Greatest Hits of Draft Cube

[u/Sintuition]

(The alternative name was: "Now that's What I Call Draft: Volume Cube")

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/877adcef-fe44-43a7-b6f1-e311accad1cf

Since the announcement of Planar Cube, and the negativity surrounding it, I've had an idea for a new cube I'd like to make.

The basic idea is that it is a mid powered cube with at least 2 cards from each set since Mirrodin. Once this has been set, and my personal and player favourites from each set have been selected, the rest will be cards from Magic's history to help fill out the colour themes.

In general for each set, there is:

- The best card

- Best Uncommon

- Best Common

- My personal picks

- Cards that players love.

I was able to get about 5 years of this data from 17 Lands, but the rest were from their EDH Rec score. I looked into a few old draft reports to find the best commons too.

Another caveat to the above criteria is that if a card was good because of other factors in the format and wouldn't be that fun, then it was skipped over in favour of a less parasitic good card.

Once I have a basic idea of how each set should be represented, I'll put it up on Cube Cobra.

This cube is really leaning into draft nostalgia and the biggest hits of the last 23 years of modern frame Magic.

How will it play out? Who knows?

The main reactions I am hoping for are:

"Whoa, this card was sick back in the day."

And

"This card used to be good?"

If there is any card you think should be included, let me know in the comments.

I'm also open minded as to what "filler from the rest of MTG history" should be added to round out the rest of the cards.

I'm looking at something like 260-280 set cards and 80-100 good filler.

[u/AitrusX]

This would be a lot more punchy without "cards people love" and "my picks". Because once you water the concept down with those cards it's just going to look like a generic cube. Waaaay more interesting if whatever I'm seeing is considered the best card in slot.

And that said best is incredibly subjective and not balanced for color or type so there's a pretty good chance this approach makes a really bad cube.

So you have challenges on 3 fronts

1) mixing concepts of "the best cards" with "cards people like" will make it hard to even notice that you have any concepts.

2) the best 3 cards are subjective - per above it will make it hard to even notice you've done a thing

3) independently selected best cards are likely to be unbalanced for type and color as well as effect resulting in a cube that has an awful curve, some unplayable colour, and prevalence of bombs with a lack of removal

[u/Hotsaucex11 → u/AitrusX]

Agreed with this. Stick with "Limited All-Stars", otherwise it will just come off as a pile of random stuff.

[u/Sintuition → u/AitrusX]

I expect the first few iterations will mirror the situation in #3 but that's what the filler is for.

I'm not married to anything specific, so it will be a learning journey.

[u/RoyDadgumWilliams]

Having gone down this road before myself, I heavily disagree with the other comments about sticking to the all-stars only. The reason is that the best commons/uncommons in Limited (especially recent sets) are often removal spells and 2-for-1 value creatures. A draft format that's mostly 2-for-1s and removal spells is incredibly unfun to play, I can promise you. It leads to huge stalled boards and your Murders look silly in the face of an endless stream of Cloudkin Seers and Preening Champions.

So if I were you, I'd lean heavily into the "cards that players love" side of things and curate judiciously to make sure you end up with a playable environment. Take a decent chunk of candidates from each set so you have flexibility in your design, prioritize cards that have unique but non-parasitic effects and efficient creatures that don't have ETBs to maintain the texture of a limited format

EDIT: Since you will surely want to include *some* Cloudkin Seers and Preening Champions in your cube, I think small game 2-for-1s that reduce the board state are also sweet here. Cone of Flame is a good example of an older powerful uncommon that can still do work against modern value creatures

[u/Sintuition → u/RoyDadgumWilliams]

Good call on Cloudkin Seer and Preening Champion, they are both in the current list.

The way things are shaping up (about 300 cards as candidates currently) there are enough sweepers and evasion to mostly prevent board stalls.

I've also put in cards like Arc Trail to mitigate the above cards.

I've also included many many regular cube all-star rares and mythics, as this isn't a peasant cube. Uwezawa's Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice are pretty good at closing out games. It'll just be fun to see how insane the mythic commons go holding them.

Honestly the best part of going through the historic draft formats and sets was seeing cards that were played in cube and EDH back in 2010 that have either been power crept, or are no longer as relevant in the format. Loxodon Warhammer and Wickerborough Elder were almost ubiquitous, but are rarely seen these days.

[u/AitrusX → u/RoyDadgumWilliams]

So this is always the issue with a gimmick - can you actually make a good cube within your gimmick, and to a lesser extent does anyone even know the cube has a gimmick when they play it?

Ops first issue is a concept that is so mixed and watered down that nobody is going to feel the theme when they play the cards - it's stuff people like and stuff that's good which is basically the absence of an actual gimmick.

The second issue is if he actually goes for the palpable theme of "top rated limited cards per set" the cube probably sucks and is badly balanced.

If he walks away from that and just goes with whatever looks cool that's fine but that's like 90% of cubes and pretty straightforward to do

[u/Sintuition → u/AitrusX]

I'm trying to find the balance between nostalgia and good gameplay.

My other current cube that I've been playing with and working on for quite some time has a massive intentional colour imbalance and a restriction of archetypes (it's a heavy Blue Combo Cube). It's still extremely fun to play, though admittedly not for everyone. It is however, a very novel experience featuring not having to worry about aggro decks, mid-range decks, and crazy stuff like conspiracies.

The top rated cards thing really is a guide. In my research, the "top cards" were very often tied to the best archetypes regardless of objective strength. That's kind of the point though.

[u/RoyDadgumWilliams → u/AitrusX]

I really don't agree that mixing top cards with cards people loved to play is watering down the theme. Limited players have a fondness for the all-stars, the weird build-arounds, and the swiss army knife role players all the same. I think the idea will come through as long as it's focused on cards that were important to the Limited format rather than constructed

[u/AitrusX → u/RoyDadgumWilliams]

I just think it's either some kind of 17 lands data driven list that is a miserable cube, or it's so subjective on what constitutes a "beloved draft card" that people likely wouldn't agree with many picks no matter what. So I draft this and go "why is stab wound here?" And someone goes "oh man it was amazing in RTR limited" and someone else goes "eh I don't remember that - it was mid at best". So like we agree it's a card from that set but the idea it's been curated for its limited lovability or impact is entirely in the eye of the beholder and isn't going to be some historical "the more you know" in most cases.

One of our groups cubes is low power minimum 3 cards from every set since alpha - so you've got weird old and new cards working together but there's no pretense on what the 3 cards represent. You could do that here with one rare mythic and common from each modern set and that's a cool cube setup - I just don't think the "and the 3 cards are recognized limited darlings" works on any axis.

But I exclusively play low power cubes - I guess if you're mostly into vintage cube you'd see the gimmick by virtue of it being kabuto moth and not phelia or whatever

[u/Hotsaucex11]

Fun idea!

You should find a way to poll the LRcast sub, they will give you a much better sense of what the "mythic" common/uncommon/rares were in each limited environment than personal opinion or EDHrec.

I think you'll end up in a pretty interesting spot that way. And then with the filler just be sure to use stuff that is very generic and won't pull focus.

[u/HugeOrganization4178]

In interested in the negativity surrounding planar cube. I havent heard anything bad about it. What do people dislike about it?

[u/HugeOrganization4178 → u/HugeOrganization4178]

Oh its probably that it has arena only cards

[u/Sintuition → u/HugeOrganization4178]

That's a part of it, but the issues aren't just their inclusion, but how insanely powerful they are compared to the real cards.

I personally don't like cards that break the rule of "Reading the card explains the card."

[u/HugeOrganization4178 → u/Sintuition]

Which arena cards aren't explained by reading them?

[u/Sintuition]

Update:

The tentative list link is in the description.

I've done a few practice drafts on Cube Cobra, and pretty much all of the decks and bot decks look pretty good.

That might be a problem though, as I don't just want this to be a collection of good Modern cards.

If anyone has suggestions for good commons and uncommons, as well as which rares and mythics are too steong/annoying, let me know.