Help refining my cube

[LemosNAM]

Hello cube curators!
Please, I'd like some input on my cube. It is designed with a pivot color philosophy, the cube Overview section explains a lot about it.

The Pivot-Color Cube

To give and example of archetype build, let's take bant. It has 1 tricolor UWG card , 3 WU multicolor cards, 3 WG multicolor card, 5 U monocolor cards, 10 W monocolor cards and 5 G monocolor cards, plus some lands and artifacts related to the theme.

Any polite constructive comments are most welcome.
Thanks in advance and happy drafting.

 

[LadyMapi]

I gave your cube a test draft, and it really felt like most of the cards I got passed were intended for one specific archetype, with very few glue cards between them. There were a surprising number of times when I looked at a pack and went "wow, I don't want any of these cards" because the cards that were there in my colors weren't ones I wanted for my deck.

Maybe try cutting down the number of mono-color cards in each archetype and filling in those slots with cards that are good in multiple archetypes? Also, maybe try narrowing the powerband a little bit? I'm not sure my lands deck with Primeval Titan and Field of the Dead in it would want the Realmwright that's theoretically in the same archetype as it...

(Also, typo: it's "staples", not "straples").

 

[Nanonox]

I tried something similar with my first cube, trying to support all 10 wedges/shards. It was too much as Lady mentioned with isolated cards of each theme.
Chris Taylor suggested I keep only 5 of the 10 combinations and it was the perfect advice. Give it a try!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I tried something similar with my first cube, trying to support all 10 wedges/shards. It was too much as Lady mentioned with isolated cards of each theme.
Chris Taylor suggested I keep only 5 of the 10 combinations and it was the perfect advice. Give it a try!

And if you want to do something really silly, you can do like me and change the color wheel before picking those 5 combinations. My cube supports , , , , and ( color wheel!)

 

[ravnic]

Most importantly, I would also check your power band. It looks to be too wide. What I mean by that, in this case specifically, is that you have good stuff cards that just outclass your synergy cards. Why would I bother make something like Storyteller Pixie or Ancestral Mask work, if I could get better results by jamming broken stuff like Dauthi Voidwalker or Luminous Broodmoth? That's especially true for gold cards, which want you to commit to another color. I like Grumgully, but I am not taking him over Tireless Tracker or Laelia. In general, for gold cards to be worth it, they should be in the higher ends of your power band. And I say band, because it is not desirable (or possible) to have everything be perfectly balanced. But the power gap between Ragavan and Ratcatcher Trainee is just so enormous, that not even the most focused adventure deck would want the latter over the former.

But I think it is totally possible to support ten distinct, microsynergistic themes. It just requires some work. First, you need to find themes, that have enough overlap. For example, it is very easy to support blink and tokens in one cube, as there are dozens of cards that make additional bodies or pump your team when they enter the battlefield.Or let's say you have a recursive creature, that could work for sacrifice, selfmill and discard themes.

Personally I am also a fan of reducing the number of gold cards, as they are inherently narrow. Lets say you would replace one of you enchantress and one of your enchantress cards with two more enchantress cards, that would give each deck, respectively one more card they could play without going into a third color.

But again, I think the biggest issue your cube might have, is that you try to support some cool themes and then kinda invalidate them by putting some cards in there, that are just better than your synergies' ceilings. I think you have to decide: Do you want to play some of the best cards in magic, like eternal constructed power level? Or do you want to make Slitherwisp and Ion Storm work?

 

[landofMordor]

Hey friend! Welcome to the forums.

A couple recommendations:
- We usually talk about our individual cubes in the Cube Blogs section. Consider moving the Pivot-Color Cube to that section so you can maintain a continuous thread!
- it'll also be helpful before giving feedback to know specific questions you have. Are you looking for budget alternatives? Help supporting a certain card? etc. That's a lot easier to give help with than trying to guess the help you want.

I do really like pivot archetypes -- this is a cool idea!

 

[MilesOfficial]

I think the folks above have covered the larger topics in response to your Cube here, but I wanted to give just a few examples I saw during my sample draft of cards that don't make sense in the list to me for various reasons.

Power outliers - too strong:
Archon of Cruelty
Isochron Scepter
Entomb

Power outliers - too weak:
Mardu Strike Leader
Guardian of Tazeem
Nyx Herald
Uurg, Spawn of Turg
Lozhan, Dragons’ Legacy
Activated Sleeper
Rogue’s Gloves
Wonder

Not supported enough:
Ion Storm
Mantle of the Ancients
Capal Therapist
Squee, Goblin Nabob
Hall of Heliod’s Generosity

Not worth the complexity:
Cosima, God of the Voyage
Brain in a Jar

This is just what I saw during my single draft. I had fun with it, but there seemed like a lot of cards that were too driven into specific archetypes or far outside of the normal power band for the Cube. I think the tags for individual archetypes are both reductive and probably not helping you as a Cube curator think about how cards are best when they're able to be enjoyed cross-archetype.

 

[LemosNAM]

Guys, thank you so much for the assistance so far!
Awesome community!

@LadyMapi sure, I can try that. I was afraid that cutting archetype slots would leave the archetype unplayable, but I can cut some and see how it goes.
@Nanonox I hear you, but I still want to make the effort to see this through.
@ravnic Wow! So much input! Gold! Thanks a lot, I will see to it.
@landofMordor Sure, I will move the thread I gues, no problem and sorry if it was any trouble.
@MilesOfficial Thanks! I will take that into consideration for sure!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Why would I bother make something like Storyteller Pixie or Ancestral Mask work, if I could get better results by jamming broken stuff like Dauthi Voidwalker or Luminous Broodmoth?

The funny thing is that none of these cards are even on the same level as one another. Dauthi Voidwalker is Modern/Legacy playable "cast an Emrakul for free" levels of broken, while Luminous Broodmoth is "broken" in the sense that it's very difficult to beat in retail limited or a standard-ish power level environment. Meanwhile, Storyteller Pixie is a quintessential contemporary retail style build-around, while Ancestral Mask is a cool old standard power level build-around. I guess both of these pairings could theoretically exist together in a fairly balanced Cube, but they would each represent the top and bottom of their respective environment's power band.

 

[LadyMapi]

sure, I can try that. I was afraid that cutting archetype slots would leave the archetype unplayable, but I can cut some and see how it goes.

It's unintuitive, but reducing the number of dedicated archetype slots can actually increase how many cards are playable in each archetype. Think of it this way: if you took six cards per color (one per archetype) and converted them from dedicated archetype slots to broadly playable cards, you've actually increased the number of cards that you can play with a given archetype by fifteen (you lose one card per color, and then gain six back). The actual gains are going to be less than that (it's rare that a staple is going to be equally playable in every archetype), but you're still going to end up with a broader card pool and a less restrictive drafting experience.

...

As a quick rule of thumb, if you have an 8-person pod where everyone gets 3 packs of 15 cards, each person only sees ~270 cards¹. That's three-quarters of a 360 card cube, and half of a 540 card cube (with a full third of the cube not being seen by anyone). Make of this information what you will.

(In retrospect, this is what screwed up my draft — I went into it without checking how many cards were in the cube, so I naively assumed that it was 360 cards and that I could therefore force the land deck since I P1P1'd Prime Time. That... doesn't work when there are 540 cards.)

¹ It's actually 276, but rounding down simplifies the rest of the math.

 

[LemosNAM]

Allright, thanks again for the input, I will look into refining the archetypes this week. I was busy with work but now I have got some free time again.