Hi everybody. I've got some sad news, my cube was robbed. I think it was at grand prix dc or some short time before, the foil maelstrom pulse and tarmogoyf were taken from my cube. I suspect one of my drafters took it, but I don't know which one.
I've got temporary replacements for the missing cards, so drafts can continue, but in the mean time I'm out $100. Goyf is $70 and pulse is $30 on starcitygames. Since I don't know who took them, I've asked my drafters to all pitch in so we can purchase proper replacements. We have raised $50. Not everyone had extra money with them yesterday, so maybe by the end of the week we will have the rest.
Have any of you had this problem? How do you keep your cube secure? Would you handle this situation any differently? What should I do if I can't get the other $50 from my drafters or is that just the cost of ownership?
I'm sorry to hear that, man. It sucks when you try to share something awesome like your cube and people take advantage of you for it. I would say it comes with owning a cube. I don't take my cube anywhere but a few secure locations and only cube with people I know and trust and my cube doesn't even have that many money cards in it. Start doing full background checks on anyone who wants to touch your cube.
its the cost of ownership, its not fair for people who did not steal to be paying for the cards.
or the cost of playing a cube.
re: topic
not much you can really do without being a complete nazi. and obviously if you were then you wouldn't really be playing the game. i only use my cube with friends so i don't have this problem.
off the top of my head i'd say the best way would be to have a proper count after the game is done of folks' decks. assuming the cube is put away etc so you should be able to tell pretty quick if a card is missing.
but i sure as hell wouldn't be letting some random touch my cube let alone play it at some event. can't be trusting random jerks off the street.
I think this happened when we drafted at our hotel room at grand prix dc. The guys that went with me were all people that I've drafted with before, so I thought I could trust them. Heck, I was sharing a room with half of them. It's really troubling because I thought I could trust these guys.
After cubing quiet a few times, I tend to notice that some people don't give ☺☺☺☺ about stuff that ain't theirs. I oftenly see people dropping cards on the ground or rough shuffling. So far they only bend in ☺☺☺☺ing half my foil Tarmogoyf and another cheap foil got a corner bend a little.
You should have checked under the beds because sometimes it just happens that cards fall and go under something. Especialy since both share a color you could easily know who played Gx.
After cubing quiet a few times, I tend to notice that some people don't give ☺☺☺☺ about stuff that ain't theirs. I oftenly see people dropping cards on the ground or rough shuffling. So far they only bend in ☺☺☺☺ing half my foil Tarmogoyf and another cheap foil got a corner bend a little.
You should have checked under the beds because sometimes it just happens that cards fall and go under something. Especialy since both share a color you could easily know who played Gx.
It's a little weird that one of the cards that would "go missing" was a goyf, though.
Is anything of less value missing?
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
One of the reasons I decided from the get-go that anything that was worth $20 or more is getting a basic land + paper slip proxy (I used to have it down to Scroll Rack prices, but at a certain point it starts getting ridiculous). Right now that includes FoW, Survival, Wasteland and Elspeth (and was Gideon). If someone steals a $5 card, it's not as big of a loss for me, and probably a lot less enticing for the culprit.
If I start pimping things out in the cube like you did, I'm sure I would become even more controlling over who gets to touch it.
Sorry about your loss, in any case. Bites hard.
EDIT: I wonder if a kind of one time buy-in/deposit system would work well for cube groups? For the cost of providing the cards, it's a kind of insurance policy against minor theft, and you could offer to do other special things like keep track of players records in the cube, or give out prizes (minor things, like what you might get for FNM promos), etc.
I don't know if its possible to keep an eye on every card during the course of a draft, but with everyones help, we can all watch each other. I believe this is how we can safeguard the cube and when we fail, we fail together. The cost of failure can be shared by all. I'm not forcing anyone to pay any amount, donations are accepted in all amounts.
That said, I think I've learned something through this and I'll be damned if I let this happen again.
the lesson you should learn from this is to use more proxies. if you cube with anyone who cubed with you that time again, you can't afford to trust them, unfortunately.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
My condolences. I'm making my first cube over this summer and taking it to college with me. This is definitely a cautionary tale to be careful with my cards.
Nothing else was missing. Seems pretty obvious that it was theft. The goyf was about the most expensive card in the cube. Moxes, etc are proxies.
I was cube drafting with my buddies AT MY HOUSE one day before grand prix Oakland, I've drafted with another cube with all of them before and nothing had ever happened, but during the trip to a tournament I decided to check the pimpness of my cube, and my foil elspeth and baneslayer were gone. I wasn't even that mad, I was just dissapointed that someone actually stole them, it just wasn't right. They were all my friends, we figured out who did it but he long since got rid of the cards so I had no proof to accuse him.
When I cube now my most trusted friends and I try and watch the people who could possibly take stuff, so nothing has been taken since, as another precaution I take all the extras and put them in a seperate pile than the rest of the cube, and add all the decks to that pile when they are done, if it doesn't add up to 45 * number of players, I make sure nobody gets away with my cards, but nowadays the people I play with are all respectful and really nice, they appreciate that I'm trusting them with all that money and won't steal, but I still have my eye peeled just in case.
Sorry about your loss though man, a goyf and foil maelstrom is rough. I wouldn't make your other cubers pay for that stuff though, only if they want to, at the end of the day they didn't do anything wrong.
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If it's all people you know this should be a simple solution. Call someone, ask them if they saw an opponent drop either card, or who was playing Gxx. Call them up, ask them what happened to your cards.
I have a consistent group of 6 with 3 on and off members. Our cube is made up of everyone's collections, for almost as long as I've known these guys we've freely shared fows, duals, and power 9. I take it for granted not everyone has a trustworthy group to play with. I am sorry to hear about your loss (may sound dramatic, but for real foil tarmo is money).
That said, about a year ago my friends and I made an exact copy of our cube in paper proxy form. We even used crappy no name sleeves. It's entire value would probably be about 30-40 bucks in ink/paper/land/sleeves. Once you do it, it's not that hard to maintain and you don't have to worry about cubing with shady people. I would consider this option if you are worried it will happen again.
This reflects on the fear I have of playing certain cards I own in the cube. Its a fun format, and I don't want to always be worrying about my expensive cards. That was the whole idea behind the "make a proxy thread." However, I am very sorry that this happened to you and I hope you can make amends somehow..
Maybe look into an all proxy cube in the future, to cut losses.
I'm not for proxies, but I'll only buy one fully-powered/altered/pimped cube in my lifetime. If I lost it due to theft/fire, I'd rebuild with proxies for the 2nd round.
Speaking for myself, I cube at ptqs, with new people at the shop, etc, and have never had any theft problems. And this is with a FoW, some original duals, an (admittedly beat to hell) beta berserk, entomb, and a bunch of other equal or lesser goodies.
Obviously I take precautions, I count my cube every now and then, generally play with at least people who other people I know know, etc. And I'm not saying don't be careful with your cube or anything dumb like that. But I prefer to err on the side of sharing the fun of cube with more people (and getting to draft with bigger groups) over being overprotective of it.
its the cost of ownership, its not fair for people who did not steal to be paying for the cards.
While it might not be the responsibility of the other players to pitch in, I don't think it's wrong to ask them to help.
The person who builds the cube incurs quite a bit of exspense. That's even true if you do paper print outs of every card. You have to sleeve the thing, buy new cards/print out new proxies. Balance it, etc. Quite a bit of time and money goes into this hobby. And that is ok. We signed up for it when we put together our cubes.
But you have to remember that other people play with your cube for essentially nothing. I don't think it's wrong to ask your friends to pitch in a few bucks to replace a tarmogoyf.
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I always remind cube players they're responsible for turning in exactly 45 cards at the end of the draft. It might be a bit oppressive, but usually the simple warning is enough to remind people to watch your cards.
I'm not sure how much of a fail safe that is. I turn in 45 cards, sans one Dual Land plus one M10 Lightning Bolt. Or better yet, a card taht is not in the cube but is close to being good enough to be in the cube. It might be weeks down the road when I notice that I now have a missing card.
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I've got temporary replacements for the missing cards, so drafts can continue, but in the mean time I'm out $100. Goyf is $70 and pulse is $30 on starcitygames. Since I don't know who took them, I've asked my drafters to all pitch in so we can purchase proper replacements. We have raised $50. Not everyone had extra money with them yesterday, so maybe by the end of the week we will have the rest.
Have any of you had this problem? How do you keep your cube secure? Would you handle this situation any differently? What should I do if I can't get the other $50 from my drafters or is that just the cost of ownership?
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or the cost of playing a cube.
re: topic
not much you can really do without being a complete nazi. and obviously if you were then you wouldn't really be playing the game. i only use my cube with friends so i don't have this problem.
off the top of my head i'd say the best way would be to have a proper count after the game is done of folks' decks. assuming the cube is put away etc so you should be able to tell pretty quick if a card is missing.
but i sure as hell wouldn't be letting some random touch my cube let alone play it at some event. can't be trusting random jerks off the street.
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You should have checked under the beds because sometimes it just happens that cards fall and go under something. Especialy since both share a color you could easily know who played Gx.
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It's a little weird that one of the cards that would "go missing" was a goyf, though.
Is anything of less value missing?
If I start pimping things out in the cube like you did, I'm sure I would become even more controlling over who gets to touch it.
Sorry about your loss, in any case. Bites hard.
EDIT: I wonder if a kind of one time buy-in/deposit system would work well for cube groups? For the cost of providing the cards, it's a kind of insurance policy against minor theft, and you could offer to do other special things like keep track of players records in the cube, or give out prizes (minor things, like what you might get for FNM promos), etc.
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That said, I think I've learned something through this and I'll be damned if I let this happen again.
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I was cube drafting with my buddies AT MY HOUSE one day before grand prix Oakland, I've drafted with another cube with all of them before and nothing had ever happened, but during the trip to a tournament I decided to check the pimpness of my cube, and my foil elspeth and baneslayer were gone. I wasn't even that mad, I was just dissapointed that someone actually stole them, it just wasn't right. They were all my friends, we figured out who did it but he long since got rid of the cards so I had no proof to accuse him.
When I cube now my most trusted friends and I try and watch the people who could possibly take stuff, so nothing has been taken since, as another precaution I take all the extras and put them in a seperate pile than the rest of the cube, and add all the decks to that pile when they are done, if it doesn't add up to 45 * number of players, I make sure nobody gets away with my cards, but nowadays the people I play with are all respectful and really nice, they appreciate that I'm trusting them with all that money and won't steal, but I still have my eye peeled just in case.
Sorry about your loss though man, a goyf and foil maelstrom is rough. I wouldn't make your other cubers pay for that stuff though, only if they want to, at the end of the day they didn't do anything wrong.
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Then your options are 2.
1. Perma-Ban
2. Beat face
I don't know, but that's how I feel it should go.
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That said, about a year ago my friends and I made an exact copy of our cube in paper proxy form. We even used crappy no name sleeves. It's entire value would probably be about 30-40 bucks in ink/paper/land/sleeves. Once you do it, it's not that hard to maintain and you don't have to worry about cubing with shady people. I would consider this option if you are worried it will happen again.
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Maybe look into an all proxy cube in the future, to cut losses.
I'm not for proxies, but I'll only buy one fully-powered/altered/pimped cube in my lifetime. If I lost it due to theft/fire, I'd rebuild with proxies for the 2nd round.
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Obviously I take precautions, I count my cube every now and then, generally play with at least people who other people I know know, etc. And I'm not saying don't be careful with your cube or anything dumb like that. But I prefer to err on the side of sharing the fun of cube with more people (and getting to draft with bigger groups) over being overprotective of it.
Just my $.02
While it might not be the responsibility of the other players to pitch in, I don't think it's wrong to ask them to help.
The person who builds the cube incurs quite a bit of exspense. That's even true if you do paper print outs of every card. You have to sleeve the thing, buy new cards/print out new proxies. Balance it, etc. Quite a bit of time and money goes into this hobby. And that is ok. We signed up for it when we put together our cubes.
But you have to remember that other people play with your cube for essentially nothing. I don't think it's wrong to ask your friends to pitch in a few bucks to replace a tarmogoyf.
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