General [Contest] 72-card Nanocube

ellogeyen

ellogeyen

Small cubes are awesome, as they enable designers to dive into very specific archetypes. How small can we go?

Contest Rules
72 cards hopefully makes the design challenge manageable, while making the cube playable for 2 players (grid drafting) or 4 players (2 packs of 9).

1. your cube has exactly 72 cards
2. minimum deck size is reduced to 15
2.1 optional: players cannot lose by decking
3. no custom rules allowed (seeding packs is fine)
4. no custom cards allowed

Prize: 20 EUR (or regional equavalent)
Spendable on one Mtg card that I'll have shipped through an online seller. Shipping costs are included in the 20 euro.

Deadline: February 2nd
Gives everyone a month to brew.

Submissions
Can be done by replying to this thread with a CubeCobra link! Only one entry per person, but feel free to share your thought process here. After the deadline, I'll make a poll where everyone can vote for their favorite cube. I'll also post my own thoughts on each cube, but it's a democratic process. Have fun everybody :)

(if you have any questions, feel free to ask below)
 
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LadyMapi

LadyMapi

A few questions:
  1. Does the cube have to be a draft cube, or could we, say, make a cube split into two 36-card Sealed pools?
  2. Do we have to use the "players cannot lose by decking" rule? I've always felt like that was a bit of a cop-out.
  3. On that note... custom cards aren't allowed, but what about custom rules?
  4. Does anyone dare me to go non-singleton for this thing?
Also, as a bit of inspiration for people, I think that this would be a cool and fun card to include in your tiny cube:

 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

LadyMapi said:
A few questions:
  1. Does the cube have to be a draft cube, or could we, say, make a cube split into two 36-card Sealed pools?
  2. Do we have to use the "players cannot lose by decking" rule? I've always felt like that was a bit of a cop-out.
  3. On that note... custom cards aren't allowed, but what about custom rules?
  4. Does anyone dare me to go non-singleton for this thing?
Click to expand...
1. Sealed would be fine, I'm adamant of the 15-card deck size though
2. No! Didn't consider making that rules optional, but I like the spice it brings
3. No custom rules, but seeding packs would be fine
4. I dare you!

I've updated the description!

LadyMapi said:
Also, as a bit of inspiration for people, I think that this would be a cool and fun card to include in your tiny cube:

Click to expand...
Yeah these kinds of things are exactly the kind of thing that excites me about this concept!

gaytransmulldrifter said:
I'm gonna try to find some time to attempt to do this using nothing but cards from my bulk boxes.
Click to expand...
Perfect! :D
 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

LadyMapi said:
I feel like it reduces spice a little because only having 15 cards to work with adds a sense of urgency to the game.
Click to expand...
When the 1life cube was the hottest thing, a meta developed where the first player just waited out the opponent. 1life cube decks have 15 cards too, so the opponent would deck out faster. Cubes developed, the meta progressed, the problem was solved, but it is certainly a thing to mind! Serene Remembrance was first pickable there.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I honestly wonder how viable that kind of strategy would be in a cube that wasn't as defensively skewed as a sudden death cube (where a core part of the gameplay is "prevent villain from hitting you")? The second player getting eight turns to kill you is entirely reasonable if you've got a more "normal" set of macro-archetypes (mini-macro-archetypes?).
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I feel like seeding lands or customizing the basic land box is fine - it's mostly to stop people like me from including weird rules that make the cube tricky to assess during voting.

Bear in mind that 15 card decks mean that people will be running 5-6 lands and effectively see their entire deck with their opening hand + mulligan, so a single rainbow land will go way further than it would in a normal cube.
 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

LadyMapi said:
I honestly wonder how viable that kind of strategy would be in a cube that wasn't as defensively skewed as a sudden death cube (where a core part of the gameplay is "prevent villain from hitting you")? The second player getting eight turns to kill you is entirely reasonable if you've got a more "normal" set of macro-archetypes (mini-macro-archetypes?).
Click to expand...
I've made nanocubes before, it's faster than you think. Every additional card you draw loses you a turn: the player on the draw has only 7 turns to win. Reshuffle effects become essential for control decks.

Certainly possible, but creating that environment has a sizable impact on the cube design.

TrainmasterGT said:
What qualifies as a custom rule in this case? I was thinking about doing a Cube that encouraged people to build 5 color decks, but I don’t really want to do that if I can’t include fixing in the land box. I don’t think 72 cards is enough to add proper fixing otherwise.
Click to expand...

72 cards is more than you think: drafting 18 cards for 15 card decks is comparable to drafting 45 cards for 40 card decks. And as @LadyMapi mentioned, you need less lands to meet your fixing needs.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

My first draft (might do something completely different later) - the cube is two copies of the following 36-card sealed pool with only Temur basics in the basic land box:

Sealed Pool

BLUE (7)
1 x Vortex Elemental
1 x Roost of Drakes
1 x Into the Roil
1 x Soratami Cloudskater
1 x Nimble Obstructionist
1 x Witness the Future
1 x Words of Wind

RED (7)
3 x Surging Flame
1 x Coruscation Mage
1 x Flametongue Yearling
1 x Ingot Chewer
1 x Yidaro, Wandering Monster

GREEN (8)
1 x Serene Remembrance
1 x Riftsweeper
3 x Say Its Name
1 x Ambush Wolf
1 x Mold Shambler
1 x Altanak, the Thrice-Called

KICKER GOLD (6)
1 x Bloodchief's Thirst
1 x Viashino Branchrider
1 x Ghitu Amplifier
1 x Nullpriest of Oblivion
1 x Tear Asunder
1 x Thornscape Battlemage

ARTIFACTS (5)
1 x Scrabbling Claws
1 x Gravestone Strider
1 x Crown of Empires
1 x Scepter of Empires
1 x Throne of Empires

LANDS (2)
1 x Mystic Sanctuary
1 x Throne of Makindi


(I posted it like this because I can't be bothered to remember my CubeCobra login right now. :p)
 
haganbmj

haganbmj

Going to give this a shot, the trick will be finding an opportunity or two to do some test drafts with the locals.

Rather than a minimum deck size can we impose _exactly_ 15 card decks? The 3 micro cubes I've drafted before all had that as a rule.
 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

haganbmj said:
Going to give this a shot, the trick will be finding an opportunity or two to do some test drafts with the locals.

Rather than a minimum deck size can we impose _exactly_ 15 card decks? The 3 micro cubes I've drafted before all had that as a rule.
Click to expand...
I'd be fine with that, although I don't think it matters too much for design
 
haganbmj

haganbmj

ellogeyen said:
I'd be fine with that, although I don't think it matters too much for design
Click to expand...
It really changes how any kind of draw, mill, or recursion effects work in this type of environment. If your opponent can just board up a card or two and avoid the issue then you can't reliably build around outlasting your opponent.
 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

haganbmj said:
It really changes how any kind of draw, mill, or recursion effects work in this type of environment. If your opponent can just board up a card or two and avoid the issue then you can't reliably build around outlasting your opponent.
Click to expand...
Fair, it changes things, but it's still in line with the spirit of the contest!
 
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