General CBS

[Erik Twice]

I do not agree that all colours should be able to answer all types of cards. When all colours can do everything it often becomes unnecessary to use colours at all. For me there should be weaknesses and strengths with certain play styles. Strength in one area should be compensated with weaknesses. Otherwise you end up with rock, nothing instead of rock, paper, scissors (especially blurry, non-binairy, and more than three are nice) . Although it is funny to have a mirror match once in a while. It is not funny to only play those. Neither is it funny when you know you are dead before starting.

You can have factions in a game without locking them out of vital abilities, such as answering all card types or having access to draw. In other games, it's normal, it doesn't led to all factions being the same or to RPS dynamics. In fact, it promotes diversity because your ability to play a reasonable game isn't limited because of the faction you took.

What they should do, is make each basic ability different between factions. Which they are already doing bit by bit. For example, creating treasures for ramp, fight for green removal and so on.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Although I like the Warcraft system. Doesn’t it mean that it is much easier to play manaexpensive cards? In the first turns you put them face down as a land, later on they become spells? In mtg mana expensive cards are much stronger than cheaper cards to offset there dead in the hand part. If you additionally offset it by having it turn into a basic if wanted then there is no downside anymore right?

I mean, yes and no. Firstly, quests still offer a significant upside over playing cards face-down, because they give you some sort of advantage (often card advantage). Secondly, given that you don't want expensive cards because you can play them face-down, you would want to run them because they strengthen your game plan. If you are running an aggro deck, then, your game plan is to swarm the board with aggro creatures anf maybe smorc your opponent's face with Lava Spike equivalents. Because your deck is cheap, you don't need many resources. Running an expensive card, then, runs counter to your deck plan. It doesn't apply pressure, you need to develop more resources to play it than the rest of your deck needs, and it doesn't provide you with an upside like a quest does when played face-down. iirc, most aggro decks included a handful of 6 drops at most, some even topping out at 4 mana threats.

For anyone interested, at http://wow.tcgbrowser.com/#!/shared-decks you can filter for Tournament decks. You'll notice that a lot of decks top out at 6 mana, and those that do run 7 or 8 drops run only a handful tops.

 

[LadyMapi]

The thing is that you can't really call the colors different "factions", Erik.

"Factions" implies that the card pool has cards that are unique to your "faction" — if you're playing a Druid in Hearthstone, you get Druid cards that no-one else gets to play with and there are Mage cards that you don't get to play with. If the dev team forgets to stick some key effect in the Druid pool or the Neutral pool, I don't get to use that effect in my Druid deck, and there's nothing I can do about that. If I want to be able to Wharglbargl (an effect that the devs foolishly only gave to Shamans), I don't get to play with Druid cards.

In Magic, on the other hand, you can have any number of colors in a deck. As a result, having individual colors be incapable of dealing with certain situations is more about texture and trade-offs than it is about having gaping holes in your strategy. Sure, Red can't natively deal with Enchantments, but nothing stops you from splashing into White/Black/Green and tossing the appropriate answer into your deck (or trusting that your fast, consistent mono-Red deck can just go under the Enchantments). The game is implicitly designed around color pairs/triples, and as of TBD every pair is capable of dealing with every card type in one way or another.

---

As a digression about Blue being able to do "anything"... yes and no. While Blue's card pool can theoretically deal with anything, its removal is actually really bad — counterspells are your only real form of 1-for-1 removal, with bounce and polymorph effects being natively 0-for-1s. And counterspells have the built-in drawback that their timing is hyper restrictive, since you have to have them before your opponent plays their threat.

And, sure, there are quite a few Blue cards that break those rules... but if we go by color-pie breaks Red has enchantment removal. And, hey, as Cube designers? We can just straight-up exclude those mistakes from our cubes.

 

[Rusje]

The thing is that you can't really call the colors different "factions", Erik.

"Factions" implies that the card pool has cards that are unique to your "faction" — if you're playing a Druid in Hearthstone, you get Druid cards that no-one else gets to play with and there are Mage cards that you don't get to play with. If the dev team forgets to stick some key effect in the Druid pool or the Neutral pool, I don't get to use that effect in my Druid deck, and there's nothing I can do about that. If I want to be able to Wharglbargl (an effect that the devs foolishly only gave to Shamans), I don't get to play with Druid cards.

In Magic, on the other hand, you can have any number of colors in a deck. As a result, having individual colors be incapable of dealing with certain situations is more about texture and trade-offs than it is about having gaping holes in your strategy. Sure, Red can't natively deal with Enchantments, but nothing stops you from splashing into White/Black/Green and tossing the appropriate answer into your deck (or trusting that your fast, consistent mono-Red deck can just go under the Enchantments). The game is implicitly designed around color pairs/triples, and as of TBD every pair is capable of dealing with every card type in one way or another.

---

As a digression about Blue being able to do "anything"... yes and no. While Blue's card pool can theoretically deal with anything, its removal is actually really bad — counterspells are your only real form of 1-for-1 removal, with bounce and polymorph effects being natively 0-for-1s. And counterspells have the built-in drawback that their timing is hyper restrictive, since you have to have them before your opponent plays their threat.

And, sure, there are quite a few Blue cards that break those rules... but if we go by color-pie breaks Red has enchantment removal. And, hey, as Cube designers? We can just straight-up exclude those mistakes from our cubes.

variants are most of the times much better than creature removal. Yes, they are expensive. But so was most removal creature removal in those days.

 

[Brad]

Big mana artifact format. Domain theme.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/4i04q

Needs 75-100 cuts (or any you care to suggest)

 

[TrainmasterGT]

 

[PyreDream]

Big mana artifact format. Domain theme.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/4i04q

Needs 75-100 cuts (or any you care to suggest)

white cards: 58
blue cards: 67
black cards: 76
red cards: 78
green cards: 82

Nightshade Harvester - dislike punishing players for playing the gimmick you're trying to encourage.
Azra Smokeshaper - not seeing enough rebuy value in black.
Blight Mound - seems a tad slow at rebuilding a board but I could see it doing work if black decks slant aggressive. Doubling sac triggers is cool too with enough sac outlets.
The Cauldron of Eternity - hard to build around.

Granulate, Subterranean Tremors, Brotherhood's End - dislike punishing players for playing the gimmick you're trying to encourage.

Mythos of Brokkos, Fallaji Excavation - too slow, taking a critical turn off without affecting the board.

Hollow One - not seeing a ton of ways to play this goodly so it looks like a generic cycling 2.

GRB are most in need of cuts, but that depends on what themes you're trying to push. I'd be inclined to hack away unnecessary +1/+1 counters matter stuff from green, domain/unecessary landfall stuff in red, and perhaps push sac/mill/unearth stuff in black and reduce domain/artifacty stuff there. I do love me some Scrapwork Rager.

 

[Brad]

Given me some stuff to think about. Thanks, both.

 

[LadyMapi]

A bit of a silly idea (which of my ideas aren't silly, though?), but...

The game starts normally. At the beginning of the first player's second upkeep, they put a Wedding Ring into play. If a Wedding Ring is bounced/destroyed/exiled/sacrificed, the "missing" ring is replaced by a token copy the next time mana pools empty. It's called Couple's Counseling.

(The idea behind the replacement rule is to allow players to briefly "take off the ring" to break symmetry for a moment or two.)

 

[ravnic]

Do you know the feeling of shame when you look back at your cube list from some years ago?

 

[safra]

Do you know the feeling of shame when you look back at your cube list from some years ago?

Absolutely.

 

[LadyMapi]

Some years ago? Try "within the last year".

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think if I paid any heed to the voices in my head, my cube would be about 30 cards total

 

[blacksmithy]

I think if I paid any heed to the voices in my head, my cube would be about 30 cards total

"my cube has one deck, the deck is Legacy Delver, it is the most fun cube i have ever made"

 

[LadyMapi]

My cube actually has 0 decks.

It's physically impossible to draft a pile of cards that will lead to a satisfying play experience.

 

[Velrun]

A bit of a silly idea (which of my ideas aren't silly, though?), but...

The game starts normally. At the beginning of the first player's second upkeep, they put a Wedding Ring into play. If a Wedding Ring is bounced/destroyed/exiled/sacrificed, the "missing" ring is replaced by a token copy the next time mana pools empty. It's called Couple's Counseling.

(The idea behind the replacement rule is to allow players to briefly "take off the ring" to break symmetry for a moment or two.)

No one commented on this so I will

Interesting. May I ask what inspired you to this idea?

I think I would personally let the ring enter the game immediately and not on the 2nd upkeep. I would also let the ring stay off for longer. Maybe it comes back exactly 1 full round later.

 

[LadyMapi]

Interesting. May I ask what inspired you to this idea?

Sometimes when I'm bored, I just trawl through Scryfall and go "hey, it'd be cool if you started with this card in play".

I think I would personally let the ring enter the game immediately and not on the 2nd upkeep. I would also let the ring stay off for longer. Maybe it comes back exactly 1 full round later.

The thing is that letting it come into play immediately gives the player on the play a HUGE advantage, since the player on the draw no longer gets that extra bit of card advantage.

I actually like the idea of the ring not coming back until a full turn later, though — I originally set it up the way I did because I was initially going to make it "on the next upkeep", but then I realized that that made getting rid of the ring too strong.

 

[Taamas]

Maybe I'm dizzy after playing Forge too much trying to discern what Simic does in my cube, but isn't Psychic Spiral a viable wincon?

I mean, I run Mirror-Mad Phantasm. But even without it.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Maybe I'm dizzy after playing Forge too much trying to discern what Simic does in my cube, but isn't Psychic Spiral a viable wincon?

I mean, I run Mirror-Mad Phantasm. But even without it.

It is, but the issue is it becomes the only card that matters in a game. I cut it from my cube when someone built a removal light, "as many copies of faithless looting as I can" and oneshot aggro decks all the way to 2-1

 

[blacksmithy]

i like it when i get to cast uro and oko in my simic decks

 

[LadyMapi]

I personally prefer casting this guy:



Or this little combo:

 

[ravnic]

Maybe I'm dizzy after playing Forge too much trying to discern what Simic does in my cube, but isn't Psychic Spiral a viable wincon?

I mean, I run Mirror-Mad Phantasm. But even without it.

It is. It's just not a fun card in my experience.

That being said, Simic Selfmill is a very fun archetype. Just use wincons that don't feel like "I couldn't win against this anyway ..."

Some payoffs I like in my cube:



You can also play stuff like Delve if you don't mind eating on your 'yard. That being said, I think blue is better in enablibg with loot and mill effects, green adds the beefy payoffs.

Special shoutout to this ugly guy:

 

[blacksmithy]

covetous castaway is a sick card in the four-color Infinite Fight With Fire deck

 

[Zoss]

covetous castaway is a sick card in the four-color Infinite Fight With Fire deck

You can't just drop that and then walk away without telling us what EDH Monstrosity that is. Also, how many times do you really have to recur Fight with Fire??

 

[blacksmithy]

You can't just drop that and then walk away without telling us what EDH Monstrosity that is. Also, how many times do you really have to recur Fight with Fire??

not an edh! this is a real peasant cube control archetype. here's a sample decklist from an Arena peasant cube draft

Spoiler

Deck
1 Attune with Aether (KLR) 154
1 Dryad's Revival (MID) 183
1 Shadowbeast Sighting (MID) 198
1 Svella, Ice Shaper (KHM) 230
1 Thermo-Alchemist (MID) 164
1 Fight with Fire (DAR) 119
1 Fast // Furious (MH2) 123
1 Harnessed Lightning (KLR) 127
1 Abrade (VOW) 139
1 Aven Eternal (WAR) 42
1 Covetous Castaway (MID) 45
1 Bury in Books (STX) 39
1 Saw It Coming (KHM) 76
1 Counterspell (STA) 15
1 Scour All Possibilities (MH1) 67
1 Essence Scatter (IKO) 49
1 Quench (RNA) 48
1 Returned Pastcaller (STX) 224
1 Skywhaler's Shot (KLR) 31
1 Banishing Light (THB) 4
1 Faithful Mending (MID) 221
1 Sacred Fire (MID) 239
1 Wanderer's Strike (WAR) 38
1 Relic Amulet (ZNR) 247
2 Evolving Wilds (AFR) 256
3 Swiftwater Cliffs (IKO) 255
1 Rugged Highlands (IKO) 252
1 Thornwood Falls (M20) 258
1 Wind-Scarred Crag (M21) 259
1 Tranquil Cove (M21) 258
2 Plains (M21) 260
2 Island (M21) 263
2 Mountain (M21) 271
1 Forest (M21) 273

Sideboard
1 Bloodfell Caves (IKO) 243
1 Welding Sparks (KLR) 150
1 Embereth Shieldbreaker (ELD) 122
1 Blood Fountain (VOW) 95
1 Eccentric Farmer (MID) 185
1 Fissure Wizard (ZNR) 140
1 Battle Cry Goblin (AFR) 132
1 Grim Bounty (AFR) 106
1 Kardur, Doomscourge (KHM) 216
1 Reckless Impulse (VOW) 174
1 Voltaic Brawler (KLR) 213