General Jitte and assorted GRBS, P1P1, etc.

[anotak]

i don't like obvious p1p1 cards. not everyone likes every card, and forcing someone to choose between basically losing and drafting a card they don't like is something i dislike. i definitely prefer a much flatter power curve however too flat of one is also very much a problem. and jitte is not a good example of a build-around-me card, other than requiring you to play creatures.

i definitely do like that jitte in gameplay is a skilltesting and fun card very often, but most of the time it is just a 1-sided fun crushing menace. for every game where it is interesting and skilltesting there are 2 other games where player A played jitte and player B was able to do almost nothing about anything past that point. if anything i would love a fixed jitte, because the idea behind it is sweet, it actually is one of my favorite cards to play with. but i dont think it is healthy for 99% of cube environments

 

[Dom Harvey]

We take it for granted that 'poisonous' cards are bad but then we object to the likes of WCE, Jitte etc. because they slot in every deck and require no commitment/sacrifice. I submit that the best way to stop something like Jitte being a slam-dunk pick is to include cards that give you a strong push in one direction. Otherwise, you end up cutting almost all the high-commitment/low-commitment cards and are left with a drafting experience where you are only ever mildly adventurous. I like being able to first-pick a fetchland or a busted artifact and see where the draft takes me, and I also like shoving on a build-around-me or high maintenance card early and trying to make it work. The beauty of Limited is that a draft can support both types of people as well as those who just want to draft a normal deck, and it's far more fun to have all those different approaches on display than to predictably recreate the retail Limited experience of everyone settling into a colour pair halfway through pack 1 and hoping nobody fights them for it.

 

[CML]

boy there's a lot here!

I don't really think easy P1P1s are problematic. I don't even know that easy P3P1s are that big of an issue.

I think this is a matter of taste, though I still think more experienced players can play whatever weird stuff they want and less experienced can pick a Kird Ape or whatever and still have a good time. I don't see much value in "p1p1s" unless they're distinctly "synergy-based" like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas which stands in contrast to Batterskull and friends, the possibility to force something linear-ish is exciting but making a 4/4 vigilance lifelink in every deck is kinda dull if not "OP," in my opinion.

Lots of cards present fun subgames though. One of my favorites is the "get 100% of the zombies off the board" subgame. Well designed PWs make for interesting subgames.

I love subgames but like if the subgame becomes the game then the game is usually impoverished. If nothing else matters but "goddamn Jitte" then it's not a great Cube game, for Constructed the issue is somewhat thornier and probably worthy of more posts here ...

I don't really know what you're trying to say here but I don't think I agree. Is there a problem with hyper-flexible cards? Where do you consider something like Lightning Bolt to stand?

Yeah I'm being kinda dumb, Lightning Bolt is just good, isn't it? The wan justification I have is that something like Bolt or Swords to Plowshares is gonna be worse than some picks for more synergy-based ("linear?") archetypes, though I'm sure this is also true for Swords if not also Jitte when taken to a certain point. The more I think about my lame argument the more the inclusion of a color makes the card more acceptable to me (and maybe this is a part of the game design?)

It also felt pretty shitty when you opened a pack and saw that all the cards were about the same power level. It was far more enjoyable to choose from a few more powerful cards, than to feel like all the cards were equally powerful and the only thing pushing you one way or another were your whims of the day.

Nah, I love this feeling! What could be better than p1p1 picking something that you feel like picking, without any consideration for "am I fucking up by not passing this?" Now obviously this is only an ideal to approach, but I think it's one well worth promoting in a Cube environment.

It's also an issue with my current Lifegain work, as I wish the archetype had more bombs to encourage people to dive into it. Archangel and Obzedat are strong enough to be played outside of lifegain decks, and Pridemate, bless his heart, wins games but doesn't entice anybody into the archetype.

I feel like perhaps you're stretching for some grand unifying theory, but either you've missed it or one doesn't exist in this direction.

Yeah, let's keep digging at it and if it doesn't come, that's fine

 

[Jason Waddell]

Nah, I love this feeling! What could be better than p1p1 picking something that you feel like picking, without any consideration for "am I fucking up by not passing this?" Now obviously this is only an ideal to approach, but I think it's one well worth promoting in a Cube environment.

My personal emotional response was along the lines of "does it even matter", followed by the lack of satisfaction in knowing I had made a sweet / correct pick.

 

[Changling Bob]

With fifteen cards, while everything could be of flat power level, it's likely that a couple of them are heavily invested in one or more themes in the cube; rather than it not mattering what you pick (cf: jitte, batterskull), it actually defines what deck you want to try and draft. If your power level is so flat that the themes are ways of doing things rather than having cards that synergise well (see also the earlier discussion about vampires as a theme), then that's undesirable, but I think that's clearly further than we want to go?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Is it mainly the colorless bomb thing that people are having issues with? Because I love opening a Pack 2 bomb in another color and weighing whether it's worth it for me to jump into a new color / abandon an existing color to get there. If everything is flat power level, this doesn't really matter.

Also, being rewarded for reading signals hinges entirely upon non-flat power levels. I go to what's open because I am rewarded with increased card quality.

 

[anotak]

Is it mainly the colorless bomb thing that people are having issues with? Because I love opening a Pack 2 bomb in another color and weighing whether it's worth it for me to jump into a new color / abandon an existing color to get there. If everything is flat power level, this doesn't really matter.

Also, being rewarded for reading signals hinges entirely upon non-flat power levels. I go to what's open because I am rewarded with increased card quality.

yeah i think being colorless has a lot to do with it. if you pick up a late jitte somehow, you aren't being rewarded for reading signals, your opponents are most likely not doing things right.

what you posted are reasons i like a non-flat power level. however i much prefer a flatter power level compared to the jitte vs average nonjitte card power level.

i cut precursor golem from my old cube for similar reasons even though precursor golem is fine in most cubes it was by far the best card in that environment to pick early

 

[Chris Taylor]

Clearly that cube didn't have enough

 

[James Stevenson]

Re: this whole flat power level thing: I don't think you want a totally flat power curve, or a totally wonky one. I also don't think this kind of discussion has much merit. Until someone says "Hey guys I just built a cube where I purposefully had a flat power curve and it was awesome/horrible" we will never know. This is such pointless pretentious technical discussion when there's fun things like new spoilers and new archetypes to think about. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to join in meaningfully so I dismiss it to preserve my overblown self-esteem.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Running cards who value changes highly depending on what deck they go in is helpful to the draft process if you want to reward skillful drafting. When I look at P1P1, sometimes there is a powerful outlier in it (because my cube power level isn't fully flattened), but usually its just a pile of decent cards, but I never get that feeling of blah because its P1P1 in cube! I still don't have my direction, I don't have my signals and I don't have context yet. I'm fine with P1P1 being a total shot in the dark, because it makes P2P1 so much more interesting.

Also, I agree with the sentiment that overwhelmingly powerful picks are feelbads for people who come to cube wanting to play/not wanting play a certain deck. Somehow, passing Koth feels fine (even if not 100% the best move) while passing Jitte feels wrong.

 

[Chris Taylor]

it's all cube dependant, and drafter dependent. I feel fine passing have tms, nervous passing jitte, and never pass origional elspeth. I can only assume y'all are different

 

[Lucre]

Talk to someone whos banned a lot of cards from a peasant / pauper cube.

 

[Peter Angell]

Clearly that cube didn't have enough searing blaze

Precursor Golem won't trigger off of Searing Blaze. "Targets only a single golem" means "the spell only has a single target, and the target is a golem." Searing Blaze targets the creature's controller as well.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Ah okay. smash to smithereens still works, not that I'm a huge fan

 

[Dom Harvey]

Precursor Golem won't trigger off of Searing Blaze. "Targets only a single golem" means "the spell only has a single target, and the target is a golem." Searing Blaze targets the creature's controller as well.

I learnt this the hard way when I tried to Profane Command for maximum value

 

[anotak]

i had someone magma jet then electrolyze my precursor golem so its ok

it was still the strongest card in that cube by far

 

[Jason Waddell]

So what you guys are saying is that I need Precursor Golem for my Pod decks?

 

[anotak]

i think it'd be fine in your environment. its a cool fun card

 

[CML]

Bounce/draw 3 with Cryptic is also funny. Give the Golem a try, yeah

The more I think about it, the more I'm unconvinced by my own reasons for loathing Jitte beyond "colorless bomb." Fits right in with B'skull and Wurmcoil

 

[Peter Angell]

i had someone magma jet then electrolyze my precursor golem so its ok

it was still the strongest card in that cube by far

In 3x SOM, I boarded in Twisted Image against a Precursor Golem that had gotten me game 2. I ended up getting there after the twisted image became Ancestral Recall; and it probably didn't hurt that one of the cards I drew off it was Slice in Twain.

 

[Jason Waddell]

More anecdotals: Jitte got manhandled again tonight. At one point opponent was at 15 life and played Oblivion Ring... targetting Wild Nacatl and ignoring the Jitte. Card gets beat a lot in my cube.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Jitte is also an actual fun card with Pridemate/Archangel.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Funny that I cut golem for not being that great

 

[Changling Bob]

Its almost as if card power levels are context dependent

 

[CML]

Jitte is also an actual fun card with Pridemate/Archangel.

"woohoo, i get to concede and play another / drink heavily / masturbate with a razor blade"