General Fight Club

[Onderzeeboot]

I used to have a 360, and didn't mind it myself, but I expanded to 450 to add a little variance. I don't think you need to go much bigger though for variance's sake, but let's see what statistics (link) say! If we rewrite the following formula, whe should be able to calculate the (average) number of cards that are part of both drafts.

Let

N = Number of animals in the population = Your cube's size = 450
K = Number of animals marked on the first visit = Number of cards in first draft = 360
n = Number of animals captured on the second visit = Number of cards in second draft = 360
k = Number of recaptured animals that were marked = Number of cards that were in both drafts

k = Kn/N = 360*360/450 = 288

This equals, on average, 20% (72/360) fresh cards from draft to draft.

Now let

N = Number of animals in the population = 720

k = Kn/N = 360*360/720 = 180

This equals, on average, 50% (180/360) fresh cards from draft to draft.

Now I'ld say 50% is a little wild. That means it's hard to support a theme in your cube unless it consists of a lot of cards. This requires you build in very broad themes, because a lot of the time you will only get part of the cards, which is fatal for mechanics that don't play well with others (extreme examples would be metalcraft and infect). In a smaller cubes you have more control over which cards appear, which allows you to run slightly narrower themes. Since the question was about Goblin Welder, and I consider that archetype relatively narrow, I arrived at the conclusion that your cube might be too big for the theme.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Okay yeah so I'm way less mathy about it, but I've found 450-540 to be a decent amount of variance for 8 mans without too much

My buddies have a 1080 card cube and you can't run anything that isn't perfect with 0 synergy since theres such a shit chance the card it works with being in the draft. It's literally just a pile of good cards, and drafting is like the worlds worst core set

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Okay yeah so I'm way less mathy about it, but I've found 450-540 to be a decent amount of variance for 8 mans without too much

My buddies have a 1080 card cube and you can't run anything that isn't perfect with 0 synergy since theres such a shit chance the card it works with being in the draft. It's literally just a pile of good cards, and drafting is like the worlds worst core set

360*360/1080 = 120, or 66% fresh cards between drafts. Yeah, that's insane, no theme will hold at that size.

Edit: Also, the impact will be even greater if you regularly draft with fewer people.

6 drafters, 450 cube:
k = Kn/N = 270*270/450 = 162, or 40% new cards between drafts!

6 drafter, 720 cube:
k = Kn/N = 270*270/720 = 101.25 or 62.5% new cards between drafts!!!

 

[Chris Taylor]

360*360/1080 = 120, or 66% fresh cards between drafts. Yeah, that's insane, no theme will hold at that size.

They specifically set aside all cards drafted last time so that there is specifically no overlap, so it's even worse

 

[Onderzeeboot]

They specifically set aside all cards drafted last time so that there is specifically no overlap, so it's even worse

I have no words

 

[Meltyman]

Now I'ld say 50% is a little wild. That means it's hard to support a theme in your cube unless it consists of a lot of cards. This requires you build in very broad themes, because a lot of the time you will only get part of the cards, which is fatal for mechanics that don't play well with others (extreme examples would be metalcraft and infect). In a smaller cubes you have more control over which cards appear, which allows you to run slightly narrower themes. Since the question was about Goblin Welder, and I consider that archetype relatively narrow, I arrived at the conclusion that your cube might be too big for the theme.

Welder in singleton is a sub-theme for reanimator.
In my cube it can be it's own thing, but the traditional reanimator and ramp is eating from the same pool of cards.
Reanimator wants the same discard and targets, ramp wants the same targets.
I don't think this would change that much in a smaller cube.

If i make a 360 where i have all the necessary enablers for welder along with welder, then double the amount for 720, doesn't it make it pretty much the same for that archetype?
The difference is that 720 has more variation between enablers.
Of course there might be times when there are 0 welders or 0 targets for welder, which is pretty unlikely if i add enough stuff to work with it, but that isn't a real problem in my books.
It requires skill from the drafter to let go of the plan and try to steer towards stuff that keeps getting wheeled.

Anyway the 50% doesn't take into account of the method i make boosters !
I have 1 card from each pool of cards in each booster (white,red,blue,green,black,multicolor,artifact,land)
and 7 random cards.
Usually i take less from multicolor in that random pool.

 

[Diakonov]

It's important to distinguish between variance and variety. Too much variance will actually punish what variety you've tried to create.

I used to have a 720 cube. At that size, you will definitely have a greater variety of unique cards, but it will be much more difficult to actually build around them (getting the other pieces you need to make the synergy work will be less reliable). At the end of the draft when you go to assemble your deck, these build-around cards will often get pushed out in favor of the more optimal "generic good stuff" that you have.

I first dropped down to 540, and then to 450, where I've been for quite a while. If you incorporate enough cards that fit into multiple archetypes, you should still experience a nice variety of decks, even if you see a lot of the same cards more often.

Or, if you are really desperate for variety, it might be worth considering Jason's modular cube concept.

 

[Diakonov]

If i make a 360 where i have all the necessary enablers for welder along with welder, then double the amount for 720, doesn't it make it pretty much the same for that archetype?

This logic is only partially correct. It's true that on average you will see the same proportion of welder enablers, but there is a much higher variance. In a 360-cube 8-man draft, there is zero variance; you are guaranteed to see the expected proportion of welder enablers. In a 720-cube 8-man, half of the cards aren't there; four out of five of your welder enablers could be in the unused half, even though the expected value is the same.

The reverse scenario could happen as well. The draft could randomly be filled to the brim with an excess of welder/reanimator enablers, basically handing the victory to whomever went down that path and giving the rest of your drafters few options to work with.

Edit:

Of course there might be times when there are 0 welders or 0 targets for welder, which is pretty unlikely if i add enough stuff to work with it, but that isn't a real problem in my books.
It requires skill from the drafter to let go of the plan and try to steer towards stuff that keeps getting wheeled.

I think this is the contentious part for me. If you're at the end of pack two and you're drafting mostly aggro so far, does it really feel fair to be steered toward reanimator? That's a fairly drastic change in direction. Or, suppose you're on reanimator and need to steer out into something else. That's even worse! Many of your picks are practically useless.

I'd rather my drafters be in a state of "steering toward UR tempo aggro instead of RW aggro."

 

[safra]

Welder in singleton is a sub-theme for reanimator.
If i make a 360 where i have all the necessary enablers for welder along with welder, then double the amount for 720, doesn't it make it pretty much the same for that archetype?

This isn't necessarily obvious but not really! Here's the stats behind it:

OZB dropped that convenient formula on us, so here it is again:

720 = (360 * 360) / k
k = 180
This means about half the cube is going to be cards you saw last draft and half isn't. If you're looking instead for card names instead of specific cards then there's about ~25% of the cube that's going to be 'new' each draft. That's 90 cards, or six boosters.

And specifically since we're talking about welder:

25% no welder drafted
75% at least one welder drafted

If you don't want welder decks showing up week after week, that seems like it might be reasonable, but you have to think about what that means for these already-rare decks. Instead of being consistently there and going into the strongest welder shell anyone cares to draft, someone needs to know that they're even in tonight's list before she wastes a high pick on Aether Searcher

(by the way, the odds that at least one welder will be in the first pack (120 cards) are about 31%)

Whereas in a 360, your drafters can assume that the themes you've sought to include will be a) present and b) adequately supported. At 450, if you've doubled up on a card there's a 96% chance that at least one copy will be drafted. If you don't draft super often (me, rn) this gets exacerbated because a) the larger probability comes up more often and b) the times that it does are more memorable. The dynamic becomes not 'i hope there's a welder in this draft' and instead 'can I afford to wheel this Welder right now' which imo goes way further for fun drafting. This isn't even mentioning that the problem of the wrong lands being in the draft is much less likely at just 2 lands per colour pair, and all but impossible at 3.

There are serious statistical and balance-based merits to a tighter list. I run 360 right now but might have just convinced myself to try 450 soon, I'd thought it would be a lot less consistent than it ended up being.

e: also, yr pack construction method is reasonably close to random and probably takes a lot more time, maybe try randomness at some point if you go down to a tighter list

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Not to be the last dog to the dog pile, but without print runs you can't guarantee the distribution of certain cards in the draft, and things can get weird.

This goes far deeper than the goblin welder problem, since it means you can have these extreme drafts, where one week the draft is choked with mass removal, the next week its light on spot removal, the following week devoid of one drops, or the week after stuffed with mana fixers. This can completly warp the draft session around those random distributions, making the draft feel disjointed, and the format feel like its quality varies strongly week to week.

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, all of your strong arguments above are why I've always been a fan of small, tighter lists (<= 450), rather than the giant, sprawling, MTGO cube lists. In defence of their cube, though, that list probably gets run hundreds of thousands more times than our lists do, so having a greater variety of cards from draft to draft may be more important in ensuring that people don't get bored too quickly. But for those of us who only get to cube a couple of times a month, a small list usually provides more than sufficient variety for a playgroup, as players aren't typically drafting the same archetype week in week out. I started out with something around 405 cards, but have since fallen to ~375, and lack of diversity hasn't really been a problem yet, helped in part by ~30 cards changing from one draft to the next.

 

[anotak]

well, like grillo said, no dogpile intended, but:
i just would like to point out as someone who's always drafted 360, one of the things i like the most about cube is the variety, and i have had soooo much variety at 360 that the argument for needing more confuses me. it did affect it though that when i cubed a lot we used to rotate between my cube and my friend's peasant cube which had a very different experience.

but like you said, i haven't actually played 720 more than a handful of times, so maybe i'm being unfair.

 

[Meltyman]

It's important to distinguish between variance and variety. Too much variance will actually punish what variety you've tried to create.

It's true that on average you will see the same proportion of welder enablers, but there is a much higher variance. In a 360-cube 8-man draft, there is zero variance; you are guaranteed to see the expected proportion of welder enablers. In a 720-cube 8-man, half of the cards aren't there; four out of five of your welder enablers could be in the unused half, even though the expected value is the same.


Maybe i just don't understand this, but if you have a 360-card pool, you will have the same decks competing against each other in every draft, because you know those pieces are there. How does that add variety when you take out variance (different cards in the pool to draft from)

In a vacuum players would go for "welder deck" early on.
If you first pick Welder and after that only pick stuff that would mostly work with welder (artifact lands for example) over stuff that goes well with many different plans, you are doing it wrong.
In reality the best way is to pick a target for welder, because you can branch out from that pick to normal reanimator, ramp, even a controllish way that now has a finisher.

This is the same way for storm, you don't first pick tendrils of agony and go for storm mindlessly.. you should pick stuff that works with other plans also and see if the tools for a storm is coming back to you.

The reverse scenario could happen as well. The draft could randomly be filled to the brim with an excess of welder/reanimator enablers, basically handing the victory to whomever went down that path and giving the rest of your drafters few options to work with.

This can happen in any cube, right?
If you support say reanimator in your 360-cube and no one else picks anything from that strategy, isn't it the same thing?
Ok, if you limit the stuff that reanimator has in there, well then it isn't that viable, since if people picks off your reanimates to their goodstuff, you can't have a full fleshed out reanimator.

I used to have a 720 cube. At that size, you will definitely have a greater variety of unique cards, but it will be much more difficult to actually build around them (getting the other pieces you need to make the synergy work will be less reliable). At the end of the draft when you go to assemble your deck, these build-around cards will often get pushed out in favor of the more optimal "generic good stuff" that you have.

Singleton?
Did you have the best cards in magic in there, or did you try to make it actually work at that size ?
I have seen a lot more different decks at our cubegames now that i cut out most of the boring one card combos (jace 2.0, hero of bladehold, grave titan, bribery, natural order, tinker, batterskull, wurmcoil...)

 

[FlowerSunRain]

The best solution to this particular situation, which was someone else's idea, maybe Changling Bob, maybe someone else, sorry if I forgot, was to have the order of packs matter. That is, pack one could have fixed contents and contain your "important to see in pack one cards", so you know they come out while the other packs could be drawn from an oversized pool and provide lots of variety and room for brewing. I personally haven't ever been able to commit to a 360 list in spite of cutting down to it many times and I really love what can happen in those larger lists where unknown synergies are always hiding, but have had frustrations with the variance, leading me to draft lands seperately, for example. I haven't actually tried the "fixed pack one" technique (I don't booster draft as my most frequent format so that makes sense), but I think it has merit and is less taxing then a polycube.

 

[anotak]

you won't have the same decks if you designed your cube with interlocking synergies so the same card can be in more than one deck. people won't see the cards in the same order and people won't value the same cards the same way. most 360 cubes have far more than 8 archetypes possible

 

[shamizy]

This is becoming an off-topic discussion pretty fast, but this is interesting !

I'll take Riptide Lab for 1000 Alex.

 

[Meltyman]

you won't have the same decks if you designed your cube with interlocking synergies so the same card can be in more than one deck. people won't see the cards in the same order and people won't value the same cards the same way. most 360 cubes have far more than 8 archetypes possible

Sure, it can have many archetypes, those archetypes will usually look pretty much the same from draft to draft.
What i mean by this, i have an example. I compared my cube vs the average 360 cube

Reanimator options, my cube:

Discard:

Spoiler

Reanimate:

Spoiler

Targets:

Spoiler

Reanimator options, average 360:

Discard:

Spoiler

Reanimate:

Spoiler

Targets:

Spoiler

So here are the stuff that is left out of this 360, but might be an option in my cube:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure my reanimator archetype will look a lot different from draft to draft.
720 will have a chance that you will never see any targets or discard or reanimates in there, but the GOOD variety (in my opinion) is definitely there... I don't see myself using Trading Post as many times in a 360 tight list as in this 720 where you sometimes find yourself aching for enablers.. (though Trading Post is really awesome to be honest!)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Hmmm...I think there is a lot being lost in translation by this accounting method. Some of the cards that you have listed aren't widely played here because they aren't really good enough (jaya ballad, obzedat's aid, worldgorger dragon) or fall into a catagory a lot of us view as GRBS (recurring nightmare, sundering titan, sphinx of steel winds). A lot of the cheap reanimation cards like reanimate or entomb, a lot of us cut long ago because of the turn 2 plays they enable. Tooth and nail, oath, and tinker also aren't really reanimation cards. Gamekeeper and pattern of rebirth also seem tangentially connected as real reanimation cards, being more sacrifice cheat cards that can feed the yard than true reanimation. There are also some cards that I think are more common in riptide style cubes: oona's prowler, and gifts ungiven. There are also some common white reanimation effects like sun titan or revillark that are not represented. With this accounting, 3-4 birthing pods should also be being represented in the riptide pool.

A lot of these cards you're running are effects that were weeded out as not being healthy for their cube formats, either due to oppressiveness, or the weakness of the card, and aren't seen as a great loss. Many of the rest aren't meaningfully different from the cards a riptide cube is already running, so its difficult to imagine much greater theortical variety in either color pairings or strategy. You broadly have 1) artifact reanimation, 2) midrange reanimation, 3) reanimation combo (two flavors), 4) mass reanimation, and 5) temporary reanimation. Which is about the same as riptide cubes, though #3 is out of favor in most riptide lists, and both of you don't really support #4 in depth (living death being the only card) or #5 particularly well. Some designers here have chosen go down the artifact reanimation route, though it hasn't been a popular deck to support. Worldgorger is not run because its too narrow.

There are a few cards that could arguably be tied to reanimation: pattern of rebirth, sneak attack--but than you have to grant us 4 birthing pods.

The really interesting thing, is that in comparing the sections, your 720 versions aren't much larger than the 360s, despite your cube being much bigger, and you having less of a total % of your cube showing up each draft. The archetype pieces are going to be much more fractured as a result, though that dilution might be part of why combos like entomb->reanimate/animate death/exhume/dance of the dead seem ok in your environment, rather then oppressive.

 

[Meltyman]

Hmmm...I think there is a lot being lost in translation by this accounting method. Some of the cards that you have listed aren't widely played here because they aren't really good enough (jaya ballad, obzedat's aid, worldgorger dragon) or fall into a catagory a lot of us view as GRBS (recurring nightmare, sundering titan, sphinx of steel winds). A lot of the cheap reanimation cards like reanimate or entomb, a lot of us cut long ago because of the turn 2 plays they enable. Tooth and nail, oath, and tinker also aren't really reanimation cards. Gamekeeper and pattern of rebirth also seem tangentially connected as real reanimation cards, being more sacrifice cheat cards that can feed the yard than true reanimation. There are also some cards that I think are more common in riptide style cubes: oona's prowler, and gifts ungiven. There are also some common white reanimation effects like sun titan or revillark that are not represented. With this accounting, 3-4 birthing pods should also be being represented in the riptide pool.

Yes, this method isn't the best argument why 720 is better than the hivemind in this site seems to let people believe.
It still gave me a method of showing what i am talking about, and what my cube actually has, so the conversation isn't going like this "you have 1 welder in your cube that obviously doesn't work, take it out"
Also i guess i tried to tell that to me it is better to have these comboish or combo archetypes that don't always operate the same exact way.
This reanimation example maybe should have said "the plan that cheats a big creature into play". That would give a little bit of a view what i am aiming for in my cube.



If i have an archetype it should have many different weird cards that entwine with the plan like reanimator that can go Oath of Druids, Pattern etc, not just "for an optimal reanimator you have to pickup massacre wurm, faithless looting and animate dead", this to me seems too "tight", too "clean".


A lot of these cards you're running are effects that were weeded out as not being healthy for their cube formats, either due to oppressiveness, or the weakness of the card, and aren't seen as a great loss. Many of the rest aren't meaningfully different from the cards a riptide cube is already running, so its difficult to imagine much greater theortical variety in either color pairings or strategy. You broadly have 1) artifact reanimation, 2) midrange reanimation, 3) reanimation combo (two flavors), 4) mass reanimation, and 5) temporary reanimation. Which is about the same as riptide cubes, though #3 is out of favor in most riptide lists, and both of you don't really support #4 in depth (living death being the only card) or #5 particularly well. Some designers here have chosen go down the artifact reanimation route, though it hasn't been a popular deck to support. Worldgorger is not run because its too narrow.

This sadly is due to me being the only guy here rooting for a 720, so i guess it is pretty pointless for me to continue this talk
Worldgorger is too narrow in a 360, but in 720 you actually see it in play doing infinite mana or beating for 7.

There are a few cards that could arguably be tied to reanimation: pattern of rebirth, sneak attack--but than you have to grant us 4 birthing pods.

The really interesting thing, is that in comparing the sections, your 720 versions aren't much larger than the 360s, despite your cube being much bigger, and you having less of a total % of your cube showing up each draft. The archetype pieces are going to be much more fractured as a result, though that dilution might be part of why combos like entomb->reanimate/animate death/exhume/dance of the dead seem ok in your environment, rather then oppressive.

If you count those together, there are more than half:

My 720:
37 discard
27 reanimation
17 targets

average 360:
14 discard
9 reanimate
6 targets

But it is true, in a 720 you might see a fractured archetype and in this case it really doesn't matter that much.
Reanimation targets can be used broadly, discard in most cases are usable in many other strategies and reanimate is really usable on smaller targets / opponents targets.
This is one point i am trying to tell you, but i am failing at it i guess... in 720 you don't know what archetypes are in there and that is the beauty of it.
The game play is still challenging, fun, interactive, competitive (if you so desire), no matter how much number crunching you can make up with it

e: also, yr pack construction method is reasonably close to random and probably takes a lot more time, maybe try randomness at some point if you go down to a tighter list

Back to back cube drafts don't go too well when you shuffle all of the cards together and take 15 to each booster, you get clumps of a deck in boosters like that.
I rather workout the extra 10min and make really randomed boosters than hope i don't get that badly shuffled pile in my booster

 

[safra]

Back to back cube drafts don't go too well when you shuffle all of the cards together and take 15 to each booster, you get clumps of a deck in boosters like that.
I rather workout the extra 10min and make really randomed boosters than hope i don't get that badly shuffled pile in my booster

shuffle harder bruh

it's weird to me that you want control over extreme variance (how you build your packs so they're only quasi-random) but also think you're the only one "rooting" for 720 instead of just arguing for better cube environments. My cube is mine, yeah, but it isn't really about me, it's about providing an experience for my playgroup. If every third draft someone's deck falls apart through no fault of their own I don't feel great about that! Clearly you're willing to spend effort and time to combat variance, but, like

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

No, I understand the theory of what you're saying: you create definition in your environment by running more raw cards, which means you can pack it full of more build arounds, which results in more diverse decks than a 360 or 450.

I'm just saying thats not necessarly the case, due to statistical reasons, and there being other ways to build up archetypes, which are more space efficent. I run a lot of cards that are very composite, their valuation changing based on a few markers in the format, which push the drafter in certain directions. The list is compact, but feels very broad, and there is a great variety as to the decks you can build, even within established archetypes. I'm sure you could recreate that feeling at 720, though you have to balance whether having a larger portion of your cube excluded every draft is better than a 450, which is an interesting question.

I don't see why it has to be phrased as a combative argument (hivemind, really?) as everyone has been civil. This is just an interesting topic.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Arguing for any specific element of development is pointless. There is too much noise for specific elements to be broadly applicable, even the best ones have limitations. What is much more important is to talk about broad aspects of design, then thinking about how they might best be developed for our own specific needs.

No one else on this site takes all their land out of their cube, runs a 540 card pile with a moronically skewed mana curve bloated with really narrow poisonous cards or uses Westchester Draft as their usual play method. They also don't Sharpy over a bunch of existing cards to kludge together themes that wouldn't otherwise work. Well, except me. In spite of my completely different developmental method, I still manage to poach great ideas from people whose cube look completely different from mine because they are based on good design. And sometimes I see some of my own elements appear in other people's cube and that's awesome, because I get to see my ideas work inside of someone else's framework, which proves they are good ideas because they transcend their environment.

Whether or not anyone else wants to run a 720 card cube is irrelevant. What is relevant is how you can use those ideas to make your cube as awesome as possible. You can follow the advice being given or rebel against it. Both are fine choices. I personally rebeled against the "poisonous cards are bad" sentiment that goes around here, but I was only able to do it successfully because I understand why it was bad and purposefully developed around those flaws. But you can't do that until you understand those flaws, which is where the conversation comes in.

 

[Diakonov]

Maybe i just don't understand this, but if you have a 360-card pool, you will have the same decks competing against each other in every draft, because you know those pieces are there. How does that add variety when you take out variance (different cards in the pool to draft from)

Knowing that the pieces are there is different than being able to get them, though. As anotak said, having a lot of cards that serve multiple functions goes a long way, and which mode of the card you'll be interested in will be guided by what else gets passed to you.

In a vacuum players would go for "welder deck" early on.
If you first pick Welder and after that only pick stuff that would mostly work with welder (artifact lands for example) over stuff that goes well with many different plans, you are doing it wrong.
In reality the best way is to pick a target for welder, because you can branch out from that pick to normal reanimator, ramp, even a controllish way that now has a finisher.

This is the same way for storm, you don't first pick tendrils of agony and go for storm mindlessly.. you should pick stuff that works with other plans also and see if the tools for a storm is coming back to you.

I agree with all this. Every cube has some proportion of broad cards and narrow cards. Let's suppose for argument's sake that 20% of cards in most riptide cubes are considered narrow. The worst case scenario for a 360 cube draft is that 20% of the cards in the draft are narrow. In a cube draft of 720, the worst case scenario is that 40% of the cards are narrow. I know that's not super likely to happen, but the point is that now you're in this spectrum. Again using this hypothetical, a 720 cube could also have a draft with 0% narrow cards.

Singleton?
Did you have the best cards in magic in there, or did you try to make it actually work at that size ?
I have seen a lot more different decks at our cubegames now that i cut out most of the boring one card combos (jace 2.0, hero of bladehold, grave titan, bribery, natural order, tinker, batterskull, wurmcoil...)

Mine was singleton, AND power-max, and that definitely presented a much greater problem than the size. People can still draft goodstuff even in my current cube, though. It just becomes a more likely option when your other synergies can't be relied upon as consistently.

I will say that your cube does look very interesting, and I would expect to see some very unique-looking decks. I do believe that the cost associated with this would be a slightly greater proportion of good stuff decks and not-quite-complete-jankers, but as you've said, each group has slightly different preferences.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I don't see myself using Trading Post as many times in a 360 tight list as in this 720 where you sometimes find yourself aching for enablers.. (though Trading Post is really awesome to be honest!)

I think you're putting too much emphasis on the stock 360 list. Riptiders are notorious for not having average cubes, there's a lot of experimentation here (including your cube), and there's not a lot of cubes on this forum adhering to the power max philosophy, meaning there's room for cards that would be considered too weak in your average 360. Also, I was advocating cutting your cube size back to 450, which gives you considerably more breathing room than going back to an ultra-thighs 360 list. I run quite a few of the discard outlets in my 450 you run but the average 360 doesn't, for example.

In any case, its your cube and your playgroup. As I said, I was merely trying to provide you with another perspective for your "artifact reanimator target" conundrum. Cutting cards is as viable a solution as adding another card, and certainly has other merits as well, as I hope this debate has made clear. It's for you to decide if the benefits of a smaller cube are worth it to make drastic changes to a cube you're already having fun with!

 

[Meltyman]

I agree with all this. Every cube has some proportion of broad cards and narrow cards. Let's suppose for argument's sake that 20% of cards in most riptide cubes are considered narrow. The worst case scenario for a 360 cube draft is that 20% of the cards in the draft are narrow. In a cube draft of 720, the worst case scenario is that 40% of the cards are narrow. I know that's not super likely to happen, but the point is that now you're in this spectrum. Again using this hypothetical, a 720 cube could also have a draft with 0% narrow cards.

I talked about this in my cube list section.
What i don't need in a cube is that when my draft is finished, i have 40 playables to pick from.
That is what happens in most of the cubes i've played (mine included), that feels like a wasted potential...

If i strip off the "windmillslams" out of there and add a bit more fringe or undervalued cards instead, i get more challenge in the drafting phase, because i have the option to try some weird combo, instead of deciding if i want o make a 1, 2 or 3-color creature deck.

I get more challenge in the building phase (usually), because i don't have 40 playables, but maybe around 23 (this is where i am aiming).
My aggro section isn't there yet, because it gets all the nuts and bolts and wins all the time in our games...

I hope i make some sense with this, but basically i think it is more rewarding to build decks from a pool with more fringe and narrow, than pick from a pool of cards where everything fits together and everyone is left with 30+ playables.
(exaggerating here a bit to guide that point home, i know most people do have narrow cards along with stuff that goes well with other stuff)

This is also what my gaming groups(s) think mostly, they want a bigger environment where you can't have it all in every draft.

I think you're putting too much emphasis on the stock 360 list.

Yes my method wasn't the best, but it gave a visual what i was trying to say.
I guess most people already know this stuff and has decided that it is better to have 0% fraction with the cost of less broader archetypes.

In any case, its your cube and your playgroup. As I said, I was merely trying to provide you with another perspective for your "artifact reanimator target" conundrum. Cutting cards is as viable a solution as adding another card, and certainly has other merits as well, as I hope this debate has made clear. It's for you to decide if the benefits of a smaller cube are worth it to make drastic changes to a cube you're already having fun with!

Your opinion is appreciated.
I will keep that in mind and will cut down cards when i think i have tried everything with 720 and it doesn't work for me or my group(s)

it's weird to me that you want control over extreme variance (how you build your packs so they're only quasi-random)

I know what happens when i argue over this thing. Someone throws me mathematics how shuffling the whole thing vs my method is the same thing, but it really isn't the same.

720 is shuffled sometimes sloppy, sometimes well enough, sometimes some pile wasn't even shuffled.
This can lead to crappy boosters, my method takes that option out and takes 10min more.

But also think you're the only one "rooting" for 720 instead of just arguing for better cube environments.
My cube is mine, yeah, but it isn't really about me, it's about providing an experience for my playgroup.
If every third draft someone's deck falls apart through no fault of their own I don't feel great about that! Clearly you're willing to spend effort and time to combat variance.

Someone's deck falls apart and the drafter didn't do anything wrong, really ?

I think that statement kinda is true if the players playing my cube plays for the first time.
If they have played it multiple times, they know what to expect, not just go for a plan and fingers crossed that will happen 100%

In a real booster draft i usually don't have more than 23 playables and the rest are fillers.
There are times when my plan doesn't go my way and if i didn't make corrections in my picks (signals), i can blame only myself really.

I don't see why it has to be phrased as a combative argument (hivemind, really?) as everyone has been civil. This is just an interesting topic.

Maybe it is only in my head, but i think every piece of advice can be understood: "maybe cut down on cards and then we talk" (not targeting one person, there are many).
That is what i mean by hivemind, you guys seem to want an environment where most of the stuff goes well with everything, leading to 30+ playables, just the opposite what i am trying to do.
I wouldn't be making myself a fool by answering these, if i didn't think this is interesting though ! and this is the FIGHT-CLUB, so maybe it is allowed to have some combative arguments