Super Retail Draft
Like a draft at the FNM, but super charged!
Summary:
I'm building a cube inspired by fun stuff I've seen in retail drafts, but adapted to the cube format. The goal is to have lots of synergistic decks that can be drafted, where you recognize some build arounds from e.g. triple Innistrad. Card inclusions are done based on decks that are playtested, and are only added to the cube list if the decks were fun to play against each other during testing.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Deck driven design
3. Current playtested decks
4. References
1. Introduction
The pitch for the cube is to take fun and interesting decks and card interactions from retail draft formats and add them to a cube where they are given a little higher power level, better consistency, and a little more depth by pairing mechanics from different blocks, to make those decks and card interactions super charged.
One of the things that got me interested in putting together this cube was the excellent "Top 5 Best Draft Formats Ever" episode of the Limited Resources podcast, where they discussed the draft formats they liked best and the qualities of those formats that stood out to them. Essentially, it boiled down to a good format giving you decisions to make during the draft, and during play [1]. My hope is to be able to employ a more conscious design process to this cube, together with some fairly thorough playtesting, to put together a cube list that fulfill the pitch and create a format that is fun to draft not just once but dozens of times.
Pair identities:
This is a summary of the color pair identities as they stand currently. If you're reading this, chances are this list has been or will be updated as the design progresses. Identities are listed with the fast deck first, then the slow deck. Themes that are just speculations currently are in parenthesis.
- ((Flyers)), ((Draw-go control with instans and flash))- - ((Ninjas)), ((Zombie self-mill with laboratory maniac))
- - TBD
- - TBD
- - ((+1/+1 Travel Prep Aggro)), ((Enchantment constellation midrange))
- - Disruptive Aristocrats, ((Enchantment recursion with sagas and removal auras))
- - TBD
- - Madness Aggro, Untap Super Ramp
- - Fast deck TBD, Burning Vengeance Self Mill Control
- - TBD
Over the years I've gotten a particular taste in what kind of Magic I like to play, which has informed some of the design goals I'm aiming for in this cube:
- Feature memorable cards from draft formats me and my players like
- Synergy over good stuff, picks should matter during the draft, i.e. decks over cards
- Clearly signaled themes that a new drafter will pick up during their first draft
- Enough depth so that you can still discover new things in the cube after a couple of drafts
Formats I'm considering making references to and stealing things from are the Ravnica blocks, Innistrad blocks, Theros blocks and the 'Master' series (i.e. modern masters, ultimate masters). These sets were chosen in a combination of some being renowned draft formats, and partially due to my personal nostalgia and familiarity with some of them.
I'm also hoping to include stuff I've found exciting from my own drafts, at the time of writing being things I discover in Theros Beyond Death.
Decks over cards:
As synergy over good stuff is one of the goals I'd like to describe what I mean with 'decks over cards'. In Innistrad, you couldn't just pick up any cards and hope to jam them together into a deck, but instead had to rely on making important decision during the entire draft to get a cohesive powerful deck.
An example of synergy focus in triple Innistrad is the Burning Vengeance, Spider Spawning and Travel Preparation decks. Here, the namesake cards are paired with cards that on their own might not look like much (e.g. Geistflame in the Burning Vengeance deck, Gnaw to the Bone in the Spider Spawning deck, and just about any 2-drops and 3-drops in travel prep) but contribute to the overall game plan of the deck.
Signalling and depth:
I want each color pair to have a clear identity, some strategy that a drafter will naturally discover from just looking at the cards in each pack. This can be done pretty straightforward sometimes, like having "X matters" cards in both color A and color B (e.g. 'spells matters' in both blue and red), or having sacrifice outlets in black and tokens in white. The trick will be to balance this for all 10 color pairs.
To get enough depth in the format, I will try to make sure the 10 pair identities share cards, and that the cards serve different roles in each deck. An example of this would be having Overgrowth serve both as something to untap in a UG ramp deck, and as an enchantment in a GW constellation deck. I will also try to let each pair have one faster more aggressive deck, and one slower more controlling deck.
2. Deck driven design
I'm a big proponent of figuring out design decisions by just playing things out rather than going too deep on theory crafting, as I've been burnt by that before. It's easy to have something seem useful on paper and contributing to some desired theme, but just not really working together once you've drafted the cards and sit down to choose your 23 playables. As a remedy for this, I've decided to force myself to sketch up what a 40-card deck would look like for any cards or themes I want to include in the cube, so that I judge every inclusion in the context of something that could get sleeved up and played in a real game of Magic.
Design steps
The design process consists of the following three steps, and following these steps let me playtest all the cards I want to put into the cube before deciding if they're going to contribute what I want to the environment before I even draft the cube. Making the feedback cycle from recognizing something as a candidate inclusion to having some actual play experience I hope will vastly improve my design, compared to earlier cubes.
1. Put together a card pool for an idea
Decide upon some deck idea, by for instance observing some card interaction or a deck from another draft environment or constructed format. If an existing deck serves as inspiration, find a concrete reference deck list. Analyze what makes the card interaction or deck work. What is its strengths, how does it contribute to winning the game? Then generalize the interaction between the cards in the reference deck as much as possible, removing any unnecessary details. Try to find as many neighboring mechanics to the ones in the reference deck as you can.
The Burning Vengeance deck rewards playing any spells, and plays cards from the graveyard. Thousand-year Storm is another card that reward playing lots of spells, and mechanics like escape and jump-start also allow for playing spells out of the graveyard. Put together a pool of speculative cards that could fit into the current theme being investigated. I frequently use www.scryfall.com as my primary research tool for finding cool cards that could contribute to a given theme.
2. Build a deck and playtest it
Build a 40 card singleton deck with the cards from the speculative pool. This step makes sure that cards that could be included in the cube are judged within the context of a concrete deck. Do the cards contribute to a deck that seem fun to play, and fun to play against? Continue with step 1 and 2 until at least three decks have been put together. Then grab a friend and playtest the decks against each other! If the created deck is to test a new card, playtest that deck against playtest decks that were accepted from a previous session.
Make notes at how fun the decks are to play with and against, if they have game plan that is interesting to carry out, and that feels fair to face against. Make tweaks to the decks until they feel really good. Reject any decks that aren't fun to play with, or feel cheap and unfair to play against.
3. Add the cards from approved decks to the cube list
Once the decks have been playtested and deemed good enough to put into the cube, it's time to sort out what cards to add. If the cube is empty, then all cards from the playtests deck can be added at once.
If cards already exist in the cube list, there needs to be a compromise between the cards in the playtest deck and cards in the cube with similar functions. Instead of adding redundancy, consider finding a card that can serve a role in several decks at once. This step should make sure that cards aren't overly specific to one deck, creating the dreaded 'on rails' draft, but instead make cards deep and possible to play in many different strategies.
3. Current playtested decks
In this section I will post the decks that I have playtested and found good enough for including in the cube. This is both for your viewing pleasure, and as bookkeeping for when I want to add additional decks and want to playtest the new decks against already approved decks.
In order to not overload with the number of images, all the decks are hidden behind spoilers. Decks that are more aggressive are tagged 'FAST', decks that are more controlling or midrangy are tagged 'SLOW'.
Creatures that leave bodies behind are combined with sac outlets and small creature reanimation, some desruptive weenies and spirit tokens. Skirsdag high priest, blood artist and falkenrath noble help give the deck reach.
 | | | | |
| ||||
An aggressive deck that combines evasive threats, counter spells, some cards that benefit from being in the graveyard, madness cards and discard outlets to attack from multiple angles.
| | | | |
| ||||
| ||||
Combine sources that tap for more than one mana with cards that untap those sources to generate massive amounts of mana, and then play really big threats to take over the game.
| | | | | |
| |||||
A combination of a self mill deck and a spells matter deck. You use your graveyard as an extension of your hand as a way of playing tons of spells and getting extra value on your spells with cards like burning vengeance and saheeli.
| | | | |
| ||||
| ||||
As I'm intentionally making this post geeky, I of course have a section dedicated to material I'm referencing, so that you the reader can immerse yourself if you're interested. I will be adding things here as I find interesting blog posts and articles to cite.
[1] Sutcliffe, M. and Scott-Vargas, L., 2019. Top 5 Best Draft Formats Ever (And Why They Are Great). [podcast] Limited Resources. Available at: http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-503-top-5-best-draft-formats-ever-and-why-they-are-great [Accessed 29 March 2020].
