Welcome friends, young and old! Please gather round. I wanted to tell you about the first cube.
“The first Cube ever?”
Well, no. Not exactly. But a very early cube. One that grew on it’s own, before MTGO was making and sharing such a variety of fantastic cubes with all of us. It’s interesting to me to look back and see how a cube grows organically – like watching microbes evolve over generations into a complex organism.
Put on your lab coat, get your sample jars, and let’s examine this organism’s history.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the expression, a “cube” is a general term for a curated card pool used for playing Magic drafts or other limited formats. You see, people have been playing Magic in creative ways since, well, since there were Magic players. Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s magic players began collecting their favorite cards together to create a fun or interesting pool of cards to use in booster drafts. That way they could draft over and over without opening (and purchasing) new packs each time.
Long ago a younger wizard who looked a lot like me but with less grey hair, began lamenting that out of the thousands of spells he knew, he was only casting a small number of them. And he lamented that if friends came over to play Magic, not everyone had decks and, even if they did, there was such a wide disparity of power in everyone’s personal card pools that it led to some very lopsided and un-fun games.
Hmmm… what to do? What to do?
One peaceful afternoon I began sorting my collection which spanned Legends, The Dark, and Ice Age through Apocalypse (‘94-’01). As I sorted I collected one single copy of each card that I owned. This included top notch cards like Birds of Paradise, Tundra, Sol Ring, and Pernicious Deed along with everything else.. And I mean EVERYTHING else…
Hipparion, Enraging Licid, Giant Albatross, Glyph of Doom, Arcum’s Whistle (!?) and on and on…
These all went into a shoe box. A Mephisto shoe box. And we would draft and make sealed decks from this card pool.
Whenever we drafted from this random interesting pile of cards we called it a Mephisto draft and the name stuck. As the years went by I’d do the annual Mephisto Box update where I’d look at all the cards from the last year’s sets and take one of each to add to Mephisto’s open arms. As you might expect, the Mephisto box soon became a +5,000 card monstrosity but we still played it often and with joy because it offered a unique challenge each time we drafted and we discovered it was fun to remember old cards that we had not seen in years.
We had plenty of matches where an Obsianus Golem with Dragon Wings was really a solid game plan because of how low power the pool of commons and uncommons was back in the day. There were often drafts where you’d see only 3 creatures in a pack of 15 cards!
Lo and behold, the smarter minds of better magic players had also been doing things like this and had made the obvious and sensible leap to include only a certain select group of cards in this ‘draft box’ and they called their format Cube. (I still think Mephisto Draft has a nice ring to it.) Many great insights into various Cube formats have been written by folks and I recommend you go read some of them. (Two I recommend are here and here.)
As fans of this format have said before, building a cube is a labor of love. You, the creator, are trying to collate a collection of cards that will deliver on a goal for your players – maybe you love long drawn out games that go 15+ turns, maybe you love surprising and random dice rolling cards, maybe you love only playing green spells – whatever your desired experience happens to be, you can craft a cube to meet that end result.
I currently have 3 cubes , and you can see from these three what kinds of games I’m trying to create for my players:
- THE Cube – This is what I think of as our default cube. It has one of each of my favorite cards from Beta to the newest set. It is a singleton 600-700 card monstrosity. This cube gets the most play and is updated about 3 times per year. It is the default way to play Magic at our house.
- The Multiplayer Cube – this cube is focused on multiplayer interaction. It has a ton of cards from the Conspiracy sets (and includes conspiracy cards too) as well as many cards that I think make for fun and interesting multiplayer games. It has singleton rares & mythics, but has multiples of select commons and uncommons that I felt made for interesting draft choices.
- Zelnoc’s Unhinged Cube – This cube is basically a pared-down pile of Unstable commons and uncommons based on how awesome I think it is to graft a Shark-Zombie or a Ninja-Kitten! Because the themes of this set tend to play well together the only non-silverboardered things I’ve added are 1x of each bounceland for some color fixing. Though I think there is room to take the augment mechanic and pair it with other themes so this cube may be ripe for modification.
Considerations when Cube Crafting
Firstly, as mentioned above, consider your goals. The gameplay you are hoping to achieve, the feeling the players will get when drafting and playing these cards should be your guiding light. Once you’ve gotten a feel for the mood or tone you want to create, it will help you with all the upcoming card choices. (Because maybe you forgot – but Magic has more than 18,000 cards and counting!)
Second, do some math. You’ll want to decide on the size of your cube – if you want to support a full 8 player draft you’ll need 45 cards x 8 players = a 360 card minimum. The consensus is that 540 cards allows a consistent draft environment with enough variation to keep it fresh. Those who prefer an experience with more variety may want to push that number higher. I keep my main cube around 700 cards and use the following starting ratios: 80 cards of each of the 5 colors, 80 multicolored cards, 80 artifacts, and 80 lands lets you come in at 640.
Third, pay attention to themes. This is like applying rule number one to each color or color pair. Think about linear strategies that require a critical mass of cards and make sure you support them properly or consider removing linear strategies all together (affinity, energy, allies, slivers, etc). And it applies to single cards too. There are so many red 5 drops you are going to have to choose from among many fantastic cards and the choice should be driven by what themes and subthemes your cube is supporting. If your cube has a lot of +1/+1 counter and token interactions then perhaps you consider Falkenrath Marauders or Skarrgan Hellkite over some of the other options.
Fourth, watch the mana curve. Usually you’ll want your mana curve to match a draft deck in that there are more 1, 2 and 3 casting cost cards then 5 and 6. And that applies to each color on its own as well as the cube as a whole. My penchant for splashy powerful effects means I struggle to keep the +6CC cards down to a reasonable number.
Finally, consider function. Think of what you want to do to make the physical experience interesting and enjoyable as well as considerations for cube transport and management.
- Sleeve up lands and keep them with the cube. (find a style of sleeve you like and stock up!)
- Have most of the relevant tokens available.
- Make sure you have a safe and easy way to transport your cube.
- Keep a list of your cube cards so you can quickly reference what’s in or out and plan new trades/purchases.
One of the most memorable physical experiences with a cube I can recall was 5 players around a folding table in the woods. The sun had set long ago, fingers were chilled, lanterns and flashlights were illuminating players hunched over Platinum Angels and very large Forgotten Ancients. It ended the way many multiplayer games tend to where the player with the last haymaker in their hand wins it. I think a large Overrun effect eventually ended the epic battle and people moved back around the campfire.
This game was not memorable for the cards themselves, but it was because 5 players of varied skill level, in the middle of the woods, were able to draft some sweet multiplayer decks and have a great time playing magic! It was possible because I can carry playmats, dice, counters, and a 600 card double sleeved multiplayer cube all in a nice little camping package.
My old Mephisto cube of ancient commons and uncommons now sits gathering dust under a dresser as, long ago, I harvested my favorite cube cards from it and forgot about it. It has evolved into new and more satisfying ways to play and that’s ok.
… but I may shake off the dust some day – just to remember what it feels like to cast Psychic Venom on a land and use a Floodbringer to venom my opponent to death! … ah… those were the days…
I encourage you to look at your collection of Magic cards with new eyes. Think about maximizing the fun you can have with your cards and, for me, Cube drafting is my favorite way to do that!
Thanks for reading, please share any amazing cube moments you will never forget, and until next time, may your cube keep evolving!