Jovial's "Borrowed" Cube(s)

[Jovial]

Using our handy Riptide Time Machine, let's look back to this glorious trainwreck of a Cube:

http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/vibebox-presents-combo-cube.459/#post-15530

Specifically, VibeBox's Jank Cube.

Link: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/1197

The short description for those who can't look at the original list is as follows:

• Blue: Wizards Aggro
• Black: Ramp
• Red: Control
• Green/White: Enchantress

I fell in love as soon as I saw the list. So I built it.

Pros:

1. The surprise factor is out of this world. Everyone who drafts it is always confused, but in a pleasant way.
2. Archetypes are clear, but drafting still rewards innovation to an extent.
3. You get to play cards that you never thought you'd play in a Cube.
4. Creativity.

Cons:

1. Without upsetting anyone, the whole Cube is frustrating.
2. G/W Enchantress is the only archetype really worth playing. And, there's so much natural synergy that multiple players can draft the archetype and still dominate.
3. There seem to be a lot of missing pieces to the other archetypes that maybe don't exist or just weren't included, but they are sorely missed.
4. Creativity.

I've listed some feedback that my playgroup has provided:

• Black needs card drawing
• Black needs more mana production that isn't creature based
• G/W is WAY too strong compared to the rest of the colors
• Blue is missing some kind of real threat or late-game bomb
• Red can't handle enchantments

I want this Cube to be amazing and fun and different, but I feel like there are a lot of tweaks that need to happen and I'm totally overwhelmed in trying to figure them out.
Here are some dumped thoughts I've had:

• Put WAY more enchantments in the Cube and go with a major enchantment theme across all colors
• Put in some of the more powerful mana-generating cards like Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual
• Encourage more of a two-color thing to shore up some of the issues that the non-G/W colors have when dealing with G/W
• Throw the Cube away and build something else entirely
• Explore the smaller subthemes that have occurred in enemy-color pairs to allow players to drift into other colors naturally and still be rewarded

If you lovely people of RTL have any thoughts, I'm all about it. I don't have any pictures of drafted decks (and if someone could explain to me privately how you guys get those screengrabs, I'd greatly appreciate it)
-Jovial

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Wow, what a mess. This looks like a super rough draft--like the list was just populated and than left on cube tutor. I don't mind chipping away at it, but just looking it over is exhausting.

I would probably toss it, say to myself that I want to proctor a 360 card twisted color pie cube, lay out how I want the colors (and guilds) to be different, than populate the initial list based on feel. I don't think guild listing is even that unreasonable here, since you can just run the inverse of what that guild normally does.

 

[ahadabans]

Looks like a really bizarre list. One thing good about lists like this is everyone will be on a level playing field and probably wind up with competitive matches (from clunky lists).

I drafted a UW skies deck with enchantment subtheme. I don't know. Seems fun. No idea if it's good though. I tried to avoid enchantment as a theme, but it was harder than expected. It's in your face in nearly every pack.

UW Enchanted Skies from CubeTutor.com

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Went UB flayers (tempo?). Didn't really get enough playables, and ended up running 4-5 clunky off-plan cards--a number of them actively bad.

UB janky flyers from CubeTutor.com

Decks look very inconsistent, to the point of actively hurting the game experience. I really didn't see much removal or draw during the draft, and I would predict the matchup results to be overly dependent on opening hands and random TOLs, occasional long (boring) lulls in gameplay as both decks work through their malfunctions, and a large number of losses/win being directly attributable due to draw-order variance. Despite being such a low-powered format, there is a pretty wide power band, with powerful--non-janky-- effects like parallax wave and grave pact living alongside tar fiend. It felt like another "draft-around" format due to power variance.

The black ramp looks horrible, and I doubt it plays better. Much of it requires some sort of combination to even function--unacceptable in a format as inconsistent and tol dependent on this--and requires card disadvantage, which you really can't afford. Many of the ramp payoff cards aren't particularly powerful or interesting--it really seems like a trap play. I don't see why we can't just lower the format size to 360 and use black eldrazi spawn to ramp with.

Blue is already an aggressive color in cube (U/x flyers) and that deck is still here. There doesn't really seem to be much of a twist to that color, because there are still a bunch of evasive flying threats.

I feel that this probably would be more interesting if the central premise was color-shifting a core of (reasonable) effects, shifting the location of core color mechanics and seeing how that effects things. Like maybe we give card advantage to green (harmonize) and sweepers to red (slice and dice). Maybe blue becomes a spot removal color. Thats how I would start the initial list population. Once I had a full list, I would do some practice drafts, tighten things up, than lay out the guilds for review.

I really don't understand at all why a G/W enchantments deck is supported, as auras tends to be a core G/W interaction. o_O

 

[japahn]

Look, I don't know what you mean by "archetypes are well defined", but I had no clue about what was going on in two drafts, then read through your introduction, went back and still can't really see how those archetypes would work. Black is a mess of unplayable ramp into unplayable removal/threats.

I think the themes are so loose that it's better to draft a good-stuff passable-stuff deck and win with your good cards. Spitemare at that power level is absurd. Gnarled Mass is pretty good.