Pete's Cube Redesign Thread

[Peter LaCara]

I've been threatening in a few other threads to rebuild my cube from the ground up with all the new toys GRN has presented to us, plus just a general shift in cube philosophy. Also I can't sleep because all these ideas keep running through my head, so I thought maybe getting them down will help.

I'm going to be building the cube piece by piece, while keeping my current cube intact until the redesign is complete. Cubetutor link for the new cube here.

I'm a firm believer in evaluating a new limited format by looking at the gold cards to serve as anchors for the archetypes. I'm just doing gold cards for now, and I want to sort of limit the number of them that I run. I feel like too many decks in my old cube ended up as 3-4 color piles, and I think that's because I just love gold cards too much to be disciplined with their inclusion. I'm going to try to limit the gold cards in each guild to 3, and console myself by giving myself an unlimited number of hybrids.

Azorius - Spirits


Blue, white, and red are all going to have a strong spell theme, but express themselves in different ways. White has a lot of spells that make creatures, and most of them make spirits. Spirits make for a nice tricky tempo skies deck. I'm also allowing myself one generically powerful card per guild, so Teferi makes the cut here.

Dimir - I Drink Your Milkshake


Priest and Rogue are my two favorite classes in Hearthstone, so beating people to death with their own stuff is appealing to me. I'm raising the power level of the cube slightly from before, so Ashiok gets to come back in to play.

Rakdos - Aristocrats


My previous RB section was somewhat schizophrenic. Half the cards were madness focused and the other half were zombardment style sacrifice stuff for value focused. I feel like I need to choose one or the other.

Gruul - Throw Your Lands At Their Face


*EDIT*
This section is about using your lands as ammunition, and also cheating with big mana plays.

Selesnya - Token Control


I've never been a fan of 'little kid' GW decks. I'm also keen on the idea of non-blue control decks. This color pair is also going to be big on enchantments, both as removal and as finishers.

Orzhov - Aristocrats


I'm not 100% sure on this section yet. I expect this section to be reworked heavily once Ravnica Allegiance comes out.

Golgari - Graveyard Value


This section is all about the graveyard, as per usual.

Simic - More Ramp


This section is kinda boring. Expect this one to get reworked heavily in 3 months too.

Izzet - Spells Matter, of course


Yeah, yeah. I know it's unoriginal. It's also sweet. After playing with Thousand-Year Storm I'm really excited about it as a single card that enables an entire archetype that would otherwise be too poisonous.

Boros - Big Boros


Both red and white will have a lot of token makers and things to buff said tokens, but I don't want to spend all my gold slots on an archetype that has been boring me in M19 and GRN. So I'm going to spend them on stuff that supports a more midrange-y feel. Boros Reckoner is also going to make an appearance, along with one or two big red board wipes for that pinata deck.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Part 2 - Removal

There was a lot of removal in my previous cube. Last time I counted the as-fan I was in the 2.9 range. I'm going to try to cut down to the 2.0-2.5 range to make the games not quite so grindy. With my cube size of 450, that gives me with 60-70 slots to play with for removal. I'm trying to broaden the power band, so I'm going to be including some really nasty creatures at the top end. As a consequence, I feel like I need to increase the power level of my removal a little. There's less of it, but what's there is better, so you're going to have to fight over it more.

White



Blue



Black



Red



Green



Hybrid




Plus the 8 multicolored removal spells listed above brings me to 69 (nice) removal spells for an as-fan of 2.3.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Current concerns: I feel like white doesn't have quite enough removal... half as much as black and red. I wonder if I should cut a couple black and red spells to make room for 4-5 more white spells.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Part 3 - The Mana Base

I have been pretty satisfied with my current suite of dual lands. I have 5 cycles of duals, which I feel is the correct amount in a 450 cube that adheres to Riptide principles.

We've got:


Shocks


Checks


Filters


Pains

and...

Allied bicycles/enemy temples

You'll notice that there are no fetches. I've gone over this probably about a dozen times elsewhere on the site, but I don't like the 'loading time' they add to games through shuffling, and I think they make the mana just a little bit too good. Also, I'm not breaking singleton, so multiple shocks are out. I am considering shelling out for a set of fastlands, probably replacing either the filters or the painlands, but eh. The mana base is not where I'm looking to tweak things.

Five Color Fixing



Colorless Utility Lands



Mono-colored Utility Lands



I really like the memorial cycle, but of course the red one sucks. Fortunately we have a recently banned red land to compete.

 

[Rowan_CB]

I'm curious: do you have the cube mostly fleshed out, and are just revealing it to us piece by piece? I'm wondering whether you are in fact designing your removal section first, then tailoring your creatures to it. If so, that's really interesting, as I imagine most cube design processes are the other way around.

 

[Peter LaCara]

I'm curious: do you have the cube mostly fleshed out, and are just revealing it to us piece by piece? I'm wondering whether you are in fact designing your removal section first, then tailoring your creatures to it. If so, that's really interesting, as I imagine most cube design processes are the other way around.

Nope. You're watching my design process in real time. This will usually come when I'm lying in bed trying to sleep but I have too many thoughts about how I want to build things, and I need to get them out of my head before my brain will let me sleep.

But yes, I am building out the removal first before the creatures. A limited format is defined in many ways more by its removal than its threats. I might be going about it completely bass ackwards, but I already have an idea of the quality of threats I want to include, and that informs the removal I want to be available.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Looking at the removal first is enlightening in other ways. For example, there are a million ways to deal with 4 toughness creatures with my current suite. There are very few ways to deal with 5 toughness creatures. That's going to inform which creatures I include. For example, I'm going to run Glorybringer over Thundermaw Hellkite, due to having more safety valves to deal with a big hasty dragon.

 

[Velrun]

Since you are already breaking cycles (Ramunap Ruins) I will encourage you to do so with the color-filtering lands as well. It is just my personal opinion so do not take it as fact. I believe the game is much more interesting if some Guilds get acces to some lands and other Guilds get acces to others. Example Rakdos could get a fast land but Azorius could get a man land.

For reference: Blackcleave Cliffs and Celestial Colonnade.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Since you are already breaking cycles (Ramunap Ruins) I will encourage you to do so with the color-filtering lands as well. It is just my personal opinion so do not take it as fact. I believe the game is much more interesting if some Guilds get acces to some lands and other Guilds get acces to others. Example Rakdos could get a fast land but Azorius could get a man land.

For reference: Blackcleave Cliffs and Celestial Colonnade.

Good suggestion, I'll take it under advisement. However, even when cycles are broken with lands, they still do roughly the same thing. Both the bicycle lands and the temples are ETB taplands that have mana smoothing mechanics. I'm not sure I want to bias certain decks too hard through the mana base. If someone puts together an RB control deck, I don't want their mana base working against them.

 

[Knifethrower]

I strongly dislike Kessig Wolf Run as it is a win condition that is very difficult for the opponent to interact with. I dislike lands as win conditions in general, and consider it a fundamental mistake by wizards.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Current concerns: I feel like white doesn't have quite enough removal... half as much as black and red. I wonder if I should cut a couple black and red spells to make room for 4-5 more white spells.

Yeah. Thinking about it more, white having 45% of the amount of removal red has seems wrong, and now that I'm laying it all out (since the ratios I had were similar to my current cube) it explains some imbalances I had. Also, I've decided that Sarkhan is too similar to Glorybringer, so I've swapped him out.

OUT


IN


There. Now instead of white 9, black 19, red 21, we have white 14, black 17, red 18. Much more balanced.

 

[Velrun]

I strongly dislike Kessig Wolf Run as it is a win condition that is very difficult for the opponent to interact with. I dislike lands as win conditions in general, and consider it a fundamental mistake by wizards.

I guess that depends 100 % on the cards in the format? Cards like Tectonic Edge etc. can help with this issue and create a whole extra mini game within the game.

 

[Aston]

Wolf Run also requires a ton of mana and a creature to pump. It has a few ways to counter-play that aren't simply destroying the land.

 

[Peter LaCara]

I strongly dislike Kessig Wolf Run as it is a win condition that is very difficult for the opponent to interact with. I dislike lands as win conditions in general, and consider it a fundamental mistake by wizards.

Hmm. It wouldn't take much to get me off of Wolf Run. What other RG payoffs do you like? I still like Stormbind but I'm worried it doesn't fit the power level.

 

[Knifethrower]

Velrun and Aston both make valid points that counterplay to Wolf Run can exist if you add it sufficiently to your cube, and that Wolf Run requires some situational set-up.

For the record, I still essentially dislike the card.

Some alternatives I like are Savageborn Hydra, Mina and Denn, Wildborn, and Spellbreaker Behemoth, but those all have some mechanical implications on how your RG section plays. Also note the hydra unfortunately uses +1/+1 counters, which may feature heavily in UG after you rework it.

Dragonlord Atarka is a nice generic curve topper.

 

[Rowan_CB]

Mina and Denn seem like a good fit. The extra land per turn plays into the big mana theme, and the ability to return a land to your hand (with upside!) fuels Borborygmos, and whatever other land shenanigans you want to get up to.

 

[safra]

Those cards are so dull...why not let people play high-emotion cards they're excited to draft, like BBE, or supporting some kind of steal-sac shenanigans with Sarkhan Vol

 

[Peter LaCara]

Those cards are so dull...why not let people play high-emotion cards they're excited to draft, like BBE, or supporting some kind of steal-sac shenanigans with Sarkhan Vol

I hadn't considered that people might be excited to draft generic value cards. Like, Huntmaster of the Fells doesn't really point in any particular direction, but I've always liked it anyway. Something to consider.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Part 5a - Spirits



I'm considering Supreme Phantom, but I kinda want to avoid blunt +1/+1 lords in general. There's a pretty good UW skies tempo deck in here that also interacts with the spells matter cards.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Time to come back to this. It's been a couple weeks and things have been busy (I swear Magic Arena has nothing to do with it...). I've been letting some of this marinate for the last couple weeks, and I'm sort of in limbo here because most of the sections that I feel like lack direction are going to get updates with Ravnica Allegience. However, I've come to a few conclusions.

I hate my Boros section. I've been drafting a lot more than I normally do thanks to Arena and I just kind of hate the play pattern Boros presents in both M19 and GRN. I love almost everything about Dominaria (I'm pretty sure it's my favorite draft format of all time by now), but the Boros auras/equip deck just isn't really a real thing. On the other hand, some of my favorite constructed decks of all time have been midrange-y to controlling Boros decks, like Rw devotion from Theros era standard. So even though a lot of the token and spell strategies are pushing for a wide Boros aggressive deck, and that's fine if that's in there, it's not what makes me excited as a cube designer. And isn't that what's important?

So I'm going to push Boros in a more controlling direction with my gold slots and try to seed some things that push Boros in that direction in general.

OUT


IN


Meanwhile, I've also been chewing on Red in general. I think it was a mistake to try to move away from discard focused strategies. Most of the most interesting red decks to come out in the last couple years have had a discard theme. Stuff like Hollow One, Flame of Keld, and Arclight Phoenix are all cool as hell. I think I'm going to try to focus madness and discard strategies more into Jund colors this time around, although I might allow myself a Drake Haven here or there. What this means is that Stormbind gets to come back to play, and I've been persuaded by safra's argument that cards like Bloodbraid Elf despite being generic value cards can produce excitement in people without necessarily having to lean on a ton of synergy. So Gruul looks pretty different too.

OUT


IN

 

[Peter LaCara]

Part 5 - Tribal Payoffs

I already talked about spirits in 5a, but I think it would be best if I laid out all the tribal payoffs in one spot, and then fill out the rest of the tribe later. As mentioned before, I'm aiming to stay away from generic +1/+1 lords. I'm looking more at stuff that lets you do weird stuff if there's a certain creature type on the battlefield. That way, tribes don't have to be a heavy theme (Which Lorwyn and Ixalan taught me aren't great for the draft experience), but work best as a spice for more general archetypes (as Dominaria taught me.... god I love that set).

Knights

I've been a big fan of the Knight subtype for a long time, and I tried to include a big knight theme back in the very first iteration of my cube when I was just throwing cards in a box. The payoffs just didn't used to be there to justify it, though. Recently, in the last couple sets they've printed a lot of good knights as well as a couple knight payoffs. With all the discard and dredge stuff, I feel like I can justify Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Who gives a shit about Savannah Lions when you can have Dauntless Bodyguard with Haakon in play? Plus, History of Benalia is good on its own, but curving Knight of the White Orchid into History into Midnight Reaper is even sexier.

Wizards

Wizards don't have a ton of great payoffs, but there are enough incidental wizards going to be hanging around that I feel comfortable running Wizard's Lightning and Wizard's Retort, and it gives me an option to audible into Adeliz, the Cinder Wind and Naban, Dean of Iteration if I want to.

Zombies

Wouldn't be a Riptide cube without Gravecrawler, would it? Then there's Cryptbreaker and Plague Belcher for some value and reach in the black decks. I like Relentless Dead a lot too.

Goblins

I love goblins. I always have. But heavy mono-red sligh goblins were never my style. I like weird combo-aggro legacy style goblins. In general, I really dislike one-dimensional aggro. I want my aggro decks to have intricate combo-elements to them that add resilience and reach, and goblins (and zombies!) are the perfect tribes to support that. I've been playing Magic for a long time, but one of the most formative MtG experiences for me was when my daughter was born. I would wake up at 3 AM for bottle feedings, and to pass the time I would boot up Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, the best DotP by a mile to go with M13, the best Core Set by a mile.

Basically what I'm getting at is that I fucking love Krenko, Mob Boss and I don't know why I cut him a million years ago. He's back. Siege-Gang Commander is back. Goblin Rabblemaster is back.

Elves

When I was going on about recursive combo-aggro, you had to know I was coming here too, right? I'm looking to perform some experiments with bumping up some of my ramp. For example, I don't plan on including any 1-mana Llanowar Elves and friends. Instead, I want ramp to start at 2 mana, but be more exciting. Enter Priest of Titania. Also I know I said that I wanted to avoid +1/+1 lords, but Imperious Perfect is too cool, so I'm including it. Which makes me consider adding Lord of the Accursed, but we'll get to that later.

Add

 

[Peter LaCara]

I've thought about it some more and decided that being stubborn about +1/+1 lords is dumb. I think it's good to avoid vanilla +1/+1 lords like Supreme Phantom, but Lord of the Accursed and Goblin Chieftain add texture and character to their respective tribes. Actually, would Goblin Trashmaster be better if goblins are supposed to be a little Aristocrats-y? I dunno. I'll have to mull that over. Anyway. For now

ADD

 

[Peter LaCara]

Part 6 - Filling Out the Tribes

In the following posts, I'm just going to drop a bunch of cool creatures here belonging to each tribe, without worrying about curve or anything like that for the moment. I'm not even sure I'm going to add all of these yet, but I'm going to throw them in as a first draft.

Knights

 

[Peter LaCara]

Wizards

 

[Peter LaCara]

Welcome back, everyone. Now that RNA, WAR, and MH1 are out, I'm no longer sitting here making seismic changes to archetypes with every new card spoiled. We have reached the point where I have each color pair nailed down. With that skeleton in place, I've been doing the digital equivalent of going through my collection and just throwing cards in a box. None of the colors are balanced, the curve is a total mess, but the cube is starting to get some meat on it. I am not going to post every change I've made since I literally added over 200 cards.

The next step is to take this rough draft and start sculpting. Smooth out the curve, fill out the archetypes, make sure the colors are balanced. A couple more passes and I'll feel comfortable enough to start drafting it.