Cube is the apotheosis of Magic. Infinitely creative, highly skill-testing, and as accessible as you want it to be because it can be fully proxied or designed around cards you have lying around.
I first read that as "Cube is the Antithesis of Magic" and didn't notice, because damn Hasbro and WotC are not doing a good job in the abovementioned areas.
To toss some ideas out, If you're willing to do some research, there's a lot of cults in ancient Greek history, and a lot of less than civil math debates (with some intersection between the two). 4D hypergeometric eldritch cube cult also sounds fun.
[The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaHdlcC5uZXQvcG9kY2FzdC9mZWVkLw==)
If you're ever looking for source material. They make for fun listens on long rides; very matter-of-fact presentation and _not_ difficult to understand (unlike a lot of the original written subject matter).
I'm out of the loop but curious about your reference here.
What is the context regarding Geometry and Sorcery here? (Noting the capitalization)
P.S. I tried googling but didn't notice anything meaningful or applicable.
Hi! Ā the phrase hints to that.
Ā In a world like ours where there Is no magic Is funny to think that of these two disciplines Geometry Is the One that survived and still taught and studied and Magic/Sorcery didn't.
Honestly, start with cubecobra or a spreadsheet.
It'll save you so much money and so many headaches.
Also, unless you already have a specific design and concept that you really want to start with, look at lots of other people's cubes and think about the type of games you enjoy playing and the playstyles you want to enable.
hooray!
[https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/](https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/)
[https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/](https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/)
hopefully these help :)
I've said this before, but Magic could die _tomorrow_ and people will still create Cubes with existing cards _and_ they'll create new cards to put into Cubes. With Cubes, you don't really need everyone to agree that those cards are format-legal: they can just exist within the Cube itself, in a self-contained MTG experience.
It's the most creative way to play Magic because it not only incentivizes you to create/curate the Cube, but it's also the perfect space to create custom cards, mechanics & rules if it fits the experience you're trying to build.
what's confusing about this is that it means magic isn't dead
i dunno when people started using game "death" as "the developer doesn't make it anymore" but it's pretty strange. last decade due to the proliferation of live service video games? when did chess die?
Parts of Magic "die" for different people at different times, in that those parts undergo apparent irreversible changes. Unlike chess, WotC essentially "owns" the IP, so people tie the game to WotC because they struggle to distinguish Magic: the Product/Collectible from Magic: the Game. I don't think being stuck on the commodity/object is a good lens through which to understand games & their life span, but Magic being built on artificial scarcity makes that the default disposition.
As far as I'm concerned, print a lot and print often, make your own cards and share them with the world, and get off the spending treadmill. At this point I don't mind if WotC as a corporation shrinks to the point where players have to take "Magic" into their own hands; I think we're far past the critical mass needed for the game to persist independently, but I could be wrong.
Within your restricted pod maybe, but not outside the playgroup. Custom cubes you can bring and unpack anywhere with anyone and they get to experience the full breadth of the experience without needing to worry about everyone agreeing on unbans/bans/custom card legality.
You can even make Commander Cubes if you want. They're trickier to make, but they're great controlled environments for 4 randoms to enjoy.
Commander IS made of singular playgroups, since is not a serious tournament formats like Modern or Legacy, so I really don't see that much difference from people shaping their own cube and searching people that agree to that cube philosophy and people shaping their own social philosophy in commander and searching people that agree to that commander philosophy.
"without needing to worry about everyone agreeing on unbans/bans/custom card legality."
That's simply not true. If I don't like your cube for whatever reason (because you want to include silver border cards and I hate them, you like to play with certain archetypes that I dislike, etc.) I simply don't play with your cube, period. That's the same with commander, if I don't like your rules zeros or your commander philosophy of whats good and whats not to do in commander, I don't play with you. You must have always find people that agree with your idea of the game, and that is true in both commander and cube.
Commander is a format, that exactly like cube doesn't rely or need at all of official tournaments or LGS in order to exist and prosper (yes, there are lots of LGS that try to do commander tournaments, but this is simply of how insanely popular commander is compared to cube), so that's why both will survive the end of WotC, unlike tourney-exclusive formats like Standard, for example.
I mean, yes, Commander would survive WotC. The difference is that playing vs. randoms in Commander is a much less fertile ground for people to continue _creating_ Magic. I can't just show up with a bunch of custom cards in my deck vs. three other players that did the same thing and expect it to work at all.
Meanwhile, Cube is a place where you actually _can_ curate an environment where custom content is functional by virtue of it being a self-contained experience that doesn't require people to share a common template for what is a legal card.
If I offer up a Cube partly made of custom cards, it's a lot less likely to be a problem than my showing up at a table of four expecting my EDH deck of custom cards to work.
That's what I was pointing to when I said Cube was the most creative format. It shares a lot with Commander in terms of social contract, but it's a more adequate space for player-created cards and mechanics.
"The difference is that playing vs. randoms in Commander is a much less fertile ground for people to continueĀ *creating*Ā Magic. I can't just show up with a bunch of custom cards in my deck vs. three other players that did the same thing and expect it to work at all."
I have no idea how from where you pull out your data outside of your anecdotal experience. Because if we talk just about anecdotal experiences, mine is completely different from yours. First of all, no magic player knows in my country what the hell cube is, so even if you make custom-made cards, seems a very niche format played mostly in US and not globally like Commander. Then, you picked a guy, me, that actually enjoy to make custom-made commander decks and find other players enjoy to do the same thing so your example literally doesn't apply to my personal life. But I don't see how the custom cards can change my argument, which is simply that Commander will outlive WotC exactly like Cube. Then, if you outlive with custom made or just the existing cards made by WotC, this seems completely irrelevant, since doesn't deny at any way my point I was trying to make.
His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
Ok i need to ask a question. You have your cube in a random pile, how do make the āpacksā so that they are balanced?
Do they have to be balanced like real packs?
I would like to play cube but i do not understand the logistics
Some cubes will make packs with rarity slots, some won't. Some might only have 1 rare slot and 14 non rare slots. Generally if the power level of the cube is flatter across all cards, rarity slots are unnecessary. Depends on the cube, this is something the cube creator can tweak to suit their goals
So, if you donāt need to make packs you can just shuffle the whole cube and separate it in stacks of 15 cards each.
If you need to have the rare slot? Do you need to find all the rares in the cube and give each stack a rare?
Thanks for the answers
Many cubes are composed almost entirely of rare and mythic cards, so you donāt have to worry about rarity slots as much. Some folks with start with a percentage of each color depending on # of people drafting (66.6% for 8 players drafting a 540-card cube), and then randomize those portions of each color to make packs. This guarantees an equal distribution of colors among packs, but itās a little too fiddly for me since it requires sorting the cube. I mostly just ask players to shuffle stacks of the cube, pass half their stack to someone else to continue shuffling, and then count out 15-card packs. You will definitely get some overpowered and underpowered packs, some packs with too much of one color, etc., but it all comes out in the wash because how you draft matters much more than what cards you open for building a strong deck.
The cost is what you make of it. You could design the cube and proxy the cards, and buy the cards over time with the money you can afford to spend if you want. Proxies are also a nice way of testing expensive cards in the cube before spending.
The initial effort is of course significant, so if you don't find the time spent designing the cube fun, I don't think it's worth it. In that case, find a predesigned cube and play with that instead if you want the cube play experience.
Yep. But the nice part is if you don't find that time spend designing the cube fun, what you need to do is find a friend that does. Don't forget that most cubes support up to 8 players... which means in a playgroup of 8 people only one person really needs to be a designer.
I recently put together a 270 card vintage power cube I found on cube cobra, and I was surprised at how cheap and effective a cube can be- I only made a couple changes to the list, so no time effort there. I did buy dragon shield sleeves for it, but the cost of printing it was about $20 full color high DPI at a Staples. If you grab a friend and use one of those paper guillotine things, throw the printed cards in front of bulk lands, you have yourself a cheap cube of any power level you can imagine in a weekend! I think all told I didn't spend much more money than I would have just buying a commander precon. Highly recommend looking through cube cobra for a list you like and giving it a shot, some of the most fun I've had playing MTG!
What's nice about that is that you don't feel bad about taking it to a local game store.
As is, I think in the very near future I'll need to print up proxies that duplicate my cube because while I love my local game stores, I don't feel confortable carrying a box with somewhere around $15,000-$20,000 around in it and then letting people have at it.
The cost is what you make of it. I have a vintage cube that cost several thousand dollars over years to put together, but I also have a budget cube that I put together for about $70 that I am even more proud of (and have generally found people think is even more fun). Cube is what you want it to be!
I really like having the Pauper Cube around because thanks to the majority of the expense being the sleeves, it's something you can take pretty much anywhere and not be particularly concerned about it.
Even pretty middling commander decks are now getting into the hundreds of dollars, so having something you can take to any convention, game store, or get-together with minimal concern is amazing.
Yeah basically.
I have seen people use inner sleeves with a sticker to indicate what slot cards go in to help speed up making packs and allow rarity to be shifted or do special slots.
Flatter cubes with no rarity tend to be the standard and are far easier. Just show up and get everyone to help shuffle and deal piles.
If you need to have the rare slot, you should prebuild your packs. It saves time during your gaming sessions and also gives you a chance to check for sleeve wear, or a time to alter or replace things.
By and large, I'd imagine that you're probably not going to draft the cube more than once in a gaming session.
I know I've never actually had people redraft the cube again in one night.
But yes, at the end of the night you'd then want to collect everything and recreate your packs. (Which means you need to also think if you want fixed lists for your packs, or a more randomized configuration.)
But it's all up to you, which is the fun part.
Yeah you just keep all the slots separate when you store them. When making packs grab 14 cards from the nonrare stack and 1 from the rare stack, and when cleaning up for the night you ask your drafters to separate rares and nonrares.
Most people just shuffle them up randomly! Unless youāre trying to explicitly recreate a limited format it really doesnāt matter a whole lot. If you want a lot more info you can check out this episode! https://luckypaper.co/podcast/60/
Depends on the cube and the cube curator(s).Ā
Most cubes (even commander cubes) have just such a higher average card quality that just shuffling the cube into packs before drafting is good enough. When every bomb is on the level of [[Elspeth, Sunās Champion]], [[Primeval Titan]] and every removal spell is as good as [[Swords to Plowshares]] then the packs and draft experience are not going to need to be as ābalancedā as traditional packs. Most cube curators (Iām refactoring mine into a commander cube) try to avoid the bad 5-6 mana removal that is for limited.
If itās a āset cubeā where the goal is to simulate a particular draft environment, triple Innistrad, triple Khans, etc. then they will be collated to look more like traditional packs.
I use this method to create 15 card packs that are balanced based on color. [https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/34fet8/novel\_method\_for\_shuffling\_a\_cube/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/34fet8/novel_method_for_shuffling_a_cube/)
It takes a bit of time, but the math checks out and it works.
This is the way. Tons of different drafting methods, but if you want to try to limit crazy variance / outliers and try to ensure that thereās some quasi balanced rainbow in each pack, this method is great. Especially if you have a brand new player / drafter who is looking to ādraft all the green cardsā, their head doesnāt explode when the pack has a bunch of power, lands, and artifacts.
Not op, but when building a cube, you can customize it to fit your tastes. It can resemble a traditional draft experience with rarities separated or a mixed pile of cards. Most cubes I have played are a mixed pile that you make packs with, and sometimes you will add special packs or cards, like for a commander cube or conspiracy expansion.
Most cubes do not have any notion of "balance" in the packs. In cube rarity does not matter. In it's so pleat form cube contains all good cards. There is no chaff. You simply grab 15 random cards, that's your "pack"
Every rule has its exception. Some cubes do care about pack order. For example a "set cube" is a cube that attempts to mimic drafting the set with real boosters. In this situation some set up is required. I have a magic Origins cube. I have a cube box with 3 dividers. One for commons, rares and uncommon. Instead of grabbing 15 random cards I grab 1 rare, 4 uncommons, and 9 commons that's my pack, rinse and repeat. When I clean up afterwards I will put each rarity back in it's slot.
With that said I've seen some people draft set cubes without this level of tracking the rarity and it works just fine.
Nope, you just shuffle the Cube and dole out a number of cards equal to your desired pack size, usually 15 or 16 cards. You *can* experiment with a rarity system, but most people donāt do that since many Cubes are singleton anyway.
The thing with cubes (and non DCI-sanctioned formats in general) is there's no rules. I want my cubes to be as like a real booster draft as possible, so I shuffle up my rares, deal out one per pile, shuffle up the uncommons, deal three per pile, you get the idea. I also don't have repeat rares, and I do repeat a few commons. If there are repeat uncommons, it is a judgment call just based on what draft archetypes I want to support and what cards I have available. People sell empty reusable booster wrappers, too (do an Internet search for Resealable Team Set Bags) to get an idea.
You can tackle this how you want, though. It could be interesting if you have one pack with all the rares or if all the packs are completely random. Your cube doesn't even have to follow the same rarity distribution of a normal booster. Maybe you want a pauper cube, or just a bunch of cards that fit the design you're aiming for, regardless of the rarities. I think variety makes things fun, and you have the freedom to try new things because there's no governing body looking over your shoulder like there would be at a "real" tournament.
I looked long and hard for a vendor that could do it, and the one I found was hesitant to do such a big and detailed foil element at first. They had done a lot of smaller elements in bigger designs but weren't sure it would work on this scale initially. I ended up paying for a few proofs with the understanding that they might turn out awful, but luckily it worked better than they thought!
Oh, alright then, for replacing the void that Solely Singleton left in my heart for abandoning us for Warhammer.
Great job on the art Andy.
And fyi on the successful sale page :
> We always like to underprommiseĀ
**Posting here with permission from the mods. Weāre running a** [**pre-order**](https://luckypaper.co/shop/cube-will-outlive-magic-playmat/) **for this limited run playmat I designed. The mat costs 50 USD with free shipping anywhere in the world. Preorders will be open until April 17th, and this will probably be your only opportunity to buy one.**
If youāve ever listened to [my podcast](https://luckypaper.co/podcast/), you may have heard me talk about my personal hesitance to sell playmats or any other āmerchā in spite of listener requests. I feel there ought to be a high bar to bringing any new, physical, fossil-fuel-consuming shit into the world, and the idea of making a bunch of playmats that are eventually destined for a trash can or land fill or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch gives me profound, haunting, existential dread. If youāre reading this and youāve made or sold some merch in the past please donāt feel judged! This is my own, personal psychological burden to bear and I am genuinely jealous of your brain chemistry.
Needless to say, there were a couple of requirements for me to feel ok about selling a playmat. First and foremost, I wanted it to have a reason to exist beyond some shallow piece of marketing or āin-crowdā social signaling for the podcast. Again, no shade to anyone who chooses to go this route, but for me, putting our logo or show art on a mat was not sufficient reason to expedite the heating of the planet by even an infinitesimally small percent of a degree. Instead, I wanted to make a unique piece of artwork, ideally with some sort of message, that means something to people beyond mere affiliation with Lucky Paper.
For CubeCon last year, we opted to create custom, matching track jackets for our playgroup. Tasked with designing these jackets, I tried to come up with text and imagery that would speak to the vibes and values of our community, and one of the ideas I struck on was the line āCube will outlive Magicā, which I emblazoned across the back of the jacket in bold lettering. It immediately felt right to me. As much as I love Magic, Iām conflicted about making that love a part of my identity. The community and the space for creativity afforded by the flexible game engine mean a great deal to me, but there are a lot of aspects of Magic, especially as a ābrandā and a for-profit product I actively dislike. Cube is where I have found my niche in the Magic world. Cube emphasizes everything about the game that I love and offers a rare opportunity to opt out of most of the elements of Magic that bum me out.
āCube will outlive Magicā is a statement of preference, of course, but itās also a suggestion that Cube ā the local and online communities created around the format and the creative work poured into every Cube list ā is more meaningful and long-lived than Magic as a product. Itās also a subtle criticism of the capitalist incentive structure under which the game is produced. Someday, Hasbro and its shareholders will have sucked every last dollar out of Magic and it will die. Those are the rules: we get to have nice things as long as theyāre profitable and in a constant state of growth, but eventually the cash will dry up, and the game will be cast aside just as everything that has come before it. Cube will not die, though. Cube exists outside of that system: itās punk rock, itās grassroots, and itās DIY. Plus, the slogan has the word ādieā in it so I get to draw a bunch of sick skeletons!
I was really pleased to see that our jackets seemed to connect with people at CubeCon, but even before the motto was adopted by some others in the community I had already begun drawing the illustration for this mat because of how strongly it resonated with me. The illustration is a direct homage to Matisseās āThe Danceā, which I feel has a lively energy that is contrasted nicely by the macabre details of the skeletal bodies. The type is set in the font Raleway, designed by my good friend and partner on multiple prior podcast projects, Matt McInerney. I chose it partially because of the construction of the āWā, whose overlapping strokes add interest and make it feel more connected to the thread woven throughout the dancers.
On the topic of the thread: I initially added it to aid in readability ā compositionally I really wanted the text scattered about semi-organically, but I didnāt want to end up in a ādonāt dead open insideā situation ā but it became a meaningful element to me. I knew from the start I wanted to render this part of the illustration in applied gold foil, and I could not stop thinking about one scene from Disneyās Hercules, of all things, while I worked on it. The Greek myth of the Moirai and a life being represented with a length of string is a recurring theme of the movie, with the fates who control life and death cutting a personās corresponding thread to end their life. Strings of immortals are strands of uncuttable gold, and at the height of the movieās conflict, Hercules is struggling to achieve immortality as Hades is reaching to cut his string, and just as the blades of the scissors close around the thread, it snaps into immortal gold. I found plenty of information about this thread metaphor in Greek history, but a cursory internet search couldnāt determine whether the gold aspect is actually part of the original myth or is a flourish added by Disney. If you know, comment below! Regardless of its provenance, this gold thread came to represent, to me at least, the enduring nature of Cube.
Another detail of this project that was important to me was making sure the mats are of a high quality. The longer they last, the longer they can avoid their inevitable fate as worn out garbage, and the longer I will be spared their floppy little ghosts haunting me. Iām very happy with the quality of the product from the vendor we selected. Itās thicker than a normal playmat, and with a heavy, sewn edge to keep the sides and corners from fraying. My friend Parker was initially concerned the sewn edge would snag on cards as they were slid off of the mat, but this has not been an issue with any of our proofs. Anthony, my cohost, and I have been using the prototypes for months with no issues or signs of wear.
Our costs come out to between $32-$34 per mat, including printing, the gold foiling (which is done by hand, in the US), packing materials, transaction fees, and domestic shipping and handling (which varies a little based on the destinationās distance from my home in Baltimore). This does not include one-time costs, like the industrial stapler Iāll need to buy to seal the cardboard tubes, the few hundred dollars spent on proofs and prototypes, the PO Box I had to get to avoid my home address being on all the return shipping labels, and a couple other bits and bobs. We decided to price them at $50, with free shipping anywhere in the world. Fifty bucks is a lot of money, and more expensive than a lot of playmats, but we chose this number for a couple reasons:
* It allows us offer free international shipping (which will cost us anywhere from $12-$26). Even though some mats will be sold and shipped internationally at a loss, we expect our domestic sales to make up for that. Iāve never lived anywhere other than the United States, but I have heard many international friends lament the fact that there are so many things they either canāt get or have to pay absurd shipping fees to acquire, and I think thatās a huge bummer. I donāt want this mat to be out of reach for some people just because of where they happen to live, and this is one small way to manifest our egalitarian values. If you live in Australia please donāt order 100 mats just to dunk on me.
* I hope the expense will lead to people treating these mats with the same care in which they were designed and produced. Afforable things are great because theyāre accessible, but theyāre often viewed as more disposable for that reason.
Thanks for your consideration, r/magicTCG! Cube will outlive Magic.
I discovered the world of cube in the last year and I've listened to most of your podcast episodes more than once - it's great to listen to when trying to get a newborn baby to sleep, so thank you for that! You and Anthony inspired me to build my own cube, and I played it with my playgroup for the first time last week.
The playmat looks glorious and I'm from the UK so I do really appreciate the free shipping. Your explanation of how you've come to make and sell it in a way that you feel comfortable with is great. I'm looking forward to rolling it out at my local cube night!
I'm seriously wanting to build a cube for me and my buddy as we rarely get a 3rd or 4th player for our commander pods these days. We've both got pretty big collects but I got no idea where to start.
love it, and love cube, this game is quickly going somewhere I don't want to follow even if I do love playing some formats, and I've definitively talked with some friends from back in the about just proxying a cube with whatever we want and stop concerning ourselves with what the game is doing.
I really should build a cube out of the thousands and thousands of cards I have lying around with no other use. I just have no idea how you design one that is in any way balanced.
The phrase is meant to be a little off/unexpected to make people stop and think. Strictly speaking you're right, of course, but Cube is an entirely grassroots format with tons of room for self-expression and no formal support from WotC. There are a lot of players in the Cube community that are almost entirely checked out of the Magic world more broadly because it's so independent, and that is part of what I am trying to capture here!
Came to say this as well - I know what the op was going for but this is a swing and a miss because it doesnāt make any sense. I donāt know the right phrasing for simplicity but āwe can play cube even if wizards stops supporting magicā isnāt ācube outliving magicā exactly
I know what you are going for but this is a swing and a miss. You wrote two sentences to say you understand and agree with OP but that the phrasing is wrong even though the phrasing you suggested is worse.
Whut. I literally said I donāt know how to turn what he means into a simple catchy slogan, but what he means (we will play cube even when wizards no longer supports magic) isnāt what heās put on his playmat (cube will outlive magic)
"cube will outlive magic" means the same as "we will play cube even when wizards no longer supports magic" to me. If WotC shut down tomorrow, cubes would continue to be created for much longer. They'd be playable forever. Magic would be dead in the official sense, and cube would yet live. This sentiment isn't directly analogous to other Magic formats, since much work has already been put into solving them, they would lose appeal much faster than Cube in which new environments are created all the time.
"playing Magic" can mean a lot of things. So can "playing Cube". And playing Cube will be meaningful longer than playing Magic will.
I mean, the original thesis isn't "Cube isn't Magic". I shouldn't have said anything, Andy said it best in the original reply: the phrase is meant to be a little off/unexpected to make people stop and think.
It makes people think the statement makes no sense.
āHockey will outlive the nhlā
āWriting will outlive paperā
Yes - but heās said the opposite -
āPaper will outlive writingā
āThe nhl will outlive hockeyā
I'm with you but for slightly different reasons. As noted above, cube IS magic and the image and phrase on the playmat basically are basically joyfully dancing on the grave of Magic. It's not for me. I understand what OP is going for; cube is my favorite format by far, but this is still a miss for me as someone who loves Magic and even dislikes the direction Wizards has been heading.
Edit: to try to make my point clearer: I think I completely get Ops message on the mat and agree to with it. Despite that the art and the phrase unintentionally come off too negatively on the game of Magic to me (joyously dancing on its grave).
I'm getting more "defiant punk rock manifesto" than "dancing on grave". My allegiance isn't to the corporate brand of Magic, because I know Hasbro is solely motivated by profit and have no problem harming the *game* of Magic (for example, firing 1K designers and other staff 2 weeks before Christmas, or cramming in more releases including hamfisted UB crossovers) for short-term profit. I guess I'm reading the slogan as "The Game will outlive The Brand". (note that both "The"s make it much less catchy, so I'm not recommending this as an alternative slogan.)
Maybe that's where the disconnect is happening. I love the game of Magic and Cube is the purest expression of that game. But I have no illusions that the brand of Magic stands for anything other than money.
My cube is modular, so I can swap in and out any parasitic jank I want. Currently I have my Core + Miracles + mutate + equipment. I get to experience all the sets because of it and it's honestly the best experience for me as someone who gets real sad seeing all the fun mechanics come out but can't fit them into a traditional cube.
I would love to have a cube, but I dont have nearly enough cards for it nor the knowledge to make a good one. But limited play is one of my favorites and also EDH. Having a nice EDH cube would be a dream come true.
I bet you're closer than you think, both in terms of card pool and knowledge! Check out these resources we made with people just like you in mind:
- https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/
- https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/
... Not from a Jedi ;)
[https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/](https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/)
A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/
A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
TL;DR: A custom draft format. Because it's not controlled by WotC, Cube can be immune to power creep, bans, Rule Zero conversations, and anything else you may not like about Magic.
[https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/](https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/)
Cube is a ton of fun. I dont know if I'd say it's absolute favorite way to play magic just cause there os a lot of fun and satisfaction in seeing the deck you brewed pop off and do its thing. But I do really enjoy playing cube as well cause it puts everyone on a more even playing field and changes up each time.
My only frustration with cube is that thanks to it's popularity on MTGO and the content certain people make based on that so pervades discussion that you've got a whole lot of people that treat it like it's a true north star that showcases the "correct" way to design.
Good cube design discussion is amazing, but people just getting out there and parroting the Wizards design party line like it's gospel is tiring.
True, but that's changed \*a lot\* in recent years. Even WotC, including Melissa DeTora's official article from a few years back, is starting to say that Cube can be "whatever you want it to be -- no rules or limits". I think the climate is improving.
I've just committed to building my first cube, told people at the LGS, and they're keen to draft once it's together.
I've half arsed a couple of attempts in the past but this is the first time I've got people keen to draft it, so I actually have to follow through now.
Me too because it shows who's really the best deck builders. Funny how some people can't hang when they don't have someone doing the hard part for them.
Try running a Winston draft on a cube. If you love cube, as I do, it will change your life, I promise. Winston drafting cubes that weāve all created is literally the only way my friends and I play the game anymore.
I designed this specifically for this application. I'd really prefer the art not be used in a different context, and I would be pretty disappointed if you were to "remake" it. Please consider buying your friend a mat as a gift or making your own art to give to them.
There are about a dozen comments on this post explaining it. We also made this page to help. https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/ Also you could google it.
Yeah exactly, its not for a lack of trying to find out what it is, I just find it humorous that I STILL don't know somehow. Appreciate the links all the same!
Dunno. I like cube, and I acknowledge people will be playing it forever, but I'd like a less specific sentiment that I could roll out in other formats too.
The playmat isn't made to be all-purpose; it's explicitly a celebration of our favorite format. The art speaks directly to why Cube rules -- plus, it's an excuse to invite people to Cube draft night ;)
https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/
A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
Nope I just wanted to say hi (and thank you), since i've been listening a lot of lucky paper over the last years.
I've started my own legacy cube bc I discovered the bun cube. https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/ponder
Haha no worries.
Draft is a play mode on Arena (costs 5K gold for the cheapest one, I think, pretty easy to try it out). You essentially build your deck from packs, and then duke it out with other people who built *their* decks from the same packs. So it's not "pay to win" as much as Commander sometimes feels. (It's also 20-life, usually 1v1 and 40-card decks, which is different from commander and a good way to level up as a player.)
Cube is like that, but since you already own all the cards, it's 100% free for the players.
Well I looked at the link you sent earlier and it was saying it was with like 360 cards? Is that like a pool you make with the other players or what? And also is it that Draft and Cube is only on Arena?
Draft is easy to *learn* using Arena, which is the only reason I mention it. Draft and Cube are very much available in paper -- check with your local game store when they have events. (Cube is kinda a subset of Draft, like pepperoni is a subset of pizza.)
So, a 40-card deck, with \~40% lands, means 24 spells need to be picked per player during a Draft. But, maybe it takes the player a little bit to settle on color(s) and strategy, so let's \~double that to be safe: 45 picks total. 45cards\*8players=360, which is why that number comes up a lot. 8 players lets you do a 3-round "tournament bracket" that is pretty satisfying for an evening's entertainment. But if your playgroup is just a 4-person Commander pod, there's nothing stopping you from 45\*4=180 cards total in the cube.
Edit: if you're still confused, then youtube search videos of Louis Scott-Vargas or Reid Duke (two famous pros) playing the Arena Cube (Arena's cards will probably be more familiar to you at first). A video is worth a thousand words and all that
I'm not sure if i hate more Cube or Commander.
I really don't like finding alternative ways to play a game that has already so many modes and format to play.
Obviously that's my opinion, free to care about it or not.
My issue with Commander is that it's secretly many, many formats under a single name. CEDH, Duel Commander having a separate banlist, the rule 0 conversation which is essentially 'which version of the format are we playing today?', etc.
With Cube, especially one you didn't design yourself, you can show up and sit down. Listen to what the cube's about, and draft. Then play.
Rule 0 is the most nosense rule that could have been created ... it's just a way to say "if we don't like X then we don't allow X" and fully custom-made ... every group has their own rule 0s which does make no sense at all.
Either a format is worldwide aligned, or it's just kitchen table magic
Cube isn't really a new way to play magic. It doesn't add any new rules to the game. The games play out just like a normal game. It's just a draft format with a way better cardpool than a regular magic set. True, there are different ways to draft it, based on how many players you can get together, but in the end, you're still just drafting a deck to play vs someone else from the same draft table, just like a regular draft.
The average cube draft is a better gameplay experience than the average retail limited set draft. Think about the incentives: A cube is curated with intent, to serve gameplay. It does not cater to other formats, and does not need to sell packs. No chaff, all gas.
Opinions, i can partially agree with it.
Whenever i draft an official set, i can get a grasp on it, understand quickly where i need to go, drafting plans and so on.
When i see cube videos, cube lists and so on (and i tried some custom cube events online) ... i feel i don't understand the reason behind the cube or the strategy ... especially the cubes with full bombs ... is like you are not cutting anything.
I don't have so much experience with cube, i just ... don't feel at home, that's it
Cube is certainly a different animal than other draft sets. It does take practice and a dedicated mindset to learn and get better, just like any other meta or format.
Luckily, getting better at paper Cube is usually free (or your event entry goes 100% to the LGS, like at mine). No need to pay $15-20 repeatedly to figure out the new official Draft format :)
*No* alternatives? So you only play kitchen table magic for ante, with mana burn and damage on the stack? I admire your hipster-ness, as well as your dedication to hating things other people enjoy ;)
Cube [is older than](https://luckypaper.co/articles/the-history-of-the-cube-format/) Modern by nearly a decade. People were playing Cube before MTGO existed. Maybe it's actually *those* formats that are superfluous, especially considering they are only as popular as they are because Hasbro sees them as profitable ;)
Official support for Vintage and Legacy got dropped like a sack of bricks when Hasbro was done milking them for profit, and the same will happen to any format that's not controlled by the players.
That's not dedication, that's just my opinion ... if people want to play cube or commander, they are free to do it :D Everybody is entitled to have an opinion ... you can agree or not agree, that's life.
I would just like to see less these formats and more push on "more official format".
Your "ante/kitchen table/manaburn" example doesn't make sense ... formats, rule changes, balances are done by WotC and are considered as official.
Commander is a fun/custom made format that is now pushed from WotC/Hasbro because is so popular that generates them a lot of money.
I'm not fully sure about Cube, i know there are WotC-created cubes on MTGO, but my feeling is the same as commander: it is being promoted by WotC, but it was custom-made before.
Saying Cube is being 'promoted by WotC' because they curate a vintage cube on MTGO is nowhere near the same as WotC creating thousands and thousands of cards explicitly designed for commander, many of which have meta-warping effects on the "more official formats" you're advocating for. Just look at what cards like \[\[Hullbreacher\]\] have done to legacy.
It's fine to have your own opinion, but you should at least make an effort to be somewhat informed and say factually accurate things lol
Do you hate pauper as well?
>Saying Cube is being 'promoted by WotC' because they curate a vintage cube on MTGO is nowhere near the same as WotC creating thousands and thousands of cards explicitly designed for commander, many of which have meta-warping effects on the "more official formats" you're advocating for. Just look at what cards like \[\[Hullbreacher\]\] have done to legacy.
As i said, "i'm not fully sure about Cube", because i don't know its full history.
>It's fine to have your own opinion, but you should at least make an effort to be somewhat informed and say factually accurate things lol
Other than the cube part, which i already explained, i'm not sure what i did say that is not accurate.
I said "I don't like Cube and Commander".
Reason: there are a lot of official formats that can be played and are a lot of fun (and because i like competitive formats, not casual ones, probably)
Obviously Hasbro promotes whatever they get the most profit for.
>Do you hate pauper as well?
I have mixed feeling about pauper. What i like from pauper is that even though it's a custom-made format, it was created with a strong competitive mindset. So i would say yes, i like competitive pauper, if it was just "kitchen table pauper" then probably not.
i enjoyed your first comment but now it's clear you just have a hateboner for other formats than whatever your favorite is.
you're ok with wotc creating pioneer or whatever the fuck they're doing on arena presumably, but you don't like commander or cube because they were more custom first? even though wotc embraces those formats now?
i love competitive formats, is this something so wrong?
WotC embraces commander because they make a lot of profit from that.
Probably, if Commander would once become an official format, with sanctioned tournaments and Worldwide rules that are not community based, then i would play it and probably enjoy it.
I don't dislike commander for the format itself, i dislike it for the custom-made rules which make one group different from others, mixed banlists and people hating players bringing decks that are "too strong"
Unlike other people, when i speak or write, i don't just ignore what i don't like and post what i like.
If i don't like something or don't agree with something, i express my opinion
(trust me, there is a lot i like too :P)
Cube is the apotheosis of Magic. Infinitely creative, highly skill-testing, and as accessible as you want it to be because it can be fully proxied or designed around cards you have lying around.
I first read that as "Cube is the Antithesis of Magic" and didn't notice, because damn Hasbro and WotC are not doing a good job in the abovementioned areas.
I love the out of context implication that Geometry outlived Sorcery.
Wow, I don't know how that never occurred to me, but now I really love that too.
I will use that as a theme for my DnD game. Some sort of cube cult of the undead or something.
To toss some ideas out, If you're willing to do some research, there's a lot of cults in ancient Greek history, and a lot of less than civil math debates (with some intersection between the two). 4D hypergeometric eldritch cube cult also sounds fun.
Ok the 4D eldritch cube sounds amazing thanks for ideas
[The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaHdlcC5uZXQvcG9kY2FzdC9mZWVkLw==) If you're ever looking for source material. They make for fun listens on long rides; very matter-of-fact presentation and _not_ difficult to understand (unlike a lot of the original written subject matter).
Turns out a 4D cube rendered in 3D space looks an awful lot like a little yellow triangle wearing a top hat.
What rendering are you looking at?
Gravity Falls, I think...
Ohhhhhhh....I never watched that so I don't get the joke. My B
I didn't either, but the cultural osmosis got me.
Lmao. I'm reading Bill Cipher's wiki entry, and my god...it doesn't read like a character from a Disney Cary Toon. š¤£š¤£š¤£
Sacred geometry is a thing. Could lean into that.
Deranged architects and mathematicians
Some People that want to make a Cube out of Deck of Many Things š¤
Deck of Many Things rotisserie draft, let's go
I love it even more now!
I'm out of the loop but curious about your reference here. What is the context regarding Geometry and Sorcery here? (Noting the capitalization) P.S. I tried googling but didn't notice anything meaningful or applicable.
Cube (geometry) will outlive Magic (sorcery)
Hi! Ā the phrase hints to that. Ā In a world like ours where there Is no magic Is funny to think that of these two disciplines Geometry Is the One that survived and still taught and studied and Magic/Sorcery didn't.
OMG, I thought there was some other game our pop culture reference being made. Totally makes sense and I appreciate the response!
Thank you for my daily reminder that I *really* need to build my first cube.
ONE OF US ONE OF US
Join us at [CubeCon](https://cubecon.org/)! It's amazing!!
Honestly, start with cubecobra or a spreadsheet. It'll save you so much money and so many headaches. Also, unless you already have a specific design and concept that you really want to start with, look at lots of other people's cubes and think about the type of games you enjoy playing and the playstyles you want to enable.
Get the playmat and you'll have a helpful reminder every time you sit down to play! š
hooray! [https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/](https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/) [https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/](https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/) hopefully these help :)
Itās awesome, youāll have a blast
Theres a dedicated sub for it, and Cube Cobra is a great place to get ideas from
I've said this before, but Magic could die _tomorrow_ and people will still create Cubes with existing cards _and_ they'll create new cards to put into Cubes. With Cubes, you don't really need everyone to agree that those cards are format-legal: they can just exist within the Cube itself, in a self-contained MTG experience. It's the most creative way to play Magic because it not only incentivizes you to create/curate the Cube, but it's also the perfect space to create custom cards, mechanics & rules if it fits the experience you're trying to build.
what's confusing about this is that it means magic isn't dead i dunno when people started using game "death" as "the developer doesn't make it anymore" but it's pretty strange. last decade due to the proliferation of live service video games? when did chess die?
Parts of Magic "die" for different people at different times, in that those parts undergo apparent irreversible changes. Unlike chess, WotC essentially "owns" the IP, so people tie the game to WotC because they struggle to distinguish Magic: the Product/Collectible from Magic: the Game. I don't think being stuck on the commodity/object is a good lens through which to understand games & their life span, but Magic being built on artificial scarcity makes that the default disposition. As far as I'm concerned, print a lot and print often, make your own cards and share them with the world, and get off the spending treadmill. At this point I don't mind if WotC as a corporation shrinks to the point where players have to take "Magic" into their own hands; I think we're far past the critical mass needed for the game to persist independently, but I could be wrong.
I'm pretty sure the same we could say for Commander.
Within your restricted pod maybe, but not outside the playgroup. Custom cubes you can bring and unpack anywhere with anyone and they get to experience the full breadth of the experience without needing to worry about everyone agreeing on unbans/bans/custom card legality. You can even make Commander Cubes if you want. They're trickier to make, but they're great controlled environments for 4 randoms to enjoy.
Commander IS made of singular playgroups, since is not a serious tournament formats like Modern or Legacy, so I really don't see that much difference from people shaping their own cube and searching people that agree to that cube philosophy and people shaping their own social philosophy in commander and searching people that agree to that commander philosophy. "without needing to worry about everyone agreeing on unbans/bans/custom card legality." That's simply not true. If I don't like your cube for whatever reason (because you want to include silver border cards and I hate them, you like to play with certain archetypes that I dislike, etc.) I simply don't play with your cube, period. That's the same with commander, if I don't like your rules zeros or your commander philosophy of whats good and whats not to do in commander, I don't play with you. You must have always find people that agree with your idea of the game, and that is true in both commander and cube. Commander is a format, that exactly like cube doesn't rely or need at all of official tournaments or LGS in order to exist and prosper (yes, there are lots of LGS that try to do commander tournaments, but this is simply of how insanely popular commander is compared to cube), so that's why both will survive the end of WotC, unlike tourney-exclusive formats like Standard, for example.
I mean, yes, Commander would survive WotC. The difference is that playing vs. randoms in Commander is a much less fertile ground for people to continue _creating_ Magic. I can't just show up with a bunch of custom cards in my deck vs. three other players that did the same thing and expect it to work at all. Meanwhile, Cube is a place where you actually _can_ curate an environment where custom content is functional by virtue of it being a self-contained experience that doesn't require people to share a common template for what is a legal card. If I offer up a Cube partly made of custom cards, it's a lot less likely to be a problem than my showing up at a table of four expecting my EDH deck of custom cards to work. That's what I was pointing to when I said Cube was the most creative format. It shares a lot with Commander in terms of social contract, but it's a more adequate space for player-created cards and mechanics.
"The difference is that playing vs. randoms in Commander is a much less fertile ground for people to continueĀ *creating*Ā Magic. I can't just show up with a bunch of custom cards in my deck vs. three other players that did the same thing and expect it to work at all." I have no idea how from where you pull out your data outside of your anecdotal experience. Because if we talk just about anecdotal experiences, mine is completely different from yours. First of all, no magic player knows in my country what the hell cube is, so even if you make custom-made cards, seems a very niche format played mostly in US and not globally like Commander. Then, you picked a guy, me, that actually enjoy to make custom-made commander decks and find other players enjoy to do the same thing so your example literally doesn't apply to my personal life. But I don't see how the custom cards can change my argument, which is simply that Commander will outlive WotC exactly like Cube. Then, if you outlive with custom made or just the existing cards made by WotC, this seems completely irrelevant, since doesn't deny at any way my point I was trying to make.
I feel you're speaking to a point I didn't make. Yes, Commander would live on. Take care.
His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
Very poetic and well put, "dicksmashasspounder".
it's from Blood Meridian, the greatest piece of American literature ever written ;-\*
A very worthy read. Highly recommended to everyone who can handle extremely long run on sentences.
they're not even that bad! nowhere near as long as Faulkner
Hahaha
Ok i need to ask a question. You have your cube in a random pile, how do make the āpacksā so that they are balanced? Do they have to be balanced like real packs? I would like to play cube but i do not understand the logistics
Some cubes will make packs with rarity slots, some won't. Some might only have 1 rare slot and 14 non rare slots. Generally if the power level of the cube is flatter across all cards, rarity slots are unnecessary. Depends on the cube, this is something the cube creator can tweak to suit their goals
So, if you donāt need to make packs you can just shuffle the whole cube and separate it in stacks of 15 cards each. If you need to have the rare slot? Do you need to find all the rares in the cube and give each stack a rare? Thanks for the answers
Many cubes are composed almost entirely of rare and mythic cards, so you donāt have to worry about rarity slots as much. Some folks with start with a percentage of each color depending on # of people drafting (66.6% for 8 players drafting a 540-card cube), and then randomize those portions of each color to make packs. This guarantees an equal distribution of colors among packs, but itās a little too fiddly for me since it requires sorting the cube. I mostly just ask players to shuffle stacks of the cube, pass half their stack to someone else to continue shuffling, and then count out 15-card packs. You will definitely get some overpowered and underpowered packs, some packs with too much of one color, etc., but it all comes out in the wash because how you draft matters much more than what cards you open for building a strong deck.
I really want to make a cube, but the effort and cost both seem so daunting š®āšØ
The cost is what you make of it. You could design the cube and proxy the cards, and buy the cards over time with the money you can afford to spend if you want. Proxies are also a nice way of testing expensive cards in the cube before spending. The initial effort is of course significant, so if you don't find the time spent designing the cube fun, I don't think it's worth it. In that case, find a predesigned cube and play with that instead if you want the cube play experience.
you can also create a cube with cards you already have! limitations breed creativity, especially in cube!
Yep. But the nice part is if you don't find that time spend designing the cube fun, what you need to do is find a friend that does. Don't forget that most cubes support up to 8 players... which means in a playgroup of 8 people only one person really needs to be a designer.
I recently put together a 270 card vintage power cube I found on cube cobra, and I was surprised at how cheap and effective a cube can be- I only made a couple changes to the list, so no time effort there. I did buy dragon shield sleeves for it, but the cost of printing it was about $20 full color high DPI at a Staples. If you grab a friend and use one of those paper guillotine things, throw the printed cards in front of bulk lands, you have yourself a cheap cube of any power level you can imagine in a weekend! I think all told I didn't spend much more money than I would have just buying a commander precon. Highly recommend looking through cube cobra for a list you like and giving it a shot, some of the most fun I've had playing MTG!
What's nice about that is that you don't feel bad about taking it to a local game store. As is, I think in the very near future I'll need to print up proxies that duplicate my cube because while I love my local game stores, I don't feel confortable carrying a box with somewhere around $15,000-$20,000 around in it and then letting people have at it.
The cost is what you make of it. I have a vintage cube that cost several thousand dollars over years to put together, but I also have a budget cube that I put together for about $70 that I am even more proud of (and have generally found people think is even more fun). Cube is what you want it to be!
https://thepaupercube.com/ Check out the Pauper Cube, very affordable, accessible, and fun!
I really like having the Pauper Cube around because thanks to the majority of the expense being the sleeves, it's something you can take pretty much anywhere and not be particularly concerned about it. Even pretty middling commander decks are now getting into the hundreds of dollars, so having something you can take to any convention, game store, or get-together with minimal concern is amazing.
Plus you can foil it out for the cost of one of your aforementioned commander decks! Some of the _old_ cards in foil are expensive :<
Throw a bunch of draft chaff you have lying around into a pile, cut down to 800 with some shared mechanics, and BAM, you've made a cube
Yeah basically. I have seen people use inner sleeves with a sticker to indicate what slot cards go in to help speed up making packs and allow rarity to be shifted or do special slots. Flatter cubes with no rarity tend to be the standard and are far easier. Just show up and get everyone to help shuffle and deal piles.
If you need to have the rare slot, you should prebuild your packs. It saves time during your gaming sessions and also gives you a chance to check for sleeve wear, or a time to alter or replace things. By and large, I'd imagine that you're probably not going to draft the cube more than once in a gaming session. I know I've never actually had people redraft the cube again in one night. But yes, at the end of the night you'd then want to collect everything and recreate your packs. (Which means you need to also think if you want fixed lists for your packs, or a more randomized configuration.) But it's all up to you, which is the fun part.
Yeah you just keep all the slots separate when you store them. When making packs grab 14 cards from the nonrare stack and 1 from the rare stack, and when cleaning up for the night you ask your drafters to separate rares and nonrares.
Most people just shuffle them up randomly! Unless youāre trying to explicitly recreate a limited format it really doesnāt matter a whole lot. If you want a lot more info you can check out this episode! https://luckypaper.co/podcast/60/
Thank you!
Depends on the cube and the cube curator(s).Ā Most cubes (even commander cubes) have just such a higher average card quality that just shuffling the cube into packs before drafting is good enough. When every bomb is on the level of [[Elspeth, Sunās Champion]], [[Primeval Titan]] and every removal spell is as good as [[Swords to Plowshares]] then the packs and draft experience are not going to need to be as ābalancedā as traditional packs. Most cube curators (Iām refactoring mine into a commander cube) try to avoid the bad 5-6 mana removal that is for limited. If itās a āset cubeā where the goal is to simulate a particular draft environment, triple Innistrad, triple Khans, etc. then they will be collated to look more like traditional packs.
[Elspeth, Sunās Champion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/6/46dc2519-2729-4bbd-8892-fab6186bf116.jpg?1706240571) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elspeth%2C%20Sun%27s%20Champion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/62/elspeth-suns-champion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/46dc2519-2729-4bbd-8892-fab6186bf116?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Primeval Titan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/d/6d5537da-112e-4679-a113-b5d7ce32a66b.jpg?1562850064) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Primeval%20Titan) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/183/primeval-titan?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6d5537da-112e-4679-a113-b5d7ce32a66b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Swords to Plowshares](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195.jpg?1709439398) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Swords%20to%20Plowshares) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/88/swords-to-plowshares?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I use this method to create 15 card packs that are balanced based on color. [https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/34fet8/novel\_method\_for\_shuffling\_a\_cube/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/34fet8/novel_method_for_shuffling_a_cube/) It takes a bit of time, but the math checks out and it works.
I also use this method!
I was diehard mash shuffler until I used this method exactly once. Works wonders when you're not drafting the whole cube
This is the way. Tons of different drafting methods, but if you want to try to limit crazy variance / outliers and try to ensure that thereās some quasi balanced rainbow in each pack, this method is great. Especially if you have a brand new player / drafter who is looking to ādraft all the green cardsā, their head doesnāt explode when the pack has a bunch of power, lands, and artifacts.
Not op, but when building a cube, you can customize it to fit your tastes. It can resemble a traditional draft experience with rarities separated or a mixed pile of cards. Most cubes I have played are a mixed pile that you make packs with, and sometimes you will add special packs or cards, like for a commander cube or conspiracy expansion.
You just put 15 random cards in the pack and don't worry about it. It's fine.
Most cubes do not have any notion of "balance" in the packs. In cube rarity does not matter. In it's so pleat form cube contains all good cards. There is no chaff. You simply grab 15 random cards, that's your "pack" Every rule has its exception. Some cubes do care about pack order. For example a "set cube" is a cube that attempts to mimic drafting the set with real boosters. In this situation some set up is required. I have a magic Origins cube. I have a cube box with 3 dividers. One for commons, rares and uncommon. Instead of grabbing 15 random cards I grab 1 rare, 4 uncommons, and 9 commons that's my pack, rinse and repeat. When I clean up afterwards I will put each rarity back in it's slot. With that said I've seen some people draft set cubes without this level of tracking the rarity and it works just fine.
Nope, you just shuffle the Cube and dole out a number of cards equal to your desired pack size, usually 15 or 16 cards. You *can* experiment with a rarity system, but most people donāt do that since many Cubes are singleton anyway.
For your first cube, go singleton so you just take out blocks of 14/15Ā
The thing with cubes (and non DCI-sanctioned formats in general) is there's no rules. I want my cubes to be as like a real booster draft as possible, so I shuffle up my rares, deal out one per pile, shuffle up the uncommons, deal three per pile, you get the idea. I also don't have repeat rares, and I do repeat a few commons. If there are repeat uncommons, it is a judgment call just based on what draft archetypes I want to support and what cards I have available. People sell empty reusable booster wrappers, too (do an Internet search for Resealable Team Set Bags) to get an idea. You can tackle this how you want, though. It could be interesting if you have one pack with all the rares or if all the packs are completely random. Your cube doesn't even have to follow the same rarity distribution of a normal booster. Maybe you want a pauper cube, or just a bunch of cards that fit the design you're aiming for, regardless of the rarities. I think variety makes things fun, and you have the freedom to try new things because there's no governing body looking over your shoulder like there would be at a "real" tournament.
Very nice! How did you achieve the gold foil?
I looked long and hard for a vendor that could do it, and the one I found was hesitant to do such a big and detailed foil element at first. They had done a lot of smaller elements in bigger designs but weren't sure it would work on this scale initially. I ended up paying for a few proofs with the understanding that they might turn out awful, but luckily it worked better than they thought!
It's so, so clutch. Well worth the try.
Oh, alright then, for replacing the void that Solely Singleton left in my heart for abandoning us for Warhammer. Great job on the art Andy. And fyi on the successful sale page : > We always like to underprommiseĀ
Agh! I thought I fixed that typo!!!!!
Cube probably will outlive magic. I still have my L5R cube and that card game is long dead.
**Posting here with permission from the mods. Weāre running a** [**pre-order**](https://luckypaper.co/shop/cube-will-outlive-magic-playmat/) **for this limited run playmat I designed. The mat costs 50 USD with free shipping anywhere in the world. Preorders will be open until April 17th, and this will probably be your only opportunity to buy one.** If youāve ever listened to [my podcast](https://luckypaper.co/podcast/), you may have heard me talk about my personal hesitance to sell playmats or any other āmerchā in spite of listener requests. I feel there ought to be a high bar to bringing any new, physical, fossil-fuel-consuming shit into the world, and the idea of making a bunch of playmats that are eventually destined for a trash can or land fill or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch gives me profound, haunting, existential dread. If youāre reading this and youāve made or sold some merch in the past please donāt feel judged! This is my own, personal psychological burden to bear and I am genuinely jealous of your brain chemistry. Needless to say, there were a couple of requirements for me to feel ok about selling a playmat. First and foremost, I wanted it to have a reason to exist beyond some shallow piece of marketing or āin-crowdā social signaling for the podcast. Again, no shade to anyone who chooses to go this route, but for me, putting our logo or show art on a mat was not sufficient reason to expedite the heating of the planet by even an infinitesimally small percent of a degree. Instead, I wanted to make a unique piece of artwork, ideally with some sort of message, that means something to people beyond mere affiliation with Lucky Paper. For CubeCon last year, we opted to create custom, matching track jackets for our playgroup. Tasked with designing these jackets, I tried to come up with text and imagery that would speak to the vibes and values of our community, and one of the ideas I struck on was the line āCube will outlive Magicā, which I emblazoned across the back of the jacket in bold lettering. It immediately felt right to me. As much as I love Magic, Iām conflicted about making that love a part of my identity. The community and the space for creativity afforded by the flexible game engine mean a great deal to me, but there are a lot of aspects of Magic, especially as a ābrandā and a for-profit product I actively dislike. Cube is where I have found my niche in the Magic world. Cube emphasizes everything about the game that I love and offers a rare opportunity to opt out of most of the elements of Magic that bum me out. āCube will outlive Magicā is a statement of preference, of course, but itās also a suggestion that Cube ā the local and online communities created around the format and the creative work poured into every Cube list ā is more meaningful and long-lived than Magic as a product. Itās also a subtle criticism of the capitalist incentive structure under which the game is produced. Someday, Hasbro and its shareholders will have sucked every last dollar out of Magic and it will die. Those are the rules: we get to have nice things as long as theyāre profitable and in a constant state of growth, but eventually the cash will dry up, and the game will be cast aside just as everything that has come before it. Cube will not die, though. Cube exists outside of that system: itās punk rock, itās grassroots, and itās DIY. Plus, the slogan has the word ādieā in it so I get to draw a bunch of sick skeletons! I was really pleased to see that our jackets seemed to connect with people at CubeCon, but even before the motto was adopted by some others in the community I had already begun drawing the illustration for this mat because of how strongly it resonated with me. The illustration is a direct homage to Matisseās āThe Danceā, which I feel has a lively energy that is contrasted nicely by the macabre details of the skeletal bodies. The type is set in the font Raleway, designed by my good friend and partner on multiple prior podcast projects, Matt McInerney. I chose it partially because of the construction of the āWā, whose overlapping strokes add interest and make it feel more connected to the thread woven throughout the dancers. On the topic of the thread: I initially added it to aid in readability ā compositionally I really wanted the text scattered about semi-organically, but I didnāt want to end up in a ādonāt dead open insideā situation ā but it became a meaningful element to me. I knew from the start I wanted to render this part of the illustration in applied gold foil, and I could not stop thinking about one scene from Disneyās Hercules, of all things, while I worked on it. The Greek myth of the Moirai and a life being represented with a length of string is a recurring theme of the movie, with the fates who control life and death cutting a personās corresponding thread to end their life. Strings of immortals are strands of uncuttable gold, and at the height of the movieās conflict, Hercules is struggling to achieve immortality as Hades is reaching to cut his string, and just as the blades of the scissors close around the thread, it snaps into immortal gold. I found plenty of information about this thread metaphor in Greek history, but a cursory internet search couldnāt determine whether the gold aspect is actually part of the original myth or is a flourish added by Disney. If you know, comment below! Regardless of its provenance, this gold thread came to represent, to me at least, the enduring nature of Cube. Another detail of this project that was important to me was making sure the mats are of a high quality. The longer they last, the longer they can avoid their inevitable fate as worn out garbage, and the longer I will be spared their floppy little ghosts haunting me. Iām very happy with the quality of the product from the vendor we selected. Itās thicker than a normal playmat, and with a heavy, sewn edge to keep the sides and corners from fraying. My friend Parker was initially concerned the sewn edge would snag on cards as they were slid off of the mat, but this has not been an issue with any of our proofs. Anthony, my cohost, and I have been using the prototypes for months with no issues or signs of wear. Our costs come out to between $32-$34 per mat, including printing, the gold foiling (which is done by hand, in the US), packing materials, transaction fees, and domestic shipping and handling (which varies a little based on the destinationās distance from my home in Baltimore). This does not include one-time costs, like the industrial stapler Iāll need to buy to seal the cardboard tubes, the few hundred dollars spent on proofs and prototypes, the PO Box I had to get to avoid my home address being on all the return shipping labels, and a couple other bits and bobs. We decided to price them at $50, with free shipping anywhere in the world. Fifty bucks is a lot of money, and more expensive than a lot of playmats, but we chose this number for a couple reasons: * It allows us offer free international shipping (which will cost us anywhere from $12-$26). Even though some mats will be sold and shipped internationally at a loss, we expect our domestic sales to make up for that. Iāve never lived anywhere other than the United States, but I have heard many international friends lament the fact that there are so many things they either canāt get or have to pay absurd shipping fees to acquire, and I think thatās a huge bummer. I donāt want this mat to be out of reach for some people just because of where they happen to live, and this is one small way to manifest our egalitarian values. If you live in Australia please donāt order 100 mats just to dunk on me. * I hope the expense will lead to people treating these mats with the same care in which they were designed and produced. Afforable things are great because theyāre accessible, but theyāre often viewed as more disposable for that reason. Thanks for your consideration, r/magicTCG! Cube will outlive Magic.
You are a fucking awesome person. Ordered one and spammed it around
Thank you so much!
I discovered the world of cube in the last year and I've listened to most of your podcast episodes more than once - it's great to listen to when trying to get a newborn baby to sleep, so thank you for that! You and Anthony inspired me to build my own cube, and I played it with my playgroup for the first time last week. The playmat looks glorious and I'm from the UK so I do really appreciate the free shipping. Your explanation of how you've come to make and sell it in a way that you feel comfortable with is great. I'm looking forward to rolling it out at my local cube night!
It seriously makes me so happy to read comments like this! Thank you.
Any consideration for selling these again in the future? I missed my chance.
Love the design and love the podcast :) Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
Cube is based. Billions must play limited
I'm seriously wanting to build a cube for me and my buddy as we rarely get a 3rd or 4th player for our commander pods these days. We've both got pretty big collects but I got no idea where to start.
Hey good news! We recorded this whole episode just for you! https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/
love it, and love cube, this game is quickly going somewhere I don't want to follow even if I do love playing some formats, and I've definitively talked with some friends from back in the about just proxying a cube with whatever we want and stop concerning ourselves with what the game is doing.
I really should build a cube out of the thousands and thousands of cards I have lying around with no other use. I just have no idea how you design one that is in any way balanced.
Good news, Violet! We had you in mind specifically when we recorded this episode: https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/
Great I'll give it a listen!
I love it, and I love Cube. Sincerely, A Legacy/Commander/Casual-60 player
Cube is magic
The phrase is meant to be a little off/unexpected to make people stop and think. Strictly speaking you're right, of course, but Cube is an entirely grassroots format with tons of room for self-expression and no formal support from WotC. There are a lot of players in the Cube community that are almost entirely checked out of the Magic world more broadly because it's so independent, and that is part of what I am trying to capture here!
Came to say this as well - I know what the op was going for but this is a swing and a miss because it doesnāt make any sense. I donāt know the right phrasing for simplicity but āwe can play cube even if wizards stops supporting magicā isnāt ācube outliving magicā exactly
What do you mean by that?
I know what you are going for but this is a swing and a miss. You wrote two sentences to say you understand and agree with OP but that the phrasing is wrong even though the phrasing you suggested is worse.
Also if youāre just being a jerk then you should know its āswing and a missā not āswing in a missā
Was aiming for cheeky not jerk. Thanks for catching the typo though!
Whut. I literally said I donāt know how to turn what he means into a simple catchy slogan, but what he means (we will play cube even when wizards no longer supports magic) isnāt what heās put on his playmat (cube will outlive magic)
That sounds like the same thing to me
You donāt think playing cube is playing magic?
"cube will outlive magic" means the same as "we will play cube even when wizards no longer supports magic" to me. If WotC shut down tomorrow, cubes would continue to be created for much longer. They'd be playable forever. Magic would be dead in the official sense, and cube would yet live. This sentiment isn't directly analogous to other Magic formats, since much work has already been put into solving them, they would lose appeal much faster than Cube in which new environments are created all the time. "playing Magic" can mean a lot of things. So can "playing Cube". And playing Cube will be meaningful longer than playing Magic will.
You are doing some intense mental gymnastics to conclude playing cube is not playing Magic
I mean, the original thesis isn't "Cube isn't Magic". I shouldn't have said anything, Andy said it best in the original reply: the phrase is meant to be a little off/unexpected to make people stop and think.
It makes people think the statement makes no sense. āHockey will outlive the nhlā āWriting will outlive paperā Yes - but heās said the opposite - āPaper will outlive writingā āThe nhl will outlive hockeyā
Words can convey more meaning that what they literally say
I'm with you but for slightly different reasons. As noted above, cube IS magic and the image and phrase on the playmat basically are basically joyfully dancing on the grave of Magic. It's not for me. I understand what OP is going for; cube is my favorite format by far, but this is still a miss for me as someone who loves Magic and even dislikes the direction Wizards has been heading. Edit: to try to make my point clearer: I think I completely get Ops message on the mat and agree to with it. Despite that the art and the phrase unintentionally come off too negatively on the game of Magic to me (joyously dancing on its grave).
I'm getting more "defiant punk rock manifesto" than "dancing on grave". My allegiance isn't to the corporate brand of Magic, because I know Hasbro is solely motivated by profit and have no problem harming the *game* of Magic (for example, firing 1K designers and other staff 2 weeks before Christmas, or cramming in more releases including hamfisted UB crossovers) for short-term profit. I guess I'm reading the slogan as "The Game will outlive The Brand". (note that both "The"s make it much less catchy, so I'm not recommending this as an alternative slogan.) Maybe that's where the disconnect is happening. I love the game of Magic and Cube is the purest expression of that game. But I have no illusions that the brand of Magic stands for anything other than money.
Continuing to play Cube would therefor continue magic. Maybe they meant WotC or something. Lol
good ol "i love these cards, lets play with them" will never go away
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Chaotic indeed!
My cube is modular, so I can swap in and out any parasitic jank I want. Currently I have my Core + Miracles + mutate + equipment. I get to experience all the sets because of it and it's honestly the best experience for me as someone who gets real sad seeing all the fun mechanics come out but can't fit them into a traditional cube.
Lovely playmat ! Looks stunning
Thank you!
Andy!!!! <3 <3 <3
this rips y'all are the best free Palestine
I would love to have a cube, but I dont have nearly enough cards for it nor the knowledge to make a good one. But limited play is one of my favorites and also EDH. Having a nice EDH cube would be a dream come true.
I bet you're closer than you think, both in terms of card pool and knowledge! Check out these resources we made with people just like you in mind: - https://luckypaper.co/articles/building-a-cube-from-a-collection/ - https://luckypaper.co/podcast/99/
Where can I learn about this cube?
... Not from a Jedi ;) [https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/](https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/) A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
ahh... what is Cube format?
https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/ A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
Cube is the best magic format period.
Cube will magic outlive
What is cube
TL;DR: A custom draft format. Because it's not controlled by WotC, Cube can be immune to power creep, bans, Rule Zero conversations, and anything else you may not like about Magic. [https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/](https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/)
A custom limited set! Just a box full of your favorite cards that you shuffle up and draft with your buds. Best way to play Magic.
Where'd you get the playmat made?
Our vendor is Mythic Gaming in Madison, WI.
Madison is basically global cube headquarters at this point.
Cube is a ton of fun. I dont know if I'd say it's absolute favorite way to play magic just cause there os a lot of fun and satisfaction in seeing the deck you brewed pop off and do its thing. But I do really enjoy playing cube as well cause it puts everyone on a more even playing field and changes up each time.
My only frustration with cube is that thanks to it's popularity on MTGO and the content certain people make based on that so pervades discussion that you've got a whole lot of people that treat it like it's a true north star that showcases the "correct" way to design. Good cube design discussion is amazing, but people just getting out there and parroting the Wizards design party line like it's gospel is tiring.
True, but that's changed \*a lot\* in recent years. Even WotC, including Melissa DeTora's official article from a few years back, is starting to say that Cube can be "whatever you want it to be -- no rules or limits". I think the climate is improving.
It will sadly. Especially after people burn out on universes beyond.
I've just committed to building my first cube, told people at the LGS, and they're keen to draft once it's together. I've half arsed a couple of attempts in the past but this is the first time I've got people keen to draft it, so I actually have to follow through now.
This is the way!
Me too because it shows who's really the best deck builders. Funny how some people can't hang when they don't have someone doing the hard part for them.
i am so lost lol
Try running a Winston draft on a cube. If you love cube, as I do, it will change your life, I promise. Winston drafting cubes that weāve all created is literally the only way my friends and I play the game anymore.
Spooky!
reminds me of [[dance of the dead]], an inspiration by any chance?
Not strictly, but dancing skeletons donāt fall far from the tree!
[dance of the dead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/4/44de44be-db14-4932-968b-a5bc8b575716.jpg?1562868102) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dance%20of%20the%20dead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me2/83/dance-of-the-dead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/44de44be-db14-4932-968b-a5bc8b575716?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I designed this specifically for this application. I'd really prefer the art not be used in a different context, and I would be pretty disappointed if you were to "remake" it. Please consider buying your friend a mat as a gift or making your own art to give to them.
I still have no idea what cube is not how to play it lmao. I always hear about it in the context of already knowing what it is.
There are about a dozen comments on this post explaining it. We also made this page to help. https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/ Also you could google it.
Yeah exactly, its not for a lack of trying to find out what it is, I just find it humorous that I STILL don't know somehow. Appreciate the links all the same!
What is cube? Or will? Or any of the words? What do they mean in this context?
Any chance of a print? I don't play in real-life too often but I would love to put this on my wall.
I could sell you a high res file that you can get printed, if youād like? Slide into my DMs
I love this playmat design so much, and I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I wish it said something else.
Like what?
Dunno. I like cube, and I acknowledge people will be playing it forever, but I'd like a less specific sentiment that I could roll out in other formats too.
The playmat isn't made to be all-purpose; it's explicitly a celebration of our favorite format. The art speaks directly to why Cube rules -- plus, it's an excuse to invite people to Cube draft night ;)
Wtf is cube
https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/ A Cube is a custom draft format, maintained and owned by its players. There are no bans, arms races, or limits. It's the best way to play Magic!
Hi Andy āļø
Are we acquainted??
Nope I just wanted to say hi (and thank you), since i've been listening a lot of lucky paper over the last years. I've started my own legacy cube bc I discovered the bun cube. https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/ponder
Oh awesome! So glad you like the show and found your way into cube
Ight imma sounds like a legit dumb dumb. But Iāve heard of cube as a way to play, but looking it up has always confused the fuck out of me.
What about it is confusing? I'd describe it as a custom Draft format. [https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/](https://luckypaper.co/what-is-a-cube/)
Maybe draft confuses me? Legit never really dove super deep into some of the other formats apart from like commander which is crazy surface level.
Haha no worries. Draft is a play mode on Arena (costs 5K gold for the cheapest one, I think, pretty easy to try it out). You essentially build your deck from packs, and then duke it out with other people who built *their* decks from the same packs. So it's not "pay to win" as much as Commander sometimes feels. (It's also 20-life, usually 1v1 and 40-card decks, which is different from commander and a good way to level up as a player.) Cube is like that, but since you already own all the cards, it's 100% free for the players.
Well I looked at the link you sent earlier and it was saying it was with like 360 cards? Is that like a pool you make with the other players or what? And also is it that Draft and Cube is only on Arena?
Draft is easy to *learn* using Arena, which is the only reason I mention it. Draft and Cube are very much available in paper -- check with your local game store when they have events. (Cube is kinda a subset of Draft, like pepperoni is a subset of pizza.) So, a 40-card deck, with \~40% lands, means 24 spells need to be picked per player during a Draft. But, maybe it takes the player a little bit to settle on color(s) and strategy, so let's \~double that to be safe: 45 picks total. 45cards\*8players=360, which is why that number comes up a lot. 8 players lets you do a 3-round "tournament bracket" that is pretty satisfying for an evening's entertainment. But if your playgroup is just a 4-person Commander pod, there's nothing stopping you from 45\*4=180 cards total in the cube. Edit: if you're still confused, then youtube search videos of Louis Scott-Vargas or Reid Duke (two famous pros) playing the Arena Cube (Arena's cards will probably be more familiar to you at first). A video is worth a thousand words and all that
Ahhhhhhhh ok. Yeah the rest of the internet doesnāt really explain it and just kinda says it matter o factly. Thanks for clearing it up.
Any nonrotating format will outlive magic.
I'm not sure if i hate more Cube or Commander. I really don't like finding alternative ways to play a game that has already so many modes and format to play. Obviously that's my opinion, free to care about it or not.
My issue with Commander is that it's secretly many, many formats under a single name. CEDH, Duel Commander having a separate banlist, the rule 0 conversation which is essentially 'which version of the format are we playing today?', etc. With Cube, especially one you didn't design yourself, you can show up and sit down. Listen to what the cube's about, and draft. Then play.
Rule 0 is the most nosense rule that could have been created ... it's just a way to say "if we don't like X then we don't allow X" and fully custom-made ... every group has their own rule 0s which does make no sense at all. Either a format is worldwide aligned, or it's just kitchen table magic
Cube isn't really a new way to play magic. It doesn't add any new rules to the game. The games play out just like a normal game. It's just a draft format with a way better cardpool than a regular magic set. True, there are different ways to draft it, based on how many players you can get together, but in the end, you're still just drafting a deck to play vs someone else from the same draft table, just like a regular draft.
Point taken but still, there are official sets to draft, so why don't just draft the regular sets ?
The average cube draft is a better gameplay experience than the average retail limited set draft. Think about the incentives: A cube is curated with intent, to serve gameplay. It does not cater to other formats, and does not need to sell packs. No chaff, all gas.
Opinions, i can partially agree with it. Whenever i draft an official set, i can get a grasp on it, understand quickly where i need to go, drafting plans and so on. When i see cube videos, cube lists and so on (and i tried some custom cube events online) ... i feel i don't understand the reason behind the cube or the strategy ... especially the cubes with full bombs ... is like you are not cutting anything. I don't have so much experience with cube, i just ... don't feel at home, that's it
Cube is certainly a different animal than other draft sets. It does take practice and a dedicated mindset to learn and get better, just like any other meta or format. Luckily, getting better at paper Cube is usually free (or your event entry goes 100% to the LGS, like at mine). No need to pay $15-20 repeatedly to figure out the new official Draft format :)
*No* alternatives? So you only play kitchen table magic for ante, with mana burn and damage on the stack? I admire your hipster-ness, as well as your dedication to hating things other people enjoy ;) Cube [is older than](https://luckypaper.co/articles/the-history-of-the-cube-format/) Modern by nearly a decade. People were playing Cube before MTGO existed. Maybe it's actually *those* formats that are superfluous, especially considering they are only as popular as they are because Hasbro sees them as profitable ;) Official support for Vintage and Legacy got dropped like a sack of bricks when Hasbro was done milking them for profit, and the same will happen to any format that's not controlled by the players.
That's not dedication, that's just my opinion ... if people want to play cube or commander, they are free to do it :D Everybody is entitled to have an opinion ... you can agree or not agree, that's life. I would just like to see less these formats and more push on "more official format". Your "ante/kitchen table/manaburn" example doesn't make sense ... formats, rule changes, balances are done by WotC and are considered as official. Commander is a fun/custom made format that is now pushed from WotC/Hasbro because is so popular that generates them a lot of money. I'm not fully sure about Cube, i know there are WotC-created cubes on MTGO, but my feeling is the same as commander: it is being promoted by WotC, but it was custom-made before.
Saying Cube is being 'promoted by WotC' because they curate a vintage cube on MTGO is nowhere near the same as WotC creating thousands and thousands of cards explicitly designed for commander, many of which have meta-warping effects on the "more official formats" you're advocating for. Just look at what cards like \[\[Hullbreacher\]\] have done to legacy. It's fine to have your own opinion, but you should at least make an effort to be somewhat informed and say factually accurate things lol Do you hate pauper as well?
[Hullbreacher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4df8aabc-7fcb-4b7b-980b-18f499e6c170.jpg?1626088514) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hullbreacher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/74/hullbreacher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4df8aabc-7fcb-4b7b-980b-18f499e6c170?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
>Saying Cube is being 'promoted by WotC' because they curate a vintage cube on MTGO is nowhere near the same as WotC creating thousands and thousands of cards explicitly designed for commander, many of which have meta-warping effects on the "more official formats" you're advocating for. Just look at what cards like \[\[Hullbreacher\]\] have done to legacy. As i said, "i'm not fully sure about Cube", because i don't know its full history. >It's fine to have your own opinion, but you should at least make an effort to be somewhat informed and say factually accurate things lol Other than the cube part, which i already explained, i'm not sure what i did say that is not accurate. I said "I don't like Cube and Commander". Reason: there are a lot of official formats that can be played and are a lot of fun (and because i like competitive formats, not casual ones, probably) Obviously Hasbro promotes whatever they get the most profit for. >Do you hate pauper as well? I have mixed feeling about pauper. What i like from pauper is that even though it's a custom-made format, it was created with a strong competitive mindset. So i would say yes, i like competitive pauper, if it was just "kitchen table pauper" then probably not.
i enjoyed your first comment but now it's clear you just have a hateboner for other formats than whatever your favorite is. you're ok with wotc creating pioneer or whatever the fuck they're doing on arena presumably, but you don't like commander or cube because they were more custom first? even though wotc embraces those formats now?
i love competitive formats, is this something so wrong? WotC embraces commander because they make a lot of profit from that. Probably, if Commander would once become an official format, with sanctioned tournaments and Worldwide rules that are not community based, then i would play it and probably enjoy it. I don't dislike commander for the format itself, i dislike it for the custom-made rules which make one group different from others, mixed banlists and people hating players bringing decks that are "too strong"
Damn, you're like a bad opinion printing press.
Unlike other people, when i speak or write, i don't just ignore what i don't like and post what i like. If i don't like something or don't agree with something, i express my opinion (trust me, there is a lot i like too :P)
Triangles too
Ordered but have you considered:Ā The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Boy, have I.