Good vs Evil: The Beginner Pauper Cube

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Myrph
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Good vs Evil: The Beginner Pauper Cube

Postby Myrph » 12 Jun 2014, 10:58

Being the lazy person that I am, whilst also eager to introduce new players to limited format, I was considering building myself a cube that I could use to give new players a taste of draft/sealed, without the need to buy in or anything like that, however since I have minimal monies, and no desire to put more effort into this than I have to, I had the idea of buying a complete set of commons from each of the Innistrad block and the Theros block, weeding out the ludicrously useless cards, and then calling it a cube.

I figured with the heroes vs monsters theme of Theros and the dark vs light theme of Innistrad, I figured the two sets would mesh well together, as well as providing a mix of cards that younger/newer players have a reasonable knowledge of (Theros) and potentially not come across before (Innistrad).

Having not built a cube before, however, I'm unsure as to whether this would actually make a playable/interesting cube, or if it would be better to find a prebuilt cube/actually vet 360 interesting cards. Advice and suggestions gladly taken.
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Prospero101
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Re: Good vs Evil: The Beginner Pauper Cube

Postby Prospero101 » 12 Jun 2014, 10:59

Absolutely every person I have ever met or spoken to about the art of cube-making first copied their cube from someone else, then made their own. I think it helps you get an idea of what makes a good cube.
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Re: Good vs Evil: The Beginner Pauper Cube

Postby Volafortis » 12 Jun 2014, 19:13

Yep, I copied a list online, and then I slowly made changes to it, until I scrapped the whole thing and built a new one from scratch.

The main thing you want to look for is cards that play well together, and try to avoid nonbos.

If you want to do a block cube, look at what that sets noraml limited play is like, and simply play up the same themes in card selection.

For instance, Innistrad and Theros probably wouldn't play together very well.

Innistrad had graveyard mechanics, and Vampire, Zombie, Spirit, Werewolf, and Human tribal.

Theros has humans, some zombies, and even a few spirits too, but it doesn't have Vampires or Werewolves. In addition, it adds in Minotaur tribal. This will lead to very lopsided tribal play. (Some tribes will be supported very well, some barely at all.)

In addition, Theros doesn't have much to support the graveyard mechanics of Innistrad. You'll get a few cards, like Returned Centaur and Nyx Weaver, but not enough to have it properly supported.

Then you have Theros, which has a lot of enchantment mechanics. Sure, Bestow, Monstrosity, Tribute, Scry, and Inspired don't really require much support to work, and devotion will still be fine, since neither are colorless or gold sets, but constellation and heroic will become a bit weaker (particularly constellation) with the reduced support.

Now, if you want to take elements from both sets and make a cube of it, that's a fine idea, and could easily turn out quite well. You just need to keep things like I mentioned above in mind, and design the cube accordingly.

No matter what you want, designing a fun cube will take a bit of work, it's not something you can just throw together and expect to have a ton of fun with.

That said, if you can get a full block collection, a common way to make a block cube to simulate drafting is the 4-3-2-1 method. (Note, this often isn't very budget, but you can adapt it to be budget friendly)

The 4-3-2-1 method is you get 4 of each common, 3 of each uncommon, 2 of each rare, and 1 of each mythic, and that's your cube. You randomize the cards by rarity, and make 24 boosters, each with 11 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare or mythic (randomize those together).

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