MMA-style Cube

[Dom Harvey]

Given everyone's well-documented love of Modern Masters it seemed like a good starting point for a less powerful Cube, where interesting ideas that can't compete in a power-maxing Cube have a chance to shine. We have fewer constraints to work under than WotC did, not being bound by release dates (we can go pre-Mirrodin or post-Alara Reborn if we want to) or the need to (/not) reprint certain cards, and can fix whatever mistakes we think they made.

Here's a first draft: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/4148. There's a lot of stuff to work out (the lack of white and black sections and any coherence to green, for starters), but I wanted to get something down on paper.

Archetypes (dominant colours or subthemes in brackets):
W: ?
U: Faeries, spells matter, artifacts, mill, storm
B: GY matters
R: Goblins, Elementals, storm, Arcane
G: ?

WUBRG:
Arcane (U, R)
Elementals (R)
artifacts (U, W)
tribal (changeling)
Storm (U, R, artifacts, arcane, spells matter)
Domain

Notice the pervasiveness of blue and red, the two colours with the most distinct themes.

Alternatively, I want to look into designing this with the pyramid format I mentioned a while ago (cards arranged in 3-2-1 'sets', with the Cube containing 60/75/+ sets or fewer with some interlocking sets; an example is here).

 

[Eric Chan]

I came in here expecting a UFC-themed cube, complete with takedowns, submissions, gruesome knockouts, and blood all over the mat.

I.. I'll be over there, muttering to myself.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I don't have much to contribute yet ,but the ideas here aren't so different from stuff that went into the Eldrazi Domain cube. Balancing color representation is indeed a difficult challenge.

 

[Aoret]

I came in here expecting a UFC-themed cube, complete with takedowns, submissions, gruesome knockouts, and blood all over the mat.

I.. I'll be over there, muttering to myself.

I, too, expected some kind of bizarre theme-cube, complete with weird alternate card art/names and stuff. I was... relieved when I saw what the thread was actually about.

 

[Spiderdoofus]

After working at a similar idea and getting feedback here and MTGSalvation, I think that the general idea of MMA was great, but some of the archetypes were too isolated. The problem with something like Affinity/artifacts is that a high percentage of the cards are not good outside the archetype. I felt some of the other MMA themes, like goblins, sunburst, and dredge/graveyard didn't really come together that well either.

 

[Jason Waddell]

After working at a similar idea and getting feedback here and MTGSalvation, I think that the general idea of MMA was great, but some of the archetypes were too isolated. The problem with something like Affinity/artifacts is that a high percentage of the cards are not good outside the archetype. I felt some of the other MMA themes, like goblins, sunburst, and dredge/graveyard didn't really come together that well either.

This is a pretty solid reading of MMA.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Mind you it could be fixed. The question you have to ask yourself is weather the archetypes in MMA are the ones you want for your starting point.
We could make sunburst good, but do you like sunburst? Would it lead to good games?

 

[Spiderdoofus]

When I did this, I took each color pair and worked on a theme for each. I think an artifact theme is fine, but it would need more cards like Porcelain Legionnaire that are good elsewhere alongside a sprinkling of cards like Sanctum Gargoyle. The issue with sunburst was that the payoff wasn't big enough. There was no card that made me excited to play sunburst. Now if there was something like Maelstrom Nexus, that could be cool.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, I had the same deal when trying to put Sunburst in my Eldrazi cube. The cards just weren't there. I did put in the 3 mana sunburst Myr, but that was it.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Mono-Etched Oracle go

 

[Spiderdoofus]

Sunburst gets a bit of help from domain, but not so much. I think "five-color green" is an interesting archetype, but it doesn't need a lot to support it. Just good color fixing. The green player can then just pick up bombs and removal from other colors.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Or go deep and add Tromp the Domains, Ordered Migration and Spore Burst

 

[Jason Waddell]

In my Eldrazi cube, the main 5-color incentive cards were in blue, not green, FWIW

 

[Chris Taylor]

Green is a good enabler (Kodama's Reach Sakura tribe elder etc), since not everyone has ALL dual land manabase. It could be a color pair archetype, since you plan on getting all 5 colors anyways.

 

[Spiderdoofus]

Yeah I think that's probably the way to do it. Red makes a good pair because it has good domain stuff and RG ramp helps give red more depth than just all out aggro.