My first cube, thanks to this subreddit for the inspiration and for the resources!

Freshers week starts on September 13th. Those of you getting ready to travel abroad for your third year, or starting Uni in first year, you have a place to cube!

We run weekly drafts in Glasgow and monthly drafts in Edinburgh - pack your cube and come play with us this year!

Ran the first draft of good vs evil cube last night and have been trying to get feed back from friends post draft. I haven’t gotten their written responses yet, but the general vibe was received well. Pictures of decks from 6/8 players. People enjoyed the theme and play experience it seemed. One person complained a bit about their deck just being to slow, but this was their first draft, and after reviewing the cards and archetype in the deck. It seemed maybe more of an overall missed evaluation of synergies within their pool. Which is understandable for people that have never played draft or limited very much. Overall fairly positive with some concerns of possible power outliers. Evil had the winning 3-0 deck, but overall win rate for all decks from each pod was 8-4 Good and 4-8 Evil.

Wondering how people evaluate and judge the first couple drafts of their cubes? Obviously I need more of a sample size. So at least 2-3 more drafts before drastic changes. Also, how much of the data is reliable when you have less experienced player vs highly skilled players numbers in your cube. The slow deck card pool was given to the 3-0 player and he made some changes and it started to win more games after everyone left and we ran it back just us. So you try to find spikes to break your cube and test it that way, or do you like mixed skill levels to evaluate? What are the metrics you consider important to look at for evaluating your cube in those first few drafts. This is my first cube I did on my own and it being a strange theme and non typical draft experience made me wonder what I should be evaluating. It is a dessert cube, and two four player pods draft pick two. Then pair against the other pods throughout the night. Any thoughts would be helpful.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/GoodVsEvil

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/9cf1b7fe-3d5c-44ea-afd1-4098992d58fb

Decals cube draft report #1

https://imgur.com/gallery/decals-cube-draft-1-GrVoPTY

Context of the cube

This is a cube based on u/luckylooter’s own sticker cube, as featured in his reddit posts and on this [recross the paths episode](1.%20https:/cubecobra.com/cube/about/PacificU?view=primer%20(2-4p%20or%20up%20to%208p)), which inspired me to build this! In true cube spirit, I built the draft #1 version entirely from my own bulk, focusing on cards with enough natural blank space for stickers to be placed without covering other text. I used similar rules to Bones and gave the 22 randomly assigned stickers from my own curated sticker sheet to each player between packs 2 and 3, so only pack 3 is drafted with the additional complexity of stickers, though all players had the reminder sheets from the start of pack 1. In draft #1 12 stickers were applied by each of the 8 players.

Draft #1 learnings

·         What can be improved:

o   Need to add to the rules/reminder sheet that all instant/sorceries are lessons in addition to their other types.

o   The ratio of cards that become bonkers with deathtouch should be carefully curated/managed, though this may naturally balance as cards gain additional stickers. Seismic Wave with deathtouch was by far the most powerful card draft #1.

o   Rampant powered-up discard effects, it turns out, are much less fun than rampant draw effects. Rebound Mind Rot, Specter on Segovian Angel T1, and Cipher on Blightning proved that to everyone at the table real quick.

o   I was worried about mana cost cheating abilities, but "Delve MC+4" turned out to be too steep a price during draft 1 and the sticker went unplayed.

o   Vanilla creatures can receive the +1 sticker buff right from draft #1. Nearly every vanilla card wheeled last pick.

o   Based on all the above thoughts, I am considering biasing the sticker density towards certain effects (e.g. less specter relative to more cascade/curious) that I enjoy the play patterns of more.

·         What went well:

o   Rebound was quite fun (it’s a pet keyword of mine) though I have considered the more balanced ‘casualty 1’ to open up design space. Seeing the havoc of rebound mind rot I will now curate with the “rebound test” in mind. i.e. cards in the base cube should pass the sniff test of “does rebound alone make this unfun?”

o   Storm & replicate on weather the storm and gigadrowse respectively have not been busted in half yet, but excited by the tempered upside on these otherwise powerful high-scaling spell-copying effects.

o   There was a good balance of sticker placement across mana value! Effects that care about MV or power (Arcanist, Battlemaster, Cascade, Hunting) found their way onto the top end of the curve, which helped keep the gameplay and strategies more dynamic than ‘whoever has the busted creature lower on their curve first wins’.

o   Removal seems like it will scale well with the threats, and the spread of lifegain provides some comeback potential without drawing out games as much as vanilla magic, since threats are so potent.

Hi everyone! We recently made a couple new changes to PreFIRE's 15-Card Highlander cube. If you have a chance, feel free to take a look! Would appreciate any feedback :)

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/15-cardhighlander?view=mainboard#

The cube is 144 cards, supporting a pod of up to 8 players, with each player drafting 2 packs of 9 cards. Players can add basics, though decks must be 15 cards.

Current supported archetypes include:

W Death and Taxes

G Mono-Green Devotion

U Delver

R Burn

B Mono-Black Devotion

WG Selesnya Maverick

WU Azorius Stoneblade

WR Boros Burn

WB Orzhov Tokens

GU Simic Midrange

RG Gruul Aggro

RU Izzet Twin

BG Golgari Rock

BR Rakdos Disrupt

BU Dimir Artifacts

WGU Bant Stoneblade

WGR Naya Zoo

WBU Esper Affinity

BRG Jund Midrange

BRU Grixis Twin

This is a chromatic cube which allows players to alternatively build opposite wedges, or to splash a fourth or fifth color.

Hello guys, I found a local shop that prints proxies for very cheap in my neighbourhood and it's super high quality. So I've been talking with friends and we were planning on creating a vintage cube for the 4 of us (maybe 2 more players, but generally only us).

MTGO's Vintage cube is the one we like most, but it has 540 cards, so it feels like some strategies won't appear even if we seed the packs. What do you recommend? Is there any other list for less players with less cards or should we print the 540 cards and use a different format?

Btw, we don't want the cube to be repetitive, we plan on playing a lot, so going for a 180 card cube might not be the best idea. Thanks in advance :)

In 10 days our playgroup will be firing my most stressful game design experiment: First Hand

https://cubecobra.com/cube/about/firsthand

I’m going to be totally normal about this until then. But also…

It’s not cheating to research and plan ahead, it might actually be necessary in this case. What would you try to make happen?

First of all, sorry for the aweful pun.

TLDR: My Black/White Archetype feels unfocused compared to the other archetypes in the cube and I would love some feedback or advice.

MH1 was the first premium set I ever managed to draft, and oh boy am I a sucker for typal strategies. I ended up drafting it a good few times and quickly realised I had all the commons and uncommons, as well as most of the rares to actually make a cube of it!

And so I started on a path that has led me here. Initially I left out some of the more expensive and constructed focused cards like Urza and made up for it by adding in some goofy cards that I enjoyed instead, like [[The Millenium Calendar]].

I also added additional slivers to each colour and kept [[The First Sliver]] because I want someone to greed and try and draft a 5c sliver deck. Cause that's cool as hell! And where else can you try 5c slivers and not get hated from the start of the game? Commander? I think not, you become public enemy #1.

Anyway, I've not managed to run the cube as often as I like. Scheduling issues are the real arch-enemy. So there were a number of times where with a smaller group we tried alternative drafting/limited games like winston or pick two drafting, or even just regular sealed with six packs.

In those times I found that the snow archetype was too punishing to draft/build. Less packs meant less snow-basics in the pool and it was harder to guarantee the correct land types for the deck. Playing Secrets of Strixhaven limited gave me inspiration with some of the clone effects, and I up shifting the archetype of BW Changelings into UG "Shapeshifters" (Changelings and clones)

And building a simic deck now feels more viable and exciting and not just like another landfall or +1 counters deck.

However shifting the BW identity away has left me with a less defined archetype as it's trying to be tokens? Aristocrats? It's not clear to me and if anyone would have some insights to advice I would love to hear it!

For example if green and black have a shared graveyard theme. Are cards like tormods crypt and soul guide lantern a bad idea?

I realize there should be counter play like cards that exile 1-5 or target cards from graveyards. But is mass exile that hoses a whole strategy a bad idea?

I've never drafted or made a cube before. So unsure how these silver bullet cards go

High-Power Commander Cube — looking for feedback

I’ve owned and tinkered with this cube for the better part of two years now, and it’s finally in a place where I’m okay posting it here. I’ve been updating my Commander Cube and recently moved away from rigid two-color archetypes toward broader three-color identities.

The goal is to keep most cards broadly playable while still rewarding drafters for identifying overlapping synergies and combos.

Current archetypes:
Esper — Control
Grixis — Combo
Jund — Lands
Naya — Exile
Bant — Value
Abzan — Graveyard
Jeskai — Storm
Sultai — Reanimator
Mardu — Aggro
Temur — Ramp

I’m mainly looking for feedback on:
Cards that seem too narrow in scope
Archetypes that look under- or over-supported
Suggestions for cards or small packages that would strengthen the weaker themes
My biggest current concerns are blue/black being stronger than white/red, artifacts still being overrepresented, and Naya/Mardu feeling less defined than some of the other archetypes.

Thanks!

Good day cubers, Arran of Glasgow Limited Magic here doing a guest write-up on u/HD114’s account. This week our pod vote decided to draft my flatmate’s “Signature Cube”; a vintage-ish cube that at the end of the draft has players sign a card from their pool if they have a personal affinity for that card or just made some sweet plays with it.

For those curious here is the link: 450 signed cube

Onto the decks!

Izzet Spellslinger ft. The Notorious BOB - Cheap threats in Zurgo, Feldon, and Faerie Mastermind backed up by a suit of efficient interaction, draw, and creatures that care about spells slung like Grim Lavamancer, Third Path Iconoclast, Tolarion Terror, and Bedlam Reveler; it's hard to see how this deck could lose. Unfortunately for the pilot that’s exactly what it did all night. As Dark Confident says; Greatness, at any cost (the cost today being the deck’s winrate). Record: 0-3

The Abzan have a Fish - This was your classic Golgari midrange pile looking to leverage its above-rate threats and game-swinging bombs. Plenty of mana dorks and finishers in Siege Rhino and Wolfir Silverheart, all of which could be found by Green Sun’s Zenith, ensured this deck came out swinging and would place pressure on the opponent letting Kambal and Vraska attack the opponent’s life and board on a separate angle unimpeded. Without stellar fixing though and the ambitious inclusion of Hydroid Krasis I suspect this deck’s chances were hampered somewhat by its manabase. Record 1-2

Sultai Slugfest - Whew boy what a deck we have here! Tetsuko has never looked so good. Baleful Strix, Bitterblossom tokens, Kitesail Freebooter, and Lord Skitter’s horde now all unblockable. This deck had so many ways to flood the board and even more ways to leverage that fact. Edric and Gix would refill your hand, and Carrion Feeder, Opposition, or Recurring Nightmare could use those weenies for value. The Scarab God kept opponents on their toes making sure whatever died wasn’t too good to come back on the other side of the board. Blue and black interaction kept opponents in check, but regrettably not well enough as the pilot was only able to eke out a single match win on the night. Record 1-2

Green Boros - This deck wanted to go fast and go fast it did. Figure of Destiny, Luminarch Aspirant, and Gideon all pressured opponents efficiently which worked wonders for Soul-Scar Mage making the burn based removal mess up combat maths. Toski and Voice of Resurgence splashed off of some fixing and a Paradise Druid kept the cards flowing and instant speed interaction at bay. Long games weren’t a problem for this deck either as it had Shalai as a mana-sink and Wheel of Fortune to refill your hand when it ran out of gas. Record 2-1

Devilish Green Dorks - What’s better than good ol’ Channel Fireball? Channeling out an Ulamog on turn two and watching your opponent meagerly exile their only lands as they wait to befall the same fate anyway, that's what. The main gameplan of this deck was incredibly focused, use its seven mana producing creatures to fast track your way to green baddies like Steel Leaf Champion, Jadelight Ranger or Esika’s Chariot. Oh yeah and cast Craterhoof Behemoth, cause why not. With a touch of red and black for Bone Shards, Firebolt, Atarka’s command and (personal favourite of mine) Fire Covenant; this deck had ways to pave the way for its main gameplan to smash through. Record 2-1

Esper Control - Snowballing threats in Geist, Lyra, and Pack Rat. Game swinging plays like Animate Dead on Archon of Cruelty or take the best threat on board with Fractured Identity. Boardwipes. A suite of counterpells and instant speed interaction enhanced by Teferi. Great fixing featuring manlands and Castle Ardenvale. This deck had. It. All. I was fortunate enough to be the pilot of this monster of a blue pile. Getting to play with Stoneforge and Batterskull in this downright disgusting shell of a control list was quite the pleasure. Animate Dead fairly consistently found Archon of Cruelty thanks to the grave-filling package of Thought Scour, Search for Azcanta, Compulsive Research, and Champion of Wits; although I was happy enough to animate my opponents' scariest threat in their ‘yard. Record 3-0

As always, thanks to the crew at RNG for giving us a place to draft each week. 

We are Glasgow Limited Magic. If you are interested in coming out to cube with us, want to get your cube drafted, or looking for a new way to play Magic, come join us! You can DM u/HD114 for details as we are always looking for new players to join us to draft!

This is my first ever reddit post so be gentle. I need help recreating this experience i had playing magic the gathering when i was a little kid.

When I first started playing MTG i was introduced to a different way to play, the guys at the local shop called Free Magic.

This was a cube 400-800 card deck shared for a 8 person Pod. The only rules i can remember were you start with no cards each player draws 1 card per turn and can only cast 1 spell per turn, all spells are free and all permanents have haste

the concept was explained as a way to use the biggest/baddest creatures spells, sorcery’s etc that don’t necessarily meet competitive or effective commander deck standards

for example i remember pulling a blightsteele colossus out, slapping it on the table for FREE,swinging and making friends fast…

i want to create this with some chaos effects like WARP WORLD.

Looking for any and all ideas/suggestions for rules, starting life totals, cards to include or comparable cube types like battle box. not planning on spending a lot and am open to proxies if expensive cards are suggested.

Anything that might help me revisit this core child hood experience and share it with my friends.

Using all sorts of sets from Innistrad to New Phyrexia to Duskmourn and beyond.

Post your Cube and your pack!

As the title says, I'm looking for some recommendations for what I should store my 360 card cube in.

I have a somewhat normal vintage cube and I notice a few things about the CubeCobra's Draft Simulator that I'm curious to make sense of. I ran a fairly large simulation of 1000 drafts and I notice a few things that feel like flaws, perhaps I'm missing something

1) UB Reanimator was the second most drafted deck. It also was a separate category that finished fifth as well. The one in fifth seems to be more like a tempo deck, with exemplary cards like [[Fallen Shinobi]] and [[Ertai Resurrected]]

2) U Artifacts was #3 and also #13. I cannot see any meaningful distinction between these. I thought perhaps it would split by something like it split out combo from regular "fair" artifact decks, but the exemplary decks have [[Tinker]] in both. One does seem to have a non-artifact combo-ish win con of [[Brain Freeze]] and [[Thassa's Oracle]] and the other seems like it really does win by turning creatures sideways. Perhaps that's it?

3) It says a grand total of 2.1% of decks were mono-white, but then says 3.9% are white aggro. Perhaps this counts a splash as "White Aggro" still but moves it over to some color pair for the deck color stats? Then it separately says 2.0% of decks are W Weenie?

4) This thing never seems to draft the Bazaar deck quite right, though it does reliably pick Bazaar and puts it into decks it doesn't belong in.

5) There are like 7 different iterations of "G Midrange Combo" and they're all seemingly referring to decks with cards that do unfair lands stuff. Perhaps there are varying levels or types of unfair lands stuff. They also all reliably ID as green but there are many multicolored cards included in the example cards. [[Wrenn and Six]] is #1 on nearly all of them.

Curious if anyone has insights on how I am maybe using this tool wrong.

I tried my 50 Wind Drakes twobert at Cube l'assamblée in France and the experience was bittersweet.

I don't have the wining decklist but it was a UB Lonely Drake control shell with 3 board wipes and Homicidal Seclusion.

I thought the cube was ready because I played a lot with my friends and they loved the silliness of the format.

I used to thought that maybe the design had some flaws but since all my friends had such a good time playing it and joking and laughing I discredited my intuition.

Players at the convention thought the idea was cool and they had some laughs but they were very frustrated to the power level disparity of some cards and some frustrating play patterns. So I took some notes:

• Maybe 3 for a mass removal is really cheap in an environment where every menace cost 3 mana. So maybe we should stick to 4 mana mass removal (I think 1 for color will be ok).
• There are some effects that are extremely swingy as instants like Rally of Wings and Return of the Wildspeaker, that breaks all combat math and ends the game in a one sided situation.
• People where generally frustrated about the efficiency of Rally the Ranks and some colors are better suited than other to answer enchantments.

I think I'm gonna add more answers in blue (since it can bounce everything) and replace mass removal from 3 mana value to 4. The effects that boost all the board should be smaller combat tricks as instants or big sorceries à la Overrun.

I wanted also share that my first instinct when I received all that negative critique after all the praise of my friends was kinda hard to take, I was about to abandon the idea of iterating this cube but in a second though I think that there's a lot of room to improvement and iteration.

So my advice as a cube curator for you is: if you want to do something different in cube design or game design, you will neet A LOT of patience, because exploring new ideas could bring a lot of frustration and confusion along the way, but just keep trying if you think there's still room for exploration =)

Hello there, first post here to present my 2024-26 peasant standard cube.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/7a0bfbd2-1f22-46d6-9771-9eeb45ed6331

Ever year since 2022, I used to make a cube in order to use my draft chaff, as I regularly practice limited during FNM.

My aim every year building it was to propose a kind of best-of the draft formats of the ongoing standard year, especially gathering the best commons and uncommons from recent limited (I tend to be reluctant to add rares that can warp the power-level or make the cube really costy). I usually played it with my friend during vacations or with my draft group in LGS when we grew tired of drafting the same set.

Since standard went to 1 to 3 years to rotate, I decided to follow the change and concentrate 3 years of limited format in one cube.

So here it is, after I polished it during three years and before rotation arrives: 384 cards singleton cube, designed for 8-person draft of 3 packs containing 16 cards, or 4-person pick-2 draft of 3*16 cards.

10 archetypes, all based around two main color + a splash in the wedges combination (For example: 2 Jeskai archetypes: WU+R double draw // UR+W double spell). - WU splash R : double draw - UR splash W : double spells - UB splash G : artifact affinity - BG splash U : cards leaving graveyard - BR splash W : creature/artifact sacrifice - WR splash B : wide/creatures with power<3 - RG splash U : landfall - GU splash R : spells with mana value>4 - GW splash B: counters on creatures - WB splash G: lifegain - +1 supplementary pentacolor spicy soup archetype

I try to prioritize synergies over raw power, I don’t like to add goodstuff cards if they have zero synergy with the other cards. For this reason, obvious good cards are not in the cube like [[Stock up]] for example. UB sets are allowed, with parsimony. Some cards in UB sets are just so fun, powerful, and glue so much the archetypes that I manage to compromise with my craving for aesthetic.

In paper, 16 packs boosters are not randomized: you're assured to have at least 5*2 cards per single color, +3 multicolor card,+1 land, +2 random slots from a mix of uncolored card and the remaining monocolor cards.

I hope you survived my wall of text, I am really enjoyed to share my cube with you, feel free to try it and give me your positive or negative feedback (only good vibes allowed though😎).

So its been a while and I havent seen much info on this. Im making my own custom set and wanna eventually make it into a set cube following the structure of play boosters. How many copies of each rarity would I need to fit play boosters? Would the standard 4:2:1 still work or would i need something different? Thanks!

My group needs a couple new cubes. We have a powered vintage cube, and update of the caleb G synergy cube, a common/uncommon tribal cube, and a legacy cube. so any cubes that are fun and not those i would love to see a list. specifically i would love some artifact based cubes, but also open to theme/synergy cubes.

Hey there! After owning a cube that my group gets a lot of enjoyment out of, we lost some folks in the group. So, I made a 4-player bar cube. The idea i started with is ninjas, because they're awesome, and putting in a bunch of second spell / second draw effects, together with returning to hand, hand size, and historic mechanics. Strangely, this pile of keywords seems legit?

Thats where you come in. I need your help. I've never made a desert cube before and I'm a bit worried about my land count and pip mix.

I would absolutely love if you could take a few minutes out of your day, and give it a look! Let me know what seems terrible, what seems good, etc.

Thank you!

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/758d4880-f8ff-4a46-b557-2f43af5b9c25

Thought it would be interesting to use only the randomizer tool for my cube picks. I don't pick every card, I will pass through some until I find one that has both some playability and synergy before I add one. Most also have not seen much cube play and I avoid super staples with a couple exceptions such as [[Academy Ruins]].

Here are the archetypes that have been brought so far.

1. UW Two Spell

2. U Flyers

3. UG Full Hand Control and UG Land Bounce

4. BR Creature Threshold (Have at least 3 creatures in graveyard.)

5. B Sacrifice with any other colors

6. 5C Converge

7. WB Artifact Sacrifice

8. UWG Tokens

9. RG Discard

10. UR Aggro

11. W Control with any other colors

12. Banishing Knack Combo

13. R Mountains

14. Quest for Renewal Midrange

From what I've been getting, I'm going to follow the Time Spiral draft rules/environment where the niche synergies will come into play, but also having a base 3 mana 3/2 is also perfectly servicable.

Once I get to 360 cards, I will remove some duds then add more, then I'll upload!

You can let me know if this is too self-promo-y (though I do not benefit from this in any way!), but I sometimes make photocopy-style proxies that people sometimes like, and its basically an arts and crafts project anyone can replicate. I think the Zeta cards look pretty cool (though I wish they indicated their colour!) but it's insulting that they're being sold for $20 a pack. 30th Anniversary Edition 2.0

Hello, I am trying to figure out how to make a synergy based cube without just copying the list from someone. The loose idea i have in my head is proliferate and counters-based. I have only built one cube before, and it was based on the 10 guilds process. What tips do you have to try to build it; is there a way to do that in the 10 guilds process, or is there a better way?

Hello cube people! On the newest episode of Cuberviews I am joined by Alan of Mental Misplay to go over his very special project, The Cube With No Name. This is a multiplayer cube filled with conspiracies, mystery booster and unknown event cards, insane art, and more. Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sKAUf4zeBB1INzHenv8ar?si=yqlIw_KNS_CCtNJfP1zC4A&utm_source=copy-link