You guys and gals first started me on creating a cube. Then you made me put it into cubecobra and gave me great advice, so maybe it is fair that I contribute a bit back on the lessons I learned.
First a bit of background: I started playing during urza block as a elementary schoolkid and ofcourse had no money for proper mana bases. Our decks where either the preconstructed or slightly adjusted ones. To be honest, the randomness of playing with sub-optimal cards (and not many duplicates) made that each game was different and much more fun than fine tuned decks. Naturally, I wanted to reconstruct this feeling (and loathe pay to play) so cube it is.
I am lazy as hell so the easiest would be to steal one of your great cubes. However, my playgroup mainly consist of the missus with sometimes a few friends/brothers who play once or twice a year (and most of them have never played with cards after the disastrous advent of planeswalkers/cardframe change). So I immediately ran into trouble since most cubes have a lot of different keywords/mechanics (even historic ones) and that would not be playgroup friendly.
Of course one could use a starter friendly cube but most of these are not that exciting, or to put it more bluntly: boring for me.
So that leaves me with a conundrum. On the one hand I want a cube with depth, on the other hand occasional players should not have to slog through many cards they do not know/understand, have fun, and be on equal footing with regular players. And did I already mention that I am lazy?
How do I get a cube tailored for my playgroup (including me)? Simple, do not use too many different mechanics and preferable cards which are familiar to the playgroup. Solution: a block cube since in the old days each set in the block expands on the mechanics in the large base set. No need for a lot of design from me since there are not many cards/mechanics to choose from. You just remove some chaff, double up on some cards, and listen to the playgroup. This gives http://cubecobra.com/cube/list/16se .
Brad nails it with his comment after 3 drafts:
/Quote
first pick pestilence
wreck their hand with rats and duress, play pestilence or vile requiem to lock down the board. unlikely they'll be able to keep much around against noetic scales
cube's a lot of fun. why am i spending so much time designing when i could just do this???
id like to see you urza-break to add a couple sets of fixing lands. maybe the invasion taplands for allied and something else for enemy. would keep old frame and not look out of place. i cant imagine anyone bitching about such a small, helpful change. that said, i know the feeling when something doesn't quite sit right with your goals, so i get it if not
/endquote
He points to the pro's and cons of this approach.
1) It is fun.
2) It is almost no work for the curator (although occasionals would be fun in here!).
3) It lacks mana fixing lands which is a bit of a pain sometimes. (I will ask the playgroup and add taplands/painlands/sharpied terminal moraine)
4) It lacks some elements, for me there is a lack of multi-colored cards or iconic historic cards/mechanisms that I love. However, how do you balance that?
So what are the lessons?
Actually, the main one is
1) Tailor to your playgroup.
The others:
2) visit riptidelab.
3) less is more. Using many different mechanics is just like keyword soup on a card, you are bound to screw up. Note that this does not imply that you should avoid cards with many words on it. Somnophore has a lot of words but is easier to understand/play around than Morphling which is omitted due to requests from the playgroup.
I have to admit, my attempt of a rath+ cube was a failure but that could be due to the fact that it was more a historic cube with too much focus on shadow.
Lastly, thanks and have fun!
First a bit of background: I started playing during urza block as a elementary schoolkid and ofcourse had no money for proper mana bases. Our decks where either the preconstructed or slightly adjusted ones. To be honest, the randomness of playing with sub-optimal cards (and not many duplicates) made that each game was different and much more fun than fine tuned decks. Naturally, I wanted to reconstruct this feeling (and loathe pay to play) so cube it is.
I am lazy as hell so the easiest would be to steal one of your great cubes. However, my playgroup mainly consist of the missus with sometimes a few friends/brothers who play once or twice a year (and most of them have never played with cards after the disastrous advent of planeswalkers/cardframe change). So I immediately ran into trouble since most cubes have a lot of different keywords/mechanics (even historic ones) and that would not be playgroup friendly.
Of course one could use a starter friendly cube but most of these are not that exciting, or to put it more bluntly: boring for me.
So that leaves me with a conundrum. On the one hand I want a cube with depth, on the other hand occasional players should not have to slog through many cards they do not know/understand, have fun, and be on equal footing with regular players. And did I already mention that I am lazy?
How do I get a cube tailored for my playgroup (including me)? Simple, do not use too many different mechanics and preferable cards which are familiar to the playgroup. Solution: a block cube since in the old days each set in the block expands on the mechanics in the large base set. No need for a lot of design from me since there are not many cards/mechanics to choose from. You just remove some chaff, double up on some cards, and listen to the playgroup. This gives http://cubecobra.com/cube/list/16se .
Brad nails it with his comment after 3 drafts:
/Quote
first pick pestilence
wreck their hand with rats and duress, play pestilence or vile requiem to lock down the board. unlikely they'll be able to keep much around against noetic scales
cube's a lot of fun. why am i spending so much time designing when i could just do this???
id like to see you urza-break to add a couple sets of fixing lands. maybe the invasion taplands for allied and something else for enemy. would keep old frame and not look out of place. i cant imagine anyone bitching about such a small, helpful change. that said, i know the feeling when something doesn't quite sit right with your goals, so i get it if not
/endquote
He points to the pro's and cons of this approach.
1) It is fun.
2) It is almost no work for the curator (although occasionals would be fun in here!).
3) It lacks mana fixing lands which is a bit of a pain sometimes. (I will ask the playgroup and add taplands/painlands/sharpied terminal moraine)
4) It lacks some elements, for me there is a lack of multi-colored cards or iconic historic cards/mechanisms that I love. However, how do you balance that?
So what are the lessons?
Actually, the main one is
1) Tailor to your playgroup.
The others:
2) visit riptidelab.
3) less is more. Using many different mechanics is just like keyword soup on a card, you are bound to screw up. Note that this does not imply that you should avoid cards with many words on it. Somnophore has a lot of words but is easier to understand/play around than Morphling which is omitted due to requests from the playgroup.
I have to admit, my attempt of a rath+ cube was a failure but that could be due to the fact that it was more a historic cube with too much focus on shadow.
Lastly, thanks and have fun!
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