StimHack Draft Cube: Current Lists (Updated for Earth's Scion)

I love ronin in the cube, but that may be just a personal thing :slight_smile:

I think all of those proposed cuts are just lowering the frequency in the cube for somewhat similar cards. Salem basically does targeted damage and we had multiple ronins. Could always cut something else instead of course.

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Thatā€™s the nice thing about a cube, though. Itā€™s customizable by anyone who wants to use it =)

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I know I, for one, am going to just buy 20 copies of Fearless Leaderā€™s Worlds Decks from FFG so my drafts can be a Kafkaesque DLR nightmare.

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Iā€™m new to drafting but I thought the draft was each player drew one of their ten then passed it to the next player until all cards were used?

Iā€™m looking to get a draft going with 4 friends but Iā€™m not sure of the specifics. Can anyone correct any mistakes Iā€™d be making below?

Thereā€™s 5 of us so I would shuffle the giant list and then deal each player 4 packs of 10 cards. We discard the rest of the giant list. Everyone picks their first pack of 10, selects a card and then passes it round until everyone has 10 cards. We cycle through the same method for the other 3 packs of 10 so everyone eventually has 40 cards and then their starting cards on top.

Is that correct drafting? I understand the rules but just donā€™t want to make the experience poor.

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Sure but in a 1v1 Grid Draft all cards are available, if you draft with only half the pool a lot gets left out.

I guess you could double the amount of packs and only pick half the amount of cards per pack, though this would create far more powerful decks. Also it would be interesting that the only pack that returns to you is the one you start with, so you only get 1 chance for all the other packs.

Yup, that is the traditional method. Other people are just talking about alternative styles, but I would start with that.

So, we played cube last weekend (current list to LM).

The bad: We ended up being only 5 players, which was sad (odd number of players), but did round robin.

The awesome: I wanted to try the rochester draft version and had to adjust packs (number of packs and cards per pack) to fit 5 players somehow. So we decided to do Rochester with 8 cards/pack 5 packs/player and do ā€œhalf wheelā€ (donā€™t know if this is actual terminology, I just made it up).

ā€œRochester with half wheelā€ is awesome, this is how we did it:

Player1 Lays out 8 cards (their first corp pack) openly on the table, picks one, then player 2 picks one, etc. down to player 5. Then player 5 picks another card, then player 4 and finally player 3 is left with the last card. Now player 2 lays out 8 cards (their first corp pack) and pick first etc. This result in 8 cards/player after everyone has gotten to be first picker, so do 5 rounds of that which results in 40 cards/player. Then do the same for runner but in the opposite direction.

This mean that the 1st and 2nd picker for each pack only gets one card and the rest get two, but the last player gets to pick two in a row and be ā€œin the middleā€.

Why is ā€œRochester half wheelā€ fun (the funnest)? Imo it creates a lot more nerve/tension for whatever you pick, you can counterpick/hatedraft a bit more and also it leaves interesting choices for whatever position you are picking in for any pack, instead of getting left with the crap at the end. It also means that some packs you would rather be last than first, e.g. a pack in which there are a lot of medium/high impact cards. Picking first is often very hard as you get so many choices of good cards and counter picks.

I recommend you try ā€œRochester half wheelā€ next time you draft, it creates a lot more interaction in the drafting part and some banter, discussion and laughs (you might want to set guidelines on what ppl are allowed to talk about, like if players are allowed to remind other players of what cards player X already picked).

Also, I realized TTW, Faust, D4 is really strong in draft, who would have thunk it :laughing:

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Not to be pedantic, but actually you just described normal Rochester, though the pack size difference is good to note.

That particular Drafting order is usually called ā€˜Horseshoeā€™, but itā€™s also the default way Rochester works, to try and balance being the last person to pick in a completely faceup pack.

I definitely like Rochester, because it feels the most strategic of draft formats. Less is left to random chance when everyone at the table knows exactly what cards are out and where they went. Iā€™m less prone to actually love it in Netrunner, however, as part of Netrunner is not knowing your opponentsā€™ decks exactly and having to guess at information. Still, itā€™s definitely a great format. (The biggest downside is simply how long it takes to actually draft cards that way.)

Iā€™m relatively new to the game, but in trying to figure out an acceptable way to draft out of a cube while still having 100% of the cards in play, I settled on a glimpse/burn draft style. I doubt that precisely what we did would work for advanced players (part of it involved choosing two cards to take out of a pack, which would probably be OP for good drafters), but the general idea is certainly worth looking into.

Thanks, Rochester half horseshoe it is then :slight_smile:

While I agree that there is something lost in Rochestering Netrunner, due to the open info, you donā€™t exactly know what the opponent will put in the actual deck. I drafted a lot of advancable traps, which went very noticed, but ended up slotting none of them, resulting in me having a ā€œscary deckā€ that was ā€œall talk no walkā€/ā€œempty threatsā€.

You could draft ā€œnormallyā€ but with more packs per player and draft fewer from each pack. Maybe that is what you meant by glimpse/burn. Ofc this will result in stronger decks all around as you will get to see more cards per player.

When should we expect a Fear the Masses update?

No Merger?? D:

Any general tips for tweaking the cube? My play group has been enjoying using the SH Cube and Iā€™m interested in trying out some changes in the environment like seeing if link can find a niche like stealth does, or including different utility cards like Making an Entrance or Heritage Committee.

Any thoughts on taking out a Philotic for a Merger?
3/2s are great in draft, but the downside makes for interesting decisions when deckbuilding (and Counterstriking!)

Got a stimhack cube tournament coming up on Sunday. Any chance for a Fear the Masses update?
Thanks,

It was spoken to above -

Iā€™ll testify to the cards being good fits. Salem especially has led to some enjoyable shenanigans. (KILLING OPERATIONS IS HYPE.) And, on the other side I got a DinoAnkusa up once For Great Justice.

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I used these cuts for a cube tournament over the weekend(6 people) and I think it went well. Bhagat is strong in this format from my brief observation. Believe there were 8 Corp Wins and 10 Runner Wins.

Itā€™s my experience with Draft that two strategies are dominant for Runner: Broken Combo (Eater/Keyhole, for instance) and Reg-Ass Runner. (Basically Anarch breaker suite, or Andysucker.)

Bhagat enhances Reg-Ass Runner strategies.

My feeling is that the cube needs more Combo archetypes for runners. Oracle May/Motivation is not a strong enough combo to work with. Eater Keyhole is strong enough; I feel DLR is good enough as well.

From the Corp side, strong ETR is relatively favored because only two Runners at most have Magnum Opus econ to actually get through your ICE often enough. Taxing strategies donā€™t work as often, though Kill strats do work more often. Because of this, FA/Never Advance/Rush tends to do the best. (IMO, Rush with Kill backup is the best plan in Draft, it just happens to need several specific pieces to get it to work properly.)

Weā€™ve been having a good amount of cube drafts on jnet. Tons of fun. Itā€™s all I play anymore personally. Check the casual room if you usually donā€™t.
Can we get an official-type person to update the lists on meteor pls? I like the proposed changes.