TTC - Build a CUBE

[Graham]

James, Graham, Paul and Alex talk about what a Magic cube is, what's in James', and how to build your own!

CUBE LIST!
This is the list James' cube started from.

[wizzerd229]

you've used Izzet Steam Maze twice now

[Jenelmo]

This saturday i played cube for like 7 hours first by drafting with a friends cube that is almost the MTGO Cube (he is missing like 50 cards) and then a "Crap Cube" than is with cards so bad that there are no morph or cycling cards as they are broken compared to the rest of the cube

[ElFuzzy]

Dirt rare cube draft... why is it all breeding pools?

[Graham]

you've used Izzet Steam Maze twice now

Yeah, realized too late.

[TheHokeyPokey]

You may joke about it, but Reject Rare Draft is one of the most fun formats to play. Ever since I read Gottlieb's article, I have taken every opportunity to organize one. For reference, the best limited format ever made:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/A ... daily/mg72

[tamaness]

Well hell, since I'm going to have to break up my decks to sell some cards (*sob*), I may as well build a cube from the remains. Sounds like fun.

[wizzerd229]

you've used Izzet Steam Maze twice now

Yeah, realized too late.

'sall good.

[Lanxal]

Finally made an account because CUBE.

The best name for a cube of the worst Magic cards is a sphere. =D

Stybs's cube is beautiful. Really well made. And I am jealous of your full Zen lands. I actually manage pretty well with 30 of each basic, although we do occasional run into the problem of not having enough of one basic land type.

Also, Paul talking about Highlander and the fact that my cube is currently organised gave me a flash of brilliance: shuffle all of the cards of one colour with however many basic lands you have for that color, add in artifacts until you get to 100, and then play Highlander! 5 player free-for-all - who will stand victorious?

[Utilitarian]

Awesome episode.

The absolute highlight for me was Paul making what I'm pretty sure was an Adventurers! reference (please confirm? -_^)

[Professor STAFF]

Great podcast this week! To me, TapTapConcede is at its best when it is trying to be instructional. The Highlander and Budgetlander was my absolute favorite episode, and this weeks is a very, very close second.

Alex, by the way, is a real jolt of energy and enthusiasm. You guys need to wrangle him into more podcasts.

You did a great job explaining CUBE for someone such as myself who has never really played around with one. I like the idea of putting one together with cards from the Revised Edition/Antiquities/The Dark/Legends/Ice Age era, to simulate being back in high school. Heh.

I also really liked the synergy with Friday Nights: In Friday Nights you talked about using Modern Masters to build a cube, and in TTC you have a serious discussion about cube building.

Along those same lines, I'd love to see a future TTC based off of the comments in this week's Friday Nights between Kathleen and Missy about the Lady Planeswalkers Society. It would be a real awesome podcast if you could get maybe Kathleen +3 ladies from her group to talk about the role of women in Magic, as players etc. Magic is such a boy-heavy game, and it often is very suspicious in its objectification of women in a lot fo its artwork (I think in the Strip Search where you had the contestants do MTG Skateboards, one of the contestants voiced her frustration with Magic's portrayal of women, and I could not agree more with her sentiments).

Anyway, fabulous episode. I'm definitely going to explore CUBES now. Cheers.

P.S.

At the end you rattled off a lot of sites with CUBE info, like the decklist James used and some other goodies. You should post those valuable links in the youtube doobley-doo!

[Jamfalcon]

My brother and I put together a cube a month or two back from our unused cards. It's a small one, designed to be drafted in its entirety be four people (since that's the size of our regular group). The only theme we were aiming for was cards that were fairly iconic for their colours in terms of effects. So we made sure to give every colour what you'd expect from them, and not put in too many off-colour effects. In terms of balancing, we laid out each colour by CMC, and sorted by creatures/noncreatures like you might when making a normal deck, then trimmed them down to 35 cards cards apiece with a reasonable curve. There's no exact division between how many creatures and spells each colour has, just what seemed right. So green, for example has noticeably more creatures than other spells, but white is pretty equal. It could definitely be better, but for the low cost, it's definitely been a worth the effort.

Full cube list, for anyone interested:

Click to Expand

Red Creatures:
Goblin Arsonist
Skitter of Lizards
Stromkirk Noble
Firefist Striker
Bomber Corps
Ashmouth Hound
Ruinous Minotaur
Splatter Thug
Prodigal Pyromancer
Gorehorn Minotaurs
Furnace Whelp
Pitchburn Devils
Flameborn Hellion
Macetail Hystrodon
Scorchwalker
Lightning Hounds
Bloodfray Giant
Arms Dealer
Skinbrand Goblin
Stormblood Berserker
Shivan Dragon


Red Spells:
Explosive Impact
Cone of Flame
Wrap in Flames
Seismic Strike
Claws of Valakut
Punishing Fire
Dragon Fodder
Reflexes
Electrickery
Racecourse Fury
Mugging
Krenko's Command
Incinerate
Brimstone Volley


White Creatures:
Wall of Hope
Valiant Guard
Warclamp Mastiff
Blinding Mage
Palace Guard
Benalish Lancer
Griffin Sentinel
Silverclaw Griffin
Angel of Salvation
Elite Vanguard
Alabaster Mage
Stormfront Pegasus
Avacynian Priest
Leonin Skyhunter
Attended Knight
Healer of the Pride
Mausoleum Guard
Serra Angel
Avatar of Hope

White Spells:
Lifelink
Seize the Initiative
Ethereal Armor
Moment of Heroism
Disenchant
Soul Parry
Asha's Favor
Divine Verdict
Pacifism
Zealous Strike
Guardians' Pledge
Oblivion Ring
Inner Sanctum
Timely Reinforcements
Captain's Call
Knight Watch



Black Creatures:
Fume Spitter
Typhoid Rats
Manor Skeleton
Ruthless Cullblade
Child of Night
Ravenous Rats
Markov Patrician
Moriok Reaver
Jagwasp Swarm
Dark Revenant
Phyrexian Scuta
Desecration Elemental
Gravedigger
Cursed Ronin
Farbog Boneflinger
Dark Hatchling
Butcher Ghoul
Giant Scorpion
Mortis Dogs
Heartstabber Mosquito
Dread Slaver
Vengeful Vampire
Dark Hatchling

Black Spells:
Disentomb
Mire Blight
Grasp of Darkness
Gravepurge
Dark Tutelage
Assassinate
Night Terrors
Brink of Disaster
Undying Evil
Devour Flesh
Geth's Verdict
Drain Life
Rise from the Grave


Blue Creatures:
Kraken Hatchling
Phantasmal Bear
Plated Seastrider
Tempest Owl
Merfolk Looter
Merchant of Secrets
Neurok Invisimancer
Reckless Scholar
Fortress Crab
Phantom Beast
Runewing
Slithermuse
Skyline Predator
Isperia's Skywatch
Stormbound Geist
Stealer of Secrets
Mist Raven
Azure Drake
Sphinx of Uthuun

Blue Spells:
Unsummon
Force Spike
Dispel
Negate
Call to Heel
Frost Breath
Undo
Paralyzing Grasp
Griptide
Bone to Ash
Mind Control
Amass the Components
Twitch
Divination
Disperse
Twisted Image

Green Creatures:
Scattershot Archer
Gatecreeper Vine
Order of the Sacred Bell
Mitotic Slime
Ghoultree
Bond Beetle
Llanowar Elves
Young Wolf
Darkthicket Wolf
Deadly Recluse
Garruk's Companion
Awakener Druid
Fertilid
Nessian Courser
Druid's Familiar
Giant Spider
Cudgel Troll
Hollowhenge Beast
Greater Basilisk
Stampeding Rhino
Baloth Woodcrasher
Duskdale Wurm

Green Spells:
Giant Growth
Naturalize
Plummet
Gilt-Leaf Ambush
Savage Silhouette
Life and Limb
Prey Upon
Caravan Vigil
Rampant Growth
Presence of Gond
Ranger's Path
Overrun
Slime Molding

Others:
Crown of Empires
Scepter of Empires
Throne of Empires
Manalith
Evolving Wilds

[OrbitalStar6]

Don't be makin' fun of the Reject Rare Cube. :3

I'm making one of those. Worst rares and mythics I can find! It's hilarious!

Also, usually cheap.

[Drecon]

I needed the cmc to guess Feral Animist. Basically it wasn't very good in Guildpact, isn't very good in Dragon's Maze.

[Foxmar]

Id like to try and build a cube, but I get together with friends so rarely it would never get used. Sounds like it would be fun tho! One day I might give it a try and build a pauper cube.

[Krbmeister]

I've never been one for design, I figured I'll let the pros deal with it. I decided I wanted to make my own take on a draft cube that would help me play in actual magic events. Thus, for the whole RTR block, I would get a booster box of each set then label which card came from each pack as I opened them in order. Each pack has the standard 10 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare, with the possible foil or mythic. The only cards I've taken out are foil land to help make cubed land a little nicer. The unfortunate thing is that I have a few duplicate rares (and even duplicate mythics) but with over 100 packs, I think there's enough variance to have a good experience each time. To run a draft I use a random number generator (or roll dice if I'm lazy) to determine who gets which packs.

Below is a picture of my cube. The three columns separate each set. There are two booster packs between each white tab. On the bottom is one RTR booster showing the pack's contents including "Marshall_LR Law"

All in all I think this is a great way to get a whole lot of drafts or sealed pools without needing to spend money each time. Though it does cost about $150 for the booster box and sleeves, plus quite a bit of time to label the cards.

I hope you like the idea!




*Edit* Sorry about the rediculously large image earlier. I was using chrome which resized it. I had no idea my phone could even take that large of a picture

[GNRC_SRNM]

Krbmeister, could you fit that image into a spoiler tag or a link? Or resize it maybe or do something so it doesn't screw with the forum.

[Kid]

For fixing, original Ravnica also had the Karoo lands; Izzet Boilerworks, Golgari Rot Farm, etc.

[Graham]

Krbmeister, could you fit that image into a spoiler tag or a link? Or resize it maybe or do something so it doesn't screw with the forum.

All large images should auto-resize. It looks fine for me.

[ElFuzzy]

Doesn't resize for mine, tossing it in a collapse would be appreciated.

[Professor STAFF]

Resizes just fine for me, and looks awesome, by the way.

[Jamfalcon]

I just checked, and while it resizes on Chrome for me, it's full–sized on Firefox and Internet Explorer.

[Lurkon]

Images are supposed to resize? I didn't know that.

[ElFuzzy]

Should we... light up the Paul signal?

[Krbmeister]

Just resized the picture. Hope that helps. Sorry again. And thanks Professor! The first one I made was for Innistrad (the set not the whole block) and now I have one for Modern Masters with about 50 packs (yet somehow have three Sarkhan Vols). The biggest problem I have is I really don't want to mess with the "design" of the set. I feel like as soon as I begin to alter what cards are in it, even if it's removing an entire pack, I'm not altering how the cards are supposed to be randomly distributed. Even in random distribution, there is some non-zero chance that three of the same mythic comes up in 50 packs.