The MDFC

[Zoss]

For all you sickos who just can't wait: The Cube

This is my fourth (?) iteration of my primary cube, and the second one I'm happy with. The first one I enjoyed is written up in No Free Lunches, and while I liked it a lot, the fact that you could get a pack like the following is a testament to just how much I needed to figure out:




There are many problems about opening a pack like the above, and this was after I'd solicited a fair amount of feedback.

--Obviously, the power level was all over the place
--The mana curves were wild
--Cards tended towards the complex (thank you Nemo for pointing this out!)
--Signals were either smacking people in the face (Orc Sureshot/Stonecloaker) or didn't work the way I wanted them to (Thassa's Oracle)
--Cards didn't do what I thought they did (e.g. Kess is a removal machine, not a fun way to start a durdly value train in Grixis. Oops.)
--As a result, a lot of neat cards didn't have a home.

There were also a number of good things:

--The powerful enablers helped lower-power synergies to shine
--Playing the cube was a bucketload of fun, and it really did feel like being a kid in a candy store
--Mechanics and themes cohered nicely and the loose idea of "cards changing states" is one that I've grown to appreciate more and more



In summary, grabbing cards traditionally seen in divergent settings yielded cool results, and felt like shooting the moon was a viable rollercoaster of an experience, but the longevity suffered. By a few drafts in, my playgroup had figured out what was obviously broken, and trying to raise the power level of the rest of the cube wasn't working. I didn't want to remove the strong cards because they make for fun centerpieces of a deck. I didn't want to change out the weaker themes because their inherent durdliness is appealing to me. In short, I'd outgrown my cube. The solution was obvious: make a new cube!


This cube, the MDFC or Modal Dumb Fun Cube, has a lower-powered core of 336 cards with lower complexity supplemented by an occasional module of 144 cards. Drafts are 3 packs of 16 cards, with 4 occasionals seeded in the first pack, 2 in the second pack, and none in the third. I've managed to rein in my complexity budget significantly while making sure that the wordy cards see play by ensuring that my drafters run into them earlier in the draft. Using rarity as a proxy for amount of text, we see the following:



Core module:

87 commons, or 25.9% of the cube.
111 uncommons, or 33.0% of the cube.
114 rares, or 33.9% of the cube.
20 mythic rares, or 6.0% of the cube.

Occasional module:

7 commons, 4.9% of the module.
26 uncommons, 18.1% of the module.
81 rares, 56.3% of the module.
30 mythic rares, 20.8% of the module.

Given that I draw a third of my occasional cards for any given round of cube, we get the following overall percentages, on average:

89.3 commons, or 22.3% of the cube.
119.7 uncommons, or 31.2% of the cube.
151 rares, or 39.3% of the cube.
30 mythic rares, or 7.8% of the cube.



Wtwlf's cube, for comparison, breaks down like so:

42 commons, 7.8% of the cube.
92 uncommons, or 17.0% of the cube.
307 rares, or 56.9% of the cube.
79 mythic rares, or 14.6% of the cube.



I'd gladly include other cubes of power levels more similar to mine, but the point is clear: I'm frontloading the "complex" cards by a sizeable margin. This tracks with my assumption that build-around cards are more complex than the "good stuff,"


Other important lessons:

Deemphisizing of Themes

Not every card has to scream "LANDFALL" or "+1/+1 COUNTERS" to make themes emerge. Likewise, some archetypes just don't work--looking at you, cycling. As a way to get around this, I'm trying to weave themes in more subtly this time. Faithless Looting and Flameblade Adept will never leave my cube, but this doesn't mean I need to run Astral Slide as "the" signpost for the intersection of blink and cycling. Players can experience the spirit of exploration better without this degree of hand-holding, and the cube feels much more elegant as a result.


Modality

Choices are helpful, but not the end-all be-all of the cube. The goal is to maximize fun, and, in the spirit of many board games, more choices of various degrees of validity give players the ability to feel especially clever. Choice helps with this, but too much choice means that cards are always helpful, meaning that it's always correct to run them. While this is an obvious oversimplification, the newly previewed SNC charms like Maestros Charm or Obscura Charm begin to come close. I'm therefore not maximizing choice, but rather fun.


DFCs

This cube uses DFCs. I like them! My solution is to draft with the DFCs, but then to include pre-marked checklist cards in the tokens box. Hopefully this will encourage people to use tokens. TBD!


Fixing

I don't like four-color decks being the norm, but I do like being able to play spells. As a result, I'm at 60 fixing lands out of 384 (7.5 lands per player). This might be too much. We also have 6 ZNR MDFCs and average another 20 non-fixing lands, which, while they don't fix your colors, prevent mana screw. This is the

I'm also toying with two changes to removal: first, giving the Ravnica bouncelands basic land types to make them fetchable might breathe new life into a fun set of synergy-empowering lands that have not aged super well, and second, I might bump my cube up to 408 (3 packs x 17 cards each) to give me room for another ten or twenty fixing lands. This is almost definitely too much, but I do need to think about untapped fixing, as only the fetches and Horizon lands offer that sort of power. I'm contemplating a set of shocks, but suggestions would be welcome. TBD as well!


Cube Size and Occasionals

Due to the sheer volume of lands, about a quarter of the cube in all, we need to be sure to make playables. Going up to a 3x16 format gives players an average of 36 spells, which is a fine place to be. I'm also utilizing a different ratio of occasionals than most people, with my occasionals appear in one of three drafts as opposed to the typical ratio of around 1:8 or 1:10. Perhaps they should be termed "infrequents," but I do want these cards to be something that people can plan for rather than be jumpscared by a wild Sneak Attack.

Also, I want to make it clear that I'm not tied either to the number of occasionals or a strict color balance. Rather, it's an ideal to migrate towards and a good place to start from; in a perfect world I'd average 144 occasionals and a perfect split between colors, but it's not required. I've already abandoned this idea with 3+ color cards, which are all going to show up in the occasionals, as I want them to show up in packs 1 and 2 rather than languish in pack 3. If anyone has any thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them!


Removal to Targets Ratio

For me, a 2.5:1 ratio of targets to removal (~170/70) seems to be the ideal. Too much to either end makes games play out relatively linearly, and the cube doesn't quite feel like a cube. This balance is especially delicate due to the prevalence of fixing lands gobbling up a lot of real estate, which is why I shifted to the ratio between removal and targets rather than a strict ratio of cube size or even of spells (thanks, Sigh!).



Anyways, I'm looking forward to launching this cube in person soon(TM)! See you all on the flip side, pun not intended.

 

[Zoss]

Cutting Shortlist:



Does this card do anything? It seems powerful in that it turns your Wraths into modal spells ( buys you a wrath and 1 1/1 flying Spirit token, gets the wrath and 2x 1/1 flying Spirit tokens, etc.) but I may just have too much exile in White to really make it go.




Card is wordy and makes a lot of tokens. That's two strikes. I'm also not sure I have enough cantrips, etc. to make this card really go. The body is also really mediocre for 4 mana.




I think I can do better for a spells payoff, but I haven't seen anything yet. Plus I may need more cantrips to make this deck sing.




This seems simultaneously too explosive and not good enough against decks with any interaction, but it's a key piece to the artifact deck. Maybe it should just be Steel Overseer?




I want this card to be good so badly and yet I just don't think it gets there. If the tokens were attacking too...? The issue might be that a 2/1 token feels like not quite enough.




This card feels like it can be absolutely brutal and might be too much for this environment, but I love the choice presented.




Have we come to a consensus on Steely Dan yet? Is this guy good without a ton of artifact/creature LTB/ETB triggers?




Flame Jab is dangerous but cool. I suspect it will never not be on a watch list.




I am confused by this card and don't know if it will survive testing, but I've always had a soft spot for Sword of the Animist.




Maybe it's just bad? I think this should just be Pod.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Does this card do anything? It seems powerful in that it turns your Wraths into modal spells ( buys you a wrath and 1 1/1 flying Spirit token, gets the wrath and 2x 1/1 flying Spirit tokens, etc.) but I may just have too much exile in White to really make it go.

I don't think this card does much in most Cubes. The decks that want to be wrathing probably don't want to put their wraths off several turns in order to make 1/1 fliers, and decks that are going to be trading with creatures regularly probably don't want to be holding up extra mana in the event an opponent's creature dies. I think this card could be ok in multiplayer or if the ability was attached to a body, but as is I think it's just wierd.

Card is wordy and makes a lot of tokens. That's two strikes. I'm also not sure I have enough cantrips, etc. to make this card really go. The body is also really mediocre for 4 mana.

Two things:
–You are correct in your assertion that the body is weak for the cost. I think this would need to cost 3 and have flash to be good.
–You could easily double the number of cantrips/cycling cards in your Cube. They would be very helpful in making the spells/discard themes work well and would help glue together some of the more fringe synergy decks.

I think I can do better for a spells payoff, but I haven't seen anything yet. Plus I may need more cantrips to make this deck sing.

This would be a great card to cut in order to squeeze in another cantrip. Try Mnemonic Sphere for this slot. It's an artifact for the artifact deck, discards itself for the cycling deck, and is a noncreature spell for the prowess deck, and it's a cantrip that's serviceable in any blue deck. Very good card!

This seems simultaneously too explosive and not good enough against decks with any interaction, but it's a key piece to the artifact deck. Maybe it should just be

?

Master of Etherium isn't as important to the artifact deck as cards like Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Mishra's Bauble, Aether Spellbomb, Though Monitor, the Bridges, and so on. I think you could easily cut it if you add some of those.

Steel Overseer is a good addition thanks to the increased number of artifact creatures post NEO.

I want this card to be good so badly and yet I just don't think it gets there. If the tokens were attacking too...? The issue might be that a 2/1 token feels like not quite enough.

This is probably the best card on your list of cuts in a vacuum (other than maybe Flame Jab?). I think most of your Cube is weak enough that this is fine as a 3-mana 3/2 that makes a token before it dies. I played this card for a bit recently and I enjoyed it, so I think if you enjoy it as well keeping it is perfectly reasonable considering some of the other stuff in the format.

This card feels like it can be absolutely brutal and might be too much for this environment, but I love the choice presented.

This card just seems bad. I would cut it.

Have we come to a consensus on Steely Dan yet? Is this guy good without a ton of artifact/creature LTB/ETB triggers?

I think you would want more of the cheap artifact aggro cards than you have right now before this becomes great. For example, you would probably want Toolcraft Exemplar in the main Cube.

Flame Jab is dangerous but cool. I suspect it will never not be on a watch list.

Flame Jab is dangerous but cool. I suspect it will never not be on a watch in the list.

This card dunks on X/1s but you don't really have a ton of those, and you have many things at lower mana values this doesn't kill. Likewise, it's very difficult to kill someone out of nowhere with this card compared to X-cost burn spells like Electrodominance and Crater's Claws. I don't see why you would need to cut this if you enjoy it.

I am confused by this card and don't know if it will survive testing, but I've always had a soft spot for

.

I don't know what the second card is supposed to be. Kodama of the West Tree has seemed very crappy to me. It's definitely the Neon Dynasty mythic I've lost to the least. Likewise, your Cube only has 40-ish cards which can modify, over half of which aren't even green. I think you should probably kill this.

Maybe it's just bad? I think this should just be Pod.

I mean, this card is good if you have combo stuff for it. But that's usually not going to work in most Cubes without lots of dedicated space. The same is true for the pod, honestly.

If you decide to go the pod route, you probably want multiple copies of the pod in the main Cube to ensure people can actually find and draw their pods. Otherwise, they're just going to have really bad midrange decks that sometimes can do interesting stuff with the pod. Playing singleton pod decks isn't a particularly great way to spend an evening in my experience.

Otherwise, the Cube is cool, there are definitely some improvements that could be made but it's a good start. I can provide more opinions on the subject later if you would like.

 

[blacksmithy]

yeah i agree these are pretty much all decent cuts, it’s very difficult to get significant value from any of the cards on the cut list. i personally like Reinforced Ronin but it needs to have a specific niche, it’s not just a “red aggro card.”

 

[Zoss]

Thanks for the feedback! It's greatly appreciated. Something I forgot to mention is that these all came from the occasional module, which I suspect changes the calculus slightly.

Two things:
–You are correct in your assertion that the body is weak for the cost. I think this would need to cost 3 and have flash to be good.
–You could easily double the number of cantrips/cycling cards in your Cube. They would be very helpful in making the spells/discard themes work well and would help glue together some of the more fringe synergy decks.

Easy in some terms, difficult in others, lol. But yes.

This would be a great card to cut in order to squeeze in another cantrip. Try Mnemonic Sphere for this slot. It's an artifact for the artifact deck, discards itself for the cycling deck, and is a noncreature spell for the prowess deck, and it's a cantrip that's serviceable in any blue deck. Very good card!

Great call on the sphere!

Master of Etherium isn't as important to the artifact deck as cards like Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Mishra's Bauble, Aether Spellbomb, Though Monitor, the Bridges, and so on. I think you could easily cut it if you add some of those.

Steel Overseer is a good addition thanks to the increased number of artifact creatures post NEO.

Agreed, and it's a boring way to support those decks.

This is probably the best card on your list of cuts in a vacuum (other than maybe Flame Jab?). I think most of your Cube is weak enough that this is fine as a 3-mana 3/2 that makes a token before it dies. I played this card for a bit recently and I enjoyed it, so I think if you enjoy it as well keeping it is perfectly reasonable considering some of the other stuff in the format.

If it works for you then that's probably good enough, lol. But stay away from Flutterfox, that guy is really good in a format that can always get it flying by T3. Once again it's a case of knowing what decks it does and doesn't go into, but a flying bear is a very solid card at a baseline and is something I'm happy to have as the floor for my cube. You're right that you're not supposed to play it if you can't consistently make and keep it in the air, though.

This card just seems bad. I would cut it.

It's weird in that it's a much better card when you're stalled out or behind, I grant you that, but I'd push back against it being weak per se so long as an edict is viable. Nevertheless, I think it's definitely cuttable.

I think you would want more of the cheap artifact aggro cards than you have right now before this becomes great. For example, you would probably want Toolcraft Exemplar in the main Cube.

It's a deck that I want to push further, so I'll side it out for now but keep it in mind for when I do another pass to bolster that theme. I've been trying to whisper and not shout the lanes for decks this time around, but that might not be working as I'd hoped.

Flame Jab is dangerous but cool. I suspect it will never not be on a watch in the list.

This card dunks on X/1s but you don't really have a ton of those, and you have many things at lower mana values this doesn't kill. Likewise, it's very difficult to kill someone out of nowhere with this card compared to X-cost burn spells like Electrodominance and Crater's Claws. I don't see why you would need to cut this if you enjoy it.

I'm most worried about its interaction with Life From the Loam, which as you say is probably fine. Good point on the X/1 count.

I don't know what the second card is supposed to be. Kodama of the West Tree has seemed very crappy to me. It's definitely the Neon Dynasty mythic I've lost to the least. Likewise, your Cube only has 40-ish cards which can modify, over half of which aren't even green. I think you should probably kill this.

Card was supposed to be Blade Sword of the Animist, I just mixed up my synonyms (edit: did it again. Probably going to cut that one for just this reason, lol.). As I point out at the end here, I was super tired when I threw these cards up. Good call on the recount on modifying; this is definitely a holdover from when I went harder on the counters.

I mean, this card is good if you have combo stuff for it. But that's usually not going to work in most Cubes without lots of dedicated space. The same is true for the pod, honestly.

If you decide to go the pod route, you probably want multiple copies of the pod in the main Cube to ensure people can actually find and draw their pods. Otherwise, they're just going to have really bad midrange decks that sometimes can do interesting stuff with the pod. Playing singleton pod decks isn't a particularly great way to spend an evening in my experience.

Yeah, I was super out of it when I wrote these up, just wanted to get the thoughts out of my head and onto paper. These are only cuts from the occasionals, and the idea would be to have one pod in the main and the other in the occasionals, which at a 1:3 appearance rate seems like a fine chance of having a "good" pod deck. Players would have to know to leave a single pod in their sideboard, which I think is a fine bar. Thoughts?

 

[Zoss]

Getting in Shape for Summer


I'm hosting a draft in August, so with vacations and deadlines ahead of me, I've decided to clean up some rough edges before the first paper draft of the MDFC.


FAR-OFF LANDS

The worst part of cube is making cuts, and there's no reason to have 15 spells in each player's pool that will never see play. Therefore I am contemplating yet another poor decision by thinking about raising my land count yet again.

Current Setup:

2 cycles of fetches (20 lands)
2 half-cycles of bicycle lands (10 lands)
2 half-cycles of horizon lands (10 lands)
2 cycles of Ravnica bounce lands (10 lands)

I am test out adding 2 cycles of shock lands and completing each of the half-cycles of bicycle and horizon lands. This is an additional 40 lands. No, I'm not sure this is a good idea, but it would be interesting to watch this play out. If anyone has ever added "too many" lands, I'd love to hear from you.

Spoiler: Cards I would likely cut to make space

rip all

Commonalities include most of these cards having a metric butt-ton of text. I'm having trouble finding cuts in White, Blue, and Black; I'd need four more from the first, two from the Blue-est, and five from the latter in order to make this work. Still, it's a start.




REMOVAL LIMBO

White:

+ Mana Tithe (#2!)
I don't want Mana Tithe to be a gotcha, so the obvious answer is to make it more common to have play around.

Valorous Stance -> Fateful Absence
The first card is good, but it's situational. I'm contemplating a Heroic subtheme, in which case this would revert.

Oblivion Ring -> Council's Judgment
Touch the Spirit Realm -> Council's Judgment (#2! [sic])
1. I don't like functional reprints
2. I don't like Wilt randomly getting back stuff. These effects are supposed to be for things like Birthing Pod, not to counter removal spells.
3. I like spellslinger decks


Blue:

Inventive Iteration - > Counterspell (#2!)
Iteration is great, but it's also waaaaaay too many words that just don't work together. My eyes glaze over and I find myself thinking, "yeah, this will do enough things to be good, I'll figure out exactly what it does when I play it." That's no good. As for Counterpell . . . simplicity is great, cheap is great. I don't want to dumb down the cube, but I also think that things are maybe a little too pushed along the cleanliness/wacky spectrum.

Voracious Greatshark -> Disallow
Shark is a lot of mana. Disallow should maybe be Tale's End, but I'll start with this for now as I feel Disallow is stronger.

Metallic Rebuke -> Aether Spellbomb
Let's be a little more elegant about how we signpost artifact decks, shall we?


Black:

Do or Die -> Bone Shards (#2!)
I like Bone Shards, so let's double up on it.

Ob Nixilis' Cruelty -> Murder
This is more aesthetic than anything else, but I like how Murder won't randomly get whomped by six toughness. It's a strong possibility that this is supposed to be either Soul Shatter or Hero's Downfall, but I really like the cleanliness of Murder, so I'll make that swap if planeswalkers are too nasty.

Parika's Libation -> Feed the Swarm (#2!)
Targeting is good, and losing life helps Black feel Black.

Inscription of Ruin -> Fungal Infection
Look, I love a good modal card, but Inscription is just a lot of words and it's never a fun sort of modal. Fungal is a stealth creature that buffs Vicious Offering and sac decks, so in it goes!

Mob -> Lethal Scheme
If I'm being perfectly honest, Scheme is likely Too Good for my cube. That said, it's a really sweet card, and it's what I'm using that word budget from Murder for.

- Torment of Hailfire
This is an EDH card that just reads "win the game." Which I don't like.


Red:
Sulfurous Blast -> Pyrite Spellbomb (#2!)
Blast is more cute than good, I think, and I don't know how many wipes I need. Let's get a second Spellbomb in here to replace the modality.

Magma Jet -> Lightning Strike
More damage! 3 damage is a really important threshold to hit, but this one could go either way.

Goblin Bombardment -> Lightning Axe
Bombardment is not really a removal card, it's a combo piece. It may stay in my cube, but it won't be part of my removal section. Lightning Axe, on the other hand, is key to Madness, discard, and graveyard decks. If I want those to be a staple, I need more enablers, so in it goes!


Green:

Cartouche of Strength -> Prey Upon
Wilt -> Prey Upon
Cheaper is better and I don't need too many ways to hit noncreature permanents. I might revert back to wilt.


Nonsense



Don't these two look similar? In all senses. They're 2/2 Goblins who make things with their right arms upraised for , which might be too much for one cube. I'll throw them into the Fight Club and see what comes out of it.

 

[LadyMapi]

I think that's just a sign that you need more 2/2 Goblins who make things with their right arms upraised for .

 

[Zoss]

I think that's just a sign that you need more 2/2 Goblins who make things with their right arms upraised for .

The other candidates are



Mons is neat, but I don't think I have the required gobbo density to make him work. Warboss is just too strong for what I'm trying to do. But hey, you could be the one to make a cube out of Goblins Looking Left!

 

[Zoss]

I have made a pair of terrible mistakes.

MISTAKE 1:

After gaming out what going to 100 fixing lands would do, I'm realizing that I forgot one simple thing--fetches just don't do much in this environment to make the shuffling worthwhile. I'd rather stick with a 20/20/20 split of bounces/horizons/bicycles and call it good to reduce the amount of downtime within each game, with a sprinkling of additional rainbow lands to fill in the cracks. Turns out that there are a few things that still can't be captured by drafting with the bots. That said, I'm removing most of the cards mentioned in my previous post because they're wordy and not doing enough with those slots/that complexity.

MISTAKE 2:



Not to double-dip from the Cube Memes, but for some reason my brain short-circuited when it came to Mana Tithe and I forgot that shifting colors doesn't make Force Spike fun. I get a little skippy when it comes to non-Blue counterspells, I guess. Anyways, that BS is out of my cube now, and my delineations for the removal color pie are as follows. Unless noted, these apply to creatures, as creatures tend to be the must-kill threats.

White: removes absolutely anything permanently
Blue: can remove anything and can interact with the stack, but needs to hold up mana
Black: gets the most-efficient creature removal
Red: can remove players
Green: doesn't really remove creatures, but its creatures are the most resistant to removal

Cast Out is also leaving as it's is not permanent enough (i.e. can be killed by Sprouting Renewal or Boseiju, Who Shelters All). The Mana Tithes and Cast Outs are replaced with what I happen to have on hand, which is a single Prismatic Ending and a pair of March of Otherworldly Lights, which fit those criteria nicely. With luck, I can remember these guidelines as I continue to iterate.



THE GREAT TOKEN CLEAN-UP.

As it stands, I have 62 distinct tokens, which is far too many tokens. Even more egregiously, a lot of them are very similar. I need to change that. One possibility is to errata cards (which would be nice; I think my ideal is <20 distinct tokens and ideally no more than a dozen), but that seems like a lot of effort. Instead, I'm going to start by removing niche token producers. To get a better sense of how many I'd like to cull, I checked the following stats:

--I don't care about Planeswalker emblems, as those likely mean that the game is over and won't really come up all that often anyways. There are 6 of these, 7 if you count Lord Windgrace's 6 2/2 cats with Forestwalk.

--I don't care about Embalm or Eternalize, as those tend to just get represented by a counter on the card. It's a little funky that I have both, especially as it's a 3/2 split between Adorned Pouncer, Dreamstealer, and Resilient Khenra on the one hand and Honored Hydra and Heart-Piercer Manticore, so one set or the other may wind up on the chopping block as I push for legibility.

--Some of these are negligible (e.g. Breya, Etherium Shaper's thopters are Blue, whereas Breya's Apprentice's are colorless.) However, some have actual gameplay differences (The Restoration of Eiganjo and Clarion Spirit producing Spirit tokens with or without flying, for example). The former are fine to ignore, whereas the latter are problematic.

Fine tokens to consolidate:
Aforementioned Thopters (Blue vs. Colorless) (Breya, Etherium Shaper vs. Breya's Apprentice, Barbed Spike)
1/1 Flying Spirits (White vs. Black and White) (Clarion Spirit, Occult Epiphany vs. Orzhov Enforcer)
1/1 White Soldier and 1/1 Human (And all permutations) (Bastion of Remembrance, Ulvenwald Mysteries vs. Ancestral Blade, Elspeth, Knight-Errant) vs. Wedding Invitation)

I do not care about any of these differences.


Not-fine tokens:
2/2 Zombie vs. 2/2 Zombie Knight w/Menace (Liliana, Death's Majesty vs. Josu Vess)
I view this as fine, as Josu is usually not going to get kicked. When he does, you tend to win on the spot.
Flying vs. nonflying spirits (mentioned above) (Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance)
This is very dodgy. I like both sets, but I prioritize the flying spirits as they make more sense to me.
1/1 Human Whatevers vs. 1/1 Human Warriors w/vigilance (Oketra's Monument)
Oketra's Monument pains me here. I'll leave it in (my personal and entirely arbitrary budget for conflicting tokens is three cards), but I have my eye on it.


This is probably the card I'll miss most if I cut it, but it's really gross to have these two types of tokens in the box side by side when the difference is that important.

Anyways. I've decided to cut the following cards (typically from the above list!) due to producing singular tokens.



More are likely to follow, but this brings me down to effectively 38 tokens, which is trending in the right direction. Still! There is work to be done.

A note:

Wolfwillow Haven -> Explore, because I love things like Quicken and Scout's Warning, and, let's face it, Explore is basically the same thing--you get an additional play of a thematic card type and cantrip for 1 mana. I want to make a Red version that allows the play of artifacts at instant speed and then a Black card that allows play of anything at instand speed but you lose life equal to the CMC or something, but that's for another day. I'll miss Wolfwillow's ability to bolster the "untap bouncelands for fun and profit" strategy, but it makes a token and so must go.



For now, I'll call this good. My first paper draft has been set for August 27th, so I'll be carving away at the other issues between now and then. Hopefully I'll do so without adding additional tokens. If you have strong thoughts on these changes or their results, I'd love to hear them! Currently on the agenda is adding a bit more mechanical theming and making sure each card ties into at least one of those themes.

Cheers,
Zoss

 

[LadyMapi]

Red: can remove players

As it should be.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Love the token cleanup, but I do wanna say most cards that make unique tokens should be fine so long as they make that token once.

Toggo probably does have to go, but something like Wrenn and 7 probably only takes up 2 cards in the token box, tops. Something like Kiki-Jiki or Scarab God take up zero.

Also if you ever want to add customs, I've been doing the same sort of token cut down in a different way:

 

[TrainmasterGT]

1/1 White Soldier and 1/1 Human (And all permutations) (Bastion of Remembrance, Ulvenwald Mysteries vs. Ancestral Blade, Elspeth, Knight-Errant) vs. Wedding Invitation)

I've been consolidating these too since I don't run any human tribal synergies (heresy on Riptide, I know) and I don't have any anti-human cards. The only thing I've had to lose was Yawgmoth, Thran Physician which is... fine because I don't do crats anyway currently.

I appreciate that someone else has the same line of thinking.

 

[Zoss]

CONTINUED TOKEN CLEAROUT

As fallout of my decision to simplify tokens, I've had to make some more cuts.



Each of these cards reference "Human" and "Non-human," meaning that you have to care about the difference between the tokens from Secure the Wastes and Bastion of Remembrance which is a no from me, dawg. I really like the deckbuilding challenges they present, though, and as we hopefully get more human/nonhuman tribal cards I can see them becoming interesting options once more. However, they don't fit my design goals right now.

VS

I'm tempted to cut Sifter of Skulls now that I'm adding in Eldrazi Spawn from the Invader, which is a great 2-drop. I'm a little hesitant about this one, as I really like the Sifter as an Aristocrats/sac engine, and it makes my short list of cards I'd consider making errata for via customs.

Overall, the things I'm tempted to errata are as follows:



Sifter would probably gain menace in exchange for making 0/1s, Oketra's Monument might be fine without the vigilance, and the latter two would have to get nerfed to give those spirits flying, but for the moment I only have the three clashes which feels arbitrarily right.



JUSTIFIED EXPENSES

I know, I know, proxies good, real cards overrated, but I expressly want to give B-tier cards a chance to shine in this cube. That, combined with me having five weeks until my first draft and me being out of town for two and a half of those weeks, means that I don't have the bandwidth to order proxies and deal with MPC prior to the draft, so I reviewed all the cards costing over a dollar and asked myself whether they justified their inclusion. Can you guess?

Spoiler: Cards over a dollar

Spoiler: Cards over a dollar that I liked enough to keep

Spoiler: The swaps/adds and my reasoning

->
Graveyard stuff in White in, GRBS on that +3/+3 and flying out.

-> x2
->
I've kept the Warnings in because I like the idea of playing at instant speed, but I think that it's just too tricky to make this work--Quicken is on the chopping block for this reason as well, but Blue inherently likes spell casts more than White does, so it has a little more wiggle room for the next couple of days. The second copy of Ephemerate and Secure give me that instant-speed flavor that I want while being much less dependent on draws/much less punishing to hold up than the Warning.

->
I don't think I have great candidates for Academy Ruins, actually, so let's get a different engine piece in here to test out!

nothing at all ->
REGGIE'S BACK, BAYBEEE! I love the dino, and no one dials a Madness archetype up to eleven in quite the same way.

also nothing ->
How did I miss this card? I cannot say. A second copy may join it soon, replacing Village Rites.

->
I need more looting. Insight is fun and it's a strong candidate to return soon, but I definitely needed a second looting.

-> x2
-> x2
Red aggro wasn't coming together quite the way I wanted it too, so I've made it more consistent in terms of what themes it will support. Anger is dead outside of Madness and Goldhound doesn't quite get there from others' reports, making this more of a "slots I need to fill" change than a "cards I'm dying to include" change.

->
Firestorm can win out of nowhere and I don't like that. I do like the Minotaur, however, and it plays well in a variety of strategies.

->
Fires is a cool single-card buildaround, and Cav is a bit of a win-more. That said, I like the hand refill on Cav, so don't be surprised to see it return.

-> x2
Lightning Strike is a bit generic, but oftentimes the generic effects are the most important. That said, I think Madness needs another buff, so a second copy of Fiery Temper gets the nod. I didn't go hard on specific archetypes in the first go-around on this cube as I think my older cubes went too linear, but if I want them to be players then I have to support them. The play may be to keep Lightning Strike regardless.

Absolutely nothing -> x2
Speaking of archetype support, a second copy of Claim the Firstborn gives sac decks a backup by being able to steal critters. I'm worried about Red getting a little repetitive as I now have a whopping eight cards with multiple copies in that color, and White, the color with the second-most multiples, only has four. Still, I like all of the duplicated cards a lot, so I'm happy to try it out--it's just something to keep an eye on.

->
I don't love Den as a land due to how strong it is, which to my eye negates one of the tradeoffs you have to make when including a utility land. Valakut Awakening is a good way to filter cards.

->
ThrashBro is another classic, and Vengevine is very swingy. I'm not as sold on this one and Vine also makes the short list to return, but dino #3 in my heart is now in my #1 cube (Charging Monstrosaur and Reggie are #1 and #2, for those of you playing along at home).

->
->
It's hard to make Pod decks work in cube, and typically they're a trap. So why not replace them with old favorites that tend to not see the light of day? Ridgescale Tusker is a favorite top-end of mine, and Awakening Zone is a fun do-nothing enchantment.

->
I don't need the ramp as badly and I do need the bodies.

->
The Safekeeper is very important in "protect the queen"-type decks, but those decks are difficult to build in cube due to requiring a lot of pieces to come together. Experiment One does that all on its own while empowering Green aggro. I'm vaguely concerned about removing the land-sac aspects as I see that as key to my take on the lands archetype, but I can always add it back in.

->
->
Look, Winota and Halana/Alena are both GRBS in how quickly they can end things and Winota comes with the human/nonhuman baggage that really messes with tokens as mentioned above. These two cards from SLX are both pretty nifty and add more clues, which are great mechanics. Elmar is just a good body with the haste and can do silly things with Magus of the Candelabra and a couple of Gruul Turfs or other bouncelands. Sophina, on the other hand, is a great way for aggro decks to refill and/or combo off with tokens for Makeshift Munitions to end the game. Each is a little on the slow side, but they're interesting enough that I want to see how they play out. The other card from this set that I have my eye on is Wernog, Rider's Chaplain for fun with blink/recursion decks. My main concern with him is the commander trinket text, but making at least 2 clues and dinging the other player for 2 up to making 4 (!!!) clues for you seems VERY strong on a 2-drop in the color pair with the best recursion. My biggest problem lies in having a good use for these tokens, as I'm worried that he'll make a stack of Clues and accomplish very little. The possibility of backfiring on you is also much higher for him than for a lot of other cards here, which makes me look at him askance. Gets nutty with Underhanded Designs, though.

Speaking of which, the void ->
Goblin Bombardment is a key to sac decks, but it tends to sit there until you wipe your board to end the game, effectively reducing your opponent's life total by 3-7. I want something that can be a bit more granular in activation, and the incredible number of clues and treasures flying around should give it plenty of fuel.

With that, I think I'm in a pretty good spot. There're still some wrinkles I need to iron out, such as what to do with the 11 slots I have open (maybe I just backfill with occasionals?), but I think I'll order the cards I need to flesh the list out over the next few weeks and go from there. As always, if you have strong thoughts about any of these cards I'd love to hear them!

 

[Nanonox]

I'm tempted to cut Sifter of Skulls now that I'm adding in Eldrazi Spawn from the Invader, which is a great 2-drop. I'm a little hesitant about this one, as I really like the Sifter as an Aristocrats/sac engine, and it makes my short list of cards I'd consider making errata for via customs.

Just in case you've missed it:



You trade a decent body for a lesser casting cost and the Pawn triggers off itself.

I like your choices for breaking singleton, especially Faithless Looting #2 and

That said, I think Madness needs another buff, so a second copy of Fiery Temper gets the nod.

This is a nice way to buff madness. However, looking at your list, it feels you are missing some madness payoffs.
You are cutting both Anger and Vengevine, which for me are a really strong pull towards the archetype. I think having a few narrow payoffs is fine if they are powerful enough.

Blazing Rootwalla is another decent beater on it's own that could be an alternative to Flameblade Adept #2.
Hollow One is also a fun one to include.
I don't know if these cards are too "obvious" for your goals or not though.

Changes look good and I hope you write a report on your draft night!

 

[Zoss]

Changes look good and I hope you write a report on your draft night!

Narrator: He did not, in fact, write a report on his draft night due to his shameful performance in that particular draft. Turns out that companioning Yorion in a Mardu Aristocrat shell, while a funky idea, is just bad.



That said, I do have a writeup from the most recent draft! The winningest deck was a UW control pile with way too many removal spells; the jury's still out as to whether I need to cut some, make them more aggressive, or just tell my playgroup to pick removal more highly. That particular draft is also very, very good, maybe the best in our pod, and is also the second-most familiar with the list after me so there could be a bit of bias there.

Everyone had a great time. I made brunch (French toast and bacon and mimosas, oh my!) but learned the hard way that syrup and cards are a suboptimal combination--at least it comes off nicely with a damp paper towel. On the happier side, I discovered that Costco croissants make for an excellent French toast substrate (pics below not mine, but pretty close to the end results).

View attachment 8860 --> View attachment 8861

Shockingly good.


On to the decks!


The Decks:

Sultai + Thalia soup

This was my deck, which went 1-0-1 due to time. It was decently powerful, but glacially slow--something to fix going forwards. It also had an additional half-dozen fixing lands not captured in my deck photo, sadly, and then another four I didn't run, meaning that I gobbled up seventeen of the sixty-odd fixing lands. It felt pretty darn strong, if a little sloppy. I think I need something to make the lands deck pop, but I don't quite know what that is. More untappers like Cloud of Faeries or Snapback? Also, this deck didn't have a distinct aggro/midrange/control designation, so maybe this is just a weird combo deck? IDK, I just draft these things.

UPSIDES: Even when my engines got spun up I always felt like I had decisions to make and things to do despite relatively little card draw. That's a victory!

DOWNSIDES: It didn't quite feel like a lands deck. I also felt it was very easy for me to go 4C, and I almost splashed a fifth. Hopefully draft will self-correct.

MOST VALUABLE PLAY: decking myself to activate Bolas' Citadel a second time to exactsies my opponent who had me under a gross Abiding Grace lock.

BW Weenie Grindhouse

This deck also had 1 custom BW bicycle land.

This deck was actually, factually disgusting. I couldn't make any headway at all against it, and I believe it dumpstered one of either Gruul or Esper before me. It was a little slow, but things like Syr Konrad helped keep it from feeling like it was stalling out, so I need to be careful to not remove something like that. Invasion of Innistrad was also backbreaking.


AYY: It's a new archetype that I didn't intend! Between Syr Konrad and Elspeth, the idea of WB midrange/control not predicated on wraths was a really cool thing to find, especially a control archetype that utilizes 1-drops. I want to keep this one.

LMAO: This deck was disgustingly grindy, and I need to be careful to not exacerbate that play pattern. Thankfully, this is one of the iterations with the most removal, so it shouldn't get too much worse than this as the cube currently stands.

MODERATELY VAGUELY PLAYABLE: Not Abiding Grace. I thought that this one was going to be borderline-to-weak for the cube; it's now on my watchlist for cards that are too strong, but it's still an interesting buildaround. It also singlehandedly invented a new archetype. Run it!

Good Ol' Izzet Spellslinger

This deck also had 1 custom UR bicycle land.


Our Izzet drafter P1P1'd Siege Rhino and didn't switch lanes until very late in the first pack/early in the second pack, leading to a somewhat unfocused deck. That said, Balmor does a lot of work and this deck had me on the ropes a fair amount of the time in our first match. This deck was, I think, the fastest of all drafted, and I'm very happy to see that be the case--this archetype can (and should) be winning on T4/5/6 a fair bit of the time. I may need more burn spells for this deck?

PROPS: Cinderclasm is a very, very dangerous card even in a creature deck, and turned a lot of good blocks into bad ones. Good call by the drafter to put it in! I also am very invested in Red having its creatures shift in P/T for whatever reason (it's thematic, don't judge) and this deck definitely executed on that vision.

SLOPS: Drawing cards out of order. This drafter also loves Johnny/Jenny decks, and even he found this to be a little complicated to keep track of P/T, especially after More or Less'ing Balmor to +2/+0. Having both Prowess and Prowess-but-only-for-instants-and-sorceries in play was also a headache; however, it didn't matter so much as this deck typically had only a single explosive turn where that mattered and then it was over one way or another, making it a cool kind of combo deck in a lot of ways. Something to keep in mind!

MOST VICIOUS PACHYDERM: Siege Rhino. This is a great case study in saving a trainwreck of a draft.

Gruul Bigrange

This deck also had 2 custom GR horizon lands.

I like the idea here of going bigger than anything else, and this is exactly the sort of simple deck with complex theming that I always hope to see come out of the cube. Iirc this was also one of the stronger decks, going 2-1. I was very impressed by Jewel Thief here for curving really nicely into almost any five-drop available. What a great little card! The drafter did a great job balancing top end with reasonable 1-drops that can play both aggro and control.

LIKES: This is a textbook GR goodstuff midrange deck. I would like a deck like this in the Naya colors to 2-1 every single draft.

DISLIKES: Flameblade Adept and Etched Monstrosity are a little out of place here, and there isn't much in the way of synergy here. I've now said that I both like and dislike that a "goodstuff" deck can do so well; that's because I want to strike the (admittedly somewhat broad) balance of having baseline good cards perform somewhat better (i.e. 60/40) against somewhat streamlined decks made out of the bottom-tier cards in the cube but for a synergistic deck built around better cards in the cube to be 60/40 against those same goodstuff decks (as I think most of us are here on Riptide Lab).

MOST VITAL PULL: 5 of the 6 GR lands. Nicely done!

Hollow One Madness

This deck also had 1 custom RW horizon land. Props to this drafter for (correctly) identifying that these lands are fine even if you're not hoping to use the second color and for having the courage to run Vengevine without any green sources.

This deck is also the one that I'm happiest to see, even if it didn't quite come together. The drafter was convinced that this was the strongest deck in the pod, and it's quite explosive, but it didn't quite have the density of enablers required to stand out. This is a perennial problem with Madness and Madness-adjacent decks, so while I'll think about addressing it I'm not sure how much can be done. It was probably the second-fastest deck after the UR Balmor, hampered only by its inconsistency.

BUDS: A theme I intended got played! And the drafter was giggling the whole time.

THORNS: Some other decks, especially the Gruul stompy, ate a bit of this deck's breakfast. I guess I'm fine with that, but it shows just how much you should correct for the experience level of other players and their corresponding predilections towards either goodstuff or synergy.

MODERN'S VAUNTED PARIAH: Hollow One (and Hollow Two) are great signals and are what got this drafter into this deck.

Disgusting Grixis Control

This deck went 3-0 6-0 in short order, with the pilot assembling a fairly brutal combo in Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Brittle Effigy that was apparently unbeatable. Personally, I'm happy with this iteration of a control deck, but it's something to watch out for as a similar deck swept last time--though with the same pilot, who has said himself that he tends to play control and stax. He's also the only other draft freak that I know of here while the other six

more than in limited. It's also worth noting that he sat directly after the Abzan-turned-Izzet player for packs 1 and 3, so he was getting cut hard in the last pack, so maybe again the archetype needs a nerf? Tuning a cube is difficult. His opinion is that Saheeli is way too good as both a combo piece and a value engine; this might be true, but I think I'm fine with her as a power outlier.

UPSIDES: You can have multiple players within the same color pair adjacent and still do fine!

DOWNSIDES: This is kind of a pile (fault on me, not the player, for putting in cards that make a pile [apparently] the optimal decision!).

MELTED VARIOUS PLAYERS: Apparently Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. I'm happy with this being the strongest card in the cube, but it's on my watch list.

Esper Stuff

This deck also had 1 custom WB horizon land and 1 custom UB horizon land.

I believe that this particular deck was drafted by our least-experienced player, but it's honestly not as bad as it could be, considering. Hidden Stockpile continues to be a house, and this deck was able to steal a game here and there which is where I want my train wrecks to be. Not too much else to say here.

WOO!: This player was still able to play reasonable games of Magic. Also, I think a lot of my desired theming still comes across here!

Aww.: This is about as rough as I've seen a deck. I think it's about five cards off from being a great control deck, but it goes to show that some of the combo-y stuff is maybe a little less accessible.

MIRRORSHELL VALKYRIE PAWN: Not really anything of note, as I didn't see these games.

Jeskai Mono-Three Drops

This deck also had 1 custom WU horizon land.

I like the idea here of Jeskai control, but this one didn't come together--there's no reason for Simian Sling and Settle the Wreckage to be roommates. While I didn't get a chance to talk to the drafter afterwards, my suspicion is that they were distracted by the raw power level of many of these 3s and built their deck around that rather than a solid curve (or they're trying to maximize Sevinne's Reclamation???). Regardless of what happened, I'll take the lesson that while power outliers, especially those at higher mana costs, are a good thing, I might have a preponderance of them at 3 mana. I guess that's part of what happens when you strip away most of the 4 - 6 mana cards! Not much else to see here, I think.

GRUBS: It's kind of a weird creature control deck if you squint, which is neat.

SLUGS: My power level really spikes at three drops, though I would have loved to see the rest of this drafter's pool to figure out their logic here. On the other hand, maybe this means my cube is ripe for a Coco deck??

MEDIOCRE VISTA/PANORAMA: Why do I have Flagstones of Trokair in this cube? There are an average of like three cards per draft that will let you sacrifice it.



Overall thoughts:

--Brunch was well-received!

--My drafters almost unanimously said after the draft that the cube had too many fixing lands, but we ran 42 out of the 60 available in our final pools so I'm honestly thinking that we could stand to add a few more. (Yes, I gobbled up seventeen of them. No, I'm not sorry.)

--Color breakdowns overall were about where I want them (there were no monocolored decks, four two-colored decks, three three-colored decks, and one four-color deck), but green was heavily underrepresented in the overall mix. I think I'd like to see one fewer three+ color deck, but again I think that it's partially a function of have an exceptionally wide range of experience levels in my drafters.

--Occasionals were the stars of the show! However, most decks ran every single gold card available within their colors, which might be a sign that they're tuned too high. Again, this could be due to something the UR drafter believing that all UR spells go in the same deck when (IMO) they shouldn't, but it's something to watch out for.

--I might need to guide the archetypes a little more, as only one deck really had a capital-T Theme (the Jund madness). I don't want every deck to feel like it's playing in a WotC-Sanctioned Two-Color Archetype For This Set, but I'd like somewhere between 2 and 5 of my decks (inclusive) to have a distinct theme. This is good because I know I've gone to heavy on this in the past, so I'm able to course-correct.


That's a wrap:

Thanks for reading! LMK if you see any cards that decks are missing or if you feel like I've misdiagnosed any issues with these decks--many eyes make light work, to butcher a phrase. I'd also love suggestions for pre-draft brunch foods, as my current schedule includes a fritatta, a bagel bar, a quiche, and not much else.

 

[blacksmithy]

this was a pleasure to read.
i love the idea of starting early and serving brunch on draft day, looks delicious!

and i agree you should weight player skill much higher than cards drafted when looking at whether X deck or card is too strong in your cube. a good player can draft a pile of garbage on purpose and outplay casuals so bad they dont even understand why they lost and make the stupid pile look broken.

 

[Zoss]

this was a pleasure to read.
i love the idea of starting early and serving brunch on draft day, looks delicious!

I stole the idea from Anthony and Andy of LPR! They do a few segments on this, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. Food started at 11, with draft to start at 12 (secretly 12:30). Things worked great!

and i agree you should weight player skill much higher than cards drafted when looking at whether X deck or card is too strong in your cube. a good player can draft a pile of garbage on purpose and outplay casuals so bad they dont even understand why they lost and make the stupid pile look broken.

Big ups to this, which is I think my biggest takeaway from this draft.

 

[blacksmithy]

i learned it the hard way when a guy who was actually pretty good came over, drafted sultai pile, played his ENTIRE POOL, and went 2-1 losing only to the other good player who drafted 5 color aggro.

 

[Nanonox]

Loved the write up thanks for sharing!

I'd also love suggestions for pre-draft brunch foods

Shakshuka? I can't find my usual recipe, but it's easy and tasty. I like to serve it with eggs and Halloumi cheese that I grill.

The Esper stuff deck could probably make great use of Serra Paragon, if you don't mind the memory issues from the permanents you return.
Could Slogurk, the Overslime work to bolster your lands deck?

How did Battles play by the way? I have 0 experience with them. Did you often try to flip them or were they mostly playing them for their ETB?

 

[Zoss]

Shakshuka!! Thank you for the idea, good call there.

Serra paragon is a good call and is in fact on my standby list, it was just $20 at the time when I made my last order for cards and I'm not going to order another set of proxies until I can max out MPC's order list! The trick, I think, would be to get it into the hands of the Esper player, but I think you're spot-on in that it would be a good fit for the cube and a great fit for that deck.

The more and more I look at Slogurk the more I like it. I'll see if I can't find it a slot!

Battles were a mixed bag, but ultimately I think I'm shelving them for now due to the strain they add to my complexity budget. I *will* return to testing them once we have because there's a lot of interesting gameplay here--ex. the Orzhov deck here flipping Invasion of Innistrad against me to turn the corner--but they're all complete novels. Once they're a more-common card type I think there'll be a lot fewer questions about how they work and also enough at a similar power level to have more than six in a given draft, which will also help people shortcut them. To your actual question, the ones I'm on are definitely 80% good enough without flipping, with Innistrad in particular being fine to play as a 4-mana murder. I've almost always tried to flip them, though, unless the game is either really locked up or I'm really struggling, and in either case I'd play just about anything else first. TL;DR-- they're good, but not good for me right now.