General Narrow Card Injection

Diakonov

Diakonov

As some of you may remember, I've been testing "Utility Everything Draft." It features about 30 narrow nonland cards that support very specific strategies. It has had some benefits but feels very inelegant.

I was thinking about modular cubes and came up with an idea last night. Shuffle up the stack of narrow cards and add a few to the normal draft pool as packs are being created to achieve a density of maybe 1 in 30 normal cube cards. It adds an element of excitement if you're going heavily down a specific path. (Cross your fingers and hope to see that Argothian Enchantress show up!)

Any suggestions/opinions are welcome!

 
japahn

japahn

I'd replace Grave Pact with Dictate of Erebos, for the ease of casting and because it can be used as a trick sometimes. And I think Hedron Crab and Forgotten Ancient have enough play to them that you can use them in the main cube.

In my experience, people are scared of picking Enduring Renewal.
 
Jeff H

Jeff H

I was just kicking around the idea of putting deck/theme enablers in the main cube and leaving them there. The general consensus of my group is that drafting is way more fun than playing the games, so I figured it'd be worth it to sacrifice a bit of draft-awesomeness to raise the gameplay-awesomeness. A few dead cards in draft isn't the end of the world if it enables unique and fun decks to pop up occasionally. (I think most people design with the draft in mind, and think about gameplay fun/variety later, instead of asking how they can make games better, myself included) Random cards:



+ +
+ if you like GRBS (aka Noob Cannons)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
I'm interested in Vesuvan Shapeshifter in light of the dopeness of the Morphs from DTK. Can we talk about this and other old-school morphs?
 
Jeff H

Jeff H

So do you guys think it's worth cubing some number of narrow support cards to open up new decks, even though they'll be poison-y / dead cards half the time?
 
Diakonov

Diakonov

Jeff H said:
So do you guys think it's worth cubing some number of narrow support cards to open up new decks, even though they'll be poison-y / dead cards half the time?
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Well, historically I've avoided stuff like that when thinking about how often they'll either be dead or consistently creating very specific strategies. I'm hoping that with this method the number of times a narrow card will be a dead pick will remain low, while at the same time it changes up the narrow cards enough so you won't see the same specific strategy too often.
 
japahn

japahn

The problem with poison is when the cards are so specialized that you are just putting a deck back together while drafting. Having a few narrow cards in the cube helps with 1. showing what archetypes are supported; 2. signals, which are so hard to read in cube.

Keep it at a minimum not to waste valuable space, but in my opinion it's worth dedicating a few slots.

I'm fine with them being last picks often - cube has a lot of playables already, so plenty of room to amortize that.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Jeff H said:
So do you guys think it's worth cubing some number of narrow support cards to open up new decks, even though they'll be poison-y / dead cards half the time?
Click to expand...

Well I'm running 12 of the cards listed in the op, so yes. Depends on the build of your cube, as some of them aren't poison, and some of them I'm happy to be potential last picks. Like Japanh says, lots of playables.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

For the sake of clarity, I'd like to say that I vote YES on narrow supporters and narrow enablers.
A few examples from my own list of narrow supporters:
Fencing Ace (passable overall, solid in humans, crazy in equip/ +1/1 counters decks)
Emeria Angel (very solid overall, great with lots of fetches/Knight of the Reliquary)
Mindshrieker (acceptable overall, awesome to push mill/cute combo with Memory Lapse/TOL tech/reanimator)
Azure Mage (passable overall, good for humans/ramp)

....and some narrow enablers:
Bloodthrone Vampire (passable overall, but much better with tokens/recursion)
Buried Alive (only really maindeckable if you've got recursive threats/flashback/reanimator)
Guttersnipe (okay with a few spells as a finisher, but really best in a Protect the Queen/spells deck)
Titania, Protector of Argoth (only really maindeckable with fetches/LD)
Mesmeric Orb (mill deck all by itself, but you need to be careful where you throw it in)

These are just a few examples that I eyeballed on the fly as I looked over my list and there are likely much better examples, but my point is that absolutely, narrow support/enablers are totally worth throwing in if you keep an eye on them and if your drafters both
a) really enjoy these options, and
b) don't just go "oh I've drafted X card, time to assemble X deck!)
The second point is crucial, and will determine whether the include is really acceptable or not: ideally, even your narrow enablers (Titania, Mesmeric Orb) should allow for a wealth of variation in decklist outcomes. If they don't, you may need to rethink their inclusion, because they will rob your format of diversity and water down the draft experience. But if your considered include(s) meet both criteria, by all means, throw them in! So long as your narrow enablers aren't more than, say, 5% of your list, you'll be in good shape.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, a lot of this come from the same idea I had for the polycube. I like tri-colored cards, but you don't want 10 of them in the list concurrently. I set up a slot that randomly selected a tri-color card each time. Let me know how this works out for you.
 
vennythekid

vennythekid

Jason Waddell said:
Yeah, a lot of this come from the same idea I had for the polycube. I like tri-colored cards, but you don't want 10 of them in the list concurrently. I set up a slot that randomly selected a tri-color card each time. Let me know how this works out for you.
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I stole this idea from you a while ago and it has been pretty enjoyable in our cube so far. I just swap out the tri-colored card each week for a different one. The only trouble is, there are crowd favorites (like Nicol Bolas, Cruel Ultimatum) and ones people will never touch (like Broodmate Dragon, Jeskai Ascendancy). Maybe I need a new set of tri-cards to pick from.
 
safra

safra

vennythekid said:
I stole this idea from you a while ago and it has been pretty enjoyable in our cube so far. I just swap out the tri-colored card each week for a different one. The only trouble is, there are crowd favorites (like Nicol Bolas, Cruel Ultimatum) and ones people will never touch (like Broodmate Dragon, Jeskai Ascendancy). Maybe I need a new set of tri-cards to pick from.
Click to expand...

Here's my fave 3c cards:
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Marath is kinda cool, not great but fun with the PtF theme. However, the giant block of pointless text (unless your cube is filled with spheres of resistance) is pretty inelegant. I guess if people can live with the "Will of the Counsel" cards they can live with Marath.
 
Lucre

Lucre

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Make these decisions to cube narrow cards very consciously and check up on them. We've all stared at packs full of awkward 3 Colour cards or 2/1s for 1 our deck really didn't want. The cards you are suggesting are arguably more dead to your avg drafter and having premise decks like RDW that no one else wants is usually Zzzz.

More kitchen finks and less march of The machines
 
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