General GRBS colorless pack 1 pick 1 cards
- Thread starter Suicufnoc
- Start date
I run 5 out of 6, and have run the lotus at some point in the past as well. 4 are really good, but not backbreaking, and Sol Ring is definitely good, but beatable. I think the power level of these cards tend to be severely overstated, and it has become somewhat of a circlejerk to complain about them without offering alternatives or "ways to play with fire".
I got really interested in the Modern metagame for the last couple of years, and I've been picking up some lessons for cube design. I think there is a lot there to be learned about how synergy, sideboarding and planning the gameplan on a macro scale can impact cube curation. One way you can make all of these cards more fair is to shorten the length of your average cube game. For example, my list pushes aggressive decks (with help of synergy, redundancy, recursion and/or disruption) and I try to overload on answer/sideboard cards to give opportunities for any troubled permanent to be answered if needed. I see the case for going against the inclusion of these cards in tight lists the encourage long grinding games, but they are definitely not unbeatable, and I recommend trying them out if your playgroup is more experienced or try-hard.
About the Lotus, the card is absolutely busted, but whenever someone loses to it, they will remember it. I think it is a better card to run then any of the ABU moxen (and signets in mid-to-low power bands, and maybe bounce lands in very low power bands) because of how clear an effect it has on the match. It does point out to something that is usually ignored: It is really fun to be the person that beat that dude that first-picked the bomb card. I don't have any tips on how to make sure your list can beat the lotus deck, but maindeckable artifact hate and Pithing Needle goes a long way towards allowing anyone to beat most of the other ones mentioned.
I got really interested in the Modern metagame for the last couple of years, and I've been picking up some lessons for cube design. I think there is a lot there to be learned about how synergy, sideboarding and planning the gameplan on a macro scale can impact cube curation. One way you can make all of these cards more fair is to shorten the length of your average cube game. For example, my list pushes aggressive decks (with help of synergy, redundancy, recursion and/or disruption) and I try to overload on answer/sideboard cards to give opportunities for any troubled permanent to be answered if needed. I see the case for going against the inclusion of these cards in tight lists the encourage long grinding games, but they are definitely not unbeatable, and I recommend trying them out if your playgroup is more experienced or try-hard.
About the Lotus, the card is absolutely busted, but whenever someone loses to it, they will remember it. I think it is a better card to run then any of the ABU moxen (and signets in mid-to-low power bands, and maybe bounce lands in very low power bands) because of how clear an effect it has on the match. It does point out to something that is usually ignored: It is really fun to be the person that beat that dude that first-picked the bomb card. I don't have any tips on how to make sure your list can beat the lotus deck, but maindeckable artifact hate and Pithing Needle goes a long way towards allowing anyone to beat most of the other ones mentioned.
This is a good point, but I'd argue it only work for some of these cards. Sol Ring is possibly more powerful when you get to use it 10 times, but in a format that ends on turn 5, sol ring starts you at turn 3 (without thinking about the math, may be off). But you could certainly design an environment where sol ring sucked.
Sword of Fire and Ice is an inarguable point(lol), protection ruins draft games. I'm going to try running some of these without the protection clauses.
Jitte is probably worth a test in my environment. Games usually end pretty fast here. But I run relatively little artifact destruction, which is something I have a hard time deciding what I want to do with.
My current thought process is basically that I don't want games to revolve around high-powered threats and high powered removal, (Wurmcoil Engine vs Revoke Existence), potentially leading to coin flip games. Do you have an answer? No? You lose. Ah! I I just top-decked my one-of Revoke Existence, I'm winning again.
Probably a poor example, as Wurmcoil obviously isn't an instant win card.
And the extreme opposite of that is long drawn out games of grinding weak threats against weak threats forever, which is how my peasant cube played, and that was pretty much a drag.
At a high power level, in a fast environment like VincePendrell, yeah, you can run these. I'll let you. People like vintage cube, it's just not my kind of thing.
I can say that at my power level any of those are ridiculous. They are not unbeatable - not much is in Magic - but they skew your win % quite a bit with absolutely no investment. I hate playing against these cards and hate having to play them because it's the "correct" thing to do.
Add:
I can say that at my power level any of those are ridiculous. They are not unbeatable - not much is in Magic - but they skew your win % quite a bit with absolutely no investment. I hate playing against these cards and hate having to play them because it's the "correct" thing to do.
Add:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
People!
The Sword that kills you in three hits? No one?
I have to agree with japahn though, I don't like these either. It doesn't matter whether these are beatable, their relative power level to the rest of my cube is way off.
Two other colorless cards I had to cut for being too strong:
The Sword that kills you in three hits? No one?
I have to agree with japahn though, I don't like these either. It doesn't matter whether these are beatable, their relative power level to the rest of my cube is way off.
Two other colorless cards I had to cut for being too strong:
I really liked Mox Diamond in my list for the Loam / Crucible synergy.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh yeah, in a vacuum it's a perfectly fine card. It's just that I chose to boost aggro by really cutting back on mana acceleration in my cube, and Mox Diamond stood out like a sore thumb.
I've been doing this for a while and I like the results a lot. It means you have to be cleverer about getting your sword hits in as you can't rely on it to be unblockable, and doesn't remove counterplay from the opponent by cutting off their creature removal.
I've found Chrome Mox to be quite reasonable in a RT cube environment. Exiling a non-land card is quite the hefty investment. I want to try Mox Diamond too, but I do feel that it would be too good 
.
No one's talked about it, but let's be real, it can be GRBS in it's own special way:
I'm still guilty of running this one.
.No one's talked about it, but let's be real, it can be GRBS in it's own special way:
I'm still guilty of running this one.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I cut Top a long time ago. I miss it and I don't
I know these may be contentious, but hear me out.
Grafted Wargear is hands down the best equipment for aggressive decks, and if it were limited to those decks it would maybe be fine? Point is, midrange will also happily pick it up and stonewall/finish said aggro decks with a gargantuan/gargantuan monster. I found the drawback not nearly enough to offset the 0 equip cost. I'm pretty sure Wargear is more busted than all but maybe one of the Swords of X and Y.
Mimic Vat is a super awesome card to play with, but it does lead to repetitive game states. I honestly think it provides just a bit too much value in combination with 187 creatures, especially because you can create a token copy in their end step and then another one in your precombat main phase to overwhelm their defenses without any resource cost to yourself other than a measly three mana. Oh, and on top of that you can freely switch your imprint when something better dies.
Metamorph was the easiest p1p1 in my first cube for a long time. Clone effects are already pretty good, and not only is this one of the cheapest options around, it doesn't even commit you to a color and it's more flexible than a regular clone as well! Really, I... don't know what else to say. The only colorless cards mentioned so far I'ld pick over it are Sol Ring and Black Lotus.
Precursor Golem looks innocious, after all a single Lightning Bolt deals with the whole card. Pretty bad trade for the owner of the Golems, right? Point is, they have to have it, or you're facing 9/9 in stats for only 5 mana. Colorless mana. Even green can't match that with Wolfir Silverheart and Verdant Gearhulk! Heaven forbid you're running any tricks yourself, because a Berserk or Shelter will blow out your opponent big time!
I know these may be contentious, but hear me out.
Grafted Wargear is hands down the best equipment for aggressive decks, and if it were limited to those decks it would maybe be fine? Point is, midrange will also happily pick it up and stonewall/finish said aggro decks with a gargantuan/gargantuan monster. I found the drawback not nearly enough to offset the 0 equip cost. I'm pretty sure Wargear is more busted than all but maybe one of the Swords of X and Y.
Mimic Vat is a super awesome card to play with, but it does lead to repetitive game states. I honestly think it provides just a bit too much value in combination with 187 creatures, especially because you can create a token copy in their end step and then another one in your precombat main phase to overwhelm their defenses without any resource cost to yourself other than a measly three mana. Oh, and on top of that you can freely switch your imprint when something better dies.
Metamorph was the easiest p1p1 in my first cube for a long time. Clone effects are already pretty good, and not only is this one of the cheapest options around, it doesn't even commit you to a color and it's more flexible than a regular clone as well! Really, I... don't know what else to say. The only colorless cards mentioned so far I'ld pick over it are Sol Ring and Black Lotus.
Precursor Golem looks innocious, after all a single Lightning Bolt deals with the whole card. Pretty bad trade for the owner of the Golems, right? Point is, they have to have it, or you're facing 9/9 in stats for only 5 mana. Colorless mana. Even green can't match that with Wolfir Silverheart and Verdant Gearhulk! Heaven forbid you're running any tricks yourself, because a Berserk or Shelter will blow out your opponent big time!
The hard thing to balance about Sol Ring is that most decks are best of by playing it, but some things that help out is having an abundance of colored costs, keep curves lean, and have the large threats. Even so, it will pop up every once in a while in the early turns and someone will win because of it, but it is just not reliable to build a deck pretending that Sol Ring will land on turn 1 (especially if you can't survive drawing it just on turn 4 or 5).
I vehemently disagree with this point about the Swords, and I say it again that it is very much context dependent. Both in my list and Velrun's (the other list here that I have some good play experience with), all of the Swords are very mediocre. They might win you a game that you should've probably lost at one point during the day, but it depends on your deck being able to either drop and equip at turn 5 (or when you have with 5 mana on board), or afford skipping your turn 3 casting it, then half of your next turn to equip it. Then it depends on the opponent playing answers that are exactly in the colors that the sword protect.
Again, take it with a grain of salt because I like playing with fire with my list and all, but I think that Riptide cubes are the most likely candidates to handle the swords with care because the gameplan that fits them the most is the General Goodstuff Midrange strategy that is already targeted by most here. If the best thing you can do in your cube is to play a sword, by all means, don't run a sword. Otherwise, these are possible signs that the Swords might not be too abusive in your list:
- The cube allows three-color or two-color-and-a-splash decks to be built without too much effort.
- Players are able to build decks with focused gameplans (be it WR aggro, all-removal-one-Bolas control, gravecrawler-bombardment).
- Good emphasis in sequencing, especially in the early game.
- The matches don't tend to run too long and/or boards are relatively uncluttered.
- (helps) Having a suit of generalist answers that could be easily maindecked, or sided in.
1. A High-Powered Threat is only a High-Powered threat in an environment where it is considered high-powered. Somewhat of a dumb sentence, but I'll clarify: This is not necessarily defined by individual card evaluation, as cards rarely exist in a vacuum within your power band. There are strategies that are more powered than a single high-powered threat, as well as there are strategies that depend on a single high-powered threat. A core tenet of what I'll call Waddellianism (the founding doctrine of Riptide Lab) is the reduction the top boundaries of your power band to a lower tier in the pyramid of power™, making it so that a larger amount of cards (and strategies) are viable; and a second tenet is that there is more gameplay in synergy decks than single-powerful-cards-aggregated.dec. Well, strategies and synergies don't exist in a vacuum either, and there are strategies and conditions that predate heavily in what has become known as GRBS cards. This leads us to the conclusion that the pyramid of power™ is not truly solid, but composed of a more viscous, slimy material, that is able to shift densities based on the arrangement of it's less-slimy composing parts. I think swords are a top contender for cards that lose the most power for synergy increase in the environment, and the points that I suggested earlier could very well make the swords dense enough for them to sink towards the middle or the third quartile of your power band (which should be composed of powerful things that you can do in the cube instead of just cards).
2. Variance is part of the game. And we can design around it. The third tenet of Waddellianism is
3. High-powered removal is only high-powered if it is getting you closer to winning the game. As long as the removal is just keeping you alive and trading one-to-one, it is not high-powered. It might be versatile, it might be mana-efficient, but unless it is putting you ahead on board or tempo, or giving you card advantage (real or virtual), it should not be considered high-powered. Doom Blade is a really good removal spell, but it isn't powerful. Nekrataal is a powerful removal. Fractured Identity is a powerful removal. Ribbons of Night is a ridiculously powerful removal spell. One thing that I like doing with my list is to select some removal spells that are more efficient in aggro, to allow them to table, and to reduce the frequency of all-removal-single-threat decks.
With these points, what I'd say is that the discussion around GRBS cards should be less on a dichotomous high-powered-threat vs high-powered removal, and more about the impact these cards have in games and why. I think I might be saying what everyone already thinks and knows, but I'm somewhat averse to arguments like "these cards are too good" or "this card negates all interaction", since this tends to be a very nuanced topic with lots of design space to explore, and rarely there will be a card that is so powerful and stifles deckbuilding opportunities and interaction to such a degree that everyone should truly despise it.
With all that said, I totally agree with Onderzeeboot's analysis, though I'm not sure these are tier 1 p1p1 cards. I've tried Mimic Vat for a while after many years to see if it still played the same, and it did. I still run the Grafted Wargear and the Phyrexian Metamorph, but it has been a really long time since I've seen them doing any damage. I think the metamorph is cuter than it is powerful, but the average CMC in my cube is less than 3, so the amount of value you can get for your investment is somewhat capped when comparing to other lists.
These are the p1p1 GRBS colorless cards in my cube:
Karn and Ugin don't make the cut in all decks, but when you get them early, you can probably try to live the dream. I know that I force control if I ever get them early. I definitely do not recommend playing either if your cube goes to long games often.
The conspiracies are exactly what GRBS means, but the effects are so unique that I'm completely fine with them around. Backup Plan also has the advantage of making combo decks more attractive, and those have a history of being overlooked in my cube. I think most of you already don't play with Conspiracies already, but I really enjoy the impact they have in drafting. (Unexpected Potential is probably my favorite and fits all power levels)
Strip Mine is good in most decks, but what I like the most about it is that, if picked early, you can probably try to force the Life from the Loam/Crucible of Worlds lands deck with a prison element. I haven't seen anyone drafting this archetype so far, so there's only hope. I don't think this has ever been p1p1 in my list either, but it could very well be.
The following are p1p1 colorless cards that might not be GRBS:
All powerful build-around conspiracies. Haven't seen any of these making into the decks in my list, but I've seen them being played in other cubes and they seem to make drafting take very interesting turns.
Two other colorless cards I had to cut for being too strong:
Interesting. These have both been very reasonable in my cube.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think the dude was just saying he didn't want games dictated by removal check threats slipping through gaps in the non-conditional removal suite, thereby turning games into a lottary.
But yeah, everything else looked fine in an abstract. Raw power level is dictated by what the format is about and trying to do. Thats true with the swords. In the vintage cube, that format isn't about creature bashing, so they are kind of poor, while in the legacy cube, which is about creature bashing, they are insane. Jitte works largely the same way.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
My issue with equipment in general, and especially the Swords/Jitte/Batterskull/Wargear, is that it doesn't really care what you put it on. If I have SoFaI against a UR deck, any Squire becomes a serious threat; I'd gladly take Sword + a random creature over any carefully chosen combo. Brute-forcing by equipping it to something until they run out of answers or you run out of creatures is usually the right play.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
A 20/20 creature for 2 mana is inherently "more powerful" than a 1/1 for 2 mana, regardless of environment (for the most part). A 1/1 may be broken in some environments, and the 20/20 may be unplayable, but the 20/20 is more likely to create a removal check situation, where you need to have a specific answer that turn or you lose.
Oversimplified because I'm typing on my phone, sorry.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I read as well, and I acknowledged this in my post. Still, even your sentence with a simpler wording has a ton of strings attached that need to be properly understood. What makes a creature be a removal-check threat, for instance? Given a better understanding of either sides of this "threat vs answer" problem, can we say that the game truly is dictated by a threat check? And at what conditions? At what point does not being targeted by removal becomes a lottery? My point is: I don't think reducing a mode of thinking to a phrase without acknowledging the conditions of the format doesn't really advances our understanding of cube design.
I'll take your example further: Swords are poor in the Vintage Cube that isn't about creature bashing, they are insane in the Legacy Cube that is about creature bashing, but they are decent in my Cube that is about creature bashing, and they are slightly worse in Velrun's cube that is also mostly about creature bashing. There's more about a format then a continuum between creature-bashing and combo-exploitation, and that's interesting conceptual space we could delve into. And we don't have to get too high in the pyramid of power to see this: Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox seem to be too good in some lists, and OK and below in others. Is it a focus on early game plays? Is it because card advantage is too efficient? Are there strategies that predate on the strategies that the Moxen are the best at?
There is a lot of interesting discussions to be made and a lot of knowledge to be developed, but there is also a lot of truism going on with terms like "GRBS", "Unfair", "Unbeatable", "Balance", or "Unfun", that try to be reductionist, but just skip the conversation entirely. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone for this, especially because we all do the same in one way or another, but every once in a while there is a discussion and it boils down to a "this is too good in this format" or a "do what is best for your list" and it gets me thinking "whoa, is this the best discussion that we can have about this topic?" See, for instance, the difference between the green and white p1p1 discussion, and this one. I think we can do much better than just saying "I don't run these cards because they are not fun, and I don't care about what you run or not".
editing in for Suicufnoc's reply:
Yeah, sure, but none of the cards mentioned here are really 20/20s for 2 mana, and the ones that are arguably the most broken are not even broken because of a threat-answer dichotomy (namely, Black Lotus and Sol Ring), but because of what else they can make happen. Even so, deferring to the removal-check situation ignores the fact that there is a game to be played before the situation happens, and that there are strategic routes and configurations of the play environment that can counterplay the threat.
Balance does not exist in a vacuum. One can never truly balance a game, just balance towards or around something. We can use hypotheticals to explain a concept, but this will rarely help with card-by-card decisions. Going back to your example: Knowing that a 20/20 for two requires a removal check doesn't make us any wiser, but understanding the environment that it is unplayable probably will.
I think most of these phrases are used in a "reductionist" way because it reduces analysis paralysis and reduces the strain on monitoring/building formats. I don't have time to make detailed notes about each and every possible card that can go into my format and each and every possible nuanced interaction it could have, I already spend enough time here and elsewhere as it is. I'd need to start hiring employees to do much more lol.
If you have the wherewithal to go deeper, power to you.
Yes I just don't run them because they aren't fun, and no I don't really want to put more thought into it than that. Literally had one of the group experience high powered EDH, and they hit up the group chat "after playing through that, I think I like more casual better", so I feel 100% justified.
If you have the wherewithal to go deeper, power to you.
Yes I just don't run them because they aren't fun, and no I don't really want to put more thought into it than that. Literally had one of the group experience high powered EDH, and they hit up the group chat "after playing through that, I think I like more casual better", so I feel 100% justified.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I don't think he was reducing a mode of thinking to a phrase; he was just using catagories, and you're free to chip at the borders as they become too rigid, just as he's free to strengthen them if they become too plastic.
What I think is what you're trying to say here, is that catagories like GRBS sometimes get blurry around the fringes, and the label can be improperly applied in a way that excludes things it should not. Which can be true; and maybe the thread was overly strict in the way it catagorized certain cards.
In that case, it would probably be more interesting in hearing instances where some of those cards might be perfectly fine, and the reasons why. You would probably have to be the one to initiate that discussion, though. That should be fine if its something you want to explore.
What I think is what you're trying to say here, is that catagories like GRBS sometimes get blurry around the fringes, and the label can be improperly applied in a way that excludes things it should not. Which can be true; and maybe the thread was overly strict in the way it catagorized certain cards.
In that case, it would probably be more interesting in hearing instances where some of those cards might be perfectly fine, and the reasons why. You would probably have to be the one to initiate that discussion, though. That should be fine if its something you want to explore.
I was planning on bringing up eldrazi as an extreme example of this(yes, I like reductionist arguments). Emrakul is basically a more interesting way to say "I hit 15 mana, so I win." Do you really wan't the game to drag out forever after that? Probably not.
Absolutely, and I don't intend for anything I'm saying to be taken as the definitive solution or truth. I partially posted this because I'm planning on designing a powered cube and running all this stuff.
Good stuff
Maybe I'll be too reductionist but: So you are saying that you have no interest in building a bridge because you are too busy swimming through the river? Because what I'm suggesting is exactly for us to build up knowledge to make analyses easier. If you are not interested in being a part of the discussion, that is completely fine! I'm not saying that everyone should pitch 120 hours and three peer-reviewed papers, but I'm starting the conversation and I'd like to continue it nonetheless. And if you feel like it's a fools errand, you are free to not partake!
I don't want to be offensive or hurtful, but your last paragraph feels like flaunting ignorance to me (I couldn't find a better term, sorry; maybe something along
conservatism could be more correct, but maybe this communicates better). For instance, what exactly is this "fun" that these cards are or produce? I can even give you a list of funs so we can start the conversation. Which cards are "them"? What aspect of gameplay are displeasing, and at what conditions? What exactly is "high-powered EDH" and how does it relate to your cube curation? I'm sorry, but there is very little I can abstract and apply to my format and playgroup with what you said if these cards fit my definition of fun. Aren't we supposed to be a generally constructive and supportive community, or does deviating above Swords power level just means that we will "let them" and "more power to them"? Please don't take it the wrong way, but if we are going to strive to be a better community (and I know we can), we should be doing better than this.
Yes, I imagined that would be the case, but my point is that the borders for a category are not set in stone in the pyramid of power, and the borders are dependent on the configurations of the environment that and individual cube creates. I believe your interpretation of what I wrote is correct.
My first post and the bullet points on the swords were my lousy attempt at taking the conversation to that direction. I thought we were missing part of the concepts that we would need to go deep into the discussion, so that's what I've been trying to communicate. Ill try to pull back to this discussion before the post ends. I promise! I'm not the best communicator, though, so bear with me while I stumble my way through words and meaning
I think we might be converging on what we mean by things. If your intention is to run a powered cube, that is totally a place we can take this discussion. I've ran a powered cube for a long time, and I still let "unfun" and "unfair" things in my Riptide-approved™ list* (*the list might not be truly approved; approval does not constitute any relationship or meaning). I'll throw out an example on how to run GRBS cards below that might help you putting a powered list together. What are you planning for your list?
I'll take this moment to talk about a least extreme example of a creature that might demand a removal in some formats. The epicenter of GRBS hate. Ladies and gentlemen, our wurm and savior:
(imagine it has the superior original art and not this masterpiece abomination)
If we are to assume that the Wurmcoil is 100% of a removal-check thread, we probably mean the following things:
- Wurmcoil is too big of a reward for reaching 6 mana.
- There are very little means of removing the Wurmcoil profitably.
- Even if it just hits twice and get removed, the life swing is impossible to overcome.
1. If Wurmcoil would reward reaching 6 mana, then reaching 6 mana should not be trivial.
I kept the mana curve as lean as possible. I already had a thing for fast aggro decks, the delver style of tempo decks, and the "don't ever block" Zendikar draft environment. To make Wurmcoil not broken, I had to make aggro better. And one way to make aggro better was to force blue to have an aggro/tempo option eating into some of it's slots.
Creatures that are really good at blocking profitably or stopping races were mostly removed (looking at you, Perilous Myr and Vampire Nighthawk). The plan was to reduce the mid-range of the blocking power band, so high picks like Bitterblossom and Opposition stayed, though these would have to be balanced afterwards in the next pass, while the innocuous cards that nobody noticed were problematic were taken out.
Even so, it would still be possible for efficient removal-based control decks to run out Wurmcoil as a tap-out finisher on turn 6, so my plan was to reduce the amount of card advantage that removal and counterspell gives to the control player, and reduce most draw spells to cantrips. You can still play Wurmcoil Engine in control decks, but it's more of an uphill battle now.
Ramp and combo can still play Wurmcoil without any particular drawback besides that aggro tends to be a favorable match-up against them, and it is very likely that these decks will find threats that are bigger than Wurmcoil Engine anyways (like Woodfall Primus, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Hornet Queen, or Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger)
2. There should be answers that deal particularly with the most powerful cards.
After the list of what cards I was sure I was playing in my list, I put a list of answers that could answer those cards very effectively. Eventually, some of these got phased out (like Pyroblast and Despise), but others were decent enough to be maindecked, but not good enough to be picked early and table back to whoever needed them (exemples are Suspension Field and Fate Reforged, that eventually got switched to Forsake the Wordly).
Yes, I know that slots are precious, but there are so many cards that really need to be run in decks. Even if you run 8 nonbasics, 23 nonlands, and make 6 speculative picks, there are still 8 out of 45 drafted cards left. At least 4 of them could very well be situational catch-all sideboard cards for these situations. The same way that WotC puts bad removal in sets so drafters have access to any removal, we can have at least 4 slots out of every 45 cards to have some fail-safe sideboard cards. If you are playing powered, for instance, maybe having an Annul or Disdainful Stroke can make the cut and even signal to your players what kind of nonsense you expect to lurk in the seats next to you.
If this idea doesn't suit your Cube style, maybe you can make it so that there are enough creatures that can block or double-block Wurmcoil, and change the amount of card advantage you have around to make it so that getting 2-for-1'd against Wurmcoil is not a big deal. This might be more complicated than actually running more answers. I didn't try to solve it through this path, so I don't have a lot of tips for this.
3. Allow for more defined, constructed-like archetypes.
This is somewhat of a variation of the "avoid midrange goodstuff" decks. If you push for more defined archetypes, aggro won't have much issue with Wurmcoil because of step 1. If they do, then it is the case of reviewing aggro. Is it stumbling or missing any key pieces? Does it need more redundancy in the early drops? Are the players not able to go over or under the Wurm for the final blow? Sometimes aggro will still lose to the Wurmcoil deck (such is variance), but they should be mostly favored until the Wurm hits the board.
For the other match-ups, the massive life gain shouldn't be much of a problem: Control should probably be able to isolate the threat and finish the game over time, so not much of a problem. Step 2 should be able to balance the control match-ups for you. Combo and Ramp should be able to go bigger than Wurmcoil, so just make sure that you are presenting the proper cards for these archetypes to be able to run their gameplan. Midrange will probably be able to deal with it anyways, and since I want less midrange in my format, I'll just ignore it when I'm balancing around Wurmcoil.
Wrap-up
We took three characteristics that defined Wurmcoil Engine as a GRBS card and turned them into design guidelines that would allow us to run it without remorse. You and your players can still play "Magic as Garfield intended", but with the added benefit that close to the top of the power curve, there is a Wurmcoil Engine that you can try and make happen! The next steps would be to just make sure that the strategies we are playing are balanced around your guidelines, and compelling to draft, build and play. These steps can be followed with pretty much any of the GRBS curve-toppers, like Swords, Karn Liberated, etc.
I have not found a good solution for running fast mana like Black Lotus and the Moxen yet. Sol Ring is still super powerful in my environment, as is the few other fast mana artifacts I run, though both Grim Monolith and Mana Vault have behaved a lot more like a Dark Ritual than a better Sol Ring in my environment due to the quick games. Right now I deal with this by just having a Cube list bigger than one draft (as in, over 360 cards), so these cards don't show up every time. There's something to be said about allowing your cube to go a long mile with little mana, though, because even if the opposing deck doesn't have fast mana, they are able to get a board presence and play the game.
Back to the Wurmcoil Engine, the more you empower the synergy-based archetypes you would like to run now, the more likely that Wurmcoil will decrease in power. Does that mean that Wurmcoil is a bad card? Well, no, it can still be a first pick that leads you to some different archetypes, like, for instance:
It could lead you to draft the Artifacts deck! Though there are possibly better options that you could include in case the artifact deck is playing against the wurm, like Bosh, Iron Golem, Inkwell Leviathan, or other cards that look better in this particular shell if you want the game to end when the wurm start to cause trouble.
Here's another legacy-looking combo deck that can run Wurmcoil Engine in some capacity. Although I have the supporting pieces for this deck in my cube for ages, I have never been built to it's totality and it is very close of being a glass cannon type of deck. Still, there are cards that look much better in this shell for when it would face a the wurm on the other side of the board, like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Woodfall Primus
If your curve is topping at 6, you can probably fit the wurm in your curve just after your Genesis or Wickerbought Elder. (I don't currently run Eldritch Evolution, but I'm thinking seriously about it for a good while now)
Three sacrifices, three ETB triggers, and a 6/6 as alternative win con.
I'll stop at this point, because I've already wrote too much, and you are all probably rolling your eyes and thinking "That's a lot of crappy 2-card combo decks", and you probably don't need to resort to them even if you are playing in an environment with a high boundary on the pyramid of power™. I hope this is the start of the discussion around balancing around the GRBS cards we'd like to play, so we can stop using this term once and for all.
(PS: I re-read this very little. I might come back and fix some typos and poorly written parts later)
Wurmcoil Engine's tl;dr:
(works for GRBS that is not fast mana)
- Lower your curve.
- Run answers that hit GRBS better than it hits other cards.
- Tune your archetypes.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
GRBS was always an overly vague term, even when it was in vogue. It was more of a low resoltion feeling that players had towards certain cards.
The specific objection against wurmcoil, was that it was seen as an easy first pick: a high power cards that required no specific color commitment was argued to be better than comperably powered (or perhaps even higher powered) colored cards. The argument was that this made drafts less interactive, and created simplistic, boring, first picks. Obviously, this is something that would have to be seasoned to taste.
There is some truth to it though, and it opens up a broader discussion about artifact section design. The colorless section is brilliant for providing ways to break the color pie, and open up formats in ways that would be impossible otherwise, making it a strong support section.
However, if our policy is to not run cards like wurmcoil, on the basis that first pickable artifacts make for dull first picks (i would argue that blue is most guilty of this in most cubes, and far more dull in the manner it does so) than it puts us in a place where we have to severely power cap our artifact section. And that would be true at any powerlevel, and require me to cut masticore in my format. I dislike this.
Once you remove the first pick issue, wurmcoils biggest issues appears to be ramp i.m.o., but that same argument can be applied to most powerful 5-6cc threats, and wurmcoil is probably on the weaker side since it lacks an actual ETB.
So I don't know. I think its home is going to be a stronger format, regardless, but I think if you can run the titans reasonably, thats about where it would want to be at a minimum.
I feel like what masticore is to a midish power format, wurmcoil is to a higher power format. They both even kind of wreak aggro and control the board.
Also, lets fix this art:
The specific objection against wurmcoil, was that it was seen as an easy first pick: a high power cards that required no specific color commitment was argued to be better than comperably powered (or perhaps even higher powered) colored cards. The argument was that this made drafts less interactive, and created simplistic, boring, first picks. Obviously, this is something that would have to be seasoned to taste.
There is some truth to it though, and it opens up a broader discussion about artifact section design. The colorless section is brilliant for providing ways to break the color pie, and open up formats in ways that would be impossible otherwise, making it a strong support section.
However, if our policy is to not run cards like wurmcoil, on the basis that first pickable artifacts make for dull first picks (i would argue that blue is most guilty of this in most cubes, and far more dull in the manner it does so) than it puts us in a place where we have to severely power cap our artifact section. And that would be true at any powerlevel, and require me to cut masticore in my format. I dislike this.
Once you remove the first pick issue, wurmcoils biggest issues appears to be ramp i.m.o., but that same argument can be applied to most powerful 5-6cc threats, and wurmcoil is probably on the weaker side since it lacks an actual ETB.
So I don't know. I think its home is going to be a stronger format, regardless, but I think if you can run the titans reasonably, thats about where it would want to be at a minimum.
I feel like what masticore is to a midish power format, wurmcoil is to a higher power format. They both even kind of wreak aggro and control the board.
Also, lets fix this art:
I realize there are always going to be cards with higher impact than others, but this sounds like something I'd like to avoid or at least de-emphasize in my current cube. Though I don't really have problem with this if it means that aggro is favorable until control decks get to 6 lands, if it mostly hinges on that control deck drawing a certain card, then that's more variance than I'd like. I suppose one solution would be to make all of your 6+ drops really powerful, so a control deck doesn't depend so much on one card.
I have made attempts(successfully) to shorten my cubes games, partially because aggro was weak before, but I also am wary of going to far. A game that ends on turn 20 doesn't much care who goes first, a game that ends on 1 is decided by the coin flip. I think that keeping games as short as modern games isn't probably where I want to be, mostly because I don't think the decks will ever be as consistent as tier1 modern decks. As you said, adding consistency to your different archetypes should also help with this.
Another point that I forgot to make earlier is that I simply don't want there to be p1p1 colorless cards. I want there to be more choices during the draft, and powerful colorless cards are pretty much always the right choice. So I want my best colorless cards to be a little less powerful than my best colored cards.
Edit: grillo already argued the other other side of this point above, missed that.
What does GRBS stand for and what does it mean?
This is basically what I did in my first iteration of my cube and my artifact section has consistently been weak every since. Even as I try to give it some buffs here and there. I just find it very hard to balance. For some reason, and this is likely attributable to my lack of general MTG knowledge, I find artifacts very difficult--either they are OP bombs or they are total afterthoughts in a deck. I have been working to correct this problem by giving the colorless section a more balance approach and by making the artifact theme more viable (in WUR). But it is tough.