General New to Cube- I could use some help with percentages.

[GiftsForgiven]

Hi, all! I'm in the middle of building my very first cube, and I'm really digging it so far! I'm looking to make it between 360-450 in size. One thing that I can't seem to figure out is the percentage of cards that should be in the cube. For example, I read through some threads here the other night, and it seems like about 20% of your average cube should be removal.

However, I'm not sure what the other percentages should be. To break it down:

What percentage of the cube should a given archetype take up? (that is to say, cards that exist to support and push a specific archetype, such as 'entomb' or 'reanimate' for reanimation strategies.)

What percentage of each archetype should support cards take up, and as a corollary, what percentage of the archetype should the payoff cards take up?

How many lands/colorless cards should be in the cube?

How many cycles of dual-colored lands would I need to sufficiently promote a primarily 2-color deck-building environment, with slight ability to support mechanics such as converge or sunburst?

If anyone out there could help answer any or all of these questions, I would be deeply appreciative! This is also my first time on this forum, so it's a pleasure to meet you all!

Thanks!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think the most common mistakes among aspiring cube owners is not putting enough one-drops (and to a lesser extend two-drops) in their cube and not putting enough mana fixing in their cube. A fantastic way to approach the numbers question is writing out, in your mind or on paper, the desired average result of a cube draft, i.e. the eight decks your hypothetical drafters would assemble. Say you want to be able to support two Aggro decks among those eight, and considering each Aggro deck wants to play about six one drops, you need at least 12 in a 360 cube in those colors you expect your aggressive drafters to end up in (typically not blue, and possibly not green depending on green's role in your cube). Adjusting for the fact that not every pick will end up in your Aggro player's card pool, because they too will sometimes have to pass a one drop to take that burn spell for example, you want to overshoot a bit and play, say, 14-15 one drops.

You can do the same calculation for your nonbasics. How many nonbasics do you want your players to end up with? Magic is only fun if you get to cast your spells, so you want to minimize color screw. I'ld suggest you want people to end up with 5-6 nonbasics on average, which means 40-48 mana fixing lands in a 360 cube. That's well over 10%, much higher than most people new to cube put in. If you think that is much, because it does mean you can run fewer nonlands, consider that even with 48 nonbasics, people are still going to end up with 39 nonlands. Even if you discount the last four cards each booster, assuming there will be some unplayables in the final few picks (though no card in cube should be unplayable in the abstract it is likely that not all picks will be on color or matching the archetype) you're still left with 27 picks, 4 more than you need to fill out a deck. So, even with a high nonbasic land count, your players will still have choices to make come deck construction, and their matches will play a lot smoother this way!

Good luck constructing a fun cube, have fun!

 

[GiftsForgiven]

That's wonderful advice, thank you! On the subject of 1-drops, I am currently not sure exactly how to proceed. I'm trying to construct a very deliberately-paced cube, with a cube that's more 'timmy' oriented. (i.e, rise of the eldrazi style. Casting big things.) I've taken steps to ensure that ramp does not get out of control, namely throttling the amount of two-mana ramp spells, and ignoring 1-drop mana dorks entirely. It's seemed to work.

However, I do feel that the people drafting ramp decks might not have fun with essentially nothing to do for the first few turns. It's a problem I'm currently scratching my head about.

(the cube in question is set up to be heavily Zendikar-based and with an overall 'lands matter' theme. I know I'm not exactly making it easy on myself xd)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Jason's Eldrazi Domain cube should be an excellent guide then: http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/eldrazi-domain-cube.12/

 

[GiftsForgiven]

That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much!!

 

[Ferritovore]

 

[Ferritovore]

Those may already be in his cube, not sure

 

[Aoret]

Hi, all! I'm in the middle of building my very first cube, and I'm really digging it so far! ...One thing that I can't seem to figure out is the percentage of cards that should be in the cube.

Hey, glad to see you posting! The other replies have some great info already, but I wanted to add my voice to the chorus with a few tips and some encouragement.

Let's do the encouragement first. Something I learned when I transitioned from being a new designer to feeling more comfortable is that you can build a really, really shitty environment and it'll actually still play totally fine. You see this in retail limited sets as well. Stuff like color imbalance or compositional quirks are easily absorbed by the fact that the cube is drafted. The low frequency of repetitions the environment gets helps a lot with this as well; none of us will ever create an environment that will see the amount of play that a wotc limited set will. I say this not to dissuade you from trying to make your cube good, but rather to encourage you that it's totally fine to experiment and make mistakes. You and your playgroup will have a blast regardless of any balance problems you may introduce.

Next, a few tips. I think strict adherence to percentages is a really easy trap to fall into. Nobody is going to feel it if you completely omit your boros multicolor section, or have 5 extra blue cards or whatever. Things like curve, removal, and fixing percentages are more important, but again you don't want to obsess. I'd recommend picking some neutral seeming values based on stuff you've read or cubes you've copied and just seeing how they feel. Experiment with tweaking those numbers, and do so drastically to ensure you feel the effects of your changes. I'd also recommend studying one variable at a time. I did a weird thing with my mana a while back, and while it was very tempting to significantly warp the rest of the cube around my changes, I waited another patch cycle to really go for it, because I wanted to see what the changes did in isolation.

Finally, I'd recommend not asking your playgroup if things are balanced, because unless they're a designer themselves, they're likely to be unable to override their biases. Even my most knowledgeable, skilled players (who have large tournament win credentials etc) have been consistently wrong in their comments about balance--n.b. this does not mean you should ignore your players' reactions and feelings. What you should do is pay close attention to their games during drafts and observe how things play out and how they react. This will give you much, much stronger clues as to what you should do in your environment than asking them "hey did Titania feel overpowered?" As an example, I've cut hexproof from my cube entirely because I observed it being a severe feel bad for a couple of my players (and I only had a few cards with the mechanic anyway). On the flip side, my players-even the most newbish kitchen table casuals-happily accept getting wastelanded multiple times per game and have no feel bads about this whatsoever, so I've rolling with that.

I hope the above makes sense, feel free to hit me back with any questions you may have!

 

[GiftsForgiven]

This was extremely helpful, thank you! I'm trying to do a lot of crazy things ('land matters,' Eldrazi, converge, etc.) and it's reassuring to know that it's alright if I don't immediately get to where I want to be, cube-wise. My main issue at the moment is really one of power level. I'm trying to be very deliberate with how the cube is paced, and a lot of my tweaks have been in that area. (for example, I'd like the cube to be a place where 'grip of desolation' is a reasonable card to cast, if not absolutely insane.)

Would it be alright if I post the cube list to the forum when it's done? It's not in a workable state yet, mostly because I'm waiting on some juicy commons/uncommons from BFZ to help beef up some of the more currently lackluster mechanics (u/b devoid, etc.)

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

A trick I've used at least once is to try to imagine sort of what the good decks from archetype x would look like and then try to do the math backwards. If a deck has a nice curve then they probably need y amounts of archetype cards in these different cmc spots, and so you just figure out how many cards you would need per player. So if you have a need for 3-5 one drops for 3 aggro players, you need to have at least 15 good one drops in the cube. If you want two players to be able to play sacrifice decks in different varieties and they need to have 5-6 on theme cards that at least 12 cards you need to run in that theme that also fits the rest of the cube.

 

[Aoret]

Would it be alright if I post the cube list to the forum when it's done?

Definitely. The best way to do this is to use CubeTutor. Most of us just post links directly their in our signatures, lots of folks keep a thread in the cube lists forum as well. It's free to use and has a ton of functionality including some testing options.

I'd recommend uploading your work in progress and just posting before you feel it's ready. Better to get your ideas out there as soon as possible; the more eyes on it the better. I'd be happy to do a few test drafts on CubeTutor for you to generate some data on how it plays

Edit: I'm really glad to see another person playing with power level. I tried this early on before I really knew enough about design to make good choices about it. I've since abandoned that and am at a power level that more resembles something like "fair Legacy" (if we can just pretend that could exist...)

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Awesome! I'd greatly appreciate the assistance. I play a lot of formats, including Legacy, Modern and Commander (and even pauper), and my favorite thing in magic has to be seeing other players have positive reactions over sweet cards that you really don't see much, except in more casual formats. You know, cards like:

I'll bet he's pretty decent cube pick if you've also drafted an Eldrazi Conscription

One thing that has really confused me is that I've heard people mentioning things like 'utility land pile' as being separate from the main cube. How would a draft like that work? It's very confusing.

Edit: I think it is worth noting that I am not actually too great at drafting. I tend to tunnel-vision on the archetype I want, and don't really know when to cut my losses and make a workable deck if it's obvious that someone else is in there. I have a lot of fun drafting though, and that's what counts!

 

[Aoret]

...my favorite thing in magic has to be seeing other players have positive reactions over sweet cards that you really don't see much, except in more casual formats.

One thing that has really confused me is that I've heard people mentioning things like 'utility land pile' as being separate from the main cube. How would a draft like that work? It's very confusing.

Edit: I think it is worth noting that I am not actually too great at drafting. I tend to tunnel-vision on the archetype I want, and don't really know when to cut my losses and make a workable deck if it's obvious that someone else is in there. I have a lot of fun drafting though, and that's what counts!

1. I think this is probably the biggest motivation to play at a lower power level. Being able to explore sweet interactions with cards that never see play is really cool. For me personally, the density of interactions found at higher power levels proved too attractive. But as someone who was once fascinated about the same thing as you, I'm really happy to see more folks championing and exploring that space.

2. You can read more about ULD here but the gist is that you just snake/rotisserie draft lands face up after your normal 3 pack draft. The lands are meant to be too bad for inclusion in your cube list, but good enough for inclusion in your cube decks (and what that looks like varies from environment to environment)

3. Being bad at drafting is probably fine at this stage. It took me something like 2-3 years and dozens of cube nights before I felt that my play skill was holding back my design. YMMV on this-I play with a very casual playgroup, so I don't actually have to be that good to conduct effective analysis on how cards will get used in my environment (and, in fact, being worse might have actively helped in my case)

 

[GiftsForgiven]

ULD sounds fascinating. I may just add it to my cube, as the 'lands matter' theme will likely warrant an increased amount of nonbasic lands.

It's funny. I love seeing niche cards in the spotlight, but I appreciate playing with powerful cards/synergies as well. (my favorite draft archetype in the MTGO Legacy cube is value-brago) I think the hardest part of creating this cube will be the unification of those two ideals. Thanks for the warm welcome, by the way! I hope to be much more of a regular to this forum.

 

[ahadabans]

Welcome to the forums!

Experiment. That's the best advice I can give you. A lot of the numbers you are looking for are group dependent. I also believe you should start with an rough list that is intentionally clunky. Some of the best things that come out of cube are found by accident, and some amount of clunkiness helps enable that since super efficient strategies will stifle experimentation.

There is no such thing as a perfect one-size-fts-all cube IMO, and it's going to be trial and error to see where your cubes evolution needs to go. Enjoy the journey. This format brought me back to Magic and it's all I will play at this point. Cheers.

 

[Aston]

Someone linked this in one of the other forums, but it's probably the best advice for starting a new cube:

 

[RavebornMuse]

Welcome to the forums! I'd like to echo what everyone else has already said as well - find an approach you want to take, give it a whirl, try crazy things, and fix as you go, because it's difficult to make a truly bad cube. That said, I thought I might give you a little food for thought on my approach to building for archetypes and themes.

Figuring out how much support something needs is a tough job and requires lots of honest appraisal and a soupstone of optimism, but it's a fun job. I think the best place to start is to consider how much incidental value you can get off of something when you want to include it first, and then ways to amp up that value if it's something you want to push.

• For example, Champion of the Parish was very in vogue around here for a while (though not everyone still runs it). What's cool about it is that it's a card that cares about a specific tribe - humans - that's already well-populated in most cubes. In my list alone, nearly 36% of the creatures are human, making it relatively easy to get Champ at least 1 +1/+1 counter, and potentially several more. This is a cool card to draft with incidental value in mind. Tie it into something like red, throw in a Volt Charge and some other +1/+1 counter-gaining creatures like Stromkirk Noble, and you have an aggressive deck that can deploy an anthem effect (by proliferating the counters) and a removal/burn damage effect (the 3 damage) in one, which is a very sweet play.
• Another example is Bramblewood Paragon. She looks solid since she plays with +1/+1 counters and she gives them to other Warriors as they enter the battlefield. Sounds sweet, right? But look more closely; most cubes run a paltry number of warriors, so the incidental value is barely there, and trample is not going to be worth drafting around most often. While she looks like a cool card to draft around with lots of incidental value potential, in reality, she's a 2/2 for in most formats, and that's not good enough to include. And is trample and a free counter worth drastically reworking your list to include super niche warriors? In this case, I'd say probably not, but other cards might tempt you into radical new ideas. If they excite you, I say, explore them! My cube thread, linked in my signature, chronicles some such efforts; you'll note than many ideas cycle out after a trial period, but even those that got the boot were loads of fun for the time they were around!
• Let's consider just one more example: your very own, Entomb! It looks very narrow, doesn't it? But I don't find that to be the case at all! Why this card isn't more popular blows my mind, but it depends on your format. Let's look at mine, where Entomb shines. Here, Entomb can get me access to over two dozen different spells with flashback, dredge, or retrace; feed my graveyard creatures which helps me if I've drafted one of a half-dozen reanimator spells; get me access to one of my six creatures with self-recursion; or give targets to one of my three creatures with reanimate effects. It also plays nicely with Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames to cast things from my graveyard that don't have flashback naturally, or one of my six other cards that use my graveyard. Added up, that's 52 cards that Entomb plays great with in my format! And this doesn't even begin to consider niche plays like Entomb in response to an opponent's Living Death, as a last-ditch shuffle effect for your library after peeking with Sensei's Divining Top, or to pump up Spider Spawning by one more creature, and so on. It's a fantastic card with loads of synergy, so it's an easy include for me. But if your list doesn't support some number of these plays, it gets a lot less cube-worthy. (Personally, I'd throw Entomb into any list with less than 400 cards and at least 4 reanimate spells and some recursive creatures as a narrow enabler, but that's a personal opinion, and I think you want at least a two dozen potential plays to make it be really sweet).

Basically, the more narrow the reward, the wider the support needs to be. However, exactly where that line is depends on:

• creature power level - If your cube is only 8% humans and you're also running Isamaru, Hound of Konda, Champion of the Parish is bad.
• removal power level - This has a lot of features to it. Let's consider an example. Let's say your cube is primarily based around things like Lose Hope and Magma Jet - you want to deal in lots of 1 damage or 2 damage removal-style effects. This could be a cool angle! But what does that mean for your creatures? Well, let's go back to our friend, Champion of the Parish. In a format primarily based around instant-speed 1-2 damage removal, he gets a lot worse: instant-speed removal means when you drop that second or third human, Champ is probably going to get shocked in response to the +1/+1 counter trigger. Lots of -1/-1 and 2-damage burn effects also improve the value of creatures with 3 toughness, meaning early-turn aggressive decks will likely take the backburner while players fight over things like Vampire Nighthawk. Or maybe the aggressive decks will fight over things like Leonin Scimitar and Emerge Unscathed to avoid the -1/-1 and 2-damage style removal. Regardless of how it pans out, just look at all these effects the style and power of your removal has on whether or not a simple incidental value creature like Champion of the Parish is either a really good pick or a bad one, even in a lower-powered environ!
• the amount of value the archetype can provide - Champion of the Parish pays off fairly and easily; a 2/2 for 1 mana on turn 2 (due to playing a follow-up human after dropping him T1, for example) is a good deal usually. Bramblewood Paragon in your cube with only 3 other warriors? Well, that's hardly any value at all.
• how many cards overlap with it - Champion of the Parish loves humans, and most cubes run a lot; mine has nearly 36%! It's cool with proliferate effects too, but it doesn't really need them to be good.
• what a bad-case scenario is and how common it might be - At the worst of it, Champ is a 1/1 for 1, which is kinda bad, but at least he can chump block in a pinch, and he has a high upside, so he's worth the gamble. Bramblewood Paragon? Well, a 2/2 for 2 is probably gonna be outclassed in a usual cube very quickly, and the upside isn't very big.

I hope any of this mess of text helps! Don't expect to be able to absorb everyone's advice and thoughts at once; you really need to whip up a list and get some thoughts on it and draft it before anything really sinks in, trust me. Once you post up your list and ask some more specific questions, I'm sure we'll be able to help iron out kinks and get you closer to where you want to be, though!