General Looking for collaborators/leads: budget cube

[tomchaps]

I've found it really hard to have any idea of themes and subthemes until you see a generic list with prices, though. I'd suggest mapping out the themes on top of a "vanilla" cube (that is only a placeholder), so we can see where things fit in terms of cost and curve.

We seem to have momentum; I'll get the spreadsheet ready today, if possible.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think in terms of value provided to the players that expensive lands are extremely inefficient. Of course I run 100% Tier 1 lands in my main cubes, but part of the idea is that the purchaser can upgrade where they see fit with their collection. I would focus on good layered design principles within our constraints.

 

[tomchaps]

Jason, are the prices on your spreadsheet SCG? I'd say we shoot for tcgplayer, and not worry about the out-of-stock problem.

$100 budget and CIPT lands and no planeswalkers, then?

[Crossposting! I agree that the "value" that better lands give you is not worth it when on a strict budget]

 

[Dom Harvey]

It would be unnecessarily restrictive though if you're budgeting based on just ordering everything in one go from a store. People will gladly donate a lot of cheap commons/uncommons, and you can easily get stuff in bulk.

 

[tomchaps]

It would be unnecessarily restrictive though if you're budgeting based on just ordering everything in one go from a store. People will gladly donate a lot of cheap commons/uncommons, and you can easily get stuff in bulk.

Yep, but to keep things "fair", we shouldn't assume that the person building this has anything at all to start with. Once we start fudging that $100, it's a slippery slope.

Can we presume basic lands and sleeves, at least?

 

[Jason Waddell]

The prices I listed were CFB. It's just a concept currently, with some preliminary talks, but here's the big idea:

Store X could sell a prepackaged product designed by our community and promoted by me in an article series. I would share whatever proceeds there are with the design team. This would be an opportunity to flex our design chops and share something meaningful with the Magic community, serving as a one-click entry into the cubing world and a demonstration of good design principles. I agree that worrying about out-of-stock is unnecessary at this point in time.

Part of the idea of doing it this way is that, even with donations, getting together 360 cards is a huge pain in the ass.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yep, but to keep things "fair", we shouldn't assume that the person building this has anything at all to start with. Once we start fudging that $100, it's a slippery slope.

Can we presume basic lands and sleeves, at least?

Yes, assume basic lands and that any sleeves sold would be supplementary.

 

[tomchaps]

I forgot about your CFB connection. I'm fine with using them for prices, especially if you envision an actual "product" out of this.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I say let's envision this as a real project as a "motivating factor", even if it never really sees the light of day. Should be a fun collaborative exercise.

 

[Kyultu]

Afraid I'm opening a can of worms here, but...

Designing this as an off-the-shelf product greatly influences design. Things like guildgates actually have positive design value outside of the play environment because of their known inferiority to alternatives by providing the buyer with obvious routes to expansion/upgrade. If you really want to design a product and have to consider buyer appeal, I'd suggest picking a viable price point and including sleeves, a long-box, basic lands and maybe even a few tokens (basically at cost) and including then in your budget (which is probably how a store like CFB would do it).

[edit] Well, nevermind, this basically got explained as I typed it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Afraid I'm opening a can of worms here, but...

Designing this as an off-the-shelf product greatly influences design. Things like guildgates actually have positive design value outside of the play environment because of their known inferiority to alternatives by providing the buyer with obvious routes to expansion/upgrade. If you really want to design a product and have to consider buyer appeal, I'd suggest picking a viable price point and including sleeves, a long-box, basic lands and maybe even a few tokens (basically at cost) and including then in your budget (which is probably how a store like CFB would do it).

[edit] Well, nevermind, this basically got explained as I typed it.

Yes, for this reason I'd want to have a more structured cube with some clear themes. Then there would be clear ways to upgrade it power wise, while giving a new cuber ideas for how themes mix and match. In the long run this could be a yearly endeavor.

Graveyard one year
Eldrazi spawn tokens + monstrous the next
Eventide + Devotion
Artifacty
etc.

 

[tomchaps]

I'm making my vanilla-cube-to-design-over spreadsheet now, and was considering using the cubetutor "average 360" peasant list as a starting point. Any objections? It would get us a curve and a base cost, and doesn't have any one person's clever ideas in it...

 

[Kyultu]

Cool, I'm on board now, much clearer.

 

[Kyultu]

I'm making my vanilla-cube-to-design-over spreadsheet now, and was considering using the cubetutor "average 360" peasant list as a starting point. Any objections? It would get us a curve and a base cost, and doesn't have any one person's clever ideas in it...

Probably as good a starting point as any. Just looking for the roughest ball of clay possible.

 

[tomchaps]

Okay, grinding through the data entry for prices, through white and blue so far with the generic peasant cube. (CFB's multiple card search function is awful, by the way.) If there is no price on CFB, I am checking tcgplayer; if the low is $0.05, I'll put $0.10 as the price (as that is the lowest CFB goes). If the low is closer to $0.10 on tcgplayer, I'm entering $0.25, which is CFB's second level of cheapness.

While I'm doing this, let me ask a question about lands. Where should we start?

10 Bouncelands
10 Guildgates
5 Vivids
5 Mirage Fetchlands
Terramorphic/Evolving Wilds
and
Random value lands, like Desolate Stronghold, Treetop Village, etc.

The CIPT Refuges are also $0.25, but I'm not sure how many weakish lands we want to run.

So, everyone, what are the fixing lands we should start with?

 

[tomchaps]

Also, it's going to be pretty frustrating to use CFB prices instead of TCG, I fear, mostly because the $0.10/$0.25/$0.49 cheap pricing tiers actually drain away quite a bit of value for the cheapest cards. (Remember, if every card was $0.25, we have used up 90% of the budget...) Also, things like Hellrider being $1.49 rather than the $0.50 at tcgplayer prices it out of our budget...

 

[Jason Waddell]

I'd pay less attention to these specific details and more to getting something functional. More than specific cards, I think the early phase should put a greater emphasis on themes and ideas.

 

[tomchaps]

Sure. I'm just emphasizing that my role in this is going to be the buzzkill who tells you that your themes and ideas cost too much...

About halfway through pricing this. When did Night's Whisper become a $2 card?

 

[Lucre]

i can speak to the fact that cipt lands are nowhere near as of a big deal as i would've first thought

I get the feeling you haven't played enough pauper x pez cube man. It's a big reason the formats feel so different from normal cubes. There are a lot of archetypes that can't afford the tempo loss and still be exciting to play. Tapped lands and bounce lands are great ways to favor certain archetypes and I'm very curious about how making control decks more reliant on bounce lands might do for land destruction and tempo strategies.

 

[anotak]

I get the feeling you haven't played enough pauper x pez cube man. It's a big reason the formats feel so different from normal cubes. There are a lot of archetypes that can't afford the tempo loss and still be exciting to play. Tapped lands and bounce lands are great ways to favor certain archetypes and I'm very curious about how making control decks more reliant on bounce lands might do for land destruction and tempo strategies.

funny: there's two local cubes. my friend's peasant cube makes an exception for rare lands. i don't own anywhere close to a set of any of the rare land cycles so the lands in my cube are gates, terramorphics, trilands, vivids, and refuges

 

[tomchaps]

Okay, the spreadsheet is here. Anyone with the link can edit. It's based on the average 360 pauper cube to begin with, but we will quickly modify it to get our own skeleton on which to hang our ideas. And heck, we can only afford half of this pauper cube on our budget, anyway...

The total cost can be seen on the overview tab. If you want to make a suggested change, there is a column to put it in--the spreadsheet will show the savings (or extra cost). Please check Channelfireball for the price, and tcgplayer if the price isn't given on CFB. I realize that at this stage we're not simply doing one-for-one swaps, but I wanted to have an easy way to post and track potential changes as we move forward. (As an example, I suggested cutting Mother of Runes for Savannah Lions in the spreadsheet.)

The spreadsheet also has a chat function in the corner; this might be very useful.

So, what next? A C-Note-Cube Manifesto? Color-by-color themes and archetypes?

 

[anotak]

is this singleton?
edit: rather, does it have to be?

edit edit: obvious example where this would help: Sign In Blood is $0.10, Night's Whisper is $2

 

[tomchaps]

Well, that's a good question. I vote that we should keep this singleton. What we're striving for here is a fun, balanced supercheap cube that demonstrates solid design and will launch people into the world of cubing. The point is to give people a cubing starting point that is also a blast to play; the point is not to show how clever we are. Breaking singleton is controversial enough that I think we should shy away from it.

 

[Changling Bob]

Think about your/our design goals here. If that's 'make the best cube available for <$100' then ditching singleton to get that is probably a better plan than having the singleton restriction and compromising that goal. If that's not the goal, then I've missed the point a bit here; even still, concrete goals are useful to point at as a utility function in these kinds of questions.

 

[anotak]

it isn't about trying to be clever, it is a legit question of designing under these budget constraints. The sign in blood / night's whisper example is pretty strong.

edit: if we have riptide lab-style design then it might just be controversial anyway so why bother caring vs caring about the most fun for the buck?

edit edit: elvish mystic vs llanowar elves

edit edit edit: is there any way to suggest an alternate replacement for the existing replacement listed?