Both are very fun. They 0ffer very different play experiences, but are both nice because they're not particularly bomb-focused. As long as you draft a good deck as opposed to a pile of random cards, you can win.
Sets (STX) Strixhaven Testing/Includes Thread
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I have to agree here. Maybe it's just because I've been hanging out on the MTG Cube Brainstorming (MCB) Discord channel for a while now, but the MCB folks have been totally reasonable in their posts here, whereas I felt some of my fellow Riptiders' posts were a little more antagonistic than necessary. Thing is, the MCB school of thought is so foreign to our design sensibilities, it can come across as condemning of our cube designs, but I can assure you it is not. Funch and froggy (and others? it's been a few pages) have a certain point of view regarding high mana value plays that they have tried to put into words, and like me and Velrun, they don't easily get tired of discussing
If you are willing to disengage from the specifics of a scenario for a moment, and take their words as commentary on the inner workings of Magic the Gathering, you'll see that they make some great points over the last few pages. Nowhere are they saying you're not allowed to include big plays in your cube, and neither are they attacking the Riptidian design philosophy. I think if you take their words to heart, the logical conclusion is that if you want to support high mv plays, you have to make sure the infrastructure to get there is present in your cube.The fun thing about Riptidian design is that this infrastructure is kind of baked into it. Because we eschew so many of the high value early drops you would typically find in an MBC style cube, early game pressure is naturally reduced. Because removal is less efficient, there's an actual cost to removing defensive blockers. I have had Funch look at my cube before, and according to him, the classic aggro deck does not exist in my environmen. This doesn't mean you can't draft an aggressive deck, but it is more synergy driven and slower than a typical aggro deck, as is of course emblematic of a Riptide cube. At the time I was baffled, how is this not aggro?, and started an argument. But they made good points, and you know what? It doesn't matter that they were right about my cube not having a traditional aggro deck, because you can still draft to try and set up your role as the aggressor in my cube. They provided me with free additional insight into my cube, no strings and no judgments attached. Insight that I can leverage to better understand what my format is about, so I can better adapt the cube to my design goals. I feel the discussion on these last pages has the same potential!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I admit to being thrown by Funch's tone initially and contributing to the problem myself but let's collectively dial this back a bit.
This math is assuming 60 cards AFAICT? The 'stock' Sultimatum deck in Standard has 80 cards for Yorion, ~36 lands (including DFCs), and 8 'pure' ramp spells (with stuff like Binding the Old Gods on top, sometimes Quandrix Cultivator now), which equates to an 18 land Cube deck with 3-4 ramp spells - still a lot, but roughly what you'd expect if you push that kind of deck.
I highlighted the Ultimatum ramp decks as the most extreme counterexample but there were plenty of midrange and control decks looking to just do the normal midrange/control thing and top off with Grave Titan or Elspeth, Sun's Champion without contorting their deck to do that. You'd love a cheap card that has early utility and also finishes the game reliably but there aren't many of those, for good reason (Uro is the obvious example but it does everything and one of those things is ramp so it makes sense to play it alongside the other broken ramp cards that it shared Standard with; the Pioneer/Modern decks are a better case study as their curves capped at 4 because you could play all the cheap interaction which in turn let you escape Uro sooner). That said, even if you have these cards, I think there's merit to having these big things to build towards. If the game going long means nothing beyond players having more of the same cards and more mana to play more of those cards, it can lack a definite rhythm; if the game going long means the opponent now has access to individual cards that are better than any of your individual cards, you have an incentive to change the pacing of the game to preempt that or sequence your cards differently so that you're prepared for whatever their big finish is. To be reductive about it from the other side, think of it like one of those minigames where all you need to do is survive for a period of time - you have a new challenge of finding ways to take your generally flexible tools and optimize them for a specific goal.
Funnily enough, these finishers are likely to be better in moderation in a Funchian Cube than a normal one - when the average deck is rarely lacking for early plays and has a bunch of draw smoothing effects, the main risk of being stranded with a six-drop (i.e. also being stranded with an otherwise nonfunctional hand and holding a Titan instead of a card that could fix that) is much more remote and one way to crack open a game where both players have a lot of options is a big blunt instrument that demands specific answers in a narrow window.
In this context, the example that sparked the initial confusion seems a bit unfair to the cards in question. A scaling threat like Champion of the Parish is bad if drawn late but so are most cheap creatures - that's the nature of the beast if you support aggro decks with a high density of cheap creatures unless you either cut or rework aggro (which you can certainly do - one thing that really poisoned Cube discussion was this insistence that there are these distinct 'theaters' of aggro/control/combo(/midrange) with rigid models of what those look like) or take some radical steps (I'm not even joking when I say that the average Legacy/Vintage Cube improves instantly if you replace every shitty one-drop in W/R with a dozen copies of Figure of Destiny). The scaling threats tend to be equivalent or better than most of their peers in those late-game scenarios (if I've drawn just one other 'dead' human my Champion is still on par with most other one-drops that late) and are much better if drawn early and on-curve.
This math is assuming 60 cards AFAICT? The 'stock' Sultimatum deck in Standard has 80 cards for Yorion, ~36 lands (including DFCs), and 8 'pure' ramp spells (with stuff like Binding the Old Gods on top, sometimes Quandrix Cultivator now), which equates to an 18 land Cube deck with 3-4 ramp spells - still a lot, but roughly what you'd expect if you push that kind of deck.
I highlighted the Ultimatum ramp decks as the most extreme counterexample but there were plenty of midrange and control decks looking to just do the normal midrange/control thing and top off with Grave Titan or Elspeth, Sun's Champion without contorting their deck to do that. You'd love a cheap card that has early utility and also finishes the game reliably but there aren't many of those, for good reason (Uro is the obvious example but it does everything and one of those things is ramp so it makes sense to play it alongside the other broken ramp cards that it shared Standard with; the Pioneer/Modern decks are a better case study as their curves capped at 4 because you could play all the cheap interaction which in turn let you escape Uro sooner). That said, even if you have these cards, I think there's merit to having these big things to build towards. If the game going long means nothing beyond players having more of the same cards and more mana to play more of those cards, it can lack a definite rhythm; if the game going long means the opponent now has access to individual cards that are better than any of your individual cards, you have an incentive to change the pacing of the game to preempt that or sequence your cards differently so that you're prepared for whatever their big finish is. To be reductive about it from the other side, think of it like one of those minigames where all you need to do is survive for a period of time - you have a new challenge of finding ways to take your generally flexible tools and optimize them for a specific goal.
Funnily enough, these finishers are likely to be better in moderation in a Funchian Cube than a normal one - when the average deck is rarely lacking for early plays and has a bunch of draw smoothing effects, the main risk of being stranded with a six-drop (i.e. also being stranded with an otherwise nonfunctional hand and holding a Titan instead of a card that could fix that) is much more remote and one way to crack open a game where both players have a lot of options is a big blunt instrument that demands specific answers in a narrow window.
In this context, the example that sparked the initial confusion seems a bit unfair to the cards in question. A scaling threat like Champion of the Parish is bad if drawn late but so are most cheap creatures - that's the nature of the beast if you support aggro decks with a high density of cheap creatures unless you either cut or rework aggro (which you can certainly do - one thing that really poisoned Cube discussion was this insistence that there are these distinct 'theaters' of aggro/control/combo(/midrange) with rigid models of what those look like) or take some radical steps (I'm not even joking when I say that the average Legacy/Vintage Cube improves instantly if you replace every shitty one-drop in W/R with a dozen copies of Figure of Destiny). The scaling threats tend to be equivalent or better than most of their peers in those late-game scenarios (if I've drawn just one other 'dead' human my Champion is still on par with most other one-drops that late) and are much better if drawn early and on-curve.
Well, I tried to make a thread for this kind of talk, but you nerds took it to Strixhaven testing of all places and started talking about Lord of the Rings there.
Part of the reason I made that thread is that I don't want these boards turning into some sort of culture clash. There's a concept, I don't know where I first encountered it, maybe xkcd or something, where groups tend to encounter conflict not with groups that are very different from them, but to ones that are very similar but a little bit different.
Cube design is already a niche (compare the traffic on cube design Youtube channels vs. channels that play constructed format X deck of the week), and non-mainstream cube design is a niche within a niche. Here we all are.
Funch's cube and my cube are kind of... second cousins? First cousins? They have a lot in common. Both seek to focus on fair, interactive Magic. Both have broken singleton in fixing, and both have a density of fixing that is above the norm for mainstream cube design. In a lot of ways the Brainstorming cubes have elements of concepts that I've written about and cranked it up to 11.
The Utility Land Draft was made under the concept that there are lots of cards that are good enough for your deck, but maybe hard to find room for in a 360 list. Brainstorming cubes take this idea to its furthest extreme on fixing. The Utility Land Draft increased the number of cards drafted beyond 45, and Funch's cube tick the number all the way up to 64. My gut says this might be a bit higher than necessary, but I haven't tested it so I'm not going to dismiss it.
I've written in 2013 about how lower mana curves increase decision density. Article Link.
I went on to compare a Rise of Eldrazi opening hand to a Legacy opening hand, taking examples from CFB videos of the time.
And further on:
I think you could probably strawman the 22 Terminates argument, but you get the idea.
The other ideas in this same article is that there is so much unexplored design space in both directions. The next two sections talk about how cubes with Less Power (e.g. Riptidian) and More Power (e.g. Brainstormian) have potential.
What I was trying to get at here is that, I thought a cube that actually captured the essence of a constructed environment could be immensely satisfying. One of the things I really don't like about Constructed decks are the broken decks that lead to non-interactive Magic. I like seeing Jund versus UW control, but games involving Boggles, Dredge, Storm, etc. really don't interest me.
I think the Funch cube has succeeded in creating a Legacy-like environment that focuses on the best the format has to offer (interactive, powerful, fair Magic) while omitting the parts that personally dissuade someone like me from really playing the format. It's a full commitment: constructed quality manabases, an overrepresentation of blue relative to other colors, etc. I mean it when I say that I think I would enjoy the experience of playing his cube more than 99% of the cubes that are on the cube map.
That said, I have seen some points where things differ. "Bad cards out, good cards in" doesn't really represent how I think about my environment. I've had people say to me, even before the podcast, that they liked Funch's novel ideas but thought that his thinking was a bit too spikey.
Mark Rosewater wrote a great article on variance in game design, and contained in there is a bit about the types of experiences that apply to different people.
The 'Unpowered Fair Stuff' cube is a cube designed by Spikes, for Spikes. And that's fine. But it's not the only way that Spikes can design things.
RiptideLab has had plenty of very skilled competitive Magic players who design things in a different way. Kirblinx was a finalist in the MOCS and runs a Type 4 stack. Dom Harvey's competitive resume speaks for itself, and his cube isn't remotely power-optimized. CML won a Magic tournament on Shrooms and ran a very Waddellian cube. Other examples: blacksmithy, safra.
The point being that there are plenty of design objectives one can have, and I think part of the disconnect is that these objectives don't always align in discourse. One party might be of the opinion that a card or strategy is not competitively optimal, and the other might not care at all.
Beyond that, I think decisions for most Riptide cubes are driven by a fun-maximization philosophy, rather than a power-maximization philosophy. Granted, 'fun' is a gooey, very subjective term and power is something that is (in a context-sensitive way) quantifiable. That said, I don't doubt the 'Unpowered Fair Stuff' cube is very fun.
For the most part, the vibe here is very 'kumbaya'. Personally, there are plenty of cards that don't appeal to me (most commander cards, for example), but I'm happy to let those interested in discussing them discuss them.
The reality is that most cubes rarely get drafted at all. For many people, cube is more or less just a creative outlet. A way for people to tinker with combinations of mechanics and cards they love, to dream up archetypal combinations and overlaps. It's their little happy place.
I'm going to put my cards on the table here. Funch, since posting the podcast, I've had people coming out of the woodwork to warn me about you. There's a comment on the YouTube video from someone who must have been sufficiently rubbed the wrong way as to write a time-stamped annotated rebuttal to your points.
Personally, I wasn't around for any drama that happened before. I'm not going to prejudge. I had fun in the podcast, and you seem like a bright, witty member of the community. Lord knows I've rubbed people the wrong way in the past, and recently have been making efforts to make amends. I also know from personal experience that there will be people who are against you simply for presenting new, unconventional ideas. I enjoy that you have your own perspective, and some of the ideas in your cube have me reevaluating mine.
Here's what I do care about: the RiptideLab community. This place has been chugging along for 8 years now, and it's never been a profitable venture. I think this is an amazing corner of the internet, full of bright minds, creative spirits, and you guys carried the torch even when I've been away.
As you've noticed, I've been pouring energy into making public-facing RiptideLab content. One of the reasons that I pushed for these recent forum updates (which James has been crushing) is so that we can be more ready to welcome any new people in. People are now more likely to encounter our community, and more easily able to register and engage.
So this goes to long-time members and newcomers alike: let's continue to be a great community. We exist in a subniche of a subniche of the internet. If anybody, new or old, is feeling uncomfortable about discourse here, please send me a message and let me know.
Part of the reason I made that thread is that I don't want these boards turning into some sort of culture clash. There's a concept, I don't know where I first encountered it, maybe xkcd or something, where groups tend to encounter conflict not with groups that are very different from them, but to ones that are very similar but a little bit different.
Cube design is already a niche (compare the traffic on cube design Youtube channels vs. channels that play constructed format X deck of the week), and non-mainstream cube design is a niche within a niche. Here we all are.
Funch's cube and my cube are kind of... second cousins? First cousins? They have a lot in common. Both seek to focus on fair, interactive Magic. Both have broken singleton in fixing, and both have a density of fixing that is above the norm for mainstream cube design. In a lot of ways the Brainstorming cubes have elements of concepts that I've written about and cranked it up to 11.
The Utility Land Draft was made under the concept that there are lots of cards that are good enough for your deck, but maybe hard to find room for in a 360 list. Brainstorming cubes take this idea to its furthest extreme on fixing. The Utility Land Draft increased the number of cards drafted beyond 45, and Funch's cube tick the number all the way up to 64. My gut says this might be a bit higher than necessary, but I haven't tested it so I'm not going to dismiss it.
I've written in 2013 about how lower mana curves increase decision density. Article Link.
I went on to compare a Rise of Eldrazi opening hand to a Legacy opening hand, taking examples from CFB videos of the time.
And further on:
I think you could probably strawman the 22 Terminates argument, but you get the idea.
The other ideas in this same article is that there is so much unexplored design space in both directions. The next two sections talk about how cubes with Less Power (e.g. Riptidian) and More Power (e.g. Brainstormian) have potential.
What I was trying to get at here is that, I thought a cube that actually captured the essence of a constructed environment could be immensely satisfying. One of the things I really don't like about Constructed decks are the broken decks that lead to non-interactive Magic. I like seeing Jund versus UW control, but games involving Boggles, Dredge, Storm, etc. really don't interest me.
I think the Funch cube has succeeded in creating a Legacy-like environment that focuses on the best the format has to offer (interactive, powerful, fair Magic) while omitting the parts that personally dissuade someone like me from really playing the format. It's a full commitment: constructed quality manabases, an overrepresentation of blue relative to other colors, etc. I mean it when I say that I think I would enjoy the experience of playing his cube more than 99% of the cubes that are on the cube map.
That said, I have seen some points where things differ. "Bad cards out, good cards in" doesn't really represent how I think about my environment. I've had people say to me, even before the podcast, that they liked Funch's novel ideas but thought that his thinking was a bit too spikey.
Mark Rosewater wrote a great article on variance in game design, and contained in there is a bit about the types of experiences that apply to different people.
The 'Unpowered Fair Stuff' cube is a cube designed by Spikes, for Spikes. And that's fine. But it's not the only way that Spikes can design things.
RiptideLab has had plenty of very skilled competitive Magic players who design things in a different way. Kirblinx was a finalist in the MOCS and runs a Type 4 stack. Dom Harvey's competitive resume speaks for itself, and his cube isn't remotely power-optimized. CML won a Magic tournament on Shrooms and ran a very Waddellian cube. Other examples: blacksmithy, safra.
The point being that there are plenty of design objectives one can have, and I think part of the disconnect is that these objectives don't always align in discourse. One party might be of the opinion that a card or strategy is not competitively optimal, and the other might not care at all.
Beyond that, I think decisions for most Riptide cubes are driven by a fun-maximization philosophy, rather than a power-maximization philosophy. Granted, 'fun' is a gooey, very subjective term and power is something that is (in a context-sensitive way) quantifiable. That said, I don't doubt the 'Unpowered Fair Stuff' cube is very fun.
For the most part, the vibe here is very 'kumbaya'. Personally, there are plenty of cards that don't appeal to me (most commander cards, for example), but I'm happy to let those interested in discussing them discuss them.
The reality is that most cubes rarely get drafted at all. For many people, cube is more or less just a creative outlet. A way for people to tinker with combinations of mechanics and cards they love, to dream up archetypal combinations and overlaps. It's their little happy place.
I'm going to put my cards on the table here. Funch, since posting the podcast, I've had people coming out of the woodwork to warn me about you. There's a comment on the YouTube video from someone who must have been sufficiently rubbed the wrong way as to write a time-stamped annotated rebuttal to your points.
Personally, I wasn't around for any drama that happened before. I'm not going to prejudge. I had fun in the podcast, and you seem like a bright, witty member of the community. Lord knows I've rubbed people the wrong way in the past, and recently have been making efforts to make amends. I also know from personal experience that there will be people who are against you simply for presenting new, unconventional ideas. I enjoy that you have your own perspective, and some of the ideas in your cube have me reevaluating mine.
Here's what I do care about: the RiptideLab community. This place has been chugging along for 8 years now, and it's never been a profitable venture. I think this is an amazing corner of the internet, full of bright minds, creative spirits, and you guys carried the torch even when I've been away.
As you've noticed, I've been pouring energy into making public-facing RiptideLab content. One of the reasons that I pushed for these recent forum updates (which James has been crushing) is so that we can be more ready to welcome any new people in. People are now more likely to encounter our community, and more easily able to register and engage.
So this goes to long-time members and newcomers alike: let's continue to be a great community. We exist in a subniche of a subniche of the internet. If anybody, new or old, is feeling uncomfortable about discourse here, please send me a message and let me know.
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I think I am the same shift, since I used to extensively play constructed years ago, but now exclusively play casual.
This is what I was hoping would be the takeaway here. Regardless of what myself or the other lovely Brainstorming chaps say about the opportunity cost of expensive spells (hell, Patrick Chapin said most of the stuff we're saying in his book "Next Level Deckbuilding"), the goal isn't to get any of you to change any of your design goals. If you want to support players hard casting 9 mana dinosaurs, then none of us want to stop you from doing that, all I'm trying to articulate is that this isn't some sort of generic plan that's workable without a little extra help from other cards and maybe you already run the necessary enablers to do that and so hearing this is just sort of stating the obvious. Great. But maybe not everyone contributing or reading this thread has, and now they're exposed to an idea they weren't conscious of before and can consider some possible tweaks to better enable their goals. The end goal here is a productive conversation and an understanding of ideas, not conflict for the sake of it.
I think this passage right here might be why there's been some disagreement between us, when you say that 'normal control decks had the plan of casting Grave Titan' I think this inherently is an example of a deck not having a normal gameplan. Magic decks aren't just inherently structured to play wrath effects, right? There's nothing about a 4 mana symmetrical removal spell which says anything remotely close to the words "the opponent loses 20 life", it's the kind of card that enables a divergent strategy similar to the ramp spells the ramp decks are using to cast similarly expensive cards. These deckbuilding concessions are inherently what makes these expensive spells worthwhile, which is why Trainmaster said:
I assure you, they aren't. Expensive spells don't find success in my format because decks simply do not need them in order to enact their gameplans and having them means being deprived of critically important options during early and highly relevant turns. Decks are able to apply lots of proactive pressure very early on and interaction spells are costed at very efficient rates, if my control decks wanted to beef up and play more 5 and 6 mana cards they would lose more often by having more handstates that can't effectively be applied utilized. It isn't inherently good to play more expensive and "powerful" effects if you can do the same for less; sure, Grave Titan might be better at closing out a game than Ashiok, Nightmare Muse, but Ashiok does it almost as effectively against the decks that are present in my format, and it does it at a lower opportunity cost. You aren't guaranteed to make your 6th land drop in my cube, hell it's not even that unheard of to have a game end before you've made your 4th. My format also lacks the entire combo theatre of magic so the tools for dedicated big mana decks that can achieve 6 mana sources early aren't present, not that some variation of that deck archetype couldn't be successful as if I wanted to throw in something like storm that would definitely be good enough, I'm not saying Yawgmoth's Bargain or Time Spiral aren't worthwhile 6 mana spells, but that kind of draft and play experience doesn't suit my design goals, so it's excluded.
I think these kinds of definitions are useful tools when discussing the game with other players. I don't want to have to have some long and rambling conversation about how often and when my deck intends to "be the beatdown" in its matchup spread just to ask for feedback. Having shared understandings of what a "control deck" is makes it such that magic players can enter the conversation, hear that we're talking about UW Control and immediately know that we're talking about a reactive deck that aims to be the beatdown as infrequently as possible with tools incorporated to draw out the length of the game (spot removal, counterspells, wraths) a lot of smoothing and card draw to reliably see specific answer cards, and a small selection of expensive but highly inevitable threats that can be leveraged from an advantageous position to single-handedly win the game. If another player in the conversation wants to behave as though my UW control deck is actually an "aggro deck" and has the same gameplay goals as aggro, the conversation about how to tweak it for an upcoming modern tournament now lacks the ability to bear meaningful fruit, as both parties aren't going to understand each other. These definitions do have a real purpose, even if getting lost in the weeds about what is or isn't a real "draw-go control" deck isn't actually all that important, having the language to easily communicate goals with other people is the entire reason why language even exists, so I definitely don't think it's fair to say that jargon is inherently harmful. It's just a tool, it can be used in productive or non-productive ways, that's up to the individual.
This is actually the kind of way of speaking about cube that rubs me the wrong way the most; this assumption that somehow designing a format to suit one's own totally subjective personal preferences is in some way objectively and improvement upon otherwise shitty options. Who exactly elected you President of Good Game Design? In my opinion there's room in the cube community for cubes of all shapes, sizes, power levels and design goals. There can and should be formats both where Goblin Guide and Jackal Pup are integral contributers of a ruthlessly efficient mono red aggro deck, just as much as there are cubes that eschew linear aggro altogether and have a more decision rich proactive midrange deck in its place but neither is an improvement upon the other, they're just different.
Definitely not looking for a "culture clash", we're all nerds here trying to spice up the work day by engaging in a little watercooler talk about extremely nerdy shit a few times a day. And I absolutely think the design decisions I've made for my cube are extremely similar to the stuff you've done in your own format, the end result is different certainly, but ultimately we're thinking about very similar things.
What you say here is basically exactly what I've been trying to support in my cube as well as why I avoid the archetypes that I do. We might not have the exact same vision for what constitutes as "interactive and fair magic", personal taste and opinions can vary on exactly what that means to each of us and reasonable minds can disagree on the minutiae of the details and when I read what you had to say about mana curves and the quality and density of interaction, it reassures me that I've come to a cool place.
Reasonable minds can disagree about a number of things regarding game design decisions, we all design for ourselves and our playgroups and the exact sensibilities of all of us is going to differ in meaningful ways that lead us all down different paths. That's a good thing. It means that there's a ton of worthwhile design space out there and we aren't just working toward some objectively "best" cube, which at least for me, doesn't sound like a terribly fun venture.
Do I design my cube predominantly for High Choice, Low Variance gameplay because I and the majority of the folks in my paper playgroup, some of whom I've been playing with for over a decade are also spikey players that want something similar? Yeah of course. It suits our needs and while my style of cube certainly isn't for everyone, I assure you, we have a blast playing it.
When it comes to the cube community drama, I'm gonna be real blunt here because I think you're a collection of smart folks and I don't really see the need to beat around the bush with any of this. I've been in "the cube community" for several years now and quite frankly, I don't think a lot of people are truly interested in having nuanced back and forth conversations about the underlying mechanisms of the game, even if they might say they are. Many cubers I've interacted with don't actually care about understanding *why* certain strategies in the game are successful and *why* decks are built the way they are. For many players they simply want to do things they think are subjectively fun and cool. This is all well and good but it means that there's little room for the kinds of conversations I like to have about the game with a lot of people.
So when a cuber asks a question like "is card XYZ good in the context of my cube?" I have found that they aren't *really* asking that, what they really want is someone to intuit that they really mean "am I going to have fun playing card XYZ?", which is a totally different question altogether. When I approach the initial question and answer it as it was asked and say something along the lines of "card XYZ doesn't look like it will contribute to an optimal strategy because of reasons A,B, and C" often the other person takes this as a personal offense, as though I have just taken a piss on their newborn baby, and they get upset that I had the audacity to say that their beautiful sweet angel of a pet card was in any way suboptimal. In my experience many cubers do not want an actual analysis of the cards and strategies they support, they want congratulating and backslapping so they can feel reassured that they're doing a perfect job and every decision they've ever made with respect to their cube is totally and completely flawless and even the slightest insinuation of something other than that is only interpreted as a slap in the face. I think this is a totally ridiculous position of course, but it's been a fairly frequent experience and it's why I think a lot of people seem to find me to be a gigantic asshole, because I won't tell them that their macaroni sculpture of a pet card is the next Mona Lisa.
I didn't come here to piss off a bunch of nerds on the internet, I came here to engage in conversations about the game that myself and the users here share a passion for. I'd like to continue to do so as I feel there are so many interesting topics to delve into and explore and we all have great ideas to share and teach each other. But if what this community wants is mostly affirmation more so than healthy debate, then perhaps it's better to simply be up front with that now so we can all spare ourselves any further ruffled feathers.
landofMordor
Administrator
I don't have much to add except this: @Jason Waddell is right to say that communities that are very similar (but not identical) will perceive larger gulfs between them, but also 1000% correct in asserting that RTL and Brainstorming are far closer than RTL to MTGO or the Cube subreddit.
Luckily, conflict is not necessarily a bad thing in a community. In fact, generative conflict can be a community's greatest strength. Generative conflict (aka "dialogue") is very different than the social-media-fueled debates that have become all too commonplace:
* While debate is interested in determining a winner (or else "agreeing to disagree"), dialogue aka generative conflict is interested in "agreeing to agree", that is, meeting the other person where they are and developing common understanding.
* While debate only listens as a tool to find ammo, dialogue listens in order to learn and relate to the other person
* While participants become adversaries in a debate, participants in a dialogue are partners.
* While debate leads to digging in trenches, dialogue leads to re-examining and transforming one's own beliefs
I think a good model for cube discourse is one that is built on this mutual respect, conflict generated through partnership, and a desire to transform one's own beliefs. When I see someone I disagree with, I try not to respond with "you're wrong" but rather "can you explain your perspective? Here's where I'm coming from". There's really big upside to this -- not only does it make our watercooler talk happier, but it can also vastly improve our Cube design!!
For what it's worth, I think every Internet denizen would do well to learn from how @TrainmasterGT and @Onderzeeboot approach dialogue. Every post of theirs in this forum is exemplary of good dialogue practices. That's not to say you couldn't find good examples elsewhere, quite the contrary! But in this thread especially, their posts have been seeking dialogue above winning a debate, and I think we could all benefit from emulating that behavior.
Luckily, conflict is not necessarily a bad thing in a community. In fact, generative conflict can be a community's greatest strength. Generative conflict (aka "dialogue") is very different than the social-media-fueled debates that have become all too commonplace:
* While debate is interested in determining a winner (or else "agreeing to disagree"), dialogue aka generative conflict is interested in "agreeing to agree", that is, meeting the other person where they are and developing common understanding.
* While debate only listens as a tool to find ammo, dialogue listens in order to learn and relate to the other person
* While participants become adversaries in a debate, participants in a dialogue are partners.
* While debate leads to digging in trenches, dialogue leads to re-examining and transforming one's own beliefs
I think a good model for cube discourse is one that is built on this mutual respect, conflict generated through partnership, and a desire to transform one's own beliefs. When I see someone I disagree with, I try not to respond with "you're wrong" but rather "can you explain your perspective? Here's where I'm coming from". There's really big upside to this -- not only does it make our watercooler talk happier, but it can also vastly improve our Cube design!!
For what it's worth, I think every Internet denizen would do well to learn from how @TrainmasterGT and @Onderzeeboot approach dialogue. Every post of theirs in this forum is exemplary of good dialogue practices. That's not to say you couldn't find good examples elsewhere, quite the contrary! But in this thread especially, their posts have been seeking dialogue above winning a debate, and I think we could all benefit from emulating that behavior.
It's a little early in the morning for someone to bare my soul for me like this.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
To be fair, you're not one to mince words, and your tone can be pretty sarcastic, which is already enough to ruffle some people's feathers, regardless of your intent. Pretty Dutch of you to be honest
It's an acquired taste, but I can attest that my interactions with you have always seemed honest from your end and worthwhile when you take your comments at face value and not as an insult to your pet project (because let's be honest, our cubes are pet projects).Thanks for the compliment. I try, but if you dig deep enough, you will find some pretty... debate-y posts by yours truly. I'm willing (and able) to discuss a point to great lengths, but my motive is typically to make the other party understand my point of view (and to understand theirs), not to convince them my point of view is superior. I've been known for talking for (way) too long in my quest for mutual understanding though
Same. I don’t have the stamina to really jump into the thick of things, but I’m enjoying the back and forth outside of the momentary whiffs of dogma.
My cube for the last several years has felt like a search for a power-max version of a riptide cube. I crave mana efficient spells and effects, wide ranges of speeds and dynamics from blistering fast aggro to prison/stax to combo. I'm trying to do that all within the obsfucated synergy weaving architecture of Riptide cubes. I feel like I had that riddle solved, but realized that my format was too dense and esoteric for most people. My times socializing with friends became much like silent chess matches. People felt exhausted at the end of each night, myself included. This is fine in small doses, but it wasn't something I felt compelled to break out as often as I wanted. I've been trying to dial down the complexity since then (doing a poor job), and the more I do that, the more I find myself lower on the power spectrum than I want to be. So some of the debates here feel particularly relevant to my concerns.
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landofMordor
Administrator
I love "obfuscated synergy weaving architecture" as a design goal, haha. It's a big part of my Peasant-ish cube (https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/barad_dur), but I'm encountering similar obstacles. These formats are just so complex, especially when the power level doesn't act as an artificial constraint on cardpool.Same. I don’t have the stamina to really jump into the thick of things, but I’m enjoying the back and forth outside of the momentary whiffs of dogma.
My cube for the last several years has felt like a search for a power-max version of a riptide cube. I crave mana efficient spells and effects, wide ranges of speeds and dynamics from blistering fast aggro to prison/stax to combo. I'm trying to do that all within the obsfucated synergy weaving architecture of Riptide cubes. I feel like I had that riddle solved, but realized that my format was too dense and esoteric for most people. My times socializing with friends became much like silent chess matches. People felt exhausted at the end of each night, myself included. This is fine in small doses, but it wasn't something I felt compelled to break out as often as I wanted. I've been trying to dial down the complexity since then (doing a poor job), and the more I do that, the more I find myself on the lower on the power spectrum than I want to be. So some of the debates here feel particularly relevant to my concerns.
I don't have the mental bandwidth to update my lower power, secondary cube because there are just too many cards in the pool.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
"Just" do as I do and build a second cube...Same. I don’t have the stamina to really jump into the thick of things, but I’m enjoying the back and forth outside of the momentary whiffs of dogma.
My cube for the last several years has felt like a search for a power-max version of a riptide cube. I crave mana efficient spells and effects, wide ranges of speeds and dynamics from blistering fast aggro to prison/stax to combo. I'm trying to do that all within the obsfucated synergy weaving architecture of Riptide cubes. I feel like I had that riddle solved, but realized that my format was too dense and esoteric for most people. My times socializing with friends became much like silent chess matches. People felt exhausted at the end of each night, myself included. This is fine in small doses, but it wasn't something I felt compelled to break out as often as I wanted. I've been trying to dial down the complexity since then (doing a poor job), and the more I do that, the more I find myself on the lower on the power spectrum than I want to be. So some of the debates here feel particularly relevant to my concerns.
The big downside of owning a second cube (for me) is that I don't play online, and I can't really squeeze more than one draft every other month into my schedule (whenever there isn't a raging pandemic preventing me from organizing drafts, that is). My last three drafts pre-Covid were with my new cube (which is an absolute blast, by the way), so my main cube hasn't been drafted in well over a year...(Edit: PS: This wasn't a serious suggestion, maintaining one cube is already a bucketload of work!)
"Just" do as I do and build a second cube...
Thanks, but I prefer to just ram my head into a wall for 2-3 hours a day every day until I pass from this plane of existence
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh gosh golly I made a boo-boo.
So assuming an 80 card deck that boils down to ~18 lands and 8-ish ramp spells (I'm counting the Quandrix Cultivators and Binding the Old Gods as ramp, although I could see not counting binding in this grouping because it also doubles as a kill spell). And like you said as well, it's a lot, and that was the point, so we're good
.I think if you xeroxed the smoothing effects to the degree that Funch has and then lower the power level of the more aggressive threats a bit, you could definitely build an environment where hard-casting bigger things is viable in most decks. The big thing is that you would have to do is enrure that games aren't ending before those bigger plays are castable. That doesn't really work in Funch's current cube specifically because it's so streamlined.
I think the point Dom was trying to make is just that streamlining the aggressive archetype more in a stock Vintage Cube list would allow it to produce better results. I find playing the MTGO cubes that I can't always get to the proper densities of effects I would really want for a proper aggro deck, so having some mana sinks like Figure of Destiny that can maintain value into a potential late game is useful. Does that mean Goblin Guide is a bad Cube card? Hell no! I think it's actually better than figure in fair environments, especially ones with low variance. But it think it is easy to argue that it is better to have several copies of a flexible threat like figure in a highly variable format like and MTGO Vintage Cube. After all, those cubes are not even remotely close to consistent, so having a card that can both be an aggressive threat and a midrange curvetopper is beneficial.
I agree with this entirely. I think part of the problem is the disparity between Cube compositions and design goals is leading people to think that the design theories found on both RTL and MCB are not reconcilable. Look at these two theoretical opening hands:
VS
These hands are from U/G decks in a generic MCB cube and a Riptide Cube vaguely based on the archetypes in Ravnic's cube, to be specific. Even though these cubes were both built with an emphasis on players drafting decks as opposed to random powerful cards, that's not going to be immediately apparent to anyone who doesn't have a decent understanding of the theory on either end. The MCB Deck just looks like a pile of cantrips and the Riptide Cube looks like a wierd assemblage of vaguely related cards to someone looking in from the outside. However, each Cube is constructed in a way which is heavily focused on supporting certain decks. It's just how each designer has chosen to build those decks are different. MCB Cubes tend to focus on broad, archetypal continents ("Rock," "Zoo," "Draw-Go"), while Riptide cubes tend to focus on narrow archetypal islands ("Madness," "Tokens," "Landfall"). Each category of Archetype requires slightly different support structures to make work, but in both cases, the end result is the same: draft and gameplay experiences focused on archetypal decks.
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I also think Sirfunchalot self-describing his Cube as "Powermax" probably isn't helping the framing of the conversation, either. That term kind of has a negative connotation around here given how aggressive and frankly kind of mean attitude Powermax MTGS cubers had towards parts of this community back in the mid 2010s. I think a lot of people viewed this site as a "safe space" of sorts where we would be free of the reductive "Rakdos Cackler is completely unplayable because there are 4 other Rakdos cards that are better in a vacuum" mentality often found on that platform. Obviously anyone who has interacted with Sirfunchalot for an extended period of time knows that is not how he evaluates cards, and he has run some cards that are far from the best in their slot because they fill the role the Cube needs. He rarely runs actively bad cards, but he does run some that are... let's say... context dependent. That's just like us, in many regards! Sirfunchalot's Cubes are honestly pretty close to high-power Riptide environments with an emphasis on using math to make sure decks are properly supported from a statistics standpoint.
Thank you! Like I've said, I beleive there to be a lot of similarities between classic Riptide cubes and Brainstorming Discord cubes. I think people are getting too hung up on labels and differences in individual card evaluation to actually see what makes these two philosophies similar. I want to help people see where things line up.
Same here. Does anyone remember The Great My Little Pony debacle of 2019? I hope not, that was cringe.Thanks for the compliment. I try, but if you dig deep enough, you will find some pretty... debate-y posts by yours truly. I'm willing (and able) to discuss a point to great lengths, but my motive is typically to make the other party understand my point of view (and to understand theirs), not to convince them my point of view is superior. I've been known for talking for (way) too long in my quest for mutual understanding though
Sorry, didn't know "powermax" carried so much baggage. I'm a simple man, I see WotC print a good card and I get excited and say "oooh, very nice! Now it's time to cut the worst card from my cube for you!" and then I do that and my brain makes the chemical. It's quite a cathartic process honestly, especially when I get to cut a card that costs more mana for a card that costs less mana, that really gets my juices flowing hahaha. You really haven't lived until you've done something like cut Doom Blade for Bloodchief's Thirst, let me tell ya, it's quite the thrilling experience! But in fairness I've done my fair share of nerfs too, balancing a format works both ways after all and I was equally as happy to cut Strip Mine for a second copy of Ghost Quarter a few days ago. But I definitely don't tend to think off card swaps in the sort of rigid like-for-like way that you typically see on MTGS; like just look at my cube and it'll become pretty apparent that I don't think about things like "rakdos slots" as all of my sections are wildly imbalanced from an aesthetic perspective, so I'm never gonna say "omg don't play XYZ gruul card, don't you know it's worse than Klothys!", but instead I might say "just cut a worse card from somewhere else and also add Klothys, that card's busted" hahaha. I'm mostly joking here though, do whatever you want with your cubes, I don't really care one way or the other; do what makes you happy.
landofMordor
Administrator
Absolutely. These cubes are cut from the same intellectual cloth, one that articulates a design goal and fearlessly follows that goal wherever it may lead. It is ripe soil for making our designer skills better!
Despite some growing pains, I've already learned a lot from being here six months, and I've had a lot of fun, too! I don't think I'll ever check the cube subreddit again (but don't tell them I said that). The quality of discourse here is already miles better and more nuanced, even as we are welcoming a lot of diverse new perspectives.
Yeah, it really hasn't been a main point here over the past ~3 years since MTGS has been so diminished in popularity as of late. When people here think "Powermax," they're usually thinking of poorly-balanced Vintage Cubes that are essentially just a pile of generically "good" cards in a box without much thought to archetype design beyond "this is a combo" or "this thing was good 10 years ago so it still must be fine in a modern context." That kind of "Powermax" is nothing like your Cube at all.
That's kind of the reason why I moved out of strictly low-power design and into mid and even high-power environments. It lets me play my old cards that were too good before, and I get to experience the new hotness as well!
Absolutely. I've learned more about Cube reading through Riptide and talking on the Brainstorming discord than I could have pretty much anywhere else on the internet. There's good ideas on each, and pretty much any Cube can make use of them. The trick is figuring out how the techniques used by designers on each platform translate to your given design goals. That's really difficult, and it's the part of learning new Cube theory that takes the longest.
Is Klothys that good? I've never even considered giving it a shot in cube. Whenever it got played against me in Standard I just kinda shrugged and kept on keeping on.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
It's kinda like sulfuric vortex, except it's indestructible and can attack occasionally.
It's quite strong
It's quite strong
I had to cut Klothys for being too oppressive against control in my cube. @Kirblinx can vouch for its power. It just sits there draining life, ramping, exiling key graveyard pieces.
It's much worse in other matchups, but when it shines the play pattern is kind of stupidly miserable for a 3-drop.
card is super duper mega good. i'd rank it only below wrenn and six in terms of raw power level for gruul cards. its super hard to interact with and almost impossible to race. big fan.