Draft Navigation Tips for Cube - #86

In this episode of Powerful Nothing, Daniel and James do a level up in terms of how to best navigate a draft, and how the efficiency and synergy of the cube effects this.

Time Codes:
0:54 - Topic Overview
5:12 - Drafting in efficient cubes
20:30 - Drafting in high synergy cubes
28:02 - Defining the cube your drafting
34:29 - Benefits of staying open for longer
39:45 - Advice on pivoting

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/OtRLnYNYW0OMV7NOuMlJqw

Video Version: https://youtu.be/pS9N9JaBWk8

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

Social Links: https://linktr.ee/toosweetmtg

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Transcript

0:02

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James. James. How are you doing this week, my boy? Yeah, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. We have a fun topic for everyone this week. This week we're going to be doing a bit of a level up episode. We're going to be diving and giving some, tips for navigating a draft in any type of cube. Before we jump into our main topic, a quick reminder, do remember to give the podcast a like a thumbs up. All that good stuff greatly helps us out. Also, there will be timecode down in the show notes below, along with a card gallery if you want to see any card that we're talking about. And also there'll be a link down to a video version if you're listening to this on your podcasting app. But with that preamble out of the way, let's jump into our main topic. So yeah, the James, this is one I know that, has a close place in your heart in terms of getting better at cube and that kind of stuff, but like, give us a bit of an overview on the conversation that we're going to have today. Yeah. So I think you got lots of really good content around draft advice for like, booster drafts and stuff. Right? But I think for cube, it can be a little bit difficult to make that content because, because every cube is different. Right. And that's why we love cube are all very unique. They'll require you to draft a little bit differently. But what we're going to try and talk about today is a few things. You can look at a few qualities in a cube, which would make you adjust how you how you draft them. And, and give you try and give some sort of general guidelines on how you might change your drafting approach to, to suit the individual cube for your drafting. Yeah. So the way we're going to be talking about it is that kind of all cubes will fit somewhere on the spectrum on like one side you have, what what we're going to define as high flexibility cubes, which are cubes that are generally just trying to run the most efficient spells possible. So a good example might be something like a pop, a cube or something like a peasant cube. And if I'm honest, a lot of people's first cubes will probably fit into this category. Because when you're building a cube, often the first place you start is just putting all the good cards in the cube. And then as you iterate, you start adding things like packages and more build arounds. These are cubes that run a lot of efficient cards and let and let you be quite flexible in what you're doing. There's a high quality and a high density of good cards. On the other end of the spectrum, you kind of have more synergy cubes where thing where where the builder wants you to kind of combine cards rather than just take the one efficient card and have that card shine for just being raw and efficient. Yeah. So I think the sort of key, sort of characteristic here is in the higher flexibility cubes, really. I mean, is that the majority of cards in these cubes are going to fit well in a bunch of different. That's right. They're not asking you to be in one very specific archetypal, really build around one specific synergy. They're saying, hey, this is a good white card, a customer, two in a white. And if you can make two in a while, I'll probably be at least decent in your deck. There might be little packages synergy you can use to make your cards a little bit better, but then the core of a cube is going to be around, you know, efficient fat interaction card advantage, which again, a pivot really nicely between colors. And the reason we're saying that makes it higher flexibility is it gives you more flexibility in the draft. Right? If you're if you're halfway through pack one and you have a bunch of black cards, your black cards might be able to go in a blue black sack or a red black or white black deck. And that might be less true in a cube where your cards who have much more honed in on specific archetypes and specific synergies. Yeah, I think that makes a bunch of sense. But just like another good way of describing it is like in your, more high flexibility and your cubes with the higher flexibility that's running more efficient cards, they're going to run a card like lightning Bolt in their red creature removal slot. Because there's one mana. It deals with damage to any targeted at instance speed. It's just good and efficient. A cube that's focusing more on synergy might go for something like like say, say it's doing goblins. It might run something like something like a goblin grenade. It's a single red for sorcery as an initial cost as cast Goblin grenade sacrifice a goblin a goblin. Great deals five damage to any target, so from a raw efficiency point of view, Lightning Bolt is stronger. But in the Synergy Cube, if you have that, that extra level of synergy Goblin Grenade is a is a more powerful card. It's a more powerful card, but you have to jump through that additional hoop of synergy. Is that a good way of describing it? James. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's it's giving you, a little bit less flexibility in the draft. Right. Because by taking your Goblin grenade, you're not just saying I'm go. I've got to be ready for this card to be good. You're saying I've got to be a goblin stack? It's more narrow. It's more restrictive. So it gives you a little bit less room to pivot around in the draft. Okay. Awesome. So I think let's let's start on the efficiency side of things, James. Talk to me about about navigating a draft in a cube with higher flexibility, which is a cube that's just running more efficient spells and efficient threats. Yeah. So in this case, in this sort of cube, at the start of the draft, your main priority should be finding the open colors, finding what colors are open in your seat, what the people around you aren't drafting. So in the first few picks, you're going to want to leave yourself pretty open, pretty flexible. And you're mostly going to want to prioritize taking the best card out of out of each your first couple of packs. This is because you're not getting the signals of and during the first couple of picks, right? Obviously, your first literal first pick no one else has seen. You don't get any signals at all. Your second pick, you know, even if it's a really good white card. That might have been an even better white card for the person passing to. You took their first pick. You know that that isn't a sign that white is open. Really. Right. So we're not reading signals. Yeah. All we're doing is taking the best card out of our first couple of packs, because that's going to mean. But whatever cover we pivot into, we've not passed, we've not passed something like fire. Right. We've, we're we're giving ourselves options down the line. Yeah. And I guess because these cubes, these kids are trying to run the best cards again, these are like the mid go vintage. Q. These are like. Like your stock. Like pauper or peasant cubes. I think in the notes, James, you mentioned the agility cube that you drafted a cube being a good example of this. I think a question on that in terms of like those very early pieces of like, how were you defining the best card? Is it like the standalone strongest card, like the standalone, most efficient at what it does? Or would you define it as a card that has a has the highest chance of making it into your final deck? Yeah. Great question. So, in in this sort of very high flexibility ocuvite, we're right off of that end of the spectrum, the strongest cards still gives you flexibility. So they have almost the same thing. But when you get, something like MC go vintage Cube, I'd say is not quite at that end of the spectrum, because, yes, it does have a bunch of really powerful, efficient, flexible cards, but it also has a bunch of very synergistic cards, but it also has a bunch of cards that go in very specific decks, like like MOX Opal, not a flexible card, for example. Goes in one very specific archetype. But yeah, generally in this sort of cube, in the first couple of packs, you're looking to take the best sort of standalone card. You're not assuming you're going to have great synergies with your card, because that's not really what the cube's about. You're sort of picturing. Okay, if I end up in some like, middle of a road, 15 creature midrange deck, which of these cards is going to be great? Right. And I'm not I'm not necessarily thinking about I'm going to be this exact color combination. I'm just thinking about, hey, this white card, if I just know that I'm in a white deck, how powerful is it going to be without any of the information? Right. Because that's giving me the most options down the line. Right. If, if I take, say, a gold card or a card for only works in one archetype, then sure, maybe a ceiling's a little bit higher, but I'm also way less likely to play it right. And just out of interest, like where do you put lands on your, like flexibility scale of things? James because like, like like take like, fetch land or something like a prismatic vista, like it's very open ended. Which I guess kind of goes into what you were saying before. Yeah. For sure. So this is hex lands and all the other lands are really in different categories here in my mind. Because the fact lands if, if, as you know, a fetch shot plan time manor base in the cube, the fetch lands are going to be good almost wherever you end up right. Like if you first pick flew to Delta. But you don't have to be blue black for that to be a good card if you're one of those colors. But Delta is almost always going to end up being good because you'll get a land fetch. But and if you're more than two colors, that can be phenomenal. The same thing with this massive like facemask. This is just always a good card. So face cards? Yes. I'm happy to take early if there's nothing super sand out because they're very non-committal. They're very open. Something like, say, a, volcanic island. Even like, you know, very good land. Great. If you're in blue, that's very important. But it's not a flexible card is not a great early it's not a great first pick because I need to there's basically only going to be good if I have blue and red mana in my deck. So it's much more it's much lower chance of, of of ending up making the card. Okay. Awesome. And then so, so that's kind of like where we are in the first couple of picks and like pick one and two, we're just taking what we think is the the best card out of the pack. How does it how do things change as we then progress through our picks. Like, like at what point do we stop just taking the best card? Because in theory, if if if we have that principle by pack five, we could have five different colors and we're on our on our way to train wreck ourselves. How do we how do we start building a coherent deck out of the picks we're making? Yeah. So once I've picked three through five, we're getting a start, hopefully getting some getting some, some signals. They're not going to we're not going to be, you know, 100% sure at this stage what's open because, you know, draft is, is noisy, right. Packs can look weird. Especially in cube. It's not like booster draft. You don't have collated packs with, the same number of each color. So, that does make it more difficult, but you'll start to get things like, you know, say you're drafting. I'm gonna I'm gonna reach for, like, Power Cube because it's a analogy people know, right? Like fifth pick. See, they are counterspell. That's a really good sign. But blue is open. Oh. Fifth pick. You see an ocelot fight. Okay, that's a really good sign. But what when are you seeing a fifth pick up? Right, James? Wow. Yeah, I get the point. But you can't say just on the back of that one that one pack. But it's open, right. Because it could have been weird. That could have been like two pieces of power. And then someone took a white card. My fault was bad. But it is a data point, and it's a very significant data point. And if we've got pack three, pack four, pack five have all had good white cards in, now that and then when we see ourself, we can say, okay, white is really where I need to be. And in fact, even if I pass for two white cards before I feel bad about that. But you should still take for your stop fight because you've got a bit for decent signals for white as open, you can have decent confidence in that. Sure, maybe you pass some cards which, put first your wife into white. That's fine. You can. It is more important that you are reading the signals coming from your left than worrying about what you're paying, what you're passing for. Pass. Since you're right, because you're going to get past two packs from your left is way more important. You'll get paid off in pack three. So, yeah, at that stage we can move into white with a decent amount of confidence, right. And yeah, it's perfect for both of us. This is where we're we're starting to think about what's open. We're not locking in at this stage. And crucially, because we're prioritizing the more flexible cards with certain, cards, we're going to go in a bunch of different text fight if we even then, once we've identified white as open, we've not lock in 22nd color at all. We're still giving ourself options down the line, but we've got some idea of where we're going in the draft. Hopefully at this stage. So we'll come on to more like archetype specific cards, I guess when we move, when we move on to, like highest energy cubes. But how highly do you write archetype specific cards? James, in a high flexibility cube. So let's give an example here. So, to play an academy in the Vintage cube. If you see that in if you saw that in like, that is a very strong card in the right deck, it might be so powerful that that drafting around it might just be worth it. But like, like as an example of a archetype specific card, it only goes in the deck with a bunch of artifacts. At what point are you taking that that as a signpost I looked at I like a deck is open or are you still kind of trying to stay open for as long as possible? And it's you're not kind of like to fitting yourself into a, archetype because I know that something I'm quite bad at, I personally, I will. Ooh, this ooh, this card is great in this deck. I think this deck is open. And then I fall into the trap of, well, the deck was open, but maybe the colors weren't open in my seat, if that makes sense. You see where I'm going with that? Yeah. For sure. So. Cause, like, Clown Academy. Why? I don't really consider something like for a vintage cube to be really a high flexibility cube in terms it's not, you know, vital for that end of the spectrum, but it's more in the middle because it has a bunch of efficient cards, but it also has a bunch of very powerful archetype specific cards. And that's where a lot of how this and that cube. So in terms of how you prioritize self card in something like for Mitko, Vintage Cube, which is more sort of in middle of the spectrum, very powerful card. You want to give yourselves out. I get those super powerful synergy decks. If you say I'm never going to take that card, it's not flexible enough. You will never. You're cutting yourself off. Then. Then some very major oxides there, right? So you should take it. But you should take it as a speculation, not as you're locking yourself in. Right. If, if you take a in academy, say second, third pick and then next pick, there's some like really mediocre artifacts cards or a very powerful white aggro card. You should take the powerful white credit card. You know, you shouldn't say like, this is what I'm doing now. I'm it's layering Academy tech. Look, there's a candle out for tonight. Let me take it. Screw. You are so upside. You've got a you've got to be you've got to be viewing it as a speculation. Don't get attached. You gave yourself a shot at it. It's fine if it doesn't work out. Now. Yeah. I think this principle is really, really important. I, I it's something I definitely see when I compare the decks that I draft with the decks that you draft in, that you tend to have a higher density of good cards. I think I tend to have more of like the what this deck is trying to be like, especially in, in like being like my own cubes that we draft because I'm a, I'm a sucker for I put this in the cube. I'm going to prove that it's good type thing. But just like from a from a raw power level, just like, like the base of the just the generic cards in your deck is higher and you still have and and you still able to sprinkle that synergy in as well. So yeah, it's something I've just seen from snapshots of objects that we've talked about. I am definitely a sucker for, well, for third pick, this, this synergy card and try and build the whole thing without really having that solid base, I think. Yeah, I think it's a very real thing. The thing of I built this cube, I want this package to work. No one else is do that. I'm going to make it good. I think it's the last five I, I've doubts I tend to, I think, do much worse in cubes that I have built compared to cubes other people have built. Because I want to do the cool thing a little bit more, you know? Well, at time of recording, we're drafting my cube tomorrow, so I look forward to going one, 2 or 3 phenomenal years with what are the key thing with drafting, I guess James is, it's finding the colors that are open in the draft. We talked about like like reading the signals of like, this is here are some strong cards in these colors at these points in the draft. Therefore we know those have like that's our primary card. Like kind of like how quickly are we looking to find a second color or are we trying to put off that as long as possible. Yeah. If you can delay that decision, it's a really, really great position to be in. So if, for example, I'm in the exam for UCLA, right, we got a bunch of good white cards and we identified for white was open and we move. Then, if we can get to the end of pack one and we have like, say 9 or 10 good white cards and then, you know, maybe we spent on some other stuff early, but but we have that we're just very deep into why that is just such a powerful situation to be in, because any really powerful card we open in pack two, whether it's whatever color that is, we can just take it right and say, okay, great, that's not that can be our second color if we if it's open. Or anything, we get past you because, you know, pack two something different will be open. We're getting past cards by different people. We're giving ourselves the flexibility to move into all of that color. Makes sense to us in pack two. And we can even delay that decision in to pack three sometimes, because if a primary color is really, really open, we end up with a DAC which has like say 17, 18 white spells in it. And then we need like 6 or 7 of our second color and that's fine. Like whatever, whatever color we move into, we can get our 6 or 7 importing cards from that. And we're just giving ourselves so, so much flexibility to delay that decision because, you know, how often are you in that draft, right? And you're like, it's pack three. And you're like, I so should have been in this color combination. My deck would be absolutely cracked. But there's nothing I can do now because I'm too invested in the vote. I chose to go down early. Right. And if we are very heavy into one color, then the time we were like, oh man, literally no one is in black. And I can just be black. You know, it doesn't matter that I didn't have any black cards after pack one. I can move in later. So that's giving you really powerful options down the line. Okay, awesome. So we've chatted about one end of the spectrum with, high flexibility cubes. Let's talk about the other end of the spectrum. These we've labeled high synergy. So I guess it's kind of high synergy. Low flexibility if we're giving it, so you can have James talk to us about what you would define as a high synergy cube. Yeah. So here we're really talking about cubes where most of the cards in the cube, you have to do something to make them reach their potential to make them into a good card. Obviously, there's still be some, you know, removal spells, whatever you put in and nanotech. But the majority of the cards are asking either to go in a specific site or for you to say, have a lot of a specific card type or do something to support them other than just make however, many manner of that color. So I think actually a good example of this might be your treat yourself cube, right? There's nice cards in that. They're not just necessarily just going in one deck, but they are asking you to do a little bit of work in order to make that card reach its potential. Right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. One thing with Mercury yourself is it's always the goal for it always was I use it I use this analogy all the time, but that it's not just A is good A plus B is good and I'm fine with A, A and B individually being lower power leveled. But the goal is that A plus B is stronger than A and B individually. Basically, yes. Exactly, exactly. And and because of that, right, the the puzzle we are trying to solve is a little bit more complicated. Right? It's not just what colors of open, it's what archetypes of open. And and how can I end up finding something very powerful to do. Right. Because the I think also, for the sort of gap between the decks, forget them. The decks that don't get found, this sort of cube can be very, very big. Right. So you need to, you need to give yourself the maximum amount to, like, find the good engine, to find some good synergies to make. Really make your tactic right. And if we took the same approach as we discussed with, with the high flexibility cubes. Right. And we just tried to, they, we just trying to solidify ourself into one color by the end of pack one. That situation we said was phenomenal in the high flexibility cube. Well, in this cube, it's not going to help us that much. Right. Because say we we're like almost model blue after pack one, right. But actually it's not great. We've not given ourselves flexibility because we'll have a bunch of blue cards for the toughest part that's in our deck. Some of the further blue cards will tell us to, fuel our graveyard. Some of them will tell us to play instance and sorceries. They're not realistically all going to go in the same deck. Right. So we've got to be thinking a little bit deeper than just figuring out, but just establishing ourselves into colors. We've got to be establishing what sort of synergies we're going for. Okay, nice. So in which case and how are we adapting to that? James, how are we adapting to a cube that wants you to be doing a thing more? Yes. There's two ways we can go here. Right? We can. We could take the approach shift. Okay. Let's, you know, let's prioritize the cards that are flexible. Right. Now I'm looking at you're, you know, treat yourself cubes. You know, we could take some, there's some good removal spells in here. We could prioritize. I would say, okay, here's this a great pack one pick one that goes in every deck. Great. I'll take a trade. Then I'll, I'll take some cards. I'll take a, I'll take a fact or fiction. Great. Pack goes in every deck. And, that does not. And I'm like you, treating yourself takes exactly, exactly right. And we and we actually. And then we will we'll we'll give ourselves flexibility. But we're missing out on a lot of power there. Right. If that's the approach we take. So what we need to do is sort of a hybrid approach of we do for if there's nothing super powerful, but we need to be very willing to speculate on stuff. So to take the most powerful parts of a heist and off, the synergistic archetypes and we very want to if you see those engine cars which just aren't replaceable. Right. So I think in your cube, something like Dream Halls is a very good thing to spec on early because it's very powerful and it comes together and it's kind of unique in the cubes. Right? It's not replaceable in any way. There's no there's no redundancy in that effects. So that sort of card. Yep. Yeah. Sure. It's as a decent chance you end up if you take that first take ends up in your sideboard. Right. You need you need some fairly specific things come together for it to work. But if it does work, it's phenomenal. So we can take these cards. We're not committing to anything. They're purely speculative picks, and. But we're giving ourselves those out down the line to, to get into one of those really powerful synergistic lanes. And ultimately, that does unlock a lot of the power level in these cubes. Right. I think if you try and take the super nuts and bolts approach where you end up with, like fairly mediocre mid-range, like trying to play a bunch of synergy cards on the far and you end up you don't, you know, you don't go free, you don't win the cube. You you go let you go like one, two because you played against two decks, forgot five and then beat for like synergy deck for really didn't get. Are you really living, James? Let's be honest with you. Let's go on with things. Exactly. So I think yeah, early on you're you're doing vast. Is that something super powerful? Is that something worth speculating on? So, yeah, I think in your cube. Yeah. Like dream halls display circuit and maybe one of the wheels. V's of soft things I'm looking back on because they're not super replaceable. So it sounds nice, Mr. Moto. Could be like a clown Academy example, right? There's not enough acceleration Academy. You should take it early if you can see it. If I want good artifacts cards in the next couple of packs, you get out of that lane, you're going to have something else, right? But you're you're giving yourself outs and you just it's more important to give yourself the out of drafting the busted, glaring Academy deck at the cost of I missed out on the lightning bolt, you know, because there's a million other lightning bolts. Sure, they're a little bit less good, but if you have unholy heat instead of lightning bolt in your red deck, you're just not going to feel it that much. Whereas if you have island instead of tailoring academy and your artifact deck, that is a much bigger difference. Yeah, it's it's not just one of the reason why you're drafting those cubes for doing the big cool thing, but it's also like the environment has been built with that in mind. So that's where the power is like to have the most powerful deck, you need to lean into the synergy. When the synergy is put on the table for you. Exactly. So if you've got to speculate to accumulate, I think in these cubes, I guess I have one question at this point, James, is how do you think someone can define what type of cube they're in? How do you know that a cube is a cube has a higher flexibility and more efficient cards? Or how do you know if it's a, if it has a highest energy, like, like, is this one of those ways, one of those times where it's very important to have a look at the cube list and kind of see what it's packing? Yeah. I think one thing I actually thing I find for most useful if I'm going to draft a cube five. So I just click the, you know, you can do a draft function on cube Koepfer. And if you're against some thoughts fuzzy thing like you're not obviously it's not a veiled draft, right? No, I don't know what the bots do. I think that's I think they pretty much just take cards at random. But for me, seeing the cards like in packs and reading through the packs, is helpful to for me to get an idea of how the cube is going to fail to draft. Right. The the questions I'd be sort of asking is looking at face packs being like, okay, how many of these cards, going to be good? And so you're looking at like, look at the red cards in the pack. How many of those red cards are going to be good in pretty much any red deck? Versus how many of them are asking to be in one specific archetype? To have one specific SF synergy. So like the the most synergy based cubes fight, you look at them and you go down the list of archetypes on the page, and you go through and it's like blue red wizards and green white counters and whatever people have put in. And, you look at the cards and all the cards just go into one of those buckets, right? Yeah, yeah, every gold card is one of those cards I get. Yeah, yeah. But a ton of for mono colored cards as well are like, okay, this blue cards is for you that Wizards and this other blue card is for blue white artifacts, you know, versus a cube like, the agility cube, for example, right? Where you go down the list of of blue creatures of features and like 90% of them are just strong creatures, right? Yeah. Like, even than the list of blue creature like, you've, you've got like, hey, look at two drafts. Got very masterminds getting to pretty much any Blue Deck spell dancer, Silent Hole, creeper, snap custom mage, no visa, very flexible cards. Okay? I mean, a bunch of different archetypes. Like they'll be better in some than others, but they're going to be pretty functional pretty much regardless. And you have and therefore by drafting them, you're giving yourself that flexibility. Yeah, I agree with that. I, I think another thing that you can do, is look at the key cards like the bread and butter card. So kind of like we use the example of like lightning bolt earlier in the episode. Like if you have a look at the red removal, if you don't, if you see lightning bolts and don't see, if you see lightning bolts and all the efficient ones, it's more likely to be in the more efficient environments. If you see some synergy piece rather than lightning bolt, then you have a higher that, then you have more of an idea you in a in a synergistic environment. And that's true with like all of the staples, I would say, because they are very good at they are very good flex slots where you can add some additional synergy into your cube. So I'm thinking like in white, it's like you're aggressive creatures. What are they doing? Are they just is it just. Yeah. Is it ocelot pride? Is it died of cells or is it like is it always like caught her monkey killers for example. Like, like like the the artifact aggro. It's a one drop that if you have an artifact, it's A22 marble. It's like like look at your counter magic in blue. Look at your, like, black doom blade or your hand attack if that synergistic with like, no look at your bad. Look at your green ramp. These are kind of like slots that like I, I use it as a cube design all the time is like if I'm trying to add some synergy and turn that lever, those are places I try and look for it. So I think that's a good AI, good place to start. It doesn't mean it's always going to be that way because as we've mentioned or as James mentioned, the mic go into jeebies somewhere in the middle because it also has packages. It has, payoffs of being synergistic. And that's why I kind of like looking at the rest of the list saying like, oh, there's an oath of Druids there. That's a very powerful build around, like that kind of thing or like, like it's like low power level cubes. Like, is there something like an opposition that's a build around card that's more of a synergistic card rather than a raw efficiency type of thing? Yeah, for sure. It's it's it's not really super correlated with power level. Right. Like often pulp cubes, you know, obviously these spells are slightly less efficient than in a very powerful cube, but they're generally full on the high flexibility. And I find like I have a bunch of good cheap interaction and some value creatures. Right. Is is a lot of to call it phase cubes with a few synergy pieces around the edge. Yeah, that does kind of make sense in environments where your pool of cards is less where like like where something like pauper or peasant, where you just do your, you're narrowing the amount of cards you can use. It's more likely you're going to play the efficient ones because you have less of a pool to do creative things with. I guess it doesn't mean it's not doable, like there will still be some cool combos and still be some cool things you can do in those environments, but it's is less of a thing. Like there's a reason why my treat yourself cuz when my Treat Yourself cube has rares and mechanics in it. For example. Yeah for sure. I mean, I think for the rarity restricted ones specifically often gravitate towards that end of the spectrum, partly because the interaction is a higher power level than the proactive cards. Right? Like if you're, you know, sort of quote unquote maxing out power when you're off, if, you know, you've got counterspell and lightning bolts and stuff, but you're the thoughts if cards don't line up to that power level, right. So and it's hard for to piece together your synergies when the interaction is that strong. So often the fact if cause then start to gravitate towards stuff that plays better into the removal on the counter spells, which is like, you know, you're cheap value creatures, often rarely impulsive and ice cubes. Yeah, 100%. So kind of pulling back from that a moment, I got to keeping the conversation in the we're still looking at it through this spectrum of efficiency to synergy, that kind of thing. But, talk to me about like, what are the benefits? Are there staying open for longer? Yeah. So very much depends on what, the composition of a cube you're drafting. Right. One thing that can have a really big impact is if, sort of major power outliers in the cube. That's a really big incentive to leave yourself open to playing that regardless if when you see them. Right. And yeah, she's made out this example of, like, big power that lies in that cube, right? Obviously things like power, but everyone can play that. But stuff like Maneskin do for failing us. The fact that these cards exist in a way better than 99% of the cards around them, that's a huge reason to leave yourself open in a draft, right? Because you're regardless of when you see those cards, you want to be able to take them and you want to be able to play them. And, that's why we talked about the having of taking like stuff like flatland, which is, you know, fixing that's going to work basically whatever colors you end up in. But also just. Trying to invest yourself into one color so you maybe get to delay the decision on your second color. That way, you know, if I'm super heavy, blue and I see Minsk do, I can probably actually impact to I can probably make that work. Right. I can go either blue green and slash red or blue and slash green. If I see a psychic fog, fine, I'll move into black. It's a little bit less important. If the cube has a super fat, flat power level, right? Then it's may be better to take for good cards now, because I don't have that possibility of getting something busted later and being punished by not being able to play it, because I'm already solidly in two colors and not able to smash. That makes sense. Yeah. So. So yeah, the Mega Vengeance cube obviously has all the has power outliers all over the place. It has it has a bunch of strong cards, but it has those peaks and troughs. Basically. I kind of like I guess I kind of dovetailed nicely with the conversation we had last week about me making updates to my cube, where I was taking out some of the higher power level cards to join platinum. That a little bit. So what you're saying is in in, in my unpowered vintage cube, where I have tried to flatten the power level and remove oh so sand off the edges of the power level, make it a bit more even. It is. It's just just taking the good cards is more important. Yeah. So I think when when the power level of the cube is pretty flat, it's more okay to just be like these, these two colors feel open. I'm going to lock myself into these two colors in pack one because there's I'm not going to open Minsk and do and pack two and be sad. I can't take it and play it, you know, I'm less able to be punished if I have a reasonable read for those two colors very often find that I can lock myself into it. The one one other thing, which is really useful to bear in mind if you are in a cube which has those big pile of outliers, it means that you almost whatever stage of the draft you're in, you might end up really wanting to splash any color right? And with that in mind, it's really important when you get to the last few facts of a pack of packs winding down and you're fine. Not playing any of the cards, you just like free copies of the pack. Just take the land. Like, even if it's a land that looks very unlikely to be good for you. If the spells aren't getting very. But you do not know in these cubes, right? You end up with some weird combination of powerful cards that you want to splash. And even though you're solid them blue, that suddenly that shadowy back streets that you passed for nothing would be very nice because you want to splash a psychic fog into black and a full failing gas into white. And hey, that land would actually sort of never room together quite nicely. So just when it doesn't cost you much, just spec on those off color lands and in this sort of environment, because it does pay dividends down the line. I don't know what cubes you're dropping in our play group. No one leaves a land late in the back. But I definitely see in terms of like layout, when you're playing more in the wild and like on like on arena and make go, you're going to get a wide variety of plays. I did, I guess because I played with the same people a lot. I'll play aggressively, draft their land. I'm just flashing back to last weekend, my when my doomsday deck had one jewel and we were really doing our best to make it work. It's fine, versatile, critical time critical to solve affecting you these dark ritual and lotus veil. I think it was, did gods work in that deck? Nice. I think the last bit of the puzzle I want to touch on today, is when it comes to pivoting, this is something that kind of. We've already. We as we kind of drawn it up in an ideal world, we take some powerful cards early, and then we move into the color we think is open. But there's a world where the person to our right has also noticed that that color is open, and they moved in as well. And then, kind of starts drying up or there's also the world where we have noticed that one color is open, but a completely different, like deck. So like, say, we've started with like a control base or something like that. And then just the not so aggro deck is starting to get passed to us. But those are some signs we're pivoting. We're kind of like, what else? But like from a pivoting point of view, what else should we keep in mind at this? Like while we're drafting as a starting point on the on the topic of pivoting? Yeah, I think of I think in general people are a bit too scared to pivot, and people think it's too late when it isn't to like, you know, cubes tend to not have a ton of bad cards in is the thing. And that means that if you have a correct reads, that a specific color pad is really where you need to be in the draft, and it's wide open. And even if you're getting into it kind of late, you will get you will likely get enough spells, a if you are correct for eyes open, it can go badly. If you're if you tried to pivot and you were wrong and it wasn't open or someone else pivoted at the same time, but you do often get paid off of For being a little bit bold and, even though it, you know, late in pack one and. You're kind of throwing away a lot of your cards. If it's better to have two packs of being in the right lane than three packs in the long lane, you know, so I think it is often left taking that risk. It's a lot easier, though, if you have, solid done with the things we said to try and stay flexible in the early draft. Right. And newer then you have a bunch of flexible cards because then, you know, in the point where you say, say, is that like, boss, that's why we need to be right. If we're really deep into green black, some green black graveyard synergy back then, pivoting to bosses, throwing away all our cards, right? Whereas if we were like, we all in black, but we just like, had some good black removal spells and value creatures, then maybe we can pivot into like black, white. And that's a much easier pivot. Or black that and we can still use the cards that open color, but we're not taking the massive risk of abandoning all of our first like 7 or 8 picks. Right? So yeah, people be like, how late is too late to pivot? Is like, it really depends on how flexible, how much flexibility you gave yourself from your earlier picks. Yeah, that, that from what you're describing like or as you were talking, I was it really hit me. There is a massive difference between a hard pivot and and just naturally going into your second color. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah for sure. And I mean, often when I'm drafting guys, I don't really you know, I'm not locking into my second color until pretty late on like often like mid-pack to, you know, but I have like one color. I know I am and I know what sort of stack I'm trying to draft. Right. If I, if I'm trying to draft like a control lead deck and I have a bunch of do cards, say I'm trying to draft a mid-range stack and have a bunch of black cards, I can pick my second color down the line, right? Like, I might like I might be like, okay, yeah, I'm a midrange stack. I've got a bunch of black removal spells and some black flats, and I have a few blue cards. So far we've blue back, but if I see a very good red card, I can be black. Red, you know? Yeah, that works. And but you're you're giving yourself out pivot. Right. It's and it's, sometimes and you know, if you're really heavy into one color sometimes like pack three, you can change what your second color is like. If you if you have given yourself that flexibility, that can be that can be a very good spot to be in. But if you've been like, I'm all in on this one specific synergy archetype and it doesn't pan out, you then maybe have to make a pretty hard pivot, right? You might maybe have to say, I'm kind of throwing away most of my pack one, and I'm going to draft something else because I don't think this stack is getting there. And that can be scary. And you can train black, but it's probably better than, trying to hang on. I think one interesting thing that you've just kind of pulled out is, and the topic of a conversation of like, the different ways to draft, cubes that have a higher flexibility compared to ones that have a higher synergy. It does sound like it's easier to pivot or it almost sounds like in a higher synergy, in a higher flexibility cube, where there's just more efficient spells. Pivot, isn't it? Pivot is a pivot isn't as much of a pivot because you're kind of just more finding your lane, finding a second color, whereas in a higher synergy cube, you could be where you're rewarded for taking and or drafting around an archetype or a package. Bailing out of that is much more of a cost. Would do you think that's fair game? So I think, yeah. So like as like in my Treat Yourself cube, for example, bailing out of your like say you first pick Dream halls, bailing out of that deck is is harder than than finding a way out of a color or into another color, that kind of thing. But it certainly can be if you've invested lots of your picks and they're very narrow synergy cards, right? Like, which you don't necessarily have to like your dream hold stack still wants like the good blue card selection and stuff. And sometimes it's better to prioritize those cards early and be like, okay, I noticed there's a cool synergy card that might go in this stack. In this pack, I'm going to see if that wheels I'm going to take for a note for ponder, because that's going to be great. And any blue deck. And if that synergy card comes back, then I kind of know that I'm probably good to go in the stack. And if it doesn't, then that's probably a pretty important signal that I'm I'm I need to, look into a different light. Right. I think, so one thing I've kind of drafting, like, Power Cube a lot is, if you're, like, dipping your toes in some something like, be very storm specific cards, like tendrils. Say, I never want to take them early, but I will know that they're there. And I'll maybe spec on a few some cards on the way around if there's no cost to me. But then if that tendrils doesn't come back, I'm out. You know, because if someone's spent a real pick on tendrils of agony, that is, I cannot fight for storms. You know, it's not a good enough deck to support two players. It's debatable if it's good enough that it's two for one player, Valley and Power Cube now. But, if if. Yeah, if someone has spent a real pick on the tendrils, I have no interest in fighting you for it. I'm going to leave my storm cards alone and go and draft a different tack. You know? And it's fine because I've not, like, invested a bunch of picks, a bunch of really high picks in the storm cards. I've, like, invested my high picks in be some permission and some card draw and some removal. And maybe I spent some, like later picks speculating on some some stuff. It didn't work out fine. I'll be fine. You know, I've not lost that much. I've given myself like I've given myself an out to draft for cool Storm deck, but I've also given myself a way out of it. No, definitely. I get you that. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Okay. Marvelous. I think that's where we're going to leave it for today. James. Thank you. We are drafting my, basic boomer group tomorrow, so I'm going to put it I'm gonna be putting these good notes into use tomorrow, so I'm coming for that. Three. Oh. Yeah. James. Yes. Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Yeah, it was a pleasure. All right. Marvelous. That just leaves me to thank you all very much for listening. Do make sure you give the podcast a five star review. Thumbs up. All that good stuff greatly helped us out. Do new and cool things. Until next time. It's goodbye from me. It's goodbye from James, and we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.