General Building cubes for newer players, Cubing minimalism

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So, I've had a cube for a little while now and I like to tinker with it and my players enjoy playing with. As word has gotten around, friends of the regular players have showed some interest in joining us, so that's what I'm pondering about right now.

For a beginner to sit down and try to make sense of a cube while still fresh to the game is bound to be a disaster, so I was toying with the idea of building a cube with mostly core set cards (which isn't a novel idea, but it's still what would be best for the newer players) to bring out when they want to join. The idea being that I'm building a minimalistic cube, where the cards are probably mostly vanilla, and try to make something that feels like a really sweet summer set draft.

Of course, this means that I'd have to do a lot with very little, and there needs to be a balance between both the simplicity for the sake of the newer players as well as the depth needed to keep us regular players interested. Still, a card like roaring primadox have a recurring effect that you can learn to use, which gives incentives for newer players to learn and explore as well as regular players to play around with durdles like elvish visionary bouncing. I think it's absolutely doable but I didn't find much discussed about it when I did a quick search, so;

What's in your opinion the most crucial thing to keep in mind when building a cube for introductory purposes? How many mechanics? When is too much vanilla too much? What is the guiding principle to balance depth and simplicity?

 

[Peter LaCara]

Have you played any Duels of the Planeswalkers? It's fantastic at roping in new players and getting lapsed players like I was back into the game. The decks and archetypes in them tend to be simple and elemental, but it turns out even relatively simple Magic has surprising depth all on its own. I would especially look at DotP 2013 and its expansions for cards and archetypes to include. You can read the basic decklists here: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx?x=mtg/digital/d13/decklists

 

[Lucre]

I have often wondered about the possibility of the white bordered cube. I might insist that the fixing be good though and as such have to ruin the aesthetic with some fucking black boardered lands.

 

[shamizy]

I think the best thing would be to look over a few core sets and analyze the mechanics and cards present within them. What do they share? What is the baseline power level? How much complexity can you actually introduce to a new player before it's overwhelming?

You want enough cards that are interesting to play with in a cube setting (not all simply french vanilla creatures), but you don't want complexity to be too high as to make the game complicated. There should be enough diversity such that you have the cube experience, but you don't want it too complicated. It's actually a really interesting space to work in. Probably need to rely on many evergreen mechanics and minimize the number of "expert" mechanics (like how we get 10 every block). You want mechanics that are intuitive and easy to understand. Something counter related could be good (not something too complicated though), Exalted was a nice beginner mechanic as well.

 

[Eric Chan]

I'm gonna spout the same answer I do every time - a set cube of your favourite core set! Mine's M13. There's a surprisingly amount of depth, enough that veterans won't be quickly bored - this is the set with the Roaring Primadox/Bond Beetle synergy - but it's still straightforward enough that it's not completely overwhelming for newer players. Best of all, you outsource all of the design and development work to Wizards, so that you can continue focusing your energies on your main list.

 

[silasw]

I think you'd need to include a ton of vanilla creatures. In order to match the complexity level of a New World Order core set, I imagine you might need ~15-20 vanilla creatures in a 360, plus a liberal application of virtual vanillas. Heck, if you can go up to 30 vanillas, that might be even better.

 

[James Stevenson]

I'm gonna spout the same answer I do every time - a set cube of your favourite core set! Mine's M13. There's a surprisingly amount of depth, enough that veterans won't be quickly bored - this is the set with the Roaring Primadox/Bond Beetle synergy - but it's still straightforward enough that it's not completely overwhelming for newer players. Best of all, you outsource all of the design and development work to Wizards, so that you can continue focusing your energies on your main list.

This seems like a good place to start, but there's no reason not to tweak it with other cards.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

360 Grizzly Bears. Somebody do it, now!

Edit: Try it out now!

 

[Laz]

360 Grizzly Bears. Somebody do it, now!

Edit: Try it out now!

I drafted it, interesting, but some of the cards seem bearly playable.

Maths challenge: How many lands should a deck play in this cube? My gut said 15, but no idea if that is correct.

 

[Jason Waddell]

360 Grizzly Bears. Somebody do it, now!

Edit: Try it out now!

We need a Frank Karsten article to tell us how many lands to run. Is a 41-card Grizzly Bear deck ever correct?

Surely, if we suppose there is an ideal ratio of bears to forests, and we have a flat power level, we only care about choosing deck size such that we come as close to this ratio as possible.

Or is decking a concern? 45 Bears + 20 Forests.dec?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I drafted it, interesting, but some of the cards seem bearly playable.

Maths challenge: How many lands should a deck play in this cube? My gut said 15, but no idea if that is correct.

I chuckled way too hard over that pun

Edit:

Hmm... P1P1 - Grizzly bears, then drafted around that.

Hahahahahahaha

We need a Frank Karsten article to tell us how many lands to run. Is a 41-card Grizzly Bear deck ever correct?

I searched for a Karsten article on Grizzly Bears to Forest ratios and it actually exists!

http://www.channelfireball.com/arti...playing-more-than-60-cards-always-a-bad-idea/

Only 2/2s for 2 and lands, 40-card minimum: 40 cards (24 creatures, 16 lands) is optimal

The article itself is pretty interesting by the way, but then again, all of Karsten's mathy articles are interesting

 

[Jason Waddell]

I guess the math is that, suppose you have drawn an excessive number of some type (bears or lands), the smaller your deck, the more likely it is that future draws contain what you are missing. At an extreme, if you have drawn 16 lands, your future draws are guaranteed to be bears. With a larger deck that is not true.

 

[Diakonov]

I guess the math is that, suppose you have drawn an excessive number of some type (bears or lands), the smaller your deck, the more likely it is that future draws contain what you are missing. At an extreme, if you have drawn 16 lands, your future draws are guaranteed to be bears. With a larger deck that is not true.

This also exactly illustrates the variance problem of larger cubes.

 

[Eric Chan]

This seems like a good place to start, but there's no reason not to tweak it with other cards.

Yeah, absolutely. The only question is whether you have the time and energy to manage two cubes, as thinking about designing even one cube can consume a lot of mental space. Personally, I decided it wasn't worth it, as the M13 set cube is just a diversion I bust out every now and then to train people up for the 'real thing'. But on the other hand, if your group is primarily beginners and you think that you'll be drafting your newcomer-friendly cube for more than a few weeks, it's probably worth it to put more focus on designing something even sweeter than core set cube.

 

[Goldenpineapple]

I play with a lot of newer players. Here's my two cents from what I've personally witnessed/discussed with new players:

• The fewer block keywords, the better. Cards like stromkirk noble and roaring primadox, with non-keyword abilities, actually grok more easily for most than something as simple as Lotus cobra. Keywords speedbump most peoples' understanding where they can link something flavor-wise or some such. If you DO use a block mechanic, try to use a linear mechanic that plays well with itself, like Evolve, so there's minimal confusion and easier deck-building!
• RARES! People cube to play with exciting cards! If you mimic a core set and have 10% or fewer of your cards be rares for power level reasons, people will just be less excited to return! Half of cube's power is to cut the chaff- no one likes opening nonsense in real boosters, and no one likes it in cube either. A seasoned player might be excited to open triplicate spirits or wingsteed rider, following an archetype to a peasant victory, but the average new player wants to use flashy cards! It sucks to have bears and pump spells when your friends have angels and dragons, even if you do better in-game.
• Run goodstuff/cut poison! New drafters often tunnel-vision on a color or two quickly after their first few picks, and you don't want to punish their inexperience by giving them otherwise-weak cards to mistakenly take. Don't let someone hurriedly take mulch or summat when it does nothing for them!