General Fight Club

[Onderzeeboot]

So... If I understand correctly, you have a 720 cube because you want to arrive at ~23 playables after a draft? ... First, why do you think you need 720 to arrive at ~23 playables? You can arrive at the same ratio of playables in a 450 cube. More importantly however, in my mind more playables means harder decisions during deckbuilding. If you only get 23 playables, the deck practically builds itself, why is that a positive in your mind? If you end up with 30 playables, you have to make hard decisions on what cards to cut, and there's more room for wrong decisions during deckbuilding. This rewards people better at card evaluation and better deckbuilders (not to be confused with better players), which I think is awesome. More playables is therefore preferable from my point of view.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince you to cut back*, but so far I haven't heard a single reason that actually makes sense to me. All of the things you are trying to accomplish through using a large cube can be achieved in a smaller cube.

And, on a final note, the choice for you is not between 720 and 360. You keep stressing the 360 number with 0% fractioned archetypes, but there are lots of sizes in between that give you the variety and variance you seek.

*Well, to be fair, I am kinda trying to convince you that a small cube has advantages that outweigh those of a large cube. But you can draw your own conclusions on whether that has any impact on the size of your cube

 

[Meltyman]

So... If I understand correctly, you have a 720 cube because you want to arrive at ~23 playables after a draft? ... First, why do you think you need 720 to arrive at ~23 playables? You can arrive at the same ratio of playables in a 450 cube. More importantly however, in my mind more playables means harder decisions during deckbuilding. If you only get 23 playables, the deck practically builds itself, why is that a positive in your mind? If you end up with 30 playables, you have to make hard decisions on what cards to cut, and there's more room for wrong decisions during deckbuilding. This rewards people better at card evaluation and better deckbuilders (not to be confused with better players), which I think is awesome. More playables is therefore preferable from my point of view.

I have some multiples to accomplish combos: Aluren, Enduring Renewal, Dream Halls.
If i add aluren, enduring renewal, dream halls and all the stuff that goes along with it in a smaller cube, that cube would be all about those combos, it's not what i want from my cube.
Now in my cube games most of the decks are creature based aggro / midrange / control or tempo control. Occasionally there are combo decks, but not in every draft and that is fine.

Another example would be that in a smaller cube i would lose the "wow-factor" when using something like Worldknit or Unexpected Potential, because you would see them every time.
Now the players are talking before our draft if anyone gets lucky and picks up the one and only (foil i might add) Worldknit

I could see myself cutting the amount to 600 or something at some point if this doesn't work, 360 - 450 too low for us.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You didn't answer my main question:

More importantly however, in my mind more playables means harder decisions during deckbuilding. If you only get 23 playables, the deck practically builds itself, why is that a positive in your mind? If you end up with 30 playables, you have to make hard decisions on what cards to cut, and there's more room for wrong decisions during deckbuilding. This rewards people better at card evaluation and better deckbuilders (not to be confused with better players), which I think is awesome. More playables is therefore preferable from my point of view.

@Worldknit: Well, the point is that, if you run a cube larger than 360, you're not going to see a specific card every time. In my 450 cube, a singleton card would show up in 80% of the drafts, not 100%. Now, you might feel that that's too much, but I would say, if your players clearly enjoy playing with Worldknit and Unexpected Potential, why deny them the chance to do so in 50% of your drafts? Unless you consider Worldknit bad for the environment, but then why do you cube it? I try to arrive at a cube that plays as few as possible cards in the "it's okay if this shows up some of the time" camp. In my experience, if you don't want a card to show up every time, that's usually because it is secretly GRBS and unhealthy for your environment. You know it is bad for your environment, but for some reason (you spent money on it, you used to have fun with it in constructed, you really like the art, etc.) you can't get yourself to cut it from your cube.

 

[Meltyman]

You didn't answer my main question:

I didn't think it through when i said building-phase. I basically mean during drafting, which is building your deck also at least for me, i don't slam cards in a pile and see what comes of it after the draft.

The aim for me has been to get the density of obvious picks to a lower amount, so that you would have to improvise a bit more to accomplish that initial 40.
This way each deck would look a little bit more different from draft to draft, like having storm that kills with Ignite Memories or aggro that also has Phyrexian Processor in there.
Maybe even reanimator with Proteus Staff.

With more card pool, you see a more of this that looks wacky and stupid in the surface, but actually requires skill also, right?

I feel this kind of thinking would seem a bit too forced in a smaller cube, so this is why i think i need to have 720 or some other number to achieve that experience.

@Worldknit: Well, the point is that, if you run a cube larger than 360, you're not going to see a specific card every time. In my 450 cube, a singleton card would show up in 80% of the drafts, not 100%. Now, you might feel that that's too much, but I would say, if your players clearly enjoy playing with Worldknit and Unexpected Potential, why deny them the chance to do so in 50% of your drafts? Unless you consider Worldknit bad for the environment, but then why do you cube it? I try to arrive at a cube that plays as few as possible cards in the "it's okay if this shows up some of the time" camp. In my experience, if you don't want a card to show up every time, that's usually because it is secretly GRBS and unhealthy for your environment. You know it is bad for your environment, but for some reason (you spent money on it, you used to have fun with it in constructed, you really like the art, etc.) you can't get yourself to cut it from your cube.

I understand what you mean and in most cases i have removed such cards. Sometimes i just bought an expensive card for my cube, but remove it the next day, it isn't a problem.
Worldknit isn't TOO GOOD, it is a joker in there that also requires skill and planning, but it usually ends up being 0-3 for the player.
Our group wants it in the pool because it is a really fun card to play, but because of the way it plays out we don't want to see it in every draft.
Also last time one of our players realized that when you pick Worldknit you should pick all the lands possible, so you get a smaller deck, this might make it a 3-0 deck some day.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

The aim for me has been to get the density of obvious picks to a lower amount

You share that aim with many Riptiders. That's why you usually won't see things like Wurmcoil Engine or Grave Titan in our cubes. I agree that obvious picks make drafts less interesting.

With more card pool, you see a more of this that looks wacky and stupid in the surface, but actually requires skill also, right?

I don't think that has anything to do with the size of your cube. It has everything to do with the cards you choose to include in your cube though. For example, there's a Sigil of the Empty Throne in my 450 cube (modified to have constellation), Thrummingbird is there, Pestilence, Trading Post, etc. These are all cards that I choose to put in my cube, because sometimes, when the stars align, someone can go nuts with them. Aside from the fact that they don't show up every draft, being in the draft doesn't guarantee that they will get played. They're not obvious picks, they're a bit wacky, but they can be powerful in the right decks. Point is, you don't need 720 to include such cards, and you don't need 720 to achieve a variety of decks. At the end of the day, each drafter will only play around 23 cards in his deck. That's still only 41% of a 450 cube, meaning the other 60% can lead to wildly different decks the next draft.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Diversity of archetypes is driven more by design than by the size of your cardpool. Triple RTR drafts (depending on your perspective) come from an infinite cardpool (# of retail packs), and despite no two drafts having the same card composition, diversity of archetypes are quite low.

By contrast you can build a fixed 360 card pool that supports a broad number of strategies, where things look very different from draft to draft.

With a 720 cube you enable a bigger ceiling on possible diversity. More decks perhaps that can happen if the card pool shuffles a certain way. I also had an email conversation with such a cuber once who complained that his large cube produced decks that were too "samey", just filled with value cards of various colors instead of having real game plans, because the cube was too diluted to support certain synergies.

 

[Diakonov]

I also had an email conversation with such a cuber once who complained that his large cube produced decks that were too "samey", just filled with value cards of various colors instead of having real game plans, because the cube was too diluted to support certain synergies.

@Meltyman: This was the main point that I was trying highlight. It certainly helps that you've expanded out your themes proportionally, however, my impression is that at that size becomes a lot more difficult to have the same number of cards which can overlap well between strategies. As you said:

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.

I can certainly see the appeal to this. The flip side is that anytime you have a larger number of narrow cards, it will be that much riskier to get the right sequence of cards you need to make a specific strategy work. A drafter who is less inclined to take that risk may be compelled choose a simpler strategy that makes use of the individual strengths of cards. By "good stuff" I don't necessarily mean Grave Titan & his OP friends, but rather even stuff like Blade Splicer, which is generically good.

Edit: I can relate to your complaint about ending up with 37 or so playables in your pool to build from. I've considered shrinking the pack size from 15 to 13 or 12 as a measure to reduce that. Haven't tried it yet, though.

 

[Diakonov]

A while back I brought up these two oldies:



I distinctly remember a lot of people saying that Armageddon is probably fine these days, but there was universal enmity for Void. I have a personal attachment to Void because A. it's old; B. it has a sweet picture; C. I own one; and D. I have fond memories of playing BG Nether Void decks way back in the day.

Is it really so much worse that Armageddon? It kinda sucks that it punishes Rebound and spells-matter, but on the other hand it doesn't potentially cripple fixing like Armageddon can. Also, Void's "geddon" can be undone with a disenchant.

If it's just no fun at all I'm probably going to sell it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well... Only one way to find out for sure, right? Both spells are only good while you're ahead, and both favor weenie strategies, in the sense that after resolving the spell, you'll only cast one- and two-drops for a while. They're pretty similar I think.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

If I had to play one I would go for nether void, marginally less feel bad. I would not play either though.

How does nether void interact with?



I'm guessing its still countered but was interested if any other rules come int effect.

 

[anotak]

still countered, is not an activation

 

[Chris Taylor]

If I had to play one I would go for nether void, marginally less feel bad. I would not play either though.

How does nether void interact with?



I'm guessing its still countered but was interested if any other rules come int effect.

It still gets mana leaked (Same interaction happens with counterbalance, you just can't top in response), but something like abrupt decay would work

A while back I brought up these two oldies:



I distinctly remember a lot of people saying that Armageddon is probably fine these days, but there was universal enmity for Void. I have a personal attachment to Void because A. it's old; B. it has a sweet picture; C. I own one; and D. I have fond memories of playing BG Nether Void decks way back in the day.

Is it really so much worse that Armageddon? It kinda sucks that it punishes Rebound and spells-matter, but on the other hand it doesn't potentially cripple fixing like Armageddon can. Also, Void's "geddon" can be undone with a disenchant.

If it's just no fun at all I'm probably going to sell it.

The problem with Nether Void is that your opponent is generally more likely to be able to escape it than you. Armageddon might be pretending to be symmetrical, but Nether Void is symmetrical in the opponents favor

 

[Jason Waddell]

Phyrexian Obliterator

Phyrexian Obliterator? I hardly know 'er.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yer on a roll Jason

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yer on a roll Jason

When I went to London, James told these jokes constantly. I thought I'd bring them over to the forums.

 

[James Stevenson]

When I went to London, James told these jokes constantly. I thought I'd bring them over to the forums.

You started it. (actually probably not)

 

[Jason Waddell]

Child molester? I hardly know 'er.

 

[James Stevenson]

Fiddler on the roof?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Damn I'm at work and can't post that end of community sketch

 

[shamizy]

Damn I'm at work and can't post that end of community sketch

 

[shamizy]

When I went to London, James told these jokes constantly. I thought I'd bring them over to the forums.

C-c-c-combooooo

 

[Lucre]

How can we make geddon feel more fair in terms of, like, metagame and draft gimmicks.
Flagstones comes to mind.

 

[shamizy]

Can't really make it fair unless the cube does degenerate shit. In most matches, T4 Geddon with any board advantage is usually game. Just an unfun card to play against and takes a lot of decision making and intrigue out of the game. Do you have a counter? No? Guess I'll just wreck your shit. Have fun.

 

[Lucre]

I dunno I've certainly recovered from geddons before or had my advantaged deathclouds and balances all fucked up. I'm sure theres got to be a way. I feel like that thinking is a real result of assumptions about normal magic. Imagine a format where the vast majority of cards cost 3 or less, or where there are a lot of sweepers and you start seeing decks that can play around geddon or aren't too bothered by it.

 

[Laz]

You want to make Armageddon fun? Play it in EDH.