I've never made a cube, though I've had a concept for one for some time now. The ability of a metagame to shift and warp the perspectives on respective cards has always intrigued me - that Watchwolf was once incredible, and now barely good. It seems that the strength of a card is really completely dependent on its strength, relative to the strength of the metagame. This made me think of an idea.
What if you formed a cube entirely from the worst cards each color had to offer? Since these are the worst cards, they're most likely quite cheap to attain. Yet amusingly, since the entire metagame has such a low powerlevel, cards at which most would never take a second glance would suddenly become powerful.
Imagine a format where Chimney Imp, Storm Crow, and Squire have become first pick cards. Doesn't that actually sound like a strangely fun environment?
I'm curious what your thoughts are and whether it might actually work.
It's definitely been done before. Often called a Sphere. I have not drafted one before, but I'd imagine that it's fun once or twice, and that's about it. Once the novelty wears off, you'd just be playing magic with crappy cards and never doing anything fun or interesting.
Ha, you know, I had actually considered calling it a Sphere. Since a sphere would make a bad cube. I had looked around the threads to see if any such thing existed, but it doesn't seem to be in the stickied threads.
I'll Google it.
If I recall correctly, there is at least one list on these forums somewhere.
Basically, you want your cards to do something, but very, very poorly. You don't want the Darksteel Relics and Sorrow's Paths of this world, but the Chimney Imps.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
For a little while when I was working at a LGS, I had a weekly "crap draft" going.
Once a week, we'd get ~8 people to show up with 45 rare cards they did not want. We would shuffle up the ~360 cards and deal them out in 15 card packs.
At the end of the draft, the winner could elect to outright ban any one card that was in the draft from the format. In addition to that, all the cards they played would get marked with a gold star (in sharpie, on the face of the card). If at any point in time a card got its third gold star, the person who piloted it to its third star was forced to remove it from the pile of crap. It was now their trophy and any card with three gold stars was officially illegal in future crap draft.
The idea was that the 'cube' would quickly grow past 720 cards. At that point, it's probably fine for it to serve as a sort of trading post, where people can 'pack in' with 45 new cards and keep the 45 cards they draft. That in and of itself can draw a certain kind of collector/player.
This was a fun, unpredictable, and interesting diversion. Seeing people include cards that weren't particularly bad in their 45 gave the games some spice. Phyrexian Rebirth and Precursor Golem are not bad cards, but they are cards people will probably include in "45 rares I'll never miss."
My suggestion would be to tell people to bring 45 cards (of any rarity) they'll never miss and just go to town. If someone asks, "So can't I just bring 45 Pack Rats and win?" remind them that everyone's cards are shuffled up and drafted from.
If I personally was told that a cube was built around this philosophy I would not sit down for a draft with that cube. There is nothing wrong with building a cube with a given power level in mind e.g. draft power level or more of standard power level. I think the games with the intent of using extremely low quality cards would be pretty slow, grindy, and miserable with many of the cards being generally useless. In a custom cube I have build, I set perimeters beforehand to determine the power level e.g. removal must cost at least three mana, 3/3s cost three mana or two different colors, etc. Happy building.
I have experience with this type of cube. As others said, it was kind of fun once or twice, but certain cards dominate and you quickly want to be going back to playing with good cards. Part of the reason I like cube is that while I'll never be able to afford to bring a modern or legacy deck to a tournament, I can still play with the same calibre cards and have a completely new experience each time doing so. With this, it's like all the sucky parts of regular limited, almost like going/forcing Dimir in triple GTC each time.
To each one's own though; if you and your playgroup like it, then like it and don't worry about what others say.
A couple days ago I played my first cube (or draft actually). The idea was super simple, we shuffled 4 of each basic land and 4 random colorless cards (24 in total) and gave 3 cards to each player. The next day everyone would show up with 15 cards (with 1 rare and no more than 1 copy of each) of each of the colors he received.
We then shuffled everything and drafted. The draft was super fun, maybe it was because most of us were new to drafting, but we all had a good time.
Surprisingly we had a bunch of archtypes floating around, a guy who got GBR made his whole stack graveyard based, I've got RUW and made a stack with a bunch of heroic, prowess and combat tricks and another guy made a GRx werewolves one.
All I'm all, it was a lot of fun (my archetype won the draft, but it wasn't piloted by me haha)
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I've never made a cube, though I've had a concept for one for some time now. The ability of a metagame to shift and warp the perspectives on respective cards has always intrigued me - that Watchwolf was once incredible, and now barely good. It seems that the strength of a card is really completely dependent on its strength, relative to the strength of the metagame. This made me think of an idea.
What if you formed a cube entirely from the worst cards each color had to offer? Since these are the worst cards, they're most likely quite cheap to attain. Yet amusingly, since the entire metagame has such a low powerlevel, cards at which most would never take a second glance would suddenly become powerful.
Imagine a format where Chimney Imp, Storm Crow, and Squire have become first pick cards. Doesn't that actually sound like a strangely fun environment?
I'm curious what your thoughts are and whether it might actually work.
I'll Google it.
Basically, you want your cards to do something, but very, very poorly. You don't want the Darksteel Relics and Sorrow's Paths of this world, but the Chimney Imps.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Once a week, we'd get ~8 people to show up with 45 rare cards they did not want. We would shuffle up the ~360 cards and deal them out in 15 card packs.
At the end of the draft, the winner could elect to outright ban any one card that was in the draft from the format. In addition to that, all the cards they played would get marked with a gold star (in sharpie, on the face of the card). If at any point in time a card got its third gold star, the person who piloted it to its third star was forced to remove it from the pile of crap. It was now their trophy and any card with three gold stars was officially illegal in future crap draft.
The idea was that the 'cube' would quickly grow past 720 cards. At that point, it's probably fine for it to serve as a sort of trading post, where people can 'pack in' with 45 new cards and keep the 45 cards they draft. That in and of itself can draw a certain kind of collector/player.
This was a fun, unpredictable, and interesting diversion. Seeing people include cards that weren't particularly bad in their 45 gave the games some spice. Phyrexian Rebirth and Precursor Golem are not bad cards, but they are cards people will probably include in "45 rares I'll never miss."
My suggestion would be to tell people to bring 45 cards (of any rarity) they'll never miss and just go to town. If someone asks, "So can't I just bring 45 Pack Rats and win?" remind them that everyone's cards are shuffled up and drafted from.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/24497
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/24497
My Eternal Cube on CubeTutor| |My Reject Rare Cube on CubeTutor| |My Peasant Cube on CubeTutor
I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
To each one's own though; if you and your playgroup like it, then like it and don't worry about what others say.
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We then shuffled everything and drafted. The draft was super fun, maybe it was because most of us were new to drafting, but we all had a good time.
Surprisingly we had a bunch of archtypes floating around, a guy who got GBR made his whole stack graveyard based, I've got RUW and made a stack with a bunch of heroic, prowess and combat tricks and another guy made a GRx werewolves one.
All I'm all, it was a lot of fun (my archetype won the draft, but it wasn't piloted by me haha)