Charm Cube (Shards/Wedges)

Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
In a bit of cool news, Charm Cube is the current cubetutor.com featured cube :). I submitted it via their form and it was accepted, so I hope some folks have some fun with it.

Since Sunday there's been a bunch of drafts, and there is one thing that's a little annoying on cubetutor: the bots have essentially been trained to make decks with 10-15 pieces of fixing and no way to actually win. This has the annoying side effect of making it harder to pick up fixing than it would be in real life.

My hope is that this normalizes a little bit, but I've moved on to buying all the cards for this and sleeving it up IRL.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Trip report with 8 drafters, and it's the first real games we've gotten.

in seat order
- {R}{U}{B} @ 2-2: Me with Grixis graveyard combos
- {W}{G}{B} @ ?-? (middling): stuff, heavier on +1/+1 counters
- {W}{G}{B} @ 4-1: tokens
- {G}{R}{B} @ 1-1: Aggro with a lot of threaten effects
- {B}{U}{G} @ 4-2: aggro with a bunch of equipment and tempo
- {W}{U}{G} @ 0-2: (with a lot of wasted {B}{R} picks) stuff
- {W}{U}{R} splash {G} @ ?-? (middling): midrange with bad fixing, featuring Treasure Cruise and Spellbound Dragon
- {W}{U}{R} @ ?-? (winning record): aggro without as many spells as you'd probably like

Some overall notes:
  • There's not enough enchantment removal. There's also not as much artifact removal, but less targets so it's not as bad
  • 4 sources of fixing for your 3-color deck felt like too little (makes sense given I suggested 5-6)
  • there's a little bit more room for some black recursion and nekrataals (currently just Bone shredder)
  • significantly less morphs getting played than KTK, and almost none of the vanilla morphs
Card/Interactions notes:
In the market for:
  • enchantment kill that's good enough to play even if there's only 1 target that's really important
  • a G/W token payoff card that's still interactive
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Rob Dennis said:
  • significantly less morphs getting played than KTK, and almost none of the vanilla morphs
Click to expand...

That makes a lot of sense. In KTK the common morph cycle (ponyback brigade ect) worked at a very high power level relative to what you normally pickup at common. Your drafters, in comparison, have a lot more valid non-morph alternatives.

In addition, in KTK, the formats main issue for the drafters to solve was one of mana fixing, which was represented by the cycle of CIPT tri-lands and banners. This created a split in drafting and deckbuilding strategy, as well as a tension between slower but powerful multi-color decks and the faster two color decks that could race under them. The slower multi-color decks have a vested interest in taking morphs both because: 1) powerful multi-color morphs are a payoff for going multi-color in the first place, and 2) the colorless morphs provide a consistant and reliable turn 3 play to get in the way of the aggressive decks, should the multi-color deck stumble on its CIPT fixing.

Running morphs solves a lot of the principle issues that drafters in the format run into: how to run powerful multi-color cards, while minimizing the danger of getting knocked off tempo by CIPT lands and dying.

Those issues don't really exist in your cube, because the mana base and corresponding impact on your game curve are completly different. You have the full fetch->shock/ABU duals cycle (as well as all of those tri-color mana dorks), so every deck can solve their fixing issues without tempo loss, with a fair amount of consistancy. There is no real need to have morphs as consistant turn 3 plays to ensure you stay on tempo, since those tempo issues don't exist due to the excellence of your fixing options; and because morphs operate at a lower power level relative to the environment anyway.

And thats probably fine--its the charm cube after all, not the KTK cube.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Grillo_Parlante said:
And thats probably fine--its the charm cube after all, not the KTK cube.
Click to expand...


A really good point that it's worth reminding me of. The morphs are the least interesting part of the list, but from the beginning I've assumed it was a necessary part of holding it all together.

I want to get a few bits of additional data, and there are some cards that'd help morphs along with some other themes (something like Muraganda Petroglyphs) that may be worth trying, but it's not like this cube has a morph problem that needs to be solved.

I didn't say it the first time, but I got a lot of really good feedback and people seemed a lot happier with their experience than with my usual "best of" cubes. My favorite were a few "oh man, I've never seen this card before, it's awesome" moments.
 
Lucre

Lucre

You may wana draft more packs or more cards? Make this more like sealed. Or make your land draft supes good.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
I've actually been really happy at the deck quality over the drafts I've done so far, so I don't think I'm looking to change the mechanics there. Also worth clarifying that this cube is not doing a land draft and that's one of the contributing factors to the slower speed of the format. Both players are going to consistently get to 6+ mana.

I've made one swap recently, but I expect continued testing to show that I can consider adding some more cards with more than one mana of a single color (e.g. 2{R}{R}) which trimming on the most boring of the morphs. This is a trajectory I feel pretty happy with.
 
Lucre

Lucre

I'm very curious about what some niche cubers see in memory's journey. I find cards like that are useless at worst and very oppressive to niche strategies that work hard for their advantage at best and that there is usually very little room in between.

I've always found cremate is a more fun card.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
I've actually never seen it used for the anti-graveyard consideration :x. The niche it's in is for the self-mill deck to put back the payback cards like Laboratory Maniac and Spider Spawning. I'll note that I've played it in a Sidisi deck with maniac, but I sided it out when I realized how aggressive my opponent's deck was.

This isn't enough testing to make a determination, but I have hopes based on how it played in 3xISD
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Alright, finished prepping for my second 6+ person cube night. I've turned over about ~20-25 cards that roughly break down as follows:

- cut some uninteractive artifact/enchantments because I don't intend to include enough removal to balance, though this could change if enough synergistic options appear over time (mirari's wake, Glare of Subdual)
- cut some "repetitive game state" offenders that mean you've won but it's going to take a bunch of turns to actually finish (charmbreaker devils)
- cut some of the "vanilla" creatures that I see as particularly unlikely to see play because you really don't need to settle (spined basher, unyielding krumar)
- adding some conditional sweepers, but ones that are mostly targeted against tokens (consume the meek, blasphemous act)
- adding some more removal options, but still relatively inefficient, narrow, or temporary. Examples: Edicts, bounce, and tempo counterspells. Still enough to catch back up a really big Scavenging Ooze get's out of blocking range.
- adding some synergistic cards that I've been targeting for awhile, but I froze the list before getting a real draft night: Flesh Carver, reef worm, and some other ones I've thought about

Overall color balance has stayed the same, which was helped by the fact that I was mostly messing with the monocolored sections. This is big enough that I'm going to reset the bots and see how it goes
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Lucre said:
I'm very curious about what some niche cubers see in memory's journey. I find cards like that are useless at worst and very oppressive to niche strategies that work hard for their advantage at best and that there is usually very little room in between.

I've always found cremate is a more fun card.
Click to expand...

Over here, the self-mill decks often want a way to recycle certain cards despite their own milling. Also, as a hate card, removing 3-6 from a graveyard at a mana cost is powerful enough to be disruptive against a graveyard deck (unlike cremate, which would do nothing here), but not oppressive like deathrite shaman, ooze, relic of progenitus, or nihil spellbomb. Those cards can just blank the strategy in a way thats not fun. Journey is also a great disruptive piece here, due to all of the TOL interactions I run, and any control deck wants at least 1 of those cards. Since journey can be used in such a variety of impactful ways (both offensively and defensively), it makes it a very decision intensive card to run.

That being said I don't think every cube should be running it. It just sizes up very well with my environment.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
new session with 8 drafters (a few folks drafted but didn't play it out because there were other games and we got a late start)

seat order (1 passing to 2 on packs 1 and 3)
1) {W}{U}{B} - (me) brago / blink
2) {G}{W} - tokens
3) {R}{W}{B} - butcher of the horde and sac outlets
4) {W}{G}{B} - generic abzan
5) {R}{W}{U} - tempo / aggro
6) {W}{G}{B} - trying to play/recur Magister of Worth
7) {R}{U}{G} - casting cost matters, efficient big dudes
8) {R}{W}{B} - started {W}{B} and backed into {R} later

I went 1-2 with a lot of mana troubles despite not playing as mana fixers as I had available. I feel like it's a 2-1 deck 60% of the time, 3-0 20% of the time, oh well.

the decks with the most reps were #1, #3, #5, #7 and I'm really liking where the format is at. Areas I'm keeping an eye on, but aren't problems:
- there aren't a lot of cheap defensive cards (Augur of Bolas, Sea Gate Oracle)
- there are a lot of rewards for going wide (primarily with tokens) and so far it's still fine
- abzan has been slightly overdrafted so far, and the decks haven't looked as synergistic as I'd like (often half tokens and half counters), may need some more overlap there
- white has been consistently the highest drafted

color combos that are below average in number of times drafted:
1) {W}{G}{R} (by far the least)
2) {G}{R}{B} / {G}{U}{B} / {G}{W}{U}

I did this the first draft also, but if you stay till the end of the draft, you can sign / alter the card in your deck that most exemplifies your deck (unless it's already signed):
#1 ) Brago, King Eternal
#3) Butcher of the Horde
#5) Taurean Mauler
#7) Surrak Dragonclaw

Other standout cards:
- Ogre Battledriver / Rally the Peasants in deck #5
- Blasphemous Act / Falkenrath Noble in deck #3
- Sudden Demise in deck #8
- Imperious Perfect and a lot of random elves in deck #2
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Did a 4-person draft and didn't appreciate how harder it was to pull synergies together with that many less packs to see.

(first pack, 1 passes to 2)
1) {W}{U}{G} - me (opened Twilight Drover / Curse of Predation but couldn't make heavy tokens work); kind of a pile
2) {W}{R}{B} - a lot of sac outlets and death triggers, but could have used another rage thrower / blood artist reach effect
3) {R}{G}{B} - solid value players like huntmaster of the fells and broodmate dragon
4) {W}{G} splash {B}{U} - aggressive early plays with a powerful late game, along with good interactive spells

I beat seat 3 in 3 games thanks to some fortunate +1/+1 counter synergies. Got completely steamrolled by seat 4 because he was better at all phases of the game.

This was with the session 2 list, because I hadn't yet swapped out anything based on cubetutor testing. I have another large session coming up this Tuesday.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Our 3rd 8-seat draft:

(in first pack, 1 passes to 2)
1) {R}{G}{B} splash siege rhino (me)
2) {W}{B} splash {U} control: took {W}{B} removal very heavily including magister of worth; this was the big winner
3) {R}{G}{B}
4) {W}{G}{U}
5) {W}{G}{B} heavy counters
6) {G}{R}
7) {R}{U}{G} splash mantis rider
8) {R}{G}{W}

signatures (these are the cards people thought were worthy of note)
#1 curse of predation
#2 master of pearls to taunt me (I told him I didn't think master and Magister of Worth went in the same deck and he 3-0'ed)
#5 swarm of bloodflies
#8 sudden demise

other standouts that I saw (I didn't watch/play everyone)
1) curse of shallow graves / phyrexian reclamation
2) basilisk collar
3) falkenrath aristocrat
4) not sure, the drafter didn't have a good opinion on how it went together
5) corpsejack menace this thing is hilarious with graft
6) not sure, he needed to leave early due to illness
7) prophet of kruphix and reef worm (reef worm is really a problem if you just using regular kill spells, {R}/{B} have no exile effects as of now)
8) megalonoth grafted wargear

Takeaways
- #5 was a really synergistic version of the +1/+1 counter deck, but was never able establish some defense OR catch up if it fell behind. There are some possible reasons:
- all the {W}{B} removal went to #4
- he didn't get any of the lifegain effects or the 2CMC walls
- i didn't appreciate how much having tokens can stall the board, and he had none.
I originally saw the "half counters/half tokens" abzan counter decks as the bad version, so I may need to reconsider. Some potential considerations are Kitchen Finks that I know longer think of as too generically good in this cube, because it is kind of nice being able to reset a persist, and there's blink applications.
- It's not clear that all the charms are strong/interesting enough to be the anchors of this whole list. I can see a future where all 10 wedge/shard charms aren't represented, and I have some thoughts for what would need to change (add back some removal and shift around some of the existing removal). The heart of of the list is still about playing shards/wedges but there's a little less "flexibility matters" going for it. It's then the "3/5ths Cube" (shards and wedges are each 3 of the 5 colors)

Fate Reforged Spoilers:
Holy cow, there's three entire cycles that might as well be targeted for this list (support multicolor but not strictly in the casting cost).
- Clan Leaders with Hybrid Abilities: http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/daghatartheadamant.html
- Clan Mythics with Hybrid Abilities: http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/soulfiregrandmaster.html
- Clan Uncommons with "Control a X permanent" abilities: http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/battlebrawler.html
Not that every one of them are going to be great, but that's that kind of support I've really wanted more of.
Plus a bunch of individually powerful / synergy cards:
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/monasterymentor.html
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/dragonscalegeneral.html
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/flamewakephoenix.html
Some interesting role players:
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/honorsreward.html
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/hoodedassassin.html
- http://mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/mardustrikeleader.html
I'm really happy with the future of this list
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
4th session, 8 seats with the FRF changes I link earlier

(in first pack, seat 1 passes to seat 2)

1) {W}{R} - blaze commando/young pyromancer aggro. (me; and linked deck picture here)
2) {R}{U}{G} - ramp / big plays, really got a lot of value out of fight cards
3) {U}{W}{G} - very removal heavy as far as these things go
4) {W}{B}{G} - didn't get a good look before he left
5) {W}{U}{B} - kind of a midrange take, with some evasion and creature kill
6) {U}{B}{R}{W} (grixis splash white) - this was also described here in the deck picture thread with a decklist; really sweet one with some tempo plays and the ability to grind it out
7) {B}{R}{G} - a lot of value cards, but really explored the +1/+1 themes with an awesome bloodhall ooze and kresh the bloodbraided
8) {B}{U}{G} - not a particularly focused sidisi build, but still did a lot

really awesome moments out of each deck that I saw / heard about:
1) turn 4 goldnight commander and then 4 tempt with vengeance tokens attacking for 20 (reminds me of AVR limited)
2) Maelstrom Wanderer hitting two big dudes
3) crystal shard my blocker, play edric and draw 3
6) tasigur the golden fang exiles the chaff, activates and forces the opponent to give him shen yun instead of reef worm
7) Blasphemous Act kills everything EXCEPT a 15/15 kresh who grows to a 50/50 after everything else dies

Takeaways:
  • As expected Fate Reforged is really focused in on what my cube wants, with cool cards that people are excited about, that people felt comfortable playing if they "only" had one of the hybrid colors covered (e.g. sultai deck that got a lot of value out of warden of the first tree)
  • There's just a bit less removal than people really wanted. They like that there's interactive games being played out, so the challenge is finding ways to improve it in a way that still promotes that interactivity.
  • there are some valid complaints about there not being enough artifact/enchantment kill. I had a bad read on the amount of "naturalize" effects were on each of the 3 color charms, and white specifically has gotten removal that's been too good as a result.
  • If my choices are include a lot more enchantment removal, or dial back as many enchantments I don't need, I'm going to do the second one
  • I realized that with the cube at 425, we almost, but quite support 10 players, and we've had 8 consistently enough (and almost 9 several times) that it's something to consider
  • I didn't go into detail about yet, but I like we're done with the idea that this is the "charm cube." The original shards block charms weren't getting played, I'm not willing to do what's necessary to make them enticing enough to play, and as a result I cut them. The Khans charms are still in, but only Sultai Charm and Abzan Charm are really played right now so they're on notice.
  • This is a cube where you're going to draft a 3-color deck most of the time, and that's enough of a hook, especially if it plays well (which I'm happy with so far)
Changes I'm targeting:
  • narrow white removal that will replace the Arrest-type cards.
  • add 25 cards to bump up to 450 (to support 10 drafters)
  • some maindeck-able enchant/artifact destruction
I also need to update the opening post. At this point, we are the "3s Cube" (which is a pithier phrase than "Shard/Wedge Cube")
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
this is a lot of fun! i'm sad i won't actually get to play out any of the games with your crew, but as someone who's never rotisserie drafted and always wanted to, i can say this is making me want to run one for my own list
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member

Four Colour Tokens








this is my preliminary build, leaning super aggro in the two drop department, with the plan being to go under all of the other shenanigans, most of which start at three mana and up. sideboard plan would be to sub in some of the green midrange token makers, or potentially more removal
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top