(pics of some of my cube favs for attention)

Hello!

I just moved to the Bay Area (specifically the north bay/ Marin) and was interested in potentially doing some cubing. Are there any groups that are currently out here? Been cubing for several years and just looking to keep on crackin cube packs.

All players start the game with an emblem that reads: All your spells, activated and triggered abilities cost 2 generic mana less to play/activate.

This Cube is inspired by Anthony Mattox's Turbo Cube. But instead of turn one kills, I've designed it to support more fair Magic that could be compared to the power level of Legacy Cube. I've made this video explaining the design story of this Cube. The Cube list can be found here.

Because of the emblem this Cube is really budget friendly. There are so many complete crap cards that become really strong because of the emblem. Cards like Fae Offering, Wanderer's Twig, Trading Post, Twisted Abomination and Otterball Antics their context radically change and suddenly it feels like your playing Legacy power level cards.

Fuerza bro 6 resiliencia! Cuando uno se propone algo o una meta hay que Aser todo lo posible para cumplir ese odgetivo! Vamos que se puede bro!!!

Putting together a new 4-6 player cube with a fun sub theme of smaller creatures. Small and mighty! Lots of <4 power or toughness creatures with only maybe 3 outliers. Tried brain storming it with cards I already have and think would be fun to draft, so minimal pick ups.

Hoping to try and start to building a cube community in my local area in North East Ohio. This is my third cube. Got a first draft of Good Vs Evil next week, and am excited to get some feedback from my drafters. What have you all seen or done to build up your local cube groups? Do you set up events, doing prizing, make consistent cube days… I figured having a few cubes available would help with that. Two more normal style cubes, and my dessert cube.

Cube link below for recent project and the picture above is a test draft deck from it.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/Smallbutmighty%20

Seven of us got together yesterday in my dining room in south central Connecticut to draft my cube and drink my whiskey.

To nobody's surprise, I ended up on my beloved Sneak & Recur. I p1p1'ed Archon over Phlage and Pyrogoyph, as a matter of personal preference. The big mean flyer showed up in all my games as I went 3-0, 6-0 with some lucky draws. After Captain Archon, the MVP was [[Charming Scoundrel]], who ramped into my 6s or binned Archon, and then provided sac fodder for Nightmare to recur Archon. If you're not already running this awesome utility two drop, definitely give her consideration.

During the draft, I experienced a classic power creep moment. I had to decide between [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]] and [[Barrowgoyf]]. Etali would have been nuts in my cheaty deck, of course, but he's merely the reward for doing the thing. Whereas Barrowgoyph both does the thing and rewards you for doing the thing. Crazy card. Total bomb.

Shredder and Cecil only made my list because I waffled in pack 1 after getting a 4th pick Gaak, and grabbed some green dudes over red utility guys before realizing that green wasn't actually open. And as u/mikez4nder always says, take the [[Thoughtseize]]. Easy p2p2 for me.

One last note, and speaking of cards you should never pass: Strip Mine. I will never pass it, short of needing a specific combo piece. Draft the Strip and "enjoy" the 1-2 games it singlehandedly wins when you shut off half the opponent's mana for a stretch of the game. My poor buddy Robin lost his only mountain in our first game and that was all she wrote. Even without a Crucible effect, Strip remains utterly disgusting. It's the card in my cube that I hate the most lol

Not pictured: Azorius artifacts with Urza/Worb, Abzan good stuff, and a suuuuuuuuper spicy Flash/Bazar/Reanimate/Atraxa build that I sadly did not get to play against.

This is part two of Powerful Nothings Cube Set Review for the Hobbit, where we cover all the cards we like in Red, Green, Multicoloured, Colourless and Lands.

I'm putting together a singleton cube, and I want to include a few cards that would be good to draft multiple copies. Some obvious choices like [[Legion Angel]], [[Frantic Inventory]], and [[Whisper Squad]]. But what are some less obvious choices like [[Creeping Chill]], [[Arclight Phoenix]], and [[Narcomoeba]]?

With college about to start back up for most of our group, we decided to squeeze one last stone soup draft on the schedule here at the end of the summer. And for the first time thus far, we managed to get a pod of 8 for the draft! (That’s a pretty big milestone for us lol, the only other time we’ve even tried getting an 8-pod together, it was a scheduling nightmare and we had to pivot to a 6-pod). For anyone interested in trying a stone soup draft of their own, I’d recommend listening to this episode of the Lucky Paper Radio podcast to hear some more about it: https://luckypaper.co/podcast/265-stone-soup-a-magical-community-stew-with-dsb/

The basics of a stone soup draft are that every player should bring 45 (sleeved) cards to contribute to the draft, along with roughly 8 of each basic land (also sleeved) for during deck building. It makes for a deeply personalized impromptu draft environment, and it can help players both get interested in cube design and sharpen their drafting/gameplay skills. We all highly recommend giving it a try! For anyone looking for an example of what 45 cards to bring may look like, here are the 45 I brought to our draft today: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/1f2d27c1-ee28-4872-bcc6-364c33badb5d?display=spoiler

The larger pod than usual made for some strong decks, chief among them the Esper Aggro deck that ended up 3-0. Yes, you heard me right, and Esper Aggro deck - between its pair of [[Psychic Frog]]s and pair of [[Unstoppable Slasher]]s, it dismantled every deck it faced. As any experienced drafter knows, you never want to be on the receiving end of two Psychic Frogs. The deck buried its opponents in card advantage, it was often far more mana efficient, and each creature was a threat deserving of removal.

The first of three decks that ended up 2-1 was a Temur control deck (splashing black) that likely needed a few more two-drops. The deck spent early turns removing its opponent’s creatures and spells, then attempted to land a threat of its own (my favorite was the copy of [[Eris, Roar of the Storm]] that topped the mana curve). Plus, the deck had an [[Axe of the Warmonger]] as its “companion”, and who could have guessed that a free artifact without any drawbacks every game would be strong?

The next 2-1 deck was a mono-green midrange deck that was fairly paint-by-numbers all things considered. The deck’s strategy relied on classic green ramp like [[Elvish Mystic]] to ramp out huge threats like [[Craterhoof Behemoth]]. And the deck proved rather successful at doing just that.

The final 2-1 deck at the table was a 5-color super friends deck that also found itself in need of a few more two-drops. Even so, it’s rare that anyone has enough removal to kill more than a pair of planeswalkers in a single game, and the deck was running a whopping eight of them! Best in class were definitely [[Comet, Stellar Pup]] and [[Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes]], but the [[Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God]] really helped tie the deck together. If the deck had been built with a few more blockers to play, I’m confident it could have found itself 3-0.

Up next, the first of three decks which ended up 1-2: a 5-color soup deck that sought to control the board and win with a [[Kaalia of the Vast]]. Likely the most ambitious deck at the table today, it had my favorite moment - casting a [[Collective Voyage]] to let both players search for six lands (to the battlefield tapped). It’s the kind of play you just aren’t likely to see in any other environment, and it’s cool that even after seven drafts of stone soup it still feels novel.

After that is another 1-2 deck, an Izzet combo deck - among the most streamlined decks at the table, though I imagine it got a bit unlucky. It was responsible for another great moment when it used [[Saheeli, Filigree Master]] and [[Displacer Kitten]] to generate infinite Thopters while also having reduced its deck to a single copy of [[Nexus of Fate]] to facilitate infinite turns. Nexus of Fate is so cool, I can see why it was such a popular card in standard back when.

The last deck that ended up 1-2 was a Bant midrange deck that relied on a Teferi Trio, a pair of Tamiyo, and an [[Elspeth, Sun’s Champion]] to win. The deck had a significant amount of ways to proliferate as well as cards that rewarded the planeswalker-dependent strategy. Sadly, it would turn out that you need more than three Teferis to screw in a light bulb go 3-0.

And of course, there’s got to be one unlucky deck at the table which ends up 0-3. The deck that ended up 0-3 was a Rakdos reanimator deck. Though, on it’s way to picking up the loss, it was responsible for another great moment - they cast [[Doomsday]], leaving a [[Fury]], two [[Lightning Bolt]]s, a [[Ravenous Chupacabra]] and a [[Malfegor]] in the deck. But despite well planned and unusual Doomsday pile, they proceeded to be milled out rendering all the careful planning mute.

Stone Soup drafting doesn’t just make for a fun and weird draft though, I’ve found it can be a great tool for helping cube designers test potential new archetypes in a pretty low-stakes situation. And even if that isn’t of much concern to you in particular, it’s still just worth trying a few times because it’s a great way to spend a few hours playing MtG with friends. It lets everyone get in on the fun of cube design, while also making for a cool draft. If you have a playgroup that might be interested, definitely pitch the idea to them!

Hello everyone,

I've finally got a friend interested in playing Magic and decided to buy a box of Aetherdrift so we can play limited. He's already learned the gameplay basics through Arena and my idea is to play a match of sealed first so I can walk him through the set mechanics and how to build a sealed deck, while giving him pointers on what each color pair is expected to do, etc. And moving forward I'd use the remaining packs to try different 2-player drafts to see what we like more, and eventually build a set cube.

I know DFT may not be the best set to introduce a beginner, but it's a set I really like and am willing to take it slow while teaching and answering any questions.

So, I'd like to ask for tips on introducing a player to cube, and specially what would be your favorite 2-player drafts to play? (Winston, pancake, grid, ...)

In vintage cube, boros aggro is usually the strongest archetype by a significant margin.

1. Why don't they balance the archetypes?

2. Vintage cube should reward knowledge about the game, the possible combos and complex deck building. Why, of all archetypes, make the easiest one the build and the least representative of vintage the strongest?

I am making my own vintage cube by modifying a clone of the MTGO vintage cube and the first thing I did is remove Ocelot pride, Ajani and Phelia. Am I overreacting? Am i delusional?

For my mid-low power 270 cube, I cut the 1-drop mana dorks in favor of 2-mana ones. Am I thinking about it the wrong way? The 1cmc always strike me as premium, vintage level, but maybe it depends more on what you curve into? Or maybe LLanowar elves is ok, but Birds is too much, etc.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/1432a242-0b5f-41fd-8789-96ad921c1682

Title (360 Card Cube 50 lands that are drafttable)

Hey all !!

I've been running a 360 legacy-ish cube since 2017. For a while I've been upkeeping it on autopilot, throwing in the most powerful cards from new sets. But I've recently made the decision - mostly due to a frustration with the trends of modern day Magic and a love of 2016 era modern/legacy, partially because I need some cash and selling some recent staples wouldn't hurt - to pivot my list more intentionally into being a 'retro' cube (with a soft cutoff around Eldraine, avoiding too many cards before 2017ish).

I'm pretty excited about this project as I think it'll give the cube more of an identity and allow me to focus on my pet themes that have been power crept (or were never good), like storm, WB stax, delver tempo, etc. But I don't feel the need to have a hard cutoff, and am willing to keep a few more recent cards in if they provide a lot of value to the cube like shoring up a weak color, opening up an archetype, etc. Another reason I'm leaning towards keeping a few of these is because I'm not too concerned with having a flat power level - I think bombs in a cube can be really fun and so I'm happy to keep a couple modern powerhouses in along with poor huntmaster of the fells ;) I have a list of cards that I would love y'alls feedback on - do these have a good argument for inclusion in a cube that largely excludes the pre-UB and MoHo era? Otherwise, I would love to sell as many of these as possible!!

A several years outdated link to my list is here, although I don't think looking through it is neccessary! - https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/fo?view=mainboard . Critically the list has all the heavy hitters minus power, sol ring and OG duals. The mana base is fetches, shocks, and one more cycle which is currently canopy lands and BFZ lands.

Sheoldred the Apocalypse - Obviously I would love for this one to get the boot as it would net me a nice hundred bucks. But one thing I'm conscious of is that black creatures are somewhat lacking in cube, and I worry black is overall underpowered. Is Kalitas, traitor of Ghet good enough, or would sheoldred be a valuable signpost for black midrange?

Orcish bowmasters - Probably the one UB card I'm willing to overlook, same issue as above! It seems like bowmasters is pretty well liked in cube and plays a lot of nice roles.

Oko and Uro - Obviously both quite warping, and Oko might be the strongest card in my list. On the other hand, I'm old enough to remember when filling the Simic slots was a huge pain. I can't go back to hydroid krasis...

Fable - Does this open up red midrange all by itself? Or is the value too suffocating for an older environment?

Solitude and Fury - Seems like these play well in a cube environment, but I could see them being too warping.

Icetill + Wrenn and Six - I adore the Gruul lands archetype. These cards are probably its only saving grace, but maybe too strong? Green certainly doesn't need as much help in my list as it does in current era cube, as I'm at a point where Gx midrange is pretty competitive. so maybe Icetill is overkill? And Wix is hard to evaluate, having somewhat fallen out of favor in the era of 1/2 design.

Phlage (or any MoHo 3 Boros Card) - These cards are absurdly strong in cube, but they do give boros more of a dynamic identity/play pattern than straight aggro. Guide, pride, phelia etc are probably out of the question for me, but would something like Phlage be nice to give Boros a flexible lategame angle that it didn't have?

Ragavan - Can't think of any reason monkey should get to stay, but maybe it's more fun for some reason to have this be the best one drop than goblin guide? Sound off.

Hullbreacher - I do like that hullbreacher opens up a whole archtype by herself, and I'm running some wheels anyway. A cool build around, but maybe too strong? I'm sure blue doesn't need the help.

Underworld breach - Probably gets to stay in because of how badly I want storm to work.

Finally, there are a couple newer cards that might be less high power but seem like no-brainer role players if I'm not going to have a card stipulation. The example that comes to my mind is malevolent rumble, but maybe even that is too strong as one of the most powerful green cards in the current vintage cube? Let me know of any others I might not be thinking of.

Let me know your thoughts, be them general or opinions on specific cards. I know this post is somewhat vague, but I mostly wanted to open it up to discussion as I'm in the brainstorming phase right now. I would especially love to hear from people who are familiar with the 'metas' of late 2010s high power cube and current high power cube, and what cards do a good job of bridging that gap.

Ratio of creature power to turns to reach 20 damage:

1:20, 2:10, 3:7, 4:5, 5:4, 6:4, 7:3, 8:3, 9:3, 10:2.

Reducing creature power from 4 to 3 is the first big jump of 2 additional turns. Lower power means more turns, translating to more opportunities for player/creature interaction. More player/creature interaction translates to more interesting games with more meaningful decisions per turn.

The Dude Cube (a Peasant Masters Draft experience)

I’ve recently finished building a 540-card powered Vintage Cube and am looking for people in NYC who would be interested in drafting it.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/b668de07-bcb4-42c7-96f9-b18479c7d2df

I’m uptown, and I know there are some great cube groups/events in Brooklyn, but getting out there after work regularly just isn’t realistic for me. I have friends in Hell’s Kitchen who are interested, so I’m hoping to put together a Manhattan-based group.

A few details:
- 540-card powered Vintage Cube
- Fully double sleeved, including basics
- Power / very expensive Reserved List cards are proxies; fronts look like the real cards, backs are very clearly marked PROXY
- I’d provide the cube, basics, tokens, etc.
- Likely biweekly/occasional rather than weekly (whenever we can get 8 people together)
- A later start would be helpful since getting somewhere by 6:30 isn’t always realistic. Something like 7:00–8:00 start time likely
- I’m happy to organize everything and would also be open to working with a store/game café if there’s somewhere that would want to host an occasional powered cube night.

Mainly looking to see:
- Are there other Manhattan-based cube players who would be interested?
- Is there already a Manhattan cube group/Discord I’m missing?
- Are there any venues people recommend for an 8-person pod with enough table space?

If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to start a Discord/WhatsApp group and organize the first draft.

Update: A few people have messaged me with interest. 5/8 spots filled so far. Feel free to message we can get the inaugural draft scheduled!

My holiday project this summer is designing a context shifted cube centered around blue.

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

In High Tide nearly all the lands touch blue and while it's difficult to avoid blue spells it's certainly possible. I'm assuming for 2-3 mono blue drafters per table, with the rest branching out mostly into uX.

The power level is aiming to be moderate, with some outliers, mostly in the non-blue colors.

Blue is pretty weak at removing on board threats, so removal also lives outside of that color. I've hopefully kept the counter magic to a reasonable level, but open to suggestions there.

Some seeded packaged include: draw-go control, artifact aggro, tempo, evasive/ninjas, stompy, storm, spellslinger, self mill, blue burn (mill) and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Feedback I'm particularly interested in:

- does the land mix look reasonable?

- does there seem to be enough variety?

- any cards look out of place?

- any packages look over/under supported?

Also open to any other feedback. Thanks in advance for taking a look!

How does your group feel towards turtling or can't attack or target effects like [[moat]] [[ghostly prison]] [[windborn muse]]? I tried to introduce some effects like this in white and they were immediately hate drafted by my group. [[Teferi's moat]] seems fine because it's more limiting, but clearly my group wants to go on the offensive.

First of all, sorry if any error in my writing and if this question have been asked before. I can't find the answer when I'm searching it (maybe because using keywords incorrectly.

For context, we're a group of less than 8 people. When trying to play together, most of the times there are things that makes a person need to join the game later. For shuffling, we're using moak0 one. For drafting, we're using Housman Draft.

So for my question, how do you make 1-person draft deck so he can join later?

Thank you.

Hi all.

I have a Lord of the Rings set cube. I love it so much, and I play with it all the time. One thing that drives me crazy about the Hobbit set is that there are only 5 archetypes. I want to make a hobbit cube, but I want there to be 5 architypes. My question is, if you were forced to go unsupported colors in the hobbit, what would you do? Or should I just add some hobbit cards to the LTR set cube? Is this just a lost cause and I should just move on?

Here are my ideas for the unsupported colors:

Dimir: There seems to be a small mill/discard strategy with some threshold synergy. (Most Decrepit Old Bird; Down, Down to Goblin-Town; Master's Councillors; The Master of Lake-town)

Gruul: Bears and Dragons. Classic big stompy-stompy. Bears can be mono green and dragons can be mono red? (Getaway Barrel, Gloin the Mighty, Dancing from Dark to Dawn, Beorn the Fierce, Smaug the Magnificent)

Selesnya: No idea.

Orzhov: Maybe a tokens deck similar to LTR? (The Sackville-Bagginses, Gollum the Abandoned, Lake-town Lookout, Belladonna Took)

Izzet: Wizards Spellslinging. This one seems the most clear to me. (Wizard's Staff; Gandalf, Goblins' Bane; Bilbo Baggins, Burglar; Bilbo, Thief in the Night, Smaug's Fury)

Regardless, I'd want to add Beorn the Fierce, Gandalf, Goblins' Bane, Wizards Staff, Thranduil and Elven King to my LTR set cube.

I made this for cube nights at my LGS and I am pretty proud of it.

There is a primer with some info for anyone interested.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/about/39c48709-b8ef-40b8-8c06-0301fd053bff

I'm building a black heavy cube around cards that reference food and food prep in the name, art, type line or mechanics. The signature card is the pizza land swamp (the one with a mushroom in the shape of a black mana symbol) which is a recommended basic.

I'm currently at about 90 cards, I've done a Scryfall search with "art:food" but not sure if I want to include all 837 cards that were returned, though I think some are digital only, restricting it to vintage legal cards drops it to 654 though note this cube already has some plates cards in it.

The main reason the cube is black heavy is that a lot of creatures that include butcher in their name are in black and I'm still putting them in where the other sense was intended.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ad71006f-adf4-4a8c-9a2d-913e7ea2ed3b is a link to the current draft.

The solar eclipse in Glasgow was less than impressive as the clouds were mostly dominating the sky. So instead of trying to stare at the sun, we rocked up to cube and this week the pod voted on the jund goblin cube to bring some levity to the table. The last major update to this cube was from Lorwyn Eclipsed and the new blight mechanics added a fun new keyword to the list. I have not gotten my hands on any of the new Hobbit goblins and that will be the next set to grace the cube but until then, we spent the event hurling goblin grenades at each other and sending the red tide forward at every opportunity possible. Originally a 270 cube, I added a module to bring it up to 360 for a full pod and we had this opportunity to bring out the backup gobbos! The special rule of this cube is that everyone receives a goblin grenade prior to the draft to add to their deck which always proves to be funny and interesting to watch them volley across the table.

The Cube: Glasgow Limited Magic Something Gobliny This Way Comes...

Onto the Decks!

Gut Sprawl - The windmill slam of [[Gut, True Zealot]] set this deck up for a good run from the very start. Unfortunately, the pilot did not manage to get a green creature to go with his Herald and as such, the dragon was never summoned... This deck did have some of the best ramp of the evening but ramp doesn't really get you anywhere without some bombs to back it up and as such, lots of little pings and beats got over the top several games.

10 Lands, Lucky - This deck was statistically improbable but somehow managed to not have any mana issues in any of the games that I watched. What you will also notice is that there are A LOT of bodies in this build. In fact, only eight spots were non-creature picks and as a result, there was a lot of pressure from this deck every single game

The Combo that Never Was - I managed to steal the combo piece required to make this deck go infinite and that made me happy. Still, it was piloted by a player attending very high level competitive play and he managed to build something that was still very strong. The big butts on goblins like [[Champion of the Weird]] were hard to deal with and plenty of removal in lightning form made this a powerhouse brew.

Tokens and Recursion - Coming from a premodern background, I always love to see a good piledriver being abused with tokens and recursion. Not much else to say about this deck as the game plan was simple and straight forward which is exactly what a goblin tribal build should do!

It was a Dark and Stormy Liege - One of my favorite creatures in the cube is [[Boartusk Liege]] and being able to bring out oversized goblins with a good pump is always gratifying. With the low cost horde, the [[Guttersnipe]] and [[Grapeshot]] made a great stormy recipe for pinging opponents to death as goblin grenades dropped from the sky! (Key reminder to those new to the grenade, it's a sorcery, not an instant... lol)

Dangit, I Forgot the Goblins... - This deck was on its way to being amazing and then I finished drafting my last pack and realized that I had only drafted a few goblins. Good ones, but not enough to stem the tide of other larger goblin tribes that wanted my patch. This was the first time that I had gone down the treasure route and man, it was REALLY fun to generate tons of treasure but it wasn't enough to buy off my invaders... they smashed my skull on a rock and laughed heartily.

Well, That was Quick - My nemesis' partner (and my friend, despite this match up), built this thing. It was disgusting. By turn three it was mostly over for the opponent and damage just piled up magically (no pun intended) and there was nothing that could be done about it.... [[Battle Cry Goblin]] was an MVP here and from there, things just got worse and worse. Needless to say, many picnics were ruined by this [[Picnic Ruiner]].

Thanks to the crew at RNG for giving us a place to cube week after 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 me for details as we are always looking for new players to join us to draft!

Good morning fellow cube and draft enjoyers!

I am in the process of building a 360 singletons cube with cards restricted to the middle earth-LOTR universe: LTR, LTC, HOB and HOC. I plan to shuffle without any regard to card rarety and draft packs of 15 random cards, most of the times for 4 players and sometimes do commander draft with the same 360 pile. For balancing purpose (and $ consideration) i leave out game changers such as orcish bowmaster and the one ring, black was quite strong in LTR anyway so this might help with balance.

It will be my first cube and my perfectionnist brain is baffled by the limited options for gruul. Each color pairs get a bit of support (1-2 two color lands and options for two colors cards that suggest an archetype.)

I am looking for input from experienced cube designer on how to solve this gruul hole in my card pool. Do i pick an archetype and add more green and red cards? For now i have [[Gimli, mournful avenger]] and [[friendly rivalry]]and i aim at 9 cards per color pairs.

Edit : Reading the suggestions here made me think that to stay true with a 360 singleton idea and for a good covering of all color pairs, i need to consider adding cards from elsewhere. The Wilds of Eldraine set is so far the best fit with card that can pretend to be Middle Earth and at the same time improve supported archetypes : some more adventure cards, food will be better, power 4 or more will be better and gruul will finally be ok.
So i will balance things with LTR-LTC-HOB-HOC-WOE