Alvoi's Cube

[alvoi]

Hello everyone! I'm new here so I hope I'm not doing something wrong. I didn't see a presentation subforum so I will do it here shortly: I'm 20 years old and from Italy, and I love this game! I played a lot of formats and settled on Legacy, but then when War of the Spark and Modern Horizons came out I was tired of all the Constructed formats and so I began playing only Limited on Arena. After a while, I discovered the Cube format from a friend, and I loved it! So I gathered up some cards and built a cube with the cards I own. After some time I tried to make improvements and this is the list as of today:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/alvoi

This list is very powerful (the cards in orange are the ones I already own and are in the cube, the other are currently replaced with other cards, but the list on cubecobra is the target one). By the way, I see that a lot of people here use cubetutor and not cubecobra: I used cubetutor too for some time but then all my friends prefer cubecobra so I put the list there. I hope it's not wrong to link cubecobra here.

I really like playing with cube, but sometimes it becomes a bit stale. My friends now know the cube and they try to draft always the same decks because they like them: my friend that likes Ux control drafts that, and the other one drafts white weenie, and so on. Someone tries reanimator once in a while, but there is not that much variance (and we usually draft in 3-4 so it's not a problem of 360 vs bigger cubes, I think). So, I'm posting here to ask two questions: the first is, what general suggestions would you tell me for improving my cube list? And the second one is something that went to my mind in the last few days: is that reasonable to build a cube to resemble some "official" draft formats, keeping the singleton rule? For example, building a cube based on Zendikar Rising, but not doing the lazy thing of 4x each common, 2x each uncommon and 1x each rare, but instead putting in the cube most commons and uncommons, and then cards from all Magic's history that could be nice in the environment (for example, Vinelasher Kudzu and Brighthearth Banneret?). If this idea is not completely stupid, maybe I could create a topic to discuss it, if someone else is interested.

I hope I didn't do anything wrong with this message! Thank you everyone!

 

[Kirblinx]

Hello everyone!

Hello! Welcome to the forums. Nice to have a new member posting away. Feel free to throw your opinions on any of the discussions going on around here. More points of view makes it feel like we aren't all thinking the same thing.

By the way, I see that a lot of people here use cubetutor and not cubecobra: I used cubetutor too for some time but then all my friends prefer cubecobra so I put the list there. I hope it's not wrong to link cubecobra here.

Cubecobra is perfectly fine and probably the better option at this point as Ben over at Cubetutor has let the site dwindle and it feels like it could die any day now. In fact we have 3 or 4 members here that have posted content over on Cubecobra!
You can put the link in your signature if you want, so then when you reference your cube in other parts of the forum it is easy for people to find and look at it.

So, I'm posting here to ask two questions: the first is, what general suggestions would you tell me for improving my cube list?

This question is always hard to answer. I could go and suggest cards that suit themes and whatnot, but I don't know if that is what kind of play experience you are looking for for your playgroup. The only thing I can really suggest is just keep a listen out to what your playgroup is telling you. If they want spicier games, then you can increase the power level of your cube.
I can see that your disappointment was that you feel that the format has become to stale/samey so my suggestion would be to check out japahn's forum posts on cube occasionals over here. It simple boils down to having a couple of smaller packages that you can swap in and out of your cube to make it not feel like you are drafting the same small cube and more a portion of a larger cube. That should help make the decks look different and alleviate that problem you are having.

And the second one is something that went to my mind in the last few days: is that reasonable to build a cube to resemble some "official" draft formats, keeping the singleton rule? For example, building a cube based on Zendikar Rising, but not doing the lazy thing of 4x each common, 2x each uncommon and 1x each rare, but instead putting in the cube most commons and uncommons, and then cards from all Magic's history that could be nice in the environment (for example, Vinelasher Kudzu and Brighthearth Banneret?). If this idea is not completely stupid, maybe I could create a topic to discuss it, if someone else is interested.

Remember that singleton isn't a rule to cubing, it is just a restriction that you choose to follow to help you build your cube. You can always forgo that restriction if you want.
It sounds like you are trying to build a 'set cube'? Which a lot of people discuss in various places. Even on MTGO they have done of couple of these cubes. The one I remember is the Khans Expanded cube. They still mostly focus on the higher powered cards, so there isn't as many commons and uncommons as you would like. Also, you would need to add a lot more commons to make it feel closer to retail draft if you were going to go singleton. If you could give me more of an idea as to what you what you are thinking about here then I could give you a hand

 

[Jason Waddell]

And the second one is something that went to my mind in the last few days: is that reasonable to build a cube to resemble some "official" draft formats, keeping the singleton rule? For example, building a cube based on Zendikar Rising, but not doing the lazy thing of 4x each common, 2x each uncommon and 1x each rare, but instead putting in the cube most commons and uncommons, and then cards from all Magic's history that could be nice in the environment (for example, Vinelasher Kudzu and Brighthearth Banneret?). If this idea is not completely stupid, maybe I could create a topic to discuss it, if someone else is interested.

Hey and welcome! Back in the day, I wrote a couple articles relevant to your questions.

For The Zendikar Rising cube idea, that sounds great! https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/cube-design-set-cubes/

On breaking Singleton: https://strategy.channelfireball.co...eaking-the-rules-learning-from-legacy-part-2/

 

[alvoi]

Thank you both for the warm welcome!

This question is always hard to answer. I could go and suggest cards that suit themes and whatnot, but I don't know if that is what kind of play experience you are looking for for your playgroup. The only thing I can really suggest is just keep a listen out to what your playgroup is telling you. If they want spicier games, then you can increase the power level of your cube.
I can see that your disappointment was that you feel that the format has become to stale/samey so my suggestion would be to check out japahn's forum posts on cube occasionals over here. It simple boils down to having a couple of smaller packages that you can swap in and out of your cube to make it not feel like you are drafting the same small cube and more a portion of a larger cube. That should help make the decks look different and alleviate that problem you are having.

You're right, I shall ask them. Something that is a bit of a liability because they don't play as much Magic as I do, so they only know a small subset of cards, and are used to play with them and if I add some new cards to the cube, they usually wait until someone else play them to know the cards. Yeah it's a bit strange, but everybody likes and plays the game in a different way, and I don't want to force them to learn by memory thousand of cards as I do

Remember that singleton isn't a rule to cubing, it is just a restriction that you choose to follow to help you build your cube. You can always forgo that restriction if you want.

Probably you're right, but strict rules really help me while I'm thinking of building a cube, so I think I'll stick to singleton for now

It sounds like you are trying to build a 'set cube'? Which a lot of people discuss in various places. Even on MTGO they have done of couple of these cubes. The one I remember is the Khans Expanded cube. They still mostly focus on the higher powered cards, so there isn't as many commons and uncommons as you would like. Also, you would need to add a lot more commons to make it feel closer to retail draft if you were going to go singleton. If you could give me more of an idea as to what you what you are thinking about here then I could give you a hand

For The Zendikar Rising cube idea, that sounds great! https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/cube-design-set-cubes/

So, I'll try to explain what my idea was, it is more similar to the Khans Expanded cube that to the set cubes of Jason's article. For example, let's think about ZNR: it has 10 well-defined archetypes in the 10 color pairs, so my idea for the cube was to build something along the lines of a 360 cube with those same archetypes as the defining archetypes, and a power level about on par with the retail set limited. For example, cards that I would add can be:



Instead, cards that I think I don't want in the environment are:



So yeah, I want a bit of freedom in building the cube and adding some interesting cards from 25+ years of Magic, but I don't want to powermax it and forget the nice mechanics of ZNR. The ZNR one is just an example, maybe I should do it for another set, but it was a really nice Limited environment and the archetypes are very well cross-pollinated one with another. Other great cards from Magic's history that can easily help the cross-pollinations of the archetypes are:



If you like the idea maybe I should create a cube on cubecobra to try it! I think we can keep this topic as a blog about that cube, since my "main cube" is pretty stale and this other idea seems more interesting than fixing the other cube (that my friends still like, so maybe I will keep it this way, and to increase the variety of our Magic games I could build this other cube). Sorry for my bad English, and thank you again!

 

[alvoi]

Hello everyone! Little update!

For my main cube, I asked my friends to bring their favourite Magic cards and last time we drafted I added them to my cube. It was really fun! We were 4 people to draft so we did the burn-one thing, and we drafted four decent decks. There were a bit of problems since both I and one of my friends drafted almost the same deck, a UG-based ramp&splash deck with four colors (I was UGwb and he was UGbr). Maybe my fixing is too good? Or I don't have any cards that make reasonable to play with less colours? The other two decks were a Wg and a Rb aggro: the Wg guy went 3-0 and the Rb girl went 1-2 (I went 2-1 and the other control guy went 0-3). So yeah the results seems to tell that the white is very powerful in my cube, but this I already knew since it's the only colour I already "powered up". Now there are a lot of good cards to buy in the old border with TSR, I hope it will not destroy my cube's environment eheh

For the Zendikar Rising thing, I tinkered a bit and came up with this list: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/y0y it is completely peasant, so just commons and uncommons, and I think I did a good work in recreating an environment similar to the ZNR draft one. What do you think about it?

 

[alvoi]

Good evening everyone!

I haven't disappeared, I'm mostly lurking in the forum in this period, but sometimes I want to say something about my cube(s). Sorry for my bad English, I hope it's still understandable.

I found the discussion about the cube style really interesting, for all the diverse possible approachs. I understand that my "main cube" is probably a powermax cube that most people dislike, and I understand why: I love more a well-fought midrange battle instead of a combo kill turn 2, my favourite Legacy deck is Maverick, and so on. But the problem is that I'm a very undecided person, so I like to have my main cube to be a collection of the most powerful cards I own (and also the most aesthetic... I love beautiful cards, and sometimes I don't cut a card only because it's nice-looking... a lot of things are hard in this world, and cutting cards from a cube is one of the hardest). My friends still like the idea of the main cube, and they borrowed me some of their best cards. But then, I also love tinkering with cube ideas...

The ZNR cube was a good attempt, I think, but it wasn't what I really wanted. Right now, I'm thinking about a Modern Masters cube. I think MMA was one of the best sets ever to draft, and I would love to recreate its environment! Like, having a cube in which its main archetypes are all draftable. If I think about the 10 draft archetypes of MMA, this is what I come up with:

• WU Affinity. This is an archetype that I know it's very parasitic and such, but there are a lot of cool cards. I think right now in MH2 there will be new cards for WU Affinity and for RW Modular, so maybe I could expand the themes a bit and do some kind of Jeskai Artifacts theme? In original MMA there were Pyrite Spellbomb and Shrapnel Blast, so the idea is not completely mad

• UB Faeries. I know tribal archetypes are parasitic, but I really love faeries! I also have them in my main cube! So if I put them in here maybe I can cut them from my main cube and play actually good cards, lol. Also, there are a lot of changelings and since MMA had a lot of tribal archetypes, it wouldn't be bad to put some changelings in the cube, to make it feel less parasitic. In fact, if your cube only has parasitic archetypes... it has no parasitic archetypes! Right? I hope...

• BR Goblins. Here we go again! Right now I'm thinking: what if we made the three Bx tribal archetypes more unbalanced towards the non-black colour (so, Ub faeries, Rb goblins and Wb rebels) and have the black be a very tribal-supporting colour? We could also have a minimal zombie theme for cards like Putrid Imp, Gravecrawler and Stitcher's Supplier (which go well with the BG archetype)

• RG Storm/Suspend. Yeah, this is hard. I don't think storm is very good in cube, and I don't like it. But maybe with MH2 we could have some minimal support? I don't want "cast 10 spells and kill you with tendrils" type of storm, I would like more "cast two rituals and make 6 goblins with ETW" type of storm. But then maybe it's underpowered, and so unplayable. It's hard...

• GW Thallids/Fungus. This archetype could have some help from the BG Dominaria draft archetype, which was the same (but BG). Also, thallids are kind of a tribe, so all the tribal stuff in black could help here. Still, we could see GW also as a token archetype, and add some populate stuff, but I don't like that idea, I love when my archetypes are connected and I think we could do some connections with GW thallids + BG graveyard + WB tribal (yeah, WB should be rebels, but white and black are the colours with most tribal archetypes, so I think some cards from the WB rebels archetypes should be stuff like Etchings of the Chosen)

• WB Rebels. Yeah, that's what I just said, not only rebels (also, we have a lot of great goblins, some great faeries and... Lin Sivvi as the only decent rebel? Unfair comparison). I think here there should be some kind of stuff like in MH1, the Graveshifter and Universal Automaton stuff. But, I didn't play during Masques block, so I don't know, maybe Ramosian Sergeant is a very broken card and I never knew it

• UR Arcane. Okay, yeah, I think this is a bit an underperformer, since the only fun thing to do with it is Dampen Thought mill. But maybe we could take some cards from the 3xCHK draft environment, like Candles' Glow and Teller of Tales or Eerie Procession and try to make it work. Obviously, this compares badly against storm and dredge and affinity, on the paper... but maybe playing it out it's not that unfair disadvantage!

• BG Dredge. I love this archetype since you can put in there almost every card and it's still good. I think I want to see Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Golgari Grave-Troll and maybe Vengevine: apart from that, this could go in any direction, also in some "lands in graveyard" stuff with Elvish Reclaimer and Knight of the Reliquary

• RW Giants. This is the last tribal archetype, and here I think we could splash blue (so we went from WU affinity, UR arcane and RW giants to Jeskai affinity, Jeskai arcane and Jeskai giants, that is good for me). Kaldheim gave us a lot of great Giant stuff, and also some good cross-pollination cards like Basalt Ravager. There are some powerful staples like Bonecrusher Giant or the M11 titans that are giants, too!

• GU Domain/Sunburst. Oh, this is fun. This could also be some kind of rampy 5-color-goodstuff archetype, for the Timmy player. Also, I would like to keep the non-basic fixing minimal, like in og MMA, since I really like the idea of good manafixing having a cost. Casting a Tribal Flames for 4 with an only-basics manabase is way more satisfying than casting it for 5 after three fetchlands and two shocklands, at least in my opinion.

Other than all of these, there were a lot more archetypes like UW control or some niche stuff like Death Cloud or Dragonstorm or Tooth and Nail for Progenitus or Kiki-Combo! I really loved that format, and I think it's possible to make it to a really well-designed cube. But I'm not very good at designing cubes, so I'm asking for your help! First of all, where should I start? With a list? Or with an archetype in particular and then build starting with that? I hope some of you will help me, I think we can come up with something good!

 

[japahn]

Sorry for my bad English, I hope it's still understandable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthou...t_people_who_apologize_for_their_bad_english/

I understand that my "main cube" is probably a powermax cube that most people dislike, and I understand why: I love more a well-fought midrange battle instead of a combo kill turn 2, my favourite Legacy deck is Maverick, and so on. But the problem is that I'm a very undecided person, so I like to have my main cube to be a collection of the most powerful cards I own (and also the most aesthetic... I love beautiful cards, and sometimes I don't cut a card only because it's nice-looking... a lot of things are hard in this world, and cutting cards from a cube is one of the hardest). My friends still like the idea of the main cube, and they borrowed me some of their best cards.

There's nothing wrong with a powermax cube, and I feel guilty for being one of the people who influenced this idea. I do disagree with a strict powermax mindset, that states that "the true way to design a cube is to evaluate cards by power level", but cut the "true way" part and it's just a design goal, like all others. And it comes with many advantages:

- Cards are recognizable to many players
- Criteria for inclusion is clearer
- The environment is familiar to many players
- Cards tend to be high agency
- The concept of being a collection and a game at the same time

But then, I also love tinkering with cube ideas...

The ZNR cube was a good attempt, I think, but it wasn't what I really wanted. Right now, I'm thinking about a Modern Masters cube. I think MMA was one of the best sets ever to draft, and I would love to recreate its environment! Like, having a cube in which its main archetypes are all draftable. If I think about the 10 draft archetypes of MMA, this is what I come up with: [...]
I'm asking for your help! First of all, where should I start? With a list? Or with an archetype in particular and then build starting with that? I hope some of you will help me, I think we can come up with something good!

This brings back memories.

Assuming you want to do something similar, that is, a cube that's a better version of that environment:

I would start with an MMA set cube, as usual using multiple copies of commons and uncommons, and maybe seeding packs as retail packs. Then, tweak it as you see fit. Playtest as much as possible. Remember CubeCobra bots hate white.

If, instead, you want to create a cube inspired by that environment:

I would start by considering the archetype shapes. Pair archetypes can be a bit railroady, and with tribal decks it seems particularly easy for that to happen. You mention extending WU Affinity to WUR Artifacts and WG Thallids to WBG Saprolings, and I think that would work out very nicely with so many years of new cards. Don't fret too much about being symmetrical though - it's very hard to make a symmetrical shape that's not 10 pairs and still resembles a 10 pair environment.

With a first draft of the archetype shapes, I'd find payoffs for each and then find enablers that work with those payoffs.

I didn't play MMA limited, but one thing that stand out to my fresh eyes is that half the archetypes are tribal! That's going to be effectively 50% a tribal cube, so I'd start with all changelings it's reasonable to run and generic tribal payoffs like Adaptive Automaton and Raise the Draugr.

----------------------

Honestly, for advice about the archetypes it seems like you know exactly what to do. Trust your gut and go with it.

 

[alvoi]

Thank you for all your advice!

There's nothing wrong with a powermax cube, and I feel guilty for being one of the people who influenced this idea. I do disagree with a strict powermax mindset, that states that "the true way to design a cube is to evaluate cards by power level", but cut the "true way" part and it's just a design goal, like all others. And it comes with many advantages:

- Cards are recognizable to many players
- Criteria for inclusion is clearer
- The environment is familiar to many players
- Cards tend to be high agency
- The concept of being a collection and a game at the same time

You're right, in fact I think my powermax cube is something more like a collection of my best cards, that has also the advantage of being playable as a table game when my friends are here. Also, my friends are not super into Magic (well, they know the rules and everything but they aren't always interested in keeping up with the new cards and the meta and everything) so the only Magic they play in this period is that cube

If, instead, you want to create a cube inspired by that environment:

Yeah, your idea is nice and maybe I could give it a try, but what I was thinking was something more like a cube inspired by MMA

I would start by considering the archetype shapes. Pair archetypes can be a bit railroady, and with tribal decks it seems particularly easy for that to happen. You mention extending WU Affinity to WUR Artifacts and WG Thallids to WBG Saprolings, and I think that would work out very nicely with so many years of new cards. Don't fret too much about being symmetrical though - it's very hard to make a symmetrical shape that's not 10 pairs and still resembles a 10 pair environment.

With a first draft of the archetype shapes, I'd find payoffs for each and then find enablers that work with those payoffs.

I didn't play MMA limited, but one thing that stand out to my fresh eyes is that half the archetypes are tribal! That's going to be effectively 50% a tribal cube, so I'd start with all changelings it's reasonable to run and generic tribal payoffs like Adaptive Automaton and Raise the Draugr.

----------------------

Honestly, for advice about the archetypes it seems like you know exactly what to do. Trust your gut and go with it.

Thanks! Yes you're right, I know things don't have to be symmetrical, but sometimes it feels so good and "right" to do symmetric things!
So, I think I'll start from there, from the tribal payoffs. The tribal archetypes are in WB, UB, BR, RW(u) and GW(b) so the main colours with generic tribal payoffs should be white and black. When I have some time, I'll do a post here regarding some card choices

 

[alvoi]

So, okay, here I am! I'm a student in mathematics so I love doing the count also, to have some kind of structure other than my gut. So following japahn's advice I'll start from the tribal archetypes. First of all, we need to put the glue that helps the tribal archetypes. Since black has 3.5 tribal archetypes and white has 2.5, these are the colours that must have the most changeling. After those we have 2 red, 2 blue and 0.5 green (I'm valuing the thallid archetype "half tribal" since it isn't exactly tribal). The cards I thought of are:

Spoiler: Changelings

I'm thinking that Mirror Entity and Haunting Voyage could maybe be too powerful for the environment, but that has to be decided later. For now I'm content with this list, I think it's a decent base for tribal support. I don't know how many cards are needed though, here I've chosen 24 cards (that are a lot in a 360 cube). Maybe I should do something bigger than a 360 cube? Or cut some of those cards? I don't want to dilute too much the archetypes; I was also thinking that maybe I should make higher the number of drafted cards for each player, since the archetypes are narrow enough that maybe it's better if everyone can have some more space to design their deck...

 

[alvoi]

I hope that it's not forbidden by some rules, to do too many consecutive posts, but I think it's useful for me and I hope maybe also even for somebody else if I write here my design process, instead of putting down a full list without explanation. I'm trying to do it really slow, because I can have time to think and tinker in my mind about the card choices. Obviously the cube has to be tested, but I'm not in a rush!

So, from a mathematical point of view, right now I have 24 generic tribal cards, so if in a draft pod there are about 4 tribal drafters, they get about 6 cards each. I think that something between 16-20 cards for each tribe is enough then; you don't need 23 tribal cards to build a tribal deck so for now I think I'll put 16 tribal cards for each tribe, and then see if that's enough or not. I'm counting as "tribal cards" both Vendilion Clique and Scion of Oona, even though the first one is wanted by every blue player while the second one just by a Faeries player...

Spoiler: Faeries

Okay, I noticed that these are more than 16, but I didn't know what to cut. I also put in some cards with cross-pollination with other tribes (Marsh Flitter) or themes (Animating Faerie and Faerie Mechanist). I think maybe it's better to put "too many" cards and cut them later, instead of putting "too few" and add them, but I'm not sure. For now, let's see the Goblins too:

Spoiler: Goblins

So right now I have also the infinite combo Pestermite + Kiki-Jiki, as it was in the original MMA draft environment. I don't know if I want to keep it, but I think it could be fun sometimes (and it's not easy to build since Kiki-Jiki is RRR and the UR archetypes are Giants/Arcane/Affinity, and the combo doesn't fit well in any of those decks). Let's see if I can do some Giants too:

Spoiler: Giants

 

[Kirblinx]

I hope that it's not forbidden by some rules, to do too many consecutive posts

No, not at all! Plus this is the Cubes Blogs section, so it is meant to be a place where you can do whatever you like. Recording you design process is the main goal and others will chime in if they feel like they have anything to contribute.

How many blue giants are you thinking of putting in? As there weren't any in the original MM. The KLD giants make it real tempting though.

I also find Jotun Grunt very hard to keep around for more than 1 turn in retail limited. It also makes you think you can play it on turn 2, which you can't. I would prefer Jotun Owl Keeper as a white cheaper Giant.

Here is another cheap giant that could bleed into UW, but is just a really strong card in general:

 

[alvoi]

No, not at all! Plus this is the Cubes Blogs section, so it is meant to be a place where you can do whatever you like. Recording you design process is the main goal and others will chime in if they feel like they have anything to contribute.

Perfect! Thank you!

How many blue giants are you thinking of putting in? As there weren't any in the original MM. The KLD giants make it real tempting though.

This is a good question, I think mainly the colours I want the giants are red and white, but there are some great Giants in blue since Kaldheim... the three I chose before, than also Thryx, the Sudden Storm and Giant's Grasp. Moreover, while there aren't really great RW giants, I think Aegar and the two Sagas from Kaldheim (Invasion of the Giants and Battle of Frost and Fire) are great. So maybe the Giants deck should be centered in red, and have about the same number of white and blue cards to complete it in different ways (boros, izzet or jeskai).

I also find Jotun Grunt very hard to keep around for more than 1 turn in retail limited. It also makes you think you can play it on turn 2, which you can't. I would prefer Jotun Owl Keeper as a white cheaper Giant.

You're right! I chose him because I played it in Constructed and it was a good card a long time ago, but in Cube probably is bad without a graveyard theme... even though it could be considered as a hoser against the BG deck. The Owl Keeper is also a card I forgot about, but you're right it's good, too

Here is another cheap giant that could bleed into UW, but is just a really strong card in general:

Wow, you're right! I think I didn't search for the colorless Giants, my bad, this is a really great card that surely will make the cut!

EDIT: Giant's Amulet exists, too!

 

[alvoi]

First of all, I added some spoiler tags to my posts so it doesn't have to load every card image each time somebody enters this topic

Now, I was thinking about the last tribal theme, the Rebels. I know there was a deck that Kai Budde a pro tour with, but I don't think it is too powerful by today's standards. The card advantage engine of the Rebels is really good, but a bit slow, and I hope it's not too slow for my cube!

Spoiler: Rebels

Right now, I'm thinking also that probably a mono white aggro deck will be playable, with cards like Ivory Giant and all the good 2-drops. But I think it will be fine, I like aggressive decks but I still think that the environment will be slow. I think cards like Inferno Titan are worse for the environment than an aggressive 2-drop, but since the Giants deck seems so underpowered, I'll keep them. If they warp the environment around them, I'll cut them (same thing with the swords, I would like to keep them because they were in original MMA, but they could bee too much).

 

[alvoi]

Today is Thallid day! Now the non-tribal archetypes begin, so they will be more difficult. Thallids is almost a tribal archetype, but it's "double tribal" since there are Funguses (Fungi?) and Saprolings. Something like Sporecrown Thallid is good for both tribes. In the original MMA there was Doubling Season that is perfect, both for the token producing and the counters on the thallids. My idea is to have a wedge archetype in BGW, with BG and GW being the two possibilities. So green will be the center of the wedge. The two possibilities will be a bit different, I'm thinking right now at a GW deck similar to the Ghazi-Glare standard deck (with Glare of Subdual and things like that) and at a BG deck that is more like the Dominaria limited archetype, with grindy thallids like Deathbloom Thallid and the one and only Slimefoot.

Spoiler: Thallids

 

[blacksmithy]

welcome to the forums and i am glad you seem to be getting lots of ideas for your cube here!
i just want to chime in on one small thing i noticed in a previous post, you mentioned that the fixing feels “too good.” i think this is something you may want to consider.
why is it a problem if people run decks that are 3 (or even more) colors? being able to blend more colors into a single cube deck, in my opinion, naturally gives your cube more replay value, as more combinations of cards become possible for drafters to enjoy assembling.
in fact, my suggestion would be to increase your fixing lands and consider breaking singleton on fetches and original duals (by all means proxy, i don’t recommend actually spending this kind of money on cards). you could take your fixing lands from 40 to 60 by eliminating cards that players are not using or enjoying as much, and end up with more variety in deck composition even though there are fewer spells in your cube, due to the fact that players are able to build decks more freely thanks to the great density of quality mana. i think this may help the cube stay fresh for longer alongside any other changes you make.

 

[japahn]

There are lots of good reasons to increase density of fixing, but in terms of variety of deck composition, don't you get more variety if Thallids is sometimes WG, sometimes BG, and sometimes WBG instead of always tricolor?

 

[blacksmithy]

well, it depends how you build your archetypes. i’d hope you are providing cross pivots across all colors and not just siloing archetypes into a specific on rails build.
for example, if you’re running cards that make Thallids in GWB, maybe you sprinkle in cards that proliferate in UG so you can do Bant Thallids that make the thallids in 2 turns instead of 3. maybe you sprinkle in stuff like Raid Bombardment in RW so your thallids deal extra damage in Mardu Thallids. if you run plenty of fixing and glue and don’t clog your list with too much parasitism, players will develop their own archetypes from the tools you’ve given them that you couldn’t possibly predict.

 

[shamizy]

well, it depends how you build your archetypes. i’d hope you are providing cross pivots across all colors and not just siloing archetypes into a specific on rails build.
for example, if you’re running cards that make Thallids in GWB, maybe you sprinkle in cards that proliferate in UG so you can do Bant Thallids that make the thallids in 2 turns instead of 3. maybe you sprinkle in stuff like Raid Bombardment in RW so your thallids deal extra damage in Mardu Thallids. if you run plenty of fixing and glue and don’t clog your list with too much parasitism, players will develop their own archetypes from the tools you’ve given them that you couldn’t possibly predict.

Can confirm. I ran a draft years ago a little after Oath of the Gatewatch came out and was paired up against a buddy of mine. Unbeknownst to me, like a madman he drafted pretty much every single manland that came his way and played a deck that was mostly just removal spells and a Sylvan Advocate. It never even occurred to me that such a durdly pile was possible or playable, but somehow he saw it form from what he was seeing in his packs and got it done.

As long as the appropriate tools are provided in the environment, drafters can be very creative in their exploration of a given format. Knowing your players is important but I feel like when presented with a cube that they don't get to experience very often that players are more willing to try things that are out of box. I'd say that the key is to provide enough decision density and potential interactions with your inclusions and just let them loose.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Now I want to make a thallids archetype.

 

[alvoi]

Wow, thank you all! First of all, I think I was unclear, but in this topic I'm discussing two cubes. So, in my main "powermax" cube there was that fixing problem that I talked about, while in my secondary cube (the Modern Masters one) there isn't. This said, I'm now answering to all your suggestions, thanks you all!

i just want to chime in on one small thing i noticed in a previous post, you mentioned that the fixing feels “too good.” i think this is something you may want to consider.
why is it a problem if people run decks that are 3 (or even more) colors? being able to blend more colors into a single cube deck, in my opinion, naturally gives your cube more replay value, as more combinations of cards become possible for drafters to enjoy assembling.
in fact, my suggestion would be to increase your fixing lands and consider breaking singleton on fetches and original duals (by all means proxy, i don’t recommend actually spending this kind of money on cards). you could take your fixing lands from 40 to 60 by eliminating cards that players are not using or enjoying as much, and end up with more variety in deck composition even though there are fewer spells in your cube, due to the fact that players are able to build decks more freely thanks to the great density of quality mana. i think this may help the cube stay fresh for longer alongside any other changes you make.

So you're suggesting 60 lands in a 360 cards cube? This seems a lot, but I think in my main cube I could do it. In fact, there are some cards in that cube that are not often drafted, so I could cut them all and make a powered environment with good cards and good fixing. I will try it!

There are lots of good reasons to increase density of fixing, but in terms of variety of deck composition, don't you get more variety if Thallids is sometimes WG, sometimes BG, and sometimes WBG instead of always tricolor?

Yes, obviously! I think I was maybe unclear in my first post. One of the things I loved more of MMA limited was the fact that there were some general archetypes, but there was a lot of cross-pollination and synergy between the archetypes. So for example, the RG deck was storm/suspend but had also some good synergies with the thallids and the tokens, or with the goblins. So my main goal for this secondary cube is to make an environment that is similar to the one I'm talking about, keeping the same archetypes but also the same possibilities for strange decks and similar things. So I hope that somebody will play Simic Faeries with the Eternal Command combo and Scryb Ranger, while someone else could play a classic Dimir Faeries maybe with Dampen Thought and Mind Funeral, and somebody other can play Azorius Faeries with Faerie Mechanist and Animating Faerie to go with little artifacts and affinity synergies.

well, it depends how you build your archetypes. i’d hope you are providing cross pivots across all colors and not just siloing archetypes into a specific on rails build.
for example, if you’re running cards that make Thallids in GWB, maybe you sprinkle in cards that proliferate in UG so you can do Bant Thallids that make the thallids in 2 turns instead of 3. maybe you sprinkle in stuff like Raid Bombardment in RW so your thallids deal extra damage in Mardu Thallids. if you run plenty of fixing and glue and don’t clog your list with too much parasitism, players will develop their own archetypes from the tools you’ve given them that you couldn’t possibly predict.

You're right! My strategy here was first to put all these cards I'm talking about, and then to search and find the cross-pollination between the strategies. For example, I think I made some good work with the changelings and the tribal part of the cube

I'd say that the key is to provide enough decision density and potential interactions with your inclusions and just let them loose.

Thank you all again! In the next few days I'll write down all the cards for the other archetypes, and then I hope y'all can help me to find some bridges between all the synergies. Thanks again for the welcome in the forum, I'm feeling good in this community!

 

[alvoi]

Well, here I am again, this time I'm thinking about the storm/suspend theme. In original MMA it was in RG but with some suspend cards in blue, too. I'm thinking maybe I could add some of the zero-mana suspend cards and As Foretold, as a little synergy... for the storm part, I don't want a storm deck like in fully powered cubes, I'm content if my storm deck makes 8 tokens with Empty the Warrens or kills 3 creatures with a big Grapeshot or draws a lot of cards with Galvanic Relay. So, these are some cards that I thought of:

Spoiler: Storm-Suspend

While I'm here, there are some cards also for the domain-sunburst theme:

Spoiler: Domain-Sunburst

EDIT: some are from MH2 and aren't visible yet

 

[alvoi]

So, now I'm missing only Urw Arcane, BG Dredge and WUbr Affinity. Let's see if I can build something, and afterwards I can begin looking for all the cross-pollination we need (when cubecobra will be back up):

Spoiler: Arcane

Spoiler: Dredge

Spoiler: Affinity

 

[alvoi]

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/alvoi-mma

This is a 500 card list, for now. There are four cards missing but they are MH2 commons, I will add them when they’re available. So, now I’m not sure about what I want to do, if it’s better to cut some cards and have a smaller cube, or to add some cards and have a big cube with a lot of different synergies. What do you think?

 

[inscho]

There's a lot of interesting archetypes here, but like @blacksmithy mentioned earlier you'll probably need to spend some time exploiting the intersections between them to avoid the on-rails experience. Like if affinity and dredge are going to be a thing in your cube, perhaps scavenge could a good intersecting mechanic? The new Bannerhide Krushok looks really great to me, and could easily slot in over one of your other green 4 drops. Varolz, the Scar-Striped is also a very cool build around that doesn't require any additional real estate.

 

[blacksmithy]

varolz is awesome, highly recommend. i cut him for power level but he’s very cool to build around in lower power