The Elegant Cube v5

[japahn]

Preamble (will be updated when the cube changes)
Current cube version: 5.2.16
Cube Cobra link - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/elegant

 

[japahn]

(written as of v5.0.4)

The Elegant Cube aims to be a format that is, above all, fun. Fun for new players, who need a forgiving draft section and don’t know what most cards do. Fun for veteran players, who will explore a deep, interesting limited environment. Fun in evenings you are tired and all you have energy to do is force elves. Fun on days you are feeling inventive and assemble an intricate machine.

This cube rewards synergy, but does not mandate it. Both archetype decks and good-stuff decks should be supported.

Card selection takes into account how simple a card is to grasp, which is a combination of its elegance and resonance. Drafting a pack should feel exciting, not overwhelming.

Four principles guide design decisions for the Elegant Cube:

Approachability
Cube environments that deviate from powermax cubes are diverse. Realistically only the owner will know it deeply, in some cases along with a group that plays it often. The cube should be approachable by new players and familiar to veterans. Magic is already a daunting game. The challenge should be about making meaningful decisions, not keeping track of triggers, or getting caught in fine print on the backside of a flip walker.

Creativity
The Elegant Cube should be a space where exploration and experimentation can win games. Archetype rails and signposts should be visible and available, but not the only path to win a draft.

Deck uniqueness
A plethora of different decks and strategies have been successful in the history of MtG. The Elegant Cube should provide a wide variety of options and reward combining them so that each cube deck plays differently and in each draft a different array of decks is built.

Gameplay variety
Cube games should be memorable. Decks should not be so consistent that the matchup is predictable. Different card interactions should happen each time.

Version 5.x of the Elegant Cube is an evolution of the Elegant Cube 4.x. The core principles are the same, but the design is different. The innovation which prompted a major version bump to 5.0 are Cube Occasionals. Another concept this major version strongly relies on are Archetype Shapes. In the sections below I will talk about how these techniques are used in the Elegant Cube.

Module Design - Core + Occasionals

The concept of Cube Occasionals can be read about in Embrace the Chaos / Cube Occasionals.

The Elegant Cube consists of:

• A core module (346 cards as of v5.0.4)
• An occasionals module (573 cards as of v5.0.4)

15-card boosters consist of 13 cards from the core module and 2 cards from occasionals. This means that (as of v5.0.4) the chances of a card being in a given 8-person draft are 90.2% for a core card and 8.4% for an occasional card.

The core shapes the environment, setting the tone for speed, power level, and complexity, and providing archetype density and payoffs. The occasionals add the secret sauce, adding variety, unpredictability, chaos.

The Core + Occasionals design works towards the cube’s core principles in the following way:

Approachability: elegance is important for core cards, and resonance is valued both in core and in occasionals. The core’s stability rewards players’ experience from previous drafts.

Creativity: the core is tightly related to my vision of the cube. Occasionals, while still chosen by me, are often narrow, surprising, bridge between two archetypes, take the deck in completely different directions, and combine in unexpected ways. The core is a sandbox where players can create and play with occasionals.

Deck uniqueness: the archetype-based core can be combined in many different ways. While archetypes typically bundle the same cards together, reducing deck variety, each archetype plays more differently than if all decks were good-stuff. Cube occasionals add more flavors to those supported archetypes, provide bridges to combine archetypes in a particular draft, incentivize archetypes to splash certain cards, create unusually large densities of enablers / payoffs for an archetype, and just overall increase the variety of cards.

Gameplay variety: occasionals are not as constrained by effect simplicity or multiple archetype compatibility like core cards, and can be interesting cards with unique effects, which can be deck-warping, game-warping, narrow, and benefit from being surprising.

Archetype Design - Asymmetrical Shapes

The concept of Archetype Shapes can be read about in Archetype Shapes.

The cornerstones of the Elegant Cube’s archetype layout are Triangle Archetypes and Mono Archetypes. They are complemented by Pair Archetypes and Pivot Archetypes. Tetra Archetypes and Penta Archetypes are not used.

Triangle Archetypes are a good balance between real estate, build variety, and cube identity. In v5.0.4, five are supported: WBG Counters, UBR Discard, BRG Sacrifice, WUR Artifacts, WRG Tokens. Decks of these Triangle Archetypes are intended to be drafted using either 2 or all 3 of its colors.

Mono Archetypes are cost effective in that they take up little room and have reasonable build variety (four 2-color combinations plus the actual monocolored deck option). Most mono archetypes supported are tribal: W Humans, U Wizards, B Zombies, R Goblins, G Elves. By using the type line, they avoid warping the color’s identity too much, and rely on about 2 payoffs each, plus a couple of generic “choose a creature type” payoffs.

An additional Mono Archetype supported is R Burn. Burn is a core part of red’s identity so that we just need to run a couple of payoffs to support it.

Pair Archetypes are not particularly efficient, taking up ⅔ of the space of a Triangle archetype and having only one possible color combination. Still, five are supported at the moment to be true to traditional color identity, provide deck variety, and balance out colors that are over or underused by Triangle Archetypes. They are: WU Tapping, WB Lifegain, UB Rogues, UR Spells, UG Flash.

Finally, Gx Ramp and U(w/b) Fliers are the only Pivot Archetypes supported, two common and naturally occurring archetypes in limited environments, which take advantage of green naturally having ramp and blue naturally having fliers.

No Tetra Archetypes or Penta Archetypes are supported because they would warp the cube’s identity around them. This cube is meant to be a homage to Magic’s history and be a representation of the whole game. At 4+ colors, archetypes threaten to become the theme of the cube, rather than options in the cube.

This archetype layout promotes the cube’s core principles:

Approachability: One of the biggest challenges in limited is evaluating the power level of cards to pick the right one. The presence of archetypes allow snapping to the rails and having an easy default pick in many packs - though the optimal strategy is unlikely to be going all in like this. While the Triangle Archetypes involve more decisions in terms of colors, the Mono Archetypes present a single one: which support color to use. Pair Archetypes are also easy to snap to.

Creativity and Deck Uniqueness: Triangle, Mono, and Pivot Archetypes give quite a few choices in how to build that archetype, with the correct ones varying from draft to draft. Combining two archetypes on the same deck is quite feasible with these shapes, as opposed to Pair Archetypes.

Gameplay Variety: The archetypes have some redundancy in terms of enablers and payoffs, but are not particularly consistent, so even though they center around a theme, what they do within that theme will depend on the draw.

The “Elegant” Cube - still an appropriate name?

This cube has been branded “The Elegant Cube” for some time. It used to be “The Slow Cube” before, and the name was changed when I shifted its focus on approachability, moving towards simpler, more elegant cards.

Since then, I realized I was overindexing on this metric and not paying enough attention to other metrics like agency, variety, and resonance, and made the tradeoff of accepting a bit more complexity where it was worth it. Still, it remains a defining feature of the Elegant Cube that it shies away from complex cards where possible.

 

[japahn]

[reserved]

 

[japahn]

Snapshot of v5.0.4, initial(ish) version of v5:

Core module (346 cards):

White (52 cards):

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Blue (52 cards):

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Black (52 cards):

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Red (52 cards):

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Green (52 cards):

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Multicolor (20 cards):

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Artifacts (30 cards):

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Lands (36 cards):

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Occasionals module (573 cards):

White (83 cards):

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Blue (84 cards):

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Black (85 cards):

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Red (84 cards):

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Green (85 cards):

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Multicolor (95 cards):

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Artifacts (46 cards):

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Lands (11 cards):

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[japahn]

Important note: I'm going to talk only about changes to the Core module - Occasionals don't matter too much and I don't put as much thought in the changes there, besides keeping the color sections more or less close in size. That's the point.

Another part of the appeal of occasionals is that I can keep the core stable while still getting variety in my occasional slots, which act, from this point of view, as a rotating slot.

Only time will tell if I will resist the temptation to tinker too much... so with that let's get on with the first Core update.

Update 5.0.5

In:


I'm not sure about the power level of Fungal Rebirth, but on paper it's a good card in multiple archetypes: WG tokens, BRG sacrifice, UG flash. I particularly needed 1/1 tokens in green, since it had a bunch of bigger ones. Another nice thing is that the effect is not very common in cube apart from Eternal Witness.

I removed a bunch of lords that were boring tribe-wide +1/+1s: Goblin Trashmaster, Liliana's Mastery, Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen and loosely, Thalia's Lieutenant. Too many games were about getting a bunch of creatures, buffing them all, and attacking, and largely dictated by draw. I also removed Obelisk of Urd because of this effect. Now, I still have Metallic Mimic, Adaptive Automaton, Stoneforge Masterwork and Shared Triumph as generic lords, but the first two are fragile, the equipment is a payoff in a different angle, and the white enchantment can't be played in any color combo, so I'm adding Icon of Ancestry, which is a non-fragile lord, to fill this gap. Other nice things about Icon is how it acts as mana sink, avoid topdecking, and rewards you for playing tribal with a different payoff.

Out:


Merfolk Branchwalker is fine, but green has a ton of 2cc creatures that work in the counters deck, the graveyard deck isn't green anymore, and it's the only explore card in the cube (which is quite a wordy, non-intuitive mechanic). I will miss the smoothing, but when I needed a slot of Fungal Rebirth it wasn't a particularly difficult choice.

 

[ravnic]

It's inspiring and entertaining to read what you write about cube. I wish I could express my thoughts on that level, but I fear my english isn't even good eough.

Anyway, what has your experience with occasionals been so far? I felt they weren't really worth the extra work (marking and sorting the cards), since most of them I wanted to just be in the cube regularly or I didn't really care for them (there weren't enough cards I was happy with). So I went back to "normal" after a few weeks and half a dozen drafts at best.

And a second question: You described pair archetypes as inefficient, and you are right. They take up relatively a lot of space for only one color combination allowed. Yet most cubes, not to mentioned most sets wizards releases, are build upon the "guild structure" to some degree. Do you think the former is just a result of the latter? For example, Ninjas from my cube wouldn't work in a third color, yet needs both of it's two colors to work (at least if you want to go deep enough to make it feel like atribe and cube Higure). So do we lean into pair archetypes because of the cards were given? Or would you say,there is any advantage to have them in a cube (without a given context)?

 

[japahn]

It's inspiring and entertaining to read what you write about cube. I wish I could express my thoughts on that level, but I fear my english isn't even good eough.

Thanks, but I should say a lot of people perceive their "style" as inferior simply because they aren't capable of producing other styles they read. Well, I can't reproduce yours or anyone else's either.

what has your experience with occasionals been so far? I felt they weren't really worth the extra work (marking and sorting the cards), since most of them I wanted to just be in the cube regularly or I didn't really care for them (there weren't enough cards I was happy with). So I went back to "normal" after a few weeks and half a dozen drafts at best.

I haven't reported back on that because I haven't been able to put together normal drafts due to the pandemic (apart from a single Distanced Drafting we had a month ago). I have, though, played 2-player formats a lot, and what I learned from those games is:
- Yes, occasionals are more work to sort. I already kept color sections separated (it's easier in my system) and keeping two sets of color sections separated, an extra sorting step, and a cube twice as big is not negligible. It wasn't a dealbreaker either, though.
- Hold the Line is still bad, even if it only shows up rarely.
- There are a lot of interesting cards to play, and I am loving being able to play twice as many cards now.
- Using the occasionals Careful Study, Enclave Cryptologist, Waterfront Bouncer to make a Drake Haven (core card) deck felt like seizing an opportunity to build a memorable deck. That part worked perfectly, and it was much more fun than taking all the core cards that appear all the time and build the madness deck.
- Morphs are a lot more interesting in occasionals.
- Picking an occasional is as exciting as picking rare in booster draft. You don't usually get the chance to play that, so they add variety.
- Finishers are good occasionals. You can't maindeck lots of 6-drops, and seeing different ones each draft is a breath of fresh air.

I think a lot of these benefits are shared by drafting a smaller proportion of your cube. If you have a 500 card cube and draft only 180 cards out of it, that's a 36% rate, so there already is a lot of variety. If you have a 400 card pool, and play 360 out of it, 90% gets stale fast and occasionals really help.

And a second question: You described pair archetypes as inefficient, and you are right. They take up relatively a lot of space for only one color combination allowed. Yet most cubes, not to mentioned most sets wizards releases, are build upon the "guild structure" to some degree. Do you think the former is just a result of the latter? For example, Ninjas from my cube wouldn't work in a third color, yet needs both of it's two colors to work (at least if you want to go deep enough to make it feel like atribe and cube Higure). So do we lean into pair archetypes because of the cards were given? Or would you say,there is any advantage to have them in a cube (without a given context)?

Unless we use customs we are largely constrained to what has appeared in past limited environments. There are some exceptions, like reanimator, which was an archetype in cube before it was ever an archetype in retail limited, but those don't really happen anymore because of how much more cohesive the themes of modern sets are. Yes, I think the pair archetype paradigm in retail limited causes pair archetypes to be the most natural shape for cubes. I also think that 10 pair archetypes is a framework that Wizards uses to make design and play testing easier and safer. Triangle and tetra archetypes can be built from themes that have spanned many different blocks - like artifacts or counters - and in more than two colors.

The easiest path for ninjas to becomes a triangle archetype is for a retails set to release, say, red ninjas. Another path that doesn't depend on releases is blending them with another concept, say, fliers, in which cause you could have WU (W fliers + U ninjas) and WB (W fliers + B ninjas), though the asymmetry between colors in terms of enablers and payoffs makes the archetype hard to balance.

We lean into pair archetypes not only because it's natural to do so. It is frequently our only choice if we want to include a certain archetype in our cube, like ninjas!

I've talked about two inherent advantages in my Archetype Shapes post:

Simplicity. Being the most common archetype shape in retail draft sets, players generally understand and expect pair archetypes, especially when a gold signpost is present.

Leanness. Pair archetypes do not take up many slots in the cube, making it fairly easy to support archetypes for all 10 color pairs.

Generalizing the ninjas advantage, I would say there is a third one:

Options. There are many possible pair archetypes. RG 4-power (Leafkin Avenger), WB Clerics (Cleric of Life's Bond), UB Surveil (Dimir Spybug) are only some of the options, and the pick 10 pairs out of those options is a straightforward cube building framework that can create quite unique cubes.

 

[LadyMapi]

I think the big thing is that pair archetypes are usually just a very specific take on a broader archetype. Take Ninjas, for example - there are ways to make creatures evasive in all five colors (Green doesn't really do it in the right way to support Ninjas, though), and "creatures that do something when they hit people in the face" is a pretty broad spread. Ninjas just happen to be a really obvious expression of that, with the added quirk that they let you reuse ETBs.

The main reason I'm bringing this up is that identifying these broader trends lets you shift pair archetypes into a different color pair. If you wanted BR "Ninjas", you'd have to cube cards like:



I mean, maybe not those precise cards, but the basic idea is there - you just need something that makes your creatures evasive, some cards that like hitting players in the face (as another payoff for swinging in), and a signpost that more-or-less points people towards "this color pair wants to swing in with evasive creatures".

 

[ravnic]

Do you think there is an advantage of a cube where all the archetypes (think 10+) are centered each in a certain color, but thanks to generic-ness and incidental synergies can be combined with one or more other colors OVER a cube where you have pairs archetypes with mostly flexible enablers and payoffs, but they usually are in the same color combination?

Despite I am no going to answer my own question, I still want to know what you think about this (since your cube seems to be a mix of many ways to go)

What I am talking about here is basically what you called sphe-, um, I mean, mono archetypes, but designed flexibe enough, that you could have easily 3 of these in a color. I think an advantage would be, that the same deck (x sacrifice) could easily take many different forms by splashing anything from zero to four other colors. I think a disadvantage would be, that it is hard to track and balance the likelyhood of the splash colors. There will aways be good stuff, but for example a lifegain deck (wether it's centered in or ) will rarely splash or . But maybe this doesn't matter much?

Ugh, yesterday I was just taking a break, reading your thread, and now I'm questioning the whole concept of my own cube. Life's hard.

 

[japahn]

Do you think there is an advantage of a cube where all the archetypes (think 10+) are centered each in a certain color, but thanks to generic-ness and incidental synergies can be combined with one or more other colors OVER a cube where you have pairs archetypes with mostly flexible enablers and payoffs, but they usually are in the same color combination?

Despite I am no going to answer my own question, I still want to know what you think about this (since your cube seems to be a mix of many ways to go)

What I am talking about here is basically what you called sphe-, um, I mean, mono archetypes, but designed flexibe enough, that you could have easily 3 of these in a color. I think an advantage would be, that the same deck (x sacrifice) could easily take many different forms by splashing anything from zero to four other colors.

Assuming you're talking about pivot archetypes, which are centered around a color but need pieces from other colors:

That sounds like a build-around cube. Say, white had payoffs for enchantments but all colors had enchantments. You have a couple of build-around decks where you pick a payoff and draft around it. That sounds good, just difficult to do - not many archetypes can be pivot archetypes that are enabled by all other colors, I think it'd be hard to find 3 archetypes per color.

Assuming you're talking about mono archetypes, which are all completely within a color:

I think you may end up with something like a Jumpstart-ish cube? If there are 3 mono archetypes per color, you have 15 archetypes. That's about two per drafter, so if it's a synergy-oriented cube, each player will likely start on one archetype and eventually latch on to another that's open (usually in another color). If it's a good-stuff-oriented cube, you'll get 0.5-1 archetype per deck on average and most will be left unplayed and just split up between sideboards or cards good enough to be run anyway.

That might be interesting to try. It might be hard to cram 3 mono archetypes per color section, as they tend to take up a lot of space. With too much overlap, the colors becomes too cohesive in themselves and monocolored decks are the way to go.

I think a disadvantage would be, that it is hard to track and balance the likelyhood of the splash colors. There will aways be good stuff, but for example a lifegain deck (wether it's centered in or ) will rarely splash or . But maybe this doesn't matter much?

If it's centered in white and black, the best version of the deck is WB, so it's kind of a pair archetype. Theoretically, if you only had payoffs in white and black, and only had enablers in blue, green, and red, then it'd be a double pivot shape, but I have seen zero examples of that.

Ugh, yesterday I was just taking a break, reading your thread, and now I'm questioning the whole concept of my own cube. Life's hard.

What have you been questioning about it? The 10-pair structure? There are advantages to it, and you can convert it incrementally if you want to explore other shapes.

 

[ravnic]

Hm, no, what I meant was probably closer to mono archetypes than pivot archetypes. I imagine decks where you have 80-90% of both, enablers and payoffs in a single color, but then three or four of the other colors each have a handful of cards that the deck would like, either enablers or payoffs, preferably both.

Lets make an example with a white centered equipment deck as one of the 3 (or whatever) -centered archetypes. The color would have it's Fencing Aces and Ancestral Blades, a lot of them. Enough that a mono deck can work and will happen from time to time. But then would maybe have a Thopter Spy Network in addition to the cheap evasive creatures it had anyway. And has some cheap evasive beaters as well and also a Malefic Scythe plus the bonus ability on Cranial Plating. And maybe runs Fireblade Charger as an aggressive goblin 1-drop and Mask of Immolation as a sac outlet already, then you add a Vadruk, Keeper of the Flame. Well, maybe not Vadruk. You wouldn't want a nonwhite card to require the equipment support, as that would make it essenially a gold card. But there are more flexible payoffs. Maybe you have Dragon-Style Twins for you prowess deck and their double strike makes them a great curve topper for the equipment decks. You get the point.

Suddenly you have good arguments for equipment, equipment and equipment decks. If you then take account, that most archetypes we play are broad and flexible enough, that you will always find some cards in a given color that play along well, it doesn't seem that outrageous to believe, that an equipment deck can have more than just a splash of . Equipment work well with menace and lifelink and deathtouch.

If it's centered in white and black, the best version of the deck is WB, so it's kind of a pair archetype. Theoretically, if you only had payoffs in white and black, and only had enablers in blue, green, and red, then it'd be a double pivot shape, but I have seen zero examples of that.

No, what I meant was, there are cases like lifegain, where you would have a hard time to get more than two potential splash colors. I'd center it in black, for example, and then would have some incidental life gain and a single payoff in and , but it would be hard to find something for or , wether payoff nor enablers are there.

What have you been questioning about it? The 10-pair structure? There are advantages to it, and you can convert it incrementally if you want to explore other shapes.

Yes. I have 10 pair and 5 mono archetypes. But especially with a light mono color/devotion theme, the cube would draft and play much more interesting with the mono/pivot archetypes I've described above?

Sorry for all that kinda off topic talk in your thread

 

[japahn]

Update 5.0.6

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Out:



This is kind of a simple change actually. I've noticed blue has many cards that pull towards it, but other colors don't. So I'm adding some anchors, some clear first picks, to settle people on those colors. Also, I'm shifting towards a wider removal band as I talked about in https://desolatelighthouse.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/bake-into-a-pie-one-card-a-day/

==========================================

No, what I meant was, there are cases like lifegain, where you would have a hard time to get more than two potential splash colors. I'd center it in black, for example, and then would have some incidental life gain and a single payoff in and , but it would be hard to find something for or , wether payoff nor enablers are there.

Sounds like a triangle archetype that's slanted towards black. That sounds fine.

Yes. I have 10 pair and 5 mono archetypes. But especially with a light mono color/devotion theme, the cube would draft and play much more interesting with the mono/pivot archetypes I've described above?

I'm not sure if it would be more interesting. I think there would be more possible "decks", but not sure if the drafting section and the gameplay would be better. Depends on execution, I'd say.

 

[japahn]

Update 5.0.7

An overall change is increasing the core module's size by 6. This dilutes everything a little bit, but I think even in the core I want a bit more variance than there currently is.

Shocklands instead of Temples
Writing Branchloft Pathway and Untapped Duals made me realize I want more untapped nonbasics than tapped ones. As much as I like the temples, it was either them or the trilands, and when playing without full draft pods of 8, I like the trilands better because they have much more chance to fix someone's mana. Shocklands are the untapped duals of choice. Compared to the others in contention:

• They don't require shuffling (as opposed to fetchlands)
• They don't have sequencing gotchas (as opposed to checklands)

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Out:



Red Artifacts
The artifacts deck still struggles, and red was down to only 6 relevant cards. One of them, Whipflare, doesn't work well in the archetype as you don't want to blow up your own Pia Nalaar or Aether Chaser. Sulfurous Blast replaces Whipflare in red cheap board wipe slot, it should provide more agency.

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Out:


Tribal Lords
Rolling back some recent changes. I'm trying to use lords that do different things than +1/+1, but I learned that payoffs that are only payoffs if you untap with them, it feels very bad to have it removed, because that was the whole point of the deck. Trashmaster adds to the artifact removal count (which was low, and there aren't many good red cards that destroy artifacts), and Pashalik Mons already is a different sort of goblins payoff. Dwynen has the lifegain ability, which is again a different payoff for elves. Most importantly, they reward you immediately for drafting elves or goblins.


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Out:


Remove narrow cards
I convinced myself Bone Miser isn't worth it after I wrote about it. Also, Bramblewood Paragon is a false signpost. Kiln Fiend is not bad, but there are tons of red 2-drops good in the spells deck, which is doing a little too well. With the addition of Krark, the Thumbless, something definitely needs to come out.

Out:


Exciting cards
I expect Rancor and Beast Whisperer to be a bump in power level, but green aggro needs it. Force Spike is an exciting card to play, and Fencing Ace is James's recommendation which looks like it would slot in nicely in humans and heroic, and would be good with pretty much any buffs.

In:


Power level adjustments
Wickerbough Elder and Metamorphic Alteration are too bad, Lightning Skelemental is too good. Replacing with simpler and more properly powered alternatives.

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Out:


Archetype Critical Mass
Critical mass for some archetypes must be kept (madness) or increased (wizards, goblins, zombies, rogues). These are interesting options that hopefully will play well.

In:



Occasionals

In:


In from Core:
Kiln Fiend
Krenko, Mob Boss


Out:


Out to Core:
Force Spike
Nezumi Graverobber
Shrapnel Blast
Goblin Trashmaster
Rancor
Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
Blightning
Shrine of Burning Rage

 

[japahn]

Updates 5.0.8 - 5.1.0

More blocking

I've noticed in my cube about 2/3 of creatures in white and blue had some sort of evasion ability or "harder to block" ability. A great part of this is because I support aggro-control decks, and have been relying on evasion for them to be viable.

This takes away from the fun of combat, which is my favorite part of retail drafts. Attacking and blocking decisions are interesting and provide players a lot of agency over their tempo and their opponent's tempo and grants them the ability to make tradeoffs between the two tempos and card advantage. It also opens the possibility of morphs, combat tricks, and other mid combat interaction as extra tension and ways for players to gain an edge and surprise the opponent.

With this in mind, I drastically reduced the number of fliers in white and in blue, and because I still want to support blue tempo, I replaced them with aggro and tempo creatures.

Out:



In:



Rein in power level

Power level had crept a little bit with time, and it's time to rein it down again. Some archetypes are doing well enough that I'm ok with taking away powerful pieces that are good in any other decks (Hazoret the Fervent, Nightpack Ambusher, Whirler Rogue.

I'm also removing some cards that in practice haven't been problems, but don't lead to good play patterns, so out with Splinter Twin, Pestermite and Helm of Possession.

In occasionals, I've also adjusted power level, removing some cards that were too strong, and also plenty that were too weak, particularly morphs.

Out:


In:



Shave unplayable cards

On the other end of the power band, some cards looks useful for certain archetypes, but in practice they weren't worth the risk or the difficulty to set them up.

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Utility Lands

I want more of the drafted pools to be used, more agency in general, and more mana sinks in the format, and the Kaldheim uncommon lands (like Axgard Armory) add a nice layer to the format and improve the format a lot. Because they are multicolor, I don't want to add them to the core, but I did add them to occasionals and added two monocolored utility lands cycles to the core. I might end up swapping this setup around in the future, but I prefer to run monocolor cards when possible.

The two cycles I chose are the Eldraine castles (Castle Embereth) and the Hours of Devastation pain deserts (Ifnir Deadlands). Because each cycle has one land I don't like (Castle Garenbrig and Ipnu Rivulet), I've replaced the first with the green Dominaria memorial and the second with a cycling desert, to maintain some symmetry.

In:



Equipment

My favorite part of Kaldheim was the equipment, and I enjoyed the options they offered when my cube had a larger equipment section in the past. I still run plenty of equipment, but most were resilient payoffs for specific decks. In this update, I add a bunch of generically playable equipment (yay, Goldvein Pickaxe!), and the runes (though only Rune of Sustenance to the core). I may end up moving the other runes to the core at some point, but it feels like a good place to start.

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Artifacts Archetype

The artifacts archetype felt all over the place. I'm giving it an equipment identity. Besides increasing the amount of equipment, I've added Giant's Amulet and Tormentor's Helm, which join Ancestral Blade to signal which colors are most interested in artifacts.

I also swapped some payoffs. Toolcraft Examplar doesn't really block, so I put in a little less swingy version: Stone Haven Pilgrim. The Antiquities War replaced Thopter Spy Network, which took the deck in a very controllish direction, and added to the evasion problem.

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Changeling upgrades

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Other
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[japahn]

Updates 5.1.1 and 5.1.2

Core

These updates focus on two points:

• Reducing the speed of games
• Adding more mana sinks

Other goals:

• Swing the pendulum towards synergy
• Reduce power level

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Occasionals
In occasionals, the general changes are removing morphs (which as Grey Ogres aren't very playable, so it's cute but mostly incorrect to run them), removing extremes of the power curve, and removing cards that don't add much as an occasional.

Spoiler

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[ravnic]

I have to say I'm surprised you're cutting all the morphs. I've never found the gray ogre argument to be based on a good observation, as that's never how morphs except Zoetic Cavern play out for me. I figured that the body only really matters in the first declare blockers step in the turn after you've cast them.

Well, my initial motivation to come to this thread was a question: How has Cosmos Elixir been for ýou? What kind of decks can use it? Do you like it more or less than Well of lost Dreams?

 

[japahn]

Well, on offense that is mostly correct, the stats matter more on the following turn, after the flip. You're still leaving yourself open to removal, and most removal under 3 mana kills morphs, so it's often a good window for the opponent to get ahead.

On defense, you don't have time to flip and have to block with your grey ogre. In my cube, if you are playing a value play on turn 3 + 4, you're generally behind in tempo, and are on defense, so the stats on defense are what matters most for morphs. But then, they don't line up well with anything else.

It's not that all morphs were unplayable, but most were suboptimal to play. I could probably keep a few like Exalted Angel and Den Protector, but that removes the surprise factor, and I thought it'd be best to just cut them all at that point.


I have only played in 2 people since the changes and played Cosmos Elixir in cube in a total of one game. It was the cornerstone of the lifegain deck, so based on an n=1 sample size, it's great. I liked its play pattern in Kaldheim, and if it holds its own in power level in my cube, it'll be a mainstay.

I like it way better than Well of Lost Dreams, because of various reasons. First, it's a self-enabling payoff, while Well is only worth running if you are a dedicated lifegain deck. Elixir is reasonable in random midrange/control decks. Second, it's fine in almost all situations, but plays differently in each and affects your and your opponent's decisions. It's like the minigame of attacking planeswalkers to prevent them from accruing value - often you make more aggressive attacks that would normally would to keep it from producing CA. It makes chump blocking in more situations than "I'm about to die" worth it. Well is completely the opposite - it's great in some situations, useless in others. I still run Well as an occasional, and the johnny/timmy appeal of gaining 5, drawing 5 is probably enough to keep it there, but for the core module, I have no doubts at the moment about which is the right choice among these two.

 

[japahn]

Updates 5.1.3 and 5.1.4

Main Goal: Improve gameplay agency

Add creaturelands as mana sinks:

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Replace conditional cards with more flexible ones:

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Remove cards that force sequencing or are explosive:

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Replace cards that are low agency with higher agency ones:

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Revert Pathways to Checklands simply because I don't like the mechanics of having to flip the pathway:

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Improve black's graveyard support, dip into mill as a graveyard enabler:

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Other:

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I've always meant to run Damnation, since Day of Judgment is completely ok and black control isn't particularly good, and finally got a copy. Bloodbraid Elf is just a fun roulette effect I wanted to bring back.

Goblin Bombardment was somewhat of a sacred cow, being the best sacrifice enabler by far, but it's too punishing for decks with lots of utility creatures and creates the most unbeatable draws of the sacrifice deck with Gravecrawler. With the power level reduced in general, I feel like it's a good idea to dial this one down too.

 

[japahn]

Update 5.2

A big overhaul of my core module! I swapped 106 cards, which is 29.6% of the cube.

I've written a more extensive Cube Overview as well.

The goals with this huge change - probably the largest I've ever done in one go - were really a blob of overlapping goals:
- First of all, increasing drafting and gameplay agency.
- Overall reduction in speed. To avoid it becoming a completely control cube, aggro is given resilience, recursion, and card advantage.
- Graveyard's importance is increased. Even decks that aren't explicitly "graveyard" decks use it as a resource.
- Move away from linear, A+B archetypes to increase agency. Removed the WU Tappers archetype and the UG Flash archetype (though both are still aspects of aggro-control in those colors).
- Extend archetypes into tetras and penta. Graveyard was UBR, now penta WUBRG. Spells was UR, now WUR. Artifacts was WUR, now WUBR. Tokens and sacrifice were already effectively WBRG.
- Remove cards that are just archetype filler, even if they were good to increase archetype density
- Reduce archetype support overall for good-stuff. The cube felt brittle in the sense that archetypes were draftable, but it was easy to too shoot yourself in the foot and get half of an archetype that wasn't worth it when it came to deckbuilding. Building around macroarchetypes was similarly difficult. Now it's easier to build a macroarchetype and harder to build a microarchetype.
- Promote smaller combo packages and reduce decks that belong to a single archetype.
- Increase proportion of generically playable cards in all colors.
- Focus on resonant cards, either because of flavor or nostalgia.

A lot of inclusions are inspired by @ravnic 's Casual Champions Cube. Discussions in RiptideLab, learnings from building the Total War cube and the Dust to Dust cube obviously also influenced the changes.

Spoiler: White (17 in, 19 out)

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Spoiler: Blue (10 in, 12 out)

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Spoiler: Black (17 in, 19 out)

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Spoiler: Red (12 in, 15 out)

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Spoiler: Green (16 in, 18 out)

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Spoiler: Multicolor Swaps (15 in, 7 out)

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Spoiler: Artifact Swaps (8 in, 6 out)

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Spoiler: Land Swaps (11 in, 10 out)

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[ravnic]

61 of your new additions are cards also in the CCC! Considering that I couldn't have any more respect of you as a cube designer and that I feel like I've learned a lot from you crusing these boards I am really flattered!

Also happy to see you trying out green madness and I can't wait to hear your results in testing.

There are two cuts that made me wonder if there wasn't another option, and those are Mire Triton and Drake Haven. I ike the black 2-drops and blue enchantmanets you've added, but would still be interested to kno why these got the axe. Triton seems like the best kind of good stuff card, as it's one that also adds synergy for multiple different themes. And Drake Haven is such a fun build around that can singelhandedly create a very distinct deck. Considering your cube is even larger than mine (counting occasionals), maybe there could've been other cuts? Haven also seems like a great occasional.

 

[japahn]

Yeah, the base for the change was literally going through every card in your cube and feeling if it sparkled joy to me. Then I thought more critically about which ones I actually wanted to run and what would stop the others from being viable - mostly speed, power level, and stretching archetypes into more colors.

I'm also excited to see green madness in action! UG Madness is probably my favorite deck ever.

Mire Triton was a difficult cut, it's a matter of space really. I might swap out Sinister Starfish for it, but I wanted to test the Star first. Drake Haven was cut because it was a little too good, actually. I drafted a UR Madness deck that just dumped several Drake on the board at almost no cost with Faithless Looting, Bomat Courier, Champion of Wits and Thirst for Knowledge. The 2/2 Drakes getting pumped out in pairs at no card cost for just 2 mana by an enchantment that's hard to interact with felt over the power level of everything else.

 

[japahn]

I've made a lot of minor updates since 5.2 (I'm at 5.2.16 now!) but it's mostly small changes:

- Removing creaturelands to rein in 5c control
- Balance the speed of the format - it remains a slow environment, but it seems to vary from draft to draft quite a it
- Remove white from the graveyard colors and let it be a tetra UBRG. White graveyard is too repetitive and controllish.
- Support madness better

Won't bore you with the actual card swaps, but instead I wrote a follow-up on how occasionals have been working out for me (well!): https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/embrace-the-chaos-cube-occasionals.3134/page-2#post-111972

 

[japahn]

Seriously considering renaming the Elegant Cube as the name doesn't feel like it reflects the cube well anymore.

Is it crazy if I want to call it "A Box of Chocolates"? “My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” - Forrest Gump

With occasionals making draft decks unique, I feel like I need a name that conveys this sense of variety and unpredictability.

 

[spicewitch]

Box of chocolates covers the idea! Or "Procgen cube"? Or IDIC?