I had a very long and well thought out post (which you can believe if you can discount the idea that I am evaluating my own thoughts) that was lost to time and habitually hitting control-c for something else. But yes, I think it is normal to hit road blocks for designing. My point of the matter was, don't give up, and don't be afraid to talk to others about ideas, and then from that, don't be afraid to steal ideas from them (and don't be afraid to realize when someone's ideas are bad). Rarely is something amazing born from isolation, but group brainstorms and possibility storms have a good track record if all of you are on the right track.
General CBS
- Thread starter James Stevenson
- Start date
Dom Harvey
Contributor
This isn't tied to COVID but that certainly gives me time to think about it: Cube brings out the worst part of my perfectionist streak since there's no structure or defined goal to building a Cube and it's easy to burn down the whole house and start over if my latest sketch even just looks like it might fall short of my expectations (when actual people drafting it would probably still have a blast!)
Currently working on a new peasant cube. My first cube was peasant and I broke it apart a few years ago when I joined here. There’s been a lot of interesting new cards for peasant so I’m enjoying exploring the archetypes. At the very least it could inform my graveyard cube. I’m always waffling over how dense the graveyard combo cube is and I think there’s a little too much uniformity in the ways archetypes operate.
Philly has shut down all nonessential business, but I’m holding my job for the moment....the wife is working from home indefinitely. I expect I’ll have more time than I can handle to chase my tail in cube design. I’ll try to post a thread soon, I could use some input!
Take care y’all
Philly has shut down all nonessential business, but I’m holding my job for the moment....the wife is working from home indefinitely. I expect I’ll have more time than I can handle to chase my tail in cube design. I’ll try to post a thread soon, I could use some input!
Take care y’all
Hang in there inscho! Stay strong and healthy indoors. And keep us posted on the cube designing 
I think you nailed it, Dom. The perfectionist in me wants to show that I can build the best form of every cube and every archetype at every power level and there just isn't enough time or space or money. UR spells is great but what about UR draw 2 or UR "opponent's turn"? Just right there I need 3 cubes but i also want to integrate my wizards theme from good ol' Onslaught where I started, so I might want to try at least 6 builds just for UR just off the top of my head... oh, UR artifacts... It's a disastrously wide space for my mind to try and narrow down.
Absolutely, I also had that perfectionist mindset for a long time as a DM in DnD, and that mindset can be absolutely devastating to players who want to express themselves and for the story to go in a more open-ended direction. This video best describes the type of dichotomy that happened, thankfully this was more of a behind the scenes problem for me. Like one of my players would have much rather been a bard-like character in our campaign, and it's not that I twisted his arm into a role, it's that we were bouncing ideas off of each other and neither of us stopped to think about whether he would actually enjoy playing his character (I didn't find this out until mid-campaign, which is weird because I always encourage player input). I do think that railroading isn't bad, but having the story be more open ended is better. If we bring it back to cube I can say that innistrad is a more open ended set, while dark ascension is too railroad-y. Player expression is the type of environment I want to create not only in DnD, but also in cube. (And I use DnD as a blanket term for tabletop games because in light of this realization I decided to forego 5th edition in favor of something less rules heavy, and have leaned more on improvisation). Now that my county has also shut down all non-essential businesses and told everyone to stay home, I guess I'll be playing more cube and DnD online with my friends who are bored at home (I'm the only one in the group that has to balance college work).
So excuse me while I prepare to pitch a campaign about thumb-sized adventurers that have to deal with seemingly insurmountable beasts.
Despite how topical that may sound, I actually have been planning this setting for months.
So excuse me while I prepare to pitch a campaign about thumb-sized adventurers that have to deal with seemingly insurmountable beasts.
Despite how topical that may sound, I actually have been planning this setting for months.
Done is better than perfect.
And it's not an empty platitute, either. The quality of my articles is directly correlated to how much I write. If I write a bunch, my articles get better because I'm more focused, more used to writing and I have more "tries" to get it right. There's this idea that if you go and work supermegahard you are going to end up with better quality work. It's not true, because you are not ready for it. You hit the point of diminishing returns very quickly and you are better off starting a new thing than trying to improve wha t you already have by 0,1%.
I mean, you can look at my stuff and see it. My "must get everything right" articles are terrible comapred to my newer, much more casually written stuff.
--
Regarding Peasant, I'm also going to try my hand at a low-power cube soon. It's just a lot of fun to create a cube, for me it's more fun than actually playing the game! My goal is to create one that is incredibly cheap and that I can easily build in real life.
And it's not an empty platitute, either. The quality of my articles is directly correlated to how much I write. If I write a bunch, my articles get better because I'm more focused, more used to writing and I have more "tries" to get it right. There's this idea that if you go and work supermegahard you are going to end up with better quality work. It's not true, because you are not ready for it. You hit the point of diminishing returns very quickly and you are better off starting a new thing than trying to improve wha t you already have by 0,1%.
I mean, you can look at my stuff and see it. My "must get everything right" articles are terrible comapred to my newer, much more casually written stuff.
--
Regarding Peasant, I'm also going to try my hand at a low-power cube soon. It's just a lot of fun to create a cube, for me it's more fun than actually playing the game! My goal is to create one that is incredibly cheap and that I can easily build in real life.
handling that urge for perfectionism is definitely a tough nut to crack. Glad to see a discussion on it. I am big into gardening, have been since I was a little tyke helping causing mayhem in my parents garden. I've recently managed to get back into it in a big way since getting my own place, and one of my main goals over these past couple years has been to not get lost in the weeds (pun not intended). If you bury yourself in the details, in striving for those picturesque results, you will burn out. Unless you're into a hobby for a purposefully short experience, sustainable enjoyment is the goal.
I would say the number one reason people stop gardening (this applies to many, many different hobbies in life) is overwhelm. Flying in face first and expecting/hoping for good results off the rip. To get that award-winning giant pumpkin, you first have to know how to grow any pumpkin period.
I've had to continually tell myself that failure is ok. That I can mess up some placement of a plant, or space them wrong. Seedlings can die and get eaten. I got stuff into the ground and I learned and I enjoyed it. That's a recipe for growth. Enjoyable growth. Hopefully I can keep that mindset going.
I would say the number one reason people stop gardening (this applies to many, many different hobbies in life) is overwhelm. Flying in face first and expecting/hoping for good results off the rip. To get that award-winning giant pumpkin, you first have to know how to grow any pumpkin period.
I've had to continually tell myself that failure is ok. That I can mess up some placement of a plant, or space them wrong. Seedlings can die and get eaten. I got stuff into the ground and I learned and I enjoyed it. That's a recipe for growth. Enjoyable growth. Hopefully I can keep that mindset going.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I could make a Hearthstone cube, and how I would make it work given that you would need to somehow enable multiclass decks.
Yeah, I know, sigh's post was definitely better, I'm just musing out loud
Yeah, I know, sigh's post was definitely better, I'm just musing out loud
Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I could make a Hearthstone cube, and how I would make it work given that you would need to somehow enable multiclass decks.
Yeah, I know, sigh's post was definitely better, I'm just musing out loud
Please do this!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Maybe do something like you pick your hero's after constructing a deck. When the game starts, after keeping an opening hand, pick one of your hero's to be your active hero. You can only cast class cards that match your active hero. You can switch to a different hero by paying a number of mana equal to the number of inactive hero's you have. For example, say you've drafted a deck with Warrior, Rogue, and Priest cards. You start as the Rogue to cast your Rogue one drop, then on turn 2 you equip the dagger, and on turn 3 you switch to the Priest by paying 2, then play a Priest one drop, et cetera.
I see the issue with the traditionel drafting system and having 9 classes if you are restricted into only playing one of the classes. You are going to end up with many, many dead cards.
The way I see it there are two different approaches you should consider before going down that multi-class path. I do not think multiclasses feel very Hearthstony.
1. Get inspiration from sets like Theros where mono-colored decks are in focus. Maybe Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Also make sure to include many neutral cards.
2. Get inspiration from the ‘new’ way of drafting on Magic Arena and Hearthstone’s Arena where each player picks their cards unaffected by other players. This means no table of 8 players where you can signal colors and cut people off by fighting over cards. Instead you can have the players draft their decks at home a week prior to the tournament and show up only play the games.
Those would be my suggestions before trying multiclases.
The way I see it there are two different approaches you should consider before going down that multi-class path. I do not think multiclasses feel very Hearthstony.
1. Get inspiration from sets like Theros where mono-colored decks are in focus. Maybe Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Also make sure to include many neutral cards.
2. Get inspiration from the ‘new’ way of drafting on Magic Arena and Hearthstone’s Arena where each player picks their cards unaffected by other players. This means no table of 8 players where you can signal colors and cut people off by fighting over cards. Instead you can have the players draft their decks at home a week prior to the tournament and show up only play the games.
Those would be my suggestions before trying multiclases.
I've been out of the loop for a while, is it even possible to construct decks in the client with cards from multiple classes?
Thinking of drafting, I guess you would then need 2+ accounts with all the cube cards unlocked on it?
Err... were you thinking a 'custom card' version? i.e. non-digital?
Thinking of drafting, I guess you would then need 2+ accounts with all the cube cards unlocked on it?
Err... were you thinking a 'custom card' version? i.e. non-digital?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ha, I was in fact thinking non-digital, but being able to actually play games over the client would be pretty sweet!
You know, I was thinking, what if I can actually apply lessons I learned from you, Jason, to this theoretical draft environment as well? I've been running a multicolor cube for the longest time now, but I don't support every color combination. The problem is, of course, that if you have 10 color pairs, and a focus on multicolor, there are more color pairs than drafters, which means some guilds won't be drafted at all, and some will be overdrafted (meaning there are at least two people trying to pick up the same guild cards). What if, instead of all 9 classes, one were to include only 5?
The appeal of cube, to me, has always been the pursuit of creating a "perfect" draft environment for play. I'm probably never going to reach that point, but the journey has been interesting enough to keep me tuned in to each release of new cards to tinker around with over the last 6 years. It's just fun being able to play with new toys and plug up any holes that you might have had in previous iterations. I'd say the biggest thing is to really define your goals for an environment and strive to refine that with whatever tools you have available. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, and probably won't be for many iterations (if ever), but just keeping your design goals in the back of your head is the best advice I'd give. It's easy to get burnt out or lose passion if you focus on tinkering and refinement way too much, especially if most of your presumed outcomes are theoretical without any real life cube sessions to pull data from. Just go with the flow and keep the process fun. If it isn't, then just take a break.
On that note, I do find that it becomes easier over time to lose sight of initial goals when you first constructed your environment, especially with current design philosophies at WoTC. I wanted a synergistic environment focusing upon design elements rather than raw power, though still at a high power level. For the most part I've kept to this, but there has been a gradual trend towards using the best of each set and even just swapping and moving things around just for the hell of it. There's so much of a push towards hyper efficiency and value that these are often rolled into new legitimately interesting designs and lead to a crappy conundrum. Do I include this card because it's fills in a hole even if it's just generically powerful? Will it be used for the purpose I envisioned or is it just going to be snapped in draft because it's strong? With so few opportunities to actually play in real life (especially now), it's hard to really gauge the effects of any changes made to my environment. Like, it took all of one session with a Birds of Paradise into Oko, Thief of Crowns to realize that that idiot was busted and not fun at all to play against. Similar experiences with other high-powered sacred cows in traditional cubes have led to similar conclusions.
I adore designs like Tireless Tracker that synergize on various fronts but despise extremely pushed bloat like Questing Beast. I begrudgingly run it due to the niche it occupies as an aggressive, evasive green 4 drop and splash planeswalker hate. I wish it were more on the level of Vengevine; just a clean and simple template that has more depth beneath the surface once you can exploit synergies with other cards. That's usually my go-to when looking at cards for inclusion. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be something especially compelling or wow-inducing to fill in the needs of an environment. I've slotted Herald of Torment in and out of my cube multiple times over the years in favor of cooler new aggressive black 3 drops, but it's always been reliable. I need an aggressive 3 with evasion that is good early and has utility at the end of games too, this card has always filled that need. It doesn't always have to be an arms race with the latest hotness coming out in a set. If it doesn't actually improve gameplay or allow you to explore new avenues, maybe it's just not worth messing around with in the first place.
On that note, I do find that it becomes easier over time to lose sight of initial goals when you first constructed your environment, especially with current design philosophies at WoTC. I wanted a synergistic environment focusing upon design elements rather than raw power, though still at a high power level. For the most part I've kept to this, but there has been a gradual trend towards using the best of each set and even just swapping and moving things around just for the hell of it. There's so much of a push towards hyper efficiency and value that these are often rolled into new legitimately interesting designs and lead to a crappy conundrum. Do I include this card because it's fills in a hole even if it's just generically powerful? Will it be used for the purpose I envisioned or is it just going to be snapped in draft because it's strong? With so few opportunities to actually play in real life (especially now), it's hard to really gauge the effects of any changes made to my environment. Like, it took all of one session with a Birds of Paradise into Oko, Thief of Crowns to realize that that idiot was busted and not fun at all to play against. Similar experiences with other high-powered sacred cows in traditional cubes have led to similar conclusions.
I adore designs like Tireless Tracker that synergize on various fronts but despise extremely pushed bloat like Questing Beast. I begrudgingly run it due to the niche it occupies as an aggressive, evasive green 4 drop and splash planeswalker hate. I wish it were more on the level of Vengevine; just a clean and simple template that has more depth beneath the surface once you can exploit synergies with other cards. That's usually my go-to when looking at cards for inclusion. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be something especially compelling or wow-inducing to fill in the needs of an environment. I've slotted Herald of Torment in and out of my cube multiple times over the years in favor of cooler new aggressive black 3 drops, but it's always been reliable. I need an aggressive 3 with evasion that is good early and has utility at the end of games too, this card has always filled that need. It doesn't always have to be an arms race with the latest hotness coming out in a set. If it doesn't actually improve gameplay or allow you to explore new avenues, maybe it's just not worth messing around with in the first place.
Lots of great discussion here, so thanks to everyone who can relate.
Onder, your Hearthstone cube idea feels like it sums up my goals so well. Take an idea that's extremely difficult and try to get it done. Why? Probably just to show that I can.
shamizy, I think you have a great point about losing sight of your goals due to new cards. My first cube ever was powermax and I basically hated it. From there, I discovered Jason's articles and Eldrazi Domain right as BFZ was bringing us new eldrazi. Obviously, I attempted to make an eldrazi-focused environment and it was alright, but it's a tricky thing to do for a bunch of reasons I can go into if anyone is curious and/or would like to help me with. But why was I so interested in eldrazi as opposed to any other big dumb idiots? Well, they were in the newest set is probably a big reason. I could easily (and inexpensively) run some giant artifacts, ya know? Similarly, you'll see me or Onder complain about a new card because we don't support those color pairs. Do I actually need those cards? Do I even remember what they were at this point? Does he? Probably not. But it's a shiny new toy, and that's very distracting.
If we REALLY wanted the perfect environment, we would probably just go all customs and fully collaborate all of our minds and testing to get there. But I think we all enjoy the new toys and I think we all enjoy the confines WotC's designs have placed on us. Too much design freedom is a little dangerous.
Onder, your Hearthstone cube idea feels like it sums up my goals so well. Take an idea that's extremely difficult and try to get it done. Why? Probably just to show that I can.
shamizy, I think you have a great point about losing sight of your goals due to new cards. My first cube ever was powermax and I basically hated it. From there, I discovered Jason's articles and Eldrazi Domain right as BFZ was bringing us new eldrazi. Obviously, I attempted to make an eldrazi-focused environment and it was alright, but it's a tricky thing to do for a bunch of reasons I can go into if anyone is curious and/or would like to help me with. But why was I so interested in eldrazi as opposed to any other big dumb idiots? Well, they were in the newest set is probably a big reason. I could easily (and inexpensively) run some giant artifacts, ya know? Similarly, you'll see me or Onder complain about a new card because we don't support those color pairs. Do I actually need those cards? Do I even remember what they were at this point? Does he? Probably not. But it's a shiny new toy, and that's very distracting.
If we REALLY wanted the perfect environment, we would probably just go all customs and fully collaborate all of our minds and testing to get there. But I think we all enjoy the new toys and I think we all enjoy the confines WotC's designs have placed on us. Too much design freedom is a little dangerous.
I wonder if color is even a concept you have to deal with in such a context. The 'mana' in Hearthstone is all colorless, and the main reason why archetypes are tied to colors in retail drafts (aside from flavor, color identity) is that a player can only reasonably wield a 2-2.5 color deck in most settings.
Not to mention that (aside from the tri-class cards) there aren't really any multicolor cards in Hearthstone.
For me the biggest issue is that being digital is so tied into the DNA of the cards. Pretty much every card I loved in Hearthstone would be nearly prohibitively difficult to execute on paper. It's a shame that free-format decks aren't allowed though.
Does anyone know if they ever fixed trading on MTGO? Or is it still a huge headache to loan somebody cards and get them back (given the different versions)?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of cards that you simply can't do in paper. There's also a lot you can do though. I'm thinking of "translating" the game to Magic, the Warlock being black for example, and change the way the mana system works. Basically you can choose a hero, which comes with 10 basic lands, which go into the command zone. Play one at the start of your turn, Warlock cards cost black mana, so you can only cast them if you're a warlock. Include a lot of neutrals in the draft so everyone can draft a deck.
I think if you lock everybody out of each other's colors entirely you limit a lot of the possibilities. If you're already breaking things open, I would think one of the main appeals would be to enable the player to include cards of different classes and find interesting combos / synergies.
Alternative ideas:
- let the player include cards from up to N classes
- put colored mana requirements on some cards, let the player select their 10 lands after drafting. maybe some stronger cards of a given class would cost 1CC or something, but others could just cost 1 or 3C or whatever.
Alternative ideas:
- let the player include cards from up to N classes
- put colored mana requirements on some cards, let the player select their 10 lands after drafting. maybe some stronger cards of a given class would cost 1CC or something, but others could just cost 1 or 3C or whatever.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It's funny how your intuition goes into a different direction than Velrun's
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Contemplating something like this:
If you start with a land stack of 10 basics, and your hero dictates 8 of those have to be a single color, you can splash a bit, and you can make certain splashy cards class exclusive.
If you start with a land stack of 10 basics, and your hero dictates 8 of those have to be a single color, you can splash a bit, and you can make certain splashy cards class exclusive.
I admit the reason I'm not building a Netrunner cube is that it would actually be two cubes (The game is assymetrical) and I'm lazy to build the whole thing up and hit people to draft it with. Specially since it would eat time with them I could put into playing L5R lol.
--
It's weird, because I'm thinking of building a low-pòwer level cube to play cards like this:
Do you guys know which card is very nostalgic to me?
I love this card. And I didn't play when it was good, mind you, I just played it while building up my Tooth and Nail deck back in the Kamigawa days lol.
--
It's weird, because I'm thinking of building a low-pòwer level cube to play cards like this:
Do you guys know which card is very nostalgic to me?
I love this card. And I didn't play when it was good, mind you, I just played it while building up my Tooth and Nail deck back in the Kamigawa days lol.
Where all of my recent designs have begun. Welcome to my nightmare lol.
I admit the reason I'm not building a Netrunner cube is that it would actually be two cubes (The game is assymetrical) and I'm lazy to build the whole thing up and hit people to draft it with. Specially since it would eat time with them I could put into playing L5R lol.
--
It's weird, because I'm thinking of building a low-pòwer level cube to play cards like this:
Do you guys know which card is very nostalgic to me?
I love this card. And I didn't play when it was good, mind you, I just played it while building up my Tooth and Nail deck back in the Kamigawa days lol.
I've been toying with the idea of designing (key word: designing) a cube using primarily cards and mechanics printed before the year 2007. No planeswalkers, no hyper-efficient creatures, just good old fashioned over-costed 3/3s and over-powered spells. And Molten Hydra. And Masticore. Arguably Masticore and Molten-Tail Masticore should be in my cube right now but that's not the point...
...And Llanowar Elves. And Breath of Darigaaz. And Children of Korlis. And Evasive Action. And...