General CBS

[Velrun]

I'm definitely not a fan of how the border "fades out" on extended art cards. I feel like the Japanese mystical archives had the right idea about how to handle it:

You’ve located my only issue and I think you’ve located the perfect solution as well.

Except maybe not as full art. I like the extensions to the left and right but not the fading of the type line.

 

[ravnic]

Do you guys think it is confusing to run Sagas and Classes in the same cube? For newbies drafting it, I mean? Will they mix them up or be irritaed when they just understood how one thing works and then they see the other (with mana costs to level or with chapters for example). I know they don't look identical, but still, I am hesitant to add a class. I'm only running two sagas at this point btw.

 

[blacksmithy]

Do you guys think it is confusing to run Sagas and Classes in the same cube? For newbies drafting it, I mean? Will they mix them up or be irritaed when they just understood how one thing works and then they see the other (with mana costs to level or with chapters for example). I know they don't look identical, but still, I am hesitant to add a class. I'm only running two sagas at this point btw.

in a word, yes. of the two, i think sagas are cooler in general. that said, if you have regular drafters, you could “teach” one first and then work in the other once mastery over the first has been attained

 

[ravnic]

I was hoping for "nah, that's no problem, it's super ovious", but thanks for telling me the truth.
Maybe it's less bad with only 2 sagas and 1 class in a 680 card cube, as they are less likely to be opened in the same pack or even in the same seat?

 

[Mown]

I feel like once you try to read the actual effects you will realize that they are incongruent with your assumptions of how things should work, which hopefully leads you to reading the rest of the card.

 

[blacksmithy]

I was hoping for "nah, that's no problem, it's super ovious", but thanks for telling me the truth.
Maybe it's less bad with only 2 sagas and 1 class in a 680 card cube, as they are less likely to be opened in the same pack or even in the same seat?

this definitely mitigates it a lot, i would be much more worried if there were, for example, a bunch of sagas and one class card

 

[Brad]

Is there a way to use scryfall to grab all the art from a set/block/search? I feel like there is, but I don't know enough. @Onderzeeboot

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Is there a way to use scryfall to grab all the art from a set/block/search? I feel like there is, but I don't know enough. @Onderzeeboot

You'ld have to fool around with the API to do that. There is a way to request only the art_crop, but I have no experience in using the API, so I can't help you further than this, unfortunately.

 

[Brad]

Anyone ever played with a cube full of intentionally shitty cards? How was the experience?

Or any cube designed for absurdity, really.

 

[Zoss]

I drafted Alpha once (online, not IRL) which is and isn't the same as what you describe. My deck was nine Circles of Protection spread throughout all five colors and forty-two cards so that I could win by mill. It was about as fun as you'd think for the first couple of hours, but when we got to the second match it started to get a little stale and I think most intentionally shitty draft experiences are like that.

 

[Brad]

I drafted Alpha once (online, not IRL) which is and isn't the same as what you describe. My deck was nine Circles of Protection spread throughout all five colors and forty-two cards so that I could win by mill. It was about as fun as you'd think for the first couple of hours, but when we got to the second match it started to get a little stale and I think most intentionally shitty draft experiences are like that.

Lol I'm just trying to think of something funny for the kids, but that makes sense.

That said, I think the cards can be intentionally shitty without the draft being shitty.

 

[Modin]

Anyone ever played with a cube full of intentionally shitty cards? How was the experience?

Or any cube designed for absurdity, really.

With the joke being that the cards are bad? I'd look at morphs and creatures with weird activated abilities.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I played a reject rare draft once, and walked away with a Yawgmoth's Will that one of the richer drafters threw in as a joke because it is pretty abyssmal in a format full with expensive underperformers (it was only $15 or so back then, oops). My MVPs were the two Phyrexian Infiltrators that I picked up. Turns out is a good price to swap your worst creature with their best

 

[ravnic]

I played a reject rare draft once, and walked away with a Yawgmoth's Will that one of the richer drafters threw in as a joke because it is pretty abyssmal in a format full with expensive underperformers (it was only $15 or so back then, oops). My MVPs were the two Phyrexian Infiltrators that I picked up. Turns out is a good price to swap your worst creature with their best

Wow. That card shouldn't work like that, but it does ...

 

[Laz]

I played a reject rare draft once, and walked away with a Yawgmoth's Will that one of the richer drafters threw in as a joke because it is pretty abyssmal in a format full with expensive underperformers (it was only $15 or so back then, oops). My MVPs were the two Phyrexian Infiltrators that I picked up. Turns out is a good price to swap your worst creature with their best

Sounds like a sweet 19-20 land limited format. I mean, I imagine that a basic land is better than half the cards in the draft!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Sounds like a sweet 19-20 land limited format. I mean, I imagine that a basic land is better than half the cards in the draft!

Correct

For those who don't know the format; every drafter brings 45 different bad rares (whether objectively or in the context of draft), everything gets shuffled together, and then boosters are made from 15 random rares from the pool each. It's a blast. Removal used to be relatively hard to come by back when I played that game, which made dealing with your opponent's less-than-duds quite challenging!



You know, bring shit like this!

 

[Velrun]

I once played the “Power Min Cube” a friend of mine had made. His design phisolophy was to do the opposite of a power max cube. With each set release he would go over the cube and cut the best card.

The cube ran powerhouses like

and

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I once played the “Power Min Cube” a friend of mine had made. His design phisolophy was to do the opposite of a power max cube. With each set release he would go over the cube and cut the best card.

The cube ran powerhouses like

and

But was it fun?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Titania + Wood Elemental time

 

[ravnic]

I am always tempted to do a power min cube myself, but I don't think it would be fun twice.

 

[Velrun]

But was it fun?

Fun fun as in we laughed a lot.
Not fun as in diversive, competitive and skill rewarding.

 

[ravnic]

Maybe it would be fun if you'd select a few archetypes, do you're actially striving for synergy? You could for example add all the worst +1/+1 counters cards

 

[Brad]

The kids at work drafted VOW today and it went pretty well. I definitely think they could handle a cube, considering quite a few of those VOW cards are 50+ words with the front and back combined.

The main downside is that they have a dedicated two hour MtG block each week (they play outside of this, but this is the only time I'm guaranteed to supervise) and that's about how long it took them to settle down, draft, and play one game. Their decks are together for next week to play matches.

Might get back into the Pokemon cube project because they seem ready to handle it and I think they'd really appreciate that I'm such a nerd that I made my own shit.

 

[ravnic]

Have you guys ever not had fun playing your cube? Usually, when I draft and play with mine, I'm having close to maximum fun, but today was a different experience. I mean, of course I had fun, I was playing MtG with one of my best friends, but the gameplay was kind of dull.

I guess the reason were the weird decks we've drafted, it was me with mono blue mill (I had a Lab Man but ended up milling him) vs. mono black discard (didn't know that was thing). Those are probably two of the most annoying decks to face in Mtg outside of weird combo bs, real ass hole decks you wouldn't use for teaching someone

G1 he lost to a turn two Drowned Secrets
G2 he lost to a turn one Hedron Crab with two fetches following
G3 he emptied my whole hand with Pilfering Imp, Hypnotic Specter, Agonizing Remorse and Okiba-Gang Shinobi. Yeah, he had like 60% of my cube's hand disruption effects.

I guess it was a one-in-a-thousand scenario, but still was weird to have a game play that uninteractive and low in agency, compared to what I usually experience.

 

[Brad]

G1 he lost to a turn two Drowned Secrets

Where's your enchantment removal at? What was the opponent doing that they couldn't answer this for a dozen spells?

G2 he lost to a turn one Hedron Crab with two fetches following

Opponent can't kill a 0/2? Crab is quite a clock, though.

G3 he emptied my whole hand with Pilfering Imp, Hypnotic Specter, Agonizing Remorse and Okiba-Gang Shinobi. Yeah, he had like 60% of my cube's hand disruption effects.

Targeted and random discard steal the target's agency. I'm not personally a fan. They can make a borderline hand completely unplayable.

I'd try to look at what problems led to these unfun games. If it isn't mana screw/flood, which we're cursed to deal with, then your games should all be decent.