Shards Of Something-Or-Other

Introduction
Hi everyone, long time listener first time caller. I don't really play all that much MTG these days, but I wanted to put together a cube so that I can do so on an even footing with my fellow occasionals, and also partially as just a fun theoretical design exercise. To that end, I created a smaller 270-card (i.e. 6-player), 10 two-colour archetypes, lower power level cube as a pilot . It turned out alright because playing cube is better than not playing cube at all, but I found that many archetypes were either too linearly powerful, on rails, or just didn't come together despite explicit support. The most interesting cases were those with similar archetypes in neighbouring colours, or cards which bridged themes - I recognise this isn't groundbreaking, but it was valuable to experience directly.

As a result of this, and of lurking here and reading the tremendous archetype shape thread, I have taken a second stab at a bigger (360) cube with more cohesive overarching themes. It can be found here: https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5fba6e3f8e1dc31071abbd5f

Design Overview
The cube is based on the allied colour shards (originally of Alara), which each shard having a single theme that each colour (and colour pair within it) embodies in slightly different ways. I considered changing the colour pie, but ultimately decided that would make things less intuitive since there is a biases towards allied colour pairs over enemy, so them being different requires the players to be pretty switched on in an already information-heavy environment.

The power level is relatively low to allow for some lower-power themes to shine, and to have a more interesting range of cards than in more powermax-y builds: I really do like some of the weird Riptidean gems. The fixing is very good (double fetches, double shocks) because I want to encourage splashing/three colour decks - hopefully the life cost of fetches and shocks (over OG duals) will discourage greedy goodstuff soup, but if they prevail the fixing can be pared back. Multicolour cards are intended to give very strong signposts and be valuable rewards for having picked a lane, rather than being just generically good, splashable cards.

Shard Themes
  • Bant {G}{W}{U}: Enchantments (Sagas, Constellation)
  • Esper {W}{U}{B}: Enter-the-battlefield: (Blink; Value Reanmation; Ninjutsu)
  • Grixis {U}{B}{R}: Looting (Cycling/Discard; Madness; "Second Draw")
  • Jund {B}{R}{G}: Sacrifice (Value sacrificing; Morbid; Auto-Recursion)
  • Naya {R}{G}{W}: Lands (Landfall; Lands in Graveyard)
Ultimately, I chose the shard structure because I believe that the draft will produce more interesting decks when your options within a theme can be any combination of three colours with options to splash than a deck which is always based in the same colour pair with limited options in a third. It also helps that each colour only needs to support three themes (instead of four in 10-pair), allowing for more focus.

Initially I started being quite rigid on what decks each pair within a theme should support (e.g. RW landfall aggo vs GW landfall ramp), but that basically carried over issues of archetype narrowness present in the 10-pair format, forced me to try and support some very weird decks for the sake of having every colour combination be "a deck", and stopped me adding good cards for the theme because they didn't match the specific thing the colour was "supposed" to be doing. Better I think to give the colours tools within theme for many aggro/control/midrange outcomes than specifying that XY but not Z is the aggro part of the shard.

The Present Day
At this time, the cube does not yet exist in paper. Physical testing is of course the only way to fine tune things, but at this stage I am rather struggling to see the wood for the trees and would really value some thoughts or feedback from the denizens here about whether the basic skeleton passes an eyeball test before I sleeve it up. Specifically, I'm looking for opinions on topics such as:
  • Is this a sensible structure for a cube?
  • Do we like the themes?
  • Are there a reasonable number of enablers and payoffs to encourage syngeristic drafting without pushing the drafter onto rails? (the million dollar question)
  • Are there any obvious power outliers/underliers or cards which are just too cute?
  • Do I have enough "meat and potatoes"-type cards?
  • Should theme-bleed be encouraged or discouraged? For example, Doomwake Giant is a card I like, but black doesn't care about enchantments. Would running it be cool synergy distribution or a badly-designed trap?

Sources
Some neat threads that I stole ideas from:
Archetype Shapes
Enchantment theme
Blink
Landfall Aggro
Madness/Discard
Draft Archetypes
Design Heurstics
 
first of all, love the themes! always cool to see someone’s first public draft of a cube.

from looking over the list, here’s a few cards that are probably overcosted/don’t really do much/undersupported. there are a few kind of egregious strong cards in here but those are fun until proven unfun in my book, so let’s just start with the bottom tier:

Icatian Javelineers - probably doesn’t do much
Champion of the Parish - only 9 humans in white out of 31 creatures. only 44 humans in the cube overall
Verge Rangers - only turns on if you’re on the draw, which is not a great success rate.
Linvala - costs many mana, i guess it’s a blink target?
Fall of the Thran - not really sure how this one plays out
ominous seas- takes literally forever to make a token, i’ve tried it and gave up
Blue section - may want to look at adding a few more counterspells and cantrips but otherwise the cards in here are fine
Azra Smokeshaper - kinda hard to get the value
Necrogoyf - costs way too much and basically is just big and dumb
Hissing Iguanar - this really needs to hit creatures to be worth it
Desperate Ravings - it LOOKS like it does the thing but actually it’s horrible, please never maindeck this. you are looking for Thrill of Possibility in this slot
Devastating Dreams-“at random” is just really bad text for discard stuff
Skyclave Pickaxe, Moldervine Cloak - too much mana, not enough impact
Ancient Excavation - try Tainted Indulgence instead
 
Thank you blacksmithy, that's exactly what I'm in the market for - especially personal experience with some of the speculative choices. The idea behind Verge Rangers is that lots of the "blink" spells can bounce lands, which enables landfall and the "if opponent has more lands" cards (Land Tax, Tithe, etc.), so VR should be active more than just on the draw: but perhaps only sometimes getting one card is not enough of an upside in VR's case.

Linvala is supposed to be a control stabiliser/finisher that also blinks decently.

What are the cards you consider at risk of being OP, so I can at least keep an eye on them?
 
the only really egregious one i see is Sylvan Library as it’s an extremely strong, repeatable effect. it’s one of the best non-custom green cards in my own cube.

some other cards that seem like easy first picks in an average pack but are less problematic:

Unexpectedly Absent
Path to Exile
Jace, Vryns Prodigy
Shark Typhoon
Preordain
Snapcaster Mage
Tenacious Underdog
Nights Whisper
Seasoned Pyromancer
Dragons Rage Channeler
Fable of the Mirror Breaker
Green Suns Zenith
Baleful Strix

EDIT: and i should note, it’s okay to have a few easy first picks. totally flat power band is kind of a false goal. but generally it’s good to tighten the power band somewhat as you play the cube, by some combination of the following strategies:
1. remove stuff that is really bad and either loses or is sideboarded/last picked consistently. your power level will slowly go up over time with this strategy.
2. remove stuff that is too good and consistently feels unbeatable in game/has a consistently higher than normal win%. your power level will slowly go down with this strategy.
3. remove a little bit from both ends of the spectrum. your power min/max will slowly regress towards the median with this strategy.
 
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Thank you, I think I agree that while those are mostly strong they are at mostly not likely to take over a game in the same way some power outliers I have experience with can (Recurring Nightmare, Gideon Ally of Zendikar). I did think Sylvan Library might be too good, so if do keep it in I'll keep a close eye on it.

I also agree that a totally flat power band isn't a great goal (and I could maybe do with some more first-pickable cards that enable the shard themes), and your process definitely seems like a good way to iterate on the cube.
 
looking back over your OP and i suppose i could give my two cents on a couple of your other questions…
enough meat and potatoes?
i think you could definitely stand to have a few more “core effects” here…
in white, a couple more versatile removals (banishing light or fateful absence type stuff) and at least one wrath spell.
in blue, a few more each of counterspells and cantrips.
in black, you might consider some targeted discard spells.
in red, a few more shocks. probably OK on lightning strikes.
in green, a few mana dorks. i don’t see any at G and only lotus cobra at 1G.

is archetype bleed OK? i always recommend to have cards that support archetypes in as many colors as possible. “if your themes not at common…” etc etc.
with the understanding however, that if a card is mechanically isolated from its color, it needs to be strong enough to splash in another color deck. doomwake giant might not be at that level.
 
I can get on board with more of those meat and potatoes.

For the targeted discard, what kind of level did you have in mind? Thoughtseize seems too good, but Coercion seems underwhelming. I'm a big Cabal Therapy fan, but would it really be that effective? Something more like Harsh Scrutiny?

The lack of mana dorks is actually deliberate - I felt like ramp should be from lands to support landfall. If we think cheaper ramp is desirable, then I'd probably go for Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth as enchantments. Although I wasn't 100% on including them as they are hard to interact with (but maybe them not being creatures is enough of a trade-off?).

Your thoughts on bleed make sense as well - I agree that a card supporting a theme outside the expected shard really needs to be worth it to not be a trap.
 
i also don’t run thoughtseize…
some favs include inquisition of kozilek, blackmail, and duress. cabal therapy is cool but you kinda need to work for it. i have it as part of a young pyromancer crats shell that isn’t really in the cube right now.

dorks: the 2 mana critters are all pretty good if llanowar elves is problematic for you. paradise druid, servant of the conduit, etc
 
some favs include inquisition of kozilek, blackmail, and duress. cabal therapy is cool but you kinda need to work for it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think Duress would be doomed to perma-sideboard because I don't think I have the key non-creatures for it to snag, but the rest seem reasonable options.

dorks: the 2 mana critters are all pretty good if llanowar elves is problematic for you. paradise druid, servant of the conduit, etc
I don't have an issue with mana dorks from a power perspective. I was just thinking that if I wanted cheap green ramp it would be better to have cards with the same overall effect within existing themes, rather than theme-less dorks. I.e. Wild Growth over Llanowar Elves; Rampant Growth over paradise druid.

Or is that going too deep and actually I should just use theme-less dorks?
 
I don't have an issue with mana dorks from a power perspective. I was just thinking that if I wanted cheap green ramp it would be better to have cards with the same overall effect within existing themes, rather than theme-less dorks. I.e. Wild Growth over Llanowar Elves; Rampant Growth over paradise druid.
Or is that going too deep and actually I should just use theme-less dorks?
i mean it depends. dorks certainly aren’t NEEDED to have a fun cube. however they do provide density of one of green’s “core effects” which is to ramp mana. specifically the ramps from 1 to 3 and 2 to 4 are kind of the key spots in many cube environments, simply because these are very big impact points on the curve where it’s a big advantage to get ahead on. so if you are OK with exploring other parts of green’s pie and not worry so much about consistently ramping early in green decks, leave ‘em out, but if you want to reliably enable the classic “bolt the bird” line of play/counterplay in your cube’s green decks, you probably just need a few more dorks at MV1-2, themed or not. so it depends on what you want out of green really.
 
Very good observation. That wasn't something I was consciously having an opinion on, but I guess that's just because it (like "green ramps") is just very baked into the game. Certainly if the ramp can't be interacted with (because it's an enchant land) then the ramp payoffs have to not be too good otherwise there's no counterplay at all. I'll have to have a think which direction I want to go.

I did realise that Sanctum Weaver is both a perfectly reasonable 2-mana, ramp-1 dork who doubles a pretty good if you have other enchantments. I wonder if I can find some other similar mana dorks to split the difference, then fill it out with generic ones.
 
another thing to keep in mind since you do want to push enchantress - in your environment, if enchantments are very commonly seen, enchantment removal becomes maindeckable. just like how Topple The Statue was a maindeckable and very powerful removal spell in Double Masters limited. If you increase your disenchant density, particularly at low mana costs, stuff like Utopia Sprawl becomes more interactive.
 
That's a good point, although I think I would need to push both enchantments and artifacts more across all colours to make them truly maindeckable - with no real artifacts theme and enchantments in only 3/5 colours they'd still just be good/common sideboard cards. The main problem I think is that the colours with enchantments you need to kill (green for ramp, white for anti-O-Ring and bombs) are also the two colours that have the most Disenchants - so the decks playing enchantments are the ones that are best placed to answer them (meaning the non-enchantment decks don't have the answers they need). If maindeck Disenchants were for killing artifacts as well you can spread that out across more colours.

This ultimately means that right now I don't want to push cheap enchantments for ramp because I don't think I can make easy interaction without over warping the format (especially since answers to Wild Growth either cost more mana than it or are very narrow). I also think 1-mana acceleration might be too fast for my format - you can bolt/shock the bird, but only one colour (red, but black can have it build in with more disfigures) really can interact that early. So I'm going to try for 2-drop mana dorks with theme-relevance:
- Lotus Cobra
- Sanctum Weaver
- Reclusive Taxidermist
- Sakura-Tribe Elder (Sort of)

These four may not be enough, but are hopefully sufficient as a starting point that more can be added if "T2 ramp guy" is a desirable play pattern and iterate. Other considerations include Werebear and Deathcap Cultivator. Paradise Druid or Wall of roots would be my first non-theme pick if I got that far.

I have also gone ahead with some other changes. I haven't done everything you suggested Blacksmithy because there are some cards I want to test for myself/am not ready to let go of, but the changes are:

Winds of Abandon - Removal AND sweeper
Hell Mongrel - Madness payoff and enabler
Censor - Counter AND Cycling cantrip
Unholy Heat - Shock, delirium should be pretty achievable
Thrill of Possibility - As suggested
Sanctum Weaver - Mana dork and enchantment payoff
Wrath of God - Sweeper
Day of Judgment - Sweeper
Tainted Indulgence - As suggested
Burst Lightning - Shock with upside
Okiba-Gang Shinobi - A more exciting ninjutsu effect
Reclusive Taxidermist - Mana dork, can be big in the sacrifice deck (or just late game)
Cabal Therapy - Discard + sac outlet
Inquisition on Kozilek - Discard spell

I am slightly concerned the 4-mana wraths will be too good and that 5-mana would be better, but I'll need to try them out to be sure.

Unless anyone else chimes in, I am going to start the process of physically assembling this cube IRL and find some poor unfortunates to test it with. Thank you so much for your insight Blacksmithy!
 
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