General guild and color balance

[CML]

one of the things i'm used to seeing when idiots of the genus Magic: The Seattling (you know, the kind of morons that go to EDH league until someone else has a divergent definition of fun, go to Standard FNM regularly, dream of going 4-0 at Standard FNM, and pride themselves on level-0 knowledge and card acquisition in a way that would make 10-year-old CML embarrassed) first behold my cube is, "no color or guild balance?? is this ofay serious??"

well, i guess i am? after all, a cube is a creative endeavor, and creative endeavors are not competitive -- so long as everyone else admits that i'm better than everyone else at them. anyway one is used to looking at cube lists like this where scrupulous attention is paid to having the exact same number of cards for each color and guild and shard and wedge in order to ignore that the design stinks to high heaven, i guess that's what it means to be "balanced" to those people, they should work for fox news or something. /endpreach

ANYWAY i think Blue has infinity mono-colored cube-worthy inclusions and very few multi-colored ones, while RB is the opposite, so i choose to build my cube that way. (not to descend to that level, but i count each gold/hybrid card as .5 cards of each color and it basically adds up to within 2 cards for each color.) i only want 2 simic cards and i want a dozen GR monsters. let's talk about the implications:

how do yall define and handle 'balance' in this context?
how do you feel about big gold / hybrid sections?
isn't multicolored aggro fucking awesome?
what kinds of decks are you trying to encourage color-wise? 1,2,3,4,5 colors?
how are guilds 'balanced' in a broader sense (i.e. how do certain 2-color combos do? i love analysis like this) -- what kind of mixing-and-matching synergies have you found?
are some colors stronger enough than others that deliberately unbalancing card count could be good design?
anyone else notice that every gold card ever costs 3 mana?
what kind of higher power / utility threshold do y'all use to include a gold card? lower / hybrid?
how does this all fit in with your drafters' preferences?

chop it up mah ofays

 

[Dom Harvey]

- The Cube is balanced if people can play what they want to play. woteva
- Big hybrid sections are obviously wonderful. Big gold sections can be fine too, but we've been conditioned to dislike them because it's the cardinal mistake made by new Cubers who don't understand the care necessary to make it work.
- I like mono-colour decks, I like two-colour decks, I like shamelessly multicolour decks. What I don't like are decks that are forced to splash like 3-4 cards of another colour because they don't have nearly enough playables otherwise but can't even do it successfully because the manafixing is bad. If you had to design a Cube to maximize the chance of this happening, it would look somewhat like the MODO Cube.
- In terms of the strength of their gold cards I'd rank the colours GW = GR = BR > UW > WR = UR = GB > WB = UB >>> UG. UR is a very strong colour combination but usually on the strength of its monocolour cards; there's no U/R card that would draw me in (maybe Ral Zarek?). In general the strongest gold pairs tend to have the most depth as well.
- I'm fine loading up on GW, GR, and BR cards because, as you say, blue can handle itself just fine. Green's manafixing means that its greater access to gold cards is something that makes the colour appealing.

 

[CML]

ahhhhhh yes color identity. in my happy universe, green mages deserve to be rewarded disproportionately. i must dissent against your judgments of WR and GB though! WR has a bunch of effortless fun in cow, figure, helix, assemble, aurelia, etc. and GB has all the utility removal + fun DRS, I dunno, I'm really always inclined to bloat my Golgari sections.

to connect this to the other thread i made too, i noticed my multicolor section was very heavy on creatures, at 56/83 = 67.5%. even my dimir section has been biased towards dudes. i dunno whats going on

 

[James Stevenson]

I was writing a really long post answering all your questions, but I don't think I have anything particularly important to say except:
-I keep my mono-color sections within a 10-card difference, at most. My multicolor sections with 5, about. I don't think it's really important, the cube is good right now so it must be ok.
-I cut a lot of WW and RR cards so that my aggro decks have no reason to stay mono-colored. You just might as well splash something or play two colors. Or more, if you get the right lands.
-I choose multicolor cards to try to fit the decks I think people will be drafting. All my GW cards are token/populate cards to try to make that deck work, all my WR cards are aggressive or Ajani Vengeant, etc.
-I always feel like GB sucks, the rest are ok/good/awesome

Lastly, I never get to draft, so I don't know how this fits my drafters preferences.

 

[Goldenpineapple]

I just look at my sections and ask myself "do people want to play this card?" honestly.
I have the biggest gold section I know of, with a whopping 20 3-color cards (3 from each shard and 1 from each other pie)
Multicolor aggro is the shit and I support it heavily
I have cards that reward heavier color commitment and cards that let you go ballistic, but I don't make it as easy as filter lands. Slamming maelstrom nexus and picking lands the entire first pack is one of my regulars' favorite ways to play
Some colors (namely UR and GB) have mostly same-effect cards that it's kind of hard to choose between, and I'm not convinced that someone playing green/black wants something like Dreg mangler when they could have their fourth putrefy instead.
I don't like unbalancing colors, but I do like giving colors *cough*white*cough* with a strong front in all departments weaker cards so their every play isn't the stone cold, but the card can still serve a purpose (survival cache)
There are a few exceptions like Baleful Strix, scab-clan mauler, the new charms and Terminate but I feel to make different-enough effects they have to push power, which pushes CMC.
I keep hybrid cards low-power/cheap unless they are a finisher I am OK with either color having: Creakwood Liege, and let gold ride on color commitment (cruel ultimatum, aurelia, the warleader)

My drafters and I love gold cards and the unique/powerful effects they bring. That's why my cube's gold is so big

 

[Chris Taylor]

how do yall define and handle 'balance' in this context?
how do you feel about big gold / hybrid sections?
isn't multicolored aggro fucking awesome?
what kinds of decks are you trying to encourage color-wise? 1,2,3,4,5 colors?
how are guilds 'balanced' in a broader sense (i.e. how do certain 2-color combos do? i love analysis like this) -- what kind of mixing-and-matching synergies have you found?
are some colors stronger enough than others that deliberately unbalancing card count could be good design?
anyone else notice that every gold card ever costs 3 mana?
what kind of higher power / utility threshold do y'all use to include a gold card? lower / hybrid?
how does this all fit in with your drafters' preferences

• I include a strict number of multicolor cards (5, plus 6 manafixing), but the definition of multicolor is flexible. Boggart Ram Gang is multicolored, but Dryad Militant is white, since I don't mind that green gets a small bonus there.
• Big gold sections seem clumsy to me, since I know all too well sometimes vindicate goes 15th pick, since nobody happens to be in BW. 3 color cards are even worse in this respect, and very few cards are worth it (Cruel Ultimatum, Maelstrom Wanderer).
• Big hybrid sections I've never even seen, as there's so many color combinations with 0 playable hybrids. Honestly I think a dedicated hybrid section is probably a mistake in the first place, since they're easier to cast than your average card. Loading up on them doesn't have the negative repercussions that a draft filled with 100% multicolor cards does.
• My color pairings are usually balanced around my drafter's sensibilities. I try to include certain cards to push them in a given direction, but sometimes there's no stopping the GW little kid deck from coming together for the millionth time.
• I usually turn to modifying the color in question rather than include more cards people don't like
• I'm noticing every gold card ever costs 4 mana. Partially this is the fault of the mechanic: There's no such thing as a multicolored 1 drop
• My gold cards tend to be the high power card you want to branch out into another color for, or are excited to splash: Geist of St Traft, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Ral Zarek, Ajani Vengant, etc

 

[CML]

Ral is going to be one of the strongest cards ever to see not a single whit of play in Standard. The secret of Ral -- that he's very good -- is going to die with Cube

 

[FlowerSunRain]

What other cards are cube allstars that really never had any impact in constructed?

 

[Goldenpineapple]

Ral is going to be one of the strongest cards ever to see not a single whit of play in Standard. The secret of Ral -- that he's very good -- is going to die with Cube

Hey man this one time someone made a stasis deck with ral and promptly never won a single thing ever.

What other cards are cube allstars that really never had any impact in constructed?

I can't actually think of anything, even briarhorn was pretty sweet in his day... clearly the answer is the almighty brushstrider

 

[Dom Harvey]

Crystal Shard?

 

[anotak]

Ral is going to be one of the strongest cards ever to see not a single whit of play in Standard. The secret of Ral -- that he's very good -- is going to die with Cube

i thought he saw some play as an occasional 1of in UWR for last standard?
also he's not rotating quite just yet, he's got another ~9 months

 

[Jason Waddell]

Man, there have to be tons of cube cards that are great but never did jack in constructed. That could be an article. Somebody make a thread, let's brainstorm.

 

[CML]

yeah, this is a lot more interesting than the "busted in constructed but useless in cube" list. mainly it's gonna be stuff that is mana-intensive. high-class "limited bombs" in other words. like "EDH staples" but more spikey and less bitchy.

EDIT: after going through the "average 720" cube for the purposes of this thread i feel like i need to take a shower

recurring nightmare is the best non-power card in cube but is very rarely played in legacy.
guul draz assassin kinda fits the archetype of a great cube card that is not worth considering in even standard.
sudden demise, profane command, and other X spells
yavimaya elder is a fun one
genesis? though i assume it got played in standard a decade ago
cultivate / kodama's reach for sure, it blew my mind when i learned people preferred rampant growth in constructed
venser, the sojourner
orcish lumberjack
swords of x and y (iconic cycle of game-ruining bullshit cards)
calciderm (just kidding, that card is actually straight-up terrible)
opposition and treachery
horseshit artifact mana (thran dynamo etc.)
ankh of mishra / zo-zu the punisher
all is dust

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hmmm.... a lot of that list I don't agree with. There are a lot of inexpensive things that just never had a deck home, but I'll have to look through my list another time.

Also almost none of those cards are in my cube so I find it hard to relate to the list.

Swords have totally been in constructed.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Recurring Nightmare, Opposition, Profane Command, The modern Swords and "Horshit Artifact Mana" all saw play in their respective standard formats, though Opposition had to be reprinted in 7th first.

is guul draz assassin that great? My usual metric for level up guys is only half weather they're worth leveling up, and the other half is how well they curve (Student of Warfare: A+)
orcish lumberjack wasn't part of some crazy combo deck back in the day? Actually RG stompy might have been real scary with this guy if they had good things to cast instead of Craw Wurm
calciderm not so much, but his more lithe cousin Blastoderm was sweet in the fires of yavimaya decks (haste actually letting him swing for 20 uninterrupted)
all is dust has to have been used at some point, right? There was an eldrazi ramp deck in addition to Valekut, remember.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Nightmare, Opposition, Profane Command all saw a lot of play in Constructed.

 

[anotak]

not a real constructed format but recurring nightmare is banned in edh (as is upheaval)

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Nightmare didn't just see a lot of play, it was the most popular deck in standard for two seasons, while also being very popular in extended for years.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I forgot the context of this thread and thought you guys were debating about Nightmare.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Man, I remember that guy from shandalar. The M14 Art is actually super sweet