My friend and I are about to start assembling a simple, budget Innistrad cube. We will start out buying the cheapest cards we can (in a 3/2/1 common/uncommon/rare ratio, trying to keep even color distribution) and just go from there. We'll use it mostly for two-man sealed or Winston drafting.
But we know nothing about Innistrad, since we were out of the game at the time, so we don't know whether to include Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored, too. Reddit seems to have only bad things to say about Avacyn Restored and nothing is ever mentioned about Dark Ascension. Would you suggest including Avacyn Restored and/or Dark Ascension in the cube?
I would include the cards from those two sets that you feel contribute to the overall health/balance and theme/feel of the cube. You don't have to include anything that will ruin the dark fantasy goodness of Innistrad, but I wouldn't arbitrarily ban both sets either.
Take the good, cut the bad. I cant say too much about the limited environment for either set but both set had cube worthy cards so those might be a good place to start.
Aside from these both sets will have more cards for the tribes present in Innistrad so you could also see what payoff/build-around cards were in those sets for limited. Try reading guides to drafting those sets and seeing what the best cards for for limited were and consider them for inclusion if they feel on theme.
Thanks, guys, especially Groglord for suggesting ways to figure out what cards to target. We're going to start out just buying Innistrad cards and playing with those. Once we're familiar with them, we'll read up on the other sets. By that time we should have a feel for what kinds of cards we'd like to see added.
I have an Innistrad Plane Cube and think it is a great place to start. When I first did mine I did a 2/2/1 for each common/uncommon/rare and had all of the cards from Innistrad and Dark Ascension (Mainly because I drafted those a ton, but also didn't love the flavor of Avacyn Restored and did not think that it fit the theme of the draft). I Pretty quickly started making cuts so most of are similar power level (there is no reason to play favor of the woods ever so it gets cut, but other cards just don't match up to the power of some of the cards that make it in to powered cubes so they start dropping too). Since I have switched to a cube that is very tribal and has cards from all 5 innistrad sets but none of the fallen angels or Eldrazi as I don't like the theme. The cube has also been able to be a singleton cube with few exceptions. If you want to practice draft it and see what it feels like you should be able to do it here: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/18665 I really like it, though it is hard to make some of the Tribal synergies work in a Grid draft...I am not sure if Winston drafting will get you more opportunities to get a nice tribal deck. Two man Sealed should be pretty good (and if you don't feel you are getting enough tribal cards you would just have to increase the number of cards each side gets.
Thanks for the response and sharing your experiences. It's helps to know I'm not going down a dead end. I may check out your cube later on. Right now, I'm enjoying the idea of organically figuring out which cards don't ever get played and should thus be cut. That may get tired after a few drafts, though, especially since my friends and I don't get to get together that often.
But we know nothing about Innistrad, since we were out of the game at the time, so we don't know whether to include Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored, too. Reddit seems to have only bad things to say about Avacyn Restored and nothing is ever mentioned about Dark Ascension. Would you suggest including Avacyn Restored and/or Dark Ascension in the cube?
Thanks!
m
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!
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored
Aside from these both sets will have more cards for the tribes present in Innistrad so you could also see what payoff/build-around cards were in those sets for limited. Try reading guides to drafting those sets and seeing what the best cards for for limited were and consider them for inclusion if they feel on theme.
Thanks again.
Thanks again.
m
terminus
griselbrand
and cavern of souls might be one to consider if there is enough tribal going on with humans/werewolves/zombies.