One work around for the "turn 3 wrath of god" problem would perhaps be to run 5 cmc sweepers like cleansing nova and end hostilities?
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One work around for the "turn 3 wrath of god" problem would perhaps be to run 5 cmc sweepers like cleansing nova and end hostilities?
Like Ondezeeboot. I would take a look at his cube if I were you. Some great ideas. Just look past the custom cards
This is an interesting angle. Not going to persue this road but.. We are all trying to cut the early mana and keep the interesting ramp targets. We could also go the other way and cut the interesting ramp targets but keep the ramp.
The targets just weren't as great.
I mean, the best thing to curve into from Llanowar Elves was Troll Ascetic. Which is a good card! But it won't kill you in a long time, even if you slap Loxodon Warhammer on it. And the best target for Goryo was probably Akroma, Angel of Wrath. It could kill you in three turns!
I think this is why many cards that were not a problem in Extended, like Krark-Clan Ironworks, Chrome Mox or Seething Song are now banned in Modern.
Something I've also noticed is that lack of lifelink, specially in control decks. From the top of my head, the only cards that gained you life were Loxodon Hierarch and Exalted Angel.
Treachery is dumb. I would avoid it, just like Oppossition.
Fact or Fiction is better replaced with Careful Consideration if you are looking for something similar but less questionable on power-level.
That said, it's important to note: Extended was not slow. It was a turn-4 format.
This is what I'm trying to do. Except I put Hornet Queen in. Woops!
Lifelink feels like a keyword that has been there forever. And it is evergreen now. But it was not keyworded when Exalted Angel came out in Onslaught or even when it left Standard. Life gain was not easy to come by but was also less relevant until creatures got better and sometimes strickly better.
What do you guys think they will say in 10 years about 2020’s MtG cards?
What do you guys think they will say in 10 years about 2020’s MtG cards?
I currently only run 5-6 mana Wraths and no 2cmc ramp in The Black Cube. I'm actually interested in trying out Signet -> Wrath. I never played control back then and only went to one tournament that wasn't a Sealed, plus I was bad at the game. So I actually want to see what effect that has, because it's not like the control decks were dominating.
I thought it was really interesting once I noticed it, too. It gets a little lame because Johnny won't be able to slam as sweet of a bomb, but that's ok. They still had Angel of Despair and Simic Sky Swallower, which are plenty sweet. They're just not Zacama by any means
The lifelink thing is really interesting and may have contributed to why 1/1s could get by in the aggro decks a bit. I don't think I currently run too much life gain in The Black Cube, but maybe it's more than the nearly none from that era. I'll keep an eye on that and reconsider my BW deck.
That's kind of why I put it in air quotes. A 1/2 for 1 is better than the baseline for what you'd expect for 1 mana, and it's certainly better than a 1/1 body, if only by a little bit.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I did a bit of research...
2/1's in the old frame
2/1's in the new frame, pre-2012
2/1's in the new frame, post-2011
1/2's in the old frame
1/2's in the new frame, pre-2012
1/2's in the new frame, post-2011
1 cmc 2/1's in the old days used to come with a disadvantage, the only exception being Savannah Lions. This didn't change when they switched to the new border, with Elite Vanguard, effectively a Lions reprint with better creature types, being the only new 2/1 without a downside. 2012 was a game changer. First, Gravecrawler entered the fray, with a downside (can't block) that was massively outweighed by its upside. Then Return to Ravnica entered the fray, and gave us Dryad Militant, a 2/1 with not one, but two upsides (hybrid mana being the less obvious one).
1 cmc 1/2's are a slightly different story, however. There aren't a lot of them in the old frame (only 8), but none of them come with a downside, three even have an upside! (Yes, there's five vanilla 1/2's for one mana in the old frame...) If we use the same timeframe, we see that the new frame doesn't introduce a lot of new 1 cmc 1/2's, but three of the five are clearly all upside. 2012 kicks off with another vanilla (here kitty, kitty), but the main takeaway is that the power creep in creatures really shows, with 49 (!) new 1 cmc 1/2's since 2012. In the last 8 years they've been printing almost 4 times as many 1 cmc 1/2's then they have in the first 18 years! That said, when you compare those 1/2's, most would still be at home in the early new border era (up to 2012). Looking at those first 13 cards, all but one of them are in
, so Thraben Inspector certainly doesn't seem out of place there. Just be sure to ignore the likes of Deathrite Shaman, Monastery Swiftspear, growing 1/2's like Favored Hoplite, Herald of Anafenza, and Narnam Renegade.Looking at the distribution in that mid 2000's period, I'ld say you want a two or three 1/2's in
, a few 2/1's in , and Savannah Lions (or Elite Vanguard) as a definitive include in . Be prepared to run a lot of 1/1's, basically I did a bit of reasearch...
2/1's in the old frame
2/1's in the new frame, pre-2012
2/1's in the new frame, post-2011
1/2's in the old frame
1/2's in the new frame, pre-2012
1/2's in the new frame, post-2011
1 cmc 2/1's in the old days used to come with a disadvantage, the only exception being Savannah Lions. This didn't change when they switched to the new border, with Elite Vanguard, effectively a Lions reprint with better creature types, being the only new 2/1 without a downside. 2012 was a game changer. First, Gravecrawler entered the fray, with a downside (can't block) that was massively outweighed by its upside. Then Return to Ravnica entered the fray, and gave us Dryad Militant, a 2/1 with not one, but two upsides (hybrid mana being the less obvious one).
1 cmc 1/2's are a slightly different story, however. There aren't a lot of them in the old frame (only 8), but none of them come with a downside, three even have an upside! (Yes, there's five vanilla 1/2's for one mana in the old frame...) If we use the same timeframe, we see that the new frame doesn't introduce a lot of new 1 cmc 1/2's, but three of the five are clearly all upside. 2012 kicks off with another vanilla (here kitty, kitty), but the main takeaway is that the power creep in creatures really shows, with 49 (!) new 1 cmc 1/2's since 2012. In the last 8 years they've been printing almost 4 times as many 1 cmc 1/2's then they have in the first 18 years! That said, when you compare those 1/2's, most would still be at home in the early new border era (up to 2012). Looking at those first 13 cards, all but one of them are in
Looking at the distribution in that mid 2000's period, I'ld say you want a two or three 1/2's in
I was saying to avoid it because it draws a card, not simply because it's a 1/2. It sees at least a little play in every format it's legal in other than legacy only because it can (kind of) cantrip.
I appreciate the time you spent on this. It was interesting to look at the history of Savannah Lions variants!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh for sure, I got that
I still think it's a great card though, and that it wouldn't look out of place (power level wise) in a mid 2000's cube.Definitely already had in mind to make the 2 power guys be vanilla at best or maybe have a really mild upside if they improve synergies somehow. Carnophage, Jackal Pup, and Savannah Lions are the ones that jump out in my mind.
I guess one thing I'm having a hard time with is that a lot of the decks were looking to exploit the synergy of a few cards rather than our traditional fully fleshed out archetypes we have today OR they just ran the best thing for a certain theater rather than an archetype. Zoo was all the best creatures. It wasn't a mix of heroic and power matters and legendary archetypes. The control decks were Remands and Wraths and Leaks. Glare was just trying to make the namesake as oppressive as possible. The Gifts deck just wanted to be able to put together some sick piles. Tron was popular but it was just mono blue control with potential early Keigas.
What I'm getting at is that our riptide values may not align with what was going on back then. The best way to build this cube may not be archetypes seeded into the multicolor sections. It might just be the 3-4 cards that best fit the desired power level. Which is... disappointingly generic. It might just be a thing you can't really do without restricting yourself to the pre-2007 card pool. Of course, that ruins the idea of a "living" cube and that spoils a lot of the fun of getting to constantly tweak what you're doing with the newest releases.
I'm looking through my archetypes right now and it just feels so modern. I'm not sure we can capture the golden era without restricting ourselves to it...
I guess one thing I'm having a hard time with is that a lot of the decks were looking to exploit the synergy of a few cards rather than our traditional fully fleshed out archetypes we have today OR they just ran the best thing for a certain theater rather than an archetype. Zoo was all the best creatures. It wasn't a mix of heroic and power matters and legendary archetypes. The control decks were Remands and Wraths and Leaks. Glare was just trying to make the namesake as oppressive as possible. The Gifts deck just wanted to be able to put together some sick piles. Tron was popular but it was just mono blue control with potential early Keigas.
What I'm getting at is that our riptide values may not align with what was going on back then. The best way to build this cube may not be archetypes seeded into the multicolor sections. It might just be the 3-4 cards that best fit the desired power level. Which is... disappointingly generic. It might just be a thing you can't really do without restricting yourself to the pre-2007 card pool. Of course, that ruins the idea of a "living" cube and that spoils a lot of the fun of getting to constantly tweak what you're doing with the newest releases.
I'm looking through my archetypes right now and it just feels so modern. I'm not sure we can capture the golden era without restricting ourselves to it...
Oh,guys, these last two pages were incredible and you mentioned so many things were I feel similar - beginning with the problems that planeswalkers and absurd Etb guys brought to the game, going on with the no longer existing needs of investing mana in your value, up to the point of keeping the good early spells and ramp but limiting the absurd (and shiny) new big boys we keep getting. Heck I even run many of the mentioned cards like Skeletal Vampire!
My first run of playing magic was from 2005 (when I was 10 or 11) until 2011, then I sold my collection and had a break for almost 4 years. They got me back on board when puberty was over and they announced going back to ravnica.
I've always loved the way magic was during the 2000's and I always kinda kept the principle of staying true to the feeling of that time. And while I'm not sure I've sticked to it 100% with every pick - it can be hard to enable all the cool archetypes, just today I though about Argent Sphinx - I think you might still be able to get some ideas of how an environment like this could look like from my cube @Brad. I'm going to share some of my design principles.
Some things I do:
I allow strong ramp like elves and signets, but keep the targets fair (Rhox and Ryusei the Falling Star)
I try to play the strong but fair spells of old times (Counterspell, Lightning Bolt and Terror. I probably should cut FoF though)
I do however stick to 5-mana wraths (or scaleable ones) to make aggro viable
I have certain stat limits, like a 1-mana aggro dude is not allowed to be strictly better than Savannah Lions (Dryad Militant has a downside with e.g. Call of the Herd, but I'd not add crap like Kytheon)
I try to stick to old color weaknesses and strengths (green gets absolutely no removal but clearly better creatures than other colors, especially blue/red/black. I don't forbid them Grizzly Bears, but green's the only color with stuff like Ant Queen)
I limit the numbers of really strong EtB value packages (Four or five 187 creatures like Nekrataal, but most blink targets are like "draw a card" or "create a goblin")
I don't run planeswalkers. I'd consider the uncommon ones that can't plus but don't touch any others because they heavily shape the game in a bad way imo
I want players to pay for their value or build around something for it (Unlinke PWs, Ant Queen or Drake Haven want some ongoing investment)
I stick to some classics for the old school feeling (Serra Angel, Hypnotic Specter or Birds of Paradise)
and maybe the most important thing:
I run a few pet cards and always go back to comparing potential new additions to them to keep them playable in my meta. Here is a list of cards that work as references for my cube:
Savannah Lions
Pacifism
Glorious Anthem
Merfolk Looter
Unsummon
Nantuko Husk
Gravdigger
Phyrexian Gargantua
Terror
Jackal Pup
Mogg Flunkies
Jungle Lion
Werebear
Wild Mongrel
Squirrel Nest
Watchwolf
The most interesting might be this beauty:
This card was my first rare creature and I love it until today. I think I managed to create a cube environment where this narrow and relatively weak card is actually a tempting choice. Yes, she still only goes into mono black, but black devotion is a strong supported deck and black has enough recursion to make a giant flier that can't protect itself still a strong finisher. And the cube is forgiving enough that a 6-drop doesn't feel like it needs an EtB.
So all that stuff you've been talking about really goes accord with how I feel about today's magic and the magic we had during that time period. And I'm really, really happy to see I'm not the only one thinking that way. Magic as a game has changed and that change has brought us many good things, but it can also bring bad. Thankfully we all found our ways into the greatest way of playing the greatest game. With cube you can shape it just like you love it
My first run of playing magic was from 2005 (when I was 10 or 11) until 2011, then I sold my collection and had a break for almost 4 years. They got me back on board when puberty was over and they announced going back to ravnica.
I've always loved the way magic was during the 2000's and I always kinda kept the principle of staying true to the feeling of that time. And while I'm not sure I've sticked to it 100% with every pick - it can be hard to enable all the cool archetypes, just today I though about Argent Sphinx - I think you might still be able to get some ideas of how an environment like this could look like from my cube @Brad. I'm going to share some of my design principles.
Some things I do:
I allow strong ramp like elves and signets, but keep the targets fair (Rhox and Ryusei the Falling Star)
I try to play the strong but fair spells of old times (Counterspell, Lightning Bolt and Terror. I probably should cut FoF though)
I do however stick to 5-mana wraths (or scaleable ones) to make aggro viable
I have certain stat limits, like a 1-mana aggro dude is not allowed to be strictly better than Savannah Lions (Dryad Militant has a downside with e.g. Call of the Herd, but I'd not add crap like Kytheon)
I try to stick to old color weaknesses and strengths (green gets absolutely no removal but clearly better creatures than other colors, especially blue/red/black. I don't forbid them Grizzly Bears, but green's the only color with stuff like Ant Queen)
I limit the numbers of really strong EtB value packages (Four or five 187 creatures like Nekrataal, but most blink targets are like "draw a card" or "create a goblin")
I don't run planeswalkers. I'd consider the uncommon ones that can't plus but don't touch any others because they heavily shape the game in a bad way imo
I want players to pay for their value or build around something for it (Unlinke PWs, Ant Queen or Drake Haven want some ongoing investment)
I stick to some classics for the old school feeling (Serra Angel, Hypnotic Specter or Birds of Paradise)
and maybe the most important thing:
I run a few pet cards and always go back to comparing potential new additions to them to keep them playable in my meta. Here is a list of cards that work as references for my cube:
Savannah Lions
Pacifism
Glorious Anthem
Merfolk Looter
Unsummon
Nantuko Husk
Gravdigger
Phyrexian Gargantua
Terror
Jackal Pup
Mogg Flunkies
Jungle Lion
Werebear
Wild Mongrel
Squirrel Nest
Watchwolf
The most interesting might be this beauty:
This card was my first rare creature and I love it until today. I think I managed to create a cube environment where this narrow and relatively weak card is actually a tempting choice. Yes, she still only goes into mono black, but black devotion is a strong supported deck and black has enough recursion to make a giant flier that can't protect itself still a strong finisher. And the cube is forgiving enough that a 6-drop doesn't feel like it needs an EtB.
So all that stuff you've been talking about really goes accord with how I feel about today's magic and the magic we had during that time period. And I'm really, really happy to see I'm not the only one thinking that way. Magic as a game has changed and that change has brought us many good things, but it can also bring bad. Thankfully we all found our ways into the greatest way of playing the greatest game. With cube you can shape it just like you love it
I really like your list of cards to compare against. I think that's the best way to stay honest to the old power level. You have to compare yourself to it.
I don't really think it's possible to hit a nostalgic power level here without going back to 2007 card pool, but you basically just outlined a lot of what I've been thinking today. Take some of the classics and use them as the power band and you probably get some good Magic.
Hell, even for those of us who aren't on that kind of power level, it would probably be smart to take 10 or so cards you really like and write them down. That's your power level right there. New card comes out and you're not sure? Just compare it to your list. I think it's hard to exactly define a power level, but this at least gives yourself a point of reference.
I'll definitely be checking out your cube later. Where'd you get the idea for Argent Sphinx?
The other thing I've been thinking is that the spells can be stronger than the creatures because the spells don't give you free value. Savannah Lions will draw you an extra Shock every turn for the first few turns of the game, Ponder just helps you out once.
I don't really think it's possible to hit a nostalgic power level here without going back to 2007 card pool, but you basically just outlined a lot of what I've been thinking today. Take some of the classics and use them as the power band and you probably get some good Magic.
Hell, even for those of us who aren't on that kind of power level, it would probably be smart to take 10 or so cards you really like and write them down. That's your power level right there. New card comes out and you're not sure? Just compare it to your list. I think it's hard to exactly define a power level, but this at least gives yourself a point of reference.
I'll definitely be checking out your cube later. Where'd you get the idea for Argent Sphinx?
The other thing I've been thinking is that the spells can be stronger than the creatures because the spells don't give you free value. Savannah Lions will draw you an extra Shock every turn for the first few turns of the game, Ponder just helps you out once.
Well of course these old cubes aren't going to align with synergy focused environments- they're just old powermax cubes!
Back then, they didn't have access to a lot of the great creatures and stuff we have today. You don't run a bad card like Order of Leitbur because you want too, you run it because you don't have any better options. Cube "staples" like Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Polukranos, World Eater weren't even printed until 2013, 6 to 7 years after the publication dates of the cubes we've been examining the last couple of days. 2007 was 13 years ago. I was 5 when that Magic Invitational took place.
To get the "nostalgic" feel of this era, then, I think all we have to do is think about the power band of each individual section and build the cube from there. The spell base remains the same, just with a few new Terror and and Volcanic Hammer variants. The creature base probably changes a lot, but we base those changes around the top end of the power level available at the time. There was a very wide power band of creatures back then, but nowadays the best creatures from that era kind of just fall into the middle of the pack. Mistral Charger is now joined by an army of 2/1 for 2 flying friends in white, and we can replace most of the bad cards for
with similarly powered but more splash able creatures for . I used Thalia as an example earlier because she's a card I'd want to run in a Nostalgia cube, but she's a bad example because she's so good. A better choice for comparison would be a card like Knight of Grace which is similar in form and function to White Knight but is easier to cast.Here's a video Circa 2008 featuring Evan Erwin doing his Eventide cube update. This video actually was one of my inspirations for learning about and eventually building a cube!
(Gee, I'm really glad I couldn't sleep that one night back in 2015 and just watched old Magic Show Reruns. I literally wouldn't be here without it lol.)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I suddenly feel very old :')
This is true.
The thing is that, design-wise, archetypes are pretty new to Magic. For the first 20 or so expansions, cards were made mostly on an individual level, without too much attention being paid to how they worked with other cards in the set. Sets had 2 or 3 mechanics and you just made cards and culled the bad ones.
What created different archetypes were strong, build-around cards like Oppossition, Academy Rector, Recurring Nightmare, Wildfire, Grave Pact and so on. Modern archetypes do not have "key" cards, they have a bunch of "on theme" cards that work well together.
The reason for the change, as I see it, is that cards that create a paradigm-shift in gameplay are extremely dangerous. Many of these build-arounds ended being banned. Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, Earthcraft, Replenish, Dream Halls, Fluctuator, all were banned at some point. Wider themes are much safer to design for. Blink is never going to break the game, at best it can be "too good" for Standard.
--
So the question is, can that be replicted? Is it even a good thing to replicate? I think the way Magic is designed now is better than it was back then, though it has less flavour and plays less to the strenghts of the game.
I ended up building a much more traditional cube over time, so I can't say I was successful at it!
Same!
I'm gonna see about reworking The Black Cube with these 2007 ideas in mind...
We'll see if this quarantine is long enough..
Next day edit: I've worked on it a bit and I think that The Black Cube is great in modern design. There's so much graveyard stuff to do, my one drops apply to most decks, everyone gets a healthy mix of black's removal and draw power as well as decent creatures... But I think ravnic is right. Keeping to the color weaknesses of old feels important to capture that old era. We didn't even have fight bad then, that's how back green was at killing creatures. If you weren't blue, your card draw options were basically none. I think that's too significant and The Black Cube's purpose is rooted in entirely opposite concepts.
We'll see if this quarantine is long enough..
Next day edit: I've worked on it a bit and I think that The Black Cube is great in modern design. There's so much graveyard stuff to do, my one drops apply to most decks, everyone gets a healthy mix of black's removal and draw power as well as decent creatures... But I think ravnic is right. Keeping to the color weaknesses of old feels important to capture that old era. We didn't even have fight bad then, that's how back green was at killing creatures. If you weren't blue, your card draw options were basically none. I think that's too significant and The Black Cube's purpose is rooted in entirely opposite concepts.
A question that always comes to my mind although I messed around with it from the very beginning:
How much Dredge?
Those are the ones that stand out to me. Loam is an incredible engine piece, but also quite narrow. Stinkweed Imp dredges 5 and is a recurrable pseudo-removal, GGT is enabler as well as payoff for Gx gy decks. Dakmor Salvage looks very interesting and it feels like there's something to make it work without any effort, but I don't know. I thought maybe one of the riptiders could help me on this one. Moldervine Cloak looks also pretty strong, but being an Aura maybe makes it more fair.
How much Dredge?
Those are the ones that stand out to me. Loam is an incredible engine piece, but also quite narrow. Stinkweed Imp dredges 5 and is a recurrable pseudo-removal, GGT is enabler as well as payoff for Gx gy decks. Dakmor Salvage looks very interesting and it feels like there's something to make it work without any effort, but I don't know. I thought maybe one of the riptiders could help me on this one. Moldervine Cloak looks also pretty strong, but being an Aura maybe makes it more fair.
I've played and liked stinkweed imp and life from the loam (kicks ass with discard effects). I'm testing modervine cloak but I've heard others have success with that card.
I think the dredgers are enablers for graveyard strategies, especially ones that care about creatures; so the question I have is what you want to enable with these cards?
I think the dredgers are enablers for graveyard strategies, especially ones that care about creatures; so the question I have is what you want to enable with these cards?
I run these three in addition to Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Gravetroll, always pondering around with Loam and the Cloak but my green's pretty tight and stuff like Splinterfright or Winding Way is also great for milling yourself. Still my opinion on dredge is 'as much as possible', if you use it as a fair value mechanic.
I don't think other colors were total crap at drawing
All these are cards from magic's first decade
Even the first three by themselves are a good dredge suite. Moldervine cloak is very strong, and won't support dredge as much as it will be a recurring buff for some aggressive strategy. I haven't found the creatures you mention to be impactful enough to include just because dredge is on the card. I would much rather have, for instance, stitcher's supplier
Ups to darkblast also. That card is great.
Ups to darkblast also. That card is great.
GGT looks pretty much like what every Gx gy deck wants, doesn't it? The cool thing about it is: if it's in your starting hand, it's a big enabler for selfmill, if you mill it with other enablers, it becomes a nice payoff ready to get dredged out. Stinkweed Imp on the other hand looks pretty annoying for decks that can't get rid of it permanently (exile) while also relying on damage by few but big creatures (the question here is if such a deck would even exist in my upcoming environment).
Darkblast is indeed a sweet card. Stitcher's Supplier is a card I really like, but it doesn't support so many archetypes/doesn't have other uses outside of selfmill. And thank you for your opinion on Moldervine Cloak. Dredge 2 actually isn't very much, though.
@ ravnic: I don't like Golgari Thug and thought about Necroplasm, as it could turn out especially sweet in a Bx proliferate deck, jumping from 2 counters to 4 and then going on, destroying bigger creatures while also growing. Still looks pretty slow and narrow.
Splinterfright and Winding Way (along with other selfmilling mini-tutors in BUG) are staples in my cube, I love them!
@ Rasmus: there's a bunch of cards I'd like to support, e.g. cards with the escape/eternalize/embalm/flashback/etc mechanics, cards like Advanced Stitchwing and Skaab Ruinator, reanimator spells like Unburial Rites and Twilight's Call, recurring lots of cards from the gy with Groundskeeper, Life from the Loam, Genesis, Garna, the Bloodflame, cards that want a lot of cards in gy like Splinterfright, Kessig Cagebreakers, Spider Spawning, Rise from the Tides, Graveblade Marauder, Golgari Grave-Troll - even cards like Gutterbones and Flame Jab that are reusable from gy. Oh, and LabMan, was a fan of implementing it from the spawning of the idea on these forums!
It's a 1/1, people usually don't care about it, so it needs to chump block to die. The trigger puts the creature on top, but if you can't draw it right away, it might be that you selfmill it to the yard without any use of it. At least that's what I think how it could easily happen in cube, I know about its strengths in constructed.