General The Draft Exchange

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
It presented no such problems in my cube, so you're probably alright.
It's REALLY expensive to keep shifting these axes around, even in the face of a single removal spell
 
inscho

inscho

Chris Taylor said:
It presented no such problems in my cube, so you're probably alright.
It's REALLY expensive to keep shifting these axes around, even in the face of a single removal spell
Click to expand...

I have too small of a sample size to source from to be sure, but I agree that the mana does add up quickly.
 
sigh

sigh

Drafted this neat little brew from ravnic's cube. I think a cute little game plan revolving mostly around killing the opponent's small creatures, and stealing their big ones. Subtitle is: "Don't let me hit 5 mana". Signet are really strong, and packing three in this deck seems really nice. Could have used one more (better) playable with all the bouncelands to help me cheat on land count. Dimir guild mage feels really strong here.

If I can't have it you can't have it from CubeTutor.com










 
CaptnIrony

CaptnIrony

Hi all,

New here, and I didn't want to impose anywhere by making a thread (also didn't really find anywhere to do so where it would be appropriate). I've been wanting to make a cube for years and been seriously at it since this summer. My friend has a pretty bad cube (not in a good way) that we often play because he doesn't like constructed formats. I've been thinking, as the only other long-term magic player in the group of making one too, which is an idea everyone seems to like. I've done a lot of reading (I had started before this summer) and I feel well acquainted with the info posted on the MTGS boards (or at least, to what was on there up until 18 months ago), what is on the /r/mtgcube subreddit, a few (two?) blogs, and finally what is on here. It's very interesting to see how the three areas have different ways to look at cubing. And it seems Riptide has the philosophy I enjoy the most.

Unfortunately, I seem to suffer from quite a large amount of analysis paralysis and I've decided that I'd make a cube this year, no matter how bad, and that having something bad that I can upgrade is better than having nothing. I have started to feel like I have a lot of theoretical knowledge, but not much practical experience, and so I decided I should participate in a few of these drafts, explain what I drafted, and a bit why, to get a feel for how it is to draft different cubes, before I finalise making my own.

So for the next few days, while I try to procrastinate, I'll be doing a few cube drafts, hopefully getting better.

Any suggestions for where to start?

EDIT: I tried drafting sigh's cube, lost the draft when I pressed back while trying to make my deck
Was in Esper Control. Wrote about it here, and then the changes were not saved when I pressed "Save Change" and I lost that too.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I think there is somewhere you can go in the preferences to set it where you don't get auto logged out, which is helpful if you're writing longer posts. I shut if off a long time ago, and can't seem to find it in the menu.

For the analysis thing, it is overwhelming. What you want to do there, is sort of break things down into a hierachy, which at least gives you a basic structure.

The first thing to figure out is where you are now and what you want to achieve. You mentioned your friend has a bad cube, what is bad about it? What don't you like about it? Than maybe think about what you do enjoy about magic, or limited, and what you would like to see in a cube. What about riptide's cube theory appealed to you over mtgs or reddits? Once you get those rough things on paper, than you can get a better idea of what things really matter to you, and to what degree they matter to you, and where you want to go.
 
CaptnIrony

CaptnIrony

Grillo_Parlante said:
I think there is somewhere you can go in the preferences to set it where you don't get auto logged out, which is helpful if you're writing longer posts. I shut if off a long time ago, and can't seem to find it in the menu.

For the analysis thing, it is overwhelming. What you want to do there, is sort of break things down into a hierachy, which at least gives you a basic structure.

The first thing to figure out is where you are now and what you want to achieve. You mentioned your friend has a bad cube, what is bad about it? What don't you like about it? Than maybe think about what you do enjoy about magic, or limited, and what you would like to see in a cube. What about riptide's cube theory appealed to you over mtgs or reddits? Once you get those rough things on paper, than you can get a better idea of what things really matter to you, and to what degree they matter to you, and where you want to go.
Click to expand...

I'll do that thanks.

Bad:
Power level all over the place, the UR archetype is pingers (Prodigal Sorcerer and Prodigal Pyromancer, Putrid Warrior, Giant Oyster, is one of the BW gold cards, the cube also hosts Sol Ring, Strip Mines, Skullclamp, and Ancestral Recall (a beat up version)) a lot of pairs don't really have archetypes, which could work, but people end up always building goodstuff, which might not be what some wants. Has a lot of "feels bad" cards. He wanted to recreate a the sort of format when he played more. Understandably, some of the newer players in the group dislike a lot of the cards. This stems from what they (justifiably) see as bad cards, and the cards that don't do what they say on the card (we had a new player draft 3 Carnivorous Plants who didn't know that they couldn't attack).

I've got quite a few things that I know I'd like, I'm very much a Johnny, and I've got a 1711 line text file with random ideas/cards I've wanted to include, as well as a few excel files of what are corpses of cube attempts.

I feel like MTGS tends to go for very traditional, a lot more singleton (which I know I don't care about), or power max (which I really don't care about). The subreddit seems to have a less cohesive identity, due to the low posting rate, and fewer continuous contributors, very few people really stand out as being pillars of that community, so I like their archetype discussions, but not much else.

I quite liked the Penny Pincher cube (I think the first more than the second) and I've been thinking of doing something quite similar (I quite like many of your archetypes, and the Bounce Lands theme, as well as the idea of reducing variance). I quite like that reliance on synergy rather than bomby cards, and the semi grindy games (a bit like pauper cubes). The Riptide "Lower power. No GRBS." is really appealing.

:)

Rasmus Källqvist said:
http://riptidelab.com/cube-academy/

I can also recommend a series of articles from the non-forum part of this website. That's where I started out!
Click to expand...
I've read some of those a while ago, and started reading those again :)
 
StormEntity

StormEntity

Turbo Xerox.jpg

I present the rare in-person draft exchange, a product of the wacky environment of my good friend the Mad Prophet.
I started out looking to be some sort of big blue deck, but I came to realize I could play some sort of a Turbo Xerox shenanigan with a mere fourteen lands. Deal Broker did some work, trading a Young Pyromancer I'd drafted for a Deep Analysis and then looting away ill-gotten excess lands from Land Tax and Gush.

This turbo xerox high-cantrip-low-land strategy seems like an interesting direction in which to explore...
 
sigh

sigh

Drafted Astons cube! Power level higher than I'm used to, but Venser first pick always feels nice, and UG quickly shaped up from there. One thing that really stuck out was the shear number of powerful 4 drops! Wish I had another ramp effect or so, because a lot of the decks power is going to come from hitting those 4s. Really wanted another couple assertive 3 drops, but the deck still feels fun.

UG 4 drops from CubeTutor.com










 
astraedm

astraedm

Drafted Sigh’s cube, ended up first picking God-Pharoah’s Gift and seeing where it took me. Ended up with a cool Mardu list despite the fact that i probably should have been in Grixis. I just wanna reanimate some double striking hasty 4/4s. I picked fixing highly here and was rewarded by being able to splash TKS with relative ease. I could use like, one more graveyard filler and the deck would be perf.


Mardu GPG from CubeTutor.com










 
Aston

Aston

sigh said:
Drafted Astons cube! Power level higher than I'm used to, but Venser first pick always feels nice, and UG quickly shaped up from there. One thing that really stuck out was the shear number of powerful 4 drops! Wish I had another ramp effect or so, because a lot of the decks power is going to come from hitting those 4s. Really wanted another couple assertive 3 drops, but the deck still feels fun.
Click to expand...


I have noticed I'm a bit short on green 3s, at the moment I only have 4: Eternal Witness, Courser of Kruphix, Yavimaya Elder and Reclamation Sage. I want to get Tireless Tracker in there soon and I feel like I had another one lined up I wanted to try but it's escaping me at the moment. Are there any other good green 3s I'm missing out on?
 
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