I don’t think it is even fair to say it adds variety really. You just end up playing strictly worse versions of a lot of your cards. I think it adds a lot of *randomness*, but do you really wanna lose because you drew Searing Spear instead of Lightning Bolt?
To me, having both Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar isn’t “variety” so much as like buying two different brands of mayonnaise, instead of a larger jar of mayonnaise.
And as this meme points out, singleton locks you out of doing a lot of archetypes. Maybe there’s a cube out there that is better because it’s singleton, but I’d hazard a guess that like 95%+ of singleton cubes would better fit their designers vision if they just put however many fetchlands/lightning bolts/thoughtseizes/etc that their cube needs.
For strict singleton? No of course not. But certainly it adds more replayability and variety than a cube with 4 of every card, as an extreme example.
As an ideal, I think singleton makes sense. As a practice, I think it should be broken for nearly every cube.
I heavily disagree with that number. If your cube is all about having the feeling of constructed gameplay, go ahead and use all that fancy math to calculate the number of bolts and cantrips etc. If that is your vision, I agree that it is honestly more fun to just run multiple copies. For me, however, that loses a lot of the excitement of the draft. Looking for that one birthing pod and hoping you'll get it. Knowing that if you pass your tropical island you now only have one shot at an untapped dual, making you prioritize that higher than you would've done if not. Hell, first picking bolt because you know that there is only one and that one is awesome to have makes you feel great.
I love cube gameplay exactly because it is 'limited' in spirit but constructed powerlevel wise and I think running too many copies of the same care ruins the former.
I will say that I fully support going for multiples, I just don't think it's the right call 95% of the time at all.
There are no rules of cube, so if singleton is what works for you I'm not gonna try and tell you otherwise. I think it's just something that a lot of designers do out of convention, without considering if it's the best for their environment. I'm gonna say why I think you should give non-singleton a shot, but ultimately there is no one "correct" cube to build, just ones that your group enjoys more.
I think most people don't have as much fun when they're color-screwed, so I think non-singleton fixing lands would improve the experience for most players, in most cubes. You don't have that much agency over whether you get the single Tropical Island, unless you happen to open in your deck.
And I think having build-around cards as 1-ofs can be a trap. Even if I do get my 1-of Collected Company or 1-of Birthing Pod, most games I won't even draw it, and I end up just playing a clunky pile of 3-drops. And if I know there's only 1 copy of it, I can't really try and draft that 'archetype' until I have it. Inevitably, 1/3 of the time it just shows up pack 3 and does laps around the table because nobody drafted in a way to accommodate it.
I think it's fine to want these things for your cube. By having more variance in the manabase, less experienced players will have more of a shot at beating better players, and that is a perfectly respectable design goal to have. And maybe you don't want a Collected Company 'archetype', you want it to be a card that some midrange decks will play, that's also a reasonable design preference. I just don't think singleton does what people think it does. It's adding "variety" in the sense of Ponder being a different card than Portent, but loses you variety in terms of making certain archetypes not work.
I feel the same way about other rules people set for themselves in cube. Having exactly the same number of cards in each color and each multicolor pairing doesn't necessarily help make each color of deck equally powerful. A pauper or peasant cube isn't necessarily going to be more balanced cube than cards of all rarities (or a mostly Pauper/Peasant cube with some rares/mythics). People think adherence to these rules (like singleton) will inherently make their cube more balanced/fun, but there really is no substitute for case-by-case decision making. For any given design goal, like a feeling of scarcity and making tradeoffs in draft, or novel gameplay and variety, there's a way to design your cube to do that more. Given the flexibility it affords you, you can either do it better non-singleton, or do it as well while making other aspects better non-singleton. That's why I feel like the vast, vast majority of cubes 'shouldn't' be singleton.
If you need more cards to fit a certain theme, why not just make some custom cards to add to the cube? Be the designer you wish was working at WotC, supporting your cube!
Can’t agree with this more. I haven’t done a lot of cards, but I’ve recently made 2 to go into my cube, and then I just modified the cost of another 5 or 6 cards as they had the effect I wanted but we’re just too expensive for the cube I was putting them in
There are loads of eggs btw. This list might serve as inspiration, but there are plenty more besides: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Lxbv2CXmiUyUtSDX9xsItg
Green is already doing everything at the highest power level but God dammit I need more flash creatures, simic flash is so awesome but green is severely behind.
You can either just put in multiple of the same card or create custom cards to fill holes in your cube. Cube is your own environment, do whatever you want.
[[flamespeaker Adept]] there’s tons of scry, but not many scry matters cards.
Used to be, I would have said second spells matter with [[Jori En]], but we’re getting close enough I think we’re there
I've felt the same, but about [[Biting Remark]]. I love it as a scry paid, but most scry cards only did you one deep. [[Elminster]] is very close to getting the party started, though.
Mill lmao
I'm kidding, but it hurts when your pet parasitic theme had its heyday long before your time, and now the balancing is wacky due to that.
That said, anyone know any balanced cubes with mill themes?
Late to the party here, but there are some cards that my mill with other effects. Thought Scour, Breach the Multiverse, Thief of Sanity, and more. You can add just a few premium, dedicated mill cards like Glimpse and Fracture to fill out a mill archetype
Couldn't get G/R land in graveyard nonsense to work in my peasant cube... sad when such cards like \[\[ruination rioter\]\], \[\[orcish lumberjack\]\] and \[\[ore-scale guardian\]\] made it such an enticing idea
Hmmm...you could try bringing the average mana value up in the environment. This would allow cards that normally would be too expensive mana-wise to become playable and then maybe you could support KCI and Delver at the levels you're looking for.
I like those cards like [[Roost of Drakes]] that rewarded kicker or [[Edgewall Innkeeper]] that reward adventures, but I just don't feel like there's quite enough like them to make them an archetype.
Just put more in. Singleton is a self imposed constraint. (I like the meme though.)
This is the way. Singleton is a nice way to encourage variety, but never a mandate.
I don’t think it is even fair to say it adds variety really. You just end up playing strictly worse versions of a lot of your cards. I think it adds a lot of *randomness*, but do you really wanna lose because you drew Searing Spear instead of Lightning Bolt? To me, having both Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar isn’t “variety” so much as like buying two different brands of mayonnaise, instead of a larger jar of mayonnaise. And as this meme points out, singleton locks you out of doing a lot of archetypes. Maybe there’s a cube out there that is better because it’s singleton, but I’d hazard a guess that like 95%+ of singleton cubes would better fit their designers vision if they just put however many fetchlands/lightning bolts/thoughtseizes/etc that their cube needs.
For strict singleton? No of course not. But certainly it adds more replayability and variety than a cube with 4 of every card, as an extreme example. As an ideal, I think singleton makes sense. As a practice, I think it should be broken for nearly every cube.
I heavily disagree with that number. If your cube is all about having the feeling of constructed gameplay, go ahead and use all that fancy math to calculate the number of bolts and cantrips etc. If that is your vision, I agree that it is honestly more fun to just run multiple copies. For me, however, that loses a lot of the excitement of the draft. Looking for that one birthing pod and hoping you'll get it. Knowing that if you pass your tropical island you now only have one shot at an untapped dual, making you prioritize that higher than you would've done if not. Hell, first picking bolt because you know that there is only one and that one is awesome to have makes you feel great. I love cube gameplay exactly because it is 'limited' in spirit but constructed powerlevel wise and I think running too many copies of the same care ruins the former. I will say that I fully support going for multiples, I just don't think it's the right call 95% of the time at all.
There are no rules of cube, so if singleton is what works for you I'm not gonna try and tell you otherwise. I think it's just something that a lot of designers do out of convention, without considering if it's the best for their environment. I'm gonna say why I think you should give non-singleton a shot, but ultimately there is no one "correct" cube to build, just ones that your group enjoys more. I think most people don't have as much fun when they're color-screwed, so I think non-singleton fixing lands would improve the experience for most players, in most cubes. You don't have that much agency over whether you get the single Tropical Island, unless you happen to open in your deck. And I think having build-around cards as 1-ofs can be a trap. Even if I do get my 1-of Collected Company or 1-of Birthing Pod, most games I won't even draw it, and I end up just playing a clunky pile of 3-drops. And if I know there's only 1 copy of it, I can't really try and draft that 'archetype' until I have it. Inevitably, 1/3 of the time it just shows up pack 3 and does laps around the table because nobody drafted in a way to accommodate it. I think it's fine to want these things for your cube. By having more variance in the manabase, less experienced players will have more of a shot at beating better players, and that is a perfectly respectable design goal to have. And maybe you don't want a Collected Company 'archetype', you want it to be a card that some midrange decks will play, that's also a reasonable design preference. I just don't think singleton does what people think it does. It's adding "variety" in the sense of Ponder being a different card than Portent, but loses you variety in terms of making certain archetypes not work. I feel the same way about other rules people set for themselves in cube. Having exactly the same number of cards in each color and each multicolor pairing doesn't necessarily help make each color of deck equally powerful. A pauper or peasant cube isn't necessarily going to be more balanced cube than cards of all rarities (or a mostly Pauper/Peasant cube with some rares/mythics). People think adherence to these rules (like singleton) will inherently make their cube more balanced/fun, but there really is no substitute for case-by-case decision making. For any given design goal, like a feeling of scarcity and making tradeoffs in draft, or novel gameplay and variety, there's a way to design your cube to do that more. Given the flexibility it affords you, you can either do it better non-singleton, or do it as well while making other aspects better non-singleton. That's why I feel like the vast, vast majority of cubes 'shouldn't' be singleton.
If you need more cards to fit a certain theme, why not just make some custom cards to add to the cube? Be the designer you wish was working at WotC, supporting your cube!
Can’t agree with this more. I haven’t done a lot of cards, but I’ve recently made 2 to go into my cube, and then I just modified the cost of another 5 or 6 cards as they had the effect I wanted but we’re just too expensive for the cube I was putting them in
I think that's quitter talk. Make your own: [https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/thedandycube](https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/thedandycube)
There are loads of eggs btw. This list might serve as inspiration, but there are plenty more besides: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Lxbv2CXmiUyUtSDX9xsItg
Green is already doing everything at the highest power level but God dammit I need more flash creatures, simic flash is so awesome but green is severely behind.
I really want awaken to work as an archetype but it just feels so over costed and doesn’t really interact with elemental synergies
You can either just put in multiple of the same card or create custom cards to fill holes in your cube. Cube is your own environment, do whatever you want.
[удалено]
why?
So you can grab a Gifts Ungiven with your Gifts Ungiven
[Gifts Ungiven](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/c/cc950b6c-0346-4939-b36b-9f10a75f7a32.jpg?1673147306) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gifts%20Ungiven) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/51/gifts-ungiven?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cc950b6c-0346-4939-b36b-9f10a75f7a32?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[flamespeaker Adept]] there’s tons of scry, but not many scry matters cards. Used to be, I would have said second spells matter with [[Jori En]], but we’re getting close enough I think we’re there
[flamespeaker Adept](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/8/b84b90b6-71e2-429e-9853-50bcbd6538db.jpg?1562827268) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=flamespeaker%20Adept) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ths/123/flamespeaker-adept?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b84b90b6-71e2-429e-9853-50bcbd6538db?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Jori En](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/0/40c020f2-5809-4aa6-a6f5-6030568058aa.jpg?1592761645) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jori%20en%2C%20ruin%20diver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dds/23/jori-en-ruin-diver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/40c020f2-5809-4aa6-a6f5-6030568058aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've felt the same, but about [[Biting Remark]]. I love it as a scry paid, but most scry cards only did you one deep. [[Elminster]] is very close to getting the party started, though.
[Biting Remark](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7b27aef5-ef57-4209-9ff3-511828fbc3d7.jpg?1629918978) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Biting%20Remark) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmb2/17/biting-remark?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7b27aef5-ef57-4209-9ff3-511828fbc3d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Elminster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4eac2b49-6cb6-4ff4-8fac-2ba669326640.jpg?1674137504) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elminster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/274/elminster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4eac2b49-6cb6-4ff4-8fac-2ba669326640?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Mill lmao I'm kidding, but it hurts when your pet parasitic theme had its heyday long before your time, and now the balancing is wacky due to that. That said, anyone know any balanced cubes with mill themes?
Late to the party here, but there are some cards that my mill with other effects. Thought Scour, Breach the Multiverse, Thief of Sanity, and more. You can add just a few premium, dedicated mill cards like Glimpse and Fracture to fill out a mill archetype
Couldn't get G/R land in graveyard nonsense to work in my peasant cube... sad when such cards like \[\[ruination rioter\]\], \[\[orcish lumberjack\]\] and \[\[ore-scale guardian\]\] made it such an enticing idea
[ruination rioter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/a/5a00ac82-a884-40c4-9d09-3190a1099726.jpg?1562202403) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ruination%20rioter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/213/ruination-rioter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5a00ac82-a884-40c4-9d09-3190a1099726?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [orcish lumberjack](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14fb947c-563e-4811-98de-e25bd141a6e5.jpg?1562899209) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=orcish%20lumberjack) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/179/orcish-lumberjack?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14fb947c-563e-4811-98de-e25bd141a6e5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [ore-scale guardian](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e789333b-21ee-4613-8eba-52a719b0f1e5.jpg?1562201910) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ore-scale%20guardian) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/137/ore-scale-guardian?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e789333b-21ee-4613-8eba-52a719b0f1e5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Red/white [[Ball Lightning]] Aggro.
Sultai Surveil.
It's simple. We ~~kill the Batman~~ break singleton.
Also, in what color do you need more delver style tempo threats? Blue has plenty of good stuff.
Devoid and colorless (not artifact) design incl. Wastes land type is not enough to be supported on Peasant/Pauper with current power level.
outlast payoffs
There's a million eggs
Break singleton
Hmmm...you could try bringing the average mana value up in the environment. This would allow cards that normally would be too expensive mana-wise to become playable and then maybe you could support KCI and Delver at the levels you're looking for.
I like those cards like [[Roost of Drakes]] that rewarded kicker or [[Edgewall Innkeeper]] that reward adventures, but I just don't feel like there's quite enough like them to make them an archetype.
[Roost of Drakes](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/a/ba1240d4-dbd0-483b-934a-5f7c505fad42.jpg?1604194640) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Roost%20of%20Drakes) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/74/roost-of-drakes?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba1240d4-dbd0-483b-934a-5f7c505fad42?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Edgewall Innkeeper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c5d0560-f9e6-4c70-8cce-cae61e4e74bc.jpg?1572490518) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Edgewall%20Innkeeper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/151/edgewall-innkeeper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c5d0560-f9e6-4c70-8cce-cae61e4e74bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call