Multiplayer (Choose your own archetype)- 540 Cards

[Enki]

Dear community

At first I´m from germany, so please don´t judge me to much for my grammar mistakes. If something is unclear just text me

The List: Take a look here ->: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/24065

The Idea: Have a nonconventional cube for multiplayer experiences. I play a lot Commander and other Casual formats like my dudes. In general name is programm. Choose your own archetypes means that you should be able to play anything you like. Advantage a great variety of decks (in theory). Disadvantage drafting is a bit complicated for two of our less experienced players and strategy (like http://magiccards.info/c14/en/50.html are not always supported well.

Our meta: In general we are 4-6 players, sometimes we are 8. We have two more experienced players, which have/had a great time in the tournament scene (especially Vintage) and one (two) noobs that never learned (although we tried it) to play MTG well. At first I build a Tribal cube, which was fun for a few times but limited to a few archetypes and the drafting was pretty basic. For example: First pick
Goblin Piledriver -> draft all goblins/burn/a few removals
-> We play 1-2 per week (sometimes during term/semester we play on rare occasions)

The problems: Besides that I don´t know how to link the card names? (Would be great if someone could tell me)
-> The cube in it´s current form performs pretty well and is fun to draft, but....
1) I want to integrate Aggro! Most of the decks end up as Controldecks. I read about a ratio of 31 Aggro:Midrange:Control cards but this refers to an ordinary cube like everybody else (besides a few sentimal cards) is playing

2) Should I make clear, which strategies/archetypes can be played? I always hated cards that press you in a certain area (like Goblin Piledriver)

3) Is the ratio creature/non-creature spell ok? In general I should be about 50/60-50/40 creature-noncreaturespells

4) Should I integrate certain tribes? I have the most important cards for goblins/elves/merfolk (besides True-Name-Nemesis)/Vampires/Zombies and so on

I need:
a) Volunteers, which draft a few decks (see above) to get more information/data to analyse

b) Links/Informations, how to build a multiplayercube

c) Your opinions on card choices. I have of cause just a limited perspective and can´t see everything

What do you need?:
If you need any information at all you can text me. E.g. my budget as a student is limited but I have a big cardpool with a lot of important cards.

I´m grateful for every help.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

What type of multiplayer do you usually play?

As for aggro, you are going to have to make some pretty extensive changes. Right now you have basically no 1 drops, a small selection of (generally non-aggro 2 drops) and than a huge glut of 4s. You also have the full signet selection, lots of ramp, and powerful ETB midrange cards that can be ramped out for board control.

There are also some power variance which could be smoothed out: e.g. basilica guards in the same format as grave titan.

A good place to start would be to look at both of these articles, which will give you a solid theoretical background of the problems behind aggro design, and than walks you through a few examples of making appealing, interesting aggro decks. You can than brainstorm some ideas to look at.

 

[Enki]

Thanks, for your comment. We play Free-For-All

I know the Aggrotype is not existing. Later I will write with the absolute basic stuff, that I definitely want to stay in the cube. Basilica Guards and Grave Titan are for a different kind of deck. The guards performed pretty well. Of course Grave Titan is a different power level and fit into multiple decks simply as goodstuff.

I will read a few more articles and then brainstorm some ideas, maybe some archetypes that I want to have. In general the cube works pretty well, besides that one game takes 2-3 hours. And sometimes (like yesterday) a player goes simply deckout, without anybody forcing mill.

How can I link a card?
It would be helpful to find cards to cut! But I guess it is pretty difficult without knowledge of the different archetypes that I try to support
I don´t know if you heard of the ASFAN-Value? In general it contains the basic information about how many removal should be in one booster
My problem is here how many spot- and pointremoval do I need? At the moment I have to many spotremoval and to few pointremoval

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

If you look at the links in my sig, those are all cubes that we sometimes do 3-4 player free for all multiplayer with. The penny cube will have long games that sometimes go for about 1 hour (and thats a pretty grindy cube), but the innistrad theme is aggressive enough where you are looking at about 20-30 minutes a game I would say.

This link describes how to link cards.

One thing that I find really extends out multi-player games is having too many sweepers. Players would essentially always use them as reset buttons for when they were losing, and since you have so many players, even if you wipe your own board, they are seldom card disadvantage. The games would become very long and attrition focused.

One thing you have to keep in mind, is that multiplayer, in many ways, enables bad deck building (and gameplay) due to politics. You can build a defective deck, but through good politics, can still win a game. Games can be very swingy for that reason. Thats probably part of why you are running cards like the titans alongside jeskai barricade, lobber crew, and basilica guards and not seeing the problem.

You also have some prison cards like ghostly prison, and ethersworn canonist, which will slow things down.

 

[RavebornMuse]

The problems: Besides that I don´t know how to link the card names? (Would be great if someone could tell me)
-> The cube in it´s current form performs pretty well and is fun to draft, but....
1) I want to integrate Aggro! Most of the decks end up as Controldecks. I read about a ratio of 31 Aggro:Midrange:Control cards but this refers to an ordinary cube like everybody else (besides a few sentimal cards) is playing

2) Should I make clear, which strategies/archetypes can be played? I always hated cards that press you in a certain area (like Goblin Piledriver)

3) Is the ratio creature/non-creature spell ok? In general I should be about 50/60-50/40 creature-noncreaturespells

4) Should I integrate certain tribes? I have the most important cards for goblins/elves/merfolk (besides True-Name-Nemesis)/Vampires/Zombies and so on

1: It's very hard to push aggro in a multiplayer environment, because you can't reliably race the entire table. Aggro thrives on seizing upon an unprepared, slower opponent. You can't count on that in a multiplayer format, especially due to politics. To support faster decks, you'll need to lower your curve and cut out things that are slugging up the game, but again, this is hard due to politics.

2: You should just present the cube as-is. Let your drafters discover what can be done, but make the list of cards available (via the Cube Tutor link) so people can see what's there, if they want.

3: Your ratios seem fine at a glance, aside from there being lots of slow cards.

4: Tribal is always a bad idea, because it encourages people to draft the same deck out of your cube over and over. You can support strategies with particular cards, but tribal is a case where that's generally always a bad idea. Human tribal is okay in most cubes due to all the humans that are already there, but that doesn't require much help; just throw in a few Champion of the Parishes.


I think the most obvious thing to me about your list is that you're trying to use a bunch of cards that are good in commander in cube. This is not usually a good idea, because cards "good in commander" are usually cards that make games last forever and encourage players to lay around and wait until they can win immediately. If you want slow games - that's fine. But if you want there to be more aggressive decks and quicker games, this is a bad idea.

Cards that jump out at me as exceptionally slow and/or bad:
Wall of Essence - encourages people to sit around forever and not attack.
Planar Collapse - encourages people to sit around forever and not play into it.
Ghostly Prison - punishes people for trying to play the game (ie, attack)
Oblation - this is really bad 99% of the time.
Wall of Reverence - lets people sit around forever and do nothing.
False Prophet - You have way too many board wipes, which makes people shy to play creatures and attack. Cut back.
Starfield of Nyx - You do not have remotely enough stuff to make this card good.
Martyr's Bond - encourages people to leave you alone forever.
Fog Bank - encourages people to sit around forever and not attack.
Reality Shift - this is really bad 99% of the time.
Standstill - a fun card, but encourages people not to play the game.
Propaganda - punishes people for trying to play the game (ie, attack)
Displacement Wave - probably bad
Wall of Souls - encourages people to sit around forever and not attack.
Font of Return - pretty slow compared to other options
Dread - encourages people to sit around forever and not attack.
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs - encourages people to sit around forever and not attack.
Chaos Warp - this is really bad 99% of the time.
** Note: You have too many red board wipes. Pick one or two and cut them, but I'm not sure which ones I'd recommend.
Archer's Parapet - way too slow
Wave of Vitriol - I have a hard time seeing this ever being worth playing outside of commander.
Collosus of Akros - bad
Silent Arbiter - punishes people for trying to play the game (ie, attack)
Mind's Eye - way too slow
Jalum Tome - way too slow


You also have a dire need for more early creatures, at least efficient 2-3 drops; you have way too many high-costed creatures, which means everyone is sitting around for 8 turns waiting to play them. Your artifact section is pretty bloated with slow cards, too. In general, I really like the idea of a commander/multiplayer-style cube, but the reality is that it promotes extremely slow games built around who can draft the most mana rocks and big creatures. It's a rough format to get people to actually play games in, which requires a lot of careful cuts. Too many sweepers and not enough good creatures at 2, 3, and 4 means nobody does anything but summon their fattest angel. That said, I can't fathom running a cube at your size, so this is mostly just my perspective on cards that are slowing you down too much. Do with it as you will!

 

[Enki]

Thanks both of you. I read a few articles and will gradually make a change in my cube. But first I will evaluate my cards in the following sections (I will upload the list, but at the moment I have a lot to do, so before next weekend will be no greater changes)
A= Will probably be played in Aggro
M= Will probably be played in Midrange
C= Will probably be played in Control
G= Goodstuff
U= Utility
c= can be cut
AS= Archetypespecific
OC= Other comments

For Aggro the idea with sacrificedecks, anthems and other things (Cards that become better with time e.g. Student of Warfare) have aroused my interest
Thanks also for the evaluation of some cards. A few cards performed pretty well. (Although they only performed well, because of the lack of Aggro I guess)
In my opinion a few copies of cards like Ghostly Prison are needed (take a look at this article: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mhof/welcome-multiplayer-hall-fame-2014-10-13)
Quote:
Rattlesnake: The Rattlesnake rating reflects the card's ability to discourage attacks. It warns opponents away. A 2/2 creature can discourage some attacks, but a 5/5 creature discourages more. An instant discourages almost no attacks, since it is an unknown card in your hand. Cards like Pernicious Deed are even better at sending your opponents elsewhere.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Well, you are going to have to make a choice.

If you want to have a "commander" cube, than I don't think you need to make any changes really, and that article is a good guide. However, if you want to have a multi-player experience that feels less swingy, more active, and dosen't take three hours to play a game, than I would ignore that article, and chop stuff like ghostly prison. Ghostly Prison will neuter aggro as a strategy capable of actually killing all the players at the table, thus making aggro an uncompetitive streategy, making the time you are about to spend retooling your cube something of a waste.

I would also encourage you to cut down the size of the cube, and if you are playing 40 starting life, bringing the life down to 20. The problem with 540 with 4-6 people, is that it makes the composition of your drafts really random: you can have one draft thats filled with all of the format's sweepers, the next draft almost devoid of fixing etc. Any attempt you make towards balancing the format is negated, because that balance dosen't have to be reflected in your packs.

If you still want to recreate the retail limited feeling of randomly opening a boost and not being sure what you are going to see in the draft, thats fine, and you can recreate that feel at 360. You still have the problem of the format being unevenly represented in your packs, but its less accentuated, and a pretty reasonable compromise i.m.o.

The problem with 40 life is that:

1. Its a much harder life total for an aggro player to deal with. If you have a 4 player game, thats 120 life (not counting lifegain) that your aggro player has to deal with, vs. 60 otherwise. 40-60 life is managable for a well built aggro deck that can grind, especially when the threshold for knocking someone out of the game is much lower.

2. Its a crutch for swingy unbalanced gameplay. If a player needs an additional 20 life to compensate for events they could not have reasonably anticipated or played around, thats a problem.

Remember that the core concept behind your aggro design for this format is going to have to be that your aggro decks be very good at generating card advantage and tempo advantage to make up for their smaller threats. An aggro deck that can't compete in the card advantage game will never be able to deal 40-60 damage.

 

[Enki]

Thanks for answering. We play with 20 life. Most of the Rattlesnakecards will be cutted but a few leftovers will be there.

I will add a fore more pointremoval (especially for artefacts and enchantments). My purpose is not to generate a commander cube, although I played a lot commander.

You all are of great help in opposite to the forum in germany

 

[Enki]

After a few days I made a real big update towards an aggroenviroment. Every basic archetype (Aggro, Midrange, Control (Combo/Synergy)) should hopefully be playable now.

I have a bunch of cards leftover, that I also want to include. So if you have some advice (which cards to cut maybe, which archetypes/strategies to improve/deteriorate) I would be grateful.

A short list, what the colours should do.

W : Major: Token/Swarm, Aura, Flicker, Lifegain Minor: White Weenie, Control
R : Major: AGGRO, Tokens, Sacrifice Minor: Dragons, Goblins (refers to tokens)
G : Major: Counters, Aura, Graveyardsynergy Minor: Tokens, Ramp
B : Major: Lifedrain, Sacrifice, Graveyard Synergy Minor: Mill, Removalbeast,
U : Major: Flicker/Bounce, Cardadvantage/quality, Counters, Minor: Mill, counterspells
A : Major: Supportive, ? (Maybe a subtheme? Myr) Minor: Ramp, Manafixing


Archetypes
WR Boros -> Tokens/Swarm
WG Selesnija -> Auras
WU Azorius -> Flicker
WB Orzhov -> Lifedrain
RG Gruul -> Midrange
RU Izzet -> Cardadvantage/Cardquality
RB Rakdos -> Sacrifice
BG Golgari -> Graveyard synergy
BU Dimir -> mill
UG Simic -> counters

 

[Enki]

Cheerio guys
I need your help.
In the next few weeks I have to learn for exams but I want to change my cube with a big update.
For this it would be great if you test my temporary cube (see signature)
In general I want to increase the Aggro-Archetype and add a few more combo pieces. Besides this I´d like to test the Eldrazi after the second set is spoilered. Although blue seems a bit narrow any suggestions? I´ve bought a lot of cards and need the data on Cubetutor to cut a few cards. Please keep in mind to think/draft for a multiplayer environment. We play with 4-6 players most of the time. It would also be cool to have a selfmilltheme any suggestions?
Some mentionable cards, that will be in my future cube: Eldrazicycle for cc2 and cc3

And many more

 

[Kirblinx]

First off, I am wondering why you need people to draft your cube. You seem to have some dedicated people to your cube already. Did you know your cube is the 20th most drafted cube on cubetutor? That is quite the feat.

I did do a couple of drafts going in blind. Only knowing that it was multiplayer focused, so I drafted sweepers highly then fixing then good stuff. I was quite impressed with the amount of fixing in the cube. I never had any problem, although after doing my drafts and looking at a couple of decks I noticed that you don't seem to pick lands highly, which may have been why they came so readily to me.

This was my second pile I drafted. Which in all honesty, looks like an absolute blast to play:

4-Colour DeathFire from CubeTutor.com

I just don't know if anyone is going to enjoy playing with me. I think you already know what you want your cube to be and I don't think we can change any of that. Grillo and Raveborn have already spoken about how to improve aggro in your cube, but it doesn't look like you have taken to their suggestions (ok I lie, I did a quick check on what Raveborn suggested you cut and you have gotten rid of about 50% of those cards). I would be spouting the same things (especially lower the amount of sweepers) but since you haven't been too enthusiastic about these changes, I won't push the issue any more.

But please, for the sake of that is everything holy, cut Upheaval. I know it is a cool splashy card, but its existence in multiplayer is just miserable. In 2-player games you generally get some things on the board to help beat down your opponent before they can drop their third land. In multiplayer you aren't going to get enough things to beat down people quick enough. All you are doing is resetting the game. If I wanted to reset the game I would kill everyone so we can have a new game, rather than drudge through the 45 minute game we have already had for another 30 minutes or so. I don't know if you have ever had it played in your games but that is how it has always ever felt when I have seen it.

It is just so hard to try and wrap my head around what is going on in this cube. Seems like a fine good stuff cube that should lead to some interesting multiplayer games. I think you either need to be more specific on what you want to include into the cube (ie. 'I need to make aggro better' is a really broad ask. Why not something lie 'What red cards can incentivise people to get aggressive'?) or just play more games and figure out what works and what doesn't.

Those will be the easiest ways to improve your cube rather than giving a vague list of problems and a giant list of cards that will probably go in soon. Since you seem to know what you already want to put in the next update, why not make a temp cube with the cards in it and test that out rather than draft the old one.

Well, that was unnecessarily mean of me.
I didn't mean it to come out that way. I just wanted to help you out because you asked to nicely.
I am just so confused.. So very confused...

 

[Chris Taylor]

Upheval is miserable in 1v1, I can't even imagine how frustrating it is in multiplayer

 

[Enki]

Now I have time to brainstorm a few ideas (finally )

1) A short explanation what the colors do/should do (P= Primary, S= Secondary)
Blue: P = Cardadvantage, S= Copy/Clon, mill, evasion, combattricks, bounce, tap, artifactssynergy
Black: P = Grave, Sac, S= token, removalbeast, Zombies or Vampires?
White: P = Token, S= blink, anthem, hatebears
Red: P = Token (no more gobbotokens), S= artifactsynergy, landfall, kombo, burn
Green: P = Ramp, S= Elf, Landfall
Artifact = Utility (A few things for every possible archetype)

--> Problems:
- Green is relatively boring,
- blue not strong enough on itself
- black does not have a real focus but is really strong,
- too much artifacts (which to cut?)

2) Analysis
I analysed my cube. The results are that I definitely have too much spotremoval, especially in red an a little too much massremoval (especially in red)

Besides I have a bit too much goodstuff (blue 6, green 8, red 7, white 6, black 7, artifacts 10).

Too much recursion in green, maybe a bit to much in black. But in black it is part of the colorplan (see above)

During testruns there are often random wins. This should be decreased a little bit.

Too much manafixing. Lands are often last picks (besides a friend of mine, who enjoys to play 5C- Goodstuff)

--> Aims considering analysis:
- More synergy,
- less luck and randomness,
- more (maybe) hidden archetypes. I don´t like these I play wins. (He was cut long ago)
- cutting artifact section --> maybe a subtheme? Equipments for instance?

3) Miracle:
What do you think of cards for miracle? I´d like to see a little archetype going on here. I know a lot of people don´t like miracle, because of the RANDOMESS. Nevertheless in multiplayer miracle is a bit more tricky to play.
Miraclecards I´m considering to add (others are already in my cube)


--> Which cards should be added to support the strategy? I am also open-minded for other suggestions, execpt if they are really expensive (20 Euro or more than 22 Dollar)


4) Blue:
What shall I do with my blue section?
I am a big fan of the possibility to play multicolor but also mono.
What is missing? Evasion? Combattricks (Do you have any good?)?More tap/untap-action?
A few cards that arouse my interest are:


More cards to takeover control?
e.g.

I´m grateful for every help

5) Planeswalkers
I´d like to see more planeswalkerdecks. Which walkers are missing? Suggest any you like besides
Which should be cut?

6) Blink targets
Similar to the point above I´m looking for more targets to blink in the white/blue-section. Any suggestions? I had enough cards that are capable to blink cards yesterday (even in sideboard) but nothing there to blink unfortunately

7) Tribal support
We have a few not so talented players in our environment.

I guess tribals like Elfes could be the answer to my problem there. Other tribals especially goblins and zombies didn´t perform so good until now. Are there any other tribal specific cards or tribal that do fit in more than one archetype? Could Merfolk be an idea for the blue section?

For elfes I consider a few of the following card, although I am not a big fan of lordeffects for multiplayer:

Creature based, there could be other tribalspecific cards addedd

8) Fight Club for removal and goodstuff...
I´d like to let a few cards be fought against each other
4 to choose out of 6


4out of 5


5 out of 7


15 out of 19



Last but not least cutting red
Randomness
3 out of 4


5 out of 7


1 out of 2


1 out of 2






9) Discard in multiplayer?
I´d like to see a new strategy in black. The idea of discard is what i´m most attracted by.
Here a some ideas, which to cards to include. Do you have any preferences? Is it possible to play discard in multiplayer? Cards like Megrim, the Rack and friends won´t make it in, because they´re are too archetype specific


Why should we play discard?
1) Against control
2) For graveyardrecursion
3) Synergies
4) Combos?
... ideas?

10) Cardadvantage!

Which cards for cardadvantage/quality should be added to especially blue and black, maybe even green

11) Any other suggestions? Maybe considering cool combos? Which cards can end boardstall?


Thanks for any help. I really do appreciate your help.

 

[Enki]

The next we finally will try out a few new things (like discard in MP).

Two things I would ask your advice:

1) Counterspells
I read the thread (http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/counterspells.356/) but wasn´t more clever after that.

Which counterspells do you recommend for Multiplayer Free-For-All?

In my meta only 2-3 players are capable of playing counterspells correctly. Because of this I cut a lot of counterspells.

At the moment I play (and test) the following ones: (Remember I have a singleton cube)


In total only 9 effects out of 540, which is not much.
I strongly recommend to have a few more added. Already tested....


Dissolve and dissipate were rarely played. The commands especially Silumgar had a few narrow appearances. Out of the list I maybe find a way to include Silumgar's Command and maybe Muddle the Exclude.
Are there any other counterspells, which could see play in multiplayer? I am very open-minded for suggestions. Unfortunately I can´t test all countereffects.
Maybe go deeper into fairies? E.g. with Spellstutter Sprite or bring back Venser, Shaper Savant?

2 Graveyard interaction
Shadows over Innistrad is almost here. Last tests I didn´t see a lot of players working with the graveyard. I updated red and blue for nice interactions with Mizzix's Mastery.

I want to cut a few cards in black and green to have a few more "graveyard slots". Golgari Grave-Troll wasn´t a great help in former days, but maybe I should give him another chance? My cube has changed dramatically during the last few months.
Are there any cards you would suggest, that lead the drafter to a gravedeck?

Already in my cube are...


In general I need two things
a) Cards that fill my graveyard and that are playable in other archetypes (like Life from the Loam)
b) Cards that depend on the graveyard.

A few cards I´d like to test especially, because of the return to Innistrad


The Spawning also because I will add Arachnogenesis to the cube soon

Thanks for any advice

 

[Enki]

No suggestions? Do you need more input?

 

[Kirblinx]

No suggestions? Do you need more input?

Sorry for the lack of replies from everyone, I don't think we need more input, if anything, the stuff you are asking is a little too overwhelming. There is just a huge list of cards that I don't know where to begin.

I think you generally know what you want and just need validation, which I can't really give, and I don't think anyone here really can. I don't know if anyone else here has built or thought about designing for a pure multiplayer environment.

Also, to be perfectly honest I don't know if you took anything away from my last post. As I just realised I am repeating myself:

It is just so hard to try and wrap my head around what is going on in this cube. Seems like a fine good stuff cube that should lead to some interesting multiplayer games. I think you either need to be more specific on what you want to include into the cube (ie. 'I need to make aggro better' is a really broad ask. Why not something lie 'What red cards can incentivise people to get aggressive'?) or just play more games and figure out what works and what doesn't.

Those will be the easiest ways to improve your cube rather than giving a vague list of problems and a giant list of cards that will probably go in soon. Since you seem to know what you already want to put in the next update, why not make a temp cube with the cards in it and test that out rather than draft the old one.

Although I did notice you have removed Upheaval, which I don't know if that was because of me and Chris but I can only see that as a positive for your cube.

So I can relate to you and your cube and get an understanding of it please reply to this post with the following subject matter:

1. How did your last draft go? What decks were there? Who won? What sort of cool plays occurred?
2. Why did you remove upheaval?

Once I get an understanding of what you find fun (the cool plays that occurred) then we can figure out what cards help or hinder your definition of 'fun'.
I don't want you to abandon us, but you need to give us something so we can give it back to you.
<3
- Kirb.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

This seem more commander like, where its just about doing powerful things, so I would probably just cut everything that is lower power or involves really building a game state.

I don't think you can actually make the cube bad, and I'm not sure how important its exact contents are, as long as it allows powerful plays.

 

[Enki]

Thanks for your response
I guess I´m a bit to deep in Cubemania.
Most of the time we play in groups of 4-6. The last few drafts were in general pretty interesting.
We always have 1-2 pure goodstuffdecks. They mostly end up 5-color or 3-color with a few splashes, but this is the style of one of our players.
Decktypes were: (I can add future decks in a list, because I started making notes during the play)
- Goodstuff (3-5 Color)
- Aggro WR (a few token synergies), Aggro WB (Anthemeffects)
- Synergistic decks (Really cool decks)
e.g. Tokenmania in Dimircolors UB with Opposition, Grave Titan, Bitterblossom, Notorious Throng
e.g. Tutordeck Booster Tutor with Panoptic Mirror in mono black with manastones and a few rainbowlands
e.g Lands in 5-Color --> every manland, which was avaible together with Titania and Life from the Loam and so on
e.g Walkers --> with the different Oaths and Doubling Season, Brago, King Eternal
- Pure controldecks with as much wrath-effects as possible
- BW Lifegain
- Tribaldecks (Elfes, Myr, Human, Soldiers )
- Ramp X (Eldraziramp, Fireballramp)
- Combodecks (e.g. Splinter Twin)
- Discard UB (Pretty fresh)
- Simic Selfmill/Artefactsupport
- Gruul Elfes
- Azorius ETB-Effects
- Jund Aristocrats (Sacrifice)
- UWR Token with artefactssynergies
....others hopefully develop over time. I´m not sure my meta understand the possible archetypes and I can´t play every narrow card myself. We played only once with the current list. The next few weeks we will run a few more tests to see which archetypes are dominating.
Most of the time the player with the least threat level wins. The problem with lifegain as being always victorous has changed a bit. Unfortunately often does goodstuff win. I prefer to see more synergistic decks, that win because of their strategy not because of sth. pretty random. I´d like to see more interaction in the playgroup and the table. When I see players with e.g. Staff of Domination and Priest of Titania I´m happy.

I removed Upheaval because it did never win the game. Most of the times all players attacked the one with Upheaval. It performed not as good as expected of it. Also I have another "Gorilla-Effect" with Death Cloud, which performed quite well in my last deck yesterday.

I have the feeling that there are...
a) Maybe too many narrow archetypes (also this is something I prefer to have a longtime motivation)
b) Too much goodstuff
c) I have to add a few more removal for artefacts and enchantments and I guess a bit more creatures
d) I also was thinking about a more focused artefacttheme. At the moment they are only utility and providing finishers for control e.g. Wurmcoil Engine random big Eldrazi.

In future I hope to establish the discardtheme and to have more interaction with the grave as source for a potential win. The changes I made for blue did make a difference (At least yesterday)

In general I don´t want to force somebody to answer to all my needs Maybe my tone sounds a bit aggressive and not polite, because I´m from Germany and haven´t learned the courtesies of how to adress in English. It is really hard to find a few players to brainstorm about multiplayer cubes. It is different to the mundane lists.

If you or anyone need more details.....you know where to find me. I am glad to have found this forum. The Cube Talk is my favourite bedtime reading

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Your tonality is fine.

I always hated sweepers whenever we did multiplayer games, because they always just ended up being game resets.

 

[sigh]

Agree on the sweepers bit. Playing EDH gives you a real appreciation for a game that moves forward without hour-long hiccups.
I like things that can provide more than one-for-one value, but not actually sweep the board. Cards like:


It certainly is a lot of cards to go through above. I like primal command, neither of the super big green creatures, imo. I like woodfall primus.
Discard canbe an important part of control, but I don't try to make a theme out of it. This seems even harder to make a theme in multiplayer. A suite of targeted discard spells can really help UB control last the early turns. Cards like:
despise
duress
blackmail
thoughtseize
wrench mind
rotting rats

Also spells that affect each opponent are awesome, but draw more hate:
tasigur's cruelty
liliana's specter
syphon mind

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

The best multiplayer card ever is

 

[Eric Chan]

That post from sigh is fantastic, and reminded me of why Conspiracy is among the most fun I've ever had playing multiplayer Magic - 1) all of the cards in that set push towards a game state that results in someone winning, rather than a board that stalls and then grounds to a complete halt, and 2) a lot of the spells have a detrimental effect towards all of your opponents. The latter might sound like it's all upside, on first blush, but you quickly realize once you pack too many of these in a single deck that you start painting a giant bullseye on your forehead. I'd err on the side of including more of these effects rather than less, though, and letting each drafter decide how aggressively they want to punch all of their opponents in the face simultaneously.

Really, the only other advice I can give is not to design a traditional cube. You're playing multiplayer - so build a multiplayer cube! Look at Conspiracy for inspiration, if you want - it's an excellently designed set, built with one purpose in mind, and fulfilling that goal in resounding fashion. You'll note that traditional aggro doesn't really exist as an archetype in Conspiracy, because it shouldn't - there's really no point in rushing one player down and taking them out, if that just means the survivors will then gang up on you after you've done their dirty work. Instead, if you want to support small creature strategies that go wide, look possibly at a) running a mild tokens theme, with cards like Rousing of Souls in white, b) running small creatures that provide card advantage by letting you search for more copies of them, like Squadron Hawk or even Screaming Seahawk, and c) running a smidgeon of damage-based sweepers to keep these strategies in check. Really, though, I'm just parroting some of the design decisions they made in Conspiracy, which to me is perhaps the pinnacle of multiplayer Magic.

 

[Enki]

I also love conspiracy. Conspiracy inspired me to build a multiplayer cube. The problem is most of the cards don´t have the right power level. Others are too conditional. E.g. Aligned Hedron Network is not bad, but I want to interact with this card. Means I want to send it in exile with e.g. Brago, King Eternal + Sun Titan to maximise the fun

The count of sweepers seems alright. At the moment I make only a few gradual changes relying on observations my players and I have made. I do not push Aggro. Aggro in my cube is more of a tokenbased archetypes or plays with Aristocrats. At the moment I don´t want to break singleton, but If I do the Hawks would be the first ones to consider. Also Rousing of Souls seems fine. But I´m not sure If I like the randomness of this effect.

We often have stalls during the game, because most of the players are defensive in their actions. Sometimes I´ve to push the game in a different direction to end the game. So some problems have to do with the way my friends play this cube.

I´m sure I could add Grasp of Fate (the others are already in my cube). Abyssal Persecutor is a card I´m not quite sure about, because it doesn´t synergises with anything in my cube except being a beater.

I´ve to add up a few more artefact/enchantmenthate cards (I already begun to update white), some hastenablers, more reasons to play with the grave and good cards to shuffle cards in my library. Unfortunately there are no more good cards to find that aren´t in my cube yet. Besides a few more artefacts that do sth. when they die would be great.

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[Chris Taylor]

They intentionally did a lot of work with the mechanics in conspiracy to encourage people to attack: Dethrone as a whole, there's a few "has to attack" creatures, etc.
Try your best to push attacking mechanically, and I think that will have a far larger effect than trying to talk to your players

Also, for this reason, I'd take a hard look at vigilance. It probably makes this whole attacking angle a bit too easy

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

When we were doing multiplayer the game mechanics were very attrition based. Basically, you would pile up removal and either try to be the last one standing in the attrition war, or you would just try to lay in with haymaker after haymaker until you won. You could make synergy based decks, but it was seldom that they were actually so much good, as the format was a casual fest anyways and you always have those johnny players.

I wouldn't worry about persecutors synergy: its a tremendously fun card that creates absurd board states with zombie players and invokes a lot of politics.