Sets (STX) Strixhaven Testing/Includes Thread
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A big reason for why I mostly stick to higher power formats is exactly this reason, it's just so much less mental labor to maintain. A really really good standard set has like maybe 20 cards worth considering for high power cubes, usually much less than that. But for a retail limited power level cube there's pretty consistently 3x as many cards to seriously consider, which is way too much for me hahaha
Many of us here do the exact opposite, and (seem) to enjoy any mental anguish that might accompany it. Stepping off the highest power band frees up so much design space!
Dom Harvey
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In retail Limited right now, arguably the two strongest schools have the explicit aim of casting expensive spells or getting to 8+ lands and leaning hard on mana sinks. If you draft Rise of the Eldrazi intending to ignore expensive cards, you're setting yourself up for failure unless you end up with the ideal version of one of the synergistic aggro decks. Many of the __ Masters formats are grindy slugfests where you can play as many colours and cards as you want and being able to go over the top is the key to winning those games. Returning to the Constructed analogies, we're coming off a period of successive Standards where the best deck at various points has gained that status in part due to having an unbeatable endgame based around 7+ mana cards (Emergent/Genesis Ultimatum, Alrund's Epiphany) or scalable effects that you expect to spend a lot of mana on (Shark Typhoon, Hydroid Krasis, Expansion // Explosion) and the same is true of many previous Standards (Ugin, Dragonlord Atarka, Emrakul 13, Cruel Ultimatum, the Titans...). It doesn't take much imagination to picture a format where these cards aren't strictly dominated.
Okay so I feel like there's a misunderstanding here, I'm not saying that big mana strategies are never good or that expensive cards cannot see play, in fact I've already said as much when I mentioned that even in very powerful formats we see decks trying to hard cast Karn Liberated and Peer into the Abyss; what I'm saying is that leveraging these sorts of expensive cards effectively isn't free and it requires deckbuilding concessions and a dedicated gameplan to do so. The decks you see in the draft formats you mentioned that are trying to cast 7+ mana cards are doing so off the back of ramp like Eureka Moment, field trip or various treasure makers in Strixhaven, or Overgrown Battlement and Joraga Treespeaker in Rise of the Eldrazi, those are not cards that inherently contribute to a proactive midrange gameplan, they do not advance a clock or interact in meaningful ways, they're combo cards essentially and they allow you to play a unique divergent strategy that in certain metagames can be quite powerful but they aren't generically powerful effects in the same way that say Bonecrusher Giant is.
When it comes to the constructed analogues you speak of, the thing same thing rings true here as well, decks are warped entirely around their gameplan of leveraging expensive cards which typically means playing mana accelerants or running some small number of game winning spells as top end in a removal heavy, purely reactive control deck; *but* it is in constructed where we do see a strong bias towards payoffs that are also relevant early and Shark Typhoon, Hydroid Krasis, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Expansion//Explosion are all spells that leverage having tons of mana super effectively while also being more reasonable cards at earlier stages of the game. It's for this reason that a lot of these scaleable and still powerful big mana effects are the ones that we most often see translated into older eternal formats as having all of your cards relevant at earlier stages of the game is important when the expected number of turns in the game is reduced and the interactions present are more powerful. This is also why we tend to see a strong bias away from Big Spell Combo decks as all in ramp decks toward cheaper options when allowed like Storm or Elfball which want to leverage far cheaper win-the-game cards like Ad Nauseum or Natural Order over cards like the Ultimatums that you typically see in less powerful constructed contexts like Standard which are intentionally designed to lack the tools for these more powerful variations of the archetype.
I feel like the second paragraph boils down to: Flexible, pushed cards are good. Natural Order is better than Cruel Ultimatum. Which... yes.
I feel a bit like we're talking past each other here, because a lot of your posts seem to tie back to Legacy, something most of our cubes are totally foreign to, which alienates our perspective and makes the posts less relevant to each other.
I can easily see the argument that casting a Karn off tron or using overpowered ROE ramp is basically a combo deck. My question, given your previous post would be:
What are your thoughts on Rampant Growth/Farseek or Growth Spiral? Totally irrelevant because they aren't run in Legacy?
Further, in our Single Card Spotlight or Looking For a Card threads, we often look for cards that are context dependent. Can you see things from a perspective where Rampant Growth would be good? Just curious if you're locked in or not. I can totally see where you're coming from, but can also totally see where someone running straight up Grizzly Bears as a 2/2 is coming from, as boring as that would likely be lol. Imagine a slightly spicier 2/2 for 2, maybe.
Not trying to be divisive, if it came across that way. Just trying to see what we're dealing with and let you know what you're dealing with so we can get some more common ground.
I feel a bit like we're talking past each other here, because a lot of your posts seem to tie back to Legacy, something most of our cubes are totally foreign to, which alienates our perspective and makes the posts less relevant to each other.
I can easily see the argument that casting a Karn off tron or using overpowered ROE ramp is basically a combo deck. My question, given your previous post would be:
What are your thoughts on Rampant Growth/Farseek or Growth Spiral? Totally irrelevant because they aren't run in Legacy?
Further, in our Single Card Spotlight or Looking For a Card threads, we often look for cards that are context dependent. Can you see things from a perspective where Rampant Growth would be good? Just curious if you're locked in or not. I can totally see where you're coming from, but can also totally see where someone running straight up Grizzly Bears as a 2/2 is coming from, as boring as that would likely be lol. Imagine a slightly spicier 2/2 for 2, maybe.
Not trying to be divisive, if it came across that way. Just trying to see what we're dealing with and let you know what you're dealing with so we can get some more common ground.
I believe funch's point didn't actually have anything to do with legacy, but was instead intended to convey that ramp and big mana combo only tends to be good when the upside of accelerating into a big thing outweighs the deckbuilding cost of including ramp cards. As opposed to saying ramp spells are never good, I interpreted his post as saying that they have a large deckbuilding cost
This was my point, yeah. It isn't an inherently useful or "good" thing to take turns off from developing or interacting to accelerate one's mana. Even in low power formats you need to incorporate payoffs to justify those decisions, skipping turn three to play a darksteel ingot variant in booster draft isn't something a lot of decks typically find themselves willing to do, the opportunity cost isn't worth the payoff... *unless* you're drafting a divergent strategy that justifies this decision with powerful expensive spells and the inverse is also true, you can't just jam in the powerful and expensive spells without also giving yourself outs to get to the gamestate where you can cast them.
Of course, but the gameplan is the same for the Natural Order elfball deck as the standard Sultai Ultimatum ramp deck, both decks want to generate large amounts of mana and leverage that to win the game, be that activating the ability of Allosaurus Shepherd or resolving an ultimatum, in booster draft this is using 3 mana ramp cards to accelerate you into a Bookwurm. The principal is the same regardless of the power level and what is good is dependent upon the power level of the format, but all of them require set up and aren't simply generically "good".
My thoughts on 2cmc ramp is that it is in the context of the cardpool of Magic, weaker than a rather expansive list of cards, with a few exceptions where the payoff is actually worth the extra cost like Grim Monolith, Explore, Growth Spiral, Roffellos, Devoted Druid and probably another card or two I'm forgetting. It is inherently less powerful to accelerate one's mana at this price point should you be allowed to do it for less and the oft overlooked Boreal Druid is a significantly stronger card than cube favorite Cultivate. Obviously cubes can find themselves operating at levels of the power level pyramid where all sorts of less efficient cards can be contextually reasonable maindeck inclusions but that is typically the case because stronger effects are omitted, either intentionally or otherwise.
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You know, that's also the reason I don't like classic ramp very much either. It's too dependant on drawing the right mix of ramp and fatties. But when WotC started printing expensive cards that were actually worth printing, I found I didn't like the environment they created either, even when the deck was consistent. I think that's because it's kind of an uninteractive plan - you do your thing and hope for the best, sort of like storm, but in a way that doesn't look smart and doesn't require the deck to be as streamlined as a combo deck is.
I think I like it when there are difficult choices at multiple points in the game, so too much forced sequencing is not very interesting to me, for example definitely needing to cast your Rampant Growth on T2 or Champion of the Parish having to come down on T1.
Which makes me think - in decks with high curves, there's a lot of forced sequencing simply because there aren't many turns in which there is a decision of what to cast. With a hand of 2-drop, 4-drop, 5-drop it's obvious which card is cast in which turn. I do think low curves will lead to more agency naturally due to the mana system, and to less lopsided matchups. And that's perhaps why you don't see any issues with scaling threats - because there is so much agency in your cube due to the amount of cantrips and low mana cost cards, you don't miss the agency of choosing when to cast the cards which want to come down early.
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Ramp is one of the things that scales to the power level of threats, so low power cubes don't really need to play bad ramp spells. The same ramp spells (well, not Grim Monolith) can work fine because the 5-drops you're ramping into will not win the game that fast.
This is because Ramp *is* a combo deck, it is inherently linear and largely devoid of interaction by design. When you are a ramp player you are going to be taking turns off from developing meaningful threats or interacting in order to accelerate your mana such that you can leverage more powerful spells before you are "supposed to" be able to have access to them. In many ways Ramp isn't too different from Reanimator, you want to jump through some hoops to cheat the normal pacing of mana in the game and play cards that are much more powerful than you normally would have access to so you can ask your opponent "can you beat this?" and if they can't, you win.
This is the big reason why my cube looks the way it does, by curving very low and injecting a lot of impactful cards at those low mana costs as well as ways to interact with them, games are able to develop quickly, ask drafters to make important sequencing decisions early on, and ultimately resolve in shorter periods of time. Everything I personally want out of a game of magic is better achieved through an aggressively low curving and higher power format as not only are decks able to enact some sort of reasonable gameplan on less lands which mitigates the influence of mana screw, but the abundance of cheap value generation and filtering means that decks are also able to find ways to continue spending mana while keeping their hand stocked up which makes it harder to flood out as well.
This I don't really agree with, I think the power level of mana accelerants are a huge contributor to the power level of a format. You don't have to be using Birds of Paradise to power out Oko in order for it to be an incredibly powerful opening play, most 3 mana creatures are significantly stronger when played ahead of curve and the potent early mana advantages that premium accelerants offer can cause games to snowball out of control very easily. There's a reason why WotC took almost a decade off from having Llanowar Elves in standard and even heavily nerfed versions of this effect like Gilded Goose and Arboreal Grazer saw tons of tournament success and have even broken into eternal formats. Ramping for 1 mana is honestly just nuts. If I was looking to curate a lower power level format it's definitely something I would want to be conscious of as premium mana accelerants do more or less mandate the presence of 1mv removal spells just so decks can "bolt the bird" and have a chance when playing on the draw, but 1mv removal tends to be quite oppressive against a lot of lower power cards and I wouldn't want to be casting baneslayers that cost more than 2 maybe 3 mana if that's how good the removal is.
I think you're kind of missing the point. From what I understood, the point was that 7-drops are not cards that every deck can be expected to play, because not every deck can naturally support getting 7 mana sources into play over the course of an average game.
In all of the examples you gave from constructed, the decks are purposefully designed to facilitate casting big spells. For example, the Emergent Ultimatum decks in standard run 16 ways to ramp and 31(!) lands when you include MDFCs. In 40-card terms, that would be the equivalent of having 12 ramp spells and 20 lands, which is just insane. Ugin decks from his original time in standard were either cards with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (an insane ramp cards), or control decks that were intentionally slowing down the game as much as possible to make their planeswalker plan work. Shark Typhoon has a built-in way to be used for below rate.
Even in retail limited, casting something that costs 7 takes help. The Prismari and Quandrix big mana decks in Strixhaven limited require ramp spells, treasure tokens, or lots of card draw to ensure they get enough mana sources to cast their big things. Even then, it can still sometimes be difficult for one to cast their Elemental Masterpiece without dying to a cobbled together Silverquill aggro deck.
The thing is, in all of these cases, the running line is support. These cards work because there is a significant infrastructure to make sure they can be cast before the game ends. Not every deck can do that.
I think one of the broader issues here is that we are all arguing on different pages. I used Overseer of the Damned as an example of an expensive card because in a lot of cubes, there is a reasonable chance games will be over before that card can even be cast, and that drawing it before it can be cast is not ideal. I've lost many games where I had one of my expensive cards in hand, but could never cast it. I feel that variance is just as bad or worse than drawing a late card scaling value card like Young Pyromancer or Quirion Dryad. At least those cards can virtually always do something, even if that thing is just chump blocking a Polukranos for a turn.
The point was never that 7-drops aren't playable, and I'm not sure how we even got to this framing of "are 7's good or are they not," because they can be, but only for decks that have the proper channels to play them. Most Cube decks can't always play them, nor should they! After all, it's not like we usually see mono-black aggro playing Griselbrand or often even Grave Titan in the main board. Those decks want the game to be over by the time those big mana cards are even castable. If an aggro deck that wants to win by turn 5 every game has an 7-mana Overseer of the Damned in it's opening hand, they might as well have just taken a mulligan.
I think what we're really arguing here is the validity of this statement:
Which I think is at least partially false because there are plenty of situations where having a high drop in the early game is often entirely dead. At least a snowbally card drawn at the incorrect time can do something, even if it's not optimal. Drawing a Young Pyromancer late is no worse than drawing an un-needed land.
The more I think about this, the more nuanced I realize the conversation becomes. There are all sorts of factors here which haven't been discussed in-depth, such as frequency of top decking, %chance of drawing synergy pieces, the difference between inopportune lands and other cards at inopportune times (something which I tried to open but don't have time to expand upon further)...
I think topic is super complicated and I'm not sure there is a clean answer because there are so many moving parts.
So through the bikeshedding, nitpicking and fields of strawmen, can we agree that having a healthy amount of agency is important, and that there are multiple ways to introduce it? Among them:
- Cheap spells
- Value generation, card draw
- Smoothing, cantrips
- Threats that are relevant if not cast on curve
I don't really understand where this attitude is coming from, nor the assertion that I somehow said any of those things didn't contribute to increasing agency which I most certainly did not do. I'm more than happy to have conversations here discussing game design and magic gameplay theory but I'd appreciate it if my arguments weren't belittled in this way. If you're trying to engage in a productive conversation with someone, this ain't it.
I think the gets to the core of my problem with how Funch is approaching this. He's acting as if there's one thing to consider. Birds to Oko. WotC scared of Elf. Elf good. Rest bad.
What about Birds to anything else?
Maybe WotC is scared of Llanowar Elves for a more nuanced reason than defending your own argument?
Elf good? Maybe. Again, it's nuanced beyond "WotC scared!"
The rest might have a place in any number of power levels that aren't powermax.
That's where. I've been seeing it, too, and having a tough time wading through it.
I don't want to be unwelcoming, because I'd love to get people with a different perspective coming in, but you're not expressing it in a productive way whatsoever.
I'm feeling a bit gaslighted here... Where exactly did I say that Birds to Oko is the *sole* reason why dorks are busted? I even further explained my position with this:
I feel as though a lot of the context and nuance to my arguments is for some reason being completely overlooked. I don't want to make negative assumptions about how welcome opposing viewpoints are here, but I'd appreciate a bit more willingness to believe that my intentions aren't to simply be an asshole just because I'm trying to defend a position I hold that you might not agree with...
That's because I'm trying to agree and find common ground with you, but you take everything as an offense.
I also agree with you that other people have been quick to jump to conclusions and glossing over your points. Everyone is so defensive. Please, let's all chill. Cube design isn't the cure for cancer or the solution for the Middle East. I think.
I think trying to finding common ground is a great goal for conversations like this, but at the same time I do hope you're aware that telling someone that they "take everything as an offense" is actually in and of itself an offensive statement that doesn't really frame the conversation in a way that can lead to anything productive, same with when you accused me of strawmanning and incorporating other logical fallacies while literally doing exactly that and asserting that I had somehow insinuated in any of my posts that any of "Cheap spells, value generation, card draw, smoothing, cantrips and threats that are relevant when cast off curve" don't contribute to an increase in agency during gameplay which is totally pulled right out of your own ass, as I certainly never said anything of the sort.
I'm down to drop this conversation altogether or take it to PM if you really feel the need to continue it, but I'd much rather the focus of this thread remain on topic, so if there are particular points I made that you feel you would like further clarification of, I'm more than willing to do so and alleviate any misunderstandings.
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Again: I'm trying to find common ground with you, so I'm making a statement that, to the best or my knowledge, you agree with, and so do I. I did not insinuate that you disagree with it. I asked if you agree with it.
I'm tired and angry. This "conversation" kind of fucked up my night.
If that was your intention then yes, I agree with that previous statement. I'm sorry you feel this way, Magic is just a dumb nerd hobby and I try not to get so emotionally invested in conversations about it; so what if I think 1mv dorks are powerful and you think they're fine at lower power levels, who really gives a shit? We can either have a conversation about why we each hold our positions but if we can't see eye to eye then it's totally fine to just agree to disagree and move on, it's not like any of this shit actually matters.
Without reading the entirety of this post (I got to page 6 at least!) I think y'all should sit down for a draft of the penny pincer cube and a draft of the funchian cube. Could really help mutual understanding.
I do think what Grillo did back in the day is incomprehensible if not experienced. Might be the pink goggles tho.
Cheers.
I do think what Grillo did back in the day is incomprehensible if not experienced. Might be the pink goggles tho.
Cheers.