General "Colorless" Cube

[Hurrrr]

I've always been a fan of the "more fixing=good" school of thought, but the major issues I have are how all those lands dilute the spell density, and the variance when it comes to opening the right lands. So I thought to myself, how about putting together a cube that ignores the colored aspect of mana. So your Cromat would simply cost 5 mana, rather than WUBRG. It's a simple but radical change that I think could actually make cubing more interesting. Here's what this would do:
- allow inclusion of a surprisingly wide range of interesting cards that are too fringe in traditional cube due to color requirements, ie. Maelstrom Nexus, Pox, High Tide
- allow removal of all mana fixing, increasing the spell density
- drastically increase the number of playables for any given deck, removing frustrating situations such as where you are mono R and 4/12 packs have no cards you can play; in turn this facilitates the inclusion of a handful of fun, fringe archetype cards such as Jeskai Ascendency
- eliminates the need for a utility land draft
- eliminates the need for color balance
- allows players to draft more creatively than traditional cube

The major downside is that drafting takes a lot longer, but I think the benefits far outweigh this.

There is also the issue of how exactly to implement the color-fixing rule. I think "you may spend colored mana as though it is mana of any color" is the most interesting, offering some tension with non-basics, but you could make it stricter "basic lands tap for mana of any color" or looser "spend mana as though it is mana of any color."

Thoughts? Has anyone tried this?

 

[shamizy]

Why not just run Worldknit? This idea seems pretty wonky to me. There's no cost to picking anything and you'll have decks that are all over the place. I mean, Worldknit decks already muck up drafts (though they are really sweet when it's well-built with looters and stuff) and I think giving everyone a Worldknit is pretty crazy. I mean, it basically just becomes a matter of picking the best spell in any given pack.

There's no draft tension or fighting over spells which, in my opinion, is one of the best parts of Cube. It feels great to have a sweet deck come together after reading signs and hoping for certain cards to come back to you. Without that, drafting really loses its luster.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I tried this once and jesus the decks were insane (not in a good way)

 

[Jason Waddell]

I'm not against any new idea in the abstract, but I think there are a lot of advantages to the colored mana system that enhance the drafting process, that aren't really touched on in the original post.

 

[negativeview]

I thought this thread was going to be about a cube that was like 50% artifacts. I am disapppointed.

I'm also fairly pessimistic about a cube that just ignores the color of cards. It seems impossible to make it not just devolve into a good-stuff format.

 

[Tyrole]

I think you would have to push some sort of resource acquisition tension to replace the color pie in draft, and you would have to push it hard. Maybe it could be done with extreme synergies?

Magic, and drafting, is fundamentally about the colors. I like the general idea of a totally new approach to a cube, but creating one that is interesting seems like a difficult task.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think you would have to push some sort of resource acquisition tension to replace the color pie in draft, and you would have to push it hard. Maybe it could be done with extreme synergies?

Yeah, this is what I was thinking, but if you push them that hard you can start to pigeon-hole your decks. I dunno. Maybe there's another drafting game that gives an example here?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

In Seven Wonders, the cards you can play are determined by having access to the right prerequisites, which mostly consist of the cards you have already drafted. So, if you want to play the aqueduct, you either need to have preciously have drafted the bath or have access to 3 stone. With works in Seven Wonders for two reasons: drafting and playing happen concurrently and the draft pool is stacked so that certain cards come out before other cards. I'm not sure how to make it work in magic.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think it's more fair to say that in Seven Wonders the drafting is the playing.

 

[Hurrrr]

I think you would have to push some sort of resource acquisition tension to replace the color pie in draft, and you would have to push it hard. Maybe it could be done with extreme synergies?

Magic, and drafting, is fundamentally about the colors. I like the general idea of a totally new approach to a cube, but creating one that is interesting seems like a difficult task.

I agree that there does need to be some incentive not to just draft good stuff every time. You can't just draft a typical cube like this and expect it to be interesting. Synergies are very likely the way to go; I think it'll take some work to get it right but if you manage to find enough archetypes with interesting overlap it could work out.