General 720

[Jason Waddell]

So people are always ragging on 720-card cubes. I wonder.

Aside from what I would call "core cards" (lands, archetype anchors), I could pretty easily double my list and swap out random cards. It would still have a sweet mana base and cool archetypes, but there would be more draft variance and I could run stuff like Jace, Architect and Aven Mindcensor that I currently have no room for.

It also allows for incrementing designs in half-card rather than whole-card increments.

Due to the wonder of drafting via TappedOut this is actually super easy to do. Is there merit?

 

[Dom Harvey]

worth a try IMO

 

[CML]

720 singleton is the beef everyone has here (or maybe i'm just projecting)

sure, why not?

 

[Dom Harvey]

I know a guy who ran a 2x Cube, no idea what the original/final size was but it worked well for him in my experience

 

[James Stevenson]

720 is still just quite a lot... I like a nice 500ish, really. But let's give it a shot, all it costs is an evening. All I do is watch movies, most nights.

 

[Jonas]

Since most of the effort needed is the draft, I don't see why not.

 

[Eric Chan]

didn't we.. all just rag on the guy who suggested this three weeks ago

 

[Jonas]

Sure, but in this you could get a deck with 8 grave crawlers.

 

[Jason Waddell]

didn't we.. all just rag on the guy who suggested this three weeks ago

I have a habit of ragging on anything that is not my idea and then later claiming it as my own original idea.

But having an online cube changes everything. I could make a 720 at the click of a Ctrl + C -> Ctrl + V

 

[Dom Harvey]

running 720 is very different from running 2x360

 

[CML]

What makes me hesitant is that the variance will likely be worse for gameplay i.e. isn't part of the point of having a 360 that someone gets a Survival of the Fittest and someone gets a Sheoldred every time and there are 4 Birthing Pods going around?

 

[Jason Waddell]

What makes me hesitant is that the variance will likely be worse for gameplay i.e. isn't part of the point of having a 360 that someone gets a Survival of the Fittest and someone gets a Sheoldred every time and there are 4 Birthing Pods going around?

Well, there's the variance side, and then there's the (in my opinion) more important side of just not diluting your themes. I also kind of like that, in theory, I would want there to be ~3.5 Birthing Pods floating around. I can run 7x at 720 and shove in some other random effect that I don't currently have room for. I would also kind of love access to bigger gold sections.

I also would have to change some things. I would probably need to run an extra cycle of shocks or whatever to minimize the chance that a draft just has 0 UG lands or whatever.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I think this is a lot of unwanted variance for very little payoff. Now if you could set up a way to have part of the cube fixed and another part of the cube varied, that would be much better. This way you could always have the right numbers of your vital cards, while the supporting players rotated. Having multiple sets is probably the best way to achieve this, but it is inconvenient for both online and physical drafts.

 

[Eric Chan]

I have a habit of ragging on anything that is not my idea and then later claiming it as my own original idea.

It sounded like a bad idea for the long list of reasons you expounded on in the other thread. It sounds even worse now now that you're trying to justify it.

Are you ok with people having zero Birthing Pods collectively in one draft? And then having all seven float around the next? Because these things will happen. When we did a six man a short while back, two of us went into UR tempo to set ourselves up for the forthcoming Delvers... and both came away empty-handed, because all three were in the pile of undrafted cards. Unlikely? Yes, but not as unlikely as you'd think.

However, since you're just messing around online, and not sleeving up another 360 physical cards, I say go for it and knock yourself out!

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Unlikely? Yes, but not as unlikely as you'd think.

A common misconception people have about random is that if things vary greatly from the average, then it must be some kind of error.

When I used to play bridge a lot (<3 Bridge), if you played in person and dealt certain people a hand with 7 clubs, they would complain that the deck wasn't shuffled and would go as far as to reshuffle. Then, the same people would play online and get dealt a hand with 7 hearts and complain the program's random function was busted because that doesn't happen with real cards.

 

[Eric Chan]

Yep, you said it. In some people's minds, a random distribution is the same thing as a uniform distribution. So flipping five coins and having them all land heads must be 'wrong'. People have a very hard time dealing with randomness in general. (Not pointing fingers at any people on here, rather just what I've noticed from the general board game and Magic-playing populace.)

 

[CML]

fuckin shuffler EVERY TIME

 

[CML]

THANKS A LOT POKERSTARS i knew i should've folded before you hit your set

 

[Jason Waddell]

Are you ok with people having zero Birthing Pods collectively in one draft? And then having all seven float around the next? Because these things will happen. When we did a six man a short while back, two of us went into UR tempo to set ourselves up for the forthcoming Delvers... and both came away empty-handed, because all three were in the pile of undrafted cards. Unlikely? Yes, but not as unlikely as you'd think.

I can give you to several decimal points these probabilities if you need.

But I had another idea. I could just write a program to generate a 360-card cube each week according to my specifications. Maybe that would solve some issues?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I can give you to several decimal points these probabilities if you need.

But I had another idea. I could just write a program to generate a 360-card cube each week according to my specifications. Maybe that would solve some issues?

The chance of having any one of these specific undesirable events is quite small, but the chance of at least one happening is pretty large.

I think a simple system you could use would be to create 360 slots and assign one or more cards to each slot. So cards you always want in would only have 1 card, while other slots would have 2, 3 or 4 that would be randomly chosen between. It seems like it would be simple to program.

 

[Eric Chan]

Just change up fifty or sixty cards in your regular cube each week? Your whole philosophy centers around tightly crafted cubes, where every slot has a purpose and none of the cards are just thrown in. Seems like you could achieve what you want by making specific changes via careful design decisions, rather than outsourcing the work to a random number generator.

edit: FSR's idea is good, too. This way you have one slot for "generic aggro four drop", and that can be rotated around from week to week, but you won't end up with, say, six of them at once.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Your whole philosophy centers around tightly crafted cubes, where every slot has a purpose and none of the cards are just thrown in. Seems like you could achieve what you want by making specific changes via careful design decisions, rather than outsourcing the work to a random number generator.

It is, but, one of the things I've come to understand is that generic good stuff is the glue that holds it all together. Maybe I want both Fire // Ice and Ral Zarek. Or to have Bloodbraid back in from time to time. Maelstrom Pulse instead of Abrupt Decay. There are tons of slots that don't really matter to me.

 

[Jason Waddell]

The chance of having any one of these specific undesirable events is quite small, but the chance of at least one happening is pretty large.

I think a simple system you could use would be to create 360 slots and assign one or more cards to each slot. So cards you always want in would only have 1 card, while other slots would have 2, 3 or 4 that would be randomly chosen between. It seems like it would be simple to program.

Yeah, you just have a spreadsheet with multiple columns. Then for each row (card slot) sample from the column. This is so going to happen.

 

[CML]

We're getting somewhere here now I feel

 

[Chris Taylor]

Regardless of the actual odds, the idea is that they may happen. Just like games where you mull to 4 both games in a match and never see a single land the whole night. They're unlikely, but they happen. Are you okay with that?

I've found the main draws of a larger cube (multicolor flexibility and not having to cut favorite cards) don't really appeal to me at all, since I'm constantly wanting to cut large swaths of cards (that's just how I do!) and grasping at straws for the multicolor section anyways.
I mean, Medomai the Ageless may be many things, but good probably isn't one of them. Anyone got a UW goodstuff card they like? (Already running detention sphere)