Hi everyone new to magic and would like to make a cube. GF like draft but not into other magic formats yet, so think this is something I can play with her so dont want to big of a cube since its going to be 2 player games. Anyone good cube ideas that include blocks since innistad thats where I started playing magic and have cards to use. Would like cube from innistad forward to present between 270 and 360 cards any ideas ???
The best way to start (IMO) is to just put together the cards you like into a rough cube. This will give you a rough basis to work from, it's much easier to refine a cube than plan one from scratch.
Rough guidelines would be:
-Balance colours; for example 50 of each colour.
-Decide creature/non-creature balance; you will probably want to go for a 50/50 split at first then adjust them as you see fit, I tend to run more creatures than spells in most colours.
-Lands; don't skimp on mana fixing lands, 3 cycles in each pair plus some 5 colour and utility lands.
-Basic lands; Make sure you have about 20 of each basic land.
-Artifacts; Mana fixing, creatures and general utility. Maybe 30 all together, but its up to you
-Sleeves; They make shuffling easier, and you will be doing a lot of shuffling Buy more than you think you need, like 3 or 4 extra packs, this way you can expand your cube or replace busted sleeves at a moments notice.
-Dice, glass beads, pens & paper and tokens; You will save yourself a lot of trouble if you always keep these things with your cube as you will need them every time you draft. PRO-TIP: A roach book makes for a great way to record conspiricies or other cards with memory issues, they are the perfect size and save you tearing up larger pages.
A lot more in-depth guides can be found in the Articles section of the Cube Forum, but if you follow those rules you will end up with something that will work for drafting and let you get a feel for Cube.
Once you play a game or two with this basic cube you will start to develop an idea of what you like and what changes you want to make. Just building with what you have really helps to narrow down card choices but if you do plan to make a few purchases $30 will go a longway, I would recommend Spike Rouge's Cube cards that cost less than $2 USD Thread. You would be surprised how many cube staples you can pick up for under $2, as he says in thethread "These cards aren't just cheap, they've beaten out some tough competition to earn slots in many of the tightest cube lists in the cube community, so I'm happy to recommend them as good value that should be efficient, powerful, and/or versatile enough to be worth a slot in your cube for years to come."
I think most of us here started our cube with a pile of cards that we owned and then worked from there. TheGroglord provides some good starting advice. If you have some time, I'd suggest this article from our forum's own Salmo: http://turnonemagic.com/abasicguidetocube/. It's packed full of useful info for cube beginners.
Also if you're predominantly planning to draft with only two players, I'd recommend a Glimpse draft rather than the more common Winston draft format. You can find a guide to that here: http://turnonemagic.com/glimpse-drafting-best-way-draft-cube-2-4-players-title-shorter/. Again, by our good friend Salmo here on these boards. Helpful dude, that one.
The most important rule to remember in cube, imo, is to have fun and do what you like to do. There is no wrong way to build it as long as you and your playgroup are having fun drafting/playing it.
The main reason I wrote these is based on the massively-helpless feeling I had trying to learn cube (and how to play magic almost strictly through cube) and while I'm not going to say I'm an expert magic player or anything or even that everything I say is objectively true/right (which it certainly is not), there's a lot in there I wish I knew before I started that I strongly feel can help those brand new to cube get a start. As much as I learned through these forums, I learned these things semi-passively by reading the posts here over the past 7+ years instead of sitting down and deciding I want to learn this-that-and-those concepts specifically, and I hope that the guide is a good way of helping that. Other guides have focused more on card specifics and haven't aged too well even in that short amount of time, as it's hard to suggest cards when only so many are truly 'staples'. There's still more work to be done to it, as I am working on a 2nd edition that will be more accessible/cover more, but right now I think that if you're brand new to cube that it can be quite helpful to give you an idea of what the format is about.
I 100% recommend Glimpse drafting for a number reasons: 1) it's a great way to see most of your cube most of the time, meaning that you can build 'that deck' if that's the direction you want to go in, 2) it's a good tool to figure out what works and what doesn't even when playing with a small group, as sometimes it's hard to tell how good archetypes are there when only two decks are made per draft, and 3) it's a lot of fun to draft in that style, especially considering the other options when drafting with 2-3 players. It takes less time than you think as long as you aren't playing with molasses, and the decks tend to be the strongest produced for a cube drafting style only behind Rotisserie, which even with two people seems like a day-long endeavor.
Calibretto's final point is the most important: it's your cube, so run what you want! You might not want to include cards with too great of power discrepancies from the rest of your cube, even if they're affordable (see: sol ring in an unpowered cube) but at the end of the day there are a lot of cubeable cards that aren't run in many cubes because there are so many great options, so throw your hat in to see what works and go from there!
Rough guidelines would be:
-Balance colours; for example 50 of each colour.
-Decide creature/non-creature balance; you will probably want to go for a 50/50 split at first then adjust them as you see fit, I tend to run more creatures than spells in most colours.
-Lands; don't skimp on mana fixing lands, 3 cycles in each pair plus some 5 colour and utility lands.
-Basic lands; Make sure you have about 20 of each basic land.
-Artifacts; Mana fixing, creatures and general utility. Maybe 30 all together, but its up to you
-Sleeves; They make shuffling easier, and you will be doing a lot of shuffling Buy more than you think you need, like 3 or 4 extra packs, this way you can expand your cube or replace busted sleeves at a moments notice.
-Dice, glass beads, pens & paper and tokens; You will save yourself a lot of trouble if you always keep these things with your cube as you will need them every time you draft. PRO-TIP: A roach book makes for a great way to record conspiricies or other cards with memory issues, they are the perfect size and save you tearing up larger pages.
A lot more in-depth guides can be found in the Articles section of the Cube Forum, but if you follow those rules you will end up with something that will work for drafting and let you get a feel for Cube.
Once you play a game or two with this basic cube you will start to develop an idea of what you like and what changes you want to make. Just building with what you have really helps to narrow down card choices but if you do plan to make a few purchases $30 will go a longway, I would recommend Spike Rouge's Cube cards that cost less than $2 USD Thread. You would be surprised how many cube staples you can pick up for under $2, as he says in thethread "These cards aren't just cheap, they've beaten out some tough competition to earn slots in many of the tightest cube lists in the cube community, so I'm happy to recommend them as good value that should be efficient, powerful, and/or versatile enough to be worth a slot in your cube for years to come."
www.cubetutor.com is a great place to manage your cube as well as see what other people have made, for example here are some Innistrad based cubes.
Also if you're predominantly planning to draft with only two players, I'd recommend a Glimpse draft rather than the more common Winston draft format. You can find a guide to that here: http://turnonemagic.com/glimpse-drafting-best-way-draft-cube-2-4-players-title-shorter/. Again, by our good friend Salmo here on these boards. Helpful dude, that one.
The most important rule to remember in cube, imo, is to have fun and do what you like to do. There is no wrong way to build it as long as you and your playgroup are having fun drafting/playing it.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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The main reason I wrote these is based on the massively-helpless feeling I had trying to learn cube (and how to play magic almost strictly through cube) and while I'm not going to say I'm an expert magic player or anything or even that everything I say is objectively true/right (which it certainly is not), there's a lot in there I wish I knew before I started that I strongly feel can help those brand new to cube get a start. As much as I learned through these forums, I learned these things semi-passively by reading the posts here over the past 7+ years instead of sitting down and deciding I want to learn this-that-and-those concepts specifically, and I hope that the guide is a good way of helping that. Other guides have focused more on card specifics and haven't aged too well even in that short amount of time, as it's hard to suggest cards when only so many are truly 'staples'. There's still more work to be done to it, as I am working on a 2nd edition that will be more accessible/cover more, but right now I think that if you're brand new to cube that it can be quite helpful to give you an idea of what the format is about.
I 100% recommend Glimpse drafting for a number reasons: 1) it's a great way to see most of your cube most of the time, meaning that you can build 'that deck' if that's the direction you want to go in, 2) it's a good tool to figure out what works and what doesn't even when playing with a small group, as sometimes it's hard to tell how good archetypes are there when only two decks are made per draft, and 3) it's a lot of fun to draft in that style, especially considering the other options when drafting with 2-3 players. It takes less time than you think as long as you aren't playing with molasses, and the decks tend to be the strongest produced for a cube drafting style only behind Rotisserie, which even with two people seems like a day-long endeavor.
Calibretto's final point is the most important: it's your cube, so run what you want! You might not want to include cards with too great of power discrepancies from the rest of your cube, even if they're affordable (see: sol ring in an unpowered cube) but at the end of the day there are a lot of cubeable cards that aren't run in many cubes because there are so many great options, so throw your hat in to see what works and go from there!
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