General CBS

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Okay, after studying the block some further, it's going to be hard to assign themes to the color pairs. There are hardly any build-arounds, and those that do exist are mostly focused around the same stuff. This limited format is going to take more importing stuff from other blocks than I anticipated. I wonder how much of the look and feel of the original Odyssey block I can keep around.
 
Brad

Brad

I'd start by either embedding my weakest necessary theme (morph in Onslaught) to set the power level or by searching Odyssey block and adding all those cards you want and seeing what emerges.

Older formats definitely had weaker archetypes.

Or just custom card the hell out of it.
 
inscho

inscho

I'm looking for a new way to articulate the structure of my cube for my thread. What are your favorite ways to format this information? Which cube posts have been the most successful and helpful for you?

In my last version of the GCC, I listed each archetype and included a sampling of cards that embodied the spirit of each archetype. It gives a pretty clear guidebook that was easy to digest, and maybe that's still the most useful. I just can't help but think it feels less in sync with the spirit of exploration that I'm working towards as I move away from such clearly defined archetypes.
 
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dbs

dbs

inscho said:
I'm looking for a new way to articulate the structure of my cube for my thread. What are your favorite ways to format this information? Which cube posts have been the most successful and helpful for you?

In my last version of the GCC, I listed each archetype and included a sampling of cards that embodied the spirit of each archetype. It gives a pretty clear guidebook that was easy to digest, and maybe that's still the most useful. I just can't help but think it feels less in sync with the spirit of exploration that I'm working towards as I move away from such clearly defined archetypes.
Click to expand...

I personally found your last breakdown super helpful. For one thing, the way you forced yourself to have enough themes for each color-pair ended up naturally revealing certain cross-links (e.g. I think oath reanimator ended up being under Selesnya even if it's only because you couldn't figure out anything else). This maintained a certain exploratory spirit.

At some point I tried doing the same thing by breaking down each archetype into 3 sample cards: an engine, a payoff, and a cross-archetype link. I also thought about doing a breakdown by mana generation, card generation, payoff. Obviously, the particular breakdown is going to depend on your cube's design philosophy, but for moving past clearly defined archetypes emphasizing card function might be useful.

Maybe keeping the breakdown organized by color pair themes you could do something like (1) bread and butter, (2) broad archetype anchor, (3) narrow archetype anchor:



Just spitballing.
 
inscho

inscho

dbs said:
I personally found your last breakdown super helpful. For one thing, the way you forced yourself to have enough themes for each color-pair ended up naturally revealing certain cross-links (e.g. I think oath reanimator ended up being under Selesnya even if it's only because you couldn't figure out anything else). This maintained a certain exploratory spirit.
Click to expand...

Good to know it was helpful. One of the things I didn't love about the old format of organizing information was that a portion of the decks were pretty fringey. Like Oath of Druids can't exactly be a primary archetype when you have one copy of the card in the cube. It also felt a bit like a Limited Draft Primer. "This is what to do."

In general, I find it really difficult to commit to reading a wall of text on someone's cube so I avoid lengthy explanations. There's so many cube builders and lists, that it all starts to make my eyes glaze. Sometimes it only takes a 10% deviation from popular card selections to have a healthy interesting format. It's not always easy to recognize a thoughtful list when it isn't overtly creative like The Desert Cube. I need something simple and tasty to lure me in to look at something more closely. The visual guide is helpful for that.

I've been looking for an alternative visual system that more accurately represents triangulations of strategies/themes, because it's closer to the discovery process you experience during a draft. I'd like something that doesn't tell you so explicitly how to draft the cube like a limited primer. Something closer to a mindmap or expanded venn diagram. I have a few sketches I've been working on, but they are all are a little off, because the distribution of themes isn't perfectly balanced.

Maybe someone smarter than me could chime in.
 
Brad

Brad

inscho said:
In general, I find it really difficult to commit to reading a wall of text on someone's cube so I avoid lengthy explanations.
Click to expand...
If you look at The Black Cube thread, my intro post has a few headers and just a few sentences under each. Just let me draft the fuckin' thing and let's get on with it.


That said, I think card images are quick for experienced players to glance through.
 
B

blacksmithy

inscho, i am notoriously bad at communicating cube themes to my drafters, but if i were going to try to be good at it... well, it depends on the cube...
for the Evolving Wilds cube, my elevator pitch is, “there are 40 Evolving Wilds, and every deck is a graveyard deck.”
for my more traditional cube, i think the best way i could quickly communicate the themes would be to show drafters the guild section? i’ve been putting a lot of work into making sure my guild reps help pull people towards the decks i’ve seeded.

speaking of which, i’m trying to hash out the main themes for that cube and i keep getting stuck on it.
here’s what i currently have, but something just doesn’t quite work about it...
Historic/Artifacts WUR jeskai
Enchantress GWB abzan
Big Mana/Fun with Lands RGU temur
Spellslinger URB grixis
Mill and Scavenge GBR jund
Discard and Rez/Recur UBW esper
Tokens and Sacrifice RBW mardu
Blink and Flash WUG bant
Proliferation UGB sultai
Heroic WRG Naya

i keep ending up in weird spots, like that Izzet wants to be the main artifact AND main spells guild... like the color balance is just not working out. should i change my archetypes or just color shift them or am i just overthinking it?
 
inscho

inscho

Anyone do any online trading? What platform do you use?

I was just estimating how much this newest revision of my cube is going to cost me, and almost soiled myself :oops:
 
inscho

inscho

Playing with real cards is just a pleasure for me. I do proxy cards over $10 to test, until I'm sure I want them, but I dislike playing with proxies. I'd rather trade from my stock of random legacy, EDH, or hot Standard cards I'm sitting on to get what I need
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Can you draft in person? I can't here in Canada
Sure it's there, sitting on my desk, but there's not a ton of reason to get physical cards until a COVID vaccine is widely in place
 
shamizy

shamizy

I still pick up cards if they're at an alright price point and I want them. There's no rush in picking up cards now, aside from EDH which I still get to play via webcam. Not against proxying at all, but I just prefer to have the physical cards in my cube/decks.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Does anyone have a good place to look up recent Mtg sets?

I used to use www.magiccards.info but Scryfall bought the page and closed the feature.

As an example how will you look up the last 20 sets in chronological order? Rigth now I am personally trying to find out where Spellbook Chandra is chronologically and to see the content.
 
mischief

mischief

Velrun said:
Does anyone have a good place to look up recent Mtg sets?

I used to use www.magiccards.info but Scryfall bought the page and closed the feature.

As an example how will you look up the last 20 sets in chronological order? Rigth now I am personally trying to find out where Spellbook Chandra is chronologically and to see the content.
Click to expand...

Scryfall has a list of most recent to oldest sets: https://scryfall.com/sets

I hope that’s what you’re looking for
 
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