This is going to be a big update, as there is a lot of information and I think that many cube builders will find these discovered interesting.
I have made a major overhaul of the CMC, including removing Meren and many other cards to go with the design adjustments that came from player feedback, observing the drafts' most fun and powerful decks over several drafts, removing a few overly parasitic archetypes, redefining Heroic's enablers, further identifying each color's identity and roles in and out of combat, and then restructuring the dual lands around these changes.
A few of my limited events with the CMC have highlighted a couple of draft patterns that I needed to address to accomplish my goal of making the environment feel fun and balanced. I think fun, in a game, comes from realizing an understanding of how cards may work together and balance is ensuring that the costs of any spells or effects maintains a balance of that understanding when applied in the game.
I needed to remove Reanimator (the cheaty kind) as I had determined it was entirely too parasitic, not only from a mechanical standpoint but, also from a draft and gameplay design standpoint. The type of environment that I am trying to forge here is one where players are experiencing different types of cohesive fun with their spellslinging. Reanimator requires four things to function and have a worthy influence on the game:
1) A card worth reanimating either by context or by raw power
2) A method for getting that card in to your graveyard. Which becomes more parasitic as it becomes more precise in its card choice, creating a dependency with #1
3) A method of reanimating the card from #1
4) All of the above must occur before the player could naturally cast the card from #1 (or else you just wasted all of that time and resources for something you can do naturally)
On top of having a bunch of requirements just to pull off reanimator, it is an intriguing archetype which has twice now caused more than two players to try to draft it on critical mass and none ended up getting it. Both times. So it's even parasitic at the draft table. Ruining your players' draft choices by presenting a strategy that requires too many specific types of cards to expect all while hoping to not draw them together. You don't want four big reanimator targets, one reanimator spell or effect, and no way to get them in to your graveyard do you?
So, yeah, I cut it, Equipment, and critical mass Tribal entirely.
Moving ahead, a big conclusion for me, after looking at the decks that had done well and people enjoyed playing, was that boardwipe effects are inherently heroic. They seem anti-heroic (because they kill creatures) but, they're functionally not much different from the spell Balance. With that in mind, a Heroic deck isn't playing a lot of creatures, it uses a couple or few creatures very effectively with a combination of enchantments, instants, sorceries, artifacts, and lands. Heroic doesn't try to go with a critical mass of similar Gambits like Merfolk Tribal or Control decks with efficient targeted creature removal spells. So Heroic benefits from this by attaining virtual card advantage by not flooding the board with creatures and playing Balance in retro. The opponent has the option to counter the anticipated boardwipes by not playing in to them with a board flood or through different counters (such as Negate). This is Balance. It's better for gameplay, in my mind, than Wrath of God or Supreme Verdict which have limited counter-play. This Cube's removal, as designed, is always either dependent on other cards or symmetrical, so this is very relevant to the environment.
Next, while exploring the different Colors' identities due to player feedback (starting with Black's lack of removal), I realized a lot of things about the identities of the colors in Magic including how they make the player feel while they're using those types of spells. This lead to changes with not only respect to card choice in the CMC but even how many 2-ofs I would run, and other details like how Red is the only color now that has different art for its 2-ofs because Red is about moments and that communicates different moments in time. This leading to the choice ultimately along with other feedback to move Dual Casting to a 2-of even though it only has one version with one art piece. That's okay though, because it's a copy effect. So it makes sense that its the same moment twice! Dual Casting is also in alignment with the philosophy of the CMC and enables Spellslinger for Red that is unique in that it copies spells and thus, doesn't necessarily rely on critical mass. If you have big spells to copy, such as Time Warp, you don't need a lot of them if you can copy or Flashback the card. I also took out some Black card draw and other reanimator cards to make room for Black tutors that have downside as Black's method of card selection while rewarding technical play. White has a much stronger focus on Balance. Green only has one 2-of, which is Chord of Calling. Flavor win! If it's a chord, it must be replayable and that's makes sense flavorwise, with Yisan.
After determining that the strongest decks would tend to have a balance of creatures and non-creature spells that included boardwipes, boardwipe protection, and/or non-creature counters, it became clear to me that there was a "meta" that had developed for strong decks. I used that information with card selection changes in the CMC to increase the diversity of the decks where necessary, to match the different Colors' new needs for expressing identity while also rewarding decks that played to and around this strategy of limiting or eliminating the board.
Instead of calling them Archetypes, from now on, I am going to refer to the types of decks the players can build around as, at least, these two fundamentally different concepts:
Gambits and Strategies
Gambits are the types of effects on a spell or permanent that you are anticipating drawing each game. Which is an oversimplification still, but it gets the point across.
So, core Gambits would be like:
Landfall (Mana mastery - I have built my deck in a way that allows me to play mana masterfully)
Heroic (Combat mastery)
Spellslinger (Spell-type mastery - Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Blue, Black, Human Tribal, Goblin Tribal, Devotion, Tutor)
Boomerang (Presence mastery - Permanents leave and may re-enter the battlefield - formerly Blink/Flicker/ETB/Undying/Supernatural Stamina)
Balance (Limitations mastery - Death & Taxes)
Strategy is the method with which you anticipate achieving your goal(s) each game while utilizing your chosen Gambits. Whether thats victory or anything else (I leave room here for people that don't only play to win as their goals may be completely different).
So, the core Strategies that I've identified for the CMC and their matching primary color would be:
Combat (Green)
Resource Management (Red)
Technical Execution (Black)
Temporal Mastery (Blue)
Limitations (White)
A strong deck will not only be able to combine Strategies through the use of overlapping Gambits, but will also have the ability to morph its focus on different Strategies by utilizing different combinations of Gambits. Or in other words, a strong deck can be multiple decks.
Lastly, with my dual land selection, I have adopted out of running full cycles of supported Guilds/Shards/Wedges and have instead opted to give each color its own version of a dual land type that it shares with each other color. Allied colors having potentially two of these appear in the draft, and enemy colors having only the potential for one to appear in the draft. One is always guaranteed (there are 30 dual lands for 24 slots).
White Reveal Lands
Blue Bounce Lands
Black Shock Lands
Red Fetch Lands
Green Check Lands
This, I believe shifts some focus away from indiscriminately supporting all colors for your deck (which many decks try to do) and instead offer the option to choose a primary color (Devotion) that your deck focuses on and gathering supporting lands and spells around that color.
All of these changes and more come with the hope that players will be able to make meaningful and quick choices during the draft, and ensure that their deck feels as cohesive and rewarding to play as possible while maintaining much uniqueness.
I feel confident that these changes have brought me much closer to that goal.
Please feel free to share your thoughts or questions!
P.S. - I included Faerie Miscreant as a payoff for clone effects and also ninjutsu. That's why it's a 1-of. Think wide and deep.
