Novice Cube
Nonpowered, singleton, with simple gameplay, 180 cards cube.
The goal of this little cube is to provide most of the classic M:tG gameplay with little complexity to help newcomers enters the game. It's partway from an intro pack to my other main cube which is designed to dial the complexity up to eleven.
What is M:tG's classic gameplay and how to enforce it ?
- Players have to be able to play one or two colors.
- Each color should have a simple strategy and an advanced strategy.
How to reduce complexity ?
What's making a card complex ?
- One card one thing: no card should do more than two different things and most of them should have only one utility.
- Bigger the better: biggest cards should be the best ones.
- No DFC except for lands.
- No wall of texts.
What's making an environment complex ?
- The board state should be easy to read: card's interactions should be maintained to a minimum.
- The number of Counters and Tokens types should be limited.
- Events should be easy predict: combat tricks shouldn't be usable without mana.
- Ramifications of choices: whitout making plays systematics, some choices can result in feel bad state where a novice player cast the card, understand what it does and aren't rewarded because it hadn't enough knowledge of the game to foresee the repercussions of his actions or have not yet the experience to manage it.
- Cards that are only good in at a specific time or in a specific sequence or event should be avoided.
- Cards that may turn back on you like the Monarch mechanic.
- Mana base efficiency: by having a very progressive curve, high reward when playing 5+ cmc cards and a quite slow gameplay, player should include more lands in their deck and being manascrew less often.
- Players have to be able to play at least two colors.
- Each color should have a simple strategy and an advanced strategy.
Card Categories breakdown
- 15 Iconic bombs (Angels, Sphinx, Demons, Dragons, Hydras)
- 40 Responses : 8 prisons, 8 counterspells, 8 murder, 8 direct damages, 8 naturalize/plummet
- 15 Utility spells : 3 flicker, 3 shapeshifters, 3 draw, 3 pillage/abrade, 3 griant growth
- 15 Utility spells : 3 auras, 3 large draw, 3 reanimate, 3 aggression enchantments, 3 wild growth
- 5 Sweepers
- 20 Bilands : 10 pathways, 10 shocklands
- 50 Creatures
- 8 Artifacts
- 20 bicolor cards
Strategy for each colors
simple strategy : attack with you superior french vanilla creatures and aerial superiority while lifegain should make you resilient to your opponent.
advanced strategy : boost and protect your best creature to surpass the opposition.
simple strategy : select your cards to adapt to the situation, control the game until you can play your bomb.
advanced strategy : take the game by denying your opponent's best cards with counterspell or copying them with shapeshifters.
simple strategy : eliminate blockers to deal more damages and revel in your card advantage while lifegain will help you survive your own greed.
advanced strategy : balance life and death by sacrificing and reanimating your creatures to gain unholy advantages.
simple strategy : deal damages as fast as you can.
advanced strategy : refrein being too agressive and use sacrifices and control to get a dominant board.
simple strategy : ramp and go big.
advanced strategy : play aggressively and use your combat tricks to win every fights.
The thriving cycle is less complex than triomes (wich match the main goal of this cube) and is a complete cycle (aesthetically more pleasing) while still entering the battlefield tapped.
They're also more versatile as each can provide color for 4 out of 10 two-color combinations while triome provide only 3/10.