Like many of you, I pore over my cube and analyze things. Maybe I find out about a card or a new card comes out. And I can't decide what to cut! Every card seems synergistic and awesome.

But eventually I cut something. And then I realize, "you know what, this other card isn't actually that good either.." and before you know it, I've made 7 or 8 cuts.

To be clear, I am NOT talking about cutting cards from the same package/archetype. I'm talking about breaking through the ice and somehow getting yourself into "cutting mode".

Hello!

Sorry for the novice question, I'm pretty new to MTG. I'm learning about cubes, specifically set cubes. I've seen 3/2/1 and 4/2/1 ratios thrown out a lot for set cubes with pack constructions of 10 commons, 2 uncommons, and 1 mythic/rare.

I just want to be sure I'm understanding this right. That means after building the booster packs, I will have leftover cards? Many of the cubes I've looked at don't evenly divide into each of the number of cards per rarity.

Which of the most popular DFCs would you run if they ONLY had one of their sides available? I don't run DFCs in my cube because of the difficulty of needing to know both sides and the challenges it presents during drafting (I know others vary on this), but I still love some of the cards and am considering making proxies that only show one side. For example, for [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]], you could easily just ignore the back entirely and it would barely change his card, since the odds in cube of hitting 9 mana to flip him are pretty low, and 99% of his value is the front side. Others like [[Ajani, Nacatl Pariah]] are obviously significantly better since you can flip them (and you might even rush to flip them), but if you have any cat or token synergies, 2 mana for a 2/1 and a 1/2 might be above rate enough to be worth running anyways - and might even be better if you have a lower power cube.

Obviously anything like the flip sagas where functionally they wouldn't work without flipping would be tough.

I'm currently tinkering with a possible cube of mine in early stages. I've decided right away, that it would be low-mid powered without any attachment to defined card pools. Long story short, a "custom draft set".

I'm not a big fan of "oops I win" cards. Combos are a big part of Magic, but it always seemed they work better in constructed meta, or very powered cubes. They seem too uninteractive for a fair creature based matches. I'm entertaining the idea of combo archetype being supplanted by juicy buildarounds and synergies, that don't win the game on the spot.

Among them, I've been pondering the popular "cheat into play" archetype. Usually it's based either on instantly winning or fatally crippling. But how about creating overwhelming value, while still leaving room for counterplay? Cheat cards come in all shapes and size, which everyone knows:

[[Animate Dead]]

[[Sneak Attack]]

[[Oath of Druids]]

[[Quicksilver Amulet]]

[[Tinker]]

+ just turbo ramp at times

What about cheat trargets being mid-power?

[[Scion of Darkness]]

[[Penumbra Wurm]]

[[Meteor Golem]]

[[Triskelion]]

My main inspiration is Premodern format and old standard decks. Like Oath of Druids flipping just a [[Cognivore]]. Too weak for cube? I know many people consider it to be a waste of time in low power cubes, which is honestly a fair assesment. Eating a cheap exile removal could be a blowout, compared to effort spent. So I'm interested in your experiences with "fair" or "value" cheat combos and if you made them work. Thanks.

While there have been more balanced limited environments, or more unique ones, Innistrad Remastered is nevertheless shaping up to be one of my favorite sets for limited in a long while. So much so that I'm considering creating a set cube based on Innistrad Remastered to play with friends.

However, I am open to making tweaks to the set cube to highlight the strong aspects of Innistrad Remastered while addressing some of its issues.

What I like about the set

It's only reasonable that I preface with what I like about Innistrad Remastered as a limited set — or, in other words, my goals for the set cube are to preserve the following aspects.

• The flavor of Innistrad — not only in terms of “gothic fantasy”, but also the sheer nostalgia that people have for Innistrad.

• Highly synergistic set — Innistrad Remastered relies on drafting a synergistic deck by mixing and matching the different mechanics (Self-mill and Disturb, Blood Tokens and Madness, etc.). I want cards like [[Cathar's Crusade]] and [[Burning Vengeance]] to be playable, even if not pack-one-pick-ones, and they set a baseline of what the power level of the set should be.

• Strong but not overbearing typal theme — drafting cards from a specific creature type feels like you are drafting that type, even if there are no payoffs that specifically mention that type such as lords. This is most evident with the Vampires, where Blood tokens and Madness synergies work well together.

• Double-faced cards — I am not a huge fan of DFC, which is why I exclude them from my main cube. However, I feel like Innistrad is the best implementation we’ve seen of DFC and Innistrad sets are the only sets I cannot imagine working without DFCs. I actually have a soft spot for Innistrad DFCs as they tend to alleviate complexity with great flavor (unlike something like the Strixhaven TDFCs).

• Cheap — Full sets of commons and uncommons can be found for pretty cheap, and the rares from the set aren’t too expensive either. On top of that, while some notable mythic rares from the set do cost quite a lot, many of the relatively more expensive mythics and rares are either not crucial to the draft format, or straight up contribute nothing to it to the point where they are not great picks during draft. A great example is [[Through the Breach]], which is not only an unplayable card in this format, but also a flavor fail as most people did not realize the card depicts events on Innistrad prior to this.

Structure

I plan on having:

• 3x each common
• 2x each uncommon
• 1x each rare and mythic rare

I also plan on collating packs with the proper distribution of common, uncommon and rare. This set being designed with play boosters in mind does create some problems, namely there are slots that are more complicated than the rarity slots, such as a Foil slot and a slot with a chance of a “list” card. For the purposes of this cube, I plan on treating some of these as Wild card slots.

However, those distributions can be subject to change, for example if I add enough commons from outside of INR to make the set more suitable for classic Draft Booster distribution.

One of the things I do not wish to do is “change rarities”, be it of cards already in Innistrad Remastered or of cards from outside the set I add. This has less to do with balance issues and more to do with bookkeeping — if I want to collate packs, I will need to divide cards by rarity before the draft.

What I hope to solve or change

It’s a bit early to identify the problems Innistrad Remastered has as a limited environment, and I’m sure that once I build the cube and start playing it, I will identify specific problems that need to be solved.

That said, there are a few issues with the format I think I’ve already identified:

• White removal is a bit scarce and not of great quality.
• The board gets easily clogged by 1/1 creature tokens.
• Some archetypes are not well defined — namely Azorius and especially Gruul — or lack enough support — White Equipment.
• Some uncommon signposts are missing (the aforementioned Azorius and Gruul ones).

I also want to introduce some archetypes that are not really in the set, such as White-Black Reanimator (there are two Reanimation cards in the set, and some good targets, but no proper support), Black card denial, and Selesnya +1/+1 counters. I also want to further bridge some of the typal strategies, such as giving Spirits a reason to draft red cards, or Werewolves a reason to go into white.

On top of all of that, I want to include some fun bomb-y Innistrad-themed rares from different products, especially ones that people haven’t encountered in limited because they were originally printed outside of Innistrad sets and blocks.

I want to do all of that by using only cards available in recent enough printings, and with Innistrad flavor.

Here is a completely uncomprehensive list of some of the commons and uncommons I’m considering as new additions to the format, with my thought process behind them:

• [[Cloudshift]] and [[Ghostly Flicker]] — give Azorius more of a Flicker edge without dedicating too many slots to the archetype. I’d cut Essence Flux, a card that’s seemingly not performing great in the format.
• [[Defy Death]] and [[Unburial Rites]] as additional Reanimator support.
• [[Banishing Stroke]] as an additional piece of white removal.
• [[Soul-Shackled Zombie]], because it is a Zombie Vampire!
• [[End the Festivitie]] to help unclog the board from all the 1/1 tokens.
• [[Cloaked Cadet]] for the +1/+1 counters theme in Humans.

Feedback needed

I’m open to any feedback, especially from people who’ve built Innistrad cubes or set cubes in the past, currently maintain Innistrad cubes or set cubes, or even plan on building an Innistrad Remastered set cube.

My focus with this project is less on power level and more on what brings the players to the table; the bookkeeping of maintaining a set cube; what people like about the Innistrad Remastered limited format, or conversely what they dislike about it.

I'm also open to any opinions regarding what cards to cut from or what cards to add to the set, especially when it comes to commons and uncommons.

We have a fun one for you this week, and a 80's flashback. Join Team Uber Cube and special guest Usman Jamil as we tackle Simic in cube. Thanks for listening,sharing, 5-stars, and as always happy cubing! https://ubercube.buzzsprout.com/1989337/episodes/16545561-solving-simic-with-usman

Hello to the community! My playgroup and I decided to get together and make a Peasant-ish cube (Peasant apart from some rare lands for fixing), based in large part on the Spooty Peasant Cube.

Having made a few changes based on the group's taste (we have members who do not like Universes Beyond and we all felt that Thunder Junction was a bit of a dud) we came up with our current version, but since none of us have designed a cube before we wanted to get some experienced input if possible.

Any input and/or suggestions you feel like providing will be much appreciated! The cube can be found here: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/40ef27c0-0fd5-40b0-a06a-6e622c006390

Thank you all in advance, you're keeping the best format up and running!

Hello!

Recently, my LGS started hosting cube day once a month, and I had more bulk than I knew what to do with. To participate, I cobbled together this incredibly budget cube, and we had a blast!

The rough decks were:

1. Player 1 on Azorius Artifacts splashing Black for [[Sludge Strider]] and [[Diregraf Horde]] (0-3)
2. Player 2 on Boros Equipment (2-1)
3. Player 3 on Izzet Spellslinger (1-2)
4. Player 4 on Grixis Recursive Midrange (1-2)
5. Player 5 on Golgari "The Rock" (3-0)
6. Me, on Selesnya +1/+1 Counters splashing blue for [[Brokers Ascendancy]] (2-1)

Here are the notes from today:

• Players said they had fun drafting and playing the cube. Doesn't mean it was as balanced as it should be, but it is good that this first stage is fun.
• Azorius artifacts were specifically called out as looking too parasitic to comfortably slide into.
• Selesnya turned out to be overtuned - I underestimated how generically good "making my dudes bigger" actually is. I only lost my last match when a Gonti stole one of my engines and turned the tables on me. Brokers Ascendancy turned out to be too good. I can specifically call out a moment where it was correct for me to take [[Omnivorous Flytrap]], despite me knowing I seeded it for the Golgari deck.
• Players noted that there wasn't enough efficient, clean removal. Lots of conditional removal, but not enough "kill it dead every time" removal.
• Players also noted that, while the draft was fun, it felt linear once you found your lane. I think I was so afraid of 4-5 color Soup being the best deck, I overcompensated and made an overly linear card pool.
• [[Phyrexian Dragon Engine]] confused a newer player, because it lacked reminder text for Unearth, and they thought it had something to do with the back half.
• [[Sultai Ascendancy]], the only Sultai card in my initial bulk box (somehow), was not compelling enough bait. Fair enough.
• More modal, but conditional, cards would be appreciated. [[Broken Wings]] was specifically called out as a notable exclusion.
• The player running Grixis effectively splashed in the way I want to encourage - their deck included [[Raid Bombardment]], [[Sedris, the Traitor King]], and a bunch of cheap 1-2 power creatures. Rakdos being "Recursive Aggro," this felt like a natural splash and is a behavior I want to support.
• Not enough board wipes.
• Zombies was noted as feeling "correctly broad, but specific." The players said they liked that there were not many "you need so and so zombies or this is useless," and there were enough generically useful cards that happened to be zombies that would be useful in non-Dimir Zombies, and allowed the Golgari player, for instance, to have a pocket of synergy.

My thoughts for changes:

• More "generically good, "broadly useful," and "cross archetype" cards. The initial skeleton was 10 mono-colored cards per color pair geared for that specific archetype, plus a final 10 "generic" cards. As an example, White's archetypes are Artifacts (w/Blue), +1/+1 Counters (w/Green), Token sacrifice (w/Black), and Equipment (w/Red). Therefore, there are 10 "artifacts matter" white cards, 10 "+1/+1 counters" cards, 10 "token sacrifice" cards, and 10 "equipment matters" cards. This is what I believe led to the draft feeling linear by the end of pack 1. My solution in the next draft is to make sure every noncolored card is either Generic/Broad ([[Valorus Stance]]), Cross-Archetype ([[Skyknight Squire]] for +1/+1 Counters and Tokens), or, as the rarest category, super specific but powerful ([[Dusk Legion Duelist]]).
• I fully intend on ensuring every color has a board wipe of *some* kind. This was a blind spot in this first draft. I also am going to add more removal, with it having some mixture of generically useful, synergistic with specific archetypes, and hitting a wider range of targets. It's only a Broken Wings, Micheal, how much could it cost? $10?
• Selesnya needs a nerf in some way. I think upping the removal, in general, will help keep it in check, but it feels like it both works without the synergy *and* becomes turbocharged with it. I really like [[Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar]] and [[Rip, Spawn Hunter]] as "payoffs," and maybe slanting this towards a pseudo modified direction will keep it from dominating.
• I have an entire box of "reject bulk," and that reject bulk includes other potential archetypes to swap in or out. I am open to changing any and every archetype *except* Dimir Zombies. I love zombies, and I want that to be a deck in some form.
• Ideally, I'd like the 3-color cards to be worth a consideration for *each* of the 2-color pairs associated. [[Fleetfoot Dancer]], as an example, is a great target for +1/+1 counters (Selesnya), has native 4-power and haste (Gruul), and is a wonderful equip target (Boros). [[Sedris, the Traitor King]] feels a little short, considering that while he's great for Dimir and Rakdos, doesn't seem to add a lot for Izzet. [[Shaman of the Great Hunt]] currently feels like "cheating" since it has a hybrid cost. In the next draft, I plan to be more deliberate on the 3-color cards to be more broadly interesting for all the pairs, but this first draft is meant to be a starting point.

Other archetypes I am considering:

• Azorius Blink (seems potentially frustrating) or Enchantress
• Rakdos Madness (I really want a hyper aggro deck of some kind) or Aristocrats
• Gruul "Power 4 Matters" (just to give *some* flavor to stompy)
• Selesnya Lifegain, Enchantress (has conflict with the other artifact-centric archetypes), or tokens
• Orzhov Lifegain, +1/+1 counters (which competes with the current Selesnya archetype), or "small" reanimator (which competes with the current Rakdos archetype)
• Izzet Artifacts (which competes with the current Azorius archetype)
• Golgari Lifegain
• Boros Heroic (potentially competes with Izzet?) or tokens
• Simic . . . ? I'll be honest, I have no idea how you make Simic interesting, and I hope with a few more includes, Investigate feels fun.

I appreciate any time and thought you can spare for this first draft! I thankfully have at minimum two months before I'm up in rotation to use my cube again, so I have plenty of time to experiment.

What carrying case do you all use?

I just ordered a 540 card cube, 250 basics, and about 50 tokens. What carrying cases do you all use? I would love to have a single case that can handle it all.

Weather it the old [[gilder bairn]] to the [[deathrite shaman]] staple. Why do you run them? What do you like most about the card?

I like to make draft simulator "cubes" rather than actual... cubes lol because I just like drafting as WOTC first intended, at least for the drafts until people get bored of it and then will modify.

But this requires owning multiple copies of every common and uncommon of a set. The draft chaff. Now, I see CardMarket sells these, but almost all of them are based in Europe, so shipping overseas is costly and cumbersome. Does anyone know of where in the USA to get playset of old sets? Is there anything equivalent to cardmarket for this purpose? Ebay playsets seem to be pretty hit or miss and much higher prices.

Is there no USA based store that is helping facilitate selling of playsets?

Never seen people talk about [[Tenacious Pup]] on here so I'm curious what you guys think. It seems to me like it could easily justify a slot in vintage cube but I'm curious if any of you have tried it / what your evaluations would be.

Premium removal + Anthems and a handful of tokens. Never expected this to work out, but it did!

Opponents:

MonoU artifacts with [[Metalwork Colossus]], [[Blue Sun's Zenith]], [[Thought Monitor]]

Abzan Control with [[Languish]], [[Phantom Nishoba]], [[Birds of Paradise]]

Izzet Artifacts Aggro with [[Bomat Courier]], [[Scrapheap Scrounger]], [[Master of Etherium]]

Hello! I am currently building this commander micro cube (270 cards + 30 commanders) for me and my friends. I am using this opportunity to tune the powerlevel to my liking, which is low. I've always been eyeing a couple of commanders that are just too weak for normal EDH, so I am excited to be able to build a micro cube for these commanders specifically.

So far I have picked the 30 commanders I would like to include in the cube. Please take a look!

Is any one commander way more powerful than the others? Are any archetypes missing? Is any commander likely too hard to pull off? And how do you like my cube's drafting rules?

Thank you so much! As I said, this is my first cube and since I don't know anyone IRL with a cube, I really hope to get helpful feedback here.

Edit: forget the link, whoops. https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d031d983-37f8-466a-a0bf-0225795f623a

I got hit with an idea to build a cube that is meant to be played as a game of Star, where five players are assigned a Magic color, build decks representing those colors, and race to be the first to eliminate their 'enemy colors.'

Some C&C is much appreciated; this is effectively my first cube and I while I spent an entire day working on it, I have no playtesting with it and don't know if it's actually up to par.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/starformatcube

2/2/2025: Reuploaded the cube with changes. CubeCobra is unfriendly for editing multiple changes. TL;DR threw out the desert subtheme and the Phyrexian mana stuff, most players would probably skip over that stuff if it's not in their color. Gonna focus on 'colored vs colorless,' as the core. I'd write more, but I'm tired and have work in the morning.

I’m building a foundations cube and I want to put a Hare Apparent in there with the clause that if you pull it, you automatically get a handful alongside it from outside the draft. I’ve never built a cube before so first: Is this a dumb idea? And second: How many Hare Apparents should I give them?

What is the minimum you'd need to make [[Brain Freeze]] a worthwhile addition to your cube? Right now I have [[Yawgmoth's Will]], [[Dark Ritual]], all the moxen/BLotus,both Mishra/Urza's Baubles, [[Lotus Petal]], [[Frantic Search]], and the [[Displacer Kitten]]+ [[Teferi, Time Raveler]]/[[Tamiyo, Collector of Tales]] combo, as well as [[Bolas's Citadel]]+[[Sensei's Divining Top]]. I know typically [[Lion's Eye Diamond]] and [[Underworld Breach]] are the classic combo, but I'm not currently running those. Is what I have enough? This is a 540 powered cube

Hey everyone, I recently made this cube that I have really been enjoying and wanted to share it here for anyone else who enjoys lower-powered cubes. The cube overview is quite bare-bones right now, but any and all feedback is appreciated!

I have a handful of Aetherdrift cards in the maybeboard, some of which are 100% to be added within the next few days :)

Cubecobra link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/7f52f2c6-a038-4ad0-baaf-4084ae5b7dd7

Are you still playing Dress Down and why? What is the best case scenario? And why not play any other 2cmc counterspell?

Hiya I recently got involved in my bf's magic club at our school and I've been trying to curate a set cube but its not a specific set just multiple copies of cards I own and enjoy playing with. I don't really want to use a cardboard box anymore so I was wondering how other people store cubes that need to be organized and are 1000+ cards.

Hi. A friend told me about Cube and I got sucked into this rabbit hole. I spend many hours crafting my first cube, reading guides and looking at other cubes. It still feels overwhelming and somewhere in the middle, it felt like I lost track. My main concerns are:

1. Did I stay true to the archetypes? Does every archetype make sense, is fun and draftable?

2. Do I get the ratio of enablers vs. payoffs right for each archetype? (I aimed for a ratio of 2:1 for enablers to payoffs. But for some archetypes it was difficult to determine what is an enabler and what is a payoff and what the right ratio should be)

3. Is there enough fixing? Both mana fixing and "curve" fixing from artifacts?

4. Is there enough or not enough removal in any color?

5. Is there a balance between aggro and slower decks?

6. Do some cards feel lost or out of place?

CubeCobra Link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/686d7976-526c-42a0-822e-4717b8a725ee

My Archetypes are:

UW: Blink
UB: Cycle/Discard
BR: Madness/Discard
RG: Treasures
GW: Populate/Big tokens
BW: Reanimator
BG: Grave matters
RW: Cast from Exile
UG: Topdeck

Thanks for the advice!

The Average Mana Value (AMV) for your cubes is a measure of how "fast" your environment is. It's something I think most of us are aware of, but not something I see any serious discussion of. In competitive (and even casual competitive formats like edh) there is an ever present, if subconscious, need for players to endlessly pursue optimization, and therefore a shifting of the Mana bell curve to the left. However, more optimization does not necessarily mean more fun.

Cube provides an unusual situation where, since you can completely control the available card pool, there is no need to optimize via AMV reduction when building your cube if you so desire. Players will naturally still prioritize cheaper spells when drafting, but the process for determining what is the "best" pick can also be influenced in your design process.

For example, if all removal is MV 5+ the pick analysis shifts from simply asking whatever is cheapest or most flexible to more seriously considering what is most synergistic. I.e. [[Morkrut Banshee]] vs [[Spread the Sickness]] vs [[Deadly Visit]].

Similarly, there are a lot of crazy and cool "Bombs" like [[Elbrus, the Binding Blade]], [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]], or [[Utvara Hellkite]] that are awesome to play but often the only way to do so is if you have a way to cheat the cost when you're playing in an AMV 3 environment.

For people with higher AMV cubes, (>3) what are some of the differences in gameplay you have noticed?

Any thoughts on design choices to support different strategies like aggro in that environment? Maybe moving from a plethora of 1 drops to a more limited selection of low MV creatures and a push towards effects that create token swarms so that you can effectively maintain pressure despite the game's slower pace.

I've been considering bumping the AMV of my innistrad cube up a bit from the ~2.8->3.3+ range and would love to hear some people's thoughts on the subject.

Do you find gameplay more enjoyable with higher or lower AMV?

Hi,

Since DFT and DRC are pretty much fully spoiled, what new cards in WUBRG order are vintage cubers, and high powered cubers most looking forward to ?

I know this is mainly a multicolor set (we know how competitive those slots are), and has a parasitic mechanic that apart from maybe 1 or 2 cards seems really underpowered, but I feel like there are still a few cards worth a consideration at least.

Looking forward to your lists ^^.

All you need is yourself, I have everything else! Including tokens, lands, cards, dice, counters, and Prizes for the winners.

Worcester, Ma Sunday, 2/2 12pm - 6pm at Greater good brewing.

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