General How closely correlated are Draft-Dynamics and Gameplay-Dynamics?

[Laz]

I have stated once or twice before that I feel that draft-dynamics are an under-discussed aspect of Cube. Jason has touched on it a couple of times, emphasising the trap that is the 'poison-principle' and creation of competing demand. I, personally, am very interested in the idea that emphasising interesting draft decisions creates interesting gameplay-dynamics (though it may be the other way around).

All of the following questions are draft-phase questions, yet should (and probably do) also heavily impact how we select cards for inclusion in our Cubes.

• Is this a card that draws me into an archetype? (Usually a question of power versus splashability)
• Roughly what sort of pick is this? (Will this come back?)
• Does this card have to be drafted around? (Is this an anchor card?)
• Do I have other cards would lead me to value this highly?
• How redundant is this effect? (Is this replaceable?)

I have my own opinions about overlapping effects, and the creation of competing demand, which is probably represented by the bottom three questions. Linear cards don't offer any challenge in drafting, unless the cards which support those linear effects are in demand in other archetypes, aka the 'poison principle', and the failure of Storm as a mechanic is basically every Cube that has tried it.

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I feel that the most important types of cards to improve the quality of draft are those cards which are not hugely powerful, but widely synergistic. My favourite example of this is a card like Epochrasite, which isn't an instant P1P1, but is very dependant upon the answer to the question 'Do I have other cards would lead me to value this highly?'. Epochrasite works really well with a whole suite of other cards which involve sacrificing creatures, artifacts, having creatures ETB, care about counters, etc. Epochrasite's versatility is helped by the fact that it is colourless, but the point stands.

My theory is that this overlapping demand in the drafting process is closely related to interesting interactions in the gameplay process, and by providing more of these cards which are desired by many themes and decks, you not only improve the drafting dynamics, but also the gameplay ones. That said, I just read that conclusion and found it far too circular and absolute, so I am very interested in being told I am wrong for many reasons.

 

[Jason Waddell]

It wasn't entirely clear to me what you meant by "interesting gameplay dynamics".

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that there are examples of poison that create bad non-interactive games (Storm, a lot of Vintage Masters), and ones that create good games (Modern Masters, Alara).

 

[anotak]

speaking from personal experience, it can be a bad thing when you have a bunch of different sets of mechanics and then everything is errata'd to work everywhere at the same power level

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I love synergy in cube, it adds a ton of depth. However, you really need to have something to give context to the cards, otherwise people will feel lost in the draft.

There are a few additional bullet points I like to include: cards that appear unplayable at first but scale with your experience with the cube, and a few narrow archetype cards that wheel. The former adds a sense of depth, and the latter helps enable those decks get played.

Also, there is player psychology, or the problem with storm:

Like I mentioned before, I'm in a position where I could run brain freeze rather easily as a value spell that sometimes kills someone. After giving it some thought and toying around with an experiement list on cube tutor I decided it wasn't worth it. This ars arcanum article helped talk me out of it, the relevant portion quoted below:

Here is the first important piece of advice that I can give you about VMA. Stop drafting Storm. The thing is, people love this deck, and they have an emotional attachment to it. They go into VMA looking to force Storm. When they see a Dark Ritual, a Cabal Ritual, a Brain Freeze, or a Tendrils of Agony, they get this look in their eyes that just screams “I want to spew value!!!” Do not give in to this. Forcing the Storm deck is the single best way to hemorrhage value in VMA drafts. This is perhaps the perfect example of my argument for efficacy vs. power. RW and UG are examples of effective decks; they do the thing they are supposed to do, and even though they may not be as flashy as the Storm deck, they will always be able to compete. The UB Storm deck is the perfect example of a deck that skews toward power; there are Storm decks that win on (technically) turn 2. I’ve even seen it once (aided by Time Walk). When you draft a really good Storm deck, you feel incredibly powerful because your opponent just can’t interact with your game plan. If they don’t kill you fast, you are just going to dump everything and win the game and they won’t be able to do anything about it. But remember, though a great Storm deck is going to steamroll people, a bad Storm deck is going to be completely terrible.​

Running storm puts me in an awkward position as regards player expectations: I know it will be first picked and someone will try to draft the "storm" deck with horrible results. If I start running more incidental storm friendly cards (ancestral vision, riftwing cloudskate and so forth), they begin to really change the blue section away from how I want the cube to run: and I still have the problem of people going too deep with it. If I try to support it better with things like rituals or mirari's wake, we start to really change the archetecture of the cube and when critical turns occur. In the end, I decided it was too much trouble and scrapped it.

 

[CML]

It wasn't entirely clear to me what you meant by "interesting gameplay dynamics".

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that there are examples of poison that create bad non-interactive games (Storm, a lot of Vintage Masters), and ones that create good games (Modern Masters, Alara).

ahhh but the VMA draft dynamics are more interesting than the MMA ones! this provides a clue to my friends' experience drafting the two, MMA staled after some time but VMA continues to support binge-drafting (or at least makes MMA seem stale in retrospect). probably because more archetypes = more replay value.

 

[Jason Waddell]

ahhh but the VMA draft dynamics are more interesting than the MMA ones! this provides a clue to my friends' experience drafting the two, MMA staled after some time but VMA continues to support binge-drafting (or at least makes MMA seem stale in retrospect). probably because more archetypes = more replay value.

It's well possible. I just got tired of watching CFB people draft storm and lose to "the battle screech deck".

 

[anotak]

i havent played vma but every time i watch on cfb now its always a RWx deck, dunno what that means in practice though

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

It does seem to be a R/W/x deck (goblins/slide/rift/screech) dominated format, with some U/G madness and a few flavors of U/B decks thrown in, at least from videos.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I find draft vids, and most Constructed vids, unwatchable nowadays. Maybe my always-limited attention span is waning further.

 

[Eric Chan]

I think I'm at the point where I can only watch LSV videos. It's become too much of a chore to watch anyone else. LSV's fast play and equally quick commentary are the only things keeping me tuned in.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

It helps a lot that he tries to at least make fun commentary and displays a personality. His videos feel almost like magic lets plays. The other contributors generally just put me to sleep.

But then again, when you look at the comments section and see nothing but technical critiques of the poster’s play, maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

 

[CML]

It's well possible. I just got tired of watching CFB people draft storm and lose to "the battle screech deck".

yep. and this is why when we design something we err on the side of making the card's power level too low

 

[Jason Waddell]

yep. and this is why when we design something we err on the side of making the card's power level too low

I think the correct conclusion is "this is why we playtest".

 

[CML]

I think the correct conclusion is "this is why we playtest".

sure, but who has time to playtest these days

real talk: would you rather design a Balduvian Shaman or a True-Name Nemesis

 

[anotak]

jesus christ neither

 

[Jason Waddell]

sure, but who has time to playtest these days

real talk: would you rather design a Balduvian Shaman or a True-Name Nemesis

Common design tactic is to start strong, see if there is fun potential then scale back as needed. I'd write more but I'm on a phone.

More rigorous testing is obviously needed for non patchable environments.

Wizard's need to design bad cards is profit driven, but perhaps skimming on playtesting to print TNN is similarly motivated.

 

[CML]

nobody shows up to a legacy tournament with balduvian shaman

yeah, that sounds about right for design

i don't buy that wizards has a need to design bad cards, but of course they think they do