Laz
Developer
Current state: Mistakes of the first cut have been rectified. Lets call it 'Take two'.
Cube Tutor Link
The 'Draw-a-Card' cube aka. The Lucre-Cube
Inspired by Lucre's insistence that every card ever is better with Cycling, this cube aims to be filled to the brim with cards that can replace themselves. Cycling and Cantripping are the major focus, as well as a smaller focus upon enchantments.
Draft Primer:
6-player 264-card Cube (4 packs of 11) (i.e Use these settings on CubeTutor: Pack Size: 11 Packs: 4 Bots: 5)
The colour wheel looks like this:
Allied pairs in this are somewhat better supported (than enemy pairs).
The aim of this format is that if something looks like it can be drafted around, it probably can be.
Red and Blue's colour identities are shifted a little from their traditional roles.
: Aggressive/tempo-oriented. Can supplement graveyard strategies a little. Less valuable for control, since other colours have plenty of card draw.
: Control/midrange oriented. Can support aggressive strategies, but much of its burn cannot target players.
Players receive one of each coloured cycling land (i.e 1 Secluded Steppe, 1 Drifting Meadow, 1 Lonely Sandbar, 1 Remote Isle, etc), that can be added to their decks post-draft.
Rules questions that will come up:
This cube uses the same Colour wheel as RtR,, and like that environment, the allied colours are supported, though there has been consideration of how these pairs bleed out in to the associated shard.
Colour pair identities:
WU - Heroic/Prowess
UR - Spells Matter
RB - Madness
BG - Cards in graveyard matter
GW - Enchantress
- Heroic/Prowess:
Heroic bleeds a little into Green, Prowess bleeds a little into Red. These comprise the main aggressive colours in the cube. There are not a lot of really strong incentive cards for these, rather a critical mass is required. These mechanics are intended to be supported by the large number of cantripping cards, allowing these to be chained together for Prowess, while targeting Heroic creatures.
- Spells Matter
This is probably more accurately a Red theme, since much of Blues contribution to spells-matter is Prowess.
Young Pyromancer and Guttersnipe are the poster children of this one.
- Madness
Madness doesn't really have the depth to be a fully fledged theme. Then again, neither does Spells Matter really. It simply has some incentive cards, then the supporting cards are ones that would have been played anyway. In this case, Red looting cards, and Black cards with discard activation costs. These enablers bleed both ways into Green and Blue.
- Cards in Yard matter
Cyclers and cantrips stock the graveyard effectively, giving mechanics like Threshold some legs. This theme takes two paths, a Green heavy one, which calls for cards to be in the yard, with big incentive cards such as Ghoultree, Grizzly Fate and Nemesis of Mortals. On the other hand, Black tends to want to take cards from the yard, either into exile via Delve, onto the battlefield via Reanimation or into hand via one of the many black pseudo card-draw effects.
- Enchantress
Not a large theme, in terms of incentives, but there is quite a volume of enchantments to support drafters who go in this direction. Eidolon of Blossoms and Kor Spiritdancer are the primary build-around cards, along with a few reward and support cards, such as Aura Gnarlid and Heliod's Pilgrim.
Additional design considerations:
A cycle of five build around cards, which are designed to play with off-colour themes and dramatically change card evaluation.
Creatures as spells. Since there is a focus upon having creatures in the graveyard in Green (for Ghoultree and the like), and they serve double duty in Black as reanimation/raise dead targets, many of the creatures in this cube act like spells. From the most overt, with Evoke, to less obvious examples like Hunting Moa, Ambush Viper and Fleshbag Marauder.
Cube Tutor Link
The 'Draw-a-Card' cube aka. The Lucre-Cube
Inspired by Lucre's insistence that every card ever is better with Cycling, this cube aims to be filled to the brim with cards that can replace themselves. Cycling and Cantripping are the major focus, as well as a smaller focus upon enchantments.
Draft Primer:
6-player 264-card Cube (4 packs of 11) (i.e Use these settings on CubeTutor: Pack Size: 11 Packs: 4 Bots: 5)
The colour wheel looks like this:
Allied pairs in this are somewhat better supported (than enemy pairs).
The aim of this format is that if something looks like it can be drafted around, it probably can be.
Red and Blue's colour identities are shifted a little from their traditional roles.
: Aggressive/tempo-oriented. Can supplement graveyard strategies a little. Less valuable for control, since other colours have plenty of card draw.: Control/midrange oriented. Can support aggressive strategies, but much of its burn cannot target players.Players receive one of each coloured cycling land (i.e 1 Secluded Steppe, 1 Drifting Meadow, 1 Lonely Sandbar, 1 Remote Isle, etc), that can be added to their decks post-draft.
Rules questions that will come up:
Graveyard order: You know those ancient cards which care about the order of your graveyard? Well... (Don't rearrange your graveyard, and when multiple cards go to your yard at once (i.e a Wrath), you choose the order. Killing an enchanted creature puts the enchantments on top of the creature. You can exile cards from any position in your graveyard with Delve, but the remaining cards stay in the same relative order.)
Bestow: A creature with Bestow is an Aura (but not a creature) when cast, and when enchanting a creature, it is a creature the rest of the time. (Therefore triggers Prowess, but can't be searched for with Heliod's Pilgrim, etc)
Cycling: Cards the have an ability when cycled put the cycling ability onto the stack, then the triggered ability. This only matters for Krosan Tusker (the land search happens before drawing the card).
Madness: If a spell or effect causes you to discard a card with Madness, finish resolving the spell/effect before casting the card using the Madness cost. If you discard a card with Madness to pay a cost, the Madness spell is put onto the stack on top of the spell/ability for which that cost was paid (and will therefore resolve first).
There are lots of keywords that represent alternate costs/abilites from the hand. As normal, abilities can be activated at any time, where casting costs have timing restrictions. Abilities cannot be countered, cast cards can. A breakdown of the keywords is below:
Cast as a spell:
Bestow
Evoke
Activated as an ability:
Cycling
Reinforce
Triggered, then cast as a spell: (therefore a spell on the stack, but ignores normal spell timing restrictions):
Madness
Magic, not a confusing game at all.
Bestow: A creature with Bestow is an Aura (but not a creature) when cast, and when enchanting a creature, it is a creature the rest of the time. (Therefore triggers Prowess, but can't be searched for with Heliod's Pilgrim, etc)
Cycling: Cards the have an ability when cycled put the cycling ability onto the stack, then the triggered ability. This only matters for Krosan Tusker (the land search happens before drawing the card).
Madness: If a spell or effect causes you to discard a card with Madness, finish resolving the spell/effect before casting the card using the Madness cost. If you discard a card with Madness to pay a cost, the Madness spell is put onto the stack on top of the spell/ability for which that cost was paid (and will therefore resolve first).
There are lots of keywords that represent alternate costs/abilites from the hand. As normal, abilities can be activated at any time, where casting costs have timing restrictions. Abilities cannot be countered, cast cards can. A breakdown of the keywords is below:
Cast as a spell:
Bestow
Evoke
Activated as an ability:
Cycling
Reinforce
Triggered, then cast as a spell: (therefore a spell on the stack, but ignores normal spell timing restrictions):
Madness
Magic, not a confusing game at all.
This cube uses the same Colour wheel as RtR,
, and like that environment, the allied colours are supported, though there has been consideration of how these pairs bleed out in to the associated shard.Colour pair identities:
WU - Heroic/Prowess
UR - Spells Matter
RB - Madness
BG - Cards in graveyard matter
GW - Enchantress
- Heroic/Prowess:Heroic bleeds a little into Green, Prowess bleeds a little into Red. These comprise the main aggressive colours in the cube. There are not a lot of really strong incentive cards for these, rather a critical mass is required. These mechanics are intended to be supported by the large number of cantripping cards, allowing these to be chained together for Prowess, while targeting Heroic creatures.
- Spells MatterThis is probably more accurately a Red theme, since much of Blues contribution to spells-matter is Prowess.
Young Pyromancer and Guttersnipe are the poster children of this one.
- MadnessMadness doesn't really have the depth to be a fully fledged theme. Then again, neither does Spells Matter really. It simply has some incentive cards, then the supporting cards are ones that would have been played anyway. In this case, Red looting cards, and Black cards with discard activation costs. These enablers bleed both ways into Green and Blue.
- Cards in Yard matterCyclers and cantrips stock the graveyard effectively, giving mechanics like Threshold some legs. This theme takes two paths, a Green heavy one, which calls for cards to be in the yard, with big incentive cards such as Ghoultree, Grizzly Fate and Nemesis of Mortals. On the other hand, Black tends to want to take cards from the yard, either into exile via Delve, onto the battlefield via Reanimation or into hand via one of the many black pseudo card-draw effects.
- EnchantressNot a large theme, in terms of incentives, but there is quite a volume of enchantments to support drafters who go in this direction. Eidolon of Blossoms and Kor Spiritdancer are the primary build-around cards, along with a few reward and support cards, such as Aura Gnarlid and Heliod's Pilgrim.
Additional design considerations:
A cycle of five build around cards, which are designed to play with off-colour themes and dramatically change card evaluation.
Creatures as spells. Since there is a focus upon having creatures in the graveyard in Green (for Ghoultree and the like), and they serve double duty in Black as reanimation/raise dead targets, many of the creatures in this cube act like spells. From the most overt, with Evoke, to less obvious examples like Hunting Moa, Ambush Viper and Fleshbag Marauder.
Inspired by Lucre's insistence that every card ever is better with Cycling, this cube aims to be filled to the brim with cards that can replace themselves. This allows players to rip through their deck, deploying an endless stream of threats, or digging for the perfect answer. As most cycling cards temper their potency with their flexibility, this will be, by necessity, a lower power environment, and due to the specific types of cards which are being focussed upon, a non-singleton one.
I am not sure what the implications of having a cube with such a high velocity will be, but at the minimum, I suspect that the following will eventuate:
- Players will hit land drops. This is even more likely if I include a wealth of landcyclers, or the Ravnica Bounce-lands.
- Graveyards will fill quickly.
Beyond that, I am not really sure what will happen, but these probably give me enough to work with to begin brainstorming.
Possible themes:
Slide/Lightning Rift - Stealing from Vintage Masters here. Not sure how many of these need to be included. I hope that Cycling will be useful enough that it will be drafted without the need for to too many incentive cards.
Prowess - Chaining together spells that cantrip sounds pretty good for this one
Use those cards in the graveyard - Delve, Threshold, more?
I hope that other ideas will surface, but I want to start laying out cards and see what inspires.
Since this is cube number 3 for me (Main cube here, Scuttle-mutt inspired cube here), I would like it to be reasonably constrained financially. Luckily, Grillo showed that this was possible in his excellent Penny-Pincher cube. That said, if I need to proxy a mana-base in order to make things work, I will do it.
I am not sure what the implications of having a cube with such a high velocity will be, but at the minimum, I suspect that the following will eventuate:
- Players will hit land drops. This is even more likely if I include a wealth of landcyclers, or the Ravnica Bounce-lands.
- Graveyards will fill quickly.
Beyond that, I am not really sure what will happen, but these probably give me enough to work with to begin brainstorming.
Possible themes:
Slide/Lightning Rift - Stealing from Vintage Masters here. Not sure how many of these need to be included. I hope that Cycling will be useful enough that it will be drafted without the need for to too many incentive cards.
Prowess - Chaining together spells that cantrip sounds pretty good for this one
Use those cards in the graveyard - Delve, Threshold, more?
I hope that other ideas will surface, but I want to start laying out cards and see what inspires.
Since this is cube number 3 for me (Main cube here, Scuttle-mutt inspired cube here), I would like it to be reasonably constrained financially. Luckily, Grillo showed that this was possible in his excellent Penny-Pincher cube. That said, if I need to proxy a mana-base in order to make things work, I will do it.
