I can kind of understand why this might be revelatory for cube designers who don't fiddle with other formats beyond Limited, but this is basically just how people have built EDH decks forever. Cool that it's being more readily applied to cube design, but it's funny that the concept of EDH has been shit upon by many in the cube community when it turns out that the tools used during deckbuilding and exploration of commander themes have been some of the best ways to explore and maximize card interactions for years now.
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You're free to share those tools here instead of just doing the trite "oh you guys just heard about this"
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
To be fair, they’ve a) got a point, and b) we’re still talking about how these two podcasts can be applied to cube design. Like, the “tools” (or mindset) are presumably discussed in those podcasts.
This "mind-map" is definitely the process I used for my Welder's Workshop cube. Everything in the cube branches off from my favorite Commander: Feldon of the Third Path. Certain key concepts immediately jump out: Graveyard stuff, artifact stuff, token stuff, and ways to double-dip on activated or triggered abilities. More broadly, I wanted a cube that could switch between "commander draft" and "regular draft". I basically started the cube by importing my Feldon commander decklist, then imagining Feldon was a mono-white card and building a deck, then imagining he was a mono-blue card and building a deck, etc.
The exemplary cards were things like Esika's Chariot or Ruthless Technomancer, which sit comfortably in the middle of the mechanical space. From there I branched out into more narrow picks, like Reckless Fireweaver, who basically only cares about artifacts.
I think this method is especially good for cube curators like myself, who don't really have much experience with Limited.
The LPR episode about building a cube around Trade Routes really resonated with me. The process they demonstrated seemed perfectly familiar, and I think it's more useful than trying to pick 10 "archetypes" or whatever.
There was also a Tolarian Community College episode that recommended new cube designers should try and build 10 singleton 60-card decks (with 36 spells and 24 lands) and then just put the nonland cards into the cube, add some nonbasic lands for fixing, and shuffle the damn thing. Now it's a cube. That's the method I used for my original Peasant cube, which was my first attempt at this whole process.
The exemplary cards were things like Esika's Chariot or Ruthless Technomancer, which sit comfortably in the middle of the mechanical space. From there I branched out into more narrow picks, like Reckless Fireweaver, who basically only cares about artifacts.
I think this method is especially good for cube curators like myself, who don't really have much experience with Limited.
The LPR episode about building a cube around Trade Routes really resonated with me. The process they demonstrated seemed perfectly familiar, and I think it's more useful than trying to pick 10 "archetypes" or whatever.
There was also a Tolarian Community College episode that recommended new cube designers should try and build 10 singleton 60-card decks (with 36 spells and 24 lands) and then just put the nonland cards into the cube, add some nonbasic lands for fixing, and shuffle the damn thing. Now it's a cube. That's the method I used for my original Peasant cube, which was my first attempt at this whole process.
There's not much to really share. When people build EDH decks they usually focus upon individual cards with effects that interest them (usually commanders) and branch out from there with interactions and synergies as they build out the rest of that deck. The difference between there and cube design is mostly just how deep they're willing to go for specific synergies or unique effects because they're not building with a draft component in mind. What's worth taking away from this isn't the end result, but the card evaluation process where you're looking to maximize the interactions with a given card.
For example, I have a Karametra, God of Harvests deck that I've had for the last decade. Early on I decided to build an Enchantress subtheme to generate card advantage so I put in cards like Argothian Enchantress and Verduran Enchantress because I could curve right to Karametra and draw that extra card to keep gas flowing. To get there even faster I started playing more mana dorks at 1 mana and stuff like Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth. Printings of cards like Eidolon of Blossoms and Sythis, Harvest's Hand became doubly exciting because that just padded out the curve even further let me chain off with explosive draws if I sequenced right. Every enchantment body has additional value so card like Weaver of Harmony or Shigeki, Jukai Visionary become even more appealing with their additional synergies.
Then I look at other features of Karametra herself that work to my advantage. Anytime I cast a creature I Rampant Growth out a land with a Forest or Plains typing. Well, if I lean towards fetchable duals this makes something like Emeria, the Sky Ruin triggers more attainable. If I play a bunch of cheap creatures, I can chain multiple triggers to ramp out way ahead. Or I can do something like sandbag cheap mana dorks in the later game so that I can more quickly rebuild than my opponents if I fire off an Armageddon or Ravages of War. If I play Field of the Dead then I can include a handful of snow-covered basics to ensure that I hit that 7 unique names condition and start generating zombies for free. Buy back fetches with Ramunap Excavator or Titania, Protector of Argoth and rebuilding after a wrath could be very quick. It's all the little interactions making the most of what you can get out of individual cards.
This approach can easily be applied to cube as in the examples shown above with Trade Routes, but only if people get off their weird hatred for EDH as a concept. There have always been good ideas there to take advantage of. You can scour through pages and pages of various commanders on EDHREC to just find deep cuts with interactions and expand from there. It's just another tool to utilize when designing a cube, all comes down to how deep into the weeds you want to go.
I don't really think this design approach is particularly revolutionary or that there's a stigma against EDH that prevents it from being realized, I imagine most people would arrive at something similar if they were given the objective of doing so.
I also don't think most people approach cube building with this approach in mind, most likely it's some mesh of power-maxing or archetype design instead of branching out from a singular idea, so it's nice as a way to approach cube building. But even then, Eldrazi Domain is pretty much constructed this way iirc, so I feel like most people at riptide should be somewhat aware of this already. My cube project is kind of approached in a similar way.
I also don't think most people approach cube building with this approach in mind, most likely it's some mesh of power-maxing or archetype design instead of branching out from a singular idea, so it's nice as a way to approach cube building. But even then, Eldrazi Domain is pretty much constructed this way iirc, so I feel like most people at riptide should be somewhat aware of this already. My cube project is kind of approached in a similar way.
I'm gonna go against the grain here and say that I was unsurprised to hear that this is the way MaRo constructs limited environments. It certainly wasn't revelatory.
I'm not convinced there's even a way to design a synergy cube without doing something similar. I don't think it has anything to do with EDH or any other format. Anyone who has ever played the game with a deck that wasn't an entirely random pile of cards almost certainly understands this concept to some degree.
Saying someone who built a cube is less familiar with this process than someone who built an EDH deck is somewhat insulting. Building around one card that you have constant access to is significantly easier than weaving things together in a format that could have any number of decks.
Hell, the Karametra outline above could be a good guide for just the GW section of a God cube (which is, admittedly, a list in my CubeCobra). Next, the cube owner would need to do that nine more times and then they'd have to analyze which pieces overlap between decks, which ones are too narrow, etc. The cube owner also has to make sure that their cards are all aligned to fight each other fairly. The EDH player simply needs to choose the cards which seem strongest.
I know this post may come across as argumentative, but it's extremely reductive to compare a 360+ card synergy cube to a 100 card EDH list based on power maxing one card.
I'm not convinced there's even a way to design a synergy cube without doing something similar. I don't think it has anything to do with EDH or any other format. Anyone who has ever played the game with a deck that wasn't an entirely random pile of cards almost certainly understands this concept to some degree.
Saying someone who built a cube is less familiar with this process than someone who built an EDH deck is somewhat insulting. Building around one card that you have constant access to is significantly easier than weaving things together in a format that could have any number of decks.
Hell, the Karametra outline above could be a good guide for just the GW section of a God cube (which is, admittedly, a list in my CubeCobra). Next, the cube owner would need to do that nine more times and then they'd have to analyze which pieces overlap between decks, which ones are too narrow, etc. The cube owner also has to make sure that their cards are all aligned to fight each other fairly. The EDH player simply needs to choose the cards which seem strongest.
I know this post may come across as argumentative, but it's extremely reductive to compare a 360+ card synergy cube to a 100 card EDH list based on power maxing one card.
Yeah, I didn't claim it as anything revolutionary or particularly amazing, but I could see how it could be a newer approach to some cube designers if they weren't used to building or evaluating cards in that way. Not really a common sticking point here, but in other places it's definitely not something that people might pay attention to when building environments.
If individual cards matter more than the interactions or potential synergies between them, then this is probably not how they would approach environmental design as a whole.
If individual cards matter more than the interactions or potential synergies between them, then this is probably not how they would approach environmental design as a whole.
I agree with you that it's not revolutionary or particularly unique, but I definitely disagree that EDH stigma isn't holding back certain cube designers from embracing design with a similar approach. I've seen more weird hate boners for that format and anything to do with it on cube forums and threads than anywhere else MTG related in the last decade. It's really bizarre.
I agree that there's a lot of
I will say that one tool I would love, would be some kind of way of actually working with a mind map of cards. Would be really nice to be able to build up a big web of cards linked together with some relation like "graveyard matters" or "go wide" or whatever. Ideally, I suppose, when designing a cube like this we'd want some number of build arounds (i.e. ""commanders"") and then a bunch of enablers that go into many decks, and then a smaller number of more niche enablers (all in accordance with common cube building recommendations).
It's definitely well-deserved. The open-ended "casual" structure leads to it being nearly unplayable outside of an established group where everyone has somewhat agreed on a power level. Expecting people with precons to play with people who have the newly-printed Jeweled Lotus is absurd. That can quickly lead to bad feelings all around.
I ended up muting the EDH subreddit because so many posts were "I won a game and people got mad at me" or similar Rule 0 nonsense. It's a fun way to play with some friends, but it's a hot mess overall.
A commander limited format would solve all of the Rule 0 issues at the expense of some time from players. I'd probably build one myself if I didn't have so many new players who can't keep up with four players worth of interaction. Which, of course, is another issue with the "casual" format.
Oh. The point that I was gonna make is that Commander is cool and the issues have little to do with the decks and commanders. I like the guaranteed synergy presented by having access to your commander. EDH Rec is also a decent tool to look into a very established archetype like BR Madness or Elves or something.
Hmm... I'm not entirely sure that I like Harmonic Prodigy here — it pushes the "Wizard" micro-archetype into another color. Not sure if I want that. What if I try a different Wizard build-around?
Ooh, look at how that links to so much stuff! That said, there's something to be said for adding to the Prodigy side of things...
Ooh, look, it's another reason to draft into the discard payoffs! Decisions, decisions...
...
Yeah, I think a tool like this would be pretty cool.
In all seriousness, this involved a lot of playing around in Graphviz and is pretty basic and kludge-y. Something more advanced/user-friendly would be really sweet.
Lady does Idyllic Tutor costs in your cube?
Ps. I like your mind map!
I don’t think there is much hate towards the players who play Commander. I think the most hatred goes towards what that format has done to Magic: the Gathering as a game. That would be my guess.
in your cube? Ps. I like your mind map!
I don’t think there is much hate towards the players who play Commander. I think the most hatred goes towards what that format has done to Magic: the Gathering as a game. That would be my guess.
Made a quick mock up in Miro of how I'd imagine it would look. Basically like any of the whiteboard web tools, but you'd have built in scryfall search and can add cards and then tag them freely, and start connecting things up.
(I guess to be practical you'd want basically a big list of cards, and then be able to add a number of "mind maps" so you can view the relations between the cards in different ways. A good cube would probably have too many possible relations to view all at once)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You know what would be cool? If you could search for a card web that looks something like the LuckyPaper cube map. Enter a card name, and it shows that card as a dot in the middle, connected with various isles that have more or less overlap with the tags of your card (optionally/by default ignoring e.g. art tags?). You can represent more popular cube cards with bigger dots. Basically you'ld get an island around your chosen cards with other cards that have almost complete overlap with the chosen card, and then islands off to the sides with clusters of cards with less overlap. Could be cool! Can I ping @landofMordor with this idea? I have no idea how to make that!
I have no idea how to make that!As cool as that would be, that would require Scryfall to expose the tags to API calls, which they currently don't.
Even if you did have that, you'd run into the fact that Scryfall's set of tags isn't always going to be useful for cubing purposes (unfortunately). For example, let's look at the tags for the card Wildfire (a cube classic!):
None of those tags indicate anything about the "Wildfire archetype", since the thing that makes Wildfire cool and fun to draft is its non-explicit synergy with creatures with toughness 5+ and non-land-based ramp. If you wanted to make that kind of map, you'd have better luck using the curator-specific tags people use on Cube Cobra... but that would require your staff to standardize tags and add missing tags (and I do mean staff — this scale here is such that you really should be compensating people for their labor).
I mean, don't get me wrong — this is totally within the realm of possibility! It's just a much trickier puzzle than the Cube Map, which is both static for the end user and has a much simpler task when it comes to determining similarity.
Even if you did have that, you'd run into the fact that Scryfall's set of tags isn't always going to be useful for cubing purposes (unfortunately). For example, let's look at the tags for the card Wildfire (a cube classic!):
None of those tags indicate anything about the "Wildfire archetype", since the thing that makes Wildfire cool and fun to draft is its non-explicit synergy with creatures with toughness 5+ and non-land-based ramp. If you wanted to make that kind of map, you'd have better luck using the curator-specific tags people use on Cube Cobra... but that would require your staff to standardize tags and add missing tags (and I do mean staff — this scale here is such that you really should be compensating people for their labor).
I mean, don't get me wrong — this is totally within the realm of possibility! It's just a much trickier puzzle than the Cube Map, which is both static for the end user and has a much simpler task when it comes to determining similarity.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Aw, I didn't know the tags weren't exposes through an API, and you're right, they're not even complete. Still useful though!
There's always Naban, Dean of Iteration (and that's not an "instead", that's an "in addition to")
landofMordor
Administrator
This is effectively how CubeCobra’s recommender works — but idk if the site makes it possible to visualize those outputs in the way you’re describing.You know what would be cool? If you could search for a card web that looks something like the LuckyPaper cube map. Enter a card name, and it shows that card as a dot in the middle, connected with various isles that have more or less overlap with the tags of your card (optionally/by default ignoring e.g. art tags?). You can represent more popular cube cards with bigger dots. Basically you'ld get an island around your chosen cards with other cards that have almost complete overlap with the chosen card, and then islands off to the sides with clusters of cards with less overlap. Could be cool! Can I ping @landofMordor with this idea?
the nice thing about CC’s recommender is that it’s trained on cube data, not any scryfall API or tags. So it actually *does* know that your cube supports Wildfire and will rec cards to fit with that (to some extent).
So they announced this Battle for Baldur's Gate draft event in May for D&D's 50th anniversary (without Matt Tabak knowing about its existence beforehand, which is funny)
but it has a fifth dungeon that will be used for the event (this image is very large but it is the only one they give us I am so sorry)
in case anyone here is both on the "max power dungeons" train and simultaneously doesn't like the Undercity
but it has a fifth dungeon that will be used for the event (this image is very large but it is the only one they give us I am so sorry)
in case anyone here is both on the "max power dungeons" train and simultaneously doesn't like the Undercity
yeah to be clear they're mailing them to stores as 8.5x11 and honestly that still might be too small, I get the appeal of "prints onto a standard piece of paper" but if they were going to mail them I would have opted for... oh my god, they should have made playmats and then you could have given them to the winners!