Is cube objectively the best way to play magic?
>as cheap or expensive as you want it to be
>in charge of balance yourself
>no pay to win or netdecks
>no autismal powercreep or one-upmanship in your playergroup
>full control over powerlevel of cards and decks
>near unlimited options for themes and mechanics
The only downside I can think of is getting enough players for drafting.
It's a pretty fantastic format, but there's a number of reasons why it isn't more popular:
1. It's intimidating to get into. The prospect of designing even a small cube is a fairly daunting task to newcomers to the format, and generally far more complex than building individual decks.
2. A lot of people like owning their own decks. There's some satisfaction in hand-crafting a deck you personally own, and then succeeding or failing with it. Borrowing someone else's cards temporarily doesn't create that particular experience.
3. Lack of control in deckbuilding. Many individuals enjoy having full control to tailor their deck to their choosing. Drafting then comes across as unnecessary frustration of this freedom of choice (Whereas others find it to be an interesting deckbuilding challenging in its own right).
It's real cool, but I can see why not everyone's into it.
I agree it's closer to playing a boardgame in that regard. You build a deck from the cube with friends, play some games, and put everything back once you're done. Removes the collectible from card game If you don't own the cube.
On the other hand if someone else already has a cube it's actually great for new players to join, since they don't already have big collections and format staples. In my lgs there is such a difference in spending power or willingness to spend that there are heaps of players that are bordering on quitting mtg altogether because they don't want to buy into the arms race, but love the even playing field of a limited format.
What about thievery
People steal magic cards? Is your group made up of retards?
Some people are just that way.
The hell is cube?
A box filled with a couple hundred cards divided evenly across colors. Usually singleton. It's basically a make your own mtg set. You can build it to include whatever themes and mechanics you want because you're in control of what cards you put in. Then you play sealed or draft with it.
I have a pauper cube and an innistrad/graveyard/spoopy halloween themed cube.
What are the cards i should be looking at as someone who has not updated my cube since amonkhet?
I like Chart a Course, Legion's Landing, Hostage Taker, Merfolk Branchwalker, Search for Azcanta, Captain Lannery Storm, and Kitesail Freebooter. But I haven't tested them much yet.
why do i never read about constructed cube? Like diy standard format. Sounds cool , but probably harder then doing a normal cube.
Because cubes are usually singleton I guess.
I find cubes are always too heavy on the archetypes, and drafts are basically on autopilot.
you do know you can construct a cube any way you like right?
What would the numbers be anyway? 4 of each common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare/mythic?
number of what?
Cards. If you want to make like an Ixalan only cube or something.
it's a cube, rarity has no meaning in it, why would you choose the number of cards depending on rarity?
I really want to get into it but as said, the thought of trying to design one is pretty daunting. I have no idea how much copies of each card to include (or to make it singleton), i have no idea how to balance mechanics, or pick interesting archetypes, or any of that shit.
Should I just copy someone's cube? I feel like that'd take some of the fun out of it. I'd like a RAV/RTR themed cube someday.
as usual the best way is go at it in a random shitty way,then kind of compare your colours and make sure the are somewhat playable and then test it. It's not liek you will ruin someone's life if you make him play an unbalanced cube. As you go try to compare to other people's work and try to learn things instead of just copying and otherwise changing without thinking about it.
Best way to go about it is making a pauper/jank cube and not using cards over 50 cents. That way you can't go wrong by wasting money, and you should have heaps of commons laying around anyway.
As someone who used to have a Conspiracy cube (not just the set itself, just using the Conspiracy cards), I can answer at least part of that.
Singleton tends to be best for smaller and higher-power cubes. If you're looking to emulate what drafting normally feels like, go for a bigger size of cube, and do something like 3-4 of your commons, 1-2 of the uncommons, and 1 of rares and mythics. If you don't want that level of redundancy- and what I personally recommend- is having 2 copies of either staples that go in multiple strategies OR the cards that best exemplify the archetypes you build into your cube.
2 of each staple makes them more plentiful and drives up the overall chances that each player will have a reasonably powerful deck. 2 of each archetypal card makes it easier and more likely that players will have a somewhat more consistent experience with those archetypes. I'd avoid doing both, however, because doing so throws the actual bonuses to doing it out the door and also severely reduces what you can build with the cube if you keep it small.
I'd also honestly suggest looking into the Conspiracy cards. They can make drafting a wildly different experience, and you also get to control which ones specifically make it in. Just remember that if you do, it's actually better to not count them as cards "in" the cube total, and also to make sure the amount you put in isn't too disruptive (don't toss in every single one ever printed with multiple copies of the common ones in a 360 card cube, for instance, or people might not end up with playable decks at all)
This is why the correct choice is a full proxy cube. Just have all the cards be sleeved paper proxies over bulk. If someone theves... they are stealing penies worth of stuff. Generally you would notice if someone walks off with a deck.
Generally 360 (3x15x8 so enough for a full draft) or some other number divisable by 45.
Power balance. While there are exceptions the higher the rarity the more useful/powerful the card.
>Is cube the best way to play magic?
Yes. Next question please.
The only reason WotC has not done for Cube as their Commander line did for EDH is that if they pushed Cube as hard as it deserves, people would stop buying packs and just play Cube.
So a cube is just what, you pick mtg cards, then you and your buddy each make a deck off those cards and play with that? Or did I misunderstand entirely?
I have played an inistrad cube were rarity mattered. The cards were stored sorted by rarity, and packs were built with a random rare,standard number of uncommons and commons. There were cards with multiple copies in the cube. It was way more of a pain to deal with then a standard cube were you just shuffle for a bit. On the other hand it did feel more like a normal draft. Honestly if you are trying to build it that way you just need to keep things color balanced in each rarity and you are good to go.
At a super basic level:
So someone gets togerther a pile of cards. Some other players join him and they draft the cards in some way(standard 3x15 packs, rochester, seald, 9x5 packs, 5x10 packs, etc)
Each player then builds a deck with the cards they drafted and lands provided by the cube owner. Now they all play (my group tended to just do round robin, but you can do a normal tourny parings). At some point you run out of time or finish the tourny and everyone takes apart their decks. Lands are put pack in the supply and other cards back in the cube.
You're right. I think anyone who wants to get into cube should just pick up a smaller pauper cube list from cubetutor and buy into it just to get the ball rolling. It's such a dream playing cube and I wish more of my friends wanted to build their own cubes.
I'm also considering buying a shit ton of Chinese fakes for a powered cube but I don't feel like gambling with eBay listings shipping from Hong Kong
I'm so excited for Unstable (fuck the other unsets) non-singleton cube
How many conspiracies did you run and how big was your cube?
Paper proxies over bulk. There are tons of online proxie engines and MSE. The cube I have played the most was a friends that was 2/3rds custom cards. This way he could just print new instances whenever. It was pretty great.
>Paper proxies
I could, although the one eBay seller I was looking at was selling 50 reserve list fakes for $30 which is definitely worth it if they actually arrive and are almost passable as real by touch only (no worse feeling than pulling a card out randomly of the cube box and knowing immediately if it's a proxy). I don't want to waste more time than I can afford to pay in cash, you know?
>Custom cards
Absolutely fucking not.
look on aliexpress for white core proxies
A lot will print whichever list of cards you provide for not much money and with good enough quality to play
Best way to cube imho if you can't afford the real deal