So I'm building my first cube. My idea is to skew towards encouraging tri-color, but without going overboard. Right now, I'm looking at:
-2 cards each of the ten tri-color combinations (one creature, one non-creature) 20 total
-5 cards of each two-color pair (~one "bomb card" 4 support cards, rarity doesnt matter) 50 total
-3 for each hybrid pair (~same as above) 30 total
-50 of each color
-60 artifact/colorless cards
-80 nonbasic lands
-10 gates
-10 1-life common lands from khans
-10 tri-lands
-10 check lands (ex sulfur falls)
-10 pain lands (ex Brushland)
-5 panoramas plus evolving wilds/terramorphic expanse
-10 colored effect lands (one for each pair)
-15 colorless effect lands (ex springjack pasture)
This puts the cube at 490 cards, with 70 cards (14.5%) requiring more than one color and 10% of cards being dual lands. This is not supposed to be a power cube, just one that is fun to draft. My question is, do I have too much multicolor, and if not, do i have enough or too much fixing in my lands alone? I'm open to any suggestions!
Also: If people come across a dual land in their first pack, are they more likely to draft in that lands colors? Or pass it along hoping for colors they want to play?
EDITS: 5/17/15 removed 2 hybrids from each pair (-20), added pain lands (+10). Ratios were adjusted.
Your cube would certainly feel very colorful like the way it is right but if it is how you wanted it to be, it shouldn't be too much. Also, you should make your land ratio higher than normal in order to help draft it. Normal ratio turns around 12% and yours is 11% for now. Should be around 13-14%. And finally, IMO, I think there's 1 gold and 1 hybrid card to cut in each guild at least.
If you want to run a higher than average contingent of multi-colored cards you should probably have more fixing that doesn't come into play tapped. The check lands are the only duals you're planning on running that don't (always). I'd try adding at least a cycle of pain lands (e.g. Battlefield Forge) instead of guild gates, otherwise you're going to see a lot of those gold cards wheeling and people getting run over by mono and bi-colored aggro decks.
As for hybrids, I love them, and include more than most, but I think you're going to have a hard time finding 5 quality hybrids in each guild. In Simic (Snakeform's pretty much it) and Orzhov (Unmake and Stillmoon Cavalier are the best, and they're not all that great), for example, I had a hard time even finding two that were worth running when I dedicated 2 spots in each guild to hybrids, split, and fuse cards. I keep hoping WotC will print more that are worth playing!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Thank you for the input! Part of why I dont have the painlands is that i'm running on a slight budget. I might proxy them until while i slowly obtain them, if it turns out to be too slow. I'll post a cube list once i have it done. I'm going to cut the hybrids down to 3. There's some good utility cards at common/uncommon, but not enough to get 5 for each pair.
I would just run the most valuable of each 2 color combo and the wedges/shards without forcing hybrids, splits, creature counts, etc.. Castability can easily be part of the evaluation process you make for each card without pigeon holing yourself. In my 540 I'm running 6 slots for each 2 color pair, which seems more than most, but some of those 6 are a partial cycle of signets, man lands, hybrids, etc. I think I can get away with so many slots because Im careful to value the amount of decks a card could go in.
I agree that you may want to not force your colour combinations into too many hard limits (1 creature and 1 spell, only 1 bomb, etc). The problem with this is that it may look nice on cubetutor, but when you actually sit down with packs to draft the thing, it quickly becomes apparent which cards are the "forced" inclusions and they will be passed over mercilessly.
I ran into this when I was looking for a cycle of 10 1 mana hybrids. It's cool to have a cycle, but in practice Deathrite Shaman or Rakdos Cackler are just waaay better than Oona's Gatewarden or Blistercoil Weird, and including them for the sake of "evenness" or to complete the cycle just meant the latter two wouldn't get played.
-2 cards each of the ten tri-color combinations (one creature, one non-creature) 20 total
-5 cards of each two-color pair (~one "bomb card" 4 support cards, rarity doesnt matter) 50 total
-3 for each hybrid pair (~same as above) 30 total
-50 of each color
-60 artifact/colorless cards
-80 nonbasic lands
-10 gates
-10 1-life common lands from khans
-10 tri-lands
-10 check lands (ex sulfur falls)
-10 pain lands (ex Brushland)
-5 panoramas plus evolving wilds/terramorphic expanse
-10 colored effect lands (one for each pair)
-15 colorless effect lands (ex springjack pasture)
This puts the cube at 490 cards, with 70 cards (14.5%) requiring more than one color and 10% of cards being dual lands. This is not supposed to be a power cube, just one that is fun to draft. My question is, do I have too much multicolor, and if not, do i have enough or too much fixing in my lands alone? I'm open to any suggestions!
Also: If people come across a dual land in their first pack, are they more likely to draft in that lands colors? Or pass it along hoping for colors they want to play?
EDITS: 5/17/15 removed 2 hybrids from each pair (-20), added pain lands (+10). Ratios were adjusted.
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
Zetsu's Ebay MTG Online Store
Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
As for hybrids, I love them, and include more than most, but I think you're going to have a hard time finding 5 quality hybrids in each guild. In Simic (Snakeform's pretty much it) and Orzhov (Unmake and Stillmoon Cavalier are the best, and they're not all that great), for example, I had a hard time even finding two that were worth running when I dedicated 2 spots in each guild to hybrids, split, and fuse cards. I keep hoping WotC will print more that are worth playing!
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/993
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/23690
I ran into this when I was looking for a cycle of 10 1 mana hybrids. It's cool to have a cycle, but in practice Deathrite Shaman or Rakdos Cackler are just waaay better than Oona's Gatewarden or Blistercoil Weird, and including them for the sake of "evenness" or to complete the cycle just meant the latter two wouldn't get played.