As Steps and Phases End (part 3)

 Experiments in Design

    Recently, I had the opportunity to head-up the Winter League in my favorite format: cube. Out of all the cubes I curate and have showcased on the server, the OG - Server Edition - felt the most appropriate. The league was a great opportunity to try to extend the circle of cube enthusiasts and dabblers on the server as well as gather additional data for curating the cube. Going in, I knew I had several points to address.

    First, I had to determine the overall structure of the league. Some readers may remember the poll leading up the start of the league. As a refresher, there were two: one asked about drafting, and a second about match structure. I could have simply decided on a structure I felt made the most sense and moved forward with planning based on that, however as the saying goes "your experience may differ" and I wanted to make the league as accessible as possible. As an aside, I did find it interesting that participation in the polls was far higher than that in the league itself, and I'm still not sure what to make of this.

    Once the polls closed and I locked-in the league structure, I next needed to decide how I was going to conduct the drafts. Here is the first takeaway. In my zeal for increased accessibility, I committed myself to 5 windows twice each weekend, effectively locking me out of much flexibility in my own plans. In a repeat situation, I would have slightly fewer windows and would either ask for assistance in hosting the drafts as to not lock myself in to a 5 hour commitment, and/or I would require some form of advance sign-up (as opposed to the suggestion sign-ups were this iteration). Having extra hands to host drafts, especially if those hands live on different continents, would likely do far more for availability than my initial plan and I think is the better option if possible.

    The play structure of the league was simple enough: each week, participants could play up to 3 matches against other participants. Tracking data points was marginally less than trivial, and as the league proceeded I was able to identify additional functional and quality-of-life improvements to be made to the scorekeeping sheet. There are some limits to what I could do, either because the software itself is incapable of doing it or the complexity was greater than I could manage; As examples, Sheets cannot automate the input of results, and the formulae for conditional formatting to error-check results against each other was of too great complexity. Overall, I am quite pleased with how the sheet currently functions and occasionally do add or adjust features as inspiration strikes.

The Good, the Bad, and the Unplayable

For league purposes, I conducted more drafts those three weekends than I had in total up to then with Server Edition. Seeing what tabled, and ruminating on those observations alongside prior data sets led to one of the biggest shake-ups of this cube:

    To begin with, let's talk about the changes to the commander pool. I wanted to remove commanders that are underwhelming, overperform, or otherwise limit decision trees. Sometimes, this limitation was due to lack of support within the cube, as is the case for Tetsuo, Imperial Champion (there are presently 9 equipment in the cube). Other times, the card itself is just objectively bad (looking at you, Tazri). In most cases, the changes simply expanded possibilities i.e. partners. Choosing the partners was an interesting tree for me. Tiny has a problem of cardpool limitations, and this problem becomes very apparent when seeking potential commanders. I knew I wanted to completely refresh the Grixis triad*, and the limited choices forced me to consider nontraditional options. This also allowed me cut the (admittedly terrible) Adun from Jund as well. Here, though, I think I should limit inclusion; three partners perfectly covers three colors: Jund, Grixis, and Sultai in this case. Adding another outside these colors throws off the color balance of available commanders and is harder to account for possible pairings, while adding another within these colors simply throws off the balance by detracting from another shard/wedge.

*each 3-color combination has exactly three possible command zone representations

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Boarded Out, Boarded In

    The "main" cube had a lot of changes. Some I've been mulling over for a while, some are long overdue, some came to light during the league, and others are just a natural consequence of "fresh blood" coming in. The first group I'll talk about are the ones that astute observers may have seen as "the writing on the wall". These are cards that either didn't live up to the dreams I had for them, carry too much baggage , or simply ask too much for too little payoff.

    Part of my curation process means accepting that some number of cards are going to look a lot better in theory than they actually perform. Fortune Teller's Talent, The Last Ride, and Urianger Augurelt all fall under this umbrella. They all look like steady sources of easy card advantage. In reality, Talent can be hard to bring online in the late game (and can brick often), The Last Ride wants to be Death's Shadow, but costs you an attacker/blocker in the process, and Urianger is far too cumbersome to be worthwhile. To a lesser extent, Joo Dee also didn't live up to my lofty ideals, though I suspect I can still find a place for her in the right environment.

    "Long overdue" is a bit vague, so in the interest of clarity I'll define it as cards that are clearly above (or below) the average power level and didn't take action on for one reason or another. Mostly this involves MH3 cards, though not exclusively. Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast is emblematic of the primary problems with planeswalkers in this variation of the Tiny format: they are versatile, repeatable sources of card advantage that are often difficult to interact with, and in the case of a commander impossible to do so profitably. Giver of Runes (and Mother) present problems that can frequently become impossible to answer; in a format with few true sweepers, Giver of Runes can protect a valuable creature for several turns and Mother even longer (as she can protect herself). Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd is (or was) one of the strongest creatures in the cube. Her ability to protect herself, temporarily remove opposing threats, and recycle "enters" effects made her flexible and difficult to deal with. Psychic Frog is likely no surprise to anyone as one of the breakout cards of the entire set. It dodges damage-based removal, and being in the two most disruptive colors means its controller has access to a cornucopia of means to protect it, both pro- and reactive. Ripples of Undeath is a strict upgrade to Sylvan Library and it's not even close. In addition to giving you the best of the three if you want it, you aren't "locked" into those cards like with Library, and it turbo-charges graveyard synergies for no additional cost to the player. And finally, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath has been on my personal watchlist for a long while, escaping removal on the naive justification that the limiting nature of cube would keep it in check (puns intended). Go figure, the 3-mana blue/green mythic from the advent of F.I.R.E. design is broken.

    During the league, a few cards came to my notice as underperforming or underwhelming. These cards typically tabled during draft, and the times they did see play were rather unimpressive. Arana, Heart of the Spider does start buffing your critters the turn she hits the board, however being a targeted trigger makes it fairly easy to counteract and the impulse draw being limited to a single instance and only modified creatures is too narrow. Bison Whistle looks great: it's (fairly) cheap to play, cheap to activate, and digs every turn! The fact that it never puts the card into play, and maybe puts the card into your hand severely limits the practical utility. There are better effects to dig for creatures, and better effects to fill your graveyard. Whistle does neither with any real efficacy. Costume Closet jumped at me during SPM spoilers as a great addition for all the +1/+1 counter synergies. Turns out sorcery-speed activation is very limiting, and the fact you only get "refunded" one counter is a bit underwhelming. Hydro-Man similarly caught my attention as a possible strong control/midrange enabler. The ability to "ramp" in mono-U and dodge sorcery removal reads fairly strong. However, the reduced impact it has on the board, combined with the wet-prowess sink the potential power of the card below the desired level of the cube. Redirect Lightning is a powerful card, of that I have no doubt. The problem here is the disparity between what the rest of the cube does and the costs of the card; most effects either can't be profitably Redirect-ed (ie "target opponent" or no target), or aren't worth spending either 5 life or 3 mana. Great card, maybe it will make a return in the future. Rest in Peace doesn't really have a home without Ketramose; there just aren't really any good reasons to spend a card and a turn doing what often amounts to nothing effective. Shared Roots was part of a bold (let's go with that) attempt to add a Lessons package to the cube. It didn't work out, and Rampant Growth in a 3-mana format isn't great. Synchronized Charge also felt like it would synergize well. However, harmonize in a low-mv cube is counterproductive in this case. Wizard's Lightning would probably do better if there was a greater density of Wizards. And lastly, Zhao, the Moon Slayer simply doesn't do enough. Nonbasics aren't as vital as he needs/wants them to be, mono-color decks aren't common, and his Blood Moon effect drops too late to be effective.

    The final group of removals are the housekeeping: to bring in new cards, others need to be cut. Eidolon of Countless Battles doesn't have a high enough aura density, and go-wide doesn't need a singular big threat. There isn't the density of artifacts, let alone those that naturally go the the graveyard, for Emry to be valuable. Firebending Student is an awkward oddball; it wants you to cast spells so it can make more mana for you to cast spells. I suspect it would go hard with Vivi Ornitier, but that's unlikely to get added. A one-shot temporary reanimation effect that taps you out seems... less than ideal; Foggy Swamp Visions wants to make use of "enters" effects and waterbending, but falls short here. Glass Casket had it's time, and that time has passed. Hazoret requires extra bookkeeping for a mechanic that isn't very popular. Lutri got banned. Nishoba Brawler wants you to be 4+ colors, a rarity in this environment. Pyrostatic Pillar is one-note, no flexibility, and can easily be uncastable. Rise // Fall is three colors, and so can be played by literally only 5 decks out of 32 possibilities. Strength-Testing Hammer is more gimmick than gold; it can be fun, and sometimes even good, but equipment is a commodity in this cube.

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    Now let's talk about all the cards I'm excited to try out in the coming iterations:

    First is the sweepers! As previously noted, the format doesn't have the greatest access to Wrath effects, and that's been a particular problem in this cube. To remedy that, I've decided to add Bontu's Last Reckoning, Brotherhood's End, and Winds of Abandon. I want this cube to remain creature-, and by extension combat-, centric, so the number and availability of sweepers will continue to be limited. However, board deployment should carry some risk/reward consideration, and having means of catching up from behind is a net positive for gameplay experience.
   
    While the pool of available commanders will likely always be constrained to 3+ color options, I like giving players options. Options equate to decision points, which expand decision trees, which in turn increases the variety in games and their replayability. Abigale, Kirol, Lluwen, and Tam from ECL are all very interesting new options, offering a lot of utility and flexibility. Ajani and Oko offer powerful game pieces that don't single-handedly take over the game. With Edric being newly unbanned by the Committee, how could I not slot it into the cube meant to represent the format? General Kreat and Merry simply expand the available options, and in the case of Merry attempt to bring a bit more color balance to available legends. While I highly doubt Rhys will sit in the command zone himself in this form, I do foresee many games with a well-times Rhys coming in clutch; as long as he doesn't prove too powerful (which would be surprising), I may opt to add more persist and/or counter-based removal in future updates.

    For more general "new set" inclusions: Blossombind looks great. Not untapping can be quite relevant, as there are effects that care about tapping/becoming tapped, so preventing that can be highly useful. Battler is just an efficient beater, and everyone likes those. Dawnhand Dissident is a card I'm particularly interested in seeing how it will perform. The surveil and reanimator effects seem interestingly synergistic. Figure of Fable is another efficient threat that serves as a scalable mana sink, and protection is quite powerful. Glen Elendra Guardian will either be amazing, reminiscent of Glen Elendra Archmage, or fall flat; As mentioned previously for Rhys, the ability to persist it could be good. Hexing Squelcher is awesome, plain and simple. Kinscaer Sentry is another card I'm uncertain of; circumventing casting is good, though how good in this format remains to be seen. Loch Mare is big for this format, and draws cards. Full send. If you can get some graveyard cycling going, Moonshadow looks to be one of the most aggressive creatures in the cube. I'll freely admit I've fallen in love with Oft-Nabbed Goat and will include it in any cube I can justify it. Twilight Diviner may or may not do much of anything; the question to supplement reanimator or cut Diviner remains to be seen.

    The remaining additions are pretty straighforward: Bristly Bill is a strong card in it's own right, and is a great boost for the landfall archetype. Death's Shadow is an efficient beater, and works well against aggressive decks. Obsessive Pursuit is a flexible supplement to many packages: artifact synergies, repeatable (almost) on-demand draw, sacrifice synergies, life gain, life loss, and the ever-present +1/+1 counter synergies. Retreat to Hagra is a minor addition to the landfall package, but it's an enchantment which makes it harder to deal with and it's modal, offering some flexibility. Roil Cartographer is a straight-up landfall card, as there isn't really a proliferate package of any substance, but Ancestral on a body is worth trying out. Regisaur is another efficient beater, and can power graveyards. Lastly, Chocobo is one of the crown jewels for landfall; if I want to have a serious landfall package, I'd be a fool not to have heard "the bird is the word."

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Closing Statement

    With the near-blistering pace of set releases, ever-increasing cost of living, and how demanding cube curation can be on my time, the next major update won't be until Strixhaven. I am choosing to ignore (and therefore not include in my cubes) TMNT or Star Trek, as I am both disheartened by the prevalence of UB in Magic's lineup and generally uninterested in those IPs. For a long time, WotC's part line has been "maybe this product isn't for you" when players put forward valid criticisms of corporate decisions; increasingly it has felt like what they mean is "maybe Magic isn't for you," and that makes me sad. So I will engage on my terms: with my cubes and our grassroots format, in ways that bring me joy. These are trying and uncertain times, and I encourage you to find the things that bring you joy.

Be safe, be well, and be good to each other so we can all have fun and play together! - Gray | Judge Dad