General Mix and Match Cube

[negativeview]

For every color I have three or four mechanics that I want to see in the cube. They don't fit. Because of that, cuts are hard and I can't seem to settle on a mechanic.

My wife got me this box for the cube (it's doesn't QUITE fit unfortunately): http://dicegamedepot.com/dragon-shield-4-compartment-storage-box-green/

The fact that the boxes come in like 12 different colors and are separated into 4 sections got me thinking though...

What if I got the blue version and made four different blue sections. And I did the same for the other four colors. Maybe also for artifacts/multicolor/land (probably not land).

Then, before a draft players can collectively decide which one of each color gets used, or roll dice to decide, etc.

It has some obvious design challenges (cross-color mechanics, for instance) but has anyone tried it out?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I have not tried it out, but the idea does make me think a couple of things:

This cube is basically impossible to have properly balanced and fully interactive.

HOWEVER that is not particularly important in this case. With the huge number of different combinations you can make, the challenge of playing this cube is to figure out how a particular set of modules is unbalanced and figuring out how to use that to your advantage.

In a way, its like the cube will be perpetually in the development stage, which I think has some charge because that stage is a lot of fun. Its filled with lots of unknowns and questions and swinginess (but swinginess in an unoffensive "I had no idea that would happen" way, rather then the obnoxious "I totally designed that to happen" way), but some people I play with find that the best part of cubing, so I can definitely see the charm.

What sort of mechanics did yo have in mind?

 

[anotak]

it sounds like it would be logistically a pain to separate each section and reshuffle every time

 

[negativeview]

FlowerSunRain: You nailed my own feelings on the head. In fact, it was at least partially this sometimes-good-sometimes-bad thing that inspired it, as you'll see in the second paragraph.

As for mechanics, blue is the section that has the most ideas so far. I like +1/+1 counters, which is largely a blue green strategy, but there's plenty in mono blue as well. I also like spells matter with things like Talrand, Mnemonic Wall, Snapcaster Mage, etc. I also like blue's love of recurring effects on not entirely efficient bodies. Artifacts matters also sounds like fun. One of the inspirations was realizing that red has Pyroclasm, black has Infest (or now that upgrade since I pulled one), etc. With those types of cards, I'll never be able to rock things like Elite Arcanist. But what if, sometimes, there weren't many spells that could efficiently wipe your board and sometimes they were all over the place?

anotak: Since mine is still under heavy construction AND we don't have a completely regular playgroup I tend to separate them to tweak between each session anyway. It's more committing to what I'm already doing for the long haul rather than adding more work on myself. I don't currently find it too much trouble, though that might change over time.

 

[negativeview]

We have a draft tomorrow, so I'm likely to do at least the first rough pass at making this into my cube today/tonight.

At first I thought that I wouldn't do lands, but after thinking about it, I think lands are possibly the single most important one to do.

The problem I've been having with lands so far is that it's hard to shove all the lands I want into the space I want to give lands. Black/Red gets a shock land because that color is usually aggro, but then I can't justify putting in a durdly black red utility land in there...

One land pod could be all aggressive lands -- ABU duals (if I owned them), shocks, fetches, etc. Another could be heavily rainbow lands to enable those crazy five-color good stuff decks. A third could provide no fixing but be entirely utility lands that you'd usually have take up a spell slot. Hmmm...