Article Cube Design - Tri-color Cards

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Link.

Excellent read Jason! I am actually excited to see what options there are and if this is a promising avenue for my cube. Exploring the funnest guilds together with the funnest shards/wedges (i.e. screw Naya) seems like a fun way to shape a unique draft environment. It also gives us the chance to skew the mana fixing the right way. I.e., enemy fetches go into two wedges, allied fetches go into only one. Why not reprint the enemy fetches in Khans and save the allied fetches for later in the block? In a custom environment you can actually double up on the mana fixing for shared color-pairs.

Edit: There seem to be 12 possible combination, according to this quick Excel tabulation.

Edit2: You can make the following unique and balanced combinations:

Esper, Grixis, Jund, Naya, Bant > Azorius, Dimir, Rakdos, Gruul, Selesnya (Shards of Alara)
Esper, Grixis, Naya, Abzan, Temur > Dimir, Gruul, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet
Esper, Jund, Naya, Jeskai, Sultai > Azorius, Dimir, Gruul, Golgari, Boros
Esper, Jund, Bant, Mardu, Temur > Azorius, Rakdos, Gruul, Orzhov, Simic
Esper, Jund, Abzan, Jeskai, Temur > Azorius, Gruul, Orzhov, Izzet, Golgari
Esper, Naya, Sultai, Mardu, Temur > Dimir, Gruul, Orzhov, Boros, Simic
Grixis, Jund, Bant, Abzan, Jeskai > Azorius, Rakdos, Selesnya, Izzet, Golgari
Grixis, Naya, Bant, Sultai, Mardu > Dimir, Rakdos, Selesnya, Boros, Simic
Grixis, Naya, Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai > Dimir, Selesnya, Izzet, Golgari, Boros
Grixis, Bant, Abzan, Mardu, Temur > Rakdos, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet, Simic
Jund, Bant, Jeskai, Sultai, Mardu > Azorius, Rakdos, Golgari, Boros, Simic
Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai, Mardu, Temur > Orzhov, Izzet, Golgari, Boros, Simic (Khans of Tarkir)

If you play the indicated wedges and shards, the guilds after the > are supported by two shards and/or wedges.

Edit 3: Heh. I just noticed each shard and/or wedge is naturally accompanied by its complement. You can't have Esper without Gruul for example, nor Abzan without Izzet.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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These are the tri-color cards I absolutely want to play, and including both Naya and Temur seems silly, so that leaves me with three options:

1: Grixis, Jund, Bant, Abzan, Jeskai > Azorius, Rakdos, Selesnya, Izzet, Golgari
2: Grixis, Naya, Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai > Dimir, Selesnya, Izzet, Golgari, Boros
3: Grixis, Bant, Abzan, Mardu, Temur > Rakdos, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet, Simic

Any input? :)

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. I love three-color cards, and this actually lets me do that. I can also include 5 signets without feeling I left 5 out at random. I can play multiple three-color cards of the two coolest shards! I am getting giddy with anticipation. I should just do this. Fuck it, I'm doing this!

Edit2: Naya has actually no rare or mythic I want to play at all. So, it's either option 1 or option 3, and both look good. I really like option 1 because Jeskai, Izzet and tempo-oriented Azorius play really nice together. Mardu however has some sweet, sweet cube cards in Khans, and Simic is probably my favorite guild. Decisions, decisions...

Edit3: Option 3 it is. I think Mardu and Temur play better than Jeskai and Jund, and Jund doesn't have that many playable rares & mythics. (Neither does Bant, but I'm kinda stuck with that one...) It's also healthy to have a nice agressive color combination like Mardu in the format, keeps midrange honest. Plus, three wedges, and wedges are cool. I do think option 1 is viable if you want to explore sacrifice strategies with Jund or spells matter strategies with Jeskai.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Goldenpineapple said:
OUTRAGE
Click to expand...
Well, I guess Bant has enough rares and mythics to actually be an option, as opposed to, say, Naya. Screw Naya. There's also some sweet uncommons, so I'm not worried that I'll end up with enough playables. Compared to the wedges though, there's less splashy and playable cards than I had thought.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Thanks for the thread Onderzeeboot. I think it's been a while since an idea of mine has made it into article form without gracing the forums first.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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450 card tri-color cube. How does this sound for a mana base:

10 fetchlands (all color pairs)
10 scrylands (all color pairs)
2x5 shocks (Rakdos, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet, Simic)
2x5 fastlands with basic land types (Rakdos, Selesnya, Orzhov, Izzet, Simic)
2x5 trilands (Grixis, Bant, Abzan, Mardu, Temur)

Assuming everyone will end up with a 3-color deck (this requires a pushed gold section as Jason notes), I expect 1-2 players per supported tri-color combination, and thus 2-4 players per supported guild. This makes the best fixers (shocks and fastlands) desirable for a significant number of players. Scrylands are very playable even if you run only one of the colors, making them eminently suited for supporting the unsupported guild color combinations. Fetches are also playable if you play only one of the colors. Trilands are passable if you only play two of the colors and great if you play all three and are thus also very suited as mana fixers.

Assumed players that can play said lands:
fetch/scryland of supported guild: 2-4 on color, 6-7 playable
fetch/scryland of unsupported guild: 1-2 on color, 8 playable
shock/fastland of supported guild: 2-4 on color, 2-4 playable
triland of supported guild: 1-2 on color, 4-6 playable
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Onderzeeboot said:
In my tri-cube Polluted Delta can find Blood Crypt, Godless Shrine, Steam Vents and Breeding Pool, i.e. 4 of the 5 duals with basic land types. Each of those duals is in the cube twice, so together with the Basic Fastlands there's 8 dual land targets in the 450 card cube.

Also, why would I ever want to create a Naya cube? :p
Click to expand...

I think I might have confused this with the other thread about the cube that only contains UBG cards, rather than this one which on reflection just encourages 3 color decks.

In the former, there's very little reason to run Arid Mesa :p
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not terribly opinionated on the land base, but I do think it's worth considering your stance on 4+ color decks. It's hard to say without actually testing though.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Jason Waddell said:
I'm not terribly opinionated on the land base, but I do think it's worth considering your stance on 4+ color decks. It's hard to say without actually testing though.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I'm pulling all 5-color lands. You could always splash of a triland or off-color fetch if you really want to run 4 colors, but I think I want to mainly encourage 2 and 3 color decks. Monocolor and 4+ colors should be rare.
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

Still gonna push that "all ten shards" idea...just to see what comes out of it.

Worse case scenario: I cut 5 three color themes and some of the land and stuff that supported them. (So maybe like...idk...80 cards...?)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Onderzeeboot said:
The fruits of my labors: http://cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/17636

Give it a whirl and tell me what you think of it :)
Click to expand...

I was a little confused by the presence of an "artifacts matters" subtheme, particularly with no Esper in sight.

I'll come out and say that seeing something like Scuttling Doom Engine in a tricolor cube is a little weird. Personally I'd have an artifact count close to zero.

Changes I would make:
- More monocolor cards. I think the gold density and particularly the artifact density are a bit high for my taste. I think hitting at least 40 per monocolor section would be my goal.
- Maybe trim some two-color lands for more tricolor lands. It can be tough to know which tri-color combinations are present if you're new to such a cube, so I like some more explicit guidance in the packs.

But it did look fun to run through the draft simulator, I think it's a good foundation.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Yeah, I did notice the artifact subtheme felt a bit pushed myself as well. I really like it in Grixis because red has such sweet cards for the theme (Goblin Welder and Covetous Dragon are the best imo) and Esper has been done to death. I already reduced the number of artifact and in doing so had to cut things like Ensoul Artifact and Metalworker. Cutting part of the theme makes the pieces I left looking more out of place though, and with access to Izzet instead of Dimir that's hard to fix (no Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas or Baleful Strix for example. If I cut the artifact subtheme I can also cut the artifacts, which lets Grixis focus more on the graveyard manipulation (through looting, reanimation and unearth) and the control aspect of the colors. The cuts in the artifact section have to go to the mono colored section for sure.

I think trimming two-color lands for tri-color lands isn't really where I want to be at though. The mana base works pretty well I think. I might be better of adding a third quintet of tri-color lands to the utility land draft. That's up in the middle of the table and immediately lets all players see what color combinations are supported for the duration of the first pack. Maybe also put the lifelands from KTK in there so people have a chance to pick up an allied color dual.

The amount of multicolor cards is pretty heavy for sure. Not counting the lands and hybrid cards I'm at almost 32%. Not sure what target I should have in mind to really make it a three-color cube though. 6 tri-color cards per "tribe" feels pretty good from the few test drafts I did. It makes sure two players at the table can still feel they are getting rewarded for going into the same three colors, but maybe I could go down to 5. Say I want to get to 25% gold, I would have to cut a further 3 (non-hybrid) gold cards per guild.

Trying it out, will get back when I'm ready.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Ok, try again! http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/17636

I ultimately ended up with 39 cards per mono-color, including 2 hybrids (so really 41 per mono-color, but you share 4 of those with other colors), 13 two-color, and 5 three-color cards. I savagely cut back my artifact section, basically only keeping generic utility cards like equipment and Pithing Needle. In the end I now run a neat exact 25% gold cards (excluding land and hybrids).
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I finally found the time to reshape my cube, mostly using cards I had lying around, so some thing might seem odd (such as no Vindicate or Fire//Ice). The "end" result can be viewed here: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/17874

I took the time to up the card count to 450 as well, to provide a little bit more variance between drafts. If you give it a try, I'ld be eager to hear what you think of it. There's always something to tweak. I'm curious whether the mana works out for example, but bear in mind that there's some fixing in the utility land draft as well.
 
Lucre

Lucre

I found the charm cube very difficult to draft online. I don't think actually counts as experience though. I feel like successful multicoloured formats require some serious design choices other than the obvious availability of fixing, if you consider trips khans and full ravnica. I also feel like Mirrodin Darksteel Fifth Dawn was well set up for this.

I think you will have a much better experience if you are able to work in little assurances for your drafters in terms of speed of the format, card availability via pack order and you find some way of balancing the general value of cards to keep your format from being too power loaded into it's multicolour section (often creating an environment where who ever gets to cast the most multicoloured spells wins)
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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I toyed around with this concept for a while, and I ended up with a cube that's definitely less gold than I would have though, though it is obviously more gold than your average cube. There's 5/450 3-color cards for each of the five combinations, and 16/450 two-color cards for each of the five supported guilds. That makes 105 gold cards versus 48 mono-colored cards per section. My guess is that you will often end up in two colors, and only in three if you prioritize your mana fixing. Maybe I need a touch more mana fixing to make playing three colors easier...
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

If one were to build a wedge tri-color cube, how many allied colored cards should you have in comparison to enemy color? I was thinking 3 tri-colored per clan, 5 enemy colored per guild, & 2 ally colored per guild. That'd be 50 gold cards in a planned 360. There'll also be something like 40 dual lands & probably about 20 artifacts, which leaves ~50 mono-colored cards unless my math is off. Are those good numbers?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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I think the answer is zero. Allied color cards can only be played by one wedge. If you just use the enemy color pairs, people will drift towards your wedges organically, because that's where to guilds overlap.
 
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