Meanderings at Castle Grayskull

[Heymaker]

I'm going to start off the my cube thread like below, and fill things in as I have time. I've just put this off for far too long and need to get something out there -- I imagine my cubers are getting impatient with the cube rework by this point...

As some background info, my perspective largely pulls from my interests in cognitive and behavioral psychology, evolutionary systems, and a love of making games since I was a wee kiddo. I unfortunately don't have the competitive experience many here have, playing largely Limited at FNM's for the past year or so. I do have some understanding of what kinds of metagaming goes on at high levels of competitive sports in general, but Magic has LOTS of intricacies I've yet to discover. In the end, I have a playgroup that probably falls right in the middle, bringing in folks from a couple steps in either extreme of the MTG experience spectrum.

My plan is to take the 20+ pages of notes I have on some of these topics, and translate them into guidelines as I decide what archetypes, and subsequently what cards, should be built into the cube. I guess you can think of this as my pre-process to listing out the 10 guild archetypes. Feel free to comment and add discussion posts as you see fit. I think I need this thread as a way to sort out my thoughts with the greater community and may keep this post as an ever-evolving outcome of that discussion. More to come!


Cube Design Philosophies

Mulligans/Hand-crafting

Combo

Card Advantage

Removal
Thoughts on ... "Resistance vs Immunity"

Aggro

Lands Section

Role of Artifacts/Enchantments

Theater Counterplay

Multifaceted Game Plans

"Playing the Opponent"

"Decks, not Cards"

"Games, not Matches"

"Risk as a Resource"

Fun vs. Competitiveness

Tension/Emotion in Drafting

Tension/Emotion in Game Play

Accounting for Limited's Shortcomings
Thoughts on ... http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetypes.874/#post-41011

Drafter/Player Education

EDIT: Removed the spoilers for now. Will add them back to sections if things get unwieldy.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

This promises to be amazing. Very much looking forward to it.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

This is really good. Take all of the time you need. Looking forward to the discussion.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Cool project idea!

 

[NimbusToad]

Maybe only make each item a spoiler once there is content? I'd like to read your thoughts on some of these but I don't think I'll come back through and check each spoiler a bunch of times.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Maybe only make each item a spoiler once there is content? I'd like to read your thoughts on some of these but I don't think I'll come back through and check each spoiler a bunch of times.

+1!

 

[Heymaker]

Maybe only make each item a spoiler once there is content? I'd like to read your thoughts on some of these but I don't think I'll come back through and check each spoiler a bunch of times.

Good call! I'm actually going to pose my thoughts as its own reply in this thread, so we can keep an ongoing conversation. I'm keeping the spoilers there as a summation of those conversations and a checklist of topics I want to touch on. Maybe a spoiler tag isn't the right tool for this because, like you, I wouldn't come back checking spoilers each and every time.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Good call! I'm actually going to pose my thoughts as its own reply in this thread, so we can keep an ongoing conversation. I'm keeping the spoilers there as a summation of those conversations and a checklist of topics I want to touch on. Maybe a spoiler tag isn't the right tool for this because, like you, I wouldn't come back checking spoilers each and every time.

Have the spoilers up there work as a table of contents and reply down here for the discussion

 

[Heymaker]

Something to add to the Lands Section this week!

Fixing in packs has always felt awkward. Getting good manabases into your decks involves dedicating large swaths of your cube list to lands and there doesn't seem to be an upper limit where it starts making things worse (outside of troublesome 5 color drafters and if their decks are even a problem, more fixing doesn't seem to hurt). Sometimes while drafting, luck is not on your side and fixing does not show up, shows up too early/late, or even better, you're in a fight to the death with another drafter(s) for it. While fixing shouldn't be left to pack 3, I also don't think committing to a color combination in pack 1 is a desirable thing. Rotating in and out of colors through pack 1 and somewhere into pack 2 is a good thing, at least, I enjoy the decisions! If you expect your players to commit to colors in pack 1, what good is upholding signaling as an ideal. Maybe moving all fixing into pack 2/3 is a solution, but I opted for an alternative.

So... I tried out an alternative land drafting mechanic over the weekend. I'm pretty excited by the results, despite introducing the mechanic as a half, fleshed-out idea requiring some impromptu designer creativity from my group. The mechanic goes as follows:

1. Remove your fixing lands from your cube. Burn them! Actually don't! Instead, put those lands neatly on a table sorted by guild like some folks were gonna rotisserie draft it or somethin'. I double up on Fetches, Shocks, and Bounces (for now), along with Filters, Fastlands, Painlands, and Scrylands (gonna double these too). The composition of these lands leaves a lot of room for experimentation, but this is what I have at the moment.
2. Back to your cube -- for whatever land count you removed, we're gonna replace them with "Land Tickets". These tickets indicate what color of fixing you can draft from the 'Rotisserie Table' (e.g. a Forest basic is good for a Gruul, Selesnya, Simic, or Golgari fixing). I used basic lands in place of these tickets and seems like folks caught on without much confusion. I kept in non-basic, non-fixing in the regular draft, so had to make that distinction. Oddly, this is the reverse of the Utility Land Draft(TM), but wanted to give this concept a go in isolation to avoid too much complexity in one go. (i.e. Fixing was on the Rotisserie Table -- Mutavault, Dryad Arbor, and friends were still in the regular draft). An extra little note, I DO use a semi-randomization method with my packs (include 2 of each of the 7 sections - WUBRG/Artifacts/Gold for each pack). Shuffle, move 4 cards to another pack, then garnish with 2 random fixing land tickets. So, 16 card packs this time around (normally 15).
3. Drafting commences, people try to evaluate this new mechanic, and pick up their fixing during the draft. In the end, we find a range of 1 or 10 fixing lands (didn't expect quite this spread, but definitely noted).
4. We ended up on designating the one who drafted the most lands to go first and working down to the drafter with fewest lands, wrapping around back after everyone got one pick in. Rotisserie draft until all Land Tickets have been used.
5. Enjoy!

I REALLY enjoyed this mechanic for drafting fixing. As a 2 color deck, I didn't feel shamed into drafting a third color so I could triple my fixing options during the draft. The land tickets maybe weren't as strong of signals for open color combinations as normal fixing lands, but that I feel is equally compensated for by their competition among other drafters (drafting tension around picking fixing vs. spells is commonly brought up when systems like ULD are brought up. I think an "appropriate" amount of tension is a good thing). There was a bit of debate around how the rotisserie should work (i.e. what is fair), and this was my fault for not fleshing out the mechanic completely. Ultimately, players just want to know how it works so they can do their calculus and maths to evaluate this absurd mini-game (Note to self: known variance and unknown variance are NOT equal, and players HATE unknown variance). Surprising, despite me actively NOT wanting this to involve rotisserie drafting (because of time, I thought), players seemed to come to this solution quite readily and there were virtually no hiccups!

There were ideas to genericize all land tickets retroactively to make sure people got the type of fixing they figured they could get while drafting the ticket; that is, a ticket was good for any old land on the table, in case their precious shockland was taken. This was a legitimate fear I didn't address when explaining the initial rules, so this was a surprise for folks that realized it afterwards (I know MaRo has said some words on players-and-surprises before). Ultimately, we stuck with what I outlined in the recipe above. I think there is a LOT of room to season to taste with this approach. Probably a critical component worth experimenting with is the player-to-fixing ratio. Players not getting exactly what they planned for isn't the WORST thing that could happen; you need this to help create some drafting tension during the rotisserie draft and drive player attention towards what others are drafting. Player engagement during rotisserie drafting can be tough to cultivate, so take it where you can get it.

There's a lot going on with this mechanic behind the scenes, in people's heads. Drafters are forced to evaluate a land ticket during the draft based on how it will play out during the rotisserie draft. This was/is a level I'm not capable of operating at, so still focused on taking lands where I felt the deck needed them. I think the draft rotation process helped people feel like they didn't get completely hosed since they could always get what they wanted round 1, but running dual shocks/fetches likely rendered that not-a-problem (I don't know how well I can evaluate land picks on the rotisserie table, but shocks > fetches >>> everything else, seems like my initial instinct). In the future, I'd likely include one set of ABU duals that require two lands instead of one, as a way for a drafter to 'pay for their fear'. Again, I think there is a lot of mixing and matching that needs to be done along with player count to get things feeling just right. With 8 players and the fixing I listed at the beginning, it didn't seem like there was too much competition. Upping the scarcity a little might not be a bad idea.

It's late, my writing as usual is slow, and any confusing grammar is a gift to you until I can reread this tomorrow with fresh eyes. Maybe this has seen variations implemented before, but I'd like to hear your thoughts! If it all, how has fixing been problematic in your environments? How do you go about making better decks without removing an (enjoyable) axis from the draft?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Quite a wall of text Heymaker, but this is a novel idea that I hadn't read about in exactly this form yet, though I know various "land tickets" have been proposed here in the past. Has anyone ever tried that out? If so, you should discuss the results

I was wondering about the player with the most tickets starting the rotisserie. While this is, in itself, a reward for picking the tickets highly, that player will already have the most fixing, do they also need the best fixing? I'ld be tempted to let the people with the least tickets pick first to ensure everyone has a good manabase. Either you have a few very strong fixers, or you have a wealth of slightly weaker options.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Great start to the thread! I'd considered replacing my cycles of lands with tickets: instead of passing Stomping Ground without a second thought as a UW drafter, you can now grab the 'shockland ticket' that you can cash in for Hallowed Fountain instead. I'm not sure how to handle conflicts between drafters short of just having enough copies of each cycle, but I think it's worth exploring. My implementation is perpendicular to yours: yours opens up strategic choices between lands as you have to choose, but that might make it too easy to put together the perfect manabase; mine still forces a specific choice, but ensures that choice is relevant to everyone.

 

[Rowan_CB]

One thought regarding determining the rotisserie order: You could sharpie a number on each ticket. When it's time to start the land draft, whoever as the ticket with the lowest number goes first, whoever has the ticket with the second-lowest number goes second, etc. This could add an extra element of tension to the draft (which maybe you don't want?) in that drafters may be enticed to move in on ticket with a low number, knowing it not only represents fixing, but likely premium fixing.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Proof of Concept?
I think the Ixlan flip frame is a good choice for these, but I'm not sold on the wording or the interaction between the watermark and text.
It also probably needs some art

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You don't need the text, the mana symbol is enough, I think. Also, "Land Ticket" is probably enough. You are going to explain this before every draft, so no need to explain everything in detail on the cards itself, right?

 

[Jonas]

I like this concept better than the utility land draft, my group had a hard time grasping that, and the logistics of it was kinda burdensome for some reason.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I also like that it's somewhat limited to colors, so you can't just grab every single one of these and have them all make your deck. Limiting it to a green land helps the brain a lot

I might worry about fetches in that regard though, since even a black white drafter could want almost any fetch land with the right duals

 

[Heymaker]

One thought regarding determining the rotisserie order: You could sharpie a number on each ticket. When it's time to start the land draft, whoever as the ticket with the lowest number goes first, whoever has the ticket with the second-lowest number goes second, etc. This could add an extra element of tension to the draft (which maybe you don't want?) in that drafters may be enticed to move in on ticket with a low number, knowing it not only represents fixing, but likely premium fixing.

Like minds, Rowan! Although in a slightly different form, I did come up with an idea I never tested out:


These were generic rotisserie draft tickets originally designed to be used for expanding narrow archetypes, but ultimately the numbers were intended to be used in the same fashion as what you proposed-- to determine pick order. I think the numbering system is excellent for a rotisserie draft system like this, in that it gives a rare-like feel to certain land cards should a player open one or be passed one. I think this ultimately comes back to how you curate your rotisserie list. If the rotisserie picks are widely available and possess little contention, the ticket number doesn't provide much influence; if picks are in high contention, the ticket numbers are highly relevant. Ultimately, I like mechanics like this because they tend to focus more on mere tuning rather than feasibility ("how can I tune this?" vs. "does this work at all?"). A side note and perhaps relevant to later topics, I prefer scaling mechanics when appropriate vs rigid, discrete mechanics (e.g. Removal: resistance vs immunity)

I like this concept better than the utility land draft, my group had a hard time grasping that, and the logistics of it was kinda burdensome for some reason.

Can I ask what was burdensome about it? Being the most averse skeptic in the room about rotisserie drafting that I am, what friction did you encounter with your playgroup? I'm trying to push back against my own idea a bit, despite how receptive my group seemed to be to it. I'm genuinely curious and want the worst of it you discovered.

I also like that it's somewhat limited to colors, so you can't just grab every single one of these and have them all make your deck. Limiting it to a green land helps the brain a lot

I might worry about fetches in that regard though, since even a black white drafter could want almost any fetch land with the right duals

My fear as well! What is the best (worst?) this black white drafter achieves by taking any fetch land? Is a particular deck/strategy favored by the availability of fetch lands with this system? Are naive drafters punished by having 'unexpected' competition? Is the Black White drafter making an unbalanced trade-off here, all things considered?
Also, if I steal that, I'm going to photoshop your 'signature' on each card

Great start to the thread! I'd considered replacing my cycles of lands with tickets: instead of passing Stomping Ground without a second thought as a UW drafter, you can now grab the 'shockland ticket' that you can cash in for Hallowed Fountain instead. I'm not sure how to handle conflicts between drafters short of just having enough copies of each cycle, but I think it's worth exploring. My implementation is perpendicular to yours: yours opens up strategic choices between lands as you have to choose, but that might make it too easy to put together the perfect manabase; mine still forces a specific choice, but ensures that choice is relevant to everyone.

This implementation did cross my mind at some point as well too, although I was probably inconsiderately dismissive of it simply because drafting a 'land type' (e.g. shock land) didn't guarantee you a color combo of fixing you needed. Certainly this is overcome by providing a number of each land that guarantees a given player that land type + color combo. The potential combinations certain make my wallet cry, aghast as a single player manages 4 of one type and having to prepare for that situation. Are there any additional stipulation/alteration that you thought of that help with the combinatorics of this?

Quite a wall of text Heymaker, but this is a novel idea that I hadn't read about in exactly this form yet, though I know various "land tickets" have been proposed here in the past. Has anyone ever tried that out? If so, you should discuss the results

I was wondering about the player with the most tickets starting the rotisserie. While this is, in itself, a reward for picking the tickets highly, that player will already have the most fixing, do they also need the best fixing? I'ld be tempted to let the people with the least tickets pick first to ensure everyone has a good manabase. Either you have a few very strong fixers, or you have a wealth of slightly weaker options.

Last but not least, this is probably the area I've overlooked most with no good reason tbh. I think either side of the coin depends on rotisserie composition (land type scarcity) -- at what point do I have to ask myself, "Is having too many tickets hurting my chances of getting the lands I need?" I think it would take a LOT to approach that point. In reverse, I think we DO have folks asking themselves much sooner, "do I need to draft more lands JUST so I can get the kind fixing I have in mind?".

I like your proposal more though upon gut inspection, because I think it changes the internal dialogue towards the opposite spectrum. As a drafter of few lands, I'm probably asking myself, "I got one/two land tickets, but they're good for the type of lands that really matter to my deck" (I think filter and bounce lands have a narrow audience that appreciate this). The drafter of many lands reassures themselves, "Phew, I've got the fixing/splashes that I need. We'll see how flexible I can be about picking up some interesting land interactions with some of my spells." I'd rather players feel some satisfaction in their predicament (with the potential for improvement next time), than feeling cheated and contentious in future drafts towards the system. Individual games of magic should probably introduce some polarization, but I like to keep that out of the drafting/deck-building phases.

Thank you all for the contributions thus far! It sure beats getting dismissive comments on other forums about how "that system could never work" or "That's not how cube was intended! The cube bible reads...".
I've got some future discussion planned for "Fun vs. Competitiveness" since I've found cube arguments devolve to a point where this topic gets glossed over. Largely, its a topic about gaming systems/metas and how little that happens in some (most?) groups. I feel this is worth laying out clearly early on, as it helps refine arguments to be more readily applied to one's own playgroup. That is to say, some of our groups like drafting stupid, dumb, fucking-fun-to-play/witness decks by drafters who haven't given a second thought to clearly-pack-1-pick-1 cards and, in addition, won't "come around" to those clear-p1p1 cards in future drafts. With the sea of ideation as broad as it is, I think this helps keep those ideas and arguments grounded to "will someone abuse this?" rather than "when someone abuses this...".

(Awkward end-of-post, "thank you... again")

 

[Jonas]

Can I ask what was burdensome about it? Being the most averse skeptic in the room about rotisserie drafting that I am, what friction did you encounter with your playgroup? I'm trying to push back against my own idea a bit, despite how receptive my group seemed to be to it. I'm genuinely curious and want the worst of it you discovered.

We tried to use ULD with, iirc, 2 picks between each pack, but players didn't really grok the concept at first, and people started passing new packs around before drafting lands in it got a bit weird, which is obviously just a matter of not being used to it, but it screwed things up anyway. When players did remember that we were supposed to draft the lands, it took a lot of time, since most people didn't have time to look at the lands in between packs, there was a lot of reading on cards and took a long time deciding, to the point that people just took a random land that was in their colour/s, without really looking at the colorless lands, which kinda defeated the point a little bit. I liked the idea but the execution in my group was lacking.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

We tried to use ULD with, iirc, 2 picks between each pack, but players didn't really grok the concept at first, and people started passing new packs around before drafting lands in it got a bit weird, which is obviously just a matter of not being used to it, but it screwed things up anyway. When players did remember that we were supposed to draft the lands, it took a lot of time, since most people didn't have time to look at the lands in between packs, there was a lot of reading on cards and took a long time deciding, to the point that people just took a random land that was in their colour/s, without really looking at the colorless lands, which kinda defeated the point a little bit. I liked the idea but the execution in my group was lacking.

The funny thing is, I abandoned the ULD because it was burdensome as well. People in my playgroup got it though, they knew what to look for, but they still had to think things over because the blue player in front of them snatched up the Shelldock Isle. All in all it cost more time than I liked, plus it messed with the natural flow of the draft. In the end I decided to just cut utility lands completely from my cube. There's literally only mana fixing in there at the moment. As a consequence, I was able to cut all dedicated land destruction from my cube that I had to put in there before to give players an option to combat things like Gavony Township taking over the game. This made room for a handful of cards to better flesh out themes in my cube. I don't really miss the utility lands, though some players have indicated they do. I might add in some of the tamer options to the main cube if I can find the room, stuff like Tree Top Village, Memorial to Folly, and the like.

 

[James Stevenson]

These were generic rotisserie draft tickets originally designed to be used for expanding narrow archetypes

I've always kinda wanted to do the same thing, a "Utility Everything Draft" (UED). You could throw all these wacky cards in there like Jeskai ascendency or Doomsday.

But maybe, rather than do a rotisserie draft with these cards, these "god pharoah's gift-shop" tokens could work more like Booster Tutor. When you pick one, you shuffle up the UED stack, make a pack from it, and then make a pick. This way, you don't have to add a whole new stage to the drafting process, you can just handle it during the draft. And because everything is shuffled and hidden, it doesn't matter who drafts a UED token faster or slower than anyone else. It's also mysterious, you don't know what your getting, and nobody else knows what spicy thing you picked up for your deck.

Anyway, I'm liking the meanderings over here at castle cubenstein

 

[Chris Taylor]

My fear as well! What is the best (worst?) this black white drafter achieves by taking any fetch land? Is a particular deck/strategy favored by the availability of fetch lands with this system? Are naive drafters punished by having 'unexpected' competition? Is the Black White drafter making an unbalanced trade-off here, all things considered?
Also, if I steal that, I'm going to photoshop your 'signature' on each card

I'm not worried about it being a fetchland specifically, I'm worried about the black/white drafter taking green fixing away from the green drafter

Like I feel like the total number of green lands someone not splashing green might want has gone up. If before you had 2/6 lands were fetchlands, now hypothetically 6/6 could be fetchlands, and will probably be picked at a commensurate rate.
That being said I do think this is still worth it, even if that's the one hiccup.

Also if you do want to use these just let me know, that was like 30s of work while I was on my break, I can actually just put actual accreditation on these

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thank you all for the contributions thus far! It sure beats getting dismissive comments on other forums about how "that system could never work" or "That's not how cube was intended! The cube bible reads...".
I've got some future discussion planned for "Fun vs. Competitiveness" since I've found cube arguments devolve to a point where this topic gets glossed over. Largely, its a topic about gaming systems/metas and how little that happens in some (most?) groups. I feel this is worth laying out clearly early on, as it helps refine arguments to be more readily applied to one's own playgroup. That is to say, some of our groups like drafting stupid, dumb, fucking-fun-to-play/witness decks by drafters who haven't given a second thought to clearly-pack-1-pick-1 cards and, in addition, won't "come around" to those clear-p1p1 cards in future drafts. With the sea of ideation as broad as it is, I think this helps keep those ideas and arguments grounded to "will someone abuse this?" rather than "when someone abuses this...".

(Awkward end-of-post, "thank you... again")

Generally, I've found that when people are being introduced to new ideas, they are more interested in what the idea means to them, within the context of what they are already doing. If I'm running a format structure that everyone is already happy with, there is very little to gain by introducing a new variable that has to be evaulated. On the other hand, if you have a group that is perhaps getting bored with things, than suddenly adding in something new could help renew their interest.

Another thing, is that I understand that these are fairly complicated ideas that you are trying to work through, so maybe not all of the language is as refined, or articulate as it could be. As a result your idea might come across as incoherent or difficult to understand, and they just don't want to put the time in to grok it. I don't think its fair to just reflexively dismiss it on that basis, and its better to give you an oppertunity to work through the problem. I'm sorry you ran into that in other places.

But anyways, I don't think its any secret that the chief issue with any sub-draft is going to be the complexity and time that it adds, which nicely ties back to your interest in cognitive and behavioral psychology. The fact that your group voluntarily reverted to a rotisserie draft system is interesting.

So a few questions:

1. Does your group have a general preference to lean towards static consistent format structures they can learn and maximize, or do they lean more towards changing variables that open up creative possibilities?
2. Do they just really like rotisserie drafting, or perhaps the sub-game of drafting itself?
3. Does your group fluctuate a lot? Do you have people new to the game or is it mostly veterns?

If you think of the draft itself as being a fun game, a game riveling or approximating the pleasure of playing magic itself, than picking a colorful, visually appealing ticket card, to open the gates to another (different but fun) draft experience, should be appealing. At least I would think.

 

[Heymaker]

Generally, I've found that when people are being introduced to new ideas, they are more interested in what the idea means to them, within the context of what they are already doing. If I'm running a format structure that everyone is already happy with, there is very little to gain by introducing a new variable that has to be evaulated. On the other hand, if you have a group that is perhaps getting bored with things, than suddenly adding in something new could help renew their interest.

Another thing, is that I understand that these are fairly complicated ideas that you are trying to work through, so maybe not all of the language is as refined, or articulate as it could be. As a result your idea might come across as incoherent or difficult to understand, and they just don't want to put the time in to grok it. I don't think its fair to just reflexively dismiss it on that basis, and its better to give you an oppertunity to work through the problem. I'm sorry you ran into that in other places.

But anyways, I don't think its any secret that the chief issue with any sub-draft is going to be the complexity and time that it adds, which nicely ties back to your interest in cognitive and behavioral psychology. The fact that your group voluntarily reverted to a rotisserie draft system is interesting.

So a few questions:

1. Does your group have a general preference to lean towards static consistent format structures they can learn and maximize, or do they lean more towards changing variables that open up creative possibilities?
2. Do they just really like rotisserie drafting, or perhaps the sub-game of drafting itself?
3. Does your group fluctuate a lot? Do you have people new to the game or is it mostly veterns?

If you think of the draft itself as being a fun game, a game riveling or approximating the pleasure of playing magic itself, than picking a colorful, visually appealing ticket card, to open the gates to another (different but fun) draft experience, should be appealing. At least I would think.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Grillo! To be clear, I haven't personally run into these dismissive comments myself, but they exist in plenty after having read many of them elsewhere (no need to name names/places). That said, I'm extremely grateful for the cube group I have. They are willing to give honest feedback when asked, and also willing to give my new 'experiments' a fair shot. Can't really ask for much more than that.

1. Does your group have a general preference to lean towards static consistent format structures they can learn and maximize, or do they lean more towards changing variables that open up creative possibilities?

I'd lean towards the latter here. While a subset of the group certainly prefers competitive elements that require some static format elements, I'd say universally they like creative drafting and deckbuilding opportunities (especially when that creativity is rewarded as competitive advantage).

2. Do they just really like rotisserie drafting, or perhaps the sub-game of drafting itself?

It's tough to say, but perhaps it plays in to your first sentence in your reply; we've always picked up fixing in the main draft. This time around when we added in the land tickets, players felt they had significantly more control over their manabase. Since we didn't determine how we'd cash in the tickets before the draft, it didn't add much more thought to drafting (in reality, I was just kicking the can down the road). I don't know that I'll be able to answer this question with confidence until this coming Friday though.

3. Does your group fluctuate a lot? Do you have people new to the game or is it mostly veterns?

I'd say we have a core group of 6-7, with a rotation of 1-6 others depending; so groups of 6-8 at the low end to 10-12+ some weeks. And I'd say we occasionally have 1-2 that are fairly new (at least comparatively). During those weeks, we usually try an alternate format (team sealed, two-headed giant, etc) that helps with some intimidation of drafting and 1-v-1 play. This also helps keep things a bit fresh too. In addition, I do have a penny pincher cube variant that we rotate in every 3rd cube night I'd say. We have been cubing every other Friday for about 6-7 months now, if that helps.

Ultimately, I'm going to continue working with the land ticket draft, iterating until we reach an implementation that works best for the core group (given the size of our core group) and subsequently massage it to work for new comers as well. It helps for newbies that the rotisserie portion is a group activity and that they can mimic their neighbor or openly ask questions throughout the process. I'll update here how things go and if folks want to branch off of this 'land ticket' approach, I could setup a separate thread somewhere else.

I'm not worried about it being a fetchland specifically, I'm worried about the black/white drafter taking green fixing away from the green drafter

Like I feel like the total number of green lands someone not splashing green might want has gone up. If before you had 2/6 lands were fetchlands, now hypothetically 6/6 could be fetchlands, and will probably be picked at a commensurate rate.
That being said I do think this is still worth it, even if that's the one hiccup.

Also if you do want to use these just let me know, that was like 30s of work while I was on my break, I can actually just put actual accreditation on these

Okay, I got it. Green tickets that are going around during the draft are getting picked up by anyone that wants an off-color fetch, in addition to the drafters legitimately wanting that green ticket because, well, they're actually playing green. This makes perfect sense and in honesty, I had to reread your post a few times to come to that insight, so I may be missing your point in part/altogether if there's more there.

Fetchlands have always been kind of odd for me; there's this weird shock/dual + fetch dance folks are doing during the draft, as valuations of fetches/shocks/duals fluctuates depending on prior land picks. Part of me wouldn't mind getting rid of fetches altogether, but they have so many cool (some incidental) interactions with decks. I realize some come from the Vintage/Legacy/Modern scenes, so can't imagine living without them. My playgroup and myself, not so much (none, maybe?).

As you said, Chris, this is a hiccup. If I ever removed fetches, this wouldn't be the main reason for doing so. I could see categorizing them differently as a 'utility land ticket' or just keeping them in the main draft entirely. Those are small iteration-worthy tweaks to try week to week, but I may pay close attention to this next draft and see if folks have caught on (or when they do/if they do).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Keeping fetches in the draft, and all other lands available through the ticket system, actually sounds like a pretty swell idea I imagine the value of tickets rises once you've drafted a fetchland or two as well. Though you have to be careful to make sure someone with a fetch and a ticket actually gets to draft a fetchable dual or it's going to be pretty feel bad.

 

[Chris Taylor]

It's also possible this ticket system works best in a more bounceland/temple/refuge style cube.