General An auto-pick in synergy's clothing

[inscho]

When I first began cubing, I became aware of the idea of auto-picks and GRBS (game-ruining bull****), and that there were cards that were so format-warping that it was irresponsible to pass them...cards like Jace, Memory Adept. My next lesson in cubing was that there was another group of cards that operate under the guise of synergy, but given some combination of their efficiency, power, or flexibility ceased to be flavorful additions to archetypes, and rather are ham-jammed into any deck that supports the color requirements.

In the beginning, that meant cards like:



As I began working on lists of varying levels of power, I started to realize something that I'm sure was common sense to pretty much everyone....auto-picks are relative to your cube's power level. Given how much the cube community has diversified in recent years, I think it could be useful and interesting to discuss which cards proved to be auto-picks in synergy's clothing? What cards were you so stoked to drop into your list, that fit so perfectly, filled in the most glaring of gaps in your archetypes, burst with the type of flavor that only the freshest piece of Juicy Fruit could rival, only to find out they were simply too good to perform their intended role?

I'll start with three cards I've been eyeing:


Pia and Kiran Nalaar: Fits like a glove, and sits at the intersection of blink, go-wide, sacrifice, and artifact strategies. I think if this card produced ground-walking myr, it might be the perfect power level for my cube. As it stands, it's pretty hard for me to ever pass it, and it goes in every red deck in my format.

Monastery Mentor: This one is especially difficult, as white is lacking in appealing build-arounds. Still, I find this card is one of the easiest picks in my cube. Maybe it has to do with the density of non-creature spells, but it hasn't felt like an inspiring pick for quite a while. There is the possibility of it losing some steam as I ratchet up the cycling spells in my cube and reduce the spell efficiency. Any one else had trouble with this one?

Torrential Gearhulk: I thought this card was the blue finisher we'd all been looking for when it was first printed, but I'm realizing that I need to be very mindful of how powerful my instants are. It's a little less of a problem now with cards like Hieroglyphic Illumination instead of Dig Through Time and Fact or Fiction. However, when running through sample packs, it does stand out, and my drafters aren't going to be as intimately aware of the suite of instants my cube supports as they're drafting.

Id love to hear your thoughts on these cards, and any that are relevant to your cube environment.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Heh, I literally just cut one card from my cube where this applies very much.



Turns out, that while this does indeed synergize with the discard matters and historic packages in my cube, it's just too strong on a generic level. That plus the fact that it's colorless means it's an easy p1p1. No matter the deck, you're never sad to play the Copter, unless you're the slowest of decks with the lowest of creature counts. It never wheels to the discard matters/historic player, and even if it does, it impresses more as a hard to remove 3/3 flyers that loots than as a centerpiece of the archetype you're running.

In general I find it's harder for colored cards to have a power level that overshadows their synergy potential. Sure, Pia and Kiran Nalaar is just a solid four drop that you would include in every single red deck, which might make it less interesting during the draft, but in actual play, those synergies do crop up, and lead to exciting play patterns still. Besides, it's okay to have a few cards in your cube that actively pull your players into a color. Make the power band too narrow, and it will become extremely hard to divine the correct p1p1. Incidentally, I have cut Pia and Kiran recently, but that's because I had to make room for other four drops I wanted to run, not because they weren't exciting to play with.

Now, I have cut Torrential Gearhulk (long ago) for simply being too much. I too included it initially as a nice synerggy piece, in my case cross synergy even, between artifact matters and spells matter, but a 5/6 flash with built in card advantage turned out to be just too good a rate to ignore no matter what archetype you were in.

Two other cards that come to mind where originally tested as outlets for the discard matters deck. Rather than support the intended archetype, they were just too strong to fulfill that role.



I've actually ran Liliana for quite a bit, and she did occasionally crop up in discard matters decks, but it's also just a punishing planeswalker against slower decks. Pack Rat, on the other hand, is just a hot piece of GRBS. It's practically never correct to use it as a discard outlet to fuel your discard matters deck, instead you start activating it as soon as you can and never stop, ignoring almost every card in hand, because it's better served as another X/X rat.

 

[Erik Twice]

I think you guys are right about all these cards, even if I like them. It's undeniable that Pia and Kira Nalaar or Smuggler's Copter will always be great, no matter what you play and should see play on every situation.

Still, I think that, unlike Skullclamp or Oppossition these are fun, well-designed cards that promote good games. They might never be bad, but they do reward the player for being a bit more careful about the cards you draft. I think this puts them in another category than the usual suspects. For me the biggest worry has been the pressure it puts into other cards in the same cost. I often find cards in the 3 and 4 slots be pushed out of lists they would be good in because there are a bunch of better, more reliable cards in the same place. Often, these cards do not share its colours so it can be difficult to notice at first.

I also do not mind these cards being high picks if they push decks in different directions like artifact synergies or reanimator. I can imagine them being dissapointed for more experienced drafters, but I also enjoy them being clear signals for a kind of deck. I think my players would appreciate it.

 

[inscho]

Heh, I literally just cut one card from my cube where this applies very much.



Turns out, that while this does indeed synergize with the discard matters and historic packages in my cube, it's just too strong on a generic level. That plus the fact that it's colorless means it's an easy p1p1. No matter the deck, you're never sad to play the Copter, unless you're the slowest of decks with the lowest of creature counts. It never wheels to the discard matters/historic player, and even if it does, it impresses more as a hard to remove 3/3 flyers that loots than as a centerpiece of the archetype you're running.

Yes! I should’ve listed copter as it’s on my chopping block. For the same reasons as you described. It’s a hard cut for me because it is so tasty in the Emry dredge deck, and Key to the City is good, but boy is it a weird awkward card that irks me.

In general I find it's harder for colored cards to have a power level that overshadows their synergy potential. Sure, Pia and Kiran Nalaar is just a solid four drop that you would include in every single red deck, which might make it less interesting during the draft, but in actual play, those synergies do crop up, and lead to exciting play patterns still. Besides, it's okay to have a few cards in your cube that actively pull your players into a color. Make the power band too narrow, and it will become extremely hard to divine the correct p1p1. Incidentally, I have cut Pia and Kiran recently, but that's because I had to make room for other four drops I wanted to run, not because they weren't exciting to play with.

I agree that there needs to be cards that make people excited to draft a strategy, and I think that can still happen without running these auto picks. I’m very focused on the idea of generated interest and gravity in a draft from contextually exciting cards. Cards that have some quality about them that break from standard game dynamics.

like when Reanimator means:


Over



Leveraging a card like vesperlark to work in weenie decks, aristocrats, blink, and reanimator is pretty exciting prospect to me. You have to design around it more, and it requires a bit more thoughtfulness from your drafters, but can result in a more rewarding draft experience while maintaining explosive play patterns.

or


over


Sower is uniquely useful to my format, but when comparing the two, tracker rewards you for playing the game as you would, but sower requires something more to unlock, but appears to have combo potential......and sure, with tracker you can splendid reclamation 6 lands from your graveyard netting multiple clues and sacrificing them all to marionette master, but more often than not it’s going to be a value bro in a random green deck...which makes these cards less exciting.

in general some cards I see like this in my cube:


(Thanks to bonzo for turning me onto feather and chainer...still trying to figure out how to best support feather in my environment.) I think each of these cards excites your imagination and draws you in to exploring the possibilities of the card without being an auto-pick....well maybe gitrog is probably an auto-pick

Two other cards that come to mind where originally tested as outlets for the discard matters deck. Rather than support the intended archetype, they were just too strong to fulfill that role.



I've actually ran Liliana for quite a bit, and she did occasionally crop up in discard matters decks, but it's also just a punishing planeswalker against slower decks. Pack Rat, on the other hand, is just a hot piece of GRBS. It's practically never correct to use it as a discard outlet to fuel your discard matters deck, instead you start activating it as soon as you can and never stop, ignoring almost every card in hand, because it's better served as another X/X rat.

For sure, these fit the bill at the higher end...both of these were known boogeymen to me, and I never even tested them despite their great fit in my cube.

Another culprit:


it does everything everyone wants, and that’s the problem. Even at its highest level, walker was one of the easiest first picks in my entire cube. Walking Ballista is a much more reasonable alternative although it doesn’t have the same sacrifice synergy, but recurs with scrap trawler and fetched with trinket mage just the same.

I think this card might also be too safely an auto pick:


but I need some more time with it before I want to cut it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

(Thanks to bonzo for turning me onto feather and chainer...still trying to figure out how to best support feather in my environment.)

You could take a look at my cube for some inspiration. I run Feather, and recently added a number of heroes, together with quite a number of things that (sometimes incidentally) target.

Another culprit:


it does everything everyone wants, and that’s the problem. Even at its highest level, walker was one of the easiest first picks in my entire cube. Walking Ballista is a much more reasonable alternative [...]

Ha! I should have mentioned that one too. I cut Hangarback Walker as well for the same reason. I even re-added it at one point, because it looks so nice, right? Only to cut it again.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Yeah, I got the feather train from Onder, its so nice giving boros a more interesting identity.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Though I will say I'm surprised it's taken so long to relegate smugglers copter, that thing is pretty busted. Hangerback saw the door a long time ago too, but I think like you, walking ballista is probably okay.

Stonecoil Serpent is an interesting one. I like the variability in casting cost allowing for good flexibility during play. I suppose I could cube endless one but I'd miss the artifact synergies the most - trinket mage, emry, auriok salvagers.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, Stonecoil Serpent seems relatively reasonable, but it pretty specifically hoses my cube :')

 

[inscho]

Though I will say I'm surprised it's taken so long to relegate smugglers copter, that thing is pretty busted. Hangerback saw the door a long time ago too, but I think like you, walking ballista is probably okay.

Stonecoil Serpent is an interesting one. I like the variability in casting cost allowing for good flexibility during play. I suppose I could cube endless one but I'd miss the artifact synergies the most - trinket mage, emry, auriok salvagers.

I'm coming around to cutting some of these late, because I was running the GCC at a relatively high power level with things like show and tell, fastbond, thousand-year storm, yawgmoth's bargain, tinker, etc....and thought that at the higher power level some of these cards were less auto-picky and problematic....which was somewhat true. However, even at the higher power level, the fact that almost every deck wants these cards was still an issue, and made for some lazy decision-making during the draft. Now that I've cut some of the top end combo and cheat cards it's much less avoidable. I used to be much more focused on efficiency and streamlining my card choices to support the widest range of archetypes, and now I'm less focused on that "all-business" archetype model and more interested in the discovery and exploration of the draft process.

 

[shamizy]

Great topic. As mentioned earlier in this thread, auto-picks are 100% relative to the power level of a given environment.

What some of you have listed are cards that have been very good in my cube, but I've never really seen them as being all that problematic as far as synergies are concerned. A card like Pia and Kiran Nalaar is a stellar design for my environment as a card that is good on its own producing 4 power worth of bodies for 4 mana, but can be exploited within appropriate strategies to generate the most value. You play it in an artifact centric deck with Daretti, Scrap Savant and you now have fodder for an impactful Trash for Treasure activation. If you play it in a go-wide tokens deck focused on anthem effects then curving this into Angel of Invention can be one heck of a two turn sequence. Tireless Tracker falls in the same vein as a great utility creature to generate value, but can also offer up interactions with other cards via the Clues that are produced ranging from Smokestack fodder, +1/+1 synergies, or just by providing a means of virtual card advantage to a color that is often lacking.

My inclusions are usually strong cards that can then be exploited differently depending upon the decks that they are being slotted into, something touched upon in that thread on Density posted a few weeks ago. It's very interesting to see where this "density" of a card becomes a problematic tipping point. While I love these cards for my environment, I can definitely see how they could be too much in other cubes.

However, I will acknowledge that I do play my cube at a Legacy-Lite power level thus my threshold for powerful cards for inclusion is higher than the typical lists constructed here. A card that is definitely more contentious and an interesting case study would be something like:



The ceiling of the card is absolutely apparent on first read, but the maximal power you can generate and board impact that can be realized is entirely dependent upon the support within the deck and what you've implemented into the cube. Like in Modern if there were not a plethora of bauble-like effects and utility artifacts, Urza-centric decks would have not have been the scourge they were during Fall of last year. In Powered environments it's an absolute bomb of a card with the quantity of low cost, high impact artifacts that you would already be including. However, in a lower powered environment where there isn't an artifact archetype deploying multiple artifacts on the field, the power level is effectively capped. At that point it's still a decent card at 4 mana creating two bodies and the potential for vertical growth on the Construct, but depending on the offerings in your environment this can be either simple or very difficult. In a vacuum, I think it might actually be weaker than either Pia and Kiran Nalaar or Whirler Rogue, but the ceiling of the card is incredibly high as we've seen across various formats since it was printed.

While these cards are fine in my environment, I can see how a card that is too efficient in its implementation can be problematic when the cards around it do not reach the same threshold of power. This is only exacerbated and made more readily apparent the lower you go in power level. You open up more avenues to include certain cards and synergies that may not be viable when operating with the cream of the crop, but you need to cap the ceiling of cards more aggressively. It's similar to playing a decent Limited format but then running into a buzzsaw of a bomb that completely derails any back-and-forth or engaging gameplay.

Thus if your goal is a purely synergistic environment then the less generic a card's utility and baseline power level, the better a candidate it is for inclusion.

For my own environment, I don't think it's so much a power level concern that causes me to re-evaluate and remove cards as much as it is realizing that a given card does not fit the goals I had envisioned for it. It's great when my drafters can find a new avenue to make use of cards that I hadn't thought about. It's less enthused when a card that I had high hopes for just ends up being a goodstuff roleplayer and can't realize its potential. Some cards that fall into this category for me are:



Not necessarily GRBS, but definitely cards that do not really fall into my design goals for certain archetypes and also promote less of the experience I'm looking for. My initial reads are usually more optimistic like this could slot into tokens and aggro! This would be a cool aristocrat card! Oh man what a cool ramp payoff!

But then it usually just ends up being wow, this is just worth playing everywhere, synergies and deckbuilding be damned. Let's get rid of it. You live and you learn I suppose.

 

[inscho]

While these cards are fine in my environment, I can see how a card that is too efficient in its implementation can be problematic when the cards around it do not reach the same threshold of power. This is only exacerbated and made more readily apparent the lower you go in power level. You open up more avenues to include certain cards and synergies that may not be viable when operating with the cream of the crop, but you need to cap the ceiling of cards more aggressively. It's similar to playing a decent Limited format but then running into a buzzsaw of a bomb that completely derails any back-and-forth or engaging gameplay.

Thus if your goal is a purely synergistic environment then the less generic a card's utility and baseline power level, the better a candidate it is for inclusion.

This sums it up better than I could!


I think the discussion can only help map out the tipping point for some of these cards. The user manual for lower powered non-rarity restricted cubes is fuzzier and really requires ample playtesting, which (hopefully) no one is doing (irl) right now!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

o_O Have you been stalking me? I cut all of these when I first powered down my cube, like... /me checks CubeTutor archive... five years ago! (Okay, except Nissa obviously, she wasn't around back then.)

I've dug a little bit deeper and found some more. In no particular order...



Some of these are obvious I think, some less so. Stromkirk Noble, for example, turned out to randomly be unblockable against decks that happened to run humans in the low end of the curve, and if it hits t1, it must be dealt with immediately, or it completely runs away with the game. It's going to be more balanced in cubes with great removal, but I ended up cutting it.

Glare of Subdual I originally tried as a fixed Opposition (which was no fun at all). Problem is, green and white are really good at making a lot of bodies, much better than blue, so you end up not locking your opponent out of the game, maybe, but they're certainly never going to attack anymore, and slowly die while you whittle away at their life total with your remaining Saprolings.

Assemble the Legion looks innocious, but it gets out of hand fast, and it's an enchantment, which makes it really hard to remove for most decks (and you're playing one of two colors that can effectively deal with it).

Treasure Cruise, meanwhile, proves that Ancestral Recall is still broken at sorcery speed with and a graveyard tax.

Oh, and Mox Diamond is not a good support card for discard matters, in case you were wondering...

 

[inscho]

Add to Mox Diamond...




I ran both of these versions in my Cube recently because they were thematic in the hellbent and lands in zones deck. But, yeah they’re still moxes!

I don’t disagree with any of the others y’all have mentioned...I didn’t test some due to just assuming they were too good off the bat, but metamorph, flesh carver, cruise, and curse of predation were guilty

 

[inscho]

sorry for the double post, but I just thought of another card I wanted to discuss:


Thoughts on this one? It’s so freakin rad, but I never want to pick another card over it I thought it might be more fair than braids because it can’t hit lands, but it hits pretty hard. In hindsight, braids is pretty innocuous without mana elves or other fast mana.

 

[shamizy]

o_O Have you been stalking me? I cut all of these when I first powered down my cube, like... /me checks CubeTutor archive... five years ago! (Okay, except Nissa obviously, she wasn't around back then.)

No. But you really should clean out your pantry more often. And buy more granola bars. Thanks.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

sorry for the double post, but I just thought of another card I wanted to discuss:


Thoughts on this one? It’s so freakin rad, but I never want to pick another card over it I thought it might be more fair than braids because it can’t hit lands, but it hits pretty hard. In hindsight, braids is pretty innocuous without mana elves or other fast mana.

I love Rankle to death, it's really strong, but also really fun to build around.

 

[shamizy]

sorry for the double post, but I just thought of another card I wanted to discuss:


Thoughts on this one? It’s so freakin rad, but I never want to pick another card over it
I thought it might be more fair than braids because it can’t hit lands, but it hits everything else harder. In hindsight, braids is pretty innocuous without mana elves or other fast mana.

I think it's a very good card that requires some finessing to maximize the impact. I haven't had nearly as many cube sessions with it, but I have a friend that runs Rankle as his commander and we've been playing a lot of EDH over webcam over the last two months. The sacrifice mode is most relevant in that format once you can set up recurrable fodder ala Bloodghast. The other modes require more thought in terms of figuring out which is the optimal option. Is an extra point of damage more important that giving your opponent a card? Am I in a position to maximize my chance of victory if I deplete both our hands? It's just a card rich with decisions, kind of what I image a black Cryptic Command on a stick would be like. The absolute "fail-case" is that it's a 3/3 hasty flier for 4 which isn't even a terrible rate and perfectly fine in aggressive black shells.

If you're looking for an alternative to Braids, I think he's the best option we currently have and is an excellent card.

 

[inscho]

That’s what I was hoping to hear! Thanks!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

It's really good, good play to it with the option to make mistakes, encourages attacking and is dealable. Good card.

Edit - the key issue with it as you mention is fast mana. Can be problematic if going first with ramp and your removal isn't fast and universal.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I recognize the premise here but for my Cubes that generally aim at a higher power level cards like this are exactly what I'm looking for - tools with a high floor that can be played in and promote good gameplay for the 'normal' decks that make up the majority of any draft but have further potential in a themed deck. Tireless Tracker is great in the lands deck, the artifact deck, and many more, but can go in anything and that fact allows me to play more narrow 'lands cards' or 'artifact cards' because the basic infrastructure is there to support normal Magic. I can't rely on Tracker making it to the lands drafter or the artifacts drafter but I can play enough cards like it that everyone gets to pick some up

 

[MurphysHuman]

Dom makes a good point. When I powered down my cube, I cut a bunch of "glue" (cards you'd be happy to play in most decks) in favor of more synergistic, but lower-power pieces. The drafting experience ended up feeling less compelling, because you'd first-pick a buildaround and then just ignore everything that wasn't in your lane. High-powered glue gives you a nice tension in draft - you know you want to play the Pia & Kiran, but what shell do you want it in? What are your other colors? Even within red, are you an aggro deck or an artifact reanimator deck?

I've also found that it's nice to have a wider power band within the packs themselves. When the power band of my cube was narrower, people would open packs and think, "Hm, which deck do I feel like playing today?". Because I cube with largely the same people, this meant the Simic ramp guy went ramp every time, I found the open aggro lane every time, etc. The other virtue of cards like these is that they are high-power but "safe" picks - you can get excited about having them in your deck, but you still have meaningful choices to make about how to support with the lower-power cards you pick later.

Of course, this has its limits:



got cut because you could put him in literally every deck and feel fine about it.

 

[shamizy]

I recognize the premise here but for my Cubes that generally aim at a higher power level cards like this are exactly what I'm looking for - tools with a high floor that can be played in and promote good gameplay for the 'normal' decks that make up the majority of any draft but have further potential in a themed deck. Tireless Tracker is great in the lands deck, the artifact deck, and many more, but can go in anything and that fact allows me to play more narrow 'lands cards' or 'artifact cards' because the basic infrastructure is there to support normal Magic. I can't rely on Tracker making it to the lands drafter or the artifacts drafter but I can play enough cards like it that everyone gets to pick some up

I'd say that's the pickle when it comes to this design, right? You can focus primarily on synergies to make lower powered cards shine and create an immersive draft experience that may lack the highs in gameplay due to card complexity, or you can look to cards that have a higher power threshold and complexity in their base case to maximize gameplay interactions while losing out on the draft process itself. Tracker is probably the best example I can think of since I've been on these boards. It's kind of innocuous in how it makes an impact across so many different types of decks with various features. It's a decent body that continues to grow over time. It's a source of virtual card advantage by generating Clues that can be cracked for gas when there's an opening. It's at a cost of 2G making it splashable and palatable for a wide variety of decks. All the reasons that make it a perfect glue card in a higher-powered setting are the reasons why it might be too much in a lower-powered environment.

I do think it's interesting how higher powered cards like Tracker are capable of bringing up up more narrow cards, so to speak. For instance, I play Zegana, Utopian Speaker who was a pretty good card in its Limited environment but isn't seen across many cubes. It's more niche in its application, but when played alongside more generically powerful cards that can generate counters like Tracker or Verdurous Gearhulk, you end up with a tidy signal card whose floor has been raised considerably. Find some other spicy interactions like with Soulherder and the like and whoo baby you got a stew going.

I think both approaches absolutely have merit, it's just a tough line to toe for designers. I don't think you can have it both ways, but that's where the fun of continuously tinkering with a cube stems from; trying to find that equilibrium point. It all depends on your perspective and ultimate design goals.

 

[inscho]

I recognize the premise here but for my Cubes that generally aim at a higher power level cards like this are exactly what I'm looking for - tools with a high floor that can be played in and promote good gameplay for the 'normal' decks that make up the majority of any draft but have further potential in a themed deck. Tireless Tracker is great in the lands deck, the artifact deck, and many more, but can go in anything and that fact allows me to play more narrow 'lands cards' or 'artifact cards' because the basic infrastructure is there to support normal Magic. I can't rely on Tracker making it to the lands drafter or the artifacts drafter but I can play enough cards like it that everyone gets to pick some up

More good points. I appreciate creating space for the normal decks to operate which is important to allow for drafters of a wider range of experience to enjoy a cube.

It's interesting to consider the tradeoffs (like what shams posted moments before this) for operating at a higher power level, and I'm having some difficulty putting my finger on what I'm trying to get out of my environment.


I think perhaps one of the reasons I was having issues with some of these strong midrange glue cards was due to some design choices I had made with my environment:
- Removal was nerfed (no path, swords, go for throat, etc)
- High end facilitators were at near max (sneak attack, fastbond, thousand-year elixir, dream halls, earthcraft, berserk, balance, etc)
- Top end payoffs were nerfed (no emrakul, inkwell leviathan, omniscience, woodfall primus, planeswalkers, etc)
- Top end aggro was nerfed (no goblin guide, dark confidant, mother of runes, student of warfare, etc)
- Powerful midrange glue was at near max (pia and kiran, hangarback, tireless tracker, clique, mentor, etc)

Which led to many of these cards being more clearly the strongest pick, and why their inclusion felt so uninspired and problematic.

Dom makes a good point. When I powered down my cube, I cut a bunch of "glue" (cards you'd be happy to play in most decks) in favor of more synergistic, but lower-power pieces. The drafting experience ended up feeling less compelling, because you'd first-pick a buildaround and then just ignore everything that wasn't in your lane. High-powered glue gives you a nice tension in draft - you know you want to play the Pia & Kiran, but what shell do you want it in? What are your other colors? Even within red, are you an aggro deck or an artifact reanimator deck?

I've also found that it's nice to have a wider power band within the packs themselves. When the power band of my cube was narrower, people would open packs and think, "Hm, which deck do I feel like playing today?". Because I cube with largely the same people, this meant the Simic ramp guy went ramp every time, I found the open aggro lane every time, etc. The other virtue of cards like these is that they are high-power but "safe" picks - you can get excited about having them in your deck, but you still have meaningful choices to make about how to support with the lower-power cards you pick later.

Supporting a lower powered cube doesn't necessarily mean you have a more narrow power band....on a scale to 10, higher powered cube may operate from a 6-10 range of power whereas a lower power cube may operate at 3-7...the spread is similar, each cube is just operating at a different power strata. I appreciate the highs and lows of a draft so I'm trying to maintain a spread of power, but sliding the spread down theoretically opens up some more complex draft decisions and nuanced card interactions. I've yet to successfully resolve my list at a lower power level, and part of my goal in starting this thread was to draw from the collective knowledge of the forum to better understand what constitutes a healthy card pool at a lower power level.

Does the presence of a high density of powerful glue cards actually create draft tension? If the safe pick is also one of the strongest picks, does it makes for some obvious/lazy decision making? I think this is where your individual power level comes into play, and determines the point in which a card like pia and kiran feels too good and tidy for a format, or simply feels like a healthy role-player.

You raise a good point regarding picking a build-around and ignoring everything else. I think at times I have felt this very strongly with my own cube, but I was never able to figure out why it was happening....it just felt bad. The "on rails" draft experience. I think your buildarounds either need to have an inherent risk to them, or be flexible enough to pivot between multiple color pairings and strategies to alleviate this.

 

[Dom Harvey]

The Metamorph point is funny because I agree with everything in the post but proposed doubling up on Metamorph a long time ago precisely because it goes in everything, supports whatever synergy is in your deck, plays out differently every time, and adds new dimensions to games

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'll just quote myself from February 2018

IT'S A TRAP!



I mentioned this card in the generic p1p1 thread. It's just such a safe an powerful pick, for any deck, I believe this is possibly the worst clone effect you can run, unless you run a high powered cube with more generic powerful colorless picks (I'm talking Wurmcoil Engine and friends).

Actually, this is a relevant link for this discussion: https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/grbs-colorless-pack-1-pick-1-cards.1873/