General The Cube Contest
- Thread starter Meltyman
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
With a graveyard theme and only commons, yes.
One plausible theory:
Someone from the (format) super leagues played with some wotc employees with their cube and that is the the inspiration for this contest. It was 528 cards with a few conspiracies themselves in it and a card or two not added to Magic Online. After some chitchat, the wotc fun strike force decided that this player's cube is the "totes mise low" and it had to make it to Magic Online queues. Currently, 5 individuals are overdosing on Rockstar and/or Monster energy products (still waiting for that Chandra sponsorship to come through; the stuff ain't cheap!) while trying to pick out 3 other cubes so the contest doesn't look like a sham. Meanwhile, the MTGO devs are trying their hardest to hijack "avatars" so that conspiracies may be used... we'll find out on Oct. 16 if they were successful.
Someone from the (format) super leagues played with some wotc employees with their cube and that is the the inspiration for this contest. It was 528 cards with a few conspiracies themselves in it and a card or two not added to Magic Online. After some chitchat, the wotc fun strike force decided that this player's cube is the "totes mise low" and it had to make it to Magic Online queues. Currently, 5 individuals are overdosing on Rockstar and/or Monster energy products (still waiting for that Chandra sponsorship to come through; the stuff ain't cheap!) while trying to pick out 3 other cubes so the contest doesn't look like a sham. Meanwhile, the MTGO devs are trying their hardest to hijack "avatars" so that conspiracies may be used... we'll find out on Oct. 16 if they were successful.
Stop giving us hope.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/MTGO/articles/archive/magic-online/you-make-cube-voting-2016-10-17
Are any of those from RTL folks?
Are any of those from RTL folks?
The Pro Tour cube looks awful. Illusions+Donate which are only playable if you have both cards. Dragonstorm with about 2 dragons worth fetching. Punishing Fire with only one way to turn it on. Throwing a bunch of constructed decks from different formats together does not make a playable cube.
I'm pretty disappointed that three of the four finalists are well-known Magic players or personalities (Simonot is borderline but he's something of a known quantity). Tribal cube and peasant cube confirmed, really really seems like WotC did indeed go with the gimmicks here. I have to agree, nothing I've seen so far makes me clamor to make a MODO account and draft that cube a bunch. I would have done that for pretty much any cube I've seen here.
Also no finalist broke singleton at all. If WotC wasn't open to non-singleton cubes, they should have made that clear.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
1. obligatory tribal/synergy/graveyard cube, with only 50 color fixing lands at 540. Looks pretty unbalanced though, with a number of bombs (p and K, siege gang commander, zealous conscripts, sower of temptation) that threaten the synergy. Lots of things to make me nervous: tribal is hard enough to do right as it is, when you don't have a broad power band and insufficient mana fixing on top of it. Kind of sophomoric feeling design.
2. pro tour cube, as the obligatory "insert format" cube (only cards that saw pro tour play, featuring great cards like thoughtcast and illusions of grandeur as well as sengir vampire alongside grave titan). This actually has 70 fixing lands at 540. Seems like a text book example of why you shouldn't have a broad power band. Classic example of why you shouldn't sacrifice good gameplay in narrow pursuit of an arbitrary, non-cube originated, card population.
3. Reverse normal color profile cube (blue aggro, red control etc.). Looks like another 50 fixing lands at 540, and the description sounds like it has 0 RL testing behind it. Quirky idea, no testing (?), and insufficient fixing lands makes me nervous.
4. obligatory Peasant cube, running only 48 fixing lands at 540, but at least there has been considerable RL testing put into it.
The presentation of the cubes are really bad. For some of them the fixing lands are slotted in under multi-color, so its hard to eyeball densities. Also, looks like 0 singleton breaking, so sorry mates, looks like a bunch of you were sol off the bat.
You get to vote on the winner. Probably going to go with the peasant cube, as it looks like it has the most actual testing and love put into it. Feel like that fellow should win it.
2. pro tour cube, as the obligatory "insert format" cube (only cards that saw pro tour play, featuring great cards like thoughtcast and illusions of grandeur as well as sengir vampire alongside grave titan). This actually has 70 fixing lands at 540. Seems like a text book example of why you shouldn't have a broad power band. Classic example of why you shouldn't sacrifice good gameplay in narrow pursuit of an arbitrary, non-cube originated, card population.
3. Reverse normal color profile cube (blue aggro, red control etc.). Looks like another 50 fixing lands at 540, and the description sounds like it has 0 RL testing behind it. Quirky idea, no testing (?), and insufficient fixing lands makes me nervous.
4. obligatory Peasant cube, running only 48 fixing lands at 540, but at least there has been considerable RL testing put into it.
The presentation of the cubes are really bad. For some of them the fixing lands are slotted in under multi-color, so its hard to eyeball densities. Also, looks like 0 singleton breaking, so sorry mates, looks like a bunch of you were sol off the bat.
You get to vote on the winner. Probably going to go with the peasant cube, as it looks like it has the most actual testing and love put into it. Feel like that fellow should win it.
Yup, not very surprising that they're all singleton cubes. Sadly I think their assumptions about what a cube should be were an unwritten part of the rules.
540 + no singleton breaks sets it up for more novelties than competitive, polished formats, which is what people expect but not necessarily what they'll enjoy drafting over and over.
540 + no singleton breaks sets it up for more novelties than competitive, polished formats, which is what people expect but not necessarily what they'll enjoy drafting over and over.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
They didn't make it explicit but it was very obvious from the start.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I feel bad for everyone that submitted, I kind of expected the contest had less to do with cube or the contestants, and more to do with WOTC contracting almost free labor because they don't want to hire designers to build cubes for them.
Hahaha well what can you do. I guess we can keep being weird and playing cube the way we want.
Shame the brushwagg cube wasn't complete in time.
Shame the brushwagg cube wasn't complete in time.
I dunno. I'm kind of interested in the color-shifted cube as it looks like a neat thought experiment, but the lack of play testing kind of puts me off. Sort of disappointed. I feel like we have a half-dozen more interesting entries just on the front page of the forum.
In this thread a WotC spokesperson explicitly says that the cubes can break singleton. In no way was it obvious that they wouldn't consider non-singleton cubes. In addition MaRo at some point stated on his tumblr that singleton-breaking was just fine. Saying they didn't make it explicit that singleton cubes wouldn't be considered is a vast understatement--they in fact made the opposite extremely and publicly clear, even going so far as to cite an example of when they broke singleton in their own cube design.
(I haven't had any time to work on my cube but I still follow the forum daily.) I once saw an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras where there was a category open to all ages. So of course there was a 30-something year old competing with the young girls. She won. That was almost as ridiculous and insulting as this "competition". I'm sorry for everyone that spent their time working towards this. Hope you at least got a great cube to show for it : )
Don't care for any of these to be honest, none of them really interested me. I really do not like the Pro Tour one, it's too narrow. You don't have a critical mass to build the synergistic decks from the early 00s without breaking singleton, not enough enablers to shape certain archetypes.
The Peasant/Pauper Cube is probably the one with the most replay value (because the guy has actual testing behind the environment), the others seem like novelties or theorycrafts.
The Peasant/Pauper Cube is probably the one with the most replay value (because the guy has actual testing behind the environment), the others seem like novelties or theorycrafts.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Right, but when you consider their reasons for doing this, it was unlikely they were being authentic. It was always going to be a business decision first and foremost, and they were going to pick conservatively off of what they thought would serve them the best $$$$. I probably would have done the same thing if I were in their spot and didn't know much about cube (and they don't).
It was something you could infer, based on what we know about them, even if they were saying the opposite. Most biz deals work this way, as they are ultimately about generating the most money at what you think is the min. Risk. Mass singleton break format was always going to be too high a risk for them to charge on + lord knows they don't have a team to playtest this stuff-thats why they did the contest originally.
Would you look at that. A list with Mesmeric Orb. That makes voting easy for me I guess.
I really hope the Pro Tour one doesn't win, it looks almost 80% like the Legacy Cube.
My disappointment knows no bounds.
I really hope the Pro Tour one doesn't win, it looks almost 80% like the Legacy Cube.
My disappointment knows no bounds.
Yeah. "The gameplay is more unique and exciting than all “normal” cubes I’ve had the pleasure to draft; a mixture of slight familiarity, Magic history, and creative deck building." Sure, buddy. Suuuuure.