What would I change if I were starting from scratch?
This thought literally came to me in a dream Saturday night. It's a question about sunk costs: The Force of Will that I want to justify owning. The name-stamped Collected Company I won at my LGS (the only tournament prize of my career). The Wrenn & Six a friend gave me. The sunk costs of effort and time investment, of wanting all these RTL posts to fit a cohesive narrative.
And yet, I'm not the same person who bought into those decisions. For example, I used to love Secret Lair arts and showcase frames, because they were new and special. In the six years since Project Booster Fun began and I bought my first
SLD, I've learned that bling can obscure rather than decorate, and that stylistic cohesion is also a goal that matters to me. Or, as another example, my cube's playgroup has expanded beyond my 2020-lockdown-era buddies, and with it, so has my desire to build an accessible and trivia-free format.
So, then, what does Theseus look like if it's built from scratch? Some seed crystals, in my mind:
Cheap dopes that are iconic from the '10s, but maybe showing their age in Constructed. Simple, yet appealing, like an apple pie. A little nostalgic, but mostly sweet.
Nobody builds a cube around cantrips and removal, so for my bread-n-butter noncritter stuff, I'll stick to three copies of
Path to Exile as my gold standard. (I still believe my complexity is better spent elsewhere.) And if I'm non-singleton, then differentiating the cards by their arts/frames seems fine... but the stylishness of art variation only exists in contrast to the original version. Half the fun is in tracing the lineage.
Mechanics? I love some of Magic's newest efforts -- Ward (has it really been 3 years?), Reconfigure, Surveil [deciduous edition]. But the perishable ideas, the Tempting Rings and Started Engines, are not stylistically backwards-compatible with the spells I really care about. So I think back to my favorite
"backbone mechanics". This cube's backbone, if anything, is typed nonbasic lands and fetchlands. It enables Domain (which I adore), Delirium (ditto), Delve (ditto), and surely some other mechanics that start with 'D', too. The tricolor spells that my fixing enables are dope. Maybe Planeswalkers are another backbone, as cool finishers that encourage combat-centric gameplay.
the sticking point
There's two categories I haven't yet considered: very old spells and very new ones.
Very new spells can be sweet. Territorial Kavu is well-known in Constructed, a throwback to a core mechanic, and isn't obnoxiously overpowered in a Draft format. Grief, also a cool throwback, and I like the free-spell element of the throwback (I'm taking it for granted that there will be very little Scam possibility here). Esper Sentinel is a flavor nod to the GOAT, and is dead simple to understand and play against. Lost Jitte is not as cool, but it's actually a goldilocks power level, and it connects Urza's Saga to Stoneforge Mystic (I've never liked Skullclamp).
The very old cards are further between, but the nostalgia is a huge benefit. Not many people get to play with Force or Daze in 1v1 any more, let alone Necro! And they contribute to the low-curve gameplay that Theseus' core cards support. But... is Wasteland "good" or "fair" gameplay? Is Reanimate? Am I even interested in good/fair? I'll come back to this in a sec.
theseus' thesis
A true classic doesn't stop being cool just because it has evolved. Something like that. I'll workshop it.
To break down what this exercise taught me: I like novelty in Magic when it recontextualizes the classics as I've defined them. New art for old classics is an awesome homage; new implementations of old mechanics likewise. But I have a very low desire for aesthetic or mechanical novelty in themselves -- memes, references, marginal power upgrades, word salad "synergy glue" cards. (To mix my nautical metaphors: I'm done rearranging deck furniture on the
Titanic Ship of Theseus. The patina of the lumber is what matters.)
If I were starting from scratch, I'd never call Theseus "my spin on an unpowered cube." Instead it is "a cube to highlight my chosen classics". Maybe "Modern Remastered" or something.
on power outliers
Ideally, of course, I'd want the classics above to be the upper eschelon of my cube's power. Some cards from the 2020s might have something to say about that... so it's cut 'em, or live with 'em.
Bowmasters: ugly as sin (frame, token, template), rate is only permissible because it was extruded through the Ugly Card Pipeline. Theseus isn't an unpowered cube, it is a cube meant to foreground the classics, and Bowmasters kills a lot of the classics without even trying.
Murktide: actually pretty cool. I mean, it's a Sultai dragon with Delve. However, the rate is absurd, and that's a concern if it obsoletes Snapcaster Mage or Tasigur or whatever.
Wasteland:
Delver of Secrets needs
small-game synergy to shine, and Daze/Wasteland/Force is a well-documented formula for its success (
@safra's done a lot of work here). Not sure if Wasteland in particular is too extreme -- I might try
Ghost Quarter. Idk.
Uro/Fable/Urza'sSaga/etc.etc.etc.: Ah yes, this cluster of "notorious power outliers with undeniable niches and synergies". On one hand, I won't miss them, because everyone else plays them. But that's not the true source of my ambivalence. If I want Snapcaster's body to be non-negligible, or Mantis Rider to be contextually humungous, then I need
small games with minimal resources. All these cards bust open the doors on resource acquisition, failing to preserve tension in small-game states. If my format needs a bogeyman, I'll revisit them, but for now I'm hoping to see people pick
Liliana of the Veil when they need grinding power.
the possibilities
All stone-cold sickos. All thrive in small games. Constructed pedigrees to one extent or another, emergent from Magic's larger evolution. And I happen to have a fair few of these already.
... wait, I could just play
Hardened Scales and no one can stop me...
peacelovecube
