Alchemist's Crucible

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

So, over in my old threat, Fozzy Fosbourne asked to read my thoughts on the design of this cube. I figured it might be easier to start a new thread, as this is going to be a long ramble. I'll try and talk about and link to some of the inspirations as I go, which will hopefully help illustrate some of the design ideas.

Here's the cube in question: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/108492
Now working on v3.2 https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/167q

Just to start off with, for reference, here are previous versions of my cubes/lists which have particularly influenced this design:

Bonzo cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/276
Velocity list: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/46700
The spirit of invention: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/66717
Alchemists crucible 1.0: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/100955

And here are forum members that have particularly influenced me in one way or another, and their current cubes:

Raveborn tinkerings: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/69130
Inscho graveyard combo cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/86266
Grillo's Inventors Fair: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/71323
Whydirts combo-ish cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/82201
Galactic Travellers future cycle: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/90917
Petes good games cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/7758

If I haven't listed you here, I still love you, and you will no doubt have influenced design choices, but for these examples I can probably articulate some stronger links to design processes.

I'm probably going to have to do this in batches, finishing hopefully before Guilds of Ravnica hits cubetutor and I start fiddling with the cube all over again. I'll look to cover:

Design constraints
Design principles
Overview of themes and archetypes design
Current weak spots and areas for improvement

If there's other things you want me to cover, let me know, or feel free to ask questions as I go.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Design constraints
* Singleton
* No double-faced cards
* Often drafted with small numbers of players (2-4)

Pretty straightforward.

Design principles: Lower power level to increase pool of appropriate cards to select

This argument is well rehearsed on these boards generally, so I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail around this principle. Grillo and his cubes have certainly been a strong influence on this. As a magic player I've always preferred limited to constructed, and that gives you a love of all the weird, wacky and fun cards that don't typically get seen outside of draft and sealed. Having a lower power level means you can enjoy some of these again, and also enjoy a slower format than a typically higher power level.

Design principles: Graveyard as a design framework

There is definitely a link here to the principle re focus on synergies, as earlier versions of this list found that it was much easier to overlap different decks when they were utilising the graveyard in different ways. There's no coincidence that Innistrad and Khans of Tarkir both had strong graveyard interactions and are highly regarded drafting formats.

One of the things I've said before is the importance of language, and thinking about what you mean when you refer to shorthand such as 'graveyard cube' or something like 'spells matter' or 'artifact matters'. Without thinking clearly about what you're trying to achieve, you can thrown a whole bunch of graveyard themed cards, or artifact matter cards together and then not understand why the theme isn't satisfying. (Part of the complaint re the recent lands matter commander deck too).

My earlier cubes threw a bunch of graveyard cards together and it wasn't until I started to try to unpick what I was doing and why, did it become easier to select and remove cards to make improvements. I think when new sets come out, its easy to forget what you're trying to accomplish with a theme or guild, and you end up diluting what you've set out to achieve because it's loosely on theme.

That's why I refer to using the graveyard as a framework rather than theme. By having this as a framework, you can include cards which don't necessarily support a deck or archetype by themselves, but when drafted and build in a deck which takes advantage of them becomes more powerful, and can lead to interesting interactions. For example, trueheart duelist isn't much to look at by itself, but can 'support' self-discard, self-mill, sacrifice, can fit in an aggressive deck, or be used to stall an aggressive deck.

Mapping out what the potential zone interactions helped to start seperating out what sort of cards you needed and how they might interact:

INTO THE GRAVEYARD
* Naturally = resolves, dies (ties into sacrifice, spells matter)
* Discard = self discard, cycling variants (link to discard triggers)
* Self mill = put directly into graveyard from library (link to into graveyard triggers (not necessarily supported))

UTILISING THE GRAVEYARD
* Cast from graveyard = self naming - e.g flashback, aftermath, eternalize (ties to cast triggers, spell velocity, enter the battlefield)
* Return to hand = regrowths / raise deads (ties to velocity, cast triggers, enter the battlefield)
* Reanimate = return from graveyard to play (creatures, artifacts, lands, spell's, enchantments)
* Count in graveyard = increase in power or greater effect
* Recurring threats = can self return to hand or play

This isn't a definitive version, and you can probably pick holes in it still, but the point is that it helped to think about how I wanted to build different strands and aspects. From here, the themes and approaches start to emerge: sacrifice/death triggers, spell velocity, self-mill, reanimation, recursion. I'll talk about these more in the themes and archetypes section.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Design principles: Active focus on reducing non-games

When playing with smaller numbers of players, non-games (mana screw, mana flood, difficult to deal with bombs) feel much worse. Sure, you can shuffle up and start again, but with less variety in opponents and decks, you want to make those games as satisfying as possible. So, for me this meant:

• Reducing mana screw (early game and colours)
• Reducing mana flood
• Slower speed of the format

These three things are all quite inter-related, which makes it a little difficult to talk about them seperatly, lets start with non-basic land choices. I wanted non-basic lands to be valuable picks for all players. If you have a low number of players, traditional dual lands might be useless if you're not in those colour choices. I wanted to maximise the potential pick value to players of the lands if at all possible, even encouraging you to draft them if you were only in one of the colours:

• Trilands: Each tri-land supports three different guilds, increasing pick potential to players.
• Vivid lands: Available to more different players depending on their colour. Potential to be taken off colour.
• Bouncelands: Helps reduce mana screw by providing additional mana, for fewer cards. Valuable enough that players may play them even if only in one of the colours
• Bi-cycle lands: Helps reduce flood, will be played with one colour.
• Scry Temples: Helps reduce mana screw and flood. Players will play when only in one of the colours.

I'm really happy with these, but they all come in tapped, and therefore hurt traditional aggro decks. This means that in order to have aggressive decks, they need to start being aggressive particularly on turn two, when turn one is likely taken up by a tapped land. Aggro needs to be different here.

If mana fixing and aggro is slow, ramp also has to be designed accordingly. Whilst there a small number of exceptions, most of my ramp starts on turn three/four, with earlier focus on land fetching (to hand) effects. This gives ramp a more controlling flavour, rather than trying to break the game open earlier. The only actual cards that ramp are currently:



And of course the bouncelands, but there's also lots of other ways to fetch lands and fix draws. On ramp, I've been strongly influenced by RavebornMuse. Here are some examples of their threads that have led to my position (I'm sure there's another which was an even stronger pull away from ramp, but I can't seem to find it now):

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/cbs.286/page-105#post-65695
https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/raveborn-tinkerings-a-bounceland-format.1796/page-2#post-73291
https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/raveborn-tinkerings-a-bounceland-format.1796/page-2#post-72691

I'll probably talk more about ramp in the archetypes section.

Coming back to reducing mana screw, I wanted to try to build in as many ways to reduce this into the actual structure of the cube, so that they were there for a reason, and people would play them, rather than being a card that would fix mana but few people would play (looking at you tithe). The focus was on scry, cycling (particularly land-cycling), appropriate cantrips and card selection. Not all colours have good options for this, so artifact solutions needed to be good:



This links in with the cog-specific cards, artifact matter cards, delirium and other graveyard cards.



Cycling and land-cycling - links with the discard matters most obviously, but also spells matters, and reanimation.



There's a bit of scry, other than the temples. I could have obviously added more, but it's difficult to some extend finding ones which fit with your themes. Hopefully Guilds of Ravnica will bring some decent survail to include, we shall see.

Some of these also have an effect on reducing mana flood, but there are lots of ways built in throughout to having ways to utilise your mana, or dispose of unwanted extra lands. Some examples:



Again, a lot of this has come from Grillo's design, particularly on spreading card selection away from solely blue's domain.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Design principles: Focus on synergies, archetypes, and creative drafting and deckbuilding

Here's ravebornmuse talking about synergies vs. good stuff in a way better than I can probably articulate:
https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/single-card-spotlight.99/page-245#post-68097

The graveyard framework led to a number of different themes and decks, and this combined with some other fan favourites was probably pretty much where I was at with Bonzo cube linked above. There was a couple of things I remember which has led to the more 'combo' orientated format I have now. A while back I drafted Pete's Good Games Cube quite a bit, I enjoyed drafting it a lot. This one sticks in my mind (mostly because Pete said nice things):

gray merchant recursion with a splash of nicol bolas from CubeTutor.com

It doesn't look like anything particularly special, but I remember thinking about having a plan when drafting, which was gray merchant recurssion, and it just looked like a blast to play. Here's another:

recurring doom (engine) from CubeTutor.com

Play a standard rock style deck and then loop scuttling doom engine until they're dead.

This pushed me more towards thinking about using (conditional) tutors, clones, bounce, regrowths and blinks to find a way to win and focus on abusing it. (Worth noting a general point here is that choosing blink, bounce, clones and regrowths that affect all (or more) permanent/spell types allows for greater interactivity and creativity. Whilst silent departure is great for graveyard interactions, I'd rather have consign // oblivion to interact with say demonic pact and cartouche of strength).

You can see some more of the clone style thinking from the threat 'On clones': https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/on-clones.1880/

The next big shift in my thinking is when whydirt brought their combo-ish cube to the table: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/82201

This brought together some of my thinking on spell velocity, tokens and arrivals and merged everything together with what I'd been doing. There was loads of cool stuff I liked here. Value storm (spell velocity), low number of 1 drops, heavy on the 2 drops, extort, go-wide, go-tall, cast triggers, and lots of cool cards which might not have made it to mine in the end, but looked super fun:



This led to the design of Alchemists Crucible 1.0 (http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/100955), which had a lot of Whydirts ideas, but didn't sit quite right. I stripped it back again, keeping the bits which were necessary and liked and merged with some of the other ideas from my previous cubes.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Thanks for posting all of this.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Alchemists crucible - 2.1 overhaul

A big update this time. Undertook a review and built the cube from the ground up again.

White - In



Astral drift has led to an increase in cycling cards across colours, which I'm not sad about. More support for artifact recursion in white. Still may fiddle around with white's removal not sure it's quite where I want it yet. Soul Snare looks like it should create an interesting (fun?) mini game.

White - Out



Monumement and self bounce was a bit too much. Too easy to just churn out 4 or 5 tokens each turn with the self bouncers. Kor Skyfisher needs to stay, so Monument has to go. Removing Great Teacher's Decree might be a mistake, may have to try and fit it back in if I can.

Blue - In



Wouldn't normally play with hexproof, but I think the Riverwinder should be okay (hopefully). Wall of Lost Thoughts replaces the Doorkeeper defender based mill and can lead to some interesting, fun decks hopefully along with Hedron Crab.

Blue - Out



Bit sad about Drift of Phantasms going, but need the space for more essential things.

Black - In



Happy with the discard suite now I think. More emphasis on self mill. Underhanded Designs and Pitiless Plunderer bring back a subtle support for artifact again. Curve may be a bit 4/5 drop heavy and may need further fiddling with.

Black - Out

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Red - In



Big changes for red. Increased support for velocity decks. Goblin Engineer really helps the artifact deck with another support card. Light land support.

Red - Out



Green - In



Bit more velocity, creaturefall and land support. Better, increased removal. May need another artifact/enchantment removal here.

Green - Out



Multani felt a bit strong for what I was doing, but may be a mistake to remove, we'll see.

Gold - In



Feel pretty good about these. A little worried that Mayhem Devil may be a bit too much for me, but we'll see I guess. Also need to check how much Vengeful Rebirth burns people out with cycling creatures.

Gold - Out



Colourless - In



Colourless - Out



Would love you to take it for a spin, or tell me what you think! What's exciting? What are you sad to see go?

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Early Ikoria thoughts

Rebuilding your cube from the ground up is never great during spoiler season as it's hard to get a solid picture of what you want and where you're going as, maybe there will be something great in the next day of spoilers. Current re-list build is here if you're interested, will try and write about it soon if I can:

https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/165255

Here's what I'm thinking about the new Ikoria cards:

Coordinated Charge

I'm always down with cycling, particularly white and green - colours that don't have a naturally large number of good discard outlets. I think this definately has potential, but go-wide isn't something you naturally want to do with discard tribal (though I guess this and Migratory Route has some play.

Swallow Whole

I quite like this. It's cheap, it exiles and has a real cost in tapping your creature, leaving a more powerful threat behind. Good with things like Thraben Inspector and Faerie Guidemother for instance. Think I'll find room for this.

Mythos of Illuna

Okay, this is super interesting. It's a bit difficult as I'm already playing Clever Impersonator but Mythos has a lot of other synergies being a spell. Can recur in different ways, more naturally blue (spell recursion), but the token is more susceptible to bounce. Can copy opponents stuff, and copy lands (which isn't massively relevant for me, though sometimes you might want to copy a bounceland) and that's before even considering the
fight ability. It's gonna be quite entertaining to use this, return to hand with The Mirari Conjecture and then cast it again to copy The Mirari Conjecture (and again, and again). Guess I'm gonna make it fit.

Neutralize

I have a new approach that counterspells should have other options so players aren't encouraged to try to play draw-go counter control, which does present Neutralize as a new option. It's either this or Sinister Saboutage so need to think about what's better for the environment. I think I'm leaning towards Neutralize. (Though it does sound like a disenchant variant).

Shark Typhoon

Yeah, this is exciting, I like it a lot. Spell velocity buildaround, that works with discard matters, is generally good and pretty fun. Making room for this.

Mythos of Nethroi

Yeah, this is generally good removal, which isn't particularly unfair. Seems silly not to make room for it if I can.

Void Beckoner

I'm cutting back a bit on my reanimation which makes cyclers like this a bit more paletable. Giving deathtouch makes it have more play as potential combat removal as well which is good. Can be recurred through things like oversold cemetery. It's between this and Twisted Abomination which I really like, though my gut feel is the Beckoner is more powerful/interesting. Not playing this means I don't have to pollute my environment with keyword counters though, which has something going for it.

Fire Prophecy

Hopefully an interesting new direction for red. I'm probably not going to have room for this, but definately one I'm interested to see how it plays in practice which might change my mind, we'll see, and see if there's space.

Lava Serpent

I actually quite like this as a bit fat cycler. It has some decent impact on it's non-cycling mode, and cycling is cheap. There's strangely a lot of competition at the 6CC red cycling end with this, Chartooth Cougar, Desert Ceredon, Granitic Titan and Sanctuary Smasher (see below). Fight club? Potential for these to fit into a cheating red theme, but outside of Feldon of the Third Path I'm not really down for that.

Pyroceratops

They are really pushing my to play with the Lava Hounds equivalents! I still don't think I'm going for it - four is too much I think for this effect, and I don't have the wildfire deck to play it in either. Something to think about, though I'm sure Onderzeeboot will love it!

Sanctuary Smasher

This seems both pretty good and pretty fair. 6 power of first strike is nothing to sneeze at, and giving instant speed first strike makes a lot of cards really good. I think I might reluctantly be down for this (stupid first strike tokens), but would be good to get some games with it under my belt.

Shredded Sails

More main deckable artifact removal, with bonus flyer damage - yep, will need to find room for it.

Weaponize the Monsters

Definately a powerful sacrifice effect which I might be interested in further down the line, but I like Makeshift Munitions as it providers overlap with artifact sacrifice, and doesn't burn with such ferocity (spend 6, deal you 6 at the end of your turn?).

Excavation Mole

Good if you have a particularly aggressive slant to your self mill decks (Vengevine) but green already has plenty of other self mill I'm more interested in. Not for now I don't think but good to know it's there.

Gemrazer

I think this is generally a good card, but theres only two mutate cards I'm interested in, and I don't think I need the complexity. I much prefer Thrashing Brontodon effects for on board enchantment/artifact removal, so I think I'll pass on the 'razer.

Ram Through

I like it - it's instant, but there are probably better options for green fights.

Wilt

This is great, and will replace Dissenters Deliverance.

Lore Drakkis

This is the other mutate card I'm considering. Hybrid instant/sorcery recursion is good, and it's cheap. The body isn't anything to write home about, but I might be interested if there was more mutate I wanted to play I'd definately be interested, but think I'll leave it on the sidelines for the time being.

Sprite Dragon

I'm a little reluctant to go for this as I don't explicity support blue aggro/tempo, but that's pretty foolish really, as the card is good. It'll come down to whether I have roomm in the gold section. Suspect it plays well.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Fiend Artisan

Well, this is powerful. Question for me is how powerful? It seems like a great fit, but I don't want it to be overbearing. Gonna have to give it a try, but hopefully it's a good fit.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den

The companion text is so unnecessary and clumsy. If this was a white three that let you cast things from your graveyard I think we'd be all over it. I think this is pretty powerful, and great with all the cogs in my cube. I think it's certainly worth a shot.

Yorium, Sky Nomad

Even worse companion text. Hybrid mass blink is good, do I want the effect? Maybe? Certainly allows for some interesting deck building with the hybrid effect. Think I might be down?

Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Actually pretty good aggressive card/aggro support card. The cost reduction is interesting. I don't think you can draft around it in that regard, but I'm sure there will be some things it makes particularly sick accidently.

The 5 triome lands

Yep, love these, just need to think about what they replace and how I structure the lands going forward.

Commander Ikoria

Surly Badgersaur

Fragile (due to being a creature) discard tribal build around. I should be all over this, but red fours are tricky, and I don't want to push discard tribal rails drafting if I can help it. I think I'm going to leave this on the side for the time being.

Fireflux Squad

This seems like a lot of fun, but doens't explicitly support any themes. Also see red 4's. Probably not.

Boneyard Mycoldrax

This seems pretty powerful in the late game and is a good self-mill pay off. Not sure about adding it at the moment though...

So, with that out the way, I'm leaning towards these as adds, with more thinking to do on the rest:

Swallow Whole
Mythos of Illuna
Neutralize
Shark Typhoon
Mythos of Nethroi
Shredded Sails
Wilt
Larrus of the Dream-Den
Yorion, Sky Nomad
5 x Triome lands

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Woop! Version 3.1 is in the bag. And a move to Cube Cobra. I'd love it if you get a chance to take it for a spin, tell me what you think or ask any questions. X

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/5ea2861609bbf1105ec55d7f

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Wow, I didn't expect to wake up to over 10 decks drafted, thanks! Thought I'd share a couple of beautiful looking creations:

Inscho's Feather

This looks like so much fun. Has the trifeca of Aracanist, Zada and Feather, with the ability to go wide through the tokens. Even has the splash black for Finish. Fab.

Inscho's Pact

This is so cool - I love Kenrith in a two colour deck with splash through the lands. This is a lot less creatures than I would normally play, but that's what's great when you release your cube into the wild to ee what everybody else would do. Mirage Mirror and Sagas is an interesting interaction.

Inscho's Blink

Couple of comments left for me on this one. Do we think Yorion is too good for the power level of my cube? I'm kinda hoping not, but Inscho felt that the splicers were clunky in comparison. Any views? I'm guessing I'll have to see how Yorion plays out.

Many thanks to Minox and Zubat for the drafts too and the kind words (I'm presuming you're riptide readers?).

 

[inscho]

I think a thing to answer for yourself is whether your cube is a



cube

Or a



cube


Wildly different power levels. Maybe they can coexist but a lot of your new recruits have ratcheted up the power level. I personally find the second pairing more fun in a vacuum, but managing power level is fundamental to allowing some of your archetypes to flourish.

That said, I really appreciate the nuance in a lot of your selections. It’s very considered. I liked that I didn’t know off the bat why a card was in the cube. You nailed the exploratory quality in my opinion. After working on this peasant cube, I’m looking at my graveyard cube with fresh eyes and I think an overhaul is needed, and capturing that sense of exploration and nuance is something I want to try and bring to that cube. It had devolved into a mostly on rails drafting experience. I support a lot more archetypes than the average cube but it feels pretty much all business. There’s one way to correctly draft each archetype, and you draft it right and tromp or you roll over and die. There’s a lot more air in your list, and I think you should be proud of this draft even if there’s some kinks to work out.

 

[Nanonox]

I never noticed my user name is different here (Minox on CC).

I really liked your previous version of the cube and this one is rock solid as well. There are so many possibilities during each draft and each card fits into multiple decks. I can randomly pick any card first pack and build around it and get there. That is quite the accomplishment.

The only color combination I had getting naturally was Selesnya. Somehow, I never got drawn into GW and I can't really say why. I did force a good deck, but if not forced I would have gone in another direction.

Had good fun drafting this and will continue to do so. Good job!

 

[inscho]

Some cards that could be worth considering:



Eulogist in particular....copying manticore, spitting image, illuna tokens, etc. Good mana sink and solid base stats.

I keep toying with lists that get the GCC closer to your power level, and these are some cards that I have on my radar. I’m finding the process of de-powering immensely difficult. What are some strategies you use to assess the power level of a card relative to your environment?

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

I was looking through your list and noticed that

+

goes infinite with a sac outlet. Has anyone made infinite mana or perfect deck arrangement a reality yet? Looks like any immediate kills with this setup would require 4 cards from your cube, so I doubt it would come across as unfair. Just a fun thing to see come together.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Sorry, not had a whole amount of time for cube recently, so a bit slack on replies. So, on power level strategies:

1. Know and be clear about your design philosophies for the cube

Knowing how strong you want ramp and removal are two important cornerstones that will help you decide how other cards power fits in.

You should know why you're adding a particular card in. If it's "because it's fun" or "it's powerful" they're warning signs. However, you can have a synergetic card and it be too much because it's too powerful by itself and that power overrides any potential synergies (you've already written about this).

2. Pay attention to what those you admire are saying, and take notice.

Onder saying Shark Tornado is too much for him is a bit worrying for me.

3. Get some practice in

Even if not in cube you can make reasonable assessments - Yorion is on their way out, oops.

4. Identify if a card leads to a game state that is undesireable

Cards that snowball are key here. Removal check cards are probably wrong. The difficulty is balancing cards that end the game and those that aren't interactive enough.

5. Recognise newer cards are going to be tougher to assess

You'll make mistakes.

Could probably write loads more here, but haven't got the time. A lot of it to be honest is questioning everything with clarity, and going with your gut.

---

Re the cards inscho suggested:

Seleynya Eulogist - I did consider this, mainly from a graveyard control perspective, but decided I didn't need it/didn't have room for it. It's nice but not necessary.

Pentavus - yeah, I could see this. I already have some quite high end artifact creatures, but this could be a go-er. Like the vesperlark potential. Also good with blink/bounce once you've removed some tokens. I'm getting warmer on it.

God-Pharaoh's gift - way too powerful. Can cheat in with artifact reanimators, but recursive threats, leading to snowballed game state.

---

Thanks for the comments Nanonox, and the kind words. You're right about Selesyna I think. Gold cards are part of the problem, but not all of it. Thinking about maybe Eladamri's call. May need to strengthen some of the themes. Think I might add Fabled Hero to bolster the green/white beserker deck too.

Also think I might have a problem with black being too highly drafted. A lot of the cube cobra decks are black, so might need to do a bit more research into what's being picked first.

I also hate that you can't comment very well on cube cobra or quote decks over here very easily - very frustrating.

---

Thanks for bringing the infinite combo to my attention. I generally hate them, but perhaps four cards which don't necessarily end up in the same deck is a problem? You seem okay with it, so that's reassuring!

Thanks for the comments everyone.

 

[inscho]

Yeah, sorry for lobbing a vast "what's the meaning of life" type question your way

All good points. Thanks!

I also thought Typhoon was a little dangerous in your cube at first glance. I have it slotted into my cube for now, but I don't think I love it as it has that nissa, steward of elements vibe....sure, it can do all this neat stuff, but everyone is just going to drop it when they ultimate it right away and murder your face.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I was looking through your list and noticed that

+

goes infinite with a sac outlet. Has anyone made infinite mana or perfect deck arrangement a reality yet? Looks like any immediate kills with this setup would require 4 cards from your cube, so I doubt it would come across as unfair. Just a fun thing to see come together.

I can see why they banned felidar guardian.



+



Tutor for anything.

+



Infinitely Big creatures.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

!DATA!

A big thanks to everybody who's taken time to draft my cube over on cube cobra. There's quite a lot of data that I've gathered from it:

I looked at what colour pairs were drafted (ignoring light splashes, ignoring my drafts, ignoring non-built versions):

Golgari: 7
Azorius: 7
Boros: 6
Izzet: 5
Dimir: 5
Rakdos: 5
Orzhov: 4
Gruul: 4
Selesnya: 2
Simic: 2

(Plus 2 Jund, and 1 Mardu - well distributed, non-splash decks).

Definately recognised there was an issue with GW, but UG has slipped under the radar a bit. Golgari tended to be a lot of graveyard good stuff (not surprisingly). There was a lot of blink in Azorius (with Yorion a big offender), though some control too. Boros had a lot of Feather decks, which is good to see, but there does need to be some variability there too.

I also looked at what cards were first picked (numbers might not quite add up, as I didn't do it perfectly, and couldn't be bothered to manually do it all again to check). Here are the colours that were first picked:

Blue: 9
Red: 9
Black: 8
Green: 7
Artifact: 7
Gold: 7
White: 1

We really have a problem with white first picks! Need to look at having something a bit more powerful, or some better/more interesting build arounds to try to balance this out a bit.

However there were 39 different cards first picked, which I'm going to take as a good thing. There were only 6 cards that were first picked more than once. They are:

Marionette Master - twice
Murmuring Mystic - twice
Stonecoil Serpent - twice
Drake Haven - twice
Yorion - Twice
Young Pyromaster - Four times!

So, where to go next with updating the design (including Cube Cobra feedback):

* Improve first picks for white
* Improve desireability of playing GW/UG - (probably doesn't help 2 of my simic gold cards are hybrids)
* Remove Yorion, Nightmare Shepherd, Shark Tornado (for power reasons)
* Think about whether to remove splicer package
* Potential tweaks to reanimator packages
* Review and potentially reduce amount of blink support (remove Cache Raiders)
* Change GW gold cards
* Reconsider including Epochrasite
* Improvement tweaks to control win conditions
* M21 and jumpstart includes

Any comments and insights welcome as always, and many thanks again to the drafters.

 

[inscho]

So, where to go next with updating the design (including Cube Cobra feedback):

* Improve first picks for white
* Improve desireability of playing GW/UG - (probably doesn't help 2 of my simic gold cards are hybrids)
* Remove Yorion, Nightmare Shepherd, Shark Tornado (for power reasons)
* Think about whether to remove splicer package
* Potential tweaks to reanimator packages
* Review and potentially reduce amount of blink support (remove Cache Raiders)
* Change GW gold cards
* Reconsider including Epochrasite
* Improvement tweaks to control win conditions
* M21 and jumpstart includes

Any comments and insights welcome as always, and many thanks again to the drafters.

I like all of these points of consideration. Bant has also been a bear for me, and I think Selesnya is the hardest guilds to properly design. I think I finally have it in a place that makes it as exciting to draft as the other color pairings, but I'm looking forward to seeing how you tailor your white section. The GW cards do feel a scootch uninspired, and there are a lot of fun gold cards in the guild choose from.

Epochrasite, yes!

Those three cuts for power (shark, yorion, and shepherd) were ones that particularly stood out to me as offenders.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Yeah, a lot of these reflections are based on your comments, so thanks. Also deffo want to add Pentavus.

 

[inscho]

Yeah, a lot of these reflections are based on your comments, so thanks.

Glad I could reciprocate, because this last iteration of the crucible kinda blew my mind. It made me see why I was so dissatisfied with my own cube....prompting me tear it down to the studs and start from scratch. Now I'm really excited about it. So thanks right back

Also deffo want to add Pentavus.

HOP ON THE BUS the pentabus

 

[inscho]

Can you tell me a little about your experience with



I keep thinking there’s a lot of potential with it returning any of your permanents. Getting lands back for a large devastating dreams, one-shot with a glint-horn buccaneer....saving the team from a sweeper....big end of opponents turn with ayula’s influence, etc

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

In general it's used either to regain some enter the battlefield triggers, save something from removal or reset demonic pact, but there are lots of savage fun things you can do if you have enough permanents out.

- Leave + Chance + Thassa's Oracle - can find the oracle if you don't have it, and insta-win if/when you do for 8 mana
- Kill from nowhere with wild mongrel/psychatog
- Combo off with Bone Miser
- Insta-win with Glint-horn Buccaneer
- Burn them out with stormbind/faith of the devoted.

I don't mind these as they're relatively rare and you can get blown out by them responding to killing the Buccaneer, so it adds a bit of tension.

There are other more fair things you can do, like give yourself some excess cards to pitch to things in a more fair way, such as cryptbreaker, or get some lands to re-cast spitting image. Can low key draw a card with squee, but most discard spells do. It's pretty flexible for an unassuming card.

So for your cube - in addition to the above it's nice with trade routes/tectonic reformation, zombie infestation, aylul's influence, archfiend of ifnir.

 

[inscho]

Yeah, that does sound pretty spicy., and for you it works with feather. Then there’s squeezing more value out of sagas as well. Ephemerate is just so darn elegant, but maybe I can find room for both.

I do enjoy the enchantment-fall you support. It’s not for my cube, but it’s a really cool subtheme.