INV/ALA Cube

inscho

inscho

I asked over in the CBS thread for someone to pick two blocks from the history of the game. Onder suggested Invasion Block and Alara Block. Invasion was one of my favorite blocks in magic, and Alara fell during my 8 year fallout from the game. So there's a lot of nostalgia, and a lot to learn here for me with this cube. I'm going to use this thread to flesh out some ideas.

Cubetutor shortlist

Cubetutor library of cards

Goals:
- To effectively blend both blocks utilizing common themes as well as finding potential intersections in incongruous strategies between blocks.
- Have both blocks equally represented. This will be a challenge as many of Invasion blocks creatures are bad, and many of Alara's are very good.
- Emphasize decision making and flexibility. Kicker, cycling, charms, hybrid mana....this cube should be heavily multicolored, but maintain a lot of options throughout the draft process. Not a lot of cards endlessly wheeling.
- No cards from outside sets.

I may need to break singleton for this. Which is new territory for me. For now, I'd like to see if I can stick to singleton.

I'd appreciate any input from those that draft either block or both.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
So, yeah, mana. It's hard to find the right support for all those three color decks, especially if you're trying to draft a wedge (which are supported, looking at cards like Raka Sanctuary and friends). I'ld probably break Singleton on some of the "better" lands, namely.

 
inscho

inscho

At the moment the cubetutor link is just the collective pool of cards I'm looking at to find themes to hone in on. I think I'll bring the cube count down to 360. I just added all of the potentially usable lands to the pool, and boy is it ugly.

I have two options as I see it:

1) Break singleton: lands and chromatic spheres, and familiars are big incentives to going this route. Allows to function like a more typical multicolored cube with a quirkier pool of cards.
2) Tailor the power level to make the awkwardness of mana part of the environment: incentivizes landcycling cards, hybrids costs, the land shapers like Dream Thrush become playable as fixing and mana denial. Geothermal Crevice and company become playable...cards like Morgue Toad. In a sense like the Desert Cube. This was part of what made Invasion so interesting to draft...Tundra Kavu was legit.


Right now I'm leaning towards exploring the second option first as it's the most atypical design space to work with.

Alara block also brings a lot of power to the table....reconciling the differences between blocks is going to be one the biggest challenges, but I think there's potential for a really unique draft experience. Thanks for making the suggestion!
 
inscho

inscho

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