By: Jason Waddell

There’s a saying that “it takes a big man to admit when they’re wrong”. In reality, the prerequisites are much less specific. For one, the gender requirement is rather antiquated. Moreover, admitting you’re wrong doesn’t necessarily constitute an apology. Maybe you’re a scandalized politician forced to make a public statement, thereby laying the groundwork for your eventual mayoral campaign. Further, you don’t even have to be wrong. Perhaps your spouse won’t cook dinner until you two finish this argument, and you had an early lunch.

As you may have surmised, I’ve been wrong. Not “Evan Erwin hyping Time Reversal” wrong, or even “UnSkewed Polls” wrong, but wrong nonetheless.

Before I get to my actual apology, I’d like to issue a theoretical apology. In another universe, had middle school Jason had the opportunity to play with this card, he would have childishly referred to it as “effen A”. I know that’s not a risk in this reality, but if you believe in the multiverse theory, somewhere there’s a Jason Waddell obnoxiously using this terminology at an eastern Michigan FNM. If I could correct him, I’d tell him to pronounce it as it’s written in the Oracle ruling: “far slash slash away”

On to the actual apology. In my ChannelFireball Dragon’s Maze Cube Review, I panned Far // Away for not being sufficiently powerful relative to my 360 card environment. Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try it. Even before the article was published, I had pre-ordered a copy for testing. Now, I’m not one to universally say “don’t knock it until you try it”, but when the opportunity cost is less than the cost of most Taco Bell menu items, I tend to give cards their fair shake.

When the card arrived in the mail, I slotted it in for Repeal for testing. It turns out that the card has everything I’m looking for in a cube inclusion. It’s fun, flexible, skill-testing, and produces some splashy plays. I was concerned that an expensive Edict would rarely hit the most profitable target, but often with some set-up you can arrange a blowout. I really love the dynamic of Fuse cards, as you weigh early plays against late-game advantages. Far // Away can be cast for 2, 3 or 5 mana, and the most effective mode will change from game to game.

As a note, the last time I saw this in action, was off of a Duskmantle Seer flip. I argued that the CMC was 3, but both my opponent and his teammate said the converted mana cost was 5. Our local judge was missing in action, so I deferred to their “wisdom” and let my opponent take 5. Apparently they were wrong, but who can argue against democracy? (EDIT: Nope, apparently I was wrong all along. Does that make me a big man?)

I was rather enthusiastic about Blood Scrivener, but it’s been a few drafts now and he’s yet to draw a card. Maybe we’ve been unlucky? I’m going to keep testing, out of hopeful optimism, but he might just be worse than his flavor text. Zombie Piker is really not what I’m looking for in that slot. Has anybody else had better experience with Blood Scrivener?

No actual apology here, Ral Zarek has performed pretty much as I expected him to. I will say though, I’ve been a little surprised at how often the +1 ability is just a complete blank. I’ve activated it in many board states where it simply provides no value. There was a lot of talk before this card came out about how flexible and interesting the tap/untap ability is, but I’ve yet to have it not be either obvious or useless. Wizards has a long history of printing Izzet cards that are meant to be creative but somehow miss the mark. Hopefully someday they’ll capture the flavor a little better.

All said though, Ral Zarek feels very appropriately powered, and I stand by my decision to put him in and take out Ajani Vengeant.

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By: Jason Waddell

As a displaced American living in Belgium, I’ve learned that things work a little differently in this part of the world. For one, the school year runs much later. While our North American counterparts have already jetted home for the summer, Belgian students are in the thick of cram season. Secondly, and more egregiously, nobody around here watches Arrested Development. Few have even heard of it. I could have come dressed as Gene Parmesan and nobody would have even noticed.

The convolution of these two factors led to me interrupting my 15-episode marathon for a less-than-full-table draft. Monday evening’s draft was a mere six player affair, but one that I went into quite confidently. Most players don’t realize how different six-player drafts are from 8-player drafts, and I’m here to share one sexy secret you won’t find in Cosmo. What’s the difference?

There’s only six players.

Let me elaborate. Let’s take the simple and incorrect assumption that each player will play a two-color deck. In a six-player draft, only six of the ten guilds will be occupied. This leaves four of the guilds completely unoccupied. It’s the perfect set up. Gold cards are flowing like it’s 1849, and with only six players at the table, some players even let the gold cards in their colors wheel. Prep your energy bar wrappers, it’s time to smuggle some gold!

So what’s the plan? Cut the entire table from fixing, then reap the rewards of your Midas touch in Packs 2 and 3. For best results, commit to the strategy early and don’t be afraid to put all your Anns in one basket.

And commit I did. Within the first seven picks I collected four fetchlands and a Lotus Cobra. That’s the set up. Having hamstrung the entire table’s ability to get greedy, you set up some truly preposterous late-draft packs. Pack 3 Pick 5, for example, presented these two cards.

I took the Bloodbraid and wheeled the Shardless Agent. All told, I snagged 11 gold cards, which is about half the gold cards present in the entire draft pool. When you pursue a gold strategy, you have to play to the natural strengths of the cards. The assortment of gold cards in most cubes skews heavily towards three and four-drops, so you need to plan your curve accordingly. This means a midrange build, with mono-color cards filling out the lower end of your curve.

I 3 – 0’d with the following:

(click to enlarge)

Memorable Plays:

My Round 3 opponent wrecked me one game by playing Furnace Celebration, then cracking Fetchlands for four turns straight to obliterate my board. Goodbye Shardless Agent, Flametongue Kavu and Deathrite Shaman. As a killing blow he Entombed for Hellspark Elemental, sacrificed it end of turn to Goblin Bombardment and payed 2 for Furnace Celebration to deal the final 6 points of damage.

In Game 3 of Round 2, I was up against the ropes against a really good tripod (three Birthing Pod) deck. I didn’t have any artifact removal, and despite playing two Cascade creatures, sided in Daze to try and keep a birthing Pod off the table. On the draw I played a Turn 2 Tarmogoyf, then Dazed his Turn 3 Birthing Pod to pump my Goyf to a 4/5. This clocked him out before he could get his absurd Reveillark, Sun Titan, Angel of Serenity madness online.

MVP:

Growth Spasm is the most fun three-mana ramp spell on the market. I cast it three times this draft, and not once used the Spawn token for mana. Instead, I turned it into a 5/5 dragon twice (thanks Sarkhan), and sacrificed it once to the glory of the Hypnot Falkenrath Aristocrat.

Team Victory

As it was a six-person draft, we ran it as a 3v3 team draft. My team (me, Costa and Gert) won 6 – 2.

Costa’s undefeated deck:

(click to enlarge)

That’s all for today. I went the whole article and couldn’t think of one Kanye reference.

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By: Jason Waddell

The fifth installment of ChannelFireball’s “Channel Cube Cast” is online, and it’s of special interest to me as it discusses a pair of articles I wrote about remodelling my cube, with a focus on bringing black aggro up to par. As of this moment, I haven’t had time to listen to it, but look forward to their comments. Listening to the Channel Cube Cast always reminds me that cube design, like any design, is a very cultural thing, shaped by your experiences. I can imagine that cubing in a Magic hotbed like San Jose is significantly different than cubing in Antwerp, Belgium.

When I wrote the articles, I got an email back from editor Andy Cooperfauss with a message along the lines of “thank goodness you wrote these, I was about to have to write them so that we could discuss them on the podcast”. Of all the cube writers, Andy’s design approach is the closest fit to mine philosophically. He is very environmentally concerned, and will disregard traditional “cube design rules” to create a better experience. His cube plays not only Rebel errata, but also errata on things like Cursed Scroll (activation cost of two).

It’s also pure conjecture, but I imagine they might take issue with some of my card choices. Something like Reins of Power is super unconventional, and I’ve left out some “obvious” archetype cards like Graveborn Muse. I stand by the approach of design not always giving players exactly the best tool, opting for cards that have a bit higher fun and splash factor (Disciple of Bolas).

All said, I’m really looking forward to listening to the podcast later today, and as a designer there’s nothing more flattering or useful than having other players take the time to really dissect your design elements. This is the third time they’ve discussed one of my articles, and it’s always a joy to listen to.

I’ll post more detailed thoughts in the forums later on, but for now, feel free to share your opinions in this thread.

Update, 12:44 – After giving the podcast a lunchtime listen, I realize this podcast was structured a little differently than the previous ones. The conversation focused more on Andy’s ventures into his black section renovation, and less on the actual articles referenced. I agreed with many of Andy’s conclusions, and although he mentioned in the podcast that he doesn’t find breaking singleton necessary for the archetype to work, he is running 2 copies of Bloodghast and 3 copies of Gravecrawler in his current cube list.

If there is one critique to be made, it’s that I get the impression that the cubes in that region have very isolated archetypes. There was an entire podcast about whether mono-color or multicolor aggro was better, for example, which I found hard to relate to. Perhaps the better question is, from a design standpoint, which works better in a draft environment? This is an item I touched on in The Poison Principle, and I think that having the strength of your cube being in monocolored archetypes leads to more problematic drafting dynamics.

I left the following comment:

If I were to pick one bone, it’d be with the notion that the black cards are creating just another “mono red” or “mono white” deck. Like any set design, it depends on what you do with the rest of the set. It can be pigeonholed if you only include one player’s worth of sacrifice cards, but if you increase the critical mass and make it a more central part of your cube-wide design, you end up with multiple players fighting for the same materials to use in decks that have very different texture.

To take a ridiculous example, you could make a Metalcraft archetype in cube (or any other set) and fill it with only cards that a single deck wants, or make artifacts a more critical part of your design (ala Scars of Mirrodin) without that same sort of mechanical isolation.

The “pigeonholing” of archetypes is one of the worst elements of MTGO Cube design, and with real sets there’s a much greater emphasis on finding ways for the various parts to fit together rather than just making “the ___ deck” work.

There was also a nice comment left by Frodie Brancis:

tl;dr – hypothesis: cubes need to be redesigned from the perspective of giving each colour some identity thing to actually do, as opposed to just the best cards from each colour, as black will always be on the bottom of that barrel.

Cube design is definitely shifting from its roots of jamming the best context-independent cards, and as was pointed out in the podcast, this approach lets you dig deep into Wizards’ cardpool and pull out fun cards like Pawn of Ulamog for inclusion. They also mentioned Puppeteer Clique, which is a card that had been suggested to me that I simply never got around to finding a copy of. I’ve put it on my list for my next order, and look forward to trying it out.

Last of all, Andy touched on a really important aspect of these aggro-sacrifice decks. They’re fun to draft! They’re fun to play! They work as “aggro-combo” decks, without the baggage of problems that are typically associated with cube combo archetypes. It’s really entertaining to play an attacking deck with so many lines, so much versatility, and the ability to play beatdown and board control at the same time. When we’re looking for updates to our cubes, this is what I think we should be striving for. Not just balance of colors and archetypes, but introducing strategies that are exciting and splashy at the same time.

By: Jason Waddell

Last week, Justin Parnell wrote a nice article on supporting aggro in cube. I must confess, I was prepared not to like this article. The cube community long been over-saturated with articles that emphasize the importance of supporting aggro while simultaneously kind of missing the point.

While there are many tools at a cube designer’s disposal, at an abstract level most of the ways to bolster aggro boil down to:

1.   Making aggro stronger
   
2.   Making anti-aggro weaker

Under many cubers constraints, item 1 isn’t even an option. If you build your cube under the constraints of singleton power-maximization, you’ve likely already hit aggro’s power ceiling, or come close to it. Of course, if you ignore those restrictions other options open up. Andy Cooperfauss famously included a Rebel creature type errata to his cube, and my own approach has been to turn the aggro dial up to 11 (or more) by breaking singleton.

Parnell’s article primarily focuses on the second option, and he identifies well the types of cards that can disrupt the balance of your environment.

He then states:

I’m not suggesting you specifically cut these types of cards from your cube; rather, I want you to learn to manage their numbers so you don’t choke out aggro decks before they can even get off of their feet.

This is a good point. Hard design rules are rarely optimal. In my own cube, I run some of his identified cards, and omit others. Gideon Jura currently sits on my chopping block.

All in all, his article made me feel very optimistic. It was positively received on StarCityGames, and there doesn’t appear to be a vocal backlash against the suggestion that cards like Wurmcoil Engine or Thragtusk could be cut for balance concerns. Simply “pushing aggro” isn’t enough. I’ve played many cubes where all the best aggro cards were there, but the aggro decks simply couldn’t fight through a field of Moats and Walls of Reverence.

At the same time, it’s a little disappointing that it’s taken so long to get to this point. Imagine you were designing a brand-new Magic-like game, and for years playtest information reported that aggro was underpowered. This would be unthinkable. You’d either make aggro stronger, make anti-aggro weaker, or both. Achieving a balanced environment isn’t terribly difficult. Once you get past the basics of how to balance an environment, you can turn your attention towards finding the most fun ways to balance your environment.

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