I noticed a lot of my opinions of what cards go into my cube come down to personal rules I set. I noticed that these rules had many implications and I thought I would share them. DISCLAIMER: I am in no way, shape, or form telling people that they should do the same as me.
Definition: Strongly Superior
A card is strongly superior when given the choice between two cards, that perform the same function, you will pick one over the other in almost all situations.
1) No card in the cube can be strongly superior to any other card in the cube even across colors. Examples: The inclusion of Lightning Bolt in my cube means that I do not include Lightning Strike. I do not include Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, or Snuff out in my cube because any other removal seems second rate in comparison.
Reason: To make drafting decisions harder. To keep the colors more balanced.
Effect: The overall power level of the cube is lowered.
2) No effective duplicates of any (non-land) card in the cube including color shifts. Examples: The inclusion of Dragon Fodder means I cannot include Krenko's Command. The inclusion of Force Spike means I cannot include Mana Tithe.
Reason: Wanted the cube to be truly singleton.
Effect: Less redundancy. Harder to draft specific decks.
Side Information: My cube is primarily used for 2-person Winchester draft. I have a 360 card cube. I wanted to ensure that whenever we draft 3 packs each, we are each able to make a decent generally 2-color deck.
3) All cards be useful in most decks of those colors. No card requires a specific deck/specific cards to be playable. Examples: No inclusion of tinker. No "Lords" unless they come into play with their own army like Captain of the Watch.
Reason: More dead cards leads to less interesting decking building decisions and a larger chance of needing to go three color. Also with only 1/4 the cube in use at a time there is no guarantee of getting the support cards needed.
Effects: Any "combos" in cube are incidental. There are no real themes (example: tribal). There are no multicolor cards that are not hybrid (A specific two color multicolor card would only be useful one fifth of the time. Given two players are each in two colors, two of the ten guilds are covered hence a 1/5th chance of a card being useful and that is if it is in the procession of the correct player). No build around me cards.
Largest Effect: Without build-around-me cards/themes, cube became creature centric.
4) Proportion of creatures in each color and colorless is fixed (at 34/52).
Reason: I did not want to have a go to color when wanting a creature heavy or spell heavy deck. Specific proportion chosen based on my collection where certain colors would end up running creatures for which other creatures in the cube were strongly superior. Similar situation if the proportion went lower.
Effect: A given draft deck almost always has more then 1/2 creatures. This means that all the non-creature spells that interact with creatures stay live most of the time (equipment, auras, removal, combat tricks, etc.). Also this means that there are often creatures on defense so interaction that way is preserved as well.
5) Colors and Colorless balanced across (effective) mana costs. Average CMC (non-land/non-hybrid) is 3.
10 CMC 1
14 CMC 2
10 CMC 3
8 CMC 4
6 CMC 5
4 CMC 6+
Reason: I did not want to have a go to color early game spells and another for late game. Each color tends to have sweet and weak spots in terms of CMCs I wanted each color to receive equal treatment.
Effect: When drafting each color has something to do at each stage in the game. Also any given deck should have something it can do each turn.
6) Semi-Random 15 card packs are used for drafting. This is the largest cause of specific numbers involved in 4) and 5).
1 Non-basic Land (producing colored mana)
1 Hybrid/Colorless Non-basic (2 of each guild and 4 colorless lands)
1 Card CMC 6+ (4 of each color and colorless)
For each color and colorless
1 Card CMC 1-2
1 Card CMC 3-5
Reason: To ensure each color is equally represented in terms of CMC of cards and number of cards in each draft session (containing 90 cards). To try making each color as "even" as possible each draft session without needing to draft the whole cube.
Effect: In a completely random cube, if one takes out a 90 card subset, there will be colors with more cards and colors with less cards. There will be colors with an even spread across CMCs and colors lacking certain areas of their curve. This means when choosing what color to cut in 2-person draft is more a matter of luck. That luck factor has been reduced.
Are there any personal rules you abide by when building your cube? What are your reasons for them?
I also try to avoid running Strictly Betters and Strictly the Sames. I like my cube to feel like a self-contained board game, and it seems unlikely that a cube designed from the bottom up would include these. Where redundancy is important, Magic has done an admirable job of making cards that are not better/worse, but just different. Elvish Mystic vs. Arbor Elf vs. Joraga Tree-Speaker is a great example.
I don't quite take this to the extreme that you do though. I'll allow one color to have more efficient cards than another. I have no problem running Diregraf Ghoul and Isamaru, Hound of Konda. But it does mean I won't run Elite Vanguard. Otherwise your colors just all feel the same. The whole draw of the color pie is strengths and weaknesses of each color. Why bother with colors at all if there is complete balance in curve and abilities?
These have caused some controversy a few times; nothing major but nevertheless. Here are mine:
1. No single-colored spells with CMC 2 or higher containing only colored mana: This is a very inelegant way of putting it but basically it means that while I of course endorse (colored) 1-drops, I do not include cards like Hymn to Tourach, Knight of Meadowgrain, Strangleroot Geist, Vedalken Mastermind or Searing Blaze. This extends to hybrid cards since they should be equally playable as mono-colored cards of those colors. Basically, I want to endorse more varied mana bases and the easier inclusion of colorless lands.
2. Play all functionally equivalent copies or none: The exact opposite of the exclusion of functional copies in the OP. I think that if a card is good enough to warrant inclusion, its copies should be good enough as well. This increases redundancy but still sufficiently retains the singleton principle, in my opinion.
3. U2 rarity is uncommon: I know I am not the only one with this principle in effect among Peasant cubers but it is somewhat controversial, nevertheless, when Gatherer classifies U2 cards as rares.
4. Only use printed versions of cards with the appropriate rarity: If a card has been printed as both a rare and an uncommon, I only use a physical copy of the uncommon version.
To me, playing with functional reprints is abusing a loophole in singleton, so I won't run Searing Spear and Lightning Strike together or something like that. I want every card to be distinct. I also won't play a card if something strictly better already exists in the cube. So Lightning Bolt and Incinerate knock out Searing Spear/Lightning Strike, but they are different enough from each other that they can coexist.
I avoid strictly better cards, so I don't run lightning bolt, and I try to keep the power level difference relatively small. I like avoiding carbon copies for the most part but my 720 cube still has both wildfires and I think I still have llanowar elves and elvish mystic, but that kind of redundancy is hard to avoid at that size. I do run interesting ramp cards like Edge of Autumn and Fertile Ground. In general I try to go for the more interesting/"techy" card. I also try to restrict my cube to the modern color pie, so instead of Armageddon and Catastrophe, I run Ruination and Boom // Bust. I also have a tendency towards pretty cards with good art and flavor so I end up with few old frame cards and use proxy full art revised duals and Im probably never cutting Kithkin Goatrider or Ninja Clone because the flavor is too perfect.
Kinda vague, but I don't play anything that my group doesn't find "fun to lose to". Hymn to Tourach or ramped Mind Twist on T2 isn't exciting, it just ruins a game. True-Name Nemesis just doesn't have enough reasonable answers for most decks to deal with them. So they simply have to race or lose. Strip Mine + Crucible of Worlds just says that you lose, but slowly over the next few turns.
Explosive plays still happen, but they're never with just one card, they're generally not easy to pull off, and they're never unbeatable.
Private Mod Note
():
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The GameCube, a 500 cube with a medium power level and a focus on fun and fringe playables rather than immediately shutting your opponent down with the best cards ever printed.
Modem Masters, a 500 cube that tries to capture the essence of a Modern Masters set draft. 3 of each common, 2 of each uncommon, 1 of each rare, few mythics. Includes minor changes for balance reasons to give certain archetypes the tools they need to succeed.
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Definition: Strongly Superior
A card is strongly superior when given the choice between two cards, that perform the same function, you will pick one over the other in almost all situations.
1) No card in the cube can be strongly superior to any other card in the cube even across colors. Examples: The inclusion of Lightning Bolt in my cube means that I do not include Lightning Strike. I do not include Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, or Snuff out in my cube because any other removal seems second rate in comparison.
Reason: To make drafting decisions harder. To keep the colors more balanced.
Effect: The overall power level of the cube is lowered.
2) No effective duplicates of any (non-land) card in the cube including color shifts. Examples: The inclusion of Dragon Fodder means I cannot include Krenko's Command. The inclusion of Force Spike means I cannot include Mana Tithe.
Reason: Wanted the cube to be truly singleton.
Effect: Less redundancy. Harder to draft specific decks.
Side Information: My cube is primarily used for 2-person Winchester draft. I have a 360 card cube. I wanted to ensure that whenever we draft 3 packs each, we are each able to make a decent generally 2-color deck.
3) All cards be useful in most decks of those colors. No card requires a specific deck/specific cards to be playable. Examples: No inclusion of tinker. No "Lords" unless they come into play with their own army like Captain of the Watch.
Reason: More dead cards leads to less interesting decking building decisions and a larger chance of needing to go three color. Also with only 1/4 the cube in use at a time there is no guarantee of getting the support cards needed.
Effects: Any "combos" in cube are incidental. There are no real themes (example: tribal). There are no multicolor cards that are not hybrid (A specific two color multicolor card would only be useful one fifth of the time. Given two players are each in two colors, two of the ten guilds are covered hence a 1/5th chance of a card being useful and that is if it is in the procession of the correct player). No build around me cards.
Largest Effect: Without build-around-me cards/themes, cube became creature centric.
4) Proportion of creatures in each color and colorless is fixed (at 34/52).
Reason: I did not want to have a go to color when wanting a creature heavy or spell heavy deck. Specific proportion chosen based on my collection where certain colors would end up running creatures for which other creatures in the cube were strongly superior. Similar situation if the proportion went lower.
Effect: A given draft deck almost always has more then 1/2 creatures. This means that all the non-creature spells that interact with creatures stay live most of the time (equipment, auras, removal, combat tricks, etc.). Also this means that there are often creatures on defense so interaction that way is preserved as well.
5) Colors and Colorless balanced across (effective) mana costs. Average CMC (non-land/non-hybrid) is 3.
10 CMC 1
14 CMC 2
10 CMC 3
8 CMC 4
6 CMC 5
4 CMC 6+
Reason: I did not want to have a go to color early game spells and another for late game. Each color tends to have sweet and weak spots in terms of CMCs I wanted each color to receive equal treatment.
Effect: When drafting each color has something to do at each stage in the game. Also any given deck should have something it can do each turn.
6) Semi-Random 15 card packs are used for drafting. This is the largest cause of specific numbers involved in 4) and 5).
1 Non-basic Land (producing colored mana)
1 Hybrid/Colorless Non-basic (2 of each guild and 4 colorless lands)
1 Card CMC 6+ (4 of each color and colorless)
For each color and colorless
1 Card CMC 1-2
1 Card CMC 3-5
Reason: To ensure each color is equally represented in terms of CMC of cards and number of cards in each draft session (containing 90 cards). To try making each color as "even" as possible each draft session without needing to draft the whole cube.
Effect: In a completely random cube, if one takes out a 90 card subset, there will be colors with more cards and colors with less cards. There will be colors with an even spread across CMCs and colors lacking certain areas of their curve. This means when choosing what color to cut in 2-person draft is more a matter of luck. That luck factor has been reduced.
Are there any personal rules you abide by when building your cube? What are your reasons for them?
I don't quite take this to the extreme that you do though. I'll allow one color to have more efficient cards than another. I have no problem running Diregraf Ghoul and Isamaru, Hound of Konda. But it does mean I won't run Elite Vanguard. Otherwise your colors just all feel the same. The whole draw of the color pie is strengths and weaknesses of each color. Why bother with colors at all if there is complete balance in curve and abilities?
1. No single-colored spells with CMC 2 or higher containing only colored mana: This is a very inelegant way of putting it but basically it means that while I of course endorse (colored) 1-drops, I do not include cards like Hymn to Tourach, Knight of Meadowgrain, Strangleroot Geist, Vedalken Mastermind or Searing Blaze. This extends to hybrid cards since they should be equally playable as mono-colored cards of those colors. Basically, I want to endorse more varied mana bases and the easier inclusion of colorless lands.
2. Play all functionally equivalent copies or none: The exact opposite of the exclusion of functional copies in the OP. I think that if a card is good enough to warrant inclusion, its copies should be good enough as well. This increases redundancy but still sufficiently retains the singleton principle, in my opinion.
3. U2 rarity is uncommon: I know I am not the only one with this principle in effect among Peasant cubers but it is somewhat controversial, nevertheless, when Gatherer classifies U2 cards as rares.
4. Only use printed versions of cards with the appropriate rarity: If a card has been printed as both a rare and an uncommon, I only use a physical copy of the uncommon version.
Power Nine
Sol ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Grim Monolith
Mana Drain
Mind Twist
Library of Alexandria
Everything else is fair game.
(In other words, an "unpowered" cube)
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
Explosive plays still happen, but they're never with just one card, they're generally not easy to pull off, and they're never unbeatable.
Modem Masters, a 500 cube that tries to capture the essence of a Modern Masters set draft. 3 of each common, 2 of each uncommon, 1 of each rare, few mythics. Includes minor changes for balance reasons to give certain archetypes the tools they need to succeed.