General Macroarchetype Cube or: Who's the Beatdown Cube

[japahn]

Ok, power level.

I am open to any power level. However, whenever I looks for cards I want to include, I end up at about slightly higher than the Elegant Cube (like the top 50% of cards in the Elegant Cube). Part of the reason is of course that I am familiar with that power level, it was what the Elegant Cube was at in 2010-2014 and close to where I aim now. Another reason is that it's not much further from the average power level of Magic cards, so there are a lot, a lot of options there.

To illustrate the band I'm talking about, see the list I've filtered from the Elegant Cube so far:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/cardsnotdecks?view=spoiler
edit: new link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/whosthebeatdown?view=spoiler

The differences are that I can run stronger disruption and removal than in the Elegant Cube, since decks will not be reliant on synergies, so losing any single piece is less of a problem. That means I can ALSO run stronger threats whose downside is being vulnerable to removal since that removal is powered up, which opens up the door for snowbally threats like Dragonsguard Elite.

I could go up further in power level, but I'm having a hard time visualizing that. Making aggro better looks like adding more redundancy and must removes like Luminarch Aspirant and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Making midrange better like Laelia, the Blade Reforged and Luminous Broodmoth puts pressure on aggro to be faster and control to run faster wincons like good planeswalkers. Making control better by going to Supreme Verdict, Toxic Deluge puts pressure on aggro to be, well, faster again. Overall that increases the tempo and makes the game's tension be at maximum from early turns because one turn without good plays puts you behind a lot, necessitating more smoothing - which are not particularly interesting cards to run for me and my playgroup and really slanted towards blue.

Am I wrong about going higher power? Is there as middle of the way I'm not seeing that could be better? Are there strong reasons to go higher power?

 

[blacksmithy]

Are there strong reasons to go higher power?

high power level is the sexiest power level obviously

a more serious response regarding your question about middle of the road:
there have been a fair number of really excellent Standard formats in recent years that have shown me you can aim for “X year standard format” power level (think Chariot, Mob Nix, Raffine type cards) and make a VERY cool format that isn’t “Gonzo Fairstuff” or “Legacy Lite”

 

[landofMordor]

I've heard statement like this one before, but I could never understand them. If the fixing is there, why wouldn't you play a 2-colored aggro deck? If orzhov midrange is always better than orzhov control, it would just seem to me that midrange is better supported in those colors. Is it just about fixing?

If the fixing is there and you get an increase in power from playing your second color, then you should play multicolor aggro. It's what Modern Naya Zoo was that got Wild Nacatl banned -- it's just mono-red aggro splashing GW for actual good creature bodies. Same thing with Boros Burn or whatever. (Legacy only has mono-red and mono-white aggro because of Wasteland; otherwise they'd be multicolor too.)

But like, it's hard to overstate that your mana has to be really good for this optimization to become favorable. High-level Pioneer manabases stuck to mono-Black aggro just a year or so ago. Shocklands, painlands, fastlands -- all legal in that format! Even so, people stuck to mono-color aggro. Modern ca. 2013 could do it because it had the combo of fetches and no Wasteland. But if your mana is any worse than that, it incurs risks.

(That said, if you're used to Retail Limited where mana screw is a constant feature of the format, so omnipresent as to seem invisible, then you can certainly support multicolor aggro in cube and it'll be fun and successful!)

 

[blacksmithy]

(That said, if you're used to Retail Limited where mana screw is a constant feature of the format, so omnipresent as to seem invisible, then you can certainly support multicolor aggro in cube and it'll be fun and successful!)

OBJECTION

 

[landofMordor]

high power level is the sexiest power level obviously

a more serious response regarding your question about middle of the road:
there have been a fair number of really excellent Standard formats in recent years that have shown me you can aim for “X year standard format” power level (think Chariot, Mob Nix, Raffine type cards) and make a VERY cool format that isn’t “Gonzo Fairstuff” or “Legacy Lite”

BIG agrees here. I also glanced at @japahn's filtered cube and just judging from ElephantGuide, PeriVault, PaciArray, Rorix, DecPain... we're a long long way below Ragavan and Laelia and Toxic Deluge power level. (Not a value judgment, just a statement based on which cards in this list I doubt would see Standard play from RTR forward. Like, just to be explicit, I think we're presently Open Fire, fearing that we'll become Lightning Bolt -- but we're not even close to Lightning Strike yet. There's only a handful of cards in this list -- Thalia, the counterspells, the 1mv dorks, Reanimate, and the red burn -- that even come close to a Laelia-powered format.)

I think we can easily push the power level up to Doom Blade being the average removal spell, Fumigate being the best Wrath, and Monastery Mentor Swiftspear being the premier 1-drop, Serum Visions or Consider the best cantrip, without having to make the structural concessions or "arms race" that @japahn alludes to.

 

[japahn]

Well, you picked the worst cards from that list I think, not the average... Those are sort of what I'd call bottom 10% of the current list.

What kinds of threats would be at a power level between the one I have and Laelia?

 

[landofMordor]

Well, you picked the worst cards from that list I think, not the average... Those are sort of what I'd call bottom 10% of the current list.

What kinds of threats would be at a power level between the one I have and Laelia?

Sure -- wasn't trying to cherry-pick; those just caught my eye.

Hm some examples include: Loxodon Smiter, Obstinate Baloth, Pia Nalaar, Pia and Kiran, Breya's Apprentice, Dire Fleet Daredevil, Abbott of Keral Keep, Blade Splicer, E Spellbinder (which I see in your list), Egon God of Death, Gurmag Angler, Hooting Mandrills, Dguard Elite, Call of Herd, flippy Liliana, History of Benalia, Master of Waves, generally replacing any threat > 4 mana with cheaper threats, Warden of First Tree, Radha Heart of Keld, Knight o Autumn, REnegade Rallier, STormchaser Mage, PUtrid Leech, Quandrix Apprentice, Shardless Agent...

A common theme is bulk rare midrange beef from GRN-KHM, or Standard all-stars from RTR-GRN or KHM-present. Just for benchmarking, RTR is when creature power leveling began in earnest, and GRN-KHM was the FIRE era of really pushed designs that broke lots of things.

 

[blacksmithy]

What kinds of threats would be at a power level between the one I have and Laelia?

WRENN AND SEVEN AHHHHH SHES SO COOL
Also Graveyard Trespasser

 

[landofMordor]

oh yeah i didn't even mention any planeswalkers. pretty much any of the 3-6mv ones from RTR onward that you've never heard of in Modern play are totally safe on power level. They add a fun dimension to "who's the beatdown" because sometimes combat math changes

 

[japahn]

Hm some examples include: Loxodon Smiter, Obstinate Baloth, Pia Nalaar, Pia and Kiran, Breya's Apprentice, Dire Fleet Daredevil, Abbott of Keral Keep, Blade Splicer, E Spellbinder (which I see in your list), Egon God of Death, Gurmag Angler, Hooting Mandrills, Dguard Elite, Call of Herd, flippy Liliana, History of Benalia, Master of Waves, generally replacing any threat > 4 mana with cheaper threats, Warden of First Tree, Radha Heart of Keld, Knight o Autumn, REnegade Rallier, STormchaser Mage, PUtrid Leech, Quandrix Apprentice, Shardless Agent...

I think this is about the power level I'm aiming for. That's not very far at all from what's there. But I'm not a fan of token spam and won't dedicate too much of the cube to cantrips, so might not run many of those on those grounds. Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely include some of those.

A common theme is bulk rare midrange beef from GRN-KHM, or Standard all-stars from RTR-GRN or KHM-present. Just for benchmarking, RTR is when creature power leveling began in earnest, and GRN-KHM was the FIRE era of really pushed designs that broke lots of things.

I don't understand, are you are suggesting me to look at what and avoid what?

 

[japahn]

oh yeah i didn't even mention any planeswalkers. pretty much any of the 3-6mv ones from RTR onward that you've never heard of in Modern play are totally safe on power level. They add a fun dimension to "who's the beatdown" because sometimes combat math changes

Oh yeah, I am up for trying some planeswalkers at least. Not too many because complexity, but maybe 10-15 in a 540 cube. I want good designs though, that kind of the point of a cube without many restrictions. Suggestions?

 

[blacksmithy]

Oh yeah, I am up for trying some planeswalkers at least. Not too many because complexity, but maybe 10-15 in a 540 cube. I want good designs though, that kind of the point of a cube without many restrictions. Suggestions?

good walker designs IMO (no guarantees the power is correct but i tried):

Big Elspeth
Zombie Elspeth
Waifu Emperor

NEO Tezz
Wheels Narset

Liliana Last Hope
Liliana Dreadhorde General
Stupid Sexy Sorin

New Jaya
Young Chandra (the 3 mana one)

Future Sight Vivien
OG Garruk
WRENN AND SEVEN FUCK YEAH

Kaito
Kaito
Kaito
Mob Nix
KHM Kaya
Hybrid Saheeli
probably some other multicolor ones i forget

 

[japahn]

Could ya'll please tag your cards? I'm trying to have this conversation on a phone and I literally cannot tell what cards those are or create scryfalll queries to try to find out XD

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Could ya'll please tag your cards? I'm trying to have this conversation on a phone and I literally cannot tell what cards those are or create scryfalll queries to try to find out XD

good walker designs IMO (no guarantees the power is correct but i tried):

Big Elspeth
Zombie Elspeth
Waifu Emperor

NEO Tezz
Wheels Narset

Liliana Last Hope
Liliana Dreadhorde General
Stupid Sexy Sorin

New Jaya
Young Chandra (the 3 mana one)

Future Sight Vivien
OG Garruk
WRENN AND SEVEN FUCK YEAH

Kaito
Kaito
Kaito
Mob Nix
KHM Kaya
Hybrid Saheeli
probably some other multicolor ones i forget

 

[Zoss]

I run these out of those not mentioned and have found them to play in a similar space. The Nissas are particularly undervalued, as is the Jace. Teferi is a little mopey, but if you do decide that you want bouncelands he's pretty okay at enabling them.

 

[blacksmithy]

I run these out of those not mentioned and have found them to play in a similar space. The Nissas are particularly undervalued, as is the Jace. Teferi is a little mopey, but if you do decide that you want bouncelands he's pretty okay at enabling them.

the jace and both these nissas are fun AF, REALLY nice picks

 

[japahn]

Thank you! I like Kaito Shizuki, Jace, Mirror Mage, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Teferi, who slows the sunset, Nissa, Steward of Elements and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner so far! I guess those are the weakest ones? But also the ones that feel the coolest to me because they are resonant (besides Nissa but the X cost makes her interesting).

 

[LadyMapi]

Kaito is honestly less interesting than it looks.

A lot of times it boils down to just being an unblockable saboteur, which isn't broken or anything... it's just not really worth the extra overhead involved in it being a planeswalker.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

To illustrate the band I'm talking about, see the list I've filtered from the Elegant Cube so far:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/cardsnotdecks?view=spoiler

I don't think viewing a macro-archetype focused cube as a "cards not decks" design in 2022 is really going to lead to the design outcomes you're looking for if I'm understanding your goals correctly. In many ways, supporting the macro archetypes well is the purest form of decks-not-cards design.

In the big picture, supporting macro-archetypes is exactly the same as supporting micro-archetypes– you're looking to hit certain densities of certain types of cards in order to fully support the different decks you're hoping to enable. The big change is in how you make card choices in service to supporting those decks. In a micro-archetype driven Cube, you're picking cards based on how they synergize with each other to create a certain advantage– i.e. Blood Artist and Carrion Feeder to drain the opponent when you sac, or Hardened Scales and Luminarch Aspirant to double your counter production. However, in a macro-archetype driven Cube, you're picking cards based on how they work in the shell. Diregraf Ghoul and Fledgling Djinn don't have any explicit synergy in their rules text, but they still do synergize with each other because they are both contribute to the larger gameplan of their respective archetype, in this case, mono-black aggro. This is very different from cards-not-deck design. In a cards-not-decks context, you're just hoping that the raw power of the cards you draft is able to overcome whatever the opponent happens to throw at you.

One of the reasons why the MTGO Cubes are often so mediocre is that they don't do a good job of supporting any of the macro archetypes, and there are only a few micro-archetypes with high enough densities of effects to reasonably be played by any given person. Instead, most decks are forced to rely on the raw power of outliers instead of having a consistent plan. For example, a lot of White Weenie decks in the MTGO vintage cubes don't win by overwhelming the opponent with a swarm of creatures, they win by playing the power outliers they can draft and hoping the few bombs they got can close the game. Sure, the player might have a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or a Esper Sentinel in their deck, but they're not usually winning because these cards are contributing to their game plan. Instead, they're actually just hoping to use broken accelerants like Mox Pearl and Grim Monolith to ramp out whatever random win condition they were able to draft. An MTGO white deck is not banking on enacting a well-planned specific strategy every game, they're hoping that casting Baneslayer Angel or Armageddon on turn three is enough to end the game. This is the same reason why Crimson Vow was such a terrible format. There were cool things you could try to do, likethe U/G self-mill deck, but the majority of the time, you were just hoping your draft chaff could hold off the opponent until your Dreadfeast Demon ended the game.

My point here is simple: the core of the Cube you're saying you want to design is not that different from the Cubes you've already designed. The fundamental difference between designing for micro archetypes and macro archetypes is in how you need to care about the card choices you're making. Basically, you need to care about how cards fit in to the grand strategy of whatever deck you're trying to support instead of how the cards synergize with one another on an individual basis. I've called this paradigm strategy vs synergy in the past. That term is reductionist, but it does strike at the main design difference between designing specifically for macroarchetypes and designing specifically for microarchetypes.

And, again, I think @Onderzeeboot sums this up very well in saying:

Really, what we're looking at here is cubes on one side characterized by:

* Narrow archetypes, archetypal 'islands' (disregarding color, some cards are expected to work in only one drafter's deck, even if they are not the only drafter in a given broad archetype (aggro, combo, control, or midrange))
* A number of low floor/high ceiling cards (cards that are elevated by synergies with a subset of other cards)
* Synergy over interchangeability (e.g. Harnessed Lightning over Incinerate because you want to support energy)
* Theme over value (when looking at a random booster, the cards often tell you a specific theme is supported, e.g. cards like Life from the Loam, Blood Artist, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, or Master of Etherium)

And cubes on the other side of the spectrum, characterized by:

* Broad archetypes, archetypal 'continents' (disregarding color, cards in one drafter's deck are expected to work as well in any other drafter's deck that falls in the same broad archetype)
* High floor cards exclusively (each card should be able to stand on its own)
* Synergy through interchangeability (e.g. Fire Ambush over Harnessed Lightning because that means you don't have to run energy and Fire Ambush goes face, so it has value in aggro as well)
* Value over theme (when looking at a booster, no theme pops out, instead you're looking at a pack of generally useful cards that promise a great density of broadly applicable cards, e.g. Shock, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Boreal Druid)

Now, having said all of this, I think there is another key thing to be looking out for here- the power band. I think this line from one of landofmordor's previous comments hits an issue you may end up having right on the nose:

Like, just to be explicit, I think we're presently Open Fire, fearing that we'll become Lightning Bolt -- but we're not even close to Lightning Strike yet. There's only a handful of cards in this list -- Thalia, the counterspells, the 1mv dorks, Reanimate, and the red burn -- that even come close to a Laelia-powered format.

Your current list's power band is broad, to the point where I think it will undermine any archetype support you try to enable. Cards like Cryptic Command, Path to Exile, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, the reanimation, and Birds of Paradise are all so much stronger than the other side of the spectrum that people will try to play them even if their deck shouldn't actually want them. In the same vein, cards like Oona's Blackguard, Audacious Theif, Chastise, and Charging Monstrosaur are so middling that most decks are not going to be playing these cards unless they don't have 23 playables without them. I think you'd be well-served by committing to one end of your power band and focusing on expanding upon the foundations set by the cards already in that category. For example, instead of having White removal that looks like this:



Make everything fit with the high-power end of the spectrum, and you'd have...



Make everything fit with the low-power end of the spectrum, and you'd have...


Committing to one end doesn't mean you need to cut half of the Cube or add cards that play further to one extreme. As you cut the best or worst cards and add to the middle, your average power level will become more consistent. If you want to raise the power level, you don't need to add Ragavan and Uro. All you would need to do is cut cards from the floor of your Cube, making the average card better, and causing the outliers to be less impactful. The same principle applies to lowering the power level: instead of adding weaker cards, cut from the top and add more cards that are in line with the middle to lower end of what you may include. The key here is consistency more than anything else.

If you want to see a Cube that I think does a good job of maintaining a tight power band with a set of restrictions similar to yours, I would suggest looking at the Singletonia cube. This Cube has a focus on the macro-archetypes with a tight power band. There's a little bit of a delta between the best and worst cards, but nothing is unplayably bad in the deck it's supposed to support. Even the most mediocre cards still are perfect fits for the role they are supposed to play in their macro-archetype(s).

 

[japahn]

Ok, a bit more about mana bases:
Since I'm probably starting at 540 cards, I'm going to go up from 6 to 9 cycles.

Generic


Control


Aggro

I love this mana base, it seems like a good starting point for this type of Cube. I am under the impression that the bouncelands or temples would be weak compared to the other 50 lands in the Cube. Including a cycle of control-oriented lands makes sense given your design goals, but I think bounces and temples are so slow that only control (and midrange players that didn't prioritize fixing early in the draft) would ever want to play them.

Good point, and with Triomes I think that's too much. I won't run temples.

The fast lands are still good even in control because their downside only impacts the mid-to-late game when control should already be winning. By contrast, the temples and bounces are almost never good in curve-out aggro, as they want access to the mana immediately. Remember, some macro-aggro decks can get away with including as few as 11 or 12 lands in environments with good fixing. Temples and Bounces are virtually unplayable in this context, because you do not want one of your very limited mana sources being locked down during its first turn. Even if you're trying to build an environment where aggro is playing 14-15 land, you still probably don't want lands that are always entering tapped. The efficiency loss can be quite difficult to overcome.

True, I even talked about that here:
https://desolatelighthouse.wordpres...ft-pathway-and-untapped-duals-one-card-a-day/

Maybe I should read the stuff I write ._.

I would like to run better fixing for aggro, but the best fixing for aggro is also great for control, so I'll run fastlands and double painlands which control definitely doesn't want.

I would suggest giving the Check Lands a look. These cards play very well with the Triomes and Shocklands and act as a nice foil to the fast lands. Checks are at their best in control and midrange, where you're likely to have a land that satisfies their etb untapped requirement. However, aggro can still make use of these cards, as they will only usually enter tapped on turn one. While that specific scenario is not ideal, usually come into play untapped on later turns, which is totally acceptable for aggro.

Ran them for years, they are fine but really midrangey and not aggro, and I'd rather run temples or some mana sink land instead.

You could also consider running the manlands (which aggro is still happy to play as a late game mana sink despite the early game tempo loss), and the slow lands (which are less good in aggro but can still be untapped in the later game to help cast an important aggro finisher).

I have but they synergize too well with the high density of wraths and sort of invalidate the need for finishers in blue control decks. I'd like people to finish the game with a 7 drop or some slow enchantment. Creeping Tar Pit and Celestial Colonnade are especially big offenders.

Finally, if you're not married to the restriction of using perfect cycles, I really like Grove of the Burnwillows and the Horizon lands. You could even use each 2-color slot in a mixed land cycle to help bolster a specific macro-archetype in that color combination. For example, if play the grove and horizon lands, you could use temples for the leftover U/W, U/B, and R/B pairings. Those three combinations are likely to have a control deck that could happily play a temple, and you'd be reaping the benefits of the more flexible (but still controlling) lands in the other 7 combinations. Food for thought!

I'd really prefer to keep perfect cycles or at least half cycles, so I would run Horizon Lands if there was some compliment in allied colors that made another half cycle :/[/C]

 

[blacksmithy]

Thank you! I like Kaito Shizuki, Jace, Mirror Mage, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Teferi, who slows the sunset, Nissa, Steward of Elements and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner so far! I guess those are the weakest ones? But also the ones that feel the coolest to me because they are resonant (besides Nissa but the X cost makes her interesting).

i may well be the one misevaluating the card here, but i have been running Kaito in my own cube since close to his release and i pick him highly… i dont think he is among the weakest on my list

 

[japahn]

I don't think viewing a macro-archetype focused cube as a "cards not decks" design in 2022 is really going to lead to the design outcomes you're looking for if I'm understanding your goals correctly. In many ways, supporting the macro archetypes well is the purest form of decks-not-cards design.
[...]

Don't read too much into that, I just reused a cube project. And I don't think that statement holds much meaning to me, so again, don't read too much into it. Hard agree that I'm basically making a cube with three pentas archetypes:
WUBRG Aggro
WUBRG Midrange
WUBRG Control

Now, having said all of this, I think there is another key thing to be looking out for here- the power band. I think this line from one of landofmordor's previous comments hits an issue you may end up having right on the nose:

Your current list's power band is broad, to the point where I think it will undermine any archetype support you try to enable. Cards like Cryptic Command, Path to Exile, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, the reanimation, and Birds of Paradise are all so much stronger than the other side of the spectrum that people will try to play them even if their deck shouldn't actually want them. In the same vein, cards like Oona's Blackguard, Audacious Theif, Chastise, and Charging Monstrosaur are so middling that most decks are not going to be playing these cards unless they don't have 23 playables without them. I think you'd be well-served by committing to one end of your power band and focusing on expanding upon the foundations set by the cards already in that category. For example, instead of having White removal that looks like this:

Are you sure? I feel like those cards look stronger to you because you're used to tempo-bottlenecked environments with abundant lifegain, but I'm going for more emphasis on CA bottleneck and little lifegain, more old school style.

That makes Reanimate a lot more costly (thought it's still top tier, but I don't really care as it needs you to go out of your way or get lucky to actually make it broken). It makes Path to Exile a lot more costly because it's -1 CA. Birds is strong, yes, but not that much since it can't really trade with anything and converting that mana back to CA isn't easy - you'd need to actually cast a Harmonize or Fact or Fiction.

Oona's Blackguard might very well be bad, it's more of a sideboard card or plan B for control to take that commits somewhat to the board. I may cut it, but it's not out of the realm of consideration.

Audacious Thief is snowballing CA asking the player to protect it, give evasion or remove blockers. That kind of card is great in aggro-control. If you tune removal down, it's completely playable - that's why I'm not running Swords of Plowshares but Chastise.

I think Chastise and Charging Monstrosaur are going to be quite good, I've ran these cards for many many drafts, so speaking from experience.

Power level depends on context!

Make everything fit with the high-power end of the spectrum, and you'd have...

Most of those are too generic, I'd like some removal that slots into control or aggro more specifically. I also woudn't like to run Swords and Unexpectedly Absent so they don't pressure Audacious Thief and similar cards.

Make everything fit with the low-power end of the spectrum, and you'd have...

Those are all midrange-control cards, if all my removal is like that then aggro has issues to fight midrange. It needs stuff like Path that trades CA for tempo.

Committing to one end doesn't mean you need to cut half of the Cube or add cards that play further to one extreme. As you cut the best or worst cards and add to the middle, your average power level will become more consistent. If you want to raise the power level, you don't need to add Ragavan and Uro. All you would need to do is cut cards from the floor of your Cube, making the average card better, and causing the outliers to be less impactful. The same principle applies to lowering the power level: instead of adding weaker cards, cut from the top and add more cards that are in line with the middle to lower end of what you may include. The key here is consistency more than anything else.

If you want to see a Cube that I think does a good job of maintaining a tight power band with a set of restrictions similar to yours, I would suggest looking at the Singletonia cube. This Cube has a focus on the macro-archetypes with a tight power band. There's a little bit of a delta between the best and worst cards, but nothing is unplayably bad in the deck it's supposed to support. Even the most mediocre cards still are perfect fits for the role they are supposed to play in their macro-archetype(s).

I don't really want a tight power band! I'd like there to be power disparity so that they are signals and carrots to pull players into aggro, midrange, or control. But again, I think the vision I have of this environment is just really different than what you are thinking of in terms of the value of resources (tempo, CA, life) so I don't think the power band is as broad as it looks to you.

Don't fret too much about the power level being too broad. This is easy to figure out once the cube is played and hard to figure out before. I'd rather lay down a foundation with cards I like, resource economies that can reach my goals and have 60 unplayable cards. They'll just end up in sideboards. I can take them out or try to beat people with them. And if I or other people play a card and find out it's awful, we have a good laugh and learn something!

Power outliers on the high side... I think threats are the worst because they can invalidate entire games in obvious ways, so I'm being careful with those. Answers are harder to detect, because it may be the Plows your 4-drop that wins the game 10 turns before it really ends. Lightning Bolt is kind of concerning but it's so hard to create a cube without it! So let's pretend it's a worse Mox Ruby and that this is a powered cube. You first pick it, increase your win% and always run it. But it's an iconic card, and everyone expects it.

 

[japahn]

i may well be the one misevaluating the card here, but i have been running Kaito in my own cube since close to his release and i pick him highly… i dont think he is among the weakest on my list

Entirely possible, I didn't want to single Kaito out though I didn't pick the cards because they were the worst, but they just seemed to have more interesting play patterns and choices to me. It was kind of a happy accident that they tended to be the worst ones.

 

[japahn]

Triple posting yay!

More rambling about non-flat power level bands: as you draft a cube and familiarize yourself with the cards in it, you "level up" as a player figuring out how good cards are, and what changes those evaluations. That's a large part of the appeal of limited and of cube to me - it's an exploratory experience. When I play someone's cube, the most interesting thing for me is to figure out how to break it; that is, how to draft it optimally which involves evaluating cards and archetypes in context.

With a stable playgroup, it's an advantage to have these cards that are first picks and these cards that are low picks. "WHO GOT THE COUNTERSPELL? I HATE YOU!", "Ooh, Sulfuric Vortex, I guess I'm playing aggro today!", "OMG I lost to maindecked Oona's Gatewarden and it was actually good in that game?" It also creates conversation with players sharing their findings. It's great to talk between games about which cards are good, which ones are bad, and which ones they completely misevaluated.

Learning power levels scratches that self-improvement itch, and a flat power band makes that learning curve steeper because emphasis is on card evaluations shifting depending on your picks and what you've seen.

I don't think I'm able to, and I don't think I want to create a cube with a perfectly tight power band.

 

[landofMordor]

I don't understand, are you are suggesting me to look at what and avoid what?

Depends on what power band you're looking for! Shoulda made that clear, sorry. But I think choosing Standard pillars from GRN-KHM will lead to a much higher-power format than choosing post-RTR Standard pillars outside that window.

*RAMBLE ALERT* Agree with Blacksmithy and Zoss on planeswalker suggestions

Reading your comments about the broad power band you're seeking, I think you're probably on the right track. And to your point, Monstrosaur and Audacious Thief can't possibly be the worst cards to run in their slot -- they have power and toughness, they turn sideways and kill opponent. Fundamentally that's a strong thing to be doing.

But I also see Trainmaster's point, because you could be running Dark Confidant over Thief and still have risk-reward r.e. CA, but you don't have the downside of just getting embarrassed by an opposing Thalia. Or Pain Seer, which gives Thief's same gameplay patterns while still bringing up the average power level. Similarly, you could run Rampaging Ferocidons over Monstrosaur for similar damage output by turn 5, plus you don't lose as many games to mana screw, plus Ferocidons are less embarrassed by the opponent's best cards. If you're adding more powerful cards at the top end of the band, like the planeswalkers etc, I think it'll be important to trim out some of the lower-power cards, just to avoid degenerating into that VOW-like bomby gameplay. And I think it's still possible to preserve that slower, risk-reward gameplay that you're seeking.

Also, just a semantics point that might inform card selection, aggro/mid/control aren't really true penta archetypes at the RTR Standard-ish power level.
- Aggro is and/or with splash (I think you call that "pivot")
- Control is splashing
- Midrange is splashing
I'm not married to these exact breakdowns, but my point is that unless we're breaking the color pie, we won't see truly equal distribution of macro-archetypes among colors. Therefore, I think it's okay to have a color's effects be slanted towards one or the other macroarchetype.