Kaidan
After years of working on largely high powered cube lists, I have decided to take a page out of Grillo’s book and attempt a truly low powered cube. This is a pretty daunting task if you approach it without an anchor of some sort. Thankfully, I’ve spent a lot of time recently looking at older draft formats and watching retrospectives. So anchor I have.
Two of the most flavorful sets in my mind are Kamigawa and Innistrad. “Kaiden” loosely translates to Japanese ghost or horror story, and so I feel it’s a good name for this project that aims to capture elements of both of these sets.
Some background…
Mechanically, I think a great deal of what Kamigawa was doing (soulshift) fits very well mechanically with all the graveyard interactions that Innistrad had. Kamigawa flip cards were the prototype for Innistrad transform cards too. So these sets feel like evolutionary decedents of one another. It’s a good pairing.
So what is this cube trying to be exactly? Well, a lot may change. But for now, I’d like to capture soulshift and merge it with all the graveyard interactions. That is the primary objective. I also like arcane/splice as a concept so would like to see that stick around. I’ve often lamented about how creature-driven modern Magic is and how I think there’s unexplored and largely ignored territory around spell centric strategies. And yet, in Kamigawa there WAS a spell centric mechanic that did a lot of what I’ve been pining for. Samurai are cool and where they failed a bit in Kamigawa limited (rares drove much of the payoff), we can address that in a cube setting by making those cards more readily available. Samurai is a really flavorful take on tribal magic and bushido is simple mechanic that makes combat more interesting. Ninja are great, though I don’t necessarily want to create another ETB value scenario to abuse them with. Ninja’s combat triggered abilities should be enough in isolation if the power level is low. From Innistrad, the graveyard interactions are very well designed. As a Jonny, I’m particularly tickled by things like spider spawning, burning vengeance, and mill strategies (which happen to overlap well with Dampen Thought). Shadows over Innistrad also brought back madness, which is a really great mechanic that I don’t feel works in high powered cubes. But this cube feels like a good place for it, and it plugs some guild holes while also being synergistic with other graveyard mechanics. There’s depth here for sure.
Side note:
Guild breakouts. So here is what I’d like to see each color combination focus on.
WU - Arcane (Dampen Thought/Mill), Fliers
WR - Samurai, Boros Deck Wins
WG - Humans, Spirits
WB - Spirits, Samurai
UG - Self mill, Ramp control
UR - Burning Vengeance, Arcane/spells matter
UB - Ninjas, Madness
GR - Spiritcraft, Ramp beats
GB - Spirits, Warriors
RB - Madness, Ogres/Demons
Other smaller themes worth pointing out… mono black, green snakes, Gr shaman (super ramp), mono white Patron of the fox.
This is just a loose guide as I don’t want to get too focused on over engineering archetypes. This cube should play a lot more like limited than constructed. The intent is to create a very different experience from my combo cube.
Card breakouts are estimated, but I’m looking for over 50% of the cube to come from Kamigawa with maybe another 25-30% from Innistrad/Shadows over Innistrad. The remainder will be glue pieces mostly, fixing (bounce/scry lands is a nice combination), along with some cards I’ve wanted to run in my primary cube but never found room for.
Even with those parameters, this is a lot harder to put together than a high powered list because it’s not about card power levels as much as it is about finding a synergistic group of cards that will draft well together. While I can look at limited reviews, that only tells part of the story. Cards that are first pickable in Innistrad might be weak in Kamigawa (or vice versa) - or just be obsoleted in a cube setting where power will be higher no matter what you do. Speaking of which, I’m going to limit the rares to just 60/360. I may tweak that over time, but if I do it will almost certainly be down not up.
General numbers I think I have to get close to in order for some more narrow or overarching strategies to work:
Spirits: 80/360 (concentrated in W/B/G - 15 soulshift cards at a minimum)
Arcane: 50/360 (20 with splice)
Burning Vengeance: 20 enablers (in primary colors - UR)
Spider spawning: 20 enablers (in primary colors - UGB)
Madness: 10/20 madness/enablers (RBu)
I used gatherer to figure out the ratio of cards in the actual sets themselves and thought about how this translates to cube drafting. Specifically with things like spirit and arcane, I can’t undershoot or I create a poisonous situation. Basically, what density do I need to hit for these mechanics to not be parasitic and worth drafting? I feel like the critical mass is very high. 69% of spells in Kamigawa were arcane for reference, so I’m well under what that drafting environment was like - but how many where not playable and/or not in a primary arcane color combination and how many slots can I afford to dedicate without just going overboard? All very hard questions to answer. It’s fine if you can only make one good burning vengeance or spider spawning deck (or it fails to come together most of the time). That’s not a big deal. But there have to be enough cards for multiple spirit and arcane decks to exist - this is a must I feel or the whole environment won’t work.
Human synergy may be short on actual humans right now, but finding cuts is not easy without impacting other themes. I just don't know where the target for that density needs to be. I could also just cut some of the pieces for that. I'm not sure.
Final note, I want to keep this list to modern frames only. Part of this cube is about the flavor and having old frames in here will be distracting IMO. Madness would benefit though so I might have to break it if that doesn’t end up working. We’ll see.
Here’s the list so far…
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/88922
After years of working on largely high powered cube lists, I have decided to take a page out of Grillo’s book and attempt a truly low powered cube. This is a pretty daunting task if you approach it without an anchor of some sort. Thankfully, I’ve spent a lot of time recently looking at older draft formats and watching retrospectives. So anchor I have.
Two of the most flavorful sets in my mind are Kamigawa and Innistrad. “Kaiden” loosely translates to Japanese ghost or horror story, and so I feel it’s a good name for this project that aims to capture elements of both of these sets.
Some background…
I started playing Magic just before Kamigawa and frankly I found the set awful at the time. Power seemed way down from Mirrodin and prior sets which I had been introduced to first. I was very new to the game and it was just disappointed on first impression. Then came Ravnica which was just sexier with all the gold cards and sweet guild identities. Kamigawa just felt like a mistake and I ignored it for a decade.
I’ve always felt Japanese mythos was awesome and in hindsight I think the set was a lot better designed and more powerful than I originally gave it credit for. Much of the power was there just buried in different things like spirit craft and soulshift or splice onto arcane.
Innistrad, on the other hand, came out during a time when I had lost interest in anything but cube. So I wasn’t really paying much attention truthfully. Which is unfortunate because I think I would have loved drafting it. Lovecraft style horror is sweet and I have found memories of playing Call of Cthulhu when I was a kid.
I’ve always felt Japanese mythos was awesome and in hindsight I think the set was a lot better designed and more powerful than I originally gave it credit for. Much of the power was there just buried in different things like spirit craft and soulshift or splice onto arcane.
Innistrad, on the other hand, came out during a time when I had lost interest in anything but cube. So I wasn’t really paying much attention truthfully. Which is unfortunate because I think I would have loved drafting it. Lovecraft style horror is sweet and I have found memories of playing Call of Cthulhu when I was a kid.
Mechanically, I think a great deal of what Kamigawa was doing (soulshift) fits very well mechanically with all the graveyard interactions that Innistrad had. Kamigawa flip cards were the prototype for Innistrad transform cards too. So these sets feel like evolutionary decedents of one another. It’s a good pairing.
So what is this cube trying to be exactly? Well, a lot may change. But for now, I’d like to capture soulshift and merge it with all the graveyard interactions. That is the primary objective. I also like arcane/splice as a concept so would like to see that stick around. I’ve often lamented about how creature-driven modern Magic is and how I think there’s unexplored and largely ignored territory around spell centric strategies. And yet, in Kamigawa there WAS a spell centric mechanic that did a lot of what I’ve been pining for. Samurai are cool and where they failed a bit in Kamigawa limited (rares drove much of the payoff), we can address that in a cube setting by making those cards more readily available. Samurai is a really flavorful take on tribal magic and bushido is simple mechanic that makes combat more interesting. Ninja are great, though I don’t necessarily want to create another ETB value scenario to abuse them with. Ninja’s combat triggered abilities should be enough in isolation if the power level is low. From Innistrad, the graveyard interactions are very well designed. As a Jonny, I’m particularly tickled by things like spider spawning, burning vengeance, and mill strategies (which happen to overlap well with Dampen Thought). Shadows over Innistrad also brought back madness, which is a really great mechanic that I don’t feel works in high powered cubes. But this cube feels like a good place for it, and it plugs some guild holes while also being synergistic with other graveyard mechanics. There’s depth here for sure.
Side note:
I dislike Kamigawa flip cards as they are fugly and a bit confusing (which side is active??). Transform cards are great from a flavor angle - and they work very well online - but paper versions are fiddly. So both of these are not making the cut. That means werewolves (as cool as they are) are out. This exclusion hurts Kamigawa a lot less as I don’t think many of the flip cards are critical to capturing the broader themes. Innistrad loses considerably more with their exclusion, but such is life.
Guild breakouts. So here is what I’d like to see each color combination focus on.
WU - Arcane (Dampen Thought/Mill), Fliers
WR - Samurai, Boros Deck Wins
WG - Humans, Spirits
WB - Spirits, Samurai
UG - Self mill, Ramp control
UR - Burning Vengeance, Arcane/spells matter
UB - Ninjas, Madness
GR - Spiritcraft, Ramp beats
GB - Spirits, Warriors
RB - Madness, Ogres/Demons
Other smaller themes worth pointing out… mono black, green snakes, Gr shaman (super ramp), mono white Patron of the fox.
This is just a loose guide as I don’t want to get too focused on over engineering archetypes. This cube should play a lot more like limited than constructed. The intent is to create a very different experience from my combo cube.
Card breakouts are estimated, but I’m looking for over 50% of the cube to come from Kamigawa with maybe another 25-30% from Innistrad/Shadows over Innistrad. The remainder will be glue pieces mostly, fixing (bounce/scry lands is a nice combination), along with some cards I’ve wanted to run in my primary cube but never found room for.
Even with those parameters, this is a lot harder to put together than a high powered list because it’s not about card power levels as much as it is about finding a synergistic group of cards that will draft well together. While I can look at limited reviews, that only tells part of the story. Cards that are first pickable in Innistrad might be weak in Kamigawa (or vice versa) - or just be obsoleted in a cube setting where power will be higher no matter what you do. Speaking of which, I’m going to limit the rares to just 60/360. I may tweak that over time, but if I do it will almost certainly be down not up.
General numbers I think I have to get close to in order for some more narrow or overarching strategies to work:
Spirits: 80/360 (concentrated in W/B/G - 15 soulshift cards at a minimum)
Arcane: 50/360 (20 with splice)
Burning Vengeance: 20 enablers (in primary colors - UR)
Spider spawning: 20 enablers (in primary colors - UGB)
Madness: 10/20 madness/enablers (RBu)
I used gatherer to figure out the ratio of cards in the actual sets themselves and thought about how this translates to cube drafting. Specifically with things like spirit and arcane, I can’t undershoot or I create a poisonous situation. Basically, what density do I need to hit for these mechanics to not be parasitic and worth drafting? I feel like the critical mass is very high. 69% of spells in Kamigawa were arcane for reference, so I’m well under what that drafting environment was like - but how many where not playable and/or not in a primary arcane color combination and how many slots can I afford to dedicate without just going overboard? All very hard questions to answer. It’s fine if you can only make one good burning vengeance or spider spawning deck (or it fails to come together most of the time). That’s not a big deal. But there have to be enough cards for multiple spirit and arcane decks to exist - this is a must I feel or the whole environment won’t work.
Human synergy may be short on actual humans right now, but finding cuts is not easy without impacting other themes. I just don't know where the target for that density needs to be. I could also just cut some of the pieces for that. I'm not sure.
Final note, I want to keep this list to modern frames only. Part of this cube is about the flavor and having old frames in here will be distracting IMO. Madness would benefit though so I might have to break it if that doesn’t end up working. We’ll see.
Here’s the list so far…
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/88922
