Dom Harvey
Contributor
Jason, you run actual Stone Rain?
General Jitte and assorted GRBS, P1P1, etc.
- Thread starter ahadabans
- Start date
Not any more, but I ran it for a long time. I run Pillage currently. My land destruction package used to be much higher, but mostly I've outsourced that to Wasteland now, which also isn't ruining games. I mean, you see what the curves of my cube decks look like.
Yeah, during that whole back-and-forth, I was more talking about Stone Rain being an answer to Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, or failing that, basic Mountain. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have broken the environment in half.
My aversion to LD probably comes from the Commander version: "Lemme take 30 turns to kill you while I lock the game." I'll eventually add better LD now that I know how to design better. I know someone will want it.
I still don't think Stone Rain would have done enough against ramp. Tec Edge existed back then for Valakuts. 4 LD cards wasn't enough to beat that, but Primeval Titan was the real problem anyway.
I still don't think Stone Rain would have done enough against ramp. Tec Edge existed back then for Valakuts. 4 LD cards wasn't enough to beat that, but Primeval Titan was the real problem anyway.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Tec Edge was bad against Valakut though, it's rare that they would have to expose a Valakut early and the rest of their deck was basics, so you couldn't keep them from ramping until it was too late.
Man people hate stone rain so much. Seems so silly to me. Like don't include 8 stone rains and 8 birds in your format and you can chill out. I do love those decks though. It's nice when the red decks and green decks get to be disruptive. It's nice when they get to put pressure on the way the game is played.
Tonnes of people out there hate thoughtseize, duress and clique, lets not even get into mana leak and remand. Lol lets just play creatures and attack.
More land in the graveyard crap and whatever will also make like having an incredibly low curve.
Tonnes of people out there hate thoughtseize, duress and clique, lets not even get into mana leak and remand. Lol lets just play creatures and attack.
More land in the graveyard crap and whatever will also make like having an incredibly low curve.
Yeah, in that format, Goblin Ruinblaster existed, too. But if you wanted to go after their basic Mountain, either to keep them off Primeval Titan, or to lower their count after the Titan had hit the board already, your only option was Acidic Slime. I'm in agreement that Stone Rain might've been too weak of a sideboard option, if anything.
Pretty sure it wouldn't have needed a banhammer alongside Stoneforge Mystic and Jace.
I'm kinda with Lucas in not letting blue, and to a lesser degree black, have all the fun. Red should get to do a little disruption here and there, too.
Pretty sure it wouldn't have needed a banhammer alongside Stoneforge Mystic and Jace.
I'm kinda with Lucas in not letting blue, and to a lesser degree black, have all the fun. Red should get to do a little disruption here and there, too.
Really good discussion. I've been distracted by work and other things so haven't had time to post.
Whether a card is GRBS or not depends very heavily on the makeup of your cube and the player base. Even cards which are obviously overpowered (like the moxen) I think do not necessarily have to be broken (even if they are P1P1). Mox are less powerful when you don't have other fast mana floating around to enable turn 1 six drops and other virtually un-winnable situations for example.
On a related note, I'm a big proponent of the moxen because they speed the game along a bit (even if they are auto picks). Other than really fast aggro decks, turn 1 is generally the most uninteresting part of the game (like the first couple turns in chess - there just isn't much you can really do). Mox get the game moving and add a cool variable (you can't rely on your opponent having a predictable mana pace).
My cube is slower than most and my players like midrangy type decks (part of why moxen work for us). Jitte is very powerful in my format and it is probably the most borderline card I run (it is certainly as good as if not better than any of the moxen). The swords are only slightly less oppressive. And I've debated many times about either downgrading all of my equipment or removing everything entirely. But I'm somewhat attached to equipment so I've just never pulled the trigger on that.
I agree with the idea that some sort of balance is needed in general. A totally flat power curve would not be interesting to draft IMO. But a cube with a small subset of stupidly overpowered cards would also make for predictable drafts (Sol Ring is worse than any mox, Library is unbeatable in my experience). I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle where you have a power curve but there are a lot of choices you could make and drafts generally are won by the most synergistic decks, not the ones that run the most busted cards. This is why I find the power max cube design philosophy so misguided. Synergy focused cubes are so much fun to play (IMO) and they require you to de-power to some extent in order to get the proper balance and variety. Just my opinion of course.
Whether a card is GRBS or not depends very heavily on the makeup of your cube and the player base. Even cards which are obviously overpowered (like the moxen) I think do not necessarily have to be broken (even if they are P1P1). Mox are less powerful when you don't have other fast mana floating around to enable turn 1 six drops and other virtually un-winnable situations for example.
On a related note, I'm a big proponent of the moxen because they speed the game along a bit (even if they are auto picks). Other than really fast aggro decks, turn 1 is generally the most uninteresting part of the game (like the first couple turns in chess - there just isn't much you can really do). Mox get the game moving and add a cool variable (you can't rely on your opponent having a predictable mana pace).
My cube is slower than most and my players like midrangy type decks (part of why moxen work for us). Jitte is very powerful in my format and it is probably the most borderline card I run (it is certainly as good as if not better than any of the moxen). The swords are only slightly less oppressive. And I've debated many times about either downgrading all of my equipment or removing everything entirely. But I'm somewhat attached to equipment so I've just never pulled the trigger on that.
I agree with the idea that some sort of balance is needed in general. A totally flat power curve would not be interesting to draft IMO. But a cube with a small subset of stupidly overpowered cards would also make for predictable drafts (Sol Ring is worse than any mox, Library is unbeatable in my experience). I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle where you have a power curve but there are a lot of choices you could make and drafts generally are won by the most synergistic decks, not the ones that run the most busted cards. This is why I find the power max cube design philosophy so misguided. Synergy focused cubes are so much fun to play (IMO) and they require you to de-power to some extent in order to get the proper balance and variety. Just my opinion of course.
so for those who need to play MODO to get our cube fix, Tom LaPille has finally made a survey to get feedback on the cube that hasn't drastically changed in forever.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-Ox4u0Nea1bjU0nSSxuAWM3k1iIRDvVXBFLKhwkPPRI/viewform
the big question: which 3 cards do you cut from the MODO cube?
here is the list in question, btw, http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/15386
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-Ox4u0Nea1bjU0nSSxuAWM3k1iIRDvVXBFLKhwkPPRI/viewform
the big question: which 3 cards do you cut from the MODO cube?
here is the list in question, btw, http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/15386
my top 4 suggestions for better cube design:
-boros garrison (and all the other bouncelands) are really bad control oriented fixing that punishes you soooo hard whenever someone has LD. makes zero sense in boros colors and very little in the other guilds
-tinker again leads to bad, uninteractive games where you can either beat the sphinx of the steel wind or not. see als0, channel, eureka, show and tell
-emrakul is another narrow card for unfair, non-interactive strategies. see also, channel, eureka, show and tell
-ball lightning is extremely narrow in the number of decks that want it (just burn) and its casting cost. it's also non-interactive and ends games very quickly. very much a wasted slot.
-boros garrison (and all the other bouncelands) are really bad control oriented fixing that punishes you soooo hard whenever someone has LD. makes zero sense in boros colors and very little in the other guilds
-tinker again leads to bad, uninteractive games where you can either beat the sphinx of the steel wind or not. see als0, channel, eureka, show and tell
-emrakul is another narrow card for unfair, non-interactive strategies. see also, channel, eureka, show and tell
-ball lightning is extremely narrow in the number of decks that want it (just burn) and its casting cost. it's also non-interactive and ends games very quickly. very much a wasted slot.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I know this is a for fun question, but I'm going to be a party pooper and say what I've said before:
You don't build a cube subtractively! You carefully select the cards you want, not take a huge pile of cards and eliminate the ones you don't want.
Also I pick Pristine Angel, Visara and Keiga, how many 6 drops do you actually need?
You don't build a cube subtractively! You carefully select the cards you want, not take a huge pile of cards and eliminate the ones you don't want.
Also I pick Pristine Angel, Visara and Keiga, how many 6 drops do you actually need?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Why would you put Tinker in the same cube as Sphinx of the Steel Wind? Why would you put Sphinx of the "Oh Look I Got Protection From Two Colors And I Am Immune To Doom Blade And Go For The Throat As Well Did I Mention I Have Lifelink No I Didn't Think So Yes You Can Have My Autograph" in your cube when you can play more interesting cards? (I'm sorry about that, I just hate permanents with protection)
In other words, I still play Tinker in my cube, but these are all the 6+ creatures you can tutor up:
The Engine won't wheel most of the time, Duplicant might though, and Sharding Sphinx usually does, so you can pick up a target most of the time. Tinker in my cube more often is a utility card to find stuff like Vedalken Shackles, Whip of Erebos or Mimic Vat than a broken trick that wins on turn 2.
certainly tinker is only as good as what you're tutoring for - which in the modo cube is either myr battlesphere, sundering titan, or sphinx. sharding sphinx looks awesome btw! i've just grown tired of the show and tell/ tinker/ channel/ eureka/ sneak attack (god why are there so many of these effects in this cube?!) games.
How stupid is the battle sphere as a target? Doesn't seem to strong but I can't evaluate
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I used to have Myr Battlesphere and Sundering Titan in my cube, because that's what everybody tells you to do if you, as an aspiring cube owner, are trying to read any cube-related strategy pieces you can find. Sphinx was never in my cube because I hate protection and, to a lesser degree, hexproof in limited. In constructed they're awesome puzzles that you have to (and can) solve, but in draft or sealed people get randomly shafted because they opened the wrong color rare(s). That's not good Magic imho. Anyway, after a while of reading cube-related strategy discussions, I eventually stumbled upon a neat little forum with ideas that differed a bit from what your average Joe would call a good cube. Ideas that suggested that t1 Channel into Emrakul was not a cool thing to do to another human being. Not that I ever had those cards in my cube, but Tinker into Myr Battlesphere, while looking a lot less impressive on paper, is, in the end, just as poisonous to the concept of a good game of back and forth Magic as the more brutal examples.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ridiculous. It is very hard to evaluate at first glance, but it is usually a better target to tutor for than Sundering Titan or Sphinx of the Steel Wind. If your opponent has nothing, he will die faster. If he has something, you get to keep 4 1/1's. As a 7-drop it is awesome, but I would highly advice against playing it as a Tinker target. Yes, I'm a convert.
I'm mostly here doing research in prep for a first cube but I read an article (Jason's I think) about midrange reanimator being a healthy alternative to t2 grislebrand. If we're moving away from boring uninteractive fatties in Tinker wouldn't they sort of slot into the fair value reanimator theme as well?
are other archtypes going to want these fatties? is there a fair way to play grislebrand? one thing about the powered cube on MODO is that there actually competition for the fatties between the ramp, reanimator, show and tell, tinker, storm with mind's desire, etc. of course in this cube there is zero competition between any of the unfair decks and the fair decks.
Yeah, that sounds like one of mine. I've settled on no reanimator cards in my current cube.
The tipping point for me was probably when, on Turn 3, I had 20 power on board and had blown up one of my opponent's lands. And there was no way, outside of multiple counterspells, that they could have done anything about it.
I also once had Flash and that Persist fatty in my cube at one point. Mistakes were made.
CML
Contributor
I feel as Jason does about a fast Griselbrand in Legacy and the joke goes that you have to beat Reanimator only once in a real game because their deck will self-destruct once per round, which means it's of acceptable "quality" but let's not forget 2/3 of these games are terrible and you're basically playing against Belcher for smarter people. In my Cube the Reanimator spells are all in and Entomb is around and I've only felt it was unbeatable with AEther Searcher + Angel of Despair. Maybe this is a function of high power level in general, but the Wadds cube is also up there and (?) also lacks Norn, Iona, Griselbrand, Jin-Gitaxias which are the most likely GRBS fatties so I dunno what's up. Most of the time it's great fun to battle back against a Frost Titan, so to speak.
I don't doubt that fun reanimator is possible. Just, you know, space. Some day.
