For posting 1E deck designs for feedback from other players and members of the community.

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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#572724
PantsOfTheTalShiar wrote:Just a heads up that this cube is only designed to support up to 6 people, so if more are interested, you'll have to have multiple sessions, or sleeve up multiple copies of the cube, or have players tag-team. I wasn't thinking about side events at major tournaments when I put the cube together, I was thinking about just getting some people together some random evening to play some Trek, so that's why I designed for a small number of people.
I think that's a good number especially for the current time. With having no idea about how many people are going to show up at Kaiserfest I don't agonize about that right now and start adapting when the event draws closer.

However, I've spent most of past Sunday's morning to scavenge through my collection and print sheets to start assembling the cube. Whilst doing so I detected an anomaly: If I understood it correctly, the missions listed in the affiliations are just for reference, and the actual, complete list is in the Non-Aligned list (in total 48 missions). But, they are not matching, so which one is the most current one?
Here's a list of the anomalies:
  • listed in Non-Aligned but not in Aligned: Hostage Situation, Observe Ritual, Qualor II Rendezvous.
  • listed in Federation but not in Non-Aligned: Diplomacy Mission, Reported Activity
  • listed in Klingon but not in Non-Aligned: Reported Activity, Seize Freighter
  • listed in Romulan but not in Non-Aligned: none


I am not commenting much about the cube until I've got my first first-hand experiences with it, but I'm curious about how certain strategies or subthemes worked out in your groups so far. Especially infiltration.

Cheers :cheersL:
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#573245
Ausgang wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:34 am...snip...
However, I've spent most of past Sunday's morning to scavenge through my collection and print sheets to start assembling the cube. Whilst doing so I detected an anomaly: If I understood it correctly, the missions listed in the affiliations are just for reference, and the actual, complete list is in the Non-Aligned list (in total 48 missions). But, they are not matching, so which one is the most current one?
Here's a list of the anomalies:
  • listed in Non-Aligned but not in Aligned: Hostage Situation, Observe Ritual, Qualor II Rendezvous.
  • listed in Federation but not in Non-Aligned: Diplomacy Mission, Reported Activity
  • listed in Klingon but not in Non-Aligned: Reported Activity, Seize Freighter
  • listed in Romulan but not in Non-Aligned: none


I am not commenting much about the cube until I've got my first first-hand experiences with it, but I'm curious about how certain strategies or subthemes worked out in your groups so far. Especially infiltration.

Cheers :cheersL:
Oops, yeah, the Non-aligned list is the correct list. I'll update (or maybe just remove?) the missions in the other lists. Sorry for the slow response, I was busy trying to prepare for a tournament this past weekend.

Also, I hope I'm not too late, but FYI I designed the draft process so that you could use 3 different color sleeves: one color for the 48 missions, one for the 96 dilemmas, and one for the 240 other cards. It makes setup and cleanup a lot easier.

Haha, yes, I am aware that I am somewhat insane for including infiltration. It was mostly a desperate attempt to include SOME affiliation flavor in the cube. Warp Speed puts huge limitations on the cards you can use because card draws and bonus points basically do nothing. I considered a Romulan capture theme instead, but there's actually not a lot available there to begin with, and a lot of the rewards are draws and bonus points. I also feared that pushing capture too much would go against the spirit of Warp Speed, because the format lets you regenerate your discard pile to reduce the chances of being in a situation where you have permanently lost the personnel you needed to win.

There's also a question of how much affiliation flavor is really necessary as long as the core gameplay of using your personnel to overcome dilemmas and solve missions is good. Looking at the history of Block, the most popular Block format was the one with the least amount of affiliation flavor.

I wish I could tell you more about how infiltration works in practice, but I think I'm the only person who tries to draft infiltration, and I've only gotten to do an actual draft once. I did try to force infiltration, and I honestly don't remember how it turned out since it was several years ago. People don't pick the infiltration verbs, so if someone really wants them, there's a decent chance they can pick them up. If the infiltration player avoids drafting Federation cards, then most if not all of their opponents will be Feds and can be infiltrated. It's not going to work out every time, but I'm fine if it only works out some of the time.

The good news is that there are at least some other themes that have worked out for other players. I don't have time for a full rundown now, but I'll just say that Live Long and Prosper/Vulcan Mindmeld, Empathic Touch, Treachery Missions, Genetronic Replicator, and Ocular Implants are some of the cards that guide decks in a particular direction that I've seen used successfully. Some of the other themes need to be reworked or replaced. :)
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#577477
This project is going into hibernation for the next couple months since I don't really have time to work on games anymore. Just wanted to make a couple of notes, mostly for myself.

- Reunion
+ some |FED| -only planet mission
As a mission solvable with one personnel, it's hardly unique, and as a mission with rare requirements, there's no upside, unlike Save Stranded Crew. It's kind of a trap for players who are drawn to Story Mode. The personnel are still great, though.

- Personal Duty
+ some [Dual] dilemma
When Commander Joe hate-drafted this (or at least said he thought about hate-drafting), that was a red flag. With Friendly Fire, it's really out of place as the only constructed-caliber combo in a format with lower power than constructed. Personal Duty really ONLY combos with FF or Irrational Commander (the off-brand FF), so they will frequently end up together, and there are few, if any, ways to actually pass the combo. Since FF is more flexible and we need to cut [S] dilemmas anyway, Personal Duty's the one to go.

Bonus sneak peak regarding two-person draft:
I don't have time to cover this fully now, but Joe and I did have fun with a two-player draft earlier this year. Basically, I think any method of drafting can work as long as you end up with twice as many (or even slightly under twice as many) cards as you will need for each category (missions, dilemmas, everything else). I have a hunch that Minneapolis draft, or something similar, works best out of all the 2-player draft formats I know, and that's what Joe and I did. Just make sure that you make enough packs such that you will end up with enough cards.

When I did some solo tests of Winchester drafts, I found that I almost always just wanted to take the largest piles, which seems like it takes some fun out of the draft. I assume Winston draft might have similar issues, in addition to how slow it is. Grid draft has potential I think, but since all cards are face up, it would become skill-testing in the same way that 2E skill tracking is, i.e. not everyone's cup of tea.
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Director of Organized Play
By LORE (Kris Sonsteby)
 - Director of Organized Play
 -  
Architect
1E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
2E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
W.C.T. Chairman's Trophy winner 2014-2015
#577488
I hope we can still play it at Continentals as one of the side events! :cross:
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Director of Organized Play
By LORE (Kris Sonsteby)
 - Director of Organized Play
 -  
Architect
1E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
2E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
W.C.T. Chairman's Trophy winner 2014-2015
#577520
Looks like the Germans ran a pretty fun gig this weekend using the Cube Draft. Can any of those attendees' comment on what they liked / didn't like? I know @PantsOfTheTalShiar is always looking for refinements to this fun and refreshing format.
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By Kaiser
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
1E World Semi-Finalist 2023
Architect
#577521
LORE wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:50 am Looks like the Germans ran a pretty fun gig this weekend using the Cube Draft. Can any of those attendees' comment on what they liked / didn't like? I know @PantsOfTheTalShiar is always looking for refinements to this fun and refreshing format.
We talked about a bit afterwards, there were a few things I/we thought could be changed, but overall I had the impression that everybody enjoyed it a lot . I think Gerald was planning to send Jason some feedback anyway.
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By martok88
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E World Champion 2023
1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
1E British National Champion 2023
1E German National Champion 2024
1E Swedish National Runner-Up 2018
1E Austrian National Second Runner-Up 2023
#577522
The tournament was really fun. Thanks to Gerald for hosting! I hope we can play this again soon, maybe at Kaiserfest.

+ the drafting procedure worked very smoothly
+ piggyback cards are fun!
+ the number of drafted cards per player (8 missions, 40 draw, 16 dilemmas) seems perfect
+ I love the idea of one seedable treaty. The decision to play one or two affiliations is a tough one and very balanced at the cost of a seed slot
+ the starter pack everyone gets if good as it is
+ the format immediately attracted new/returning players - amazing! It is just the right mix between easy accessibility (no preparation, warp speed rules) and strategic options (draft)

As Kaiser said, Gerald might give a more complete set of suggestions for Jason, but before I forget everything, I'll write my notes down now:

- We did not like the concept of including the Mission II's with build-in outposts: This means that if you are lucky enough to draft one, you win a seed slot because you don't have to seed an outpost. One possibility would be to just leave those out (I guess replace them with regular missions) and maybe then allow 13 seed cards so that the number of dilemmas does not go down.
- I would suggest getting rid of Lower Decks. There's a good reason this card is even on the OTF watch list! If something is too powerful for OTF, it is definitely too powerful for a draft.
- The combo that won me most of my games might be a litte overpowerd, not sure though: Atmospheric Ionization + Interphasic Plasma Creatures + Hanonian Land Eel is pretty brutal! Maybe Atmospheric Ionization is a bit too strong for the format, but I'm not sure about this one - could be fine.
- The combo Genesis Planet + Unstable Matrix might be too strong. If was not played in our tourney though (lack of skills to solve it), but if it works, opponents are usually down 4 dilemmas (space dilemmas) which is brutal
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#577600
martok88 wrote:- I would suggest getting rid of Lower Decks. There's a good reason this card is even on the OTF watch list! If something is too powerful for OTF, it is definitely too powerful for a draft.

I agree in the specific, but I disagree on the broad principle. There are plenty of cards that are broken or powerful because of the environment they are in or synergy with other cards, or broken because they are in multiples, where in a cube draft you are limited by what you can get.


Looking at the OTF ban list, I can see several cards that all would at a glance seem fine to me in a cube type environment:

- Palor Toff
- Romulan Minefield
- Senior Staff Meeting
- Excaliban Surak
- Rogue Borg Mercenaries
- Clone Machine / DQSS
- All Threes
- Ceti Eel

And that's just at a glance. Some of those could be very strong, possibly even the strongest in the cube, but cube hits that spot between limited and constructed, and power levels can be very different then in constructed.
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By Ausgang (Gerald Sieber)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#577627
First of all, I agree with both posts above, that the draft was very fun. Overall, it became quite obvious that you already put extensive effort in the cube as it already runs very smoothly and is balanced very well.

The following feedback is based on just one draft, so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt ;-)

I’ll add to the comments already made first:
We did not like the concept of including the Mission II's with build-in outposts: This means that if you are lucky enough to draft one, you win a seed slot because you don't have to seed an outpost. One possibility would be to just leave those out (I guess replace them with regular missions) and maybe then allow 13 seed cards so that the number of dilemmas does not go down.
I would definitely cut them. For one they are very strong as they come with an extra seed slot, and have easy requirements (and their inherent drawback of low points becomes a wash in Warp Speed). Five out of six players seeded a Mission II which is quite telling. Even more problematic for me is how they tamper with the drafting experience. They are clearly first-pick-material, but they also soft-lock you in an affiliation unless you want to give up the huge advantage they provide. One of the fun things about drafting is figuring out what the players next to you are drafting (i.e. which affiliations are open), but this element gets hamstringed by the Mission IIs.
I would suggest getting rid of Lower Decks. There's a good reason this card is even on the OTF watch list! If something is too powerful for OTF, it is definitely too powerful for a draft.
I mildly disagree. First of all, constructed and limited cannot be compared that easily as they are totally different monsters. LD can be leveraged a lot better in constructed than in a limited environment. Secondly, I didn’t perceive it as being too strong; in the relevant matches it provided its bonus to about a quarter of the ATs/crews (I think the hand weapons and PADDs were much more effective). Yes it foils some dilemmas, but these are mostly the walls that tried to shoehorn big teams into an attempt and it is good these get some counters. Thirdly, I actually think LD has a balancing effect on the format, especially in regard to the missions where some of them come with attribute requirements while others don’t and this makes them more comparable power-level-wise.
The combo that won me most of my games might be a litte overpowerd, not sure though: Atmospheric Ionization + Interphasic Plasma Creatures + Hanonian Land Eel is pretty brutal! Maybe Atmospheric Ionization is a bit too strong for the format, but I'm not sure about this one - could be fine.
Not sure about it being too strong, but this combo would actually be an argument for keeping Lower Decks :D Also take into account, that the more drafts we are doing the more the strong is getting identified, which makes it harder to get such combos in the future.
The combo Genesis Planet + Unstable Matrix might be too strong. If was not played in our tourney though (lack of skills to solve it), but if it works, opponents are usually down 4 dilemmas (space dilemmas) which is brutal
If someone can pull it off, it is probably super powerful. I am not sure if I remember correctly, but one player picked Genesis Planet very early, and failed to collect all the requirements to solve it in a reasonable way. I’d describe it as a trap card (high power at high cost). What I don’t like is how it contradicts the function of piggybacks as all the other cards give an indication of what they are piggybacking, whereas this needs some external reference (which is also not a good thing for the lesser experienced players).

The following is a collection of my personal impressions and comments which I picked up throughout the day:

- Range 7 seems to be the minimum you want on your ships. In every game my opponent seeded a 4-span mission next to my base, so in order to get to the second mission I always needed at least 7 range. I had the I.K.C. K’Ratak in my deck and it was big speed-bummer. While drafting I mostly tried to get a certain amount of ships and didn't pay much attention to the stats, but going forward I will never pick a 6-range ship again in a draft unless I absolutely have to (which is unlikely with Mercenary Ship being in the starter pack). I’d probably cut those ships to avoid this frustration point, unless of course they provide some other synergy.

- Lack of Preparation seems weak with all the low-requirement missions running around. All-Available Personnel (piggybacking Skeleton Crew) might be a more reliable alternative.

- AMS is quite strong in my opinion as it jumpstarts the game and can be considered as “an extra turn for the cost of a seed slot”. I’m not sure if I cut it though, but I would definitely remove Dr. Farek from the starter pack to raise its opportunity cost.

- I don’t like the Shades of Grey stuff. Most of the dilemmas that they enhance are unexciting without SoG, hence to make them on-par with other dilemmas you’ll need to spend an extra seed slot. That is probably too costly, and I’d rather play two good dilemmas instead of SoG and one dilemma. Villagers With Torches works somewhat similarily; it usually prevented one red-shirt (like an Armus) and eventually it would have been better to slot a dilemma instead.

General observations:
The cube provides a good mixture of build-around cards, filler material, and splashy stuff. Between putting together a good skill-matrix, grabbing essential pieces, and including some fun/surprise tech, it hits the sweet spot between accessibility and skill-intensivity, concerning both the draft itself and the games. Not too streamlined, and not too complex. :thumbsup:
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By Kaiser
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
1E World Semi-Finalist 2023
Architect
#577628
The combo Genesis Planet + Unstable Matrix might be too strong. If was not played in our tourney though (lack of skills to solve it), but if it works, opponents are usually down 4 dilemmas (space dilemmas) which is brutal
If someone can pull it off, it is probably super powerful. I am not sure if I remember correctly, but one player picked Genesis Planet very early, and failed to collect all the requirements to solve it in a reasonable way. I’d describe it as a trap card (high power at high cost). What I don’t like is how it contradicts the function of piggybacks as all the other cards give an indication of what they are piggybacking, whereas this needs some external reference (which is also not a good thing for the lesser experienced players).
That is correct, we picked Genesis Planet as our first mission I think, as it seemed super powerful, but we simply had bad luck getting the personnel to actually solve it. If I remember correctly, our first Geology showed up in the fourth stack we drafted, and we only found 2 overall; Biology (first set of requirements) we only found 1, and Transporter Skill (for the second option) we didn't get at all. I remember at one point we had the chance to pick Nick Locarno, but we were heavily invested in Federation at that point (and probably wanted something else more, solving GP reliably already seemed unlikely at that point).

Something completely different that I found mildly irritating was suddenly running into stuff like Hanonian Land Eel, or Horta, to a lesser extent Villagers with Torches, and a few others I don't remember, mainly because for some reason I went into this expecting it to primarly centered around the PAQ-era, and didn't expect to see Horta etc.; but that's strictly on me for not looking at the card pool before, won't be an issue for next time.
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#578006
Thanks so much for the feedback, everyone! I'm glad that you were able to decipher my instructions and enjoyed the format.

(And BTW, @LORE , I'm still on for playing this around Continentals, I just can't guarantee that I will make any changes to it by then.)
Ausgang wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:56 am First of all, I agree with both posts above, that the draft was very fun. Overall, it became quite obvious that you already put extensive effort in the cube as it already runs very smoothly and is balanced very well.

The following feedback is based on just one draft, so everything has to be taken with a grain of salt ;-)

I’ll add to the comments already made first:
We did not like the concept of including the Mission II's with build-in outposts: This means that if you are lucky enough to draft one, you win a seed slot because you don't have to seed an outpost. One possibility would be to just leave those out (I guess replace them with regular missions) and maybe then allow 13 seed cards so that the number of dilemmas does not go down.
I would definitely cut them. For one they are very strong as they come with an extra seed slot, and have easy requirements (and their inherent drawback of low points becomes a wash in Warp Speed). Five out of six players seeded a Mission II which is quite telling. Even more problematic for me is how they tamper with the drafting experience. They are clearly first-pick-material, but they also soft-lock you in an affiliation unless you want to give up the huge advantage they provide. One of the fun things about drafting is figuring out what the players next to you are drafting (i.e. which affiliations are open), but this element gets hamstringed by the Mission IIs.
Yeah, a big reason I included Mission IIs was to be first-pick material. I felt that starting off with a pack of just generic missions wouldn't be exciting and wouldn't really provide direction, especially if you didn't know the cube's skill distribution. I am a little shocked that you didn't like them, because no one else has mentioned it before to me, but I totally get it. If the p1p1 is too obvious and you're never tempted to abandon it, that's not ideal either.

The other reason I wanted Mission IIs is so players could seed them face-down as their 2nd or 3rd mission and build them during the game. Building outposts would make it easier to solve your furthest mission and/or mess with your opponent, adding more variety to gameplay. I think I'm the only person who's built an outpost during a game, but it was very effective both times I did. I think both times I built outposts that I had stocked in my deck, though.

Outpost building is also a big reason for AMS, but if you want to scale back its power, it's easy to move Dr. Nydom to the starters and Dr. Farek to the draft. I almost did that in the first place.

My goal is to get the proportion of [1E-S] dilemmas down to 25%. (I think now they are around 33% of all dilemmas in the cube.) Then, the 3-planet Genesis Planet deck should only blank 2-3 dilemmas, not 4 dilemmas. I think(?) that's fair for using what is by far the hardest mission in the cube and spending a seed slot on Unstable Matrix. But I don't know if anyone else has tried to draft the Genesis Planet deck because of how hard it is.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree on the underpowered stuff, I just don't know when/if I'll get around to replacing it. All Available Personnel is a good idea, though. I'll keep an eye on the overpowered stuff. Glad the piggyback cards worked out and were fun; I think eventually I would want to put some kind of mark or stamp on a (virtual) card to indicate that it comes with a piggyback, and then a separate mark on the piggyback card itself so it's easier to put back together for the next draft.
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#582710
Here's a quick changelog with updates I made before NACC. The tournament didn't fire (I don't think any side events did that weekend), but Jeremy Huth and I did a two-player draft and then Huth, Kris, and I did a 3-person sealed "tournament" during 2E's lunch break. In the draft I was able to pull off the Unstable Matrix win, and then in one of my sealed games I was able to infiltrate and Issue Secret Orders, though I didn't do that in the best way and I think I lost that game. So these fringe strategies are theoretically possible some of the time.

(Remind me to write more about 2-player drafting at some point.)

Also, the theme of this year is "Jason doesn't have time for things," so the changes I made were based on what I had available, and I couldn't explore every suggestion given earlier in this thread. Hopefully I can update the lists soon, but that will happen no earlier than Tuesday.

Starter Decks:
-Dr. Farek
+Dr. Nydom
Based largely on feedback from the Germans, I made this swap, which I think worked out well. In early versions of this cube, AMS wasn't that good and so was disappointing, but with 12 seed slots and guaranteed Dr. Farek, it became good and too easy. Now it's good but you have to work for it a little.

(Also, at the last minute I swapped Zibalian Transport in for Mercenary Ship, but I don't think I would recommend that. I thought Mercenary Ship was being used too often, in part because it outshines the crappy Federation ships that were supposed to be crappy. On the other hand, maybe I just saw it more often than the other NA starter cards because it was a ship and always visible and sometimes seeded. Zibalian Transport might be too far the other way, though, and risks making players just feel bad if they have to play it. I had to play it in my sealed deck because my random pool only had one ship plus Call for Reinforcements, and it was actually fine, but we don't need to take that risk when Mercenary Ship should still be worse than most ships you can draft.)

Missions
-Reunion
+Homeward
I've explained the problems with Reunion previously. I'm not sure the format actually needs single affiliation missions, but for now we have them. There isn't a huge reason for Homeward over anything else, except maybe I'm a sucker for the rarely-used I2PG missions. Other potential options are Restore Errant Moon for nostalgia and Gravesworld for its distinctive span.

-Brute Force
+Bat'leth Tournament
Bat'leth Tournament has similar problems as Reunion, but at least with the current implementation of piggybacks, you can spend one pick on Koloth (or Thopok) and add the Bat'leth to your draw deck to get two chances to draw the card you need to solve. Not to mention that Equipment dies less often than personnel. Also, Brute Force was even worse because you needed not one but multiple hand weapons. I'm not sure this has enough support to be usable yet, but there's enough potential that I'm willing to hold out hope for a Klingon-feeling mission.

Dilemmas:
NOTE!!! This month Rules removed the Zaldan loophole (which overall is a good change, hi James), but that means that Flaxian Assassin and Zaldan are now walls. In the short term I will update the list of skills needed to pass all walls, and in the long term I will evaluate whether I want to keep those two dilemmas.

-Personal Duty
+The Metrons' Arena
As an opponent's choice filter, The Metrons' Arena is the kind of versatile dilemma this format loves having. No S'Salk yet, because I've wanted to maintain a 24th-century aesthetic with the nouns. But I'm thinking about breaking that rule here for the fun of dilemma/draw deck synergy and also for the fun of recreating this... um... "iconic" Star Trek moment.

-Borg Ship
I've tried the self-seed gimmick with Borg Ship, and didn't get it to actually do anything. I know some people have seeded it under their opponent's mission, but I'm not sure how effective it was. Anyway, I still need to cut Space dilemmas, and cutting Borg Ship means that I get to add "Self-Controlled" to the list of mechanics that the cube doesn't use, and we get to avoid the anti-nostalgia inherent to cards with major errata.

+Lethean Telepathic Attack
This was in the cube until I somehow ended up with one too many dilemmas, so now it's back in. I'm not certain an auto-stop is that valuable in a format where redshirting is more prevalent, but we'll try it. Empathy is more common in this cube than usual, but getting 2 Empathy still doesn't seem like it would happen that often.

Draw Deck:
-Dr. Nydom
+Dr. Farek
With Nydom moving to the starter, Farek takes his place in the draft.
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Director of Organized Play
By LORE (Kris Sonsteby)
 - Director of Organized Play
 -  
Architect
1E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
2E Andoria Regional Champion 2023
W.C.T. Chairman's Trophy winner 2014-2015
#582719
Great update, Jason! Thanks again for all your hard work on this. :cheersL:
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#582775
I'm still sorry I wasn't there on Sunday. Cube is good and deserves to thrive!

Happy you approved of the Zaldan change but sorry about the complication for Cube.
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#591130
A Guide to Two-Player Drafts with the Warp Speed Cube
With three such drafts under my belt, I feel comfortable enough to write a short guide followed by some of my reasoning in Q&A form. Thank you to CommanderJoe and Jeremy Huth for being cunning and gracious test partners.

The method I would recommend for 2 players is a modified Minneapolis draft using the same packs per player as a normal WSC draft: 1 mission, 5 draw deck, 2 dilemma (drafted in that order); each containing 8 cards.

Drafting works as follows: each player takes a pack, picks two cards from it, and passes the rest to the other player. Then they take two cards from the pack they were just passed, and pass the remainder back. Now with the pack they started with, they take two more cards and discard the last two cards of the pack face down.

In other words:
Take 2
(Pass)
Take 2
(Pass)
Take 2
Discard 2 face down

It's unlikely but possible that a player might not have both a planet and space mission after drafting the mission pack, in which case you should reshuffle and re-draft the missions.

When Joe and I played this back in November, we took things at a casual pace and this took just under an hour and a half: 22 minutes for drafting, 28 minutes for deck building, and 38 minutes for play (which may be inflated by us jumping into playtest mode at the end and walking through various scenarios).

I think Joe, Huth, and I all had the idea that we could potentially do best-of-3 matches (with sideboarding, of course) with this format, but we haven't actually tried that yet.

Players' card pools are 3/4 the size of a normal draft, is that enough?
While you are picking fewer cards, you are seeing the same number. The discarded cards are essentially last picks that would make the deck much less often anyway. Decks may be slightly lower quality than multiplayer draft, but should still be quite playable. In my first two drafts I actually compensated by adding more packs, but that makes the draft take longer, and it's just easier to keep the same pack breakdown.

Why Minneapolis draft?
Minneapolis draft does a good job of capturing the feel of normal drafting, and it preserves hidden information, which is important for dilemmas. Players pick cards in parallel, which makes the draft go faster, and draft speed is important when you only get one game. (So it's not just local bias. :) )

What makes this "modified" Minneapolis?
The original Minneapolis draft (section "Drafting the Cube") was designed for Magic and used packs of 7 drafted as Take1-Take2-Take2-Discard2. To adapt this to the packs of 8 I was used to for WSC, I changed the first pick from Take1 to Take2. You do lose a little bit of the tension of the first pick of the pack but I actually like how it's easier to pick the best two cards of the pack instead of agonizing over the singular best card. Again, it's nice to keep the draft moving. An alternative would be Take1-Take2-Take3-Discard2, but that would probably result in lower-powered dilemma combos.

What other draft methods were considered?
Grid: I think this is the second best option, but all picks are public knowledge.
Winchester: When I did a practice draft just with myself, I found myself consistently wanting to take the largest pile, removing a lot of fun from the draft. Also, all picks are public knowledge.
Winston: While this does have some hidden information, the process seems slow and doesn't appeal to me as much as the newer draft methods.

What's next for the Warp Speed Cube?
This year I hope to finish the fourth and final beta version of my cube, removing the excess Space dilemmas, tweaking the ships, and swapping in some interactive cards (Kevin, Quinn, Anij, Madam Guinan, etc.) in place of some of the chaff. Then, once I can draft the cube without seeing a card and thinking, "Ugh, why is this still in the cube?" I'll call it version 1.0, and then I'll start promoting it more.
1EFQ: Game of two halves

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve re[…]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy birthday to @Takket ! :D :thumbsup: […]

Opponents turn

Remodulation