Plaid Magic 360 Counters Matter Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

Hey everybody, realized I was hijacking another thread, sorry. Here's our list,
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/7961

We are always tuning, most of which gets documented on out Twitch Channel, YouTube Channel and Our Blog.

For more info on how it started, a copy of the email that was sent out to our playgroup in November of 2013 can be found on this post.

As we are always working on this cube (we meaning my brother and I), I plan to regularly post here regarding issues, swaps, management, etc.

We have a major rework of GW to provide some definition between GW and RW, which previously were pretty token heavy, and both decks were fighting for White token generators, though GW ONLY focused on token generators, while Red needed other pieces, so it wasn't a fair draft fight. We will be adding some choice for GW correct this, mostly in the mono colored areas. Its amazing how very few changes can completely change a cube!

I'm happy I found this place, it looks like a great resource for the cube community!
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

This is a response to a post from another thread that I accidently hijacked...


Chris Taylor said:
Interesting cube! I find it strange that with all the counter stuff you have and want to play up, there's a single proliferate card: Thrummingbird.
Was Volt Charge, Contagion Clasp, or Tezzeret's Gambit not cutting the mustard? I haven't really found success with much other than volt charge myself, but I thought I'd ask
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Well, Contagion Clasp, and Tezzeret's Gambit are there, you must have missed it. In fact we did the swap Show and Tell -> Tezzeret's Gambit in Plaid Magic - Episode 3: Follow the Guilds in the "Never Been Plaid" section, which actually had two proliferate options. We threw in all playable proliferate cards into our 90 card extension we built out for 10 player support last month, so we got a chance to evaluate a few. To be honest, counters matter more in some colors than others, the the effective upside of proliferate to compensate for the cost of the ability is sort of sliding scale. Tezzeret's Gambit is a special case here because it has Proliferate pinned to an card draw spell that can be put into any deck, it have performed very well, but we may need to move it to the colorless section, as we have only seen it played in non-blue decks.

We are live this Thursday at 10PM cst btw, please if anyone has a mailbag question for us, it would be greatly appreciated. Chris, we could even use your proliferate question if its ok with you, but we also discuss more general cube concepts as well.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
PlaidMagic Cube said:
This is a response to a post from another thread that I accidently hijacked...





Well, Contagion Clasp, and Tezzeret's Gambit are there, you must have missed it. In fact we did the swap Show and Tell -> Tezzeret's Gambit in Plaid Magic - Episode 3: Follow the Guilds in the "Never Been Plaid" section, which actually had two proliferate options. We threw in all playable proliferate cards into our 90 card extension we built out for 10 player support last month, so we got a chance to evaluate a few. To be honest, counters matter more in some colors than others, the the effective upside of proliferate to compensate for the cost of the ability is sort of sliding scale. Tezzeret's Gambit is a special case here because it has Proliferate pinned to an card draw spell that can be put into any deck, it have performed very well, but we may need to move it to the colorless section, as we have only seen it played in non-blue decks.

We are live this Thursday at 10PM cst btw, please if anyone has a mailbag question for us, it would be greatly appreciated. Chris, we could even use your proliferate question if its ok with you, but we also discuss more general cube concepts as well.
Click to expand...

Have at it man, I don't mind you using the question

Looks like I did miss gambit/clasp, I was curious because volt charge has easily been the best for me, usually due to some combination of this opener:



(I've got multiples of plenty of these guys because of wanting more +1/+1 counter friendly dudes, but this still does happen in singleton)
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

Chris Taylor said:
Have at it man, I don't mind you using the question

Looks like I did miss gambit/clasp, I was curious because volt charge has easily been the best for me, usually due to some combination of this opener:



(I've got multiples of plenty of these guys because of wanting more +1/+1 counter friendly dudes, but this still does happen in singleton)
Click to expand...

You can rest assured Volt Charge will be a topic of discussion!

As I said, there's a major G/W Rework to our cube (I actually applied the changes to cubetutor today) that we will be running through, but I think this is an interesting palette cleanser for the mailbag at the end. I will be certain to shout out to riptide as well!
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
There is a pretty serious power disparity in this cube. I mean, you are pushing +1/+1 counters, stooping to cards like Simic Initiate and Butcher Ghoul, yet have some of the most brutal finishers ever printed in Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. There is a full set of Swords in there, as well as most of the most potent instant speed removal ever printed. It is a little difficult to durdle around with counters assembling a massive threat or generating value when you opponent can play single cards which out perform the entire synergy of your deck.

I have to imagine that the most successful decks simply ignore the counter theme entirely, and those that don't are the sort of Red deck that Chris alludes to above which are basically mono-red aggro with incidental counters that is able to splash something like Abzan Falconer for evasion or Bramblewood Paragon as a random lord for a bunch of its creatures.
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

I can see how this would be a concern, in fact i've had this type of statement/question posed several times. First, If you check the blog on cube tutor you will note that most of the counters lords (like the two you mentioned above), were added last night. This was a response to an issue we had identified in Boros. There was too much overlap between Boros and Selesnya with regards to a tokens subtheme. The problem (besides not having enough definition between the two) was that while Boros needed a supporting cast of Aggression enablers (Purphoros, God of the Forge, Hellrider, Shaman of the Great Hunt), Selesnya was able to just swarm win by going super-wide. Selesnya had basically a single goal: Take all the tokens, and maybe a few boons. In response, we have added some counters lords to Selesnya to provide that same type of drafting offset where Selesnya needs to balance tokens and lords. This is all to say that we have not drafted with those yet, but I will be sure to report back if its an epic failure:).

Now, I will break down your points here which you are free and welcome to disagree with.

There is a pretty serious power disparity in this cube. I mean, you are pushing +1/+1 counters, stooping to cards like Simic Initiate and Butcher Ghoul, yet have some of the most brutal finishers ever printed in Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. There is a full set of Swords in there, as well as most of the most potent instant speed removal ever printed.
Click to expand...

The implications here are:
  • We are unnaturally subjected to "stooping" to lower powered cards because we are forcing an under-powered theme
    • I will certainly agree that there are cards here that wouldn't be if we didn't have a theme. This, however is not something that is meant to, or results in our drafters/gameplay feeling forced. While we provide a counters theme to our playgroup, it really is just a piece of the puzzle. You have selected here some of the lower end cards within the cube that have been on the cutting board for a while. You also have chosen the highest end to highlight the disparity, however, within the framework provided, we have seen the value on both ends. Butcher Ghoul is in this cube, in part because it actually fills several roles. It provides a resilient creature in a control deck which utilizes board wipes, at which point you can recast your gravecrawler. It provides a 1 color mana commitment target for GB Pod (which has done very well), as well as several other sac outlets. The fact that your GB pod deck happened to also have a Oona's Blackguard is just icing. I think you used the term "incidental" above in a derogative sense, but I don't see it as such myself. I think that incidental interactions is a worthy goal of a cube. It's just there, you don't have to feel forced when drafting, things just fall into place - the opposite of this would I would categorize as narrow or restrictive from a player standpoint. I won't go deeply into Simic Initiate, except that it is commonly mainboarded and has quite a bit of utility between forcing unleash to disable a newly cast blocker, enabling a third life on a murderous Redcap, etc, etc. (again, not the best card in our cube). I guess what I am getting at is that the In a Vacuum power level of these cards do not correctly illustrate the level of interactivity they provide.
  • In addition to the above, we have included top shelf cards that outshine the power level of the aforementioned "stoopers"
    • Swords...you got me. The idea here was basically to allow vanilla creatures. A remnant of what the cube once was. This discussion will be had again in the near future. The removal you mention is a direct result of a conscious decision to make our cube creatures heavy
      LYTwNYl.png

      This decision was based on two factors: (1) We like combat heavy games, and so does our playgroup. (2) We now effectively have a smaller variety of answers that we need to include in our cube, and that our drafters need to worry about for their sideboards.
      We have lots of ETB effects to offset the creature/non-creature gap, and with the direction WotC is moving, we are ensuring that we will have interesting options in the future.
      With regards to the specific cards mentioned, Wurmcoil isn't quite right here, you are correct. It hasn't been terrible, but it feels like it's keeping the bench warm for something that plays better on our team. Grave Titan honsetly (and surprisingly) plays fine. I feel like you actually answered half of this part for me when you said:
      yet have some of the most brutal finishers ever printed in Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. There is a full set of Swords in there, as well as most of the most potent instant speed removal ever printed.
      Click to expand...
      So its there, but it better not be you main game plan.
  • Wrapping up
    • I think there is more going on here than a glance can provide. I really appreciate the feedback though! This is part of the reason we do the twitch cast. We have to be able to answer to our cube and its contents on a monthly basis. It forces us to look under the hood and see what's going on. I will end with Crow13th's response to me asking a similar question months ago "When we see just good decks winning games, we'll talk about it" - This hasn't happened. For a while the most winning deck featured Varolz and Corpsejack. This has leveled off as our playgroup has discovered some of the other options available and the meta has shifted. We actually did have some guest drafters from another podcast that came in and did some good stuff drafting because that's what they wanted to do. That's cool, like I said, its there but one of them came away with a score of 0-3 and the other had 1-2 out of three best of three matches. Both of them did state that they had a ton of fun and want to come again next time (as well as purchase our Plaid Magic Playmats).
I welcome the feedback, honestly, that's what this type of community is for.

**Update**
Sent Crow13th this post via IM and he responded as follows:

The answer to this is quantity. We have a lot of swords and some big finishers. The Swords are a way for us to play more vanilla creatures. That said, the two cards that were pointed out have been on my crosshairs for some time because of how underwhelming they are. As for the big finishers and good removal go, they both tend to cancel each other out. The Finishers are needed to combat the speed of our cube. There is also no way to cheat them into play, or even ramp them out as fast as most cubes can. IE: No Show and Tell or Sol Ring. We are riding a thin line I agree, but our cube is highly synergistic with many powerful interactions. And because of that we have never seen a drafter just draft good stuff and do well. Also because the number of just good cards is lower, it is rare that one drafter gets them all. And if they do it is also rare for your opponent not to have a way to deal with them. Think of it like any limited block environment. Sometimes you open a bomb, and sometimes you don’t. The issue only comes when the synergy strategy is out-classed by the strength of your bombs. In our cube I don’t believe that to be the case, and until someone can consistently draft just good stuff and win I tend not to worry about it.
Click to expand...
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

Eric Chan said:
Magister of Worth is another well known Ruiner of Games, and I personally found Liliana of the Veil unfun in lower powered environments.
Click to expand...

While I'm honestly on the fence with Lili, (aka, excited about origins...), its all about relative power level. A vanilla unpowered cube featuring LotV, agreed. Is she really that powerful in a 360 count 50% creatures cube that has flashback/moderate graveyard shenanigens and the like. My experience tells me no.

Magister of Worth is to offset tokens and provides an additional wincon for our only real supported control build. This said, I will reiterate
most of the most potent instant speed removal ever printed
Click to expand...
.
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Eric Chan said:
Magister of Worth is another well known Ruiner of Games, and I personally found Liliana of the Veil unfun in lower powered environments.
Click to expand...
Strongly disagree re: Lili. I feel that she scales incredibly well to the power of the environment. Granted, if your environment is a bunch of 1/1 guys or something, maybe then she doesn't scale. Otherwise though, her loyalty values are low enough that she's killable in most environments.

This is less me saying "omg Eric you're so wrong" and more me pointing out that riptide folks may have mixed feelings on that particular card in lower power environments.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I'm curious how you feel the cube is working out as a whole. A lot of us here have had great success with counters themes in lower-powered cubes (maybe some in higher power? Anyone?), but I personally don't see the point of an entirely counter-centric cube - unless you can get many different archetypes going which revolve around counters. As the list looks right now, all I see are good stuff cards. If you could find some more themes (maybe time-counters?) this could be cool.
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

The cube has been drafting/playing very well. Our playgroup was a little worried 2 years ago when we switched from our powered cube, but the response has been great and people have been having a lot of fun discovering interactions that they (and we as cube designers) did not plan or anticipate.

I guess it falls along the lines of a standard magic set. Take Innistrad. This was, loosely stated, a "Death Matters" limited environment. Graveyard matters was a subset of that. That doesn't mean that it was "Death-Centric", but the implications of it's existence through the limited environment. Just because I'm playing Werewolves, doesn't mean that I don't have to consider the existence of Tragic Slip when drafting/playing. There are subthemes and synergies that are gleaned from the As-Fan. This is what we are going for. We didn't want players to feel forced or pigeon-holed, but adding an underlying, synergistic undertone across the colors requires that one take note of it's relevance at the very least. Counters is just a glue theme that penetrates all colors, which provides us with a second layer of control/context over card evaluation and relevance. Here's a screen from our last cast where we talked about cube roles with respect to our cube:

z31MJN5.png



What is the percentage of cards in the Innistrad block that have the word "Graveyard" in them? 124/674 - ~18.4%. My calc may be off a bit here, but I think we're in the correct ballpark for non-linear thematic support. As highlighted above, stacked firmly above the Creatures and Counters theme we stack guild hinting. We subscribe to the idea that our guilds follow the mono colors, our players follow the guilds. Meaning we have placed cards that we think support the overall theme of the cube and are synergistic/interactive, then we look at what the color pairings do natively and build the gold section out from the bottom up. These slots are what we use to help drafters identify what to expect within that particular combination. This is what we are hoping to achieve with our "Follow the Guilds" series on twitch/youtube. What you are identifying as "Good Stuff" is most likely cards that support certain builds, as opposed to being there for their raw power level. Some of them, as also illustrated above is the upper echelon added simply for variance and power.

We don't have all the guilds hammered out the way we'd like to yet. One cast at a time.....
To summarize, "Counters Matter Cube" is probably a misnomer we have cast on our cube that oversimplifies the idea behind it. It may also be that we have a very strange playgroup that finds a mishmash garbage cube fun and interactive (I don't think so...but its possible I guess)
Maybe this is totally not what your question was about, in which case I would love some specifics with regards to the "good stuff" observation you had.
Thanks again - back to work!
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Yeah that answers my question - I was just wondering if it was turning out fun! (though tbh I've found pretty much any cube fun) By good stuff I mean random midrangey cards that don't promote synergy. jesus christ, I was just unironically said "promote synergy". I think I better go do something else.
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

James Stevenson said:
Yeah that answers my question - I was just wondering if it was turning out fun! (though tbh I've found pretty much any cube fun) By good stuff I mean random midrangey cards that don't promote synergy. jesus christ, I was just unironically said "promote synergy". I think I better go do something else.
Click to expand...
Lol, I hope I didn't come off as defensive, I honestly enjoy this type of evaluation, hence why I "liked" your post. We do a lot of card eval on a weekly basis and I am really hoping to get some good critique here, as the average seriousness with regards to cube design is much higher here that anywhere else. Can't believe I only found this site now. I've read every cube article I could find by Jason, just never noticed the Riptide link!
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
PlaidMagic Cube said:
What is the percentage of cards in the Innistrad block that have the word "Graveyard" in them? 124/674 - ~18.4%. My calc may be off a bit here, but I think we're in the correct ballpark for non-linear thematic support.
Click to expand...

Kinda talking out of my ass here because I haven't looked at your cube or done my own calculation on Innistrad references to "graveyard" but I really like the way you're thinking here. That said, did you take into account purely instances of the word, or are you factoring in card rarity and percentage of occurrence in packs? I suspect if you're only doing the former, you may be fooling yourself into thinking you're providing as much theme support as ISD did while (potentially) falling far short of that mark. Regardless, I'd never even considered taking an angle like this before and I think I'll crunch some numbers on my own cube when I have the time.

I'll second James and say I'm glad you found us. You've probably already sold me on at least Volt Charge, so that's pretty sweet :)
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
PlaidMagic Cube said:
**Update**
Sent Crow13th this post via IM and he responded as follows:
The answer to this is quantity. We have a lot of swords and some big finishers. The Swords are a way for us to play more vanilla creatures. That said, the two cards that were pointed out have been on my crosshairs for some time because of how underwhelming they are. As for the big finishers and good removal go, they both tend to cancel each other out. The Finishers are needed to combat the speed of our cube. There is also no way to cheat them into play, or even ramp them out as fast as most cubes can. IE: No Show and Tell or Sol Ring. We are riding a thin line I agree, but our cube is highly synergistic with many powerful interactions. And because of that we have never seen a drafter just draft good stuff and do well. Also because the number of just good cards is lower, it is rare that one drafter gets them all. And if they do it is also rare for your opponent not to have a way to deal with them. Think of it like any limited block environment. Sometimes you open a bomb, and sometimes you don’t. The issue only comes when the synergy strategy is out-classed by the strength of your bombs. In our cube I don’t believe that to be the case, and until someone can consistently draft just good stuff and win I tend not to worry about it.
Click to expand...


Uhhhhhhh...

Bg Reanimator from CubeTutor.com












I even get to hate out on your little counter theme with Spike Cannibal, Hunter of Eyeblights and Kulrath Knight. When I read your synopsis of your cube, this doesn't feel like the deck I should be building. Feels like I am giving the middle finger to everyone at the table (I don't like being the jerk :( ).
 
PlaidMagic Cube

PlaidMagic Cube

Lol, counters hate is certainly a deck that can be played, and has!
This is almost identical to one that I drafted/played last year. I went 2-0, 1-2, 0-2 in the three rounds. The answer is, there are a lot of answers!



Should I change the title to "Plaid Magic Cube Featuring a subset of cards that have counters a for underlying consistency, but has other stuff too"?

**EDIT** - totally missed your bolding there! Right, so the "no way" isn't true obviously. You basically also got three major bombs 4 reanimation enables (though Hell's Caretaker is super slow, clunky and will be retired during our twitch cast tonight) and and an unbelievable amount of tutors. Seriously, is the cube tutor draft bot taking a day off? Either way, from playing a very similar deck, your game winners are going to be Lotleth Troll and Myr BattleSphere. Lotleth is just so versatile and resilient (one of my favorite cards) and Battle Sphere, because at least he leaves some dudes after he "Gets the Path"
The counters hate here is a nice touch, but its intentionally high on the curve. You may find in actual gameplay that you're choosing to animate dead your Kulrath instead of your Magister.

I like these anti-counters proposition decks, keep them coming!
Thank for drafting a few different builds, it was interesting to see them! Seriously though, it's a bit odd when bot drafting, since robats don't As-Fan.

Just a though, sometimes we drop below 8 drafters when we do a cube round, we draft on tappedout.net on Friday nights before we play. If were short on players, we have to use the bots. If anyone here is willing to take a bot slot when available it may be cool. Additionally, if you're in central Minnesota, you could actually draft and actually play sometime!
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Welcome to the forums!

If you haven't already gotten the vibe, there is a different mindset here with cube design. And there is a strong dislike for "power max" in general (referred to here as game ruining bullshit aka "GRBS"). I am firmly in that camp and run a pretty low powered cube, even by riptide standards (current list not available online though do to shear laziness, though I will likely post my new modular version once it's tested).

For what it's worth, I think you can get away with a lot in cube. I think you can run over powered stuff and not wind up with a broken meta. And that largely has to do with your playgroup. Generally speaking, cube managers have a small play group and they aren't getting thousands of drafters hammering their meta to find problems with it. If your group hates aggro (like my group), I can put all the nut aggro cards I want in there and overpower the hell out of it and it won't make a difference. No one will draft it. By the same token, I had to get rid of all kinds of top end cards because my players are all registered at WeDurdle.net. So stuff like Grave Titan just makes deck building mindless.

I ran both a semi-powered cube (with moxen but no other power 9 cards), and now a cube where the best finisher is Kokusho level. Some cards just warped the meta in horrible ways (Jitte, Recurring Nightmare). Others that should be warping the meta don't because guys aren't interested in drafting the decks that can exploit the cards.

Anyway, I babble a lot so sorry for clogging your thread. Just wanted to say hello and provide encouragement for what you are doing. Synergy based cubes are sweet and there is just so much more design space there versus the power max design. I would never go back to running that kind of cube personally simply because of how constrained I was by it.

And to contribute something more to your theme here… two cards you might consider including for some +1/+1 counter synergy:
Sage of Fables - There are a ton of playable wizards. Doesn't even need to be full tribal though because it turns all your +1/+1 dudes into CA engines (even if you aren't playing a single wizard). It's certainly not appropriate in a high powered environment, but if synergy is what you are after this card deserves a look. I'm experimenting with him in a light wizard tribal (voidmage prodigy) blue devotion that overlaps with +1/+1 counters (bleeding into Temur specifically but also Jund). Not sure it will work, but seems plausible to me.
Rage Forger - Shamans is a pretty bogus tribe, but the hellrider effect this guy gives all your dudes with +1/+1 counters seems pretty solid in any type of aggressive strategy. And it just so happens that the main dudes in my spells matter theme (Young Pyromancer and Guttersnipe) both happen to be shamans. I have not tested this one, so it could just be too low impact, but the more incentive cards you have for the +1/+1 theme, I think the tighter the integration will be.

Cheers.
 
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