General Current opinion on duplicates and other Riptidian/Waddellisms?

[Wumpa]

Hey all, I have a confession, I peak at all of your cubes. I love watching each cube evolve and establish its own identity, and I frequently cross reference different lists to discover cool new cube tech. In my voyeuristic endeavors I've noticed a few interesting trends however. For one, the double fetch/double shock fixing paradigm established by our fearless leader seems to have been falling out of favor. I see people building cubes around bouncelands, temples. and cycle lands, and more commonly tailoring each guild to feature a unique array of lands. At this point I can't tell if the omission of fetch lands is due to budgetary concerns or a deliberate design choice. Which is fantastic! I'm just curious as to what motivated this change. Was double shock/double fetch too boring? Too consistent? Too effective at enabling 3+ colour decks?

Similarly, I've seen a shift away from duplicates in the community. Ones nearly everyone used to run multiple of back in the day include:


I imagine the steady stream of new cards has been a big factor why duplicates are much less common these days, which I completely understand. That said some interesting duplicate patterns have emerged. Steppe Lynx seems to have fallen completely out of favor, however many riptide cubes feature 2-3 copies of Champion of the Parish. I imagine that a big reason for this is pushing the b/w humans archetype (as explored here: https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetype-spotlight-b-w-humans.1597/). However with more and more powerful non-human white creatures being printed such as Skymarch Aspirant it feels like people are either adding more champions or cutting the human tribal theme altogether. I'm really curious as to where you guys stand on this one.

In blue Delver of Secrets was a contentious card for a long time that seemed to quiety disappear from most cubes, although a few stalwart spells matters fans still use it. And of course there's Brainstorm, the cantrip Waddell used to run five of! A handful of cubers here run triple Brainstorm with alongside the old double fetch set up, but it seems like the obsession with the cantrip has calmed over the years.

In black it's still quite common to see duplicates of one drops, however what's interesting is that there seems to be a lot of different interpretations on what the ideal combo is. People run two duplicates of any of Bloodsoaked Champion, Gravecrawler, or Carrion Feeder. I'm really curious as to how people feel about their respective configuration of black one drops, or how well an aristocrats archetype could function without any duplicates.

In red Young Pyromancer is the only card I really see ran in duplicates, one feels like too few for a spells package and two can feel like it dominates one's red 2's section. Been running doubles of this guy for a while but I've been on the fence on it.

In green the riptide hard-on for Birthing Pod seems to be wavering. I've watched as copies dropped from three to one, sometimes none! Interestingly the similar Eldritch Evolution hasn't been very popular, even in cubes that support the archetype. It seems like competition from Collected Company accounts for some of the shift (many cubes run a 2/2 split), or maybe people are just tired of the archetype and how difficult it can be to draft.

And lastly, Bonesplitter and Grafted Wargear duplicates have seen a big decline, though that's likely because Bloodforged Battle-axe is comparable and the wargear is just nutty.

Anyways I just wanted to find a way to bring classic Riptide philosophy to the forefront of discussion as much of the gradual evolution of cube thought here is buried in various forums and some shifts haven't been explicit. I've been struggling myself over whether or not running duplicates is something my environment really benefits from anymore in an age where cube gaps don't exist the way they used to. I'd considered doing an actual survey of cubes to provide more concrete numbers but its 4am and that kind of data compiling doesn't seem in tune with the spirit of the site, so i'll leave it at that and edit in the morning.

 

[Aston]

I currently run as duplicates:
3x Champion of the Parish
2x Brainstorm
2x Bloodsoaked Champion
2x Carrion Feeder
2x Young Pyromancer
2x Lightning Bolt
3x Birthing Pod
2x Collected Company
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3x Wasteland

As well as the double fetch manabase. I've been very pleased with pretty much all of these, and most of them have been double or tripled up on for quite a long time. Most of these are because a single copy of any of them isn't impactful enough to be worth taking and building around, and they don't really have any similar enough analogues to double up on (eg I might have doubled up on Braids, Cabal Minion, but Smokestackfills that role instead).

Double fetch manabase is possibly the single best improvement I've ever made to my cube. Jason's article sums up why very well, I don't think I would ever go back. The move towards bounceland or other land based cubes I think is part of the general powering down of a lot of Riptide cubes, but it follows the philosophy that the mana in a cube is incredibly important and should be a pillar of the design of any cube. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a cost factor involved as well, though.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

What a sweet recap Wumpa, props

I still run double fetch, double shock (plus double of a custom land with two basic land types for each of the five guilds I run), and it's perfect for the three-color madness I've built. I've pretty much moved away from every single one of the cards you mention falling in popularity (though I never ran Stepe Lynx at all). I currently run the following cards twice:



(Actually the Librarian is a custom in my cube, I gave it changeling and reduced its casting cost to .)

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

One issue with fetch lands, besides the cost, is all the shuffling. It’s a cool effect when it’s instantaneous (online), but can get a little tedious in person.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

When you're earlier in the design process, and you have all of this blank territory, it helps reduce the complexity by filling those blank spots in with duplicates of cards you already know will work reasonably. As the archetypes start to take greater form, that space becomes more competitive, and you want more room to realize some of the potential thats starting to take form.

I also got tired of always having to communicate these exceptions to an otherwise pristine rule in an already complicated gaming environment. The more specialized the environment becomes, the more isolated it also becomes--its a tricky line to walk.

 

[Peter LaCara]

One issue with fetch lands, besides the cost, is all the shuffling. It’s a cool effect when it’s instantaneous (online), but can get a little tedious in person.

This is the reason I don't run them. I try to reduce cards that have a lot of 'loading time.' Plus, I do think there is such a thing as mana being too good. I hate non-games of Magic as much as the next guy, but if I'm just casually throwing together four color decks because there's no downside then I feel like that removes some of the discipline from deckbuilding. I'm sure that's a feature for some of the posters here, but I feel like 5c nonsense works best as a sometimes food.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Also sometimes these changes are made just because people get bored, not necessarly because it was a failure. Maybe you run x3 steppe lynx for 6 months, and its really good, but your players get curious about other ways to play white aggro, and you have limited space for white 1 drops, so x3 champion go in. Steppe lynx aggro may have been fine, and maybe it will or should come back at a certain point, but you were facilitating a change of pace in an already reasonable white section.

I see that error happen sometimes in pauper meta analysis, where the assumption is that meta changes are being driven by these objective Darwinian principles, when half the time its just people getting bored of playing deck X and wanting a change of pace.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Regarding singleton, I think Jason had a good point about it w/rt powermax cubes.

Powermax cubes started with the heuristic "is it one of the x (x=50, 70, etc) most powerful cards in this color?" to determine if something is included. If you didn't also have the singleton rule, then you'd have a cube full of lotuses and 1 turn kill combo pieces that you mulligan for, etc. So the singleton rule balances out the powermax heuristic.

For non-powermax cubes, it seems much less essential of a feature for the concept. And it seems like it can be counterproductive if you prioritize some features like density of archetype fodder over absolute variety in cards.

Grillo has a point though that one good reason to not break singleton if you don't have: you don't need to explain as much about why your cube is different to others. MODO cubes have been established as "legitimate" in the eyes of many, so when you go too far off brand you have to have a little more trust that you know what you are doing. Just in the last couple weeks of getting together groups to play Grillo's cube, the effort to explain why it doesn't look like the modo cube has been a bit of work. You also have to explain to people how many cards are duplicates, so they know when drafting, and then you probably need to rationalize it and .. it sounds lazy, but if it's avoidable, that seems worth it. I think I am at least a few months away from people drinking the koolaid enough to be interested in squadroning and utility land drafts and toy boating and whatever else is en vogue

Another thing to think about is whether you aspire to enter your cube into one of those wizards cube contests. 540 singleton seems like their expectation.

 

[Wumpa]

What a sweet recap Wumpa, props

Thanks Onder! I'm a big fan of double Experiment One as well, any thoughts on doubling up on the new Pelt Collector?

Also sometimes these changes are made just because people get bored, not necessarly because it was a failure. Maybe you run x3 steppe lynx for 6 months, and its really good, but your players get curious about other ways to play white aggro, and you have limited space for white 1 drops, so x3 champion go in. Steppe lynx aggro may have been fine, and maybe it will or should come back at a certain point, but you were facilitating a change of pace in an already reasonable white section.

I see that error happen sometimes in pauper meta analysis, where the assumption is that meta changes are being driven by these objective Darwinian principles, when half the time its just people getting bored of playing deck X and wanting a change of pace.

I think this has been the hardest lesson of cube design to internalize for me, approaching cube as a modular environment that is in flux rather than trying to reach a sweet spot and keep it there. I really need to let go and shake things up more. I think I'm honestly just a bit tired of the archetypes I've been using the duplicates to support.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

I think this has been the hardest lesson of cube design to internalize for me, approaching cube as a modular environment that is in flux rather than trying to reach a sweet spot and keep it there. I really need to let go and shake things up more. I think I'm honestly just a bit tired of the archetypes I've been using the duplicates to support.

I still keep toying with the idea of formalizing this in the cube structure, somehow. Something like having some number of wildcard slots.. maybe 24, so there is one per pack. Randomly pull some of those from some distribution of cards that fit the cube and it's archetypes (separate pools for each color, colorless, maybe guilds). Or, if you want to audition some cards, just deliberately insert them in those wildcard slots.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks Onder! I'm a big fan of double Experiment One as well, any thoughts on doubling up on the new Pelt Collector?

I think the choice depends mostly on if and if so, which of the two tribes you want to support in you cube.

 

[Wumpa]

I think the choice depends mostly on if and if so, which of the two tribes you want to support in you cube.

I've always seen it as incidentally supporting a humans archetype, I figure Pelt Collector would work along a similar line of aggro creatures that grow while adding perhaps some aristocrats cross pollination.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It might be accidental, but it fits the style of the human deck, and green isn't traditionally rich in humans, so I think it's an important cog in the WG humans deck.

 

[shamizy]

For one, the double fetch/double shock fixing paradigm established by our fearless leader seems to have been falling out of favor. I see people building cubes around bouncelands, temples. and cycle lands, and more commonly tailoring each guild to feature a unique array of lands. At this point I can't tell if the omission of fetch lands is due to budgetary concerns or a deliberate design choice. Which is fantastic! I'm just curious as to what motivated this change. Was double shock/double fetch too boring? Too consistent? Too effective at enabling 3+ colour decks?

When I first began constructing my cube around 4 1/2 years ago, I took many of Waddell's original cube ideas to heart and implemented them within my own environment and built a 360 offering with double fetch/shock manabase. The issue that crept up early in design was the ease with which greedy splashes in decks were accomplished. There just wasn't enough drafting tension when it came to picking up fixing. Any given fetchland is capable of grabbing 7/10 of the various dual land types. The "correct" way to draft that led to most consistency was to prioritize duals early, pick up a few fetches, then just grab whatever the hell you wanted as the draft progressed because chances were good that you would be able to splash without many issues. I increased the size of my cube numerous times in the following and settled in a (mostly) sweet spot of 420 cards, but I didn't really have my solution until the BFZ lands were printed. My ideal environment would feature mostly two color decks with a light splash, more than that on rare occassion dependent upon drafting strategy. The BFZ lands played perfectly into this by encourage a limit on colors to ensure a smooth curve and being able to play things in sequence without taking a turn off with a tapped land.

As soon as they were spoiled, I swapped out every 2nd copy of a shockland I could. Now I'm just waiting patiently for the enemy colors to be released and I'll have my ideal landbase. Double shock/fetch definitely did help aggressive decks splash for more colors and curve out more efficiently, but it also made it such that midrangey piles just had access to everything they might possibly need to play a value grindfest that lower to the ground decks weren't able to break through. I think what made this shine for me most clearly was the one time my friends and I played sealed with my cube and realized oh wait, just splashing for everything you can is how you should play. Oh no, that's not good.

I also think that the printing of more versatile aggressive threats have lessened the need to even the playing field by ensuring the curve outs of aggressive decks into cards that can carry you past the early stages of the game. We aren't at the point where people are just jamming every 2/1 body that gets printed right into their White sections. There is much more reach and evasion available to us up and down the curve that were just not options years ago.

Similarly, I've seen a shift away from duplicates in the community. Ones nearly everyone used to run multiple of back in the day include:


I imagine the steady stream of new cards has been a big factor why duplicates are much less common these days, which I completely understand. That said some interesting duplicate patterns have emerged.

Breaking singleton is still something that I deploy when it makes sense. I've experimented with squadron picks and other things in the past, but I still think that this is the simplest solution if you're looking to replicate a specific effect in your environment. I'm still running duplicates of the following:



Brainstorm is the only card on this list that I could see being pushed back to a singleton at some point. The interactions with other cards are cool, but it doesn't seem to happen often enough to be worth it. All of the rest of the cards are key to establishing/bolstering certain strategies and I can't really see myself swapping them out unless I get something that can replicate the given effect well enough. The champions are the core of aggressive white and black strategies, Bonesplitters give those deck a means to punch through bulky threats in the midgame, and both CoCo and Pod promote interesting deckbuilding and drafting if they're gobbled up by players early enough.

I run Dread Wanderer from AKH as a pseudo Gravecrawler, but it's also not quite there. It's funny, I'd love to have another Gravecrawler type creature, but getting another copy at the 1 slot would be too busted (as I've learned from previous experience). I'm probably just holding out for a 2-3 cmc version, maybe with an additional effect ala Thalia's Lieutenant. Some analog of that would be ideal.

I agree with what others have mentioned about it being a hassle to explain things to drafters with quirky things like duplicates and/or squadrons, but I've found that labeling the inner sleeves with a sticker and leaving out a cue card explaining different stickers has made things MUCH easier. Also helps when sorting back in cards for my Utility Land Draft at the end of a session.

Anyways I just wanted to find a way to bring classic Riptide philosophy to the forefront of discussion as much of the gradual evolution of cube thought here is buried in various forums and some shifts haven't been explicit. I've been struggling myself over whether or not running duplicates is something my environment really benefits from anymore in an age where cube gaps don't exist the way they used to. I'd considered doing an actual survey of cubes to provide more concrete numbers but its 4am and that kind of data compiling doesn't seem in tune with the spirit of the site, so i'll leave it at that and edit in the morning.

It's interesting, I feel mostly the same nowadays except for very specific cases. There are just so many more viable options now than there were when I first started designing my cube. There are a ton of interesting designs that have been created in the last 4 years that have helped to fill in gaps and supplement a lot of archetypes that were lacking for a very long time.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Sometimes I think the decisions you have to make in terms of sequencing with come-into-play-tapped lands adds some interesting texture to the games. Like the decision of sequencing the lands to play a card in hand now on turn three, or prepare for the possible top-decking of an out that you could play on turn 4. This kind of exists for the fetch/shocks because you don't want to waste life, but it's much less severe of a mistake.

It can be kind of overwhelming sometimes, too. We've been playing a constructed format in paper recently that's a spinoff of the heirloom format, where we can only play cards with a market value under a certain price point. So the decks have a lot of bouncelands, scry lands, etc.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

In some ways, tap lands are like adding 1-2 more 1-drops to your hand

 

[anotak]

as always my usual disclaimer that i havent played in a minute but one of my big shifts was that i started running customs, which removed any need for duplicates

there are drawbacks to running duplicates as well as advantages

i still think multi-fetch multi-shock plays quite well but it's not the *only* answer and i think it's natural for there to be cyclical trends about this stuff, much like there is with music for example

edit: yea it's also just important to consider new printings, for example black and green 3 drops were just this horrible dead zone of not much great & fun cards when this forum was newer

 

[Velrun]

I agree with what others have mentioned about it being a hassle to explain things to drafters with quirky things like duplicates and/or squadrons, but I've found that labeling the inner sleeves with a sticker and leaving out a cue card explaining different stickers has made things MUCH easier. Also helps when sorting back in cards for my Utility Land Draft at the end of a session.

I do exactly the same. Could you be so kind as to take a photo and upload it here? I want to see your stickers.

Also: Even if you are not into custom cards I think you should break that rule once (or five times) with the enemy Battle for Zendikar Tango Fencing lands. Mana bases are just so very important to a cube so I think this would push your cube a level up.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I remember when we were struggling to find enough decent black three drops. The last few years have been a blessing! We now find ourselves in a position where it's not obvious what black three drop to cut for the newest hotness.

 

[Wumpa]

The "correct" way to draft that led to most consistency was to prioritize duals early, pick up a few fetches, then just grab whatever the hell you wanted as the draft progressed because chances were good that you would be able to splash without many issues. I increased the size of my cube numerous times in the following and settled in a (mostly) sweet spot of 420 cards, but I didn't really have my solution until the BFZ lands were printed. My ideal environment would feature mostly two color decks with a light splash, more than that on rare occassion dependent upon drafting strategy. The BFZ lands played perfectly into this by encourage a limit on colors to ensure a smooth curve and being able to play things in sequence without taking a turn off with a tapped land.

Interesting, I hadn't considered the BFZ duals to be a particularly popular cycle of lands, how do you feel about their power level relative to the AKH cycle duals? But yeah I've found myself struggling to keep my resident 5 colour forcer in check for as long as I've been hosting cube drafts, I love good fixing but goddamn sometimes he breaks my cube in half! That said I love having him as a tester who will always push my formats to its limits.

I find it pretty fascinating that others here find frequent shuffles to be such a turn off. I enjoy how the fetches replicate the feeling of playing modern, and I'm a sucker for top of library manipulation strats I suppose (Sensei's Divining Top syndrome). That said I do get many new cubers at my drafts and many don't understand the interaction between fetch lands and shock lands (let alone know how to prioritize them during draft). This alone has had me consider moving away from it.

I agree with what others have mentioned about it being a hassle to explain things to drafters with quirky things like duplicates and/or squadrons, but I've found that labeling the inner sleeves with a sticker and leaving out a cue card explaining different stickers has made things MUCH easier. Also helps when sorting back in cards for my Utility Land Draft at the end of a session.

I've always felt that this was a pretty clever solution you devised, I've been meaning to do something similar forever. Someone going "What really, another one of these??" is almost on the level of "Why is this card in here?" in terms of designer feelsbadman comments. How has squadroning worked out for you over the long haul btw? But yeah having to always preface each draft with a duplicate disclaimer isn't as elegant a solution as I'd like.

 

[Wumpa]

I still keep toying with the idea of formalizing this in the cube structure, somehow. Something like having some number of wildcard slots.. maybe 24, so there is one per pack. Randomly pull some of those from some distribution of cards that fit the cube and it's archetypes (separate pools for each color, colorless, maybe guilds). Or, if you want to audition some cards, just deliberately insert them in those wildcard slots.

Yeah I'd really love to see an elegant way of designing this into a cube. The closest I've seen is Jason Waddell's original cube (https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/jason-waddells-cube.14/) which had a beautiful system for variation but unfortunately is much more tailored to online play. I swear I've stumbled upon a list or two here that used a core of 180 cards and various 'module expansions' of say 60 cards to keep the experience fresh.

 

[shamizy]

Interesting, I hadn't considered the BFZ duals to be a particularly popular cycle of lands, how do you feel about their power level relative to the AKH cycle duals? But yeah I've found myself struggling to keep my resident 5 colour forcer in check for as long as I've been hosting cube drafts, I love good fixing but goddamn sometimes he breaks my cube in half! That said I love having him as a tester who will always push my formats to its limits.

I like them more than AKH cycle duals, but my environment is also a bit more powerful and faster than one where those would truly shine. Coming into play tapped at all times is a bit of a turnoff because more aggressive decks will not be happy drafting them. What I like about the BFZ duals is that they encourage two-color archetypes, allow for better sequencing decisions, and will provide a reasonable bump in the road for greedy decks that are trying to splash everything. If you want to take the early turns off to fix your manabase? No problem, just make the right decision to fetch the appropriate land to ETB tapped. If you want to curve out without issues, limited the number of colors and nonbasics will allow you to generate a more efficient manabase without issues making a play each turn. I'm fine with both scenarios, I just don't like it when there's minimal tension in playing lands.

The idea of double shocks was good in theory, but I never really saw slower decks get punished too heavily for it. It didn't matter if they were starting at 16 or 14 life when facing down more aggressive decks if they could curve resilient threats into eachother and stabilize the board quickly enough. There just wasn't enough pressure generated to really push them. This became much more prevalent in recent years with a plethora of efficient creatures in the 3-5 range across most colors.

I've always felt that this was a pretty clever solution you devised, I've been meaning to do something similar forever. Someone going "What really, another one of these??" is almost on the level of "Why is this card in here?" in terms of designer feelsbadman comments. How has squadroning worked out for you over the long haul btw? But yeah having to always preface each draft with a duplicate disclaimer isn't as elegant a solution as I'd like.

Squadroning has had mixed results for me. Giving an additional land with certain picks has worked out just fine, no one has had any issues with that. I just don't really like squadroning multiple copies of a card into one pick though, I realized that after a few test runs where it just felt very clunky to me. I just don't like giving people additional cards that will make their final 22-24 cards not counting lands. With squadron lands at least I know that they are just taking up the slot of what would likely just be a basic land.

 

[shamizy]

I do exactly the same. Could you be so kind as to take a photo and upload it here? I want to see your stickers.

Also: Even if you are not into custom cards I think you should break that rule once (or five times) with the enemy Battle for Zendikar Tango Fencing lands. Mana bases are just so very important to a cube so I think this would push your cube a level up.

I haven't updated it in quite a while, but I did have a post detailing my entire process along with photos in my cube thread around a year back.

As far as customs go, I enjoy seeing and reading new designs but including them in an environment is just not my thing. It just feels kind of awkward playing with customs and I like playing with cards that actually exist. By that same token, I'm not a fan of proxying cards either. Works for most people, but just not my thing. I'm fine waiting around until WoTC gives me what I'm hoping for.

 

[Velrun]

I haven't updated it in quite a while, but I did have a post detailing my entire process along with photos in my cube thread around a year back.

As far as customs go, I enjoy seeing and reading new designs but including them in an environment is just not my thing. It just feels kind of awkward playing with customs and I like playing with cards that actually exist. By that same token, I'm not a fan of proxying cards either. Works for most people, but just not my thing. I'm fine waiting around until WoTC gives me what I'm hoping for.

That's awesome I do something very similiar although I use golden stars as stickers instead of round colorful stickers.

Would it change your mind if you could print custom cards in a quality on level with real Magic cards (except you'll still have to cut the silk paper)? Or is it more about the 'Not official so it's a no go'?

 

[shamizy]

That's awesome I do something very similiar although I use golden stars as stickers instead of round colorful stickers.

Would it change your mind if you could print custom cards in a quality on level with real Magic cards (except you'll still have to cut the silk paper)? Or is it more about the 'Not official so it's a no go'?

The quality would be nice, but ultimately I don't like playing with cards that aren't official. Finding solutions and existing pieces that fit into what I'm trying to build is more interesting to me than having the perfect card to slot in at the ready. The most fun part of cube, for me, is the constant tinkering to try and reach your ideal format. Also, I wouldn't want to deal with the whole explanation thing if a new player ever stops by to play my cube. Familiarity with card art/name/text is very important in this game for players to identify cards with, especially in an information dense format like cube, and customs tend to eschew all of these and wouldn't work for me.