General One Size does not Fit All

[FlowerSunRain]

In general it seems that cubes are designed to be played at a variety of player counts, which inevitably comes along with all sorts of compromises that ensure it doesn't perform its best at any player count. From my vantage this seems like a logistical concern: its too much work to make separate cubes for each player count or a modular design whose configuration changes based on the number of players. That said, its clearly bad design to do so and one can easily find a laundry list it hurts the process to do so. Still, the logistical concerns are very real and "always play with the same number of players" can be a difficult feat to accomplish.

How do you feel about this aspect of cube design? Do you attempt to build your cube to a specific count or do you attempt to make it flexible enough to produce reasonable games at a variety of counts? Do you use a separate device for 2 player games (the most offensive situation)?

I ask, because I generally play at two different sizes: 4 when I'm at home and 7-10 when I'm visiting my college friends and I was mulling over the idea of developing two separate cubes rather then continuing to compromise to appease both.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I've build a Battle Box for games with two players, and it's been extremely satisfying. Games are tight and skill-testing, and mana sequencing is important. Love it!

 

[Tom]

I built my cube to be low dependency (lots of generic good stuff, light on the themes). One of the main reasons for this was to help make drafts/sealed pools with a small number of players interesting. I realize many are of the opinion this compromises the 8 man or overall cube experience, but for what I wanted out of my cube, I think this makes the most sense (work with small number of players, be easier on newer players, focus on the core Magic experience).

Also, before I had a cube I used to build duel decks. It was a lot of fun. I'd handcraft two 60 card decks that were intended to be fun to play. I think you can learn a whole lot about designing fun Magic experiences this way.

I think overall you are correct that designing for specific player counts will create better cubes. I suspect many people default to designing for 8. Modular seems cool, but a pain logistically. I think the multiple cube approach is interesting. Design a "normal" cube for 8, then small cube for 2-4. What would the small cube look like? What changes?

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, trying to accommodate both four-man and ten-man groups sounds awkward. It's a big difference from expecting six to eight players week in, week out. I find that proper fixing is the biggest concern when playing with small groups - you aren't guaranteed to have your deck's dual lands in the pool, even if you're prioritizing lands. The next biggest problem is that the build-arounds you're expecting don't show up to the party. Once, two of us at my table tried to go into UR spells matter... and none of the three Delvers in my list were in the mix that night.

For a ten-man, you're looking at a 450 list, which sounds like it wouldn't scale down well when you're only expecting four. If I were in your shoes, I might take this as an opportunity to build a second cube around some different themes that I'm unable to fit in my main list. I know your current cube is both enchantment heavy and tempo friendly, so you could build another one that swings the pendulum the other way, maybe with slower games, stronger removal, and different themes and build-arounds.

 

[Jonas]

This thread inspired me a bit. Now I'm in the mood to see if I can get my regular cube down to about 180 cards, and see what I might be able to fit in there. Will have to do utility land draft to get any fun lands to play with though.

 

[Chris Taylor]

FSR, you use the utility land draft for 100% of manafixing during the draft, right? With that in mind, do smaller drafts still trouble you? I can see the whole "I'm in UR Spells, no pyromancers or delvers were opened" problem, (Which exists everywhere in a way, unless your cube is exactly the same size as your draft pool every time) but it certainly seems like it would lessen the effect

 

[FlowerSunRain]

The land change really helps with smaller drafts, but the lesser quality of the drafts at smaller tables is definitely noticeable.

Jonas: Yeah, I want to get my cube down to about that size and see what can be done in that design space.

The other option is to have, say, half of the pool be set and then a larger, flexible pool to compliment it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think games, cubes or otherwise, need to be designed from the ground up with player count in mind. One of the challenges is that the drafting method, passing packs of 15, doesn't hold up well with fewer players and there's no easy remedy.

The amount of design space you can cover also changes, as narrow cards become more problematic with fewer potential homes.

I don't know what the answer is. I enjoy my cube Mich less as a six-player product, but I don't know how I'd change it. I'd probably start by trimming a color.

It could just be that deep and rewarding drafting for less than eight players is something that's intrinsically better handled by games that aren't Magic.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This thread inspired me a bit. Now I'm in the mood to see if I can get my regular cube down to about 180 cards, and see what I might be able to fit in there. Will have to do utility land draft to get any fun lands to play with though.

Lol, that's from a Dutch tv channel

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, this came up in the Skype thread, where I suggested cutting one or two colours might be in order for a primarily four-player format. It would make the players fight over colours more, and you'd be able to justify running alllllll the gold cards. Even tri-colour!