General Measuring your cubes power level

[Meltyman]

I've been thinking about the power level of my cube a lot lately, but i haven't come to a conclusion if it's powered, close to powered, 'normal' power, low power or what ever.

I figured could you measure this factor by showing your cubes, say top 10 or top 5 first picks by color, land, artifact and multicolor section?

What about top and bottom 10 or 5 first picks or something between those lines?
Maybe just top 10 best and worst cards per section, but i think that is almost the same as first pick material?
Top 5 creature and non-creature in color and artifact sections?

Would anyone else be interested in making a such list from my cube, with the reward of me also making the same effort for your cube?

Somehow i think this info could give a better overall impression to people who haven't played or seen your cube...

What do you chaps and chapettes think?

Edit: also this info in theory should give ideas what to cut from your cube.

 

[Eric Chan]

There was a thread on the cube subreddit a while back that tried to address this issue with something they called the 'Serra Number' - the pick number in which you would take Serra Angel in a pack.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/2qrd09/what_is_your_cubes_serra_number/

I think this is a great idea, because it gets everyone speaking the same language, and has a scale with fifteen discrete points on it. It may be a little crude - you won't be able to tell how fast the format is, whether it's synergy heavy or synergy light, and whether it's primarily tempo-based or attrition-based - but, in my mind, it's a lot more helpful than the conventional powered vs. unpowered binary choice.

My only modification to that rating system would be to switch the actual card, Serra Angel, out for something that actually scales across all manner of cubes. My own cube isn't high powered by any stretch of the imagination, but it still has a Serra Number of either 14 or 15. If most of the Riptide cubes fall in the spectrum between 13 and 15, then the scale needs to be recalibrated. I think a middle-of-the-road value creature, such as Acidic Slime, Skinrender, or Merfolk Looter, would provide a better metric. These cards tend to be very high picks in the limited formats they appear in, very low picks in traditional 'powered' cubes, and somewhere in between for a cube like mine (they'd probably all fall between 5th and 9th pick here). Serra Number is a catchy name, no question, but probably not the best barometer of power in this day and age.

 

[sigh]

"slime number" ain't half bad for a name. I do like that method very much. It's a scale you can actually gather empirical data on, which makes it pretty attractive to me. Taking it a step up, a cube power level could be measured with an index:

• Looter Number
• Slime Number
• Skinrender Number
• Valorous Stance?
• Average em up, or whatever fancy statistics

 

[Chris Taylor]

I've always thought of power level as a function of how much time players have to react to problems. For example, how quickly are people dying in your cube?

the highest powered cubes (Pure Combo) have reaction times of probably 2 turns on the high end. You play memory jar, pass, and then kill the turn after. It's possible to kill from nothing but lands in play, like with splinter twin.

Now from some of the higher powered but fair magic type environments (Like my own, and ye olde "Unpowered" cube) maybe your opponent goes T1 goblin guide, T2 Plated Geopede, and you might only have 4 turns total from start to finish, though 5 is probably more likely. You need to be casting things, and even the control and ramp decks are packed with cheap spells for fear of dying before they get off the ground.

In the more pauper-centric environments (Which I'll admit I've literally never played) you've usually got a bit more time before you're dead. Goblin Guide and Stromkirk Noble kill faster than Goblin Sledder, for the most part. You've got time to grind out value from Bouncelands and Scrylands, and you don't feel really nervous running a land that enters tapped because delaying your mana slightly isn't going to be life and death (though there is a cost)

Then from there we go down to old limited (Like if you go and do Arabian Nights sealed you monster), where so few cards in a given deck actually contribute to ending a game that you've got TOO MUCH time. You've got 1 terror and they have 1 serra angel and there's no reason to cast that terror on anything else in their deck because you've got all the time in the world, and that serra angel has all the time in the world to kill you because your deck doesn't do anything either. All the tolarian drakes and Abby Matrons in the world are not going to attack a player to death before they draw out of their problems.

A scale of 1-15 helps me a lot less than these four categories and the overlap space between them.

 

[Eric Chan]

You have to be careful about simply measuring the speed of a format, versus the power of a format. As an example, triple Zendikar is probably the fastest format in the last decade, and perhaps of all time; you don't have a lot of time to react if your opponent goes Surrakar Marauder, Mindless Null, Disfigure your best guy. Meanwhile, Rise of the Eldrazi is possibly the slowest format of the last decade, and gives both players plenty of answers to problem permanents of all shapes and sizes. Is triple Zendikar of a higher power level than Rise of the Eldrazi? I would argue no, and further, that the power level of both formats was dwarfed by that of the preceding format, full block Alara draft.

That's not to say that measuring the speed of a format, or how tempo-based it is, can't be useful, because those are important metrics as well. However, power level exists independently of the speed of the format. Think of one as an X-axis, and the other as a Y-axis.

 

[sigh]

You have to be careful about simply measuring the speed of a format, versus the power of a format. As an example, triple Zendikar is probably the fastest format in the last decade, and perhaps of all time; you don't have a lot of time to react if your opponent goes Surrakar Marauder, Mindless Null, Disfigure your best guy. Meanwhile, Rise of the Eldrazi is possibly the slowest format of the last decade, and gives both players plenty of answers to problem permanents of all shapes and sizes. Is triple Zendikar of a higher power level than Rise of the Eldrazi? I would argue no, and further, that the power level of both formats was dwarfed by that of the preceding format, full block Alara draft.

That's not to say that measuring the speed of a format, or how tempo-based it is, can't be useful, because those are important metrics as well. However, power level exists independently of the speed of the format. Think of one as an X-axis, and the other as a Y-axis.

Taking this way of thinking about it, you can actually measure and plot the cubes performance on both axes, with Upper right being fastest and very powerful, etc etc.

 

[Chris Taylor]

You have to be careful about simply measuring the speed of a format, versus the power of a format. As an example, triple Zendikar is probably the fastest format in the last decade, and perhaps of all time; you don't have a lot of time to react if your opponent goes Surrakar Marauder, Mindless Null, Disfigure your best guy. Meanwhile, Rise of the Eldrazi is possibly the slowest format of the last decade, and gives both players plenty of answers to problem permanents of all shapes and sizes. Is triple Zendikar of a higher power level than Rise of the Eldrazi? I would argue no, and further, that the power level of both formats was dwarfed by that of the preceding format, full block Alara draft.


That's not to say that measuring the speed of a format, or how tempo-based it is, can't be useful, because those are important metrics as well. However, power level exists independently of the speed of the format. Think of one as an X-axis, and the other as a Y-axis.

That's true, though I'll place most of the high power level pedestal on the Third Set. The first two sets play like Khans limited, slightly faster, but with no fixing whatsoever*. Alara Reborn, on the other hand, is terrifying

I'm not wholly measuring the speed though. Imagine the hypothetical cube where players curves start at 4 (Say, EDH cube) and every creature hits as hard as hero of bladehold. That's your baseline aggro creature. That's a high power format, since that base aggro creature kills in 3 turns (2 with haste), but it's not a fast format. Decks from zendikar out speed it clearly, even though they're less powerful. Mother of Runes is a very high power card, though it's not a fast card at all.

Speed is a useful shorthand for determining the effectiveness of an individual card. Think in terms of how much time goblin guide loses your opponent, and how much time skinrender buys you, though it's not always that clear cut.

Thinking about how effective every card in your enviornment is at accomplishing the goals of a player quickly becomes overwhelming, and is likely what brought us to this question in the first place, so I figure if you can pinpoint which of those 4 your cube is closest to, you can start to get a better idea what cards mesh with the overall vision, and what formats to go looking to for inspiration.

*You can argue the set has the panoramas and Obelisks, but I'd counter with the point that fixing only counts if it's playable. Having 5 times as many unknown shores in the format is not helping anyone, and the banners were shit even in a format that was intentionally slowed down to make grey ogre a viable turn 3 play.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

In the more pauper-centric environments (Which I'll admit I've literally never played) you've usually got a bit more time before you're dead. Goblin Guide and Stromkirk Noble kill faster than Goblin Sledder, for the most part. You've got time to grind out value from Bouncelands and Scrylands, and you don't feel really nervous running a land that enters tapped because delaying your mana slightly isn't going to be life and death (though there is a cost)

Yes and no. The actual individual power level of cards tend to be weaker, but thats across the board. Because individual cards are less impactful, its much more difficult to crawl yourself out of a hole with any individual piece if you start to fall behind. Thats really the big difference.

Measured by rate of closing out the game, actual pauper (which I realize we aren't really talking about but I think it has an at least ancillary connection with the concept) can be brutally fast. The kiln fiend deck can kill turns 3-4 consistently, infect can kill turns 2-4, goblins by turn 5, elves turns 4-5: and these are off of fairly normal draws.

To tie that concept into cube, you can look at this grid draft (and I think grid drafts are more durdly than normal cube drafts). M1G2 is a turn 5 kill, M2G1 is a virtual turn three kill, M2G3 is another turn 5 kill. Obviously, if I wanted to up the format kill speed, it wouldn't be terribly difficult, even with commons and uncommons, I just choose not to.

More significantly, because its harder to crawl yourself out of a hole, you can get into game states where the game is effectively over, but it goes on for <x> turns (this is my big complaint with pauper gameplay); that back breaking play can happen very early in the game, and is a direct function of the low power level of the cards. Effective disruption can be tantamount to a kill in a lot of situations. That makes it more difficult to use game length as a metric when measuring when a game ended in low power formats.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yes and no. The actual individual power level of cards tend to be weaker, but thats across the board. Because individual cards are less impactful, its much more difficult to crawl yourself out of a hole with any individual piece if you start to fall behind. Thats really the big difference.

Measured by rate of closing out the game, actual pauper (which I realize we aren't really talking about but I think it has an at least ancillary connection with the concept) can be brutally fast. The kiln fiend deck can kill turns 3-4 consistently, infect can kill turns 2-4, goblins by turn 5, elves turns 4-5: and these are off of fairly normal draws.

To tie that concept into cube, you can look at this grid draft (and I think grid drafts are more durdly than normal cube drafts). M1G2 is a turn 5 kill, M2G1 is a virtual turn three kill, M2G3 is another turn 5 kill. Obviously, if I wanted to up the format kill speed, it wouldn't be terribly difficult, even with commons and uncommons, I just choose not to.

More significantly, because its harder to crawl yourself out of a hole, you can get into game states where the game is effectively over, but it goes on for <x> turns (this is my big complaint with pauper gameplay); that back breaking play can happen very early in the game, and is a direct function of the low power level of the cards. Effective disruption can be tantamount to a kill in a lot of situations. That makes it more difficult to use game length as a metric when measuring when a game ended in low power formats.

this could also be a function of pauper constructed vs pauper limited, since in constructed your options are less constrained and you're incentivized to come up with something your opponent can't interact with easily, something most cube designers tend to avoid.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

this could also be a function of pauper constructed vs pauper limited, since in constructed your options are less constrained and you're incentivized to come up with something your opponent can't interact with easily, something most cube designers tend to avoid.

Its less an issue of interaction, or rate that you can kill someone, as it is an issue of the individual cards being unable to carry games in the same way that higher power cards do. You just can't expect a lower power card to turn the game around for you, so the consequences of falling behind are a lot more severe. There is nothing inherent in commons or uncommons, which says the game must go any longer than with rares or mythics, it just is that the way commons/uncommons go about achieving that is different, relying on a critical mass to make up for the lessened individual power of the cards, which in turn makes them easier to disrupt.

The idea you're talking about seems more like tempo? which can effect how condensed a format is, and even there I would say low power formats can be as much or more condensed than high power formats. Its just up to what the designer wants.

 

[Eric Chan]

Right - I would put the dreaded tempo on the third axis when it comes to basic cube definition. On one end, you have cubes where comebacks are nearly impossible, and as soon as someone ekes out a small advantage, that tends to snowball through the rest of the game into an unsurmountable lead. Note that this has nothing to do with speed. The initial tiny advantage could take place on turn one or two, while lethal damage might not be applied for another ten or twelve turns.

On the far end of the same spectrum, you have cubes where players have answers to almost every imaginable situation, and no single creature, enchantment, artifact, or planeswalker will spell your doom, because the answer's there in your hand or just a card or two down. Haymakers are common, but then again, so are bigger haymakers, and comebacks are not only plentiful, but happen multiple times per game. While there may be some correlation here with slower cubes, there doesn't necessarily have to be; there could be some theoretical format where the average game length is six turns, but the turning point of any given game doesn't come down to pressing your small advantage into a bigger one.

This is why I'd be careful to define any shorthand for a cube's 'power level', without really understanding what you're measuring. Chances are, any shortcut will conflate power, speed, and tempo, when they really are three independent axes. For any given cube, speed is probably the easiest to measure, if you wanted to, simply by recording average game length. Power is probably the next easiest, and one possible metric would be a pick number of one of the cards I suggested above. Tempo is likely the hardest to measure - and I'm afraid to even try, lest we need to define tempo again before we can gauge it.