General Elegance in cube card selection
- Thread starter japahn
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Chris Taylor
Contributor
I didn't ask, I was laughing too hard 
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Interesting note from last night concerning this card.
This is a very popular card on this board for the technical play decisions it elicits, but it has a long history of people forgetting about the trigger, which was an issue again last night.
This is a very popular card on this board for the technical play decisions it elicits, but it has a long history of people forgetting about the trigger, which was an issue again last night.
Interesting note from last night concerning this card.
This is a very popular card on this board for the technical play decisions it elicits, but it has a long history of people forgetting about the trigger, which was an issue again last night.
I was looking through a friend's cards for some stuff for Pincher cube and I came across Shackles. It might serve the same function as Prison Term, but I think it reads a bit better and has the bonus of being a repeatable heroic trigger in a pinch. What do you think?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
If it tapped the creature maybe
What about cage of hands?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think "repeatable heroic trigger" is the "pitches to force" of low power formats.
Maybe this is not the slot to be looking for complexity, and sigh was right about
Maybe this is not the slot to be looking for complexity, and sigh was right about
I'm telling you guys, it's legit!
Pacifism really is perfect for the theme of this thread. It's a cool removal with a lot of niche upsides like dodging the Genesis in the GY, but it's so simple and is the sort of spell that will be picked by a newer (or more experienced) player happily, and will serve them perfectly well. And having that is so important. They might not intuit the upsides of a sacrifice effect, or that clear shot is that good, or that giving an opponent a clue on Declaration In Stone is OK, but they get knocking a creature out of combat. Until they see those other effects in action and grow as players, having this baseline effect for them to draft is so nice.
Power level and group experience all need to be taken into account, as always
Pacifism really is perfect for the theme of this thread. It's a cool removal with a lot of niche upsides like dodging the Genesis in the GY, but it's so simple and is the sort of spell that will be picked by a newer (or more experienced) player happily, and will serve them perfectly well. And having that is so important. They might not intuit the upsides of a sacrifice effect, or that clear shot is that good, or that giving an opponent a clue on Declaration In Stone is OK, but they get knocking a creature out of combat. Until they see those other effects in action and grow as players, having this baseline effect for them to draft is so nice.
Power level and group experience all need to be taken into account, as always
There's been a lot of discussion/debate recently about this card over in the spoilers thread. I think that this is a very interesting card to be having this debate about, because I think it highlights being careful with how much a designer uses any one comprehension/design tool. To take from my working life, I've had to bust out the graph paper before and run entire calculations by hand, because even though I had just checked the new design program with the old one, nothing beats good old fashioned long division (so to speak). What I'm getting at is 'elegance' as a cube design tool, isn't black and white, isn't flawless, and has to be supported with other methods.
Everyone has a slightly different definition of what elegance means, so its no surprise that discussing it can lead to debate. I think my simplest internal definition is 'the most for the least'. Now, that's not to be confused with raw efficiency, which is simply the most spell/creature effect for the least mana/tempo cost. A more complete sentence for my definition would be 'the most for a format for the least inherent card complexity'. I think an ancillary concept for my definition is that it performs a needed, unique, or useful role. That is to say it 'has a slot' where you want the effect. If it doesn't pass any of my other basic design decisions, it doesn't really matter how elegant it is. There are a ton of elegant cards that just aren't right for other reasons.
All that blubbering in mind, do I think this card is very elegant for cube? Not really. Its a great design for UW, provides a lot for that color pair to benefit off of, and it reads simply, but it doesn't really have a slot, and doesn't add overly much to any one theme. I think it gets crowded out by cards that are much more beneficial for UW in a cube format, for instance:
These all point to a strategy, provide depth for a deck, but also provide broad utility if needed (Brago probably being the narrowest). Reflector mage just yells at you to use UW as a tempo color, Rev is a goto build-a-UW-control-deck-for-dummies card, and Brago signals blink like no other.
Point is, Life Drifter doesn't really solve any problems for a format. Sphinx's Rev can be a key piece to helping UW control be a 'thing', but this card just doesn't really fill any holes, imo. Another counterexample from my format, and several others around here is
This is a solid removal spell, gives equips/auras a little breathing room, and is incidental graveyard recursion hate, all in one clean package. That's a solidly elegant component for a format that wants that sorta stuff!
Allllll of that means basically that I look more for elegant solutions than elegant cards, while still having a healthy appreciation for a good individual design.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Someone mentioned that Cloudblazer is exactly the five drop you are looking for in , and I think that person is right. It fits nicely into blink strategies as well as in control strategies, and it won't be sniped away by other blue players like Mulldrifter is. Cloudblazer might look innocious, but I think it's the perfect cog. It provides you with a bit of card advantage and a bit of life, and it chump blocks for a turn, staving off the opponent while you are looking for mass removal and/or finishers. Perfect for control strategies. Or, alternatively, you drop Brago on turn four, and follow it up with this on turn five and go to town. Really, this is a simple card, but I am positive it also plays very, very well, without being overbearing and super in your face power max like, I don't know, Baneslayer Angel? I like Cloudblazer a lot, and if was a thing in my cube, I would certainly make room for it. But don't cut Brago for it!
, and I think that person is right. It fits nicely into blink strategies as well as in control strategies, and it won't be sniped away by other blue players like Mulldrifter is. Cloudblazer might look innocious, but I think it's the perfect cog. It provides you with a bit of card advantage and a bit of life, and it chump blocks for a turn, staving off the opponent while you are looking for mass removal and/or finishers. Perfect for control strategies. Or, alternatively, you drop Brago on turn four, and follow it up with this on turn five and go to town. Really, this is a simple card, but I am positive it also plays very, very well, without being overbearing and super in your face power max like, I don't know, Baneslayer Angel? I like Cloudblazer a lot, and if was a thing in my cube, I would certainly make room for it. But don't cut Brago for it!Someone mentioned that Cloudblazer is exactly the five drop you are looking for in
it is a good and well designed card, but Brago has definitely won the battle inside my head
. Thing is, UW doesn't really need this card. Its not filling any overtly needed role that isn't already covered by something with more focus to it. That said, I do think its a great potential choice for a UW section, I just don't think its from format elegance, rather it's from it being a valuable card (Elvish Mystic, Huntmaster of the Fells, Terminate, etc. Just plain ol' goodies). And not every card has to be elegant or whatever. Like I said, its important to use more than one design tool for each decision made.It'll be great for a lot of UW sections in formats the world over, but I don't think it'll add to or build upon those formats much. I could be wrong though! Only testing holds the truth in that regard.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think it fills a similar role as Sphinx's Insight, minus the blowout potential, plus a body and compatibility with more deck types.
That may be so, which makes it basically the definition of middle-of-the-road good stuff. (And that may be just what a format needs.)
From my perspective, Sphinx's Revelation provides a very focused and powerful effect for a narrower range of decks. That makes it more valuable to me as a Sign for a deck type. This is more in tune with what I like my multicolor cards doing. Cloudblazer is more of a line. I already run Mulldrifter as a line to show someone who picked Sphinx's Rev that there is merit to the path they are taking.
From my perspective, Sphinx's Revelation provides a very focused and powerful effect for a narrower range of decks. That makes it more valuable to me as a Sign for a deck type. This is more in tune with what I like my multicolor cards doing. Cloudblazer is more of a line. I already run Mulldrifter as a line to show someone who picked Sphinx's Rev that there is merit to the path they are taking.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Heh, I can't disagree with you. Rev does send a message that hard control is an option.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
In the legal field, factor based heuristics are fairly common tools for problem analysis. These are generally used where there is a fairly ambigious legal standard that will naturally cause a judge to make a subjective decision (e.g. the "best interest of the child" standard in child custody cases). Having a variety of factors to consider sets some boundaries for that subjective decision making, and helps create some internal integrity to their reasoning. Factors are basically just a subset of issues important enough to merit consideration (desire of the child/ age of the child etc). Some factors can be weighted more than others.
I tend to apply a similar reasoning to cuts // includes, where our ambiguous riptide standard is (usually) something like "best interest of the cube." To that end, I was surprised to see some people resurrecting mtgs' power max standard to justify cloudblazer's inclusion. That suggests to me a desire to resolve this card, which is fine, but lets call it what it is.
Elegance I rate pretty low as a factor, because its not a huge issue in our cube sessions. However, "not being a generic spell creature" I rate very highly, due to those cards' capacity to just warp formats around themselves.
Gold cards also tend to be held to a higher standard, because there are several other factors to take into account: 1) the limited nature of those slots, 2) the importance of gold cards to provide rudders in the draft, signaling the internal integrity of each guild.
This is why I got kind of irritated about cloudblazer's inclusion being justified on the basis of giving one factor (elegance) a disproportionately high weighting. Its a poor factor, and should be weighted slightly, due to how ambiguous the concept is. On every other relevant metric, skyblazer bombs out pretty hard, most significantly the "don't be generic ETB filler" factor.
I tend to apply a similar reasoning to cuts // includes, where our ambiguous riptide standard is (usually) something like "best interest of the cube." To that end, I was surprised to see some people resurrecting mtgs' power max standard to justify cloudblazer's inclusion. That suggests to me a desire to resolve this card, which is fine, but lets call it what it is.
Elegance I rate pretty low as a factor, because its not a huge issue in our cube sessions. However, "not being a generic spell creature" I rate very highly, due to those cards' capacity to just warp formats around themselves.
Gold cards also tend to be held to a higher standard, because there are several other factors to take into account: 1) the limited nature of those slots, 2) the importance of gold cards to provide rudders in the draft, signaling the internal integrity of each guild.
This is why I got kind of irritated about cloudblazer's inclusion being justified on the basis of giving one factor (elegance) a disproportionately high weighting. Its a poor factor, and should be weighted slightly, due to how ambiguous the concept is. On every other relevant metric, skyblazer bombs out pretty hard, most significantly the "don't be generic ETB filler" factor.
Again though, what if you wanted to make JUST UW have the "ETB value" theme? This card fits like a glove for that. Mulldrifter suffers from just being splashable ETB nonsense in a sea of too much splashable ETB nonsense. IMO, mulldrifter is a hundred times more guilty than life drifter.
One of the interesting things I'm discovering with my retro list experiment is that quantity of effects might actually be more important (i.e. detrimental) than quality of those effects. When every single card in the cube is just great value, what decisions are you really making in a game? Do any of them truly matter? Play a land, play the most expensive thing you can (or as many cards as you can for value), reload rinse and repeat. How is this strategy ever really wrong? Whoever got the best top 13 cards on the shuffle basically wins. Everything synergizes with everything because we've gone so far down that road, that now we think Griffin Guide is a narrow heroic/enchantress enabler.
What if you gutted 90% of that and just had basically bears and elephants with small upside (so much lower average card quality), with 3-4 really powerful creatures in each color (give or take)? Suddenly, you get drawn into black because shriekmaw is so much better than Undead Gladiator in the average game of Magic, you just want to be able to play it so you aren't stuck trying to kill people with withered wretch.
Some level of hyperbola here obviously, but the idea is simply that some amount of ETB value BS would probably be OK (and even a totally amazing design decision) if it wasn't all being exercised with such gluttony in the average cube.
I really have come to the conclusion at this point that there are now too many good cards and it's actually hurting cube list more than it's helping them.
One of the interesting things I'm discovering with my retro list experiment is that quantity of effects might actually be more important (i.e. detrimental) than quality of those effects. When every single card in the cube is just great value, what decisions are you really making in a game? Do any of them truly matter? Play a land, play the most expensive thing you can (or as many cards as you can for value), reload rinse and repeat. How is this strategy ever really wrong? Whoever got the best top 13 cards on the shuffle basically wins. Everything synergizes with everything because we've gone so far down that road, that now we think Griffin Guide is a narrow heroic/enchantress enabler.
What if you gutted 90% of that and just had basically bears and elephants with small upside (so much lower average card quality), with 3-4 really powerful creatures in each color (give or take)? Suddenly, you get drawn into black because shriekmaw is so much better than Undead Gladiator in the average game of Magic, you just want to be able to play it so you aren't stuck trying to kill people with withered wretch.
Some level of hyperbola here obviously, but the idea is simply that some amount of ETB value BS would probably be OK (and even a totally amazing design decision) if it wasn't all being exercised with such gluttony in the average cube.
I really have come to the conclusion at this point that there are now too many good cards and it's actually hurting cube list more than it's helping them.
Elegance is when cards have more to them with little text. Cloudblazer isn't particularly interesting, although it looks pretty good in terms of power level.
The discussion about UW not needing a card sounds weird to me too. Do you mean "need for shaping the strategies I want to shape"? Because there apart from archetypes, a color never really needs a given card.
The discussion about UW not needing a card sounds weird to me too. Do you mean "need for shaping the strategies I want to shape"? Because there apart from archetypes, a color never really needs a given card.
That's what I mean when I say it: "what my format does/doesn't need, particularly archetype support"
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I... think you read my posts with extreme prejudice? The first mention of elegance, by me, was in reaction to you calling Cloudblazer an extremely lazy (and boring) design.
I'm wondering who you think advocated the inclusion of Cloudblazer based on elegance. There were multiple posts by multiple people that suggested Cloudblazer was a good add, and none of those arguments revolved solely (or at all) around the elegance of the card. Elegance alone isn't a reason to include a card, and we all know that. My original reaction just called you out on calling a card lazy design, which is as bad of a reason not to include a card as elegance is to include a card. I'ld, once again, argue that this card isn't generic ETB filler, precisely because it is gold. Save your hatred for the monocolored good stuff that can be picked up by any deck. Cloudblazer is a bit too expensive for just any aggro or "tempo" (cough) deck, and perfect for blink and control decks, which both happen to be
archetypes! You keep hating on a, and I mean this, perfect cog for archetypes people want to support. I'ld humbly suggest you direct that hate at the Mulldrifters, Shriekmaws, Flametongue Kavus, and Eternal Witnesses of this world.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Or it could mean how broadly comprehensible the card is, or how simply it resolves a complex format problem, or perhaps how effectively it represents the color pie, or maybe even the minimalist approach you advocate for above.
My problem with cloudblazer, from an elegance perspective, was best surmised as this:
All of its contours are so loud and exaggerated, garish even, that declaring it elegant seems odd to me. There is no focus to this design, just brute value max.
Edit:
Cloudblazer is a bit too expensive for just any aggro or "tempo" (cough) deck, and perfect for blink and control decks, which both happen to be
That blink happy UW flyers deck, is a tempo deck, and it tends to occlude UW control decks.
At a certain point, and it doesn't take much, it becomes a better plan to just kill the opponent in the air with cloudblazer/mulldrifters/restoration angels/bragos/galepowder mages/flickerwisps etc. rather than fogging and drawing cards.
Ahada brought up a density argument, and I think thats correct. That takes policing on the part of the designer, and a card like this, which takes a gold slot and offers nothing more than generic value generation, would be higher up on my cut list than many alternatives, if not at the very top.
There's been a lot of discussion/debate recently about this card over in the spoilers thread. I think that this is a very interesting card to be having this debate about, because I think it highlights being careful with how much a designer uses any one comprehension/design tool. To take from my working life, I've had to bust out the graph paper before and run entire calculations by hand, because even though I had just checked the new design program with the old one, nothing beats good old fashioned long division (so to speak). What I'm getting at is 'elegance' as a cube design tool, isn't black and white, isn't flawless, and has to be supported with other methods.
Everyone has a slightly different definition of what elegance means, so its no surprise that discussing it can lead to debate. I think my simplest internal definition is 'the most for the least'. Now, that's not to be confused with raw efficiency, which is simply the most spell/creature effect for the least mana/tempo cost. A more complete sentence for my definition would be 'the most for a format for the least inherent card complexity'. I think an ancillary concept for my definition is that it performs a needed, unique, or useful role. That is to say it 'has a slot' where you want the effect. If it doesn't pass any of my other basic design decisions, it doesn't really matter how elegant it is. There are a ton of elegant cards that just aren't right for other reasons.
All that blubbering in mind, do I think this card is very elegant for cube? Not really. Its a great design for UW, provides a lot for that color pair to benefit off of, and it reads simply, but it doesn't really have a slot, and doesn't add overly much to any one theme. I think it gets crowded out by cards that are much more beneficial for UW in a cube format, for instance:
These all point to a strategy, provide depth for a deck, but also provide broad utility if needed (Brago probably being the narrowest). Reflector mage just yells at you to use UW as a tempo color, Rev is a goto build-a-UW-control-deck-for-dummies card, and Brago signals blink like no other.
Point is, Life Drifter doesn't really solve any problems for a format. Sphinx's Rev can be a key piece to helping UW control be a 'thing', but this card just doesn't really fill any holes, imo. Another counterexample from my format, and several others around here is
This is a solid removal spell, gives equips/auras a little breathing room, and is incidental graveyard recursion hate, all in one clean package. That's a solidly elegant component for a format that wants that sorta stuff!
Allllll of that means basically that I look more for elegant solutions than elegant cards, while still having a healthy appreciation for a good individual design.
I think it's worth stating that this thread's inception by japahn had a much cleaner understanding of "elegance" than what I'm seeing here on page 5. Look at where this thread began: Watchwolf over Fleecemane Lion, Disperse over Echoing Truth; these are decisions to remove edge cases and simplify gameplay and deck construction. The purpose wasn't "determine where elegance should end and synergy should begin"; it was "determine what could be more elegant, even if it costs some style (and synergy) in the process".
Fleecemane Lion is an excellent example of this; aside from being "strictly better" than Watchwolf, it also can be used as a piece of the instant-speed
deck that Dom has spent some time deliberating in his own thread (and which is a concept I'm working on stealing FYI). Considering this, I think arguments of when elegance should and shouldn't be deployed should not be used to undercut the rather simple question as to whether or not something is or isn't elegant. While the definition might mean different things to different people, arguing that something isn't elegant because it doesn't offer X, Y, and Z seems to be really missing the point.This thread reminds me of how hard it's been to convey certain design ideas I've had to my drafters, who are two lovely, intelligent people who live with me who both love to hear me talk for hours and hours. I've spent a lot of time telling them about my cube and its goals and archetypes, but they repeatedly demonstrate an ability to miss some key edge case that I planted rather deliberately. It's not because they're bad players. They just don't have the view from the top that I have, and sometimes, my ideas are frankly undersupported and built off some bad math or logic (or both). I can't help but assume the other people on Riptide, people who likely draft a lot less than we do, might run into this issue in an even bigger way. And again, I'm having a hard time grasping how Cloudblazer isn't elegant. It seems like it's right at home in a format looking longingly at Watchwolf.
I mean, sure, Brago, King Eternal and Reflector Mage are awesome for
. But are they truly the superior cards to play if you're looking for some more elegance? Is there no room for Cloudblazer in the same section as Brago? Would it be criminal to include 1 or 2 elegant cards alongside a solid lynchpin like Brago, King Eternal? Does the existence of such raw, powerful, exciting, and weeping with synergy cards like Brago, King Eternal render the question as to whether or not Cloudblazer is within the same realm as Welkin Tern and Glimpse the Unthinkable completely moot? Can we not even admit that Cloudblazer could be an elegant include to signal Control, even if it's not "exciting enough" (again, I gesture emphatically towards Watchwolf as I say this)?(By the way, I do think Sphinx's Revelation is elegant. It's simple to understand. There's no edge casing involved. It's a lovely card.)
Personally, I really liked this thread conceptually and it's something I was hoping to see develop into a sort of alternative to "Low Power Card Spotlight", where the concept would be easy-to-understand and simple cogs that could be implemented into cube to take some of the mental work out of drafting. I know my format could probably benefit from a little more elegance (and I say that as someone planning an update which currently revolves around Splendid Reclamation rather ambitiously).
It's a good cog, but multicolor, at least for me, doesn't want that. That is what the monocle cars are for. I want my multicolor cards to pull important and unique roles. There are probably some cards I could improve on, but Cloudblazer is not something I'd do to improve that situation. I have mulldrifter, I have Lone Missionary, I'm ok with drafting being more contested and tense.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I really like how this card got people talking about what constitutes "elegance" if nothing else.
I maintain that it's different based on the format and designer, and it's not all about simplicity, rather simplicity with purpose. Less Disperse and more the Pillar of flame and Dissipate, cards that solve complex and necessary problems (GY hate in this instance), while being simple.
But I do also like the 'simpler thing that basically is the complex.thug but reading-friendly'. It's complex, is what I'm saying