General Beginner Mistakes

[Jason Waddell]

Yesterday somebody emailed me with a 360 cube that had 82 gold cards. Got me thinking on an article with beginner mistakes.

Give me beginner mistakes from your cubing past! (or that you have observed)

Things I was thinking:
- overly narrow "archetypes" (e.g. Dream Halls)
- venturing too far outside the box (no red cards with CMC < 3)


Then some bits about the dangers of making these. It's just a scrap but maybe you guys have ideas.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

- the poison principle
- including too many expensive cards/not keeping an eye on your mana curve
- not enough mana fixing
- not being aware of how many cards it takes to support aggro vs midrange/control
- not using proxies to try out expensive cards (then find out the card is not a good fit)

 

[Laz]

Yesterday somebody emailed me with a 360 cube that had 82 gold cards. Got me thinking on an article with beginner mistakes.

Hey! Scuttle-cube has 84 gold cards! (ok, only 30 that genuinely require two different colours of mana to cast, but that is not how cube tutor sees gold cards)

More mistakes:
- Single-minded focus on the power of individual cards.
- Two card combos (Both halves had better have a pretty damn good reason to exist, such as the incidental Murderous Redcap + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed Melira-combo impression.)
- Being unaware of just how much support aggro needs.
- Untapped Fixing!

- I want to put Singleton down here, but might be pushing it. How about redundancy of effects that reinforce archetypes?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

- I want to put Singleton down here, but might be pushing it. How about redundancy of effects that reinforce archetypes?

Oh, I'll add

- unbridled cube size
- cube size and impact on supported archetypes

 

[Laz]

I keep thinking of more things I wish I had known....

- Lots of Enchantments versus lots of Artifacts. Don't dilute your answers too much.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think this recent article on the mothership contains a lot of useful information, to wit:
- Extremely powerful removal (StP etc.) makes for an evironment where the only really good creatures to run are those with innate protection from said removal or those with very strong enters the battlefield effects
- Hexproof is not a fun mechanic
- The brunt of your unconditional removal spells should cost 3 or more mana
- Unconditional wrath effects are healthier for the game at 5+ mana

 

[CML]

signets

 

[Kuldahar]

Listening to people on MTGS.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Listening to people on MTGS.

Not entirely true, but thinking out of the power max box is not the strong point of their most vocal members. MTGS is a pretty good resource for baseline data like power rankings though, and the SCD's and MCD's contain interesting food for thought.

 

[silasw]

Too many high-CMC bombs.
Putting Sol Ring in peasant cubes.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Putting Sol Ring in peasant cubes.

There. Fixed!

Though Sol Ring should be included in any power max cube I guess...

 

[DreamPaint]

Too many cards
Too much multicolor
Powermax
Not thinking outside the box

 

[silasw]

I'd say "not thinking outside the box" isn't a beginner mistake. It's more of a trap that cube designers fall into after they get into it. Beginners tend to have wild and wacky ideas that never actually work.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

- too many planeswalkers

 

[Alex Blanton]

Running Titans, then underestimating them. I had forgotten just how hard it was to beat them. Also, your sevens and eights had better be able to outclass them.

I avoided plenty of pitfalls by reading up first, but theory can only go so far. It can be better to make mistakes yourself to see just what a card does to a game. As much as some people hate Commander, it's a decent format to try some of the lesser-known cards, make mistakes, and test the waters. Leave aggro to competitive Constructed and Limited, though.

 

[Lucre]

Over vs Under.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think this recent article on the mothership contains a lot of useful information, to wit:
- Extremely powerful removal (StP etc.) makes for an environment where the only really good creatures to run are those with innate protection from said removal or those with very strong enters the battlefield effects
- Hexproof is not a fun mechanic
- The brunt of your unconditional removal spells should cost 3 or more mana
- Unconditional wrath effects are healthier for the game at 5+ mana

Well that was a really gratifying article to read.

On topic, I think trying to just patch in archetypes rather than thinking of the cube environment as a whole was a pretty big mistake I made.

 

[Lucre]

Maybe for recent baby formats for babies. We're cubing! Path is a pretty fair card in modern and this format is cooler than that one.
Also you are never getting ahead by thoughtseizing. What you've done is put yourself behind by 1 mana and 2 life hoping the card you took is worth that much in future adjustment in cards, tempo, life, etc more niche judgements.

The way they oversimplify everything and talk to people like children really bothers me, but I guess you can't be comprehensive in one fricken article so I should repeat to myself it's just a show and I should really just relax.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Don't underestimate thoughtseize's two other effects:
1) Knowing what in your opponents hand
2) Reducing the total number of cards in the game (which accelerates the attrition of resources)

Laz-I agree that singleton isn't a beginner mistake, but arbitrarily adding pointless design restrictions is. Your cube may well be best as singleton, but if it is, it'll be singleton whether or not you arbitrarily decide for it to be before you start. If your cube would not be best as singleton, you are just shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[Lucre]

Yeah I was being glib, but people who throw it in with removal in my opinion fundamentally misunderstand removal and it's main uses.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Yeah I was being glib, but people who throw it in with removal in my opinion fundamentally misunderstand removal and it's main uses.

Yeah, if it wasn't clear I agree with your main point, just clarifying the thoughtseize is indeed an awesome card.

 

[Lucre]

Yeah no one has so succinctly put the resource depression thing so well. It really makes more sense to me now why I think of those black decks as Removal + Thoughtseize + Lifebane Zombie + Underworld Connections decks.

 

[shamizy]

- Powermax
- Too many multi-color cards
- Cards that are way too narrow in design
- Trying to support way too many things in a given color
- Unwillingness to cut a "staple" to promote better gameplay
- Over-reliance on other cubes as reference

As I've been making my first cube over the last month and a half, I've been guilty of almost all of these. There are just so many cube resources out there that simply aim for highest power and T2 or T3 kills by chaining together the most broken shit ever. You see a list of super powered cards and begin to think that you need them to create an ideal cube environment. That's just not fun. Sure, there's some appeal to using the most powerful cards in Magic's history, but games that end super quickly with minimal decision trees are sure to get stale really quick. Additionally, this is the only place I've found where people have wholeheartedly embraced breaking singleton in favor of better gameplay. In most other places it's some weird nerdy taboo.

I'm glad I found Jason's articles on CFB and this site, they've helped a ton in developing my own cube little by little. I'm sure my drafters will appreciate more immersive gameplay in place of just stupid broken shit once I bust out the finished product.

 

[Jonas]

I don't think powermax is a mistake, if you somehow enjoy that sort of games/drafting.

 

[shamizy]

I think it is if that's your default when designing a cube. If you like that sort of thing, go for it, but it's not necessary. Most featured cubes or "best cards in cube" lists just list out really powerful cards from Magic's history. That gives a beginning cube designer the false impression that they need to have these cards to create a good cube when that simply isn't true.