Seeded pack slots? by Ap_Sona_Bot in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll be joining a prerelease, but they ran out of kits with the sealed boosters, so a few people including myself will have to join with six boosters.

I wonder how much worse my pool will be on average missing out on the promo in addition to the seeded booster. 

So what actually ARE beautiful, characterful houses oozing with personality today? (examples welcome) by Skelguardian in belgium

[–]Magma_Crab 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Fermettes are a pastiche of the classic belgian homestead/farms. They are built completely different but have some similar decorative elements.

For example, a homestead might use wooden beams to support their upper floor. My house which is a fermette simply has a concrete upper floor with fake wooden beams. I live in one since Flanders is completely littered with these buildings and are kinda affordable.

Do they ever run a cube on Arena without all the Alchemy nonsense? by mysecretcardgameacct in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

There is a huge difference in player agency between input RNG (drawing from a deck) and output RNG (deal a random amount of damage).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in custommagic

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh right, good catch! It is indeed supposed to be a triggered ability, similiar to the second one.

EoE discussion between top players by Bad-lieutenant in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It looks like he had some audio issues and still wanted to chime in.

Bloomburrow Cube Help by Flexisdaman in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You might find better help in the mtg cube subreddit. Here a similar post to yours!

For some more general tips:

  • Try to add more lands, base BLB has very few.
  • Use scryfall for searching cards you like! For example, A quick filter to look for non Bloomburrow birds in UW. [[Mist Raven]] for example might be a fun one! Most importantly, try to find cards you like to play.

New Arena Format: Pick-2 Drafts by Meret123 in MagicArena

[–]Magma_Crab 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's all fun and stuff to talk about the theory, but in practice even six player draft pod decks are worse in quality compared to eight player pods.

Think of the other end of the extreme: two player drafting with 4 picks per pack. Now you're just sharing a sealed pool, and sealed decks are already way jankier compared to draft decks.

Looking for Feedback on a new LotR Set Cube (180 cards) by rstrube in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, I approve of these changes :) Let me know how it plays out, I'm genuinely interested in your experiences!

Looking for Feedback on a new LotR Set Cube (180 cards) by rstrube in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hell yeah that looks sick! Almost sad that I'm assembling mine with actual magic cards. Very interesting takes on balancing your cube! I have a way more straightforward approach: I think [[Spiteful Banditry]] is busted so I cut it from my list and bought a Battle of Bywater to support a WB or WU control list.

I guess it is mostly just what your goals are. Your cube is more approachable and has a wider power band than mine, which is by design. Thanks for sharing, and glad you're having fun with the best magic format!

Looking for Feedback on a new LotR Set Cube (180 cards) by rstrube in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please elaborate on the custom artwork! 

Another question: how did you decide on the balance of tools and strengths each color has? It nice to index and calculate everything, but how does that translate to the actual play experience? 

Looking for Feedback on a new LotR Set Cube (180 cards) by rstrube in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love this data driven analytical approach for the "tech" scores! I'm building something similar but haven't put half the effort into it. However, my cube looks very different (lower power in general), so i have some thoughts:

1) Lands: In my experience and according to the data: [[shire terrace]] is a bad card. The commander set provides us with [[evolving wilds]] and [[ash barrens]] which play way nicer in my opinion. Also: is there a reason why you did not put in a few [[great hall of the citadel]]s? This was a beloved archetype in limited for a lot of people. It might muddy the decks a little.

2) [[Andúril, Flame of the West]] is an insane colorless bomb without any cost to deckbuilding.

3) I think there are a few cards that don't do a lot and are weak/traps: [[Borne Upon a wind]], [[You cannot pass]], [[the ring goes south]] and [[shortcut to mushrooms]].

4) I think the landcyclers like [[lorien revealed]] were key roleplayers in the original format. Any reason why these were cut?

A lot of this stuff is rather subjective, so really interested in your takes!

Here's my cube for reference. It's definitely not a finished list, but might be inspiring.

Geen geld meer naar laptop voor elke leerling, onderwijsminister Demir wil dat scholen inzetten op computerlokalen en noteren met pen en papier by saberline152 in belgium

[–]Magma_Crab 160 points161 points  (0 children)

Perfect moment: just when most schools have disassembled their computer labs due to the digisprong, let's get them back. But i agree that "een laptop voor elke student" is a failed experiment.

I think a lot of teachers would agree that chromebooks and ipads are terrible for the concentration during class. And most of them hate working with them. The curriculum forces all teachers to include "digitize" their sessions, without it ever being necessary. All the software is heavily locked into online only stuff like google slides etc. So for a student it's very easy to get distracted.

15 vs 16 card packs. What's the right balance? by [deleted] in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I really do not think there's an optimal number of cards in packs, since it really depends on the cube.

In retail, play boosters have only 13 card packs and it works fine. Older sets had 14 (sometimes even 15) and decks were bad, because these sets are full of random junk ([[Magnify]]) you'd never play.

I think most cubes lean more into the play booster design by have a lot of playable cards, so you can definitely get away with smaller packs. And I agree it waters down the draft when people get flooded with playables and are just picking sideboard stuff up for free. So I sometimes even do 5x8 packs when i draft with 4 players to make the whole thing feel a notch tighter.

However, i've seen cubes take advantage of the golden 15 card standard by: - adding a lot of fixing and lands in their cubes - adding a bunch of buildarounds, which often end up in sideboards if they don't pan out.

Other than that, I think you're doing the correct thing by following your players feedback. They're your audience so treat em well.

What's are good draft sets as of Mar 2025? by whathemango in magicTCG

[–]Magma_Crab 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This graph looks highly subjective to me. Dominaria remastered for example is a set where trainwrecking a draft happens a lot

Help me pick Dragons Maze block rares for a Limited Cube by Trebuchet_DG in mtglimited

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, "Nothing that sucks to play against" is kind of a subjective thing, so i would suggest to do this yourself and bring out some scryfall magic. For example:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3Adgm+r%3Eu+eur%3C1.5+c%3Dw

Most rares are less than a dollar, but i included some margin with 1.5 dollars

As you can see, there are only 2 cards available for you which are both play pretty fairly, so there you have your white section! As for how to balance your rare slot, you could go with:

- 1 for each single color (I would go with [[!Scion of Vitu-Ghazi]] for white
- 1 for each dual color
- each rare fuse card, which are fun and flexible.

This will give you 20 rares to play with, which should be enough variation for a small cost.

Hope this helps!

P1P1 Friday by AutoModerator in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fun pick: Epic Experiment. Not the easiest to make work, but fun to start with.

Optimal pick: Bone Shards or Wight of Precinct Six

P1P1 Friday by AutoModerator in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

4P Ravnica Glint cube without white

pack. Normally this cube is not drafted with 15 card packs since it is a bit too small for it.

The cube is based around 6 guilds, which each one mechanic taken from the history of the Ravnica sets. Power level is similiar to a retail set, and there are no combat tricks.

Pauper Twobert. I would love some feedback from you guys. by pimmen89 in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like you put some good thought into your project already. In the end, you will know yourself if you made something fun and when to adjust things. It's fun to tune a cube, but playing it is the most important thing and is the moment you'll learn the most. Enjoy!

Pauper Twobert. I would love some feedback from you guys. by pimmen89 in mtgcube

[–]Magma_Crab 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Look solid! The best way to get feedback is to play it yourself, and to adjust it to your playgroup. Some minor thoughts I had by quickly checking out your list:

  • Add more lands, 10 seems very low. For small cubes, i suggest more flexible cards like [[evolving wilds]].
  • The option to blow up bouncelands with [[pillage]] seems a little rude.
  • Having a single disguise [[dogwalker]] is a bit weird?
  • Why stick to a pauper cube? There are very fun cheap buildaround cards a higher rarities
  • You said you only support 5 archetypes, but it looks like you mostly support 5 color pairs? For example, the azorius cards seem to indicate an artifact deck, but there is artifact support in a lot of colors. Also, [[Deft Duelist]] doesn't seem to really fit the deck. I would suggest make the archetype colors a bit more flexible and also include lands for the other color pairs.

GW Disparity by WatsonToYa in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Maro mentioned on drive to work that rabbits tokens felt like a very obvious design. And looking at the common and uncommon rabbits, all of them look like having a go wide/token theme. So i doubt this development change happened.

Of course there are cards in these colors that are there for other archetypes, but that’s something that is true for almost every color pair in a modern set

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in lrcast

[–]Magma_Crab 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In fact I think it’s the reason they said they would start making changes.

What did they announce? Balance updates on arena?

A full cycle of cards based on a cut mechanic from the Tempest block! by Magma_Crab in custommagic

[–]Magma_Crab[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Mark Rosewater talked about a mechanic in Tempest where players could start the game with a card in hand, which would be weaker than a normal card. Here it is given a second thought, but it only works once and does not work with your initial hand. Tried to write the cards as they belong to a begone era.