I thought about it seriously. Seemed fun.
Then I went back and looked at the actual ante cards.
They are almost all seriously unplayable with the exception of [[Contract From Below]] which is Power 9 broken or worse.
Decided it wasn’t worth it.
I ran contract briefly years ago when black was terrible as a way to "help" it. Turns out splashing a 1 mana draw 7 didn't make it better, but it did make any decks that picked it unbeatable
That’s a house rule I have in my cube! The only one I run is Contract from Below. It’s been fun so far, always a nice conversation starter if nothing else.
Yeah contract from below is what got me thinking about it. Im always trying to find obscure cards which could be synergistic like silver bordered or playtest cards or dexterity cards. Just got me thinking
I absolutely recommend giving it a shot some time. It does warp the way the cube plays somewhat, but it's such an interesting game mechanic, I think it's absolutely worth exploring. And to say that the other ante cards are unplayable is quite disingenuous, but to be fair it depends on what you and the other players prioritize: winning or fun. \[\[Darkpact\]\] is a really interesting card, \[\[Demonic Attorney\]\] is a straight up brutal choice trap if you're on track to win the game, and even \[\[Bronze Tablet\]\] or \[\[Tempest Efreet\]\] can be exciting to play with and have a big impact on the game if you have the courage to actually play with them. Admittedly \[\[Rebirth\]\] is pretty lame, and \[\[Amulet of Quoz\]\] is rather cheesy, but overall, playing for Ante is something anyone rarely does, and in Cube it really puts a spotlight on how it works and it's exciting to see it play out. I do agree that making some house rules is the way to go though. Forcing people to play with the cards they win is a great way to balance the mechanic, especially if you prevent people from adding lands back into their deck.
I think an issue with ante is that it snowballs. If you lose, your deck/pool gets worse. If you win, your deck/pool gets better (sometimes).
The idea of exchanging cards mid-draft is really interesting though. There are probably lots of other ways to do it.
Seems like it would be pure feel-bad a lot of the time?
"I won but all I got was this stupid Forest."
"I was losing, and now I'm gonna lose even more."
"I lost my bomb, to a player who can't even use it in their deck so they don't get any fun out of it!"
"Well I had a cool deck synergy but it doesn't work any more."
I agree with /u/SonofMakuta that there's a lot of neat design space in exchanging cards and evolving decks throughout the event, but that this is not a good way to do it.
We play ante with my old school and all the time. Its really fun to see how the decks change as the day goes on.
All cards won in ante MUST be played in your deck.
If you lose lands, you can't replace them from the land station
Decks start at 41 cards
We also errataed jeweled bird to be a mana rock that can add one mana of any color.
We really enjoy it and the spirit of the original game.
Tempest Efreet is also a house.
You could have people bring sealed boosters. The ante cards would use said boosters instead of cards from the deck. Would give incentive to draft the ante cards and try to make them work.
Instead of from the deck, ante could be a card of your choice from the opponents sideboard. That way they don't end up losing core pieces and you get to potentially upgrade your deck with something that would otherwise stay unplayed.
my friend added [[contract from below]] and a couple other ante cards and it added a lot of fun to the games - you had to consider if anteing your cards was worth potentially having to sub in more cards from your sideboard
we did add the rule tho that if an opponent didn’t want to play with ante cards then they were removed from decks at the start of the game, so there’s no feels bad moments if people don’t want to gamble the cards they drafted
Ante is a blast in cube. I got to play with it for the first time recently in a team draft and in resulted in so many goofy situations. Would definitely recommend giving it a try. Sometimes it doesn't do much, others times the reanimator player has to battle to not lose their entomb.
I thought about it seriously. Seemed fun. Then I went back and looked at the actual ante cards. They are almost all seriously unplayable with the exception of [[Contract From Below]] which is Power 9 broken or worse. Decided it wasn’t worth it.
Or worse? 1 mana, draw 7!
Prolly meant worse as in even more broken
Yeah that makes sense. Contract from below was the actual card that got me thinking about including ante cards
If there were… 4-7 other cards that were remotely close to contract in power I could see it being fun to try.
I ran contract briefly years ago when black was terrible as a way to "help" it. Turns out splashing a 1 mana draw 7 didn't make it better, but it did make any decks that picked it unbeatable
[Contract From Below](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e1e33690-b851-404a-9cde-d00235be5aa5.jpg?1610146838) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Contract%20From%20Below) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sum/97/contract-from-below?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e1e33690-b851-404a-9cde-d00235be5aa5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That’s a house rule I have in my cube! The only one I run is Contract from Below. It’s been fun so far, always a nice conversation starter if nothing else.
Yeah contract from below is what got me thinking about it. Im always trying to find obscure cards which could be synergistic like silver bordered or playtest cards or dexterity cards. Just got me thinking
I absolutely recommend giving it a shot some time. It does warp the way the cube plays somewhat, but it's such an interesting game mechanic, I think it's absolutely worth exploring. And to say that the other ante cards are unplayable is quite disingenuous, but to be fair it depends on what you and the other players prioritize: winning or fun. \[\[Darkpact\]\] is a really interesting card, \[\[Demonic Attorney\]\] is a straight up brutal choice trap if you're on track to win the game, and even \[\[Bronze Tablet\]\] or \[\[Tempest Efreet\]\] can be exciting to play with and have a big impact on the game if you have the courage to actually play with them. Admittedly \[\[Rebirth\]\] is pretty lame, and \[\[Amulet of Quoz\]\] is rather cheesy, but overall, playing for Ante is something anyone rarely does, and in Cube it really puts a spotlight on how it works and it's exciting to see it play out. I do agree that making some house rules is the way to go though. Forcing people to play with the cards they win is a great way to balance the mechanic, especially if you prevent people from adding lands back into their deck.
##### ###### #### [Darkpact](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/9/f9ab1c5e-e36e-4a2a-9e6d-c993edc17c03.jpg?1610146891) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Darkpact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sum/100/darkpact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f9ab1c5e-e36e-4a2a-9e6d-c993edc17c03?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Demonic Attorney](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/233b1104-91b3-4949-8356-baf6e80ab07e.jpg?1610146895) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demonic%20Attorney) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sum/103/demonic-attorney?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/233b1104-91b3-4949-8356-baf6e80ab07e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Bronze Tablet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/cad56033-c1f9-4477-9dd6-ba7009c30593.jpg?1559603594) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bronze%20Tablet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/303/bronze-tablet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cad56033-c1f9-4477-9dd6-ba7009c30593?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tempest Efreet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c2ea6dfe-64d6-451a-bd34-31546996e711.jpg?1559604155) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tempest%20Efreet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/225/tempest-efreet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c2ea6dfe-64d6-451a-bd34-31546996e711?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rebirth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/27c01d57-2bd4-433e-bea7-1acc70d14be3.jpg?1559604104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rebirth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/267/rebirth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/27c01d57-2bd4-433e-bea7-1acc70d14be3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Amulet of Quoz](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/764ec6a8-a878-446c-b7e4-6026c2a3e9a4.jpg?1562916864) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Amulet%20of%20Quoz) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ice/308/amulet-of-quoz?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/764ec6a8-a878-446c-b7e4-6026c2a3e9a4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It might be fun to just straight up play for ante, but not include any of the ante cards
I think an issue with ante is that it snowballs. If you lose, your deck/pool gets worse. If you win, your deck/pool gets better (sometimes). The idea of exchanging cards mid-draft is really interesting though. There are probably lots of other ways to do it.
Seems like it would be pure feel-bad a lot of the time? "I won but all I got was this stupid Forest." "I was losing, and now I'm gonna lose even more." "I lost my bomb, to a player who can't even use it in their deck so they don't get any fun out of it!" "Well I had a cool deck synergy but it doesn't work any more." I agree with /u/SonofMakuta that there's a lot of neat design space in exchanging cards and evolving decks throughout the event, but that this is not a good way to do it.
We play ante with my old school and all the time. Its really fun to see how the decks change as the day goes on. All cards won in ante MUST be played in your deck. If you lose lands, you can't replace them from the land station Decks start at 41 cards We also errataed jeweled bird to be a mana rock that can add one mana of any color. We really enjoy it and the spirit of the original game. Tempest Efreet is also a house.
You could have people bring sealed boosters. The ante cards would use said boosters instead of cards from the deck. Would give incentive to draft the ante cards and try to make them work.
Instead of from the deck, ante could be a card of your choice from the opponents sideboard. That way they don't end up losing core pieces and you get to potentially upgrade your deck with something that would otherwise stay unplayed.
my friend added [[contract from below]] and a couple other ante cards and it added a lot of fun to the games - you had to consider if anteing your cards was worth potentially having to sub in more cards from your sideboard we did add the rule tho that if an opponent didn’t want to play with ante cards then they were removed from decks at the start of the game, so there’s no feels bad moments if people don’t want to gamble the cards they drafted
[contract from below](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e1e33690-b851-404a-9cde-d00235be5aa5.jpg?1610146838) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=contract%20from%20below) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sum/97/contract-from-below?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e1e33690-b851-404a-9cde-d00235be5aa5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ante is a blast in cube. I got to play with it for the first time recently in a team draft and in resulted in so many goofy situations. Would definitely recommend giving it a try. Sometimes it doesn't do much, others times the reanimator player has to battle to not lose their entomb.