes it enables and the rare payoff it provides makes this a good card in my cube even though the "stats" don't look so hot.

Is it worth the time and effort to add this extra dimension to cube lingo? Maybe, maybe not. I can see people building databases that use the intrinsic characteristics of cards so you can find all the: lands -> artifact bridges or sort by engines for your slower controlling decks for example. Suggestions or other point of views are always welcome!

 

[Karshtakavaar]

Love the redefinitions of engine and bridge - It feels like "Engine" has been broadening in definition for as long as I've been playing, going from "a set of cards that together generates value" in normal parlance to "any card with a triggered ability", which has just made talking high-level Magic with friends who've picked it up more recently an exercise in frustration.

Just to confirm I'm understanding you:
Jeskai Ascendancy is
- Not an engine
- A Bridge from spell velocity to: go-wide aggro, creature-based combo, and gy/discard matters
- A Payoff for casting non-creature spells
Contextually it could be an enabler for decks that want to loot, fill the graveyard, or win on board, or do multiple of the above (like a hypothetical "Wake the Past+artifact creatures" combo deck or something).
It's unlikely to be glue due to it's harsh colour requirements.

 

[Nanonox]

Just to confirm I'm understanding you:
Jeskai Ascendancy is
- Not an engine
- A Bridge from spell velocity to: go-wide aggro, creature-based combo, and gy/discard matters
- A Payoff for casting non-creature spells
Contextually it could be an enabler for decks that want to loot, fill the graveyard, or win on board, or do multiple of the above (like a hypothetical "Wake the Past+artifact creatures" combo deck or something).
It's unlikely to be glue due to it's harsh colour requirements.

That's exactly right.

It feels wrong to have Jeskai Ascendancy not be classified as an engine because that's how I tend to think about it, but it's just a reward for doing something else, so I think it makes sense!

 

[TekLazar]

Jeskai Ascendancy is the equivalent of glitter glue. A lot of people love to play with it, but it's a cheap imitation glue.

 

[Mown]

I'm going to challenge these concepts a little (because of course I am).

First of all, there's the sentiment that enablers are contextual and payoffs are inherent. I don't know why this distinction is all that useful to begin with, but I don't even think the dichotomy is true. Let's take Together Forever as a case study. Presumably, we can agree that this is a payoff for playing a counter deck. Magic cards and cubes aren't that simple though, so maybe I've put it into my cube with the intention of looping it with Kor Skyfisher and Flickerwisp, and there are no other cards in my cube that provide counters. So in the context of my cube, it's actually a flicker payoff. For an even more unreasonable angle, you could include it primarily as counterplay against enemies trying to kill your creatures with -1/-1 counters. As another example, Become Immense and Adorned Pouncher is a reasonable synergy you can use to kill your opponents with, and I don't know which one of them is the payoff and which one is the enabler, but whichever one you choose, you could put either of them in your cube just on its individual merit. You can't pay off something you can't do, so I don't see payoffs or enablers being different in this regard.

I don't understand how engines are used in this context. Hardened Academic is a repeatable source of +1/+1 counters, and Tireless Provisioner is a repeatable source of artifact trinkets, but only one merits the engine label somehow. If this was between something like Urza, Lord High Artificer and Cyberdrive Awakener then it would make sense to me, but it isn't.

The bridge label also comes across as a bit inconsistent in the context of all that you can design a cube for. Marionette Apprentice is a bridge between sacrificing things and making your opponent lose life. Want to put Light up the Stage, Skewer the Critics and Body Count into your aristocrat deck? Apprentice helps bridge that incentive. Or Roiling Horror/Hidetsugu's Second Rite if you're designing cubes on drugs. I think the only payoffs I can imagine that don't have some sort of bridge, however obscure, are cards like Teferi's Ageless Insight and Laboratory Maniac that either just give you more of the same thing, or outright end the game.

This isn't to say that these words are useless. I think it's useful to describe bridges between archetypes, and engine is a useful quality to describe in a card, I'm just not entirely on board with how you describe them. I do also feel like they are both fairly well adopted and understood to begin with, so it's unclear to me what the "update" specifically entails.

I would personally appreciate concrete labels to distinguish between payoffs with regards to how much density they require, and how they have to fit into your gameplan.

	Shallow	Deep
Enhancer	Biolume Egg	Quest for the Nihil Stone
Exploiter	Reanimate	Cyberdrive Awakener

I'm sure if I spent enough time I could find four cards for one synergy that map onto each extreme, but when I think about payoffs, I generally want them to be in the bottom-left, while the upper-right is very iffy territory. Shallow and Deep represents the level of support the cards require to be worthwhile, Enhancer and Exploiter describes cards that you have to deploy before you execute your gameplan, or cards that capitalize off you having established your gameplan. Biolume Egg doesn't need an entire aristocrat deck, you just need to find one way to sacrifice it, but you have to wait to play that card until the egg is in play. Cyberdrive Awakener on the other hand, wants several artifacts in play to be worth it, but you can do your whole artifact gameplan and then play Cyberdrive Awakener to win the game, so you're less reliant on drawing it early. Some cards are obviously hybrids, Kappa Cannoneer rewards you for playing artifacts firsts you can play it for cheap, but it also rewards you for playing artifacts afterwards to make it unblockable. Regardless, I don't feel like I have perfect descriptors for these qualities, but I think they are the two axes I find most interesting when it comes to archetype payoffs. There's also a floor/ceiling discussion here that overlaps a bit with shallow/deep and is probably equally useful, even if it describes something slightly different.

 

[water the weeds]

I'm going to propose yet another way to think about card roles in supporting synergy. Narrow/Broad which measures versatility, and then Floor and Ceiling which measures power difference.

Floor measures the strength of the card when you play it in the wrong deck and draw it at the wrong time. Cards with a low floor are your core synergy cards. They are only good if you make the synergy come together. Cards with a solid floor can still be part of synergies, but they won't demand them.

Ceiling is the strength of the card when you play it in the right deck and draw it at the right time. Cards with high ceilings make synergies attractive. Usually lower floors go with higher ceilings. But ceilings can change a lot with context (eg what is the ceiling on Faithless Looting?) so I find floors to be a better measure of how synergy-dependent a card is.

Once you have a sense of the synergy clusters in your cube, you can look at cards as narrow or broad. A narrow card only fits in one cluster, whereas a broad card fits in many clusters. Glue is generally broad and low-floor, whereas generic good spells like removal are broad and high-floor.

 

[Nanonox]

I'm going to challenge these concepts a little (because of course I am).

I was hoping someone would!

As another example, Become Immense and Adorned Pouncher is a reasonable synergy you can use to kill your opponents with, and I don't know which one of them is the payoff and which one is the enabler,

In the context of the definitions I mentioned:
- Become Immense : GY payoff and power matters enabler.
- Adorned Pouncer : GY payoff and power matters payoff.

And that is a good example of where I think you are right to say that payoff is also contextual. If I don't run any power boosting cards, then indeed, the Pouncer isn't a power matters payoff.

I don't understand how engines are used in this context. Hardened Academic is a repeatable source of +1/+1 counters, and Tireless Provisioner is a repeatable source of artifact trinkets, but only one merits the engine label somehow.

Good catch, the Academic is absolutely an engine. It generates a new resource, in this case a +1/+1 counter and is repeatable.

In the same vein, I messed up with Jeskai Ascendancy, it's also an engine. It converts noncreatures into untaps and loots. I was too closeminded with my interpretation of "resource".

The bridge label also comes across as a bit inconsistent in the context of all that you can design a cube for. Marionette Apprentice is a bridge between sacrificing things and making your opponent lose life. Want to put Light up the Stage, Skewer the Critics and Body Count into your aristocrat deck? Apprentice helps bridge that incentive.

Agreed, I didn't want to list every possible payoff or enabler possible, but with Magic's complexity, you will definitely find niche interactions.

I think the only payoffs I can imagine that don't have some sort of bridge, however obscure, are cards like Teferi's Ageless Insight and Laboratory Maniac that either just give you more of the same thing, or outright end the game.

That's 100% true, most cards are bridges. Putting a label on things can be helpful though (to me at least).



Hardened Scales is just more of the same resource, no bridge. Compare that to The Ozolith which is also just more counters, but now you have intersection with blink and sacrifice. Then you have Animation Module which is probably the weakest of the three, but is a bridge towards artifacts and tokens and is an enabler too. This helps formulate why the Module is in your cube, because you want the counters deck to be less insular for example.

This isn't to say that these words are useless. I think it's useful to describe bridges between archetypes, and engine is a useful quality to describe in a card, I'm just not entirely on board with how you describe them. I do also feel like they are both fairly well adopted and understood to begin with, so it's unclear to me what the "update" specifically entails.

Putting aside definitions, in synergy cubes, I think that most engines and combos revolve around resources and resource conversion terms I don't often see pop up even if they are implicit. So having a way to make those explicit was appealing to me because having a decently curated cube list means I am looking at small refinements. For instance, by listing my various bridges, I noticed that I didn't have many intersections between lands and blink. Enter Lumra, Bellow of the Woods a card that bridges those themes and more. I now notice that I've added a new resource conversion engine to the cube and I've been able to draft more variety in my lands decks.

To recap:
- I agree that payoff can definitely be contextual, you've given good examples!
- I messed up a few of my engine tags because I was viewing resources through a lens that was too small/narrow
- Explicitly using the terms resource and resource conversion in heavy synergy environments helps (me) cut through the noise and find holes in themes that could be intersecting.

Appreciate the feedback, it helped me understand things better!