Wow, thanks for all of the great feedback!
From reading your recent write-ups, it sounds like you had a trajectory something like:
(1) You went through a huge drop in power-level and found the newfound design flexibility really exciting. It also sounded like you found a certain kind of deck-building space that you couldn't get at a higher power level.
(2) But, there was something missing. Something from the high power list didn't 100% transfer. And it has something to do with broken interactions, or intentional combinations of cards that require a few high power pieces (e.g. Urza? Oath?) to really shine. Does this sound right? Are there specific examples of that *something* that's missing when you drop the power-level? Like a play pattern that's no longer possible? I'm also very curious to hear what your players think, but I know the vids interrupted that.
My main issue with the higher power list was that it was a very "on-rails" experience. I supported 30+ distinct archetypes, but there was really only one way to properly draft each one. It didn't allow for much creativity, and archetypes weren't always intuitive. If you weren't familiar with the history of the game you might find yourself on the outside looking in. My cube group all played competitively at various points in time so they can handle high powered or complex formats. I just really didn't like the feeling that there was a hardline right or wrong way to draft a deck, which was information only I knew.
The main advantage of lowering the power level and narrowing the power band was that I could focus on a more exploratory draft experience, where archetypes are less defined, lie on spectrum, and bleed into one another more. Drafting becomes less about knowing, and more about finding which empowers drafters a little more imo and keeps things interesting. So that has been my focus for the last couple of years now, and is a quality that I very much want to maintain.
I never had any reservations with running good cards or doing broken stuff, and I embrace a lot of strategies and cards that are considered feel-bad here. But more than degenerate strategies, I'm looking for ways to foster extreme strategies.
Take this goofy oath deck for instance.
It doesn't go infinite or win in a single turn, but this is what I casually refer to as a combo deck in my environment. This deck is reasonably extreme and interesting, but still very much fair. Get
Oath of Druids in play to search out a fatty or
Eternal Witness....witness grabs
Splendid Reclamation to mass reanimate all the oath-milled lands from your graveyard to ramp into your other creatures or you can go the
Seasons Past route. You have the
Life from the Loam +
Ayula's Influence combo and a renaimator back up plan.
Sevinne's Reclamation gets back an Oath or
Ayula's influence to set up the engine again.
Oath lets a deck operate on a very different axis. Without it, this deck might look something more like:
Which may or may not look much different, but to me this deck is more of a midrange synergy pile. I love these decks...they are fun and interesting...I like how the game plan meanders a bit more in the absence of tutors. My cube pumps out a lot decks like the second example, but I'm interested in creating a few more instances like the first example...just nowhere near Mox Cube's density of extreme.
I'm surprised you're taking out Hallowblade, as its great. I don't like esper sentinel at all, it's not fun or interesting. Land tax is probably too powerful.
WHITE-love these changes, i’ve been disappointed by all the cuts in my own cube’s various iterations, except hallowblade who i cut as part of my shift away from linear aggro.
the adds are all really nice for white, especially personal pet card flickerwisp. i’ve had and heard very nice test results from esper sentinel, he really changes the way opponent has to sequence their early turns until he’s gone, it creates a nice subgame that’s effective but not too oppressive.
Flickerwisp is inching closer to a degenerate
grief, but maybe that's part of your goals.
I like Hallowblade a lot, maybe it's a bad cut. I was thinking that the discard outlet in white wasn't really necessary, and I already have
Adorned Pouncer and
Seeker of the Way slotted into the 2 cmc beater role. I could possibly cut
Trove Warden instead.
Land Tax covers some of the same ground in the land sacrifice decks, but is far less awkward.
I want to give Land Tax a chance again. It's definitely on the higher end of the power spectrum, but offers some unique play patterns that white sorely needs.
Esper Sentinel is really cool. It brings some taxing effects to white which increases its appeal in resource denial strategies. It's a meager body that dies to everything. It brings a disruptive edge to vertical growth strategies, and is an artifact to boot. I played against it last night, and it was a good type of frustrating in my opinion. I've been looking for an alternative for
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben for years.
There's no doubt Flickerwisp is an awesome card. My blink suite is so toned down that I felt like I could afford to bring in the 'wisp for its two-way flexibility without falling into genericblink.dec problem. I replaced
one Vesperlark target with
another, and you guys should know by now that this cube is just an excuse to play Vesperlark.
All the blue cards you're taking out are a bit lower power but they're all good. Could see them coming out but I'd be a little sad. Urza is probably too much on the mana ramp side of things but might just be on the cusp. Friends don't let friends cube Forbid, like please dont. I did wonder why you weren't cubing snapcaster.
BLUE: agree with the cuts, except Trinket Mage, but i haven’t scoured the list enough to know if you’ve got enough hits for him. the adds are fine, except Forbid, which i think you’ll find to be polarizing between “this did nothing” and “this totally ruined the game.” it’s just not a fun card.
I personally like
miscalculation and
neutralize over
censor if you want to keep two of the cycling counters. Hard counters are pretty valuable. I also would
not run Forbid, so I'm not sure the final status of the swap in general.
Blue is definitely where the power creep is felt a lot more. Blue's creature suite felt disproportionately toned down compared the other colors. I'd only been avoiding snapcaster, because it felt so generically strong and flexible compared to a lot of other creatures at 2cmc in my cube...it's so good, and only as good as your supporting spells so I finally caved in.
I knew I was going to get some backlash on
Forbid, and you guys didn't disappoint.
Y'all probably think that I'm like a toddler that burned his hand on the stove yesterday and then touches it again today. I've never felt Forbid was a problem card, you guys just shamed me for it lol. The format is pretty fast, and there are enough recursion, flashback, disruption to keep it honest. Like with
Mindslaver, if you can manage the board state in such a way to lock someone out, kudos to you. Aggro can kill you with
Berserk, why can't control decks do cheaty stuff too?
Corpse churn seems like a low power swap. But other black cards are fine
BLACK: the cuts puzzle me as these are all solid glue pieces that help black control/midrange decks do their thing.
the adds are also puzzling (except Entomb) - isn’t Corpse Churn just a worse Disentomb? it costs 100% more!
Agree that the black swaps look a little odd. Are you moving to make aggro/beatdown more powerful? You took out two powerful pieces of interaction that can help keep assertive decks in check for Bx combo or control decks.
I understand what role the
corpse churn is taking, just it being lots worse than
Grapple with the Past, and looking pretty bad next to
ransack the lab makes it a meh include IMO.
Ok, corpse churn isn't great. What should I keep in its stead?
Cling to Dust?
Night Incarnate over
Languish seemed like a good swap since it's easy to recur, blink, and sneak out. I like that it ducks
Archfiend of Ifnir,
Curator of Mysteries, and
Goblin Dark-Dwellers making it a little more useful for control.
GREEN: did Jolrael just totally flop for you in testing? seems like some very targeted cuts. i love a good “draw two” deck in a cube but i get you might not want to signal something that’s not actually draftable. seems odd to remove Jolrael and add Edric though, as they’re best buddies.
Is UG tempo attack now? I don't really like either of those cards but simic is urgh.
Jolrael is firmly a Temur card. It's great in those colors, I'm just not sure it's what I'm looking for....cutting the Onslaught cycle lands made it even less appealing in Selesnya and Golgari. Simic Dredge/Tempo has always been a thing, but had been a piece or two from being an enticing build in simic over other strategies. So I'm bringing back Wonder and Edric to see if that solves the issue. I really like Uro, every Simic deck wants it, but for now I like the signaling Edric provides.
Colourless seem fine. Little sad about GPG, can you fit both expensive drops? Is mind slaver fun?
GRAY: cuts make sense, most of the adds are pretty good, but mindslaver is kinda like forbid in my mind, bad until it wrecks someone’s night and never fun. rest of this looks good.
Artifact swaps I mostly agree with, except like Alfonzo I'm sad to see GPG go.
I think
Mindslaver is fun...but I also think
Forbid and land destruction are fun.
I do like GPG. Maybe I could just cut
Gilded Lotus instead?
Thanks again for the replies!
