General CBS

[LadyMapi]

yo @LadyMapi whatchoo think about an environment where everyone has phyrexian unlife emblems in play

I'm not sure that it'd be too interesting? If you don't change any other rules, it's effectively just +10 starting life for everyone. More importantly, though, the way that it achieves that limits how much the cardpool can interact with the changed rules — and, unfortunately, the obvious build-around combos happen to be "oops, I can't lose" stuff.

Honestly, when I think about a white enchantment that fiddles with your relationship with your life total that you could potentially build around, I think of

​

Then you at least get some quirkiness due to how lifegain is now effectively life loss. Ever want to use Skullcrack as a superfog?

 

[Rusje]

I'm not sure that it'd be too interesting? If you don't change any other rules, it's effectively just +10 starting life for everyone. More importantly, though, the way that it achieves that limits how much the cardpool can interact with the changed rules — and, unfortunately, the obvious build-around combos happen to be "oops, I can't lose" stuff.

Honestly, when I think about a white enchantment that fiddles with your relationship with your life total that you could potentially build around, I think of

​

Then you at least get some quirkiness due to how lifegain is now effectively life loss. Ever want to use Skullcrack as a superfog?

Is transcendence not the same as unlife? Life gain becomes oops I win…

how about
this changes the rules but has not the oops I win factor.

plus starting with transcendence makes for really quick games…. Read, turn 0

 

[LadyMapi]

I mean, if you're building the Transcendence Cube, you're going to make everyone start at 0 life, and you aren't going to be running Invigorate.

Also, legitimate question: do you feel like burn spells are "oops I win" as well? Because I know that there are quite a few people on this forum that apparently view anything other than midrange threats slamming into each-other until someone runs out of midrange threats as an illegitimate way of to play Magic.

EDIT: Worship is an interesting thought, though I feel like it might just end up boiling down to "players can only die through damage once they run out of creatures", which seems like it might get rather grindy.

 

[Brad]

Also, legitimate question: do you feel like burn spells are "oops I win" as well? Because I know that there are quite a few people on this forum that apparently view anything other than midrange threats slamming into each-other until someone runs out of midrange threats as an illegitimate way of to play Magic.

One of my current goals is to increase the density of burn in red. I used to run as many 1-2 mana spells that did 3 to anything as possible and really liked that. Rx always had a chance to win while top decking.

Also... I'm currently designing a cube Mapi might like. It's that bad...
EDIT: I scrapped the idea because my neck started hurting from reading split cards.

 

[Brad]

Anyone running a snow theme without giving out free snow basics?

 

[LadyMapi]

Anyone running a snow theme without giving out free snow basics?

Mown made a cube with a strong Snow theme as part of the 360/100 contest.

 

[Rusje]

I mean, if you're building the Transcendence Cube, you're going to make everyone start at 0 life, and you aren't going to be running Invigorate.

Also, legitimate question: do you feel like burn spells are "oops I win" as well? Because I know that there are quite a few people on this forum that apparently view anything other than midrange threats slamming into each-other until someone runs out of midrange threats as an illegitimate way of to play Magic.

EDIT: Worship is an interesting thought, though I feel like it might just end up boiling down to "players can only die through damage once they run out of creatures", which seems like it might get rather grindy.

Transcendence and start at 0 life is still deal 20 damage/life loss right? So not useful I guess?
Burn spells are not oops I win. Worship emblem makes life loss more valuable, and one needs more destroy. Worship in play however give games more tension. Can the opponent remove mine? Note that worship does not prevent damage…
And what about making mill more powerful?

 

[LadyMapi]

So, having had time to sleep...

Phyrexian Unlife!Format: Effectively the same as just starting with 30 life. There are some quirks (like how you can run some creatures with Infect without having an explicit "infect deck"), but most of the weirdness basically requires one player to be losing quite hard to matter.

Transcendence!Format: You go from 0 to 20 instead of 20 to 0, with the added quirk that lifegain basically doesn't exist. It'd play mostly like normal Magic (since lifegain is kind of an incidental thing anyway), except card evaluation would get flipped over onto its rear. In all honesty, the card pool to make this interesting probably isn't there, but eh, that's why some ideas stay ideas.

Worship!Format: You're right that it would make life loss (and removal) more important than it traditionally is... but I'm worried about the old Form of the Squirrel problem (where you'd teach someone new the importance of playing removal by playing Form of the Squirrel and keeping the squirrel out of combat). You could probably make something interesting out of it if you focused really hard on encouraging blocking and combat trades, but then the question becomes "why aren't you just doing that as part of a normal cube?"

Crumbling Sanctuary!Format: Seems interesting. Three things come to mind:
1) It'd be pretty easy to exclude cards that make your opponent lose life, which would mean that you'd effectively start with 19 "life counters" that you can spend on stuff. I'm not sure that there's enough "pay life" stuff to make this worth it, but it's interesting.
2) I would tweak the wording of the "exile cards" effect so that it works with cards like Crosstown Courier... because making Blue the format's Red is hilarious to me.
3) Having a tension between "damage mill" (which exiles) and "normal mill" (which doesn't) seems like it might lead to some nuanced game states. The ideal would be to have Book Burning present a hard decision, even though it's literally just a choice between "mill 6" and "mill 6".

---

As a general rule, I'm not super excited by "card emblems" that solely fiddle with the win condition (the Capitalism Cube is an exception in my mind, since it also gives you a Treasure when one of villain's things dies, which changes the overall value of creatures and removal over the course of the entire game... and I'm still not entirely happy with the cube). Unlife and Worship both only matter when the game is about to end, which is only a fraction of the game.

In general, when I look for a card to idly consider building a format around, I look for stuff that will come up at least once a turn if play is progressing "normally" (or stuff that's just plain wacky). You get way more mileage out of, say, Fae Offering!Format or Slagstone Refinery!Format than you do out of Near-Death Experience!Format, after all.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I want to play Snom: The Format

 

[LadyMapi]

Snom? I am confuzzled and possibly uncultured — what is snom?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Snom? I am confuzzled and possibly uncultured — what is snom?

Cute baby caterpillar

 

[Karshtakavaar]

I'd be interested in seeing a format where you draft your emblem effect. Sort of like Vanguard only you're getting a janky unplayable 5-drop at the start of the game. Massively affects how you build your deck.

 

[LadyMapi]

I've thought about that a bunch, honestly... and it seems really tricky to pull off in a satisfying way?

If you have the emblems in the main draft, they're basically going to all be first picks due to being free cards. They'd probably have drafting patterns like the big, game-changing Conspiracies.

If you, I dunno, deal people 2-3 random emblems and tell them to pick one, that's kinda like telling people which archetype they "should" try to force this time around. After all, if your random emblem is Five-Alarm Fire, you probably aren't going to be drafting control.

You'd have to pick a set of emblems with a bunch of overlap to make it work.

...

Honestly, the best idea I can come up with is "pick an emblem" + Duplicate Sealed.

 

[Karshtakavaar]

Honestly, the best idea I can come up with is "pick an emblem" + Duplicate Sealed.

I honestly really like that idea, genuinely tempted to do that for my next Duplicate Sealed rather than my current plan for a vanilla pool.
Time to start looking for neat cards to use for emblems.

 

[Rusje]

So, having had time to sleep...

Phyrexian Unlife!Format: Effectively the same as just starting with 30 life. There are some quirks (like how you can run some creatures with Infect without having an explicit "infect deck"), but most of the weirdness basically requires one player to be losing quite hard to matter.

Transcendence!Format: You go from 0 to 20 instead of 20 to 0, with the added quirk that lifegain basically doesn't exist. It'd play mostly like normal Magic (since lifegain is kind of an incidental thing anyway), except card evaluation would get flipped over onto its rear. In all honesty, the card pool to make this interesting probably isn't there, but eh, that's why some ideas stay ideas.

Worship!Format: You're right that it would make life loss (and removal) more important than it traditionally is... but I'm worried about the old Form of the Squirrel problem (where you'd teach someone new the importance of playing removal by playing Form of the Squirrel and keeping the squirrel out of combat). You could probably make something interesting out of it if you focused really hard on encouraging blocking and combat trades, but then the question becomes "why aren't you just doing that as part of a normal cube?"

Crumbling Sanctuary!Format: Seems interesting. Three things come to mind:
1) It'd be pretty easy to exclude cards that make your opponent lose life, which would mean that you'd effectively start with 19 "life counters" that you can spend on stuff. I'm not sure that there's enough "pay life" stuff to make this worth it, but it's interesting.
2) I would tweak the wording of the "exile cards" effect so that it works with cards like Crosstown Courier... because making Blue the format's Red is hilarious to me.
3) Having a tension between "damage mill" (which exiles) and "normal mill" (which doesn't) seems like it might lead to some nuanced game states. The ideal would be to have Book Burning present a hard decision, even though it's literally just a choice between "mill 6" and "mill 6".

---

As a general rule, I'm not super excited by "card emblems" that solely fiddle with the win condition (the Capitalism Cube is an exception in my mind, since it also gives you a Treasure when one of villain's things dies, which changes the overall value of creatures and removal over the course of the entire game... and I'm still not entirely happy with the cube). Unlife and Worship both only matter when the game is about to end, which is only a fraction of the game.

In general, when I look for a card to idly consider building a format around, I look for stuff that will come up at least once a turn if play is progressing "normally" (or stuff that's just plain wacky). You get way more mileage out of, say, Fae Offering!Format or Slagstone Refinery!Format than you do out of Near-Death Experience!Format, after all.

Well, one should learn the power of removal. Otherwise that player folds due to an utility creature.

What if we made that you get to choose an emblem, but that that emblem holds for both? Or you can choose whether the emblem holds for the opponent or yourself? That opens up a whole different range of possibilities.

 

[Brad]

I think the trick isn't to have each person get an emblem, I think it's to have the draft get assigned an emblem beforehand. Fae Offering, Slagstone Refinery (seems too crazy imo), Near-Death Experience can all get played in a fairly regular cube that's possibly had some consideration given to the pool of 5-20 available emblems. It would make the value of your draft picks vary by enough to keep things fresh. If the picks are too influenced by the emblem, it probably suggests that the emblem is too narrow or too powerful.

 

[LadyMapi]

Yeah, but there's "learn the power of removal" and then there's "hope that villain didn't draft too many creatures for the amount of removal I managed to snag". Unless the Worship Format is Duplicate Sealed, "did I pack enough removal?" is not something you really have control over within the context of Cube.

...

Normally, Worship isn't toxic because it's a 4-mana enchantment (with everything that entails). Making it into an emblem for both players cuts out a ton of outs, since you can't race it or hit it with removal. You basically end up with four ways to get past the mighty Worship Wall:

1) Make villain lose life. Outside of a very short list of cards (meaning that it's a crapshoot if they fit within your cube's power level), this basically locks you into playing or splashing black.
2) Force villain to trade their creatures with yours in combat. Notably, an irremovable Worship drastically reduces any incentive to block, so good luck?
3) Hope and pray that you managed to draft enough removal spells.
4) Wrath the board and then burn them down/chip in with a surviving creature before they can play another creature.

If neither side has access to #1 or #4, you end up in a situation where it's either a really one-sided game (one player keeps the other player's board clean and beats them to death), or you stalemate until you hit topdecks and eventually one of you grinds out the other.

If one side has access to #1, they're essentially playing normal Magic, with the minor quirk that they need to land the finishing blow with something that causes direct life loss. If both sides have access to it, the Worship emblem doesn't matter.

If one side has access to #4... it really only creates a tiny window, since the Worship Wall snaps back up as soon as villain gets out another creature. As a result, wraths are only useful if the person wrathing the board can immediately win on their turn... and that's assuming that the wrath isn't countered.

You could make an interesting format with those constraints... but dang are they tight.

...

I hope I don't come off as being dismissive of your ideas or anything, Rusje — I just don't think "Worship as an Emblem" has legs outside of being a teaching tool or a design exercise. Unless, of course, we have incompatible ideas about what makes for a good game of Magic.

 

[japahn]

What if people can choose any card in their pool to be their commander?

 

[blacksmithy]

i choose Condescend

 

[Rusje]

Yeah, but there's "learn the power of removal" and then there's "hope that villain didn't draft too many creatures for the amount of removal I managed to snag". Unless the Worship Format is Duplicate Sealed, "did I pack enough removal?" is not something you really have control over within the context of Cube.

...

Normally, Worship isn't toxic because it's a 4-mana enchantment (with everything that entails). Making it into an emblem for both players cuts out a ton of outs, since you can't race it or hit it with removal. You basically end up with four ways to get past the mighty Worship Wall:

1) Make villain lose life. Outside of a very short list of cards (meaning that it's a crapshoot if they fit within your cube's power level), this basically locks you into playing or splashing black.
2) Force villain to trade their creatures with yours in combat. Notably, an irremovable Worship drastically reduces any incentive to block, so good luck?
3) Hope and pray that you managed to draft enough removal spells.
4) Wrath the board and then burn them down/chip in with a surviving creature before they can play another creature.

If neither side has access to #1 or #4, you end up in a situation where it's either a really one-sided game (one player keeps the other player's board clean and beats them to death), or you stalemate until you hit topdecks and eventually one of you grinds out the other.

If one side has access to #1, they're essentially playing normal Magic, with the minor quirk that they need to land the finishing blow with something that causes direct life loss. If both sides have access to it, the Worship emblem doesn't matter.

If one side has access to #4... it really only creates a tiny window, since the Worship Wall snaps back up as soon as villain gets out another creature. As a result, wraths are only useful if the person wrathing the board can immediately win on their turn... and that's assuming that the wrath isn't countered.

You could make an interesting format with those constraints... but dang are they tight.

...

I hope I don't come off as being dismissive of your ideas or anything, Rusje — I just don't think "Worship as an Emblem" has legs outside of being a teaching tool or a design exercise. Unless, of course, we have incompatible ideas about what makes for a good game of Magic.

You have valid points but I think it is possible by including cards that forces creatures to attack, cards that make an opponent lose life, poison/infect, enough destroy, and last but not least alternate wins.

 

[Erik Twice]

Brainstorm commander represent.

 

[LadyMapi]

You have valid points but I think it is possible by including cards that forces creatures to attack, cards that make an opponent lose life, poison/infect, enough destroy, and last but not least alternate wins.

True... but you can do all of those things anyways, right?

To put it another way:

Can you describe any archetypes that are enabled by the presence of the Worship Emblem? For the sake of comparison, the Capitalism Cube is full of cards that are only worth including because of the emblem — like, the cube straight-up has dwarf and pirate tribal as a thing, since building around the emblem lead to a bunch of incidental dwarves and pirates.

 

[Erik Twice]

What non-poisonous enchantments do you like with Academy Rector? I'm curious

 

[Nanonox]

I put 4+ mana cards to really take advantage of the Rector's ability. I would play these in most decks (my understanding of non-poisonous). Sagas offer a lot of value, but there are also some fun non-saga enchantments in the list.

A card advantage engine



An answer



An engine (mana or otherwise)



A finisher

 

[Karshtakavaar]