General When Is Fixing Too Good?
- Thread starter James Stevenson
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Chris Taylor
Contributor
Double fetches? :eek:$$$Gooby pls I have family
I wonder if breaking singleton on my favorite card design in all of Magic to the tune of, say, 5-10 copies, would be good for the environment. In my test drafts on CT, fixing always trips up my super-frickin-cool 3.5-color cross-theme decks, and I don't want the same thing to happen to my buddies when we play the new cube IRL.
Gooby Plz you have printer?
Nope.
But the more I think about overloading on Evolving Wilds, the more I like it. It has all the secondary bonuses of a fetch (Delve fuel, shuffle effect, etc.), is more likely to wheel, and is just a really simple solution to my fixing problem.
go to Staples/Kinko's/any copy shop and get good colour printing for pennies/page.
I mean evolving wilds is great but it's not like proxying is impossible
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I find that in order to have a cube with interesting lands and decks with competitive manabases, drafting 45 cards just isn't enough. Here's my "back of the napkin" math on the subject:
A deck is going to have about 24 non-land cards. A decks with a competitive and interesting manabase will have at least 8 non-basic lands. That's 32 cards, so 13 drafted cards won't make the deck.
Of those 13 cards, 3 of them will be last picks. Because you didn't pick them, there is a high probability that the card won't fit your deck due to any number of reasons. Many of the cards that are last picked are going to be narrow cards where the narrow deck they tend to get played in isn't at the table. So lets say you get unlucky and none of your last picks are useful to you. We are down to 10 cards.
Of those ten cards, 3 will be next to last picks. The problem here is similar: with only two cards to pick from, there is a good chance that neither will be useful to you, but since you have a choice, its more likely one will. Let's say one of them makes your 40, so two of them don't. We are down to 8 cards.
Of those 8 cards, 3 of them will be 13th picks. Same problem, but with three cards, lets say two of them are useful. We are down to 7 cards.
Of those 7, at some point in the draft from 12th pick up you are going to see an occasional pack that just sucks for you and has nothing in it. Lets say its one pack. We are down to 6 cards.
Of those 6, you are probably going to need a couple of cards to sideboard into certain matchups, to let you sideboard out cards that are not helpful in certain matchups. Lets say you draft three cards for sideboarding. We are down to 3 cards.
During the course of the draft, you are going to take early picks that are speculative. However, the deck or color might get cut, the synergies might not work, etc. Let's say you speculate 3 times during the draft. That's all 45 cards.
And it leaves no margin of error whatsoever. Sometimes the packs break funny. Sometimes you need more lands. Sometimes you don't realize how the openness of things until pack 2. Things do wrong and there should be some cushion for players to maneuver. Obviously in a card game there is going to be luck, but a margin of error is nice because it lets good players work around bad luck and it lets bad players recover from their mistakes. The meta-goal is get a deck that is fun to play, so I don't see a point in the drafting process making that overly difficult. Better play is still going to lead to better decks which will still lead to wins, but at least people won't be miserable while they are losing because their pile has cards that don't fit or shit mana.
The two ways to do this are draft more cards by increasing the size of the packs(I think 51 is much closer to right amount of cards to be drafted when you are trying for ~32 playables as opposed to ~26 in a retail draft) or draft certain cards separately (Utility land draft or something similar).
Related to the recent posts, I ordered 8 Evolving wilds and I am going to throw them into my ULD in order to further support the upcoming landfall theme in my cube.
A deck is going to have about 24 non-land cards. A decks with a competitive and interesting manabase will have at least 8 non-basic lands. That's 32 cards, so 13 drafted cards won't make the deck.
Of those 13 cards, 3 of them will be last picks. Because you didn't pick them, there is a high probability that the card won't fit your deck due to any number of reasons. Many of the cards that are last picked are going to be narrow cards where the narrow deck they tend to get played in isn't at the table. So lets say you get unlucky and none of your last picks are useful to you. We are down to 10 cards.
Of those ten cards, 3 will be next to last picks. The problem here is similar: with only two cards to pick from, there is a good chance that neither will be useful to you, but since you have a choice, its more likely one will. Let's say one of them makes your 40, so two of them don't. We are down to 8 cards.
Of those 8 cards, 3 of them will be 13th picks. Same problem, but with three cards, lets say two of them are useful. We are down to 7 cards.
Of those 7, at some point in the draft from 12th pick up you are going to see an occasional pack that just sucks for you and has nothing in it. Lets say its one pack. We are down to 6 cards.
Of those 6, you are probably going to need a couple of cards to sideboard into certain matchups, to let you sideboard out cards that are not helpful in certain matchups. Lets say you draft three cards for sideboarding. We are down to 3 cards.
During the course of the draft, you are going to take early picks that are speculative. However, the deck or color might get cut, the synergies might not work, etc. Let's say you speculate 3 times during the draft. That's all 45 cards.
And it leaves no margin of error whatsoever. Sometimes the packs break funny. Sometimes you need more lands. Sometimes you don't realize how the openness of things until pack 2. Things do wrong and there should be some cushion for players to maneuver. Obviously in a card game there is going to be luck, but a margin of error is nice because it lets good players work around bad luck and it lets bad players recover from their mistakes. The meta-goal is get a deck that is fun to play, so I don't see a point in the drafting process making that overly difficult. Better play is still going to lead to better decks which will still lead to wins, but at least people won't be miserable while they are losing because their pile has cards that don't fit or shit mana.
The two ways to do this are draft more cards by increasing the size of the packs(I think 51 is much closer to right amount of cards to be drafted when you are trying for ~32 playables as opposed to ~26 in a retail draft) or draft certain cards separately (Utility land draft or something similar).
Related to the recent posts, I ordered 8 Evolving wilds and I am going to throw them into my ULD in order to further support the upcoming landfall theme in my cube.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Eight non-basic lands? That seems way too high. I would say the average here has pretty consistently been 4, and people still run very aggressive mana bases. I run about 40-45 color fixing lands at 360, with a land section capped at 50, and no ULD.
I'm seriously considering just giving my drafters like 2 Evolving Wilds each before the draft starts. That card does an environment a world of good, especially if you're trying to push top-of-deck manipulation, graveyards, and landfall (like, say, I am).
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Does someone have the napkin math on how many nonbasics someone gets on average?
Also, sometimes you're in RG and you see BW land after BW land. Would it be insane to put "Choice of Fetch" or "Choice of Shock" lands in the actual draft?
Also, sometimes you're in RG and you see BW land after BW land. Would it be insane to put "Choice of Fetch" or "Choice of Shock" lands in the actual draft?
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Yeah, that's a decent idea except some decks don't want the card at all so giving it away for free is kinda feel bad. Sometimes when we roto 8 lands a mono-color deck won't take all of them, but even something like black devotion usually will take Volraths, Peat bog, a black util land that fits the deck (cabal pit, Phyrexian Tower, etc.) , a colorless manaland and maybe Urborg if they took multiple colorless lands, so they don't feel bad.
Chris: That's why I roto draft lands. They are too fundamental to the format.
Chris: That's why I roto draft lands. They are too fundamental to the format.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I looked over your cube again, and I really think your fixing is fine. You dont want to remove fixing as an issue, because its an important boundry to prevent people from drafting 4-5 color good stuff.
To put this in perspective, with the innistrad theme cube I have issues now with the fixing being too good. Its a 50 land section at 360, with dual shocks, fetches, and the five man lands, so 45 total. Last week I had a guy tell me he had drafted a "five color mono red deck." This has been an esculating issue, originally drafters were conservative and stuck to two color decks, but the opposite color flashbacks has encouraged aggressivly splashing for 3 colors, than 4. I would say at this point the average deck is 4 colors.
If you give people a high density of power maxed fixing, they will push the line with it, and some boundrys have to be set. At this point I would be more focused on how you provide those boundries, than expanding your existing fixing. For example, running wastlands, or including really high impact colorless lands.
To put this in perspective, with the innistrad theme cube I have issues now with the fixing being too good. Its a 50 land section at 360, with dual shocks, fetches, and the five man lands, so 45 total. Last week I had a guy tell me he had drafted a "five color mono red deck." This has been an esculating issue, originally drafters were conservative and stuck to two color decks, but the opposite color flashbacks has encouraged aggressivly splashing for 3 colors, than 4. I would say at this point the average deck is 4 colors.
If you give people a high density of power maxed fixing, they will push the line with it, and some boundrys have to be set. At this point I would be more focused on how you provide those boundries, than expanding your existing fixing. For example, running wastlands, or including really high impact colorless lands.
FSR, I think I prefer your method of roto-drafting lands to what I was doing before.
How do you lay out your lands for the roto-draft? In a binder? In a stack? All over the place?
How do you lay out your lands for the roto-draft? In a binder? In a stack? All over the place?
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I have never been fully happy with any system, so keep that in mind.
I used to lay them out in themed piles and that was ok.
I currently keep them in a binder that is passed around the table. The binder is sorted into categories and subcategories (3+ color lands, then guild lands (sorted), color based ultility lands (sorted), colorless lands (manlands, mana ramp, general ultility).
My next idea is to keep the binder going, but to split the draft into 4 packs and have each person draft 2 picks after each pack. This breaks up the land roto, which gets a little tedious doing all the picks at once.
I used to lay them out in themed piles and that was ok.
I currently keep them in a binder that is passed around the table. The binder is sorted into categories and subcategories (3+ color lands, then guild lands (sorted), color based ultility lands (sorted), colorless lands (manlands, mana ramp, general ultility).
My next idea is to keep the binder going, but to split the draft into 4 packs and have each person draft 2 picks after each pack. This breaks up the land roto, which gets a little tedious doing all the picks at once.
I've gone back and forth on this as well. Currently I have 15 blank, numbered cards (1 through 15) as part of the main draft which establish the Utility Land Binder pick order at the end. (Each "pick" actually means two picks, just to speed things up.) This means that some players can stock up on Utility Lands, or choose to not take any at all. It hasn't been an issue so far.
Previously, I used these blank ULD cards during the draft and would pass a binder around, but my drafters have decided that it's too much of a pain to do while regular drafting.
Also, FSR, according to the quote-code, your post is the forty-four thousand four hundred forty-fourth post on Riptide.
Edit: and you're member #4. Well done.
Ooh, I also like "Land Pick" vouchers in the main draft. That seems like something worth trying. I can sharpie them onto something useless I have a ton of.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Thus far my free wastelands/fetches experiment has gone great. I'll update my own thread later, but just wanted to voice sort of an alternative opinion
Also, yes, proxy that shit.
This times a million. If diamonds are a girls best friend, Kinko's is a magic players
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
What's Kinko's? (I can Google, it's just that apparently Kinko's withdrew from the Netherlands in 2008, so it's been a while that I could print something there)
Chris Taylor
Contributor
A chain with more ring to it than "My Printer"
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well, I use "My Printer" for all of my proxies, so suck on it Kinko's!
My University gives us $2 free colored printing every week
It's glorious!
It's glorious!
My mana base (480, 10 drafters) is currently:
Double Fetches, Duals, Shocks, Checklands (manlands once Oathwatch releases), a rotating cycle each month.
In the ULD binder I let each drafter get 3 lands, 1 can be a color fixer of their choice from the Checklands, Temples, Storage land cycles.
For proxies, I fully recommend printerstudio.com. (Custom blank poker cards.) I have proxied my cube and get to play with it unsleeved. Comes out to about $.20/card, and in sleeves you cannot really tell apart.
Double Fetches, Duals, Shocks, Checklands (manlands once Oathwatch releases), a rotating cycle each month.
In the ULD binder I let each drafter get 3 lands, 1 can be a color fixer of their choice from the Checklands, Temples, Storage land cycles.
For proxies, I fully recommend printerstudio.com. (Custom blank poker cards.) I have proxied my cube and get to play with it unsleeved.
Comes out to about $.20/card, and in sleeves you cannot really tell apart.
Laz
Developer
My University gives us $2 free colored printing every week
It's glorious!
My University did something like this also. By the time I graduated, I had somewhere near $400 of printing I had never used. I do not have many regrets in life, but this is one of them...
The simplest response to the problem of too much fixing promoting greedy mana bases is having multiple Wastelands, Tectonic Edges and Ghost Quarters in the format. Scuttle-cube has a silly amount of fixing (~60/360) and so could probably afford to add more, but 3 Tectonic Edges helps to keep people honest (Wasteland was too powerful there), plus 5-colour Domain is a supported archetype. You can still Tribal Flames for max Domain under Tectonic Edge if you are really greedy.
I'm necroing this thread because I'm struggling, so, hopefully one of you sweet wise souls will help me.
I'm cutting my cube down from 420 to 400. I've had too much fixing since at least 420. My drafters primarily go for 2 colour decks with a splash, though occasionally someone runs 4c control. I'm happy with this, as are my drafters, and I don't really see a "same deck every draft" problem, despite the fact that we tend to draft CONSTANTLY. But there's too much fixing.
I'm not sure what to do. Manlands in the ULD seemed incorrect; they were clear, easy picks, and they were always ran, which made me a bit uneasy (I have a hard enough time seeing Vault of the Archangels and Gavony Township in there still). So I put them in the main, at the cost of a shockland in those colours. Didn't seem like a problem since I always felt like there was too much fixing.
My current setup is:
2x Fetch
2x Shock
1x Temple,
except for where I have the manland, in which case:
2x Fetch
1x Shock
1x Manland
1x Temple
I'd like to cut a cycle from my cube, but I have no idea which.
Double fetch is sooo sweet because just about any player wants at least a fetch or two, even if it's only fetching 1 colour to thin the deck/feed the yard/shuffle.
Cutting temples seems bad since every temple is happily played, even for just 1 colour; Scry 1 is great and highly valued here.
But cutting the 1 Shock in a Manland colour seems terrible. I have 3 manlands currently, and Oath will probably add to that.
I'm just not sure what to do. Does anyone have any thoughts? Should the manlands stay in the ULD? Should I put the temples there? A handful of evolving wilds and strike a fetch? I would love to hear some well-considered theories, because 5 cycles each at 400 seems excessive for my playgroup, and I'd love to have the extra space. Maybe I could just cut the whole damn mess and draft fixing lands separately, taking turns? I'm losing my mind here.
I'm cutting my cube down from 420 to 400. I've had too much fixing since at least 420. My drafters primarily go for 2 colour decks with a splash, though occasionally someone runs 4c control. I'm happy with this, as are my drafters, and I don't really see a "same deck every draft" problem, despite the fact that we tend to draft CONSTANTLY. But there's too much fixing.
I'm not sure what to do. Manlands in the ULD seemed incorrect; they were clear, easy picks, and they were always ran, which made me a bit uneasy (I have a hard enough time seeing Vault of the Archangels and Gavony Township in there still). So I put them in the main, at the cost of a shockland in those colours. Didn't seem like a problem since I always felt like there was too much fixing.
My current setup is:
2x Fetch
2x Shock
1x Temple,
except for where I have the manland, in which case:
2x Fetch
1x Shock
1x Manland
1x Temple
I'd like to cut a cycle from my cube, but I have no idea which.
Double fetch is sooo sweet because just about any player wants at least a fetch or two, even if it's only fetching 1 colour to thin the deck/feed the yard/shuffle.
Cutting temples seems bad since every temple is happily played, even for just 1 colour; Scry 1 is great and highly valued here.
But cutting the 1 Shock in a Manland colour seems terrible. I have 3 manlands currently, and Oath will probably add to that.
I'm just not sure what to do. Does anyone have any thoughts? Should the manlands stay in the ULD? Should I put the temples there? A handful of evolving wilds and strike a fetch? I would love to hear some well-considered theories, because 5 cycles each at 400 seems excessive for my playgroup, and I'd love to have the extra space. Maybe I could just cut the whole damn mess and draft fixing lands separately, taking turns? I'm losing my mind here.
Let's flip the question. Why do you feel like the supposedly excessive fixing is hurting your format? It's a tricky thing to give suggestions to since it depends a lot on the direction you want to go. How decided are you on the double fetch double shock package?
It's not hurting the format per se, but if I had a nickel for every time the last 3 cards in a pack were fixing, I'd have a Liliana of the Veil by now. It just doesn't feel like there's much competition for the lands; they're either in the colours you want, or they aren't. Part of that is drafting with 2-3 players (and thus not seeing the full cube each draft), and part of that is that the players aren't greedy mana types (every so often one of us goes 4c-5c, but 2-3 is far more common). Considering this, reducing lands seems best to increase their value and (hopefully) cut down on the "last few cards are fixing nobody wants, ugh" scenario.
I enjoy double fetch for sure; with TOL shenanigans being fun to tap into, keeping those seems like the best thing. Double shock I'm less in-love with per se (hence why I cut 1 in 3 colours to make room for manlands), but I think double shock is great. But I also looooove the temples. I could go down to single shock and probably not cry about it (probably), but then what to do with the manlands I want in the main? I would consider putting them in their respective multicolour slots and call it a day like that, but I hate to offer "extra fixing" to the colours that have good (imo) manlands, at least in the draft itself. Maybe I could just throw a cycle of pain lands in the ULD to balance out the presence of manlands in the ULD? I'm just not sure.