Hello again,
A couple of months ago I decided to be ambitious and create a second cube! (It was mostly because I had the hankering to theory craft.) After a few iterations and I am ready to throw it at the masses and see what people think.
My intent going into this cube was I wanted it to feel more like a modern draft format; where your removal was a tad conditional, and you were rewarded for drafting a synergy deck. Another goal going into designing this cube was I wanted to make spells matter. So I started off with a cube rule that ALL INSTANTS AND SORCERIES ARE ARCANES IN ADDITION TO THEIR OTHER TYPES. This rule did create some interesting balancing issues at first, but it also helped shape what creatures fit best in a world where instants and sorceries have so much tacked on upside.
Instead of the typical archetypes people push for each guild, I decided to push themes and sub themes throughout multiple colors. The intent was to allow the themes to play nice with multiple color pairs, but still feel different depending on which pair you drafted. More or less similar to how devoid felt in Battle for Zendikar.
Goals:
Themes:
Sub-Themes:
After play testing my first iteration of the cube it was very apparent that blue was the worst color by a landslide. Also, the power level of some cards and interactions needed to be dialed back to allow other decks to have a bigger window of counter play. Since then I have made some cuts and modifications. I am not sure if the problems have been fully remedied though.
Let me know what you guys think, I am all ears. If there is any glaring issues with the cube, or you think I support/ don’t support an archetype adequately please let me know. Thanks for reading!
A couple of months ago I decided to be ambitious and create a second cube! (It was mostly because I had the hankering to theory craft.) After a few iterations and I am ready to throw it at the masses and see what people think.
My intent going into this cube was I wanted it to feel more like a modern draft format; where your removal was a tad conditional, and you were rewarded for drafting a synergy deck. Another goal going into designing this cube was I wanted to make spells matter. So I started off with a cube rule that ALL INSTANTS AND SORCERIES ARE ARCANES IN ADDITION TO THEIR OTHER TYPES. This rule did create some interesting balancing issues at first, but it also helped shape what creatures fit best in a world where instants and sorceries have so much tacked on upside.
Instead of the typical archetypes people push for each guild, I decided to push themes and sub themes throughout multiple colors. The intent was to allow the themes to play nice with multiple color pairs, but still feel different depending on which pair you drafted. More or less similar to how devoid felt in Battle for Zendikar.
Goals:
-360 Singleton
- Very Low power level. Only have a select number of (bombs)
- Spells matter
- All colors are balanced and feel unique and appealing
Themes:
- +1/+1 counters matter (there are both cards to remove and add them from creatures) - Heroic and Prowess to support the abundance of different spell mechanics
- Madness
- Mill (You are rewarded for both self and opponent mill)
- Sacrifice creatures for value (I tried to avoid allowing the sacrifice decks to have a perpetual engine)
- Defenders
- Humans
Sub-Themes:
- The graveyard is a resource
- Tokens (go wide)
- Direct damage / damage based on hand size or drawing cards theme.
- Zombies
After play testing my first iteration of the cube it was very apparent that blue was the worst color by a landslide. Also, the power level of some cards and interactions needed to be dialed back to allow other decks to have a bigger window of counter play. Since then I have made some cuts and modifications. I am not sure if the problems have been fully remedied though.
Let me know what you guys think, I am all ears. If there is any glaring issues with the cube, or you think I support/ don’t support an archetype adequately please let me know. Thanks for reading!