[Feedback/Tuning] Brood Cube (BUG Themed)

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Cubetutor Link: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/25427

Brood Cube Schematics:
198 Cards (18 Packs of 11 Cards)
4~6 Players
Low-Powered format
Themed: Sultai Wedge (Blue, black, green cards ONLY)
Free first mulligan

Additional Restrictions:
No counters
No tokens
No searching libraries

Introduction
The Brood Cube is a portable cube designed for a playgroup that, while rather big, is almost never together in a group larger than 6. We're all pretty casual players that prefer limited to constructed formats, a few of us being really big cube enthusiasts. Our skill range is rather wide, some of us (me) being scrub-level players while others make drives to take part in GPs from time to time. I wanted to create a format where the more skilled drafters can stretch their legs and the less draft-savvy of us to cobble together a deck we can almost pilot (I mean this comedically. At least two of us nubs know what we're doing). With this goal in mind, and with a little inspiration of other finely tuned cube concepts, this guy was born.



Cube Goals
Slower, interactive format.
Decks with minimum mana-related problems
Reduced top-decked land "bad-feels"
Synergies that don't fall apart during the drafting process
Slimmer, more relevant sideboard
Reduced memory-intensive boardstates

I've taken a lot of design cues from Grillo Parlante's Penny Pincer Cube, including Bouncelands and cantrips with the overall goal of reducing "non-games." I've also been selective with the removal I've included, each of them with some sort of condition included. On average, I expect this cube to be drafted by four people, Rochester style. I've noticed that some players in my playgroup have some difficulty with tracking board-state under stressful situations, and I myself am weary of tons of shuffling in the middle of games, so as a design challenge, I've elected to bar cards which produce any form of counter, any tokens, or shuffle the library. Finally, I've included the "One Free Mulligan" rule as a part of the format to help smooth out problems that arise with having a three-colored deck.



Strategies/Synergies
Aura Voltron: Black and Blue have bestow creatures, Green has some recurrable auras.
Tribes: A couple lords which can function solo. Hinges on Conspiracy.
Threshold/Madness: Blue looters, Erebos's Emissary, Wild Mongrel to hit threshold or to fuel delve.
Enchantments: Eidolon of Blossoms, Dowsing Shaman, Doomwake Giant.
Super Slow "Blinking": Tradewinds or familiar's ruse, G/B recurrsion, NINJAS.
Fortune Hunter/Mistfire Adept: My pet blue cards. Synergize with fight and voltron.
Lifeswing: Incremental gains through Parasitic Strix, Jorubai Murk Lurker, Gnawing Zombie.
Turn-My-Guys-Sideways: Concordant Crossroads + Ambuscade Shaman, creature recursion

Design Approaches
First strike. I want a format where each combat offers some trade, and first strike makes that difficult.
Solely Aggro. Aggressive 1 drops can't just be aggressive one drops. Gnarled Scarhide goes into voltron, Wingcrafter into "Ninjas" (trying to find a way to support that). Wasteland Viper supports Deathtouch-y Aggro I'm hoping will catch on.
Cantrips/Mana Sinks. I want players to think about how they'll spend their mana next turn.
Boardstates. Do I have threshold? Black permanent for Parasitic Strix? Ferocious for Icy Blast?

 
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I want to start off by saying hi. I've been a lurker for a couple weeks, initially attracted here by updates to Grillo Parlante's Penny Pincer Cube. I was finally compelled to work through a draft of this project, inspired by Jonas's 180 BUG cube. Not really good with self introduction. Let's just pretend I made a really great first impression and get to being good ol' pals.

Winksmile.

Anyways, regarding this cube, I've only just broken the modern border rule in order to accomodate threshold. I'm a little apprehensive about doing this, since many older border cards are a little more difficult for newer players to wrap their heads around, and as such, am particular about specific inclusions. I also have a very limited knowledge of anything not modern-bordered, so I have no idea what's out there that can support my already included archetypes.

I'm looking for feedback on how to give validity to "turn all my guys sideways" strategies. I've figured deathtouch+recurrsion could do it, but other suggestions would be incredibly helpful.

I'm also looking to see if it could be worth working in the following package:



This package would maybe buff ninjas?

I would also appreciate any recommendations for my artifacts. Right now they seem a little disjunct and irrelevant to me. Is it better to turn those artifacts into colored cards?

Anyways, thanks for taking the time for reading through this cube. It's far from being done and I appreciate any input you guys can give!
 
Jonas

Jonas

I've inspired someone? Fuck yeah! I'll look at it and offer some feedback when the baby isn't pooping in my lap.
 
Jonas

Jonas

Onderzeeboot said:
I hate it when they do that.
Click to expand...
Such a mess.

Anyway, I like what you've done with excluding counters, tokens and shuffling effects, I love the thought of no tutoring.
There is also a place for masked admirers, which is like my favorite card ever. (almost)
I like it, I like it a lot.
 
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Concordant Crossroads is just the kind of thing I was looking for. Throws combat and creature stuff for a loop. I'm going to start making cuts tonight to see how I can better integrate that package. Thank you so much!
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
I have done a couple of drafts of your cube and is seems pretty fun. The first couple it seemed REALLY attrition based as there are just so many guys with 2 power and 2 toughness (as well as the deathtouchers) that just seem like everything is going to trade with everything, and I wanted to draft a gravedigger at the next opportunity (which you coincidentally don't even have :p).

After the next couple of drafts I just kept picking all the high things I could see to trump the 2/2 warfare and they seem much more winnable than the others. I say this without playing a single deck, so I don't know how the games play out, but that is just how the decks 'feel'.

It is nice that the cube accommodates any two colour pairing and you don't have to draft sultai all the time (which is nice to not vs the same deck everytime), there is quite a bit of variety, which left me impressed.

Some cards I don't understand, that I have seen wheel around:



I don't know what deck they fit into and I never feel like picking them.

Also, I tried to draft archers (First pick Greatbow!) then got disappointed at the end when I only had 3 other archers. I looked at your list to see what I had missed, and I had only missed 1 Thornweald Archer and Orc Sureshot(Whom I didn't even realise was an archer :p). Is it really worth fooling someone into thinking it is an archetype instead of a decent creature with a hopefully incidental buff?

The only other archers I can find that don't break your design choices (Or some random 3-drop 2/2) are:



Devotion doesn't seem like something you want to be doing in this cube. Bounty hunter, while cool is quite slow. The changelings are all pretty basic, however, Cairn Wanderer seems pretty sweet. Having all those trample, deathtouch creatures along with the flyers it makes him pretty interesting.
 
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Thank you so much for your drafts, Kirblinx. They provided some really valuable insight!

I've made a couple chunks worth of changes based on the points you left on the decks you drafted. The first major edit was shrinking gold and artifacts to accommodate more archetypal creatures for voltron and ninjas. The other major change was how I handled tribal. As it stood, tribal had a good chance of falling apart during the draft due to tribal shortage. I hoped to remedy that by pushing lords that were good by themselves. I hope that Zombie/Archer/Elf/Shaman "lords" + Conspiracy is an adequate enough synergy to open up drafting multiple tribes into one deck.

One thing I'm afraid of that's been addressed is a grindy/attrition-based boardstate. What sort of bodies should I be looking for to keep combat fresh?
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
The new tribal sub-theme seems like a cool draft around. Especially like the Risen Executioner addition. That is one spicy meatball.

I am not entirely sure what I meant by the attrition based matches. It is probably just the way I think all GB and BU decks function in drafts. Put out some early roadblocks, get some 2-for-1's then grind them out with the card advantage. When those two colour pairings are 2/3rds of your draft format, it makes me think I need to get more 2-for-1's than the anyone else (not that is different from any other draft format).

Also, since your good aggro two-drops have deathtouch, they also taken by the mid-rangey decks to help clog up the board which makes aggro have a hard time. This may be a problem in getting your deathtouch aggro to work. The lack of early drops in blue hurt aggro as well. It seems the only difference between aggro and midrange is a pair of Gnarled Scarhides.

Those are just some empty thoughts going around in my head, with no real solution as of yet. The cube seems solid and very (repeatably) playable. I need to draft it a couple more times to see how all the archetypes come together, and how many of the pivotal cards for those get taken by the 'souless midrange' decks.
 
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