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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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That is literally how my cube functions.
But 70 % of the picks are a spell + a basic land. About 30 % are actually what you were referring to.
Ari Lax posted a very interesting breakdown of how power-toughness relationships might affect limited Magic. I suggest reading it for anyone that has cube-ish projects with a lot of combat interactions!
https://armlx.blogspot.com/2019/01/limited-design-32-for-three-is-place-to.html
https://armlx.blogspot.com/2019/01/limited-design-32-for-three-is-place-to.html
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Thats an amazing article!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, pretty cool!
Damn, that's one of the best Magic design articles I've read in a long time. Highly recommend anyone on this forum read it.
Very enjoyable article, well put arguments. Here's a scryfall link for anyone curious about what 3 cmc 3/2s have been printed throughout magic history:
https://scryfall.com/search?q=power=3+toughness=2+cmc=3&order=color
https://scryfall.com/search?q=power=3+toughness=2+cmc=3&order=color
I'm not sure I'm following- could you provide some examples?
the relationship between the amount of mana you spend and the effectiveness of the P/T you get out of it is not linear, it's some curved thing.
for cheaper cards, the P/T output is not worth the card. for more expensive cards, the P/T output is not worth the mana (or is often too slow to be relevant).
the exact relationship depends a lot on the format. the extreme examples would be how a 1 mana vanilla 1/1 is basically not worth a card ever without some serious rules text backing it up. on the other hand, a 10 mana 10/10 would never be worth it without some serious rules text as well.
for very many formats the "best" point in that curve is the 4 mana 4/4.
1 factor of this has to do with the ability of cards to double block
for example to double block a 4/4 with some lower combination, your choices are two cards with power 1+3, 2+2, 2+3, or 3+3. on the other hand to double block a 5/5 you can use 1+4, 2+3, 2+4, 3+4, 3+3, etc.
another issue there is the cost of removal, and the fact that later in the game the opponent will have more mana to spend on clearing the path (making more expensive drops doubly vulnerable). putting more mana into 1 creature when it might be able to go somewhere else is worth less and less, because it can all be "lost" with 1 removal spell. in the same way, 1 creature can block it, and nullify its offensive power.
a 4 power creature tends to be able to remove many relevant planeswalkers in a single swing the turn they drop
another issue here is that often the cutoff for conditional removal often is toughness or cmc 3 (even in formats without bolt, we often have some variant on volcanic hammer or smother)
another aspect is players have 20 life.
the amount of turns it takes a creature of a given power to kill a player is:
1 power takes 20 turns
2 power takes 10 turns
3 power takes 7 turns
4 power takes 5 turns <-
5 power takes 4 turns
6 power takes 4 turns
7 power takes 3 turns
8 power takes 3 turns
9 power takes 3 turns
10 power takes 2 turns
notice that we have diminishing returns on this for the more power we put in! and 3 -> 4 power is the last jump by more than 1 turn.
also, in a lot of formats, turn 4 is basically the last turn to finally play something if you didn't play any other spells this game, and still have a chance to be in the game. (how big of a chance varies a lot by format).
i think the big notable exception to all this is vintage, which once upon a time had people playing slash panther because the resource system does not function how you would expect. (although the 4 power to kill planeswalkers was still relevant in that decision!)
for cheaper cards, the P/T output is not worth the card. for more expensive cards, the P/T output is not worth the mana (or is often too slow to be relevant).
the exact relationship depends a lot on the format. the extreme examples would be how a 1 mana vanilla 1/1 is basically not worth a card ever without some serious rules text backing it up. on the other hand, a 10 mana 10/10 would never be worth it without some serious rules text as well.
for very many formats the "best" point in that curve is the 4 mana 4/4.
1 factor of this has to do with the ability of cards to double block
for example to double block a 4/4 with some lower combination, your choices are two cards with power 1+3, 2+2, 2+3, or 3+3. on the other hand to double block a 5/5 you can use 1+4, 2+3, 2+4, 3+4, 3+3, etc.
another issue there is the cost of removal, and the fact that later in the game the opponent will have more mana to spend on clearing the path (making more expensive drops doubly vulnerable). putting more mana into 1 creature when it might be able to go somewhere else is worth less and less, because it can all be "lost" with 1 removal spell. in the same way, 1 creature can block it, and nullify its offensive power.
a 4 power creature tends to be able to remove many relevant planeswalkers in a single swing the turn they drop
another issue here is that often the cutoff for conditional removal often is toughness or cmc 3 (even in formats without bolt, we often have some variant on volcanic hammer or smother)
another aspect is players have 20 life.
the amount of turns it takes a creature of a given power to kill a player is:
1 power takes 20 turns
2 power takes 10 turns
3 power takes 7 turns
4 power takes 5 turns <-
5 power takes 4 turns
6 power takes 4 turns
7 power takes 3 turns
8 power takes 3 turns
9 power takes 3 turns
10 power takes 2 turns
notice that we have diminishing returns on this for the more power we put in! and 3 -> 4 power is the last jump by more than 1 turn.
also, in a lot of formats, turn 4 is basically the last turn to finally play something if you didn't play any other spells this game, and still have a chance to be in the game. (how big of a chance varies a lot by format).
i think the big notable exception to all this is vintage, which once upon a time had people playing slash panther because the resource system does not function how you would expect. (although the 4 power to kill planeswalkers was still relevant in that decision!)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Dat first turn Slash Panther off of Mishra's Workshop and a Mox :o
The most common fallacy (I have found) when switching from constructing a competitive deck to constructing a cube for players to draft with is the fact that stronger doesn't always mean better. When constructing a Standard/Modern/Commander deck you always have to look for upgrades through synergy, meta beaters or pure power level but when you have 100 % total control over the entire format it becomes an entirely different matter because you are actually sitting on both sides of the table. So to speak. You are brewing both players' options to choose from even before they enter the tournament.
I believe all of us here still see people with the argument "Card A is stronger than card B" and thus they want card A in their/your/my cube. It seems like most of the MTG community have still not processed that thought all the way through. Wizards of the Coast think mostly like Riptiders when they design a set. That is why we don't see more and more powerful card in each limited format. Because once again: Each limited format just has to be balanced with itself and not with other limited formats.
The most recent article about cube inclusions from www.magiccardmarket.eu
https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Guilds-of-Ravnica-Top-10-Cube-Picks
I want to thank you all for the lessons I have learned on this web page.
I believe all of us here still see people with the argument "Card A is stronger than card B" and thus they want card A in their/your/my cube. It seems like most of the MTG community have still not processed that thought all the way through. Wizards of the Coast think mostly like Riptiders when they design a set. That is why we don't see more and more powerful card in each limited format. Because once again: Each limited format just has to be balanced with itself and not with other limited formats.
The most recent article about cube inclusions from www.magiccardmarket.eu
https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Guilds-of-Ravnica-Top-10-Cube-Picks
I want to thank you all for the lessons I have learned on this web page.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ha, Doom Whisperer was a hard pass from the moment I saw it. I love the ability, but I have no need for a 6/6 trampling flyer for five.
It really kind of is like making a mod to an fps where everyone gets the super-mega-god-bazooka. It sound's fun but it really isn't that interesting to just have the absolutely most broken thing
Really happy about having that hammered into me about this board, all the ways you can make your format interesting beyond just powerlevel.
CML
Contributor
Vintage is like college football-10% epic slugfests, 90% horrific mismatches
I think that's the experience WotC is going for when it plays up "highs and lows" in Cube and draft-format design
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I mean, what absolute insane density of +1/+1 cards would you have to run for it to be remotely possible to get the alt. win con on that card come together in an actual draft game? And if that isn't possible in the environment, is it worth running a gold card where half of it's flavor text?
Ascendancy say put that many growth counters on it. So if GGT comes in with 6, Ascendancy also gets 6.
I don't necessarily think "cool enough" is the correct lens to look at this issue through. Simic Ascendancy is probably one of the coolest alt-win conditions ever printed, but it can be impossibly hard to make work.
The problem with Simic Ascendancy is that most games when you get to 20 counters are games you already would have won. Remember, 20 +1/+1 counters is 20 power which has graced the board at some point, not counting the base stats of creatures. Looping a Golgari Grave-Troll to add counters to Simic Ascendancy is certainly an interesting idea, but is it a realistic goal? Like, If we wanted to get 20 counters on ascendancy just using the troll, we would need a bunch of creatures in our graveyard, a ton of mana, and a sacrifice outlet. I think it's probably doable, but I think that fast decks would just destroy the synergy before you can make it work.
Some of the examples of ways to support Simic Ascendancy I have seen posted here are just generically good +1/+1 counters matter cards. Like, yeah, Cytoplast Root-Kin and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan are really good at moving counters, but they're also just good magic cards. You don't need a alt-win combo piece for these cards to be good.
Maybe the playability of the support pieces is a strike in the favor of Simic Ascendancy. After all, the best way to support a weird combo deck is to make sure the parts of that deck are individually playable outside of the combo. However, I would argue that Simic Ascendancy is probably going to be a win-more scenario in many of these situations.
I'm going to leave a link to a recent MTGGoldfish video where Seth played a Simic Ascendancy deck in standard. Of 13 games played, he only won 3 of them with ascendancy. However, he won 9 games with the deck over all. In one of the matches he literally would have won the game attacking the same turn he triggered ascendancy.
Over all, I think Simic Ascendancy is a cool card, but I don't know if it's actually going to put up any results. I think the support cards are going to end up winning games more often than the alternative wincon will. I would say try it if you feel like it, but just be weary of what I have said here. Make sure to include lots of ways to add counters for free, or risk the deck failing.