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Yeah, I was thinking these species of cards: Mindwrack demon Gisa and Geralf shadowborn demon loaming shaman Satyr Wayfinder Sidisi, brood tyrant Sultai Soothsayer dread return That gives you a critical mass of self-mill ETB triggers to feed the deck. Having them attached to ETB bodies is...

Yes, its not strong enough of a card to justify just finding the best shell for it, so just providing vaguely on point cards in UB isn't good enough. There has to be an actual deck already in assistance in UB, that G&G slots into. The card than serves as an exciting signal to drafters as to...

Speaking of powerful "draft-around-me cards" that still lead to synergistic interactions, can we brew up a sweet UB archetype for: Gisa and Geralf How far can we push the twins? Edited: Just want to say that this dosen't actually compute--jitte and sol ring get picked because of their...

Yeah, I think I'm paying a price for the topic at least superficially appearing like I am advocating for one extreme versus another. This is more about the differences in archetype design between a format with a broad power band vs. a format with a tight power band.

Glad you reminded me about those scry lands Chris. I hope my post didn't come across as an attack on you or your cube, it was intended as more of a mea culpa on my part for advice that might have been potentially misleading in retrospect. The custom scry lands reminded me of something about...

Yes exactly. If I were to sit down and draw up a format for competitive play, I would have to narrow down the power band to minimize variance. Otherwise players end up feeling like the outcome isn't skill dependent, and just comes down to finding and deploying those bomb cards. But at the same...

Of course, the dichotomy is meant to be illustrative, and not intended to be taken to an extreme. Its just clearer to see the distinction when presented in that light. The underlying relationship, however, is real. There is a point where the raw efficiency of individually powerful cards starts...

I think there is some link between the two approaches as far as issues are concerned--that powermax UG opposition deck was the product of happenstance rather than careful design. Any of the bomb based formats will have gaps in their guild relationships, but they are left largely unplugged...

Saw this article on channel fireball which really framed the synergy vs. power schools of design surprisingly well. Part of the problem is that synergy isn't actually a real word--its just a neologism invented by corporate culture, and tends to function more as a buzzword than anything...

The cards I mentioned are a good place to start. I think you'll do 3 or 4 drafts (however long for the novalty to wear off and the spikes to come out) than maybe another 2-3 drafts where spike power drafts it, before you up-power the removal or down power the cube as a whole (prob the former...

Yeah, thats exactly what I mean: it looks like you would just power draft the format if you wanted to win. The synergy drafting seems like a tier 2 strat in comparison, which is odd given the billing of the format. A synergy format is, at its core, a decks not cards format, which this is not...

Yeah, thats what confuses me about the format: I don't see how its synergistic at all.

There is a pretty wide power band already with cards like lyzoda, the blood witch, silvos rogue elemental, mulch, and tooth collector living alongside falkenrath aristocrat, righteous confluence, whip of erebos, and chandra, flamecaller. I would say just go for it and see how it plays...

? God so ADD today

You know, it just occurred to me that you are doing 3 person drafts of a 450 card cube...which is kind of insane. That means you have a 315 card variance every single draft. When we would do FFA multiplayer, the scenario would be three people, and we would be drafting a 360 cube, or a 225...

I would probably be looking at these cards: opt impulse serum visions brainstorm anticipate mystic speculation In no particular order. Brainstorm is solid but if you don't have fetchlands everywhere, not really worth the singleton break. Those are pretty reasonable cards, and won't...

Just want to add that blue cantrips are powerful mid game and late game plays as well as early game plays. The issue isn't so much that blue players get to smooth out their draws turns 1-2, but what happens turns 5+ when players start to go into top deck mode. In those long attrition games...

A couple other ways to think of aggro in these settings is that you are trying to encourage a "low CC matters" deck, or a tiny control deck, or tiny midrange deck. Everyone is drawing from the same index of cards, and you're just trying to create incentives for someone to prioritize a deck...

It can work in a small FFA multi-player setting. Generally, you're ok if you provide them with early pressure tools, than give them some utility pieces to grind in the mid-game. Their strategy is to basically spend the early game building a board position while getting some knocks in, than...

First off, thanks for the layout of the OP--it helps a lot, especially with these bigger cubes. Glancing over the list it looks pretty reasonable for FFA multiplayer. I would personally trim the non-conditioned sweepers even more, because I hate the constant resets. I would tighten up the...