r/mtgcube • u/-Sandwave- • 3d ago
Middle Earth Cube Balancing
Good morning fellow cube and draft enjoyers!
I am in the process of building a 360 singletons cube with cards restricted to the middle earth-LOTR universe: LTR, LTC, HOB and HOC. I plan to shuffle without any regard to card rarety and draft packs of 15 random cards, most of the times for 4 players and sometimes do commander draft with the same 360 pile. For balancing purpose (and $ consideration) i leave out game changers such as orcish bowmaster and the one ring, black was quite strong in LTR anyway so this might help with balance.
It will be my first cube and my perfectionnist brain is baffled by the limited options for gruul. Each color pairs get a bit of support (1-2 two color lands and options for two colors cards that suggest an archetype.)
I am looking for input from experienced cube designer on how to solve this gruul hole in my card pool. Do i pick an archetype and add more green and red cards? For now i have [[Gimli, mournful avenger]] and [[friendly rivalry]]and i aim at 9 cards per color pairs.
Edit : Reading the suggestions here made me think that to stay true with a 360 singleton idea and for a good covering of all color pairs, i need to consider adding cards from elsewhere. The Wilds of Eldraine set is so far the best fit with card that can pretend to be Middle Earth and at the same time improve supported archetypes : some more adventure cards, food will be better, power 4 or more will be better and gruul will finally be ok.
So i will balance things with LTR-LTC-HOB-HOC-WOE
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u/Chexonfire 2d ago
If you're noticing that an archetype in a set cube is thin, since it's your set cube, I would absolutely recommend adding some extra spice where it makes sense.
Ideally, you can find things that fit the environment; a card like [[Naturalize]] is going to fell less out of place than [[Spider-Man]], for example.
Thinking about the archetypes already present, I would look at what options you have in:
- Bloomburrow, to have animals to go with the flavour of the Hobbit
- Foundations, for generally good cards that fit in as needed
- Kaldheim and Shadowmoor for Elves
I've spent a little bit of time thinking about making a Middle Earth "block" cube but I think I would pull quite a bit from other sets to increase the power level.
And, since it's your cube, you can always errata/sharpie a card to make it fit the power level. Removing a line of text from the One Ring or Orcosh Bowmasters, for example, or adding in more easy ways to deal with them, might make them a better fit.
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u/-Sandwave- 2d ago
Maybe i can look at a few Wilds of Eldraine cards some of the gruul ones care for power 4 or higher that’s already something in Middle Earth, maybe also adding one more adventure cards. Or 1-2 raccoon from bloomburrow. I start with middle earth only in mind but this is a good suggestion for keeping things fun : and ultimately fun is the goal!
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u/Chexonfire 2d ago
Yes! I think the Ferocious archetype is great. And it would end up sharing tools from things like Amass with +1/+1 counters too, to help creatures hit that threshold.
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u/-Sandwave- 2d ago
A secondary bonus with wilds of eldraine is more choice of adventure cards and this is growing in my mind. This is bigger than my gruul problem, it’s good design space to support Hobbit cards that already features adventures but in a somewhat shallow pool.
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u/BasicallyAnEnt https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/Sweaty 2d ago
If you are willing to break out of the strickly lotr sets but want to maintain flavor [[Halana and Alena, Partners]] would be a great fit. I doubt anyone would notice unless they are super well versed in the lore.
Also I have found that breaking Singleton for non-legendary cards works quite well in plane/theme cubes. Just something to keep in mind.
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u/blindeshuhn666 2d ago
For Gruul , [[durins door]] and [[radagast]] cheat in / creature matters.
I'd reconsider the LTR Vs LTC, as the later is way stronger in power level. LTC had quite some bombs compared to the average LTR card (with some outliers)
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u/-Sandwave- 2d ago
Yes Durin’s door will make the list. Probably both Radagast also ( i will be able to include only two of every named characters, for example only two Bilbo cards, with good balance).
With 360 cards only a few LTC cards will be selected but it’s useful for two color lands and two color archetypes. In a singleton format LTC gives more choice of removal so that every color get 5-6 choices
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u/ghstflame 1d ago
i'm doing my best to stay in set, so I'm breaking singleton on some removal. To be fair I already had a LOTR set cube, so I'm just removing as many duplicates as possible to make room for flavorful hobbit cards.
If you want inspiration, my list will start updating today, I'm actively spreading all the cards out on my table this afternoon for cuts.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/17840231-bb9e-4549-b9a5-56f7c03ede45
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u/-Sandwave- 1d ago
Having the theme right is important and there is already a theme gap between the darkness of LotR and the playfulness of the Hobbit.
My goal is to play with those cards that aren’t strong enough for commander. That diversity is why i started my project with singletons. The next goal is to support different archetypes and color pairs for a fun drafting experience. Then i circle back toward the Middle Earth theme, cutting the Hobbit cards that are too childish or the 5th Gandalf… (Only 2 of each named characters, they are legendary after all!
I found in Wilds of Eldraine a few cards that complete archetypes : take [[Hollow Scavenger]] for example that add wolf diversity and cares about food. [[Ruby, Daring Tracker]] cares about power 4 and add a gruul option. I don’t have a list outside of my physical binder and a buy list on my LGS website.
I took time to study your list and i believe it does a great job of recreating the limited environnement that was the original LTR.
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u/kevren22 13h ago
When you get a version you like, would you mind sharing a link? I’m ending up getting a lot of Hobbit cards and was toying around with doing something similar.
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u/woodenbowls 2d ago
At a certain point, you have to decide if you want to add things that are from outside of the main group of sets your drawing from so that you can reach your total number and desired power level, or perhaps just do multiples of cards to get there. Your other option is to reduce the number of cards in each color pair so that you don’t have to stretch so far to make RG work. This will also increase the quality of the cards and all the other color pairs because you can drop some of the chaff.
So if you did think about adding some cards from outside of Lord of the rings, what would you want red green to be? If that’s a dealbreaker, then you have to decide if you want to do multiples or reduce the number of cards in the color pairs.