General Forcing Resourcefulness

F

Florida Man

Everyone has a different vision for their cube. I want powerful cards and fun synergies, but I also want to force my players to be more resourceful than they usually would.

But how? I have a fuzzy idea, and I think I have done it with my cube, but there might be other ways.

I chose to include a very wide range of power level between the card in my cube. But are there other ways?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Alfonzo Bonzo said:
How do you define resourcefulness in the context of cube?
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That was my first question as well.

Florida Man said:
I chose to include a very wide range of power level between the card in my cube. But are there other ways?
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So, that makes your cube more akin to a retail draft format, say Modern Masters? Because there are bombs, but also situational cards, or just weak-ish cards (compared to the more obvious powerful cards)?

Do you have a link to your cube, or a few sample packs? Based on this description alone I would guess your first picks are more obvious, and your last few picks are less relevant, because you will get passed cards that don't fit your strategy, or are just objectively less powerful. Deckbuilding becomes less hard though in a format where that is true, since it's easier to tell which cards to include in the 'correct' build.

Anyway, don't know if I'm missing the point completely or not, these are just some assumptions based on your little blurb. Really, defining what you mean by resourcefulness is the first step to getting clearer answers :)
 
Tzenmoroth

Tzenmoroth

Forcing resourcefulness sounds like making removal always situational and tricky to work with, Innistrad like, and powering down the threats accordingly. Making a lot of cards not quite powerful enough on their own without support, so relatively jank oriented, maybe even an utter lack of cards that can just win a game on their own. Pulling out the cube's obvious wincons can really force players to think outside the box, but that leads me a much more combo oriented cube.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

I think that is a pretty good strategy. We sort of touched upon it in the metagame thread. A way to provide more "play" to the format would be to make the resources more puzzle piece like. To get value out of a card, you need to put in a position where it can provide you with it. That situation is for a card like Thragtusk just "you always get value from me". Seeker of the Way instead gives you the promise off "I will be above curve, granted you play enough non-creature spells". Then power level isn't as much a concern as is some kind of condition that you can reliably meet if you decide to draft that deck (Like, its pretty easy to trigger prowess if you get enough cheap cards that preferably can trips).
 
F

Florida Man

Tzenmoroth said:
Forcing resourcefulness sounds like making removal always situational and tricky to work with, Innistrad like, and powering down the threats accordingly. Making a lot of cards not quite powerful enough on their own without support, so relatively jank oriented, maybe even an utter lack of cards that can just win a game on their own. Pulling out the cube's obvious wincons can really force players to think outside the box, but that leads me a much more combo oriented cube.
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Whew sorry it took me so long to get back to you guys. My daughter was busy being born on friday (surprise came a fee days early!).

Anyways, Tzen gets the closest to my meaning but I don't like complete jank.

On one end of the spectrum you end up with an Emrakul being Show n' Tell into existence with no real trade in resources before the game ends. On the other end you have players going blow for blow, removal met with removal, creature met with creature, until through smarter use of resources (cards in hand, mana advantage, ect...) one player wins.

Now avoiding the first scenario with Emmy isn't that hard. Just don't put Emmy in your cube. But I still want to run very powerful cards. I will try to get my cube list up as soon as possible guys, but for now I still think we can have this discussion in the abstract.
 
Tzenmoroth

Tzenmoroth

I'm going to recommend from experience to just not run sneak/reanimate cards, super fatties or a large ramp package. If you don't want completely uninteractive games, I'd rather keep the mana curve down and find other things to do. Value reanimator like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is great though. I really like Yawgmoth's Will in a fair cube since its often a techy divination/regrowth and requires a lot of setup to really be powerful and its pretty skill testing. Gifts Ungiven is something my group has had a lot of fun with, even without Unburial Rites, and we've had players get really creative with the piles, going for whatever recursion they can find, redundancy, even grabbing a bunch of delve/flashback. Pushing things like Birthing Pod, Sunforger, Zur the Enchanter can force players to get creative. As far as clever resource management goes, Sylvan Safekeeper, Zuran Orb, Nostalgic Dreams, Seismic Assault, Treasonous Ogre, Meditate, Psychatog, Orcish Lumberjack, Evolutionary Leap, come to mind as ways to kind of exchange one resource for another. I hope that at least gives you some ideas. I also love Truth or Tale as a skill testing card for both players, Parallax Wave has been super interesting and about on par with other sweepers and I've even seen it used alongside Song of the Dryads to steal a game in a very entertaining fashion.

Depending on how extreme you want to go, you could outright remove 4+ power creatures and cards equivalently capable on winning on their own, or take similar steps to remove goodstuff if you really want to tell your players to get resourceful or lose. :p But even steering your cube towards interaction and synergy goes a long way.
 
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