General Decks Not Cards--Synergy and Power Design

[Grillo_Parlante]

Saw this article on channel fireball which really framed the synergy vs. power schools of design surprisingly well.

Part of the problem is that synergy isn't actually a real word--its just a neologism invented by corporate culture, and tends to function more as a buzzword than anything concrete or meaningful. However, I will persist in using it.

Regrettably, the article kind of wanders around a bit, so I've pulled out the central premise and heavily edited it for consumption:


"R&D wants to drive sales with exciting cards, so they make some of the cards so powerful that you'd be a fool not to buy play with them. This creates a broad power band. However, when cards have lower variance in power level, it takes creativity to find the synergies and combinations that make a deck work.

'Who wore it best' Standard'—means that there are some cards or combinations of cards that are obviously above the power level of contemporaneous cards--a wide power band. Not only are they more powerful, but they also snowball—when they aren't dealt with properly, they can't be stopped. Because of the way new cards are designed, trying to find new, interesting interactions between whacky cards becomes harder, and new cards have to be viewed through a different lens. When you narrow it down this far, the discussion is not about a new deck or certain strategy, but rather which cards you should be playing, and what is the best shell for them."


Or to sum: is your format about:

1. Decks not cards (synergy); or
2. Cards not decks (Power max/tasteful power max)

So say for example, I have two cubes: one which is to be billed as a "synergy cube" the other a "tasteful power max" format. I still want to have all 10 color combinations represented. The way I would design a UG archetype for each cube would be fundamentally different.

A. Synergy cube--narrow power band. Provide reasonable cards, but the cards populating the card pool struggle to win games individually. The format is about drafting a "team" of cards that play well together. Winning decks reflect teamwork to achieve a result greater than the sum of its parts. A format like this is going to be populated by a large percentage of reasonable nuts-and-bolts pieces. Drafting is a creative process of looking at the potential "players" for a "team" and recognizing the way different players mutually support one another to affect a strategy. Archetypes are built by given different pieces of the puzzle to different colors: A+B. Drafter signaling is maybe done with a multi-color piece, so this isn't a complete science project.

"UG Says--Build a horizontal board state and kill the opponent with it"​

This is hard design to do.

B. Tasteful Power Max--Fairly broad power band. Provide a density of cards that have a high probability of winning the game on their own. The format is about figuring out what the best "shell" is for the bombs populating the list. Winning decks are the decks best able to be built around their accumulated bombs, and the best at enabling them to win the game. Archetype design is basically providing the bomb card(s), and making sure that the best shell for it is the color combination we want to push. Drafter signaling is pretty obvious.

"Opposition Says--Build a horizontal board state and kill the opponent with it"​

​

And it turns out UG is a good shell for that.

This is easier design, and exciting. I'm not casting judgment (though I am thinking it), but bringing it up because I think there are a lot of designers that want a "decks not cards" format, but are building/maintaining a "cards not decks" format, or --perhaps worse-- have muddled intents.

It is perfectly fine to want to go with a bomb based format: its very light, accessible and people tend to find it exciting--perfect for some casual audiences, and cube is a casual format. Its fine if you want to go with a synergy format: lower variance means tighter games, more skilled players will enjoy it, and there is a lot of creative depth. Also note this isn't a power level issue: its a philosophical issue regarding power variance, the way we want cards to overlap or not overlap, and how that impacts archetype design.

You could hardly be blamed if you were running a cards not decks format: after all, cube historically was a power max format, and thats reflected everywhere in the way cube designers have a general preference for discussing specific cards over decks.

At the end of the day, however, its probably good to have a clear intent as to what you want for your format in the initial design; and especially important if you are having issues with certain guilds being over-represented or under represented--because the approach you should be taking to patch those archetypes won't be relative across cube-types.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Thank you for posting this - I've seen these ideas falling into place through your posts over time, and they've been very useful in informing my own design. Personally, I've been poring over Mark Rosewater's Nuts & Bolts series exceptionally hard these past few weeks, and they've been leading me in a very similar direction (of course, I've gone far beyond that series for other design snippets, but it forms a reliable core to build ideas from, if someone is looking to start). I know it can be very fashionable to disparage Rosewater, but I will say this: he has good theory in place. Whether he generates good ideas from that theory is up for debate; he is just an employee at the end of the day, beholden to the whims of the corporate power structure that commands the product and the (reasonable, though often design-compromising) push to sell packs. He can only do so much. The theories has has about game design, though, I find to be, by and large, quite valuable.

Here's where I think the roadblocks to furthering this style of design are:

1. Moving towards a "decks, not cards" format requires intensive testing that many of us aren't able to do, either because (1) we don't draft that often, (2) we don't like to proxy and thus are time-gated/money-gated from testing by waiting for the resources to buy/the resources to come in the mail, and/or (3) our player-base is unique and hard to set into the context of wider cubing discussions (I fall the latter two camps, but I think the first might be a more common issue).
2. A working "base" for this limited testing/playtime is hard to generate communally due to the wide range of players and dispositions that each of us may encounter as cube designers/hosts. This is why some of us can run Balance or Opposition and see them played perfectly "fairly", or simply going underpicked. What's busted can be objectively determined, but it's hard to foist that objective truth onto subjective drafters, who are often looking to (1) have fun by (2) playing something stylish with (3) an intention of winning. In a lot of ways, there's parallels in the cube community to EDH; while objective evaluations can determine X, Y, and Z to be busted, broken, unfair, etc, enclaves of players are not always aware of, beholden to, or inclined in the direction of, such busted, broken, unfair, etc, plays.
3. Without an easily-contextualized "base" to operate from, working towards a decks-not-cards/synergy-driven/"gestalt" environment winds up being a largely personal, and often rather difficult, affair. I have an obscene amount of leisure time to puzzle out all these things in my own format; not everyone else does. And even with all the time I've sunk into my cube, I still hit "uncharted territory" roadblocks, like: How many creatures are necessary to allows spells to thrive without dominating? What's the threshold for ETB effects before a list becomes defined by value spell-bodies? How many "nuts & bolts" cards are required of each type? How does one compare the power level between Perilous Research and Grapple with the Past (or, more plainly: at what point does X card supplant the viability of Y card due to the similarity of their effect)? What is unnecessary duplication, and what needs further redundancy? How problematic is casting cost stacking in an archetype?

I'm on-board with the conceptual dividing of decks-not-cards vs cards-not-decks, and I would agree that most come to Riptide intuitively for the former while still building towards the latter; but I also think that there are some serious hurdles to jump in the process of adopting the decks-not-cards approach. I think the first step is simply making a clear commitment about what approach you're pursuing and at what power level, because it's hard to get what you want if you don't know what it is; the hurdle is determining where to go from there. Personally, my method has been to consume game design philosophy, study the sets that fed the decks from days-gone-by that I most admire, while box-checking effect thresholds (removal, card draw, etc) as I must, but it's been far from simple, as I come back to being dissatisfied with things like Little Kid Beats, which are effective and popular decks to draft, but which I begin to worry lack the "artistry" I expect to see in a deck's deployment in this decks-not-cards sort of build-up.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think there is some link between the two approaches as far as issues are concerned--that powermax UG opposition deck was the product of happenstance rather than careful design. Any of the bomb based formats will have gaps in their guild relationships, but they are left largely unplugged because there is no discussion about what powerful cards to include to create a catalyst for players to go shell hunting in a manner that arrives at that pair.

You kind of can see that relationship visually in the examples that I've selected--while the formats may deviate in how much they ask from a player, they are both trying to reach the same end goal: UG deck that kill with horizontal board states. Simple recognizing an identity is a titanic first step, and after that, we can calibrate for the needs of a format.

And I meant that when I said that I can understand someone wanting to go with a more bomb heavy format: there are real advantages to this approach, and it can be fun if done correctly. High variance formats naturally make more sense in a casual context; low variance in a competitive context--people here that want lower variance, high synergy formats, probably shouldn't go to a low-variance extreme unless they are running an actual tournament with prizes on the line. Include that spice.

And that just makes sense: if the outcome of your e-sport is being dictated by randomness, it undermines the competitive nature of it (aka why current magic design--with its broad power band to sell cards--is lousy e-sport design). Thats not an issue, however, for most cubers. Its ok to ham it up--but understand what you're doing, rather than dumping $$$$ on a design you're endlessly unhappy with it, due to its basic structure you weren't even aware of.

And again, this isn't a power level thing: the UG decks in the penny cube were the product of finding the best shell for mistfire adept, and an unintended consequence, while the (better designed) UG decks from the much higher powered min/max are strong synergy affairs.

It occurred to me when I was given advice to Chris about simic decks--which are missing from his format--and than drafted this split-intentioned deck, suddenly realizing I had no idea how to criticize it without sounding like a colossal dick (which I am inadvertently being right now):

U/G tempo from CubeTutor.com

While a tolerable result perhaps, I can forgive drafters if this deck existed in that format, and just no one ever drafted it. Only the most basic of interactions tie the deck together as an entity, and their collective whole doesn't result in anything particularly splashy or powerful. The focus is instead on--drum roll--the individual power level of the cards--and this shouldn't be a surprise since I am looking at frost titan. He would probably be better off finding an appropriately calibrated opposition (in terms of what it represents, not what it does) to send his drafters off on a shell hunting games, that just happens to result in a UG deck.

But one can't solve an issue without first spotting it, and than having some reasonable approach to go about fixing it. Identifying the need to either talk about shell pieces or guild overlap, seems like a good starting point whenever these problems naturally arise, and than calibrating it for the specific format under discussion. And to do that you have to be clear with what you want to achieve with your format.

1. I'm looking for powerful bombs that slot into a UG shell vs.
2. I'm looking for ways to overlap blue and green thematically vs.
3. I don't know what I want--give me a solution.

Well that went all over the place.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that my cube clearly was the straw that broke the camel's back to inspire this post

I don't really view cube philosophy as "Decks vs. Cards," from a design-focus standpoint. I think it can be seen as much more of a bar gradient, with "Deck focus" on one end, and "Card focus" on the other. Or rather, I don't think cube design quite black-and-white as you are making it out to be. Otherwise, it would be difficult to include any strong or 'value' card in a cube without it being labeled 'card-focused.'

When I make a cube, after the first test session, I ask my players to go over the cube list and label the cards either 'common,' 'uncommon,' 'rare,' or 'mythic' in terms of power level. I then try to use that data to further streamline the cube, and make appropriate balance changes. (I have yet to do that for my current cube, hopefully it'll happen in a week or so, so it's still a bit of a mess.) I see nothing wrong with having powerful cards, 'mythics' or 'mythic-uncommons' in a person's cube. I know you said something to that effect towards the end of your post, but I can't help but feel that you are disparaging the existence of such cards; and cubes that have those cards in them, regardless.

I don't think either philosophy is incorrect, but I also do not believe that either philosophy exists in a vacuum. Even the most card-focused cubes generally have themes and decks to create that are greater than the sum of their parts, and the most deck-focused cubes will often have cards that send clear 'build-around-me' signals.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Of course, the dichotomy is meant to be illustrative, and not intended to be taken to an extreme. Its just clearer to see the distinction when presented in that light.

The underlying relationship, however, is real. There is a point where the raw efficiency of individually powerful cards starts to occlude the inefficiency inherent in running weaker cards that must function as a unit to achieve a similar effect.

And as I have said, while I have a clear preference for one over the other, I acknowledge that cube is a casual format, and catering towards that is probably pretty healthy. However, even my formats have to cater towards that end of the spectrum, as you have to give people what they want. I had a big post about that a couple months ago, where I ripped out a bunch of the min/max cards from the penny cube, and put in a bunch of the emotionally pleasing cards.

Extremely narrow power variances make for great competitive gameplay, but they also cheat you out of the emotional highs and lows that players want on a Friday or Saturday when they are just blowing off stream. Its generally best to try to calibrate for a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, I find.

 

[sigh]

Neat thread, as usual. One thought I've been having recently while doodling away on CT drafts is that first picks get quite a bit harder in "decks" formats, or can. When the power band is more narrow, it's harder to find clear standouts. This applies also to that emotional thing grillo mentions. Everything is a cog, so what the heck cog do I like best??? Which cog fits in the deck that's positioned best??? It's an interesting challenge that arises.

 

[Fulcrum]

When the power band is more narrow, it's harder to find clear standouts. Everything is a cog, so what the heck cog do I like best??? Which cog fits in the deck that's positioned best??? It's an interesting challenge that arises.

I think this is a virtue of cubes/ formats that have a narrow power band and goes back to the article that Grillo posted as it applies to standard too. It always makes me feel bad when I draft something like the MTGO Vintage cube and Birthing Pod and Sol Ring are in the same pack. I almost always want to mess around with Birthing Pod but it's always going to be "wrong" to take it over the ring.

 

[CML]

The power level seems pretty consistent for that deck. I had the misfortune of listening to all of Revisionist History—the podcast from America's dumb person's smart person du jour, Malcolm Gladwell—and when he wasn't busy frothing at the mouth over good cafeteria food, he made a few good points about how in soccer shoring up your shittiest players are more important than minmaxing best players. Now anyone who is (I shudder to admit) an MLS season-ticket holder or got a big priapism for Mo' Leicester last year knows this to be true and it is probably true for a well-designed Cube as well, as opposed to basketball or power cube where your initial conditions really are determined by the presence of LeBron / Sol Ring. Surely not having a clear first pick is dope, but why have 10 possible first picks when you could have 15? To that end I wouldn't be looking at cutting Frost Titan (roughly as strong as Control Magic or Gearhulk AFAIK) but would instead cull the weak

SHM lands—can't imagine they're worth it (even ULD) to draft or play
Aether Figment—lol come on dude
Wing Splicer
Bident maybe
Chord sucks too let's not kid ourselves

The Brainstorms don't go with anything, either. If there were a card that is too strong for the environment I would say it is Edric.

 

[sigh]

Customs not carrying over from CT strikes again.

I think this is a virtue of cubes/ formats that have a narrow power band and goes back to the article that Grillo posted as it applies to standard too. It always makes me feel bad when I draft something like the MTGO Vintage cube and Birthing Pod and Sol Ring are in the same pack. I almost always want to mess around with Birthing Pod but it's always going to be "wrong" to take it over the ring.

I agree that this is a virtue, but drafting is definitely more technically difficult without clearer signposts. Reminds me of a term RBM has used before that you gotta have signs and lines for your archetypes, to help guide drafters around in a sea of similarly-powered pieces. Young Pyromancer is the first that comes to mind

 

[RavebornMuse]

I agree that this is a virtue, but drafting is definitely more technically difficult without clearer signposts. Reminds me of a term RBM has used before that you gotta have signs and lines for your archetypes, to help guide drafters around in a sea of similarly-powered pieces. Young Pyromancer is the first that comes to mind

edit: Here's the post in question where I first spelled this concept out, if anyone's curious.

I think this concept maps pretty well with what Grillo says in the original post about "finding the best shell for the strongest cards" in "tasteful power-max" cubes, but moving it much lower on the scale than Opposition and more into the area of Trash for Treasure, Mindwrack Demon, or Splendid Reclamation (we're very format/power-level variant here, obviously). I think there's an extreme on this scale where there is no clear build-around, or, even with an introduction to archetypes and a peek at the list, you feel a bit lost for the first few drafts as you try to find the synergy you can actually leverage for strategic value. But if you consider your entire cube as a set of "commons", where the power level remains consistent and fair, I think there's room to slide over on the scale to the point of including "uncommons" (which are archetypal typically or provide small catch-up tools), "rares" (cards that can shake up a game), and even "mythics" (cards that can warp the game/generate lots of excitement) - just in a significantly policed fashion. That is to say, I think part of the trick would need to be making sure you draw a line in the sand between your "nuts & bolts, everybody-wants-this" effects, and the archetype signs. But the goal is to keep out Opposition-level "find-a-shell" cards, which asks very little to dominate a game, and focus more on Edric, Spymaster of Trest-level big effects that thrive in certain shells moreso than others. Maybe it's not Edric, Spymaster of Trest at a particular power level, but the example is illustrative in that I think there's a lot of space to come down from the "tasteful power-max" level of Opposition without simply porting the Pauper format into a cube. Probably the biggest question to ask yourself on this path of sign-making is to what degree you will allow catch-up mechanisms, as those effects are going to dictate what else you can do, since they're often the pinch point where synergy and goodstuff go to war.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yes exactly.

If I were to sit down and draw up a format for competitive play, I would have to narrow down the power band to minimize variance. Otherwise players end up feeling like the outcome isn't skill dependent, and just comes down to finding and deploying those bomb cards. But at the same time, I would need to have some cards offering a clear advantage in terms of raw power.

The reason for that is still connected with good competitive play: in a skill testing format, the outcome of a game shouldn't be predetermined by falling behind at the onset. It should be possible to play-from-behind, and still win if skillful enough, and for that we need some swing inducing cards. Q my pauper complaints, where falling behind often feels like a death sentence.

Cube isn't truly played as a competitive format--if it were we would be evaluating things in a very different light (though WOTC is doing scarcely better). We still have to be concerned with accessibility, we still want variance to please a casual setting, but we also don't want game outcomes to feel too random.

I like RVB's breakdown though, because it helps explain why cards like life from the loam tend to struggle in cube. Loam has that shell game quality too it, but its a dedicated synergy card, and those synergies tend to be hard to support for a lot of formats. The end result is often a signal to nothing on all fronts: it has neither the raw power to send someone on a shell hunt, nor the synergy support to act as a signal to a great deck.

 

[sigh]

Life from the Loam is an odd duck. I feel it's one of a third category of cards in this "dichotomy" of bolts and spice: it's brand loyalty. What I mean is it's a very lenticular card. For someone with relatively little experience feeling out the nuances of a cube environment, it can easily be a 18-23 slot sort of card, or just passed up entirely. "Hey, I'm in GB self mill already, and Life from the Loam is nifty, right?" Compare with someone who is enfranchised in the format, say the designer themselves, and Loam is a much deeper card when armed with the knowledge of what it truly brings to the table.

Many cards do this, of course, it's a side effect of becoming more familiar with a format, but I feel that LftL stands out rather starkly in how differently it can be evaluated with/without the 'lens'.

Maybe just a rambling way of saying "it's purely synergy"

Also part of why I want WotC to explore this design space more, and not just with commons.

 

[Chris Taylor]

The power level seems pretty consistent for that deck. I had the misfortune of listening to all of Revisionist History—the podcast from America's dumb person's smart person du jour, Malcolm Gladwell—and when he wasn't busy frothing at the mouth over good cafeteria food, he made a few good points about how in soccer shoring up your shittiest players are more important than minmaxing best players. Now anyone who is (I shudder to admit) an MLS season-ticket holder or got a big priapism for Mo' Leicester last year knows this to be true and it is probably true for a well-designed Cube as well, as opposed to basketball or power cube where your initial conditions really are determined by the presence of LeBron / Sol Ring. Surely not having a clear first pick is dope, but why have 10 possible first picks when you could have 15? To that end I wouldn't be looking at cutting Frost Titan (roughly as strong as Control Magic or Gearhulk AFAIK) but would instead cull the weak

SHM lands—can't imagine they're worth it (even ULD) to draft or play
Aether Figment—lol come on dude
Wing Splicer
Bident maybe
Chord sucks too let's not kid ourselves

The Brainstorms don't go with anything, either. If there were a card that is too strong for the environment I would say it is Edric.

Here's what you're actually seeing

Bident Wing Splicer and Chord are real though, and I'm willing to at least defend the first two (Cord you'll have to talk to grillo about)


However, there's something interesting here: Brainstorm? That's something I've taken as a given in most of the formats I've built, mostly on the basis of double fetch and not much else. You think that's not enough?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Glad you reminded me about those scry lands Chris. I hope my post didn't come across as an attack on you or your cube, it was intended as more of a mea culpa on my part for advice that might have been potentially misleading in retrospect.

The custom scry lands reminded me of something about cube draft (and I'm going to get to why synergy matters as a practical concept), and that is that much of cube draft consists of making speculative picks, so that you can flexibly pivot into the deck(s) being fed your way. These are picks that are: "I have A, but its possible B and C could show up, so I'll make this pick". This is A+B reasoning as a natural part of the drafting process. The custom scry's were kind of bottom tier picks for me, because they didn't contribute to that process in the way that a theros temple would have--the temple gives me the option to color fix, splash or pivot into a second color, while giving me the security of a smoothing effect.

They weren't independently powerful enough to justify a pick, but at the same time they don't help me prepare for where the draft could go by combining with anything.

In that sense, even an extreme nuts-and-bolts cards like perilous myr can provide signs and lines: it just does it in a different manner, by signaling what could be coming.

 

[Diakonov]

This is easier design, and exciting. I'm not casting judgment (though I am thinking it), but bringing it up because I think there are a lot of designers that want a "decks not cards" format, but are building/maintaining a "cards not decks" format, or --perhaps worse-- have muddled intents.

As I’ve said in the past, I think you can design with both philosophies in mind. I suppose I would have to say that my “official” intent is to design with synergy > individuality, but with the goal of generic goodstuff decks having a win rate of 40-45%. In my opinion, you can satisfy both the competitive gamer who wants to maximize synergy while still supplying the more casual players with splashier, less synergistic cards. I want drafting purely for synergy to feel like a risk to reach for that has the potential to pay off dramatically.

There are a few reasons why I try to take this approach.

A. The decision between generic power vs. increased synergy in each pack is a fun exercise, I think, as long as you are informed that the generically powerful deck is slightly subpar. If everything is synergy-based and you’ve already decided to go down a certain road, there’s a possibility of ending up somewhat on autopilot (which is boring). But, let’s say you know you’re in white but haven’t decided on a specific strategy, then the decision between two different kinds of narrow cards and a more generically strong white card could be interesting.

B. Generally speaking, if decks have a tendency to strongly associate themselves with very specific strategies, you run the risk of decreasing interaction with your opponent. You can do things to remediate this but it is something to consider.

C. I find the texture of a game to be more interesting when there are odd independently stronger cards mixed in, from both sides of play. Along the lines of…

But at the same time, I would need to have some cards offering a clear advantage in terms of raw power.

The reason for that is still connected with good competitive play: in a skill testing format, the outcome of a game shouldn't be predetermined by falling behind at the onset. It should be possible to play-from-behind, and still win if skillful enough, and for that we need some swing inducing cards.

…as well as increasing the complexity of the puzzle at hand. That is, “how do I deal with my opponent’s main strategy while also finding a solution to that random 3/3 flyer?”

So, perhaps we agree after all.

You could hardly be blamed if you were running a cards not decks format: after all, cube historically was a power max format, and thats reflected everywhere in the way cube designers have a general preference for discussing specific cards over decks.

I feel that most Single Card Spotlight discussions on this forum ultimately are actually talking about decks, and how the particular card in question makes those decks more viable at certain power levels.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

In defense of Grillo, there are powerful 'draft-around-me' cards that can also lead to interesting 'synergistic' deck builds.

Look at shadowborn demon vs. noxious gearhulk.

They are both incredibly powerful cards, that would see play in almost any deck of their colors, but the demon can benefit sacrifice decks by providing an outlet, and self-mill decks by having no downside (provided you work for it).

Noxious gearhulk, by comparison, is just a fat ball of stats and value that doesn't contribute to any sort of deckbuilding. More Shadowborn Demon, less Noxious Gearhulk?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, I think I'm paying a price for the topic at least superficially appearing like I am advocating for one extreme versus another. This is more about the differences in archetype design between a format with a broad power band vs. a format with a tight power band.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Glad you reminded me about those scry lands Chris. I hope my post didn't come across as an attack on you or your cube, it was intended as more of a mea culpa on my part for advice that might have been potentially misleading in retrospect.

The custom scry lands reminded me of something about cube draft (and I'm going to get to why synergy matters as a practical concept), and that is that much of cube draft consists of making speculative picks, so that you can flexibly pivot into the deck(s) being fed your way. These are picks that are: "I have A, but its possible B and C could show up, so I'll make this pick". This is A+B reasoning as a natural part of the drafting process. The custom scry's were kind of bottom tier picks for me, because they didn't contribute to that process in the way that a theros temple would have--the temple gives me the option to color fix, splash or pivot into a second color, while giving me the security of a smoothing effect.

They weren't independently powerful enough to justify a pick, but at the same time they don't help me prepare for where the draft could go by combining with anything.

In that sense, even an extreme nuts-and-bolts cards like perilous myr can provide signs and lines: it just does it in a different manner, by signaling what could be coming.

Hey I'll be the first to admit my cube isn't really doing what I want it to, and I'd be a bit insane if I chided you for saying what I do, but in a far more detailed and helpful manner.

Interesting thoughts about the scrylands. Good to note that you've got them prioritized as manafixing first, and draw smoothing second. I'll admit they're mostly not in because I loathe tapped lands. (And hey, we know me, this can be fixed)

My experience with them has been that they're relatively high picks not because of their individual power, but because of the near 100% chance they'll make your final 40 (Much like Jitte or Sol ring, but improving the game rather than ruining it)
I've had similar experiences with my "not shit evolving wilds" in terms of the "Not that great, but necessary for magic to go well and will deff make your deck"

There's certainly value in adding cards that are similar to existing cards in your enviornment, but also do this cool thing that expands what players think about.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Speaking of powerful "draft-around-me cards" that still lead to synergistic interactions, can we brew up a sweet UB archetype for:



How far can we push the twins?

Edited:

My experience with them has been that they're relatively high picks not because of their individual power, but because of the near 100% chance they'll make your final 40 (Much like Jitte or Sol ring, but improving the game rather than ruining it)

Just want to say that this dosen't actually compute--jitte and sol ring get picked because of their individual power, not the near 100% chance they'll make your final 40.

Whats the better comparison?

 

[Fulcrum]

With some ways to add fuel dependent on power level





Green gets you a bunch of neat tools too.



The dredge guys seem good for this too. The green ones are neat because you don't really want to cast them I think.



Lastly these cards would probably play well with this theme dependent on power level.


Some other neat cards that would benefit.



I think this would play out as a UB midrange deck that wants to use the graveyard as a second hand for creatures that grinds out value.

I left out a bunch of cards that would have synergy with this/ would be at home here, but hopefully some of these ideas are a good talking/ starting point. I think you would want to focus on creatures more than spells however, specifically, the skaabs. They're nice because they fuel the graveyard, add creatures for G&G, and add creatures for the "exile creature to cast" Skaabs. After you have that base you can layer in other graveyard synergies in the colors depending on where you want to go with the archetype.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Speaking of powerful "draft-around-me cards" that still lead to synergistic interactions, can we brew up a sweet UB archetype for:



How far can we push the twins?

Edited:




Just want to say that this dosen't actually compute--jitte and sol ring get picked because of their individual power, not the near 100% chance they'll make your final 40.

Whats the better comparison?

Maybe a better comparison would be something like solemn simulacrum? That card isn't obscenely powerful, but you'd have to have a pretty insane deck to cut it due to the sheer amount of value you get...

I was so disappointed by Gisa and Geralf. I really wish their ability allowed for casting more than 1 zombie a turn, or that they milled every turn. Just something to make them a -bit- more of a threatening engine at 4 mana.

That being said, I've had this issue recently when trying to draft Gisa and Geralf in other people's cubes. I did a cube draft of Nanonox's cube that illustrates this perfectly. I first-picked a preordain, and then Gisa and Geralf with the intent of seeing how far I could push them. I found several other nice blue cards, including frantic search, but... ended up with this.

slovakattack's draft of Miaou's 450 MP cube on 07/03/2017 from CubeTutor.com

I think green's graveyard presence is just so strong in most cubes that it pushes Gisa and Geralf out of the kind of slow, grindy-advantage archetype that it wants to be.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yes, its not strong enough of a card to justify just finding the best shell for it, so just providing vaguely on point cards in UB isn't good enough.

There has to be an actual deck already in assistance in UB, that G&G slots into. The card than serves as an exciting signal to drafters as to the existence of the deck. You don't even have to ask power level, because G&G already tells you that--as they have to exist as pushed cards.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Just want to say that this dosen't actually compute--jitte and sol ring get picked because of their individual power, not the near 100% chance they'll make your final 40.
Whats the better comparison?

I mean they are colorless. Would that similar power level cards existed, you'd pick these over their colored counterpart.
Maybe something like Batterskull? Colorless, powerful, and as at home in control and aggro alike.

Edit: Close on Solemn Simulacrum, but I don't think I'd play him in a deck that really wanted hellrider, for example

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I mean they are colorless. Would that similar power level cards existed, you'd pick these over their colored counterpart.
Maybe something like Batterskull? Colorless, powerful, and as at home in control and aggro alike.

Edit: Close on Solemn Simulacrum, but I don't think I'd play him in a deck that really wanted hellrider, for example

In my high-powered cube, my go-to card for 'not powerful but never cut' is prismatic lens. It's not bombastic, but every deck likes the option to either ramp or fix mana.

 

[sigh]

Gias and Geralf are sweet. You only need one zombie to make them "go off"


IMO, not every multicolor card needs an entire archetype built around it. Just have a nonzero number of properly picked zombies (and fleshbag), and the siblings kinda run themselves. It's a practice I've been looking into for how I think about my cube: provide a series of functional packages for slotting into decks to provide useful functions and unique flavors. For G&G, you can run a curve of something like
Crypt breaker
Rotting Rats
Fleshbag marauder
Skinrender
Sidisi, Undead vizier
As a baseline, and then any incidental zombies that fall into the format, Lotleth Troll, say. I've seen it used to great effect at least twice since I put them in. The concept, in my mind, fits into the idea that this is more a sliding scale than a B/W divide. If every deck has to be fully planned out, A) you'll never finish design work, B) youll miss a ton of decks even then. So what I'm trying is to just give chunks of useful concepts, amongst the decks I can reasonably well plan out. It's working pretty good so far, even though I haven't focused on the concept for that long. My favorite of these "functional units" is of course

And their main supporting cast.

The cleanest parallel I can think of for what I'm trying to say is the 8x8 theory:
http://the8x8theory.tumblr.com