Explain a Cube Draft to me

San Il Defanso wrote: Here's a question: how feasible is it to just buy a random lot of cards like Bioball did, as well as some lands, and just build some cube out of what you have? Seems like it'd work pretty well, and you could spend a lot of time tinkering with it.

I think we should break this discussion down into categories of Magic Players:

If you are very new to the game, I would suggest that you either buy one of those " Duel Decks " to learn the basics of the game OR download a copy of Duels of the Planeswalkers (no you can't really deck build with them, but you learn the colors easier) which was how I got back into Magic the Gathering using my Xbox.

If you are a returning player to Magic, like me, the building a Cube with cards you and your friends have might be a great way to spark new life into an old game. Or throw the money down on a block like we've been talking about. You don't have to spend too much and you understand what each color represent enough to enjoy deck tinkering.

If you are a veteran player to Magic (consistently play, currently play, do a lot of constructed play), you most likely have the card resources, interest and knowledge to build a "Best of Cube". I am assuming this type of player has a pretty extensive card pool and deep knowledge of the game. You can easily put together a cube of cards that includes good rares from several different sets.

Now I really ignored the above and really did not think about the "Block Cube" option, however I've always considered my Magic understanding greater than my Magic budget so I bought cards based on this criteria:
1. I wanted a common/uncommon (Cm/UCm) cube because I knew I could get a lot of cards cheap ($30 yielded 800 common/uncommon via ebay).

2. Sticking with Cm/UCm would prevent a power creep and a desire to spend too much on Rares/Mythics.

3. I don't mind fiddling with each color because I enjoy creating the themes in each color that I wanted to draft from.

4. Creating my own cube allows me to add new cards from the new sets of Magic that come out if I want.

5. With Cm/UCm drafting pool, you gotta work for your win. Hopefully excluding Mythics/Rares will remove the chance of a few cards ruling all.

However, all the previous caveats that dragonstout has listed are certainly true. But so far I've had fun and since S. Defanso and I live close to each other I can test out how good the cube is. I drafted a green/white and blue/black from it last night and both decks seemed to come out pretty well.

tl:dr- If you are new to the game, just go for the ~$20 duel deck or computer game option. If you are an old hat, go for whatever is in your budget.

dragonstout wrote:

San Il Defanso wrote: Here's a question: how feasible is it to just buy a random lot of cards like Bioball did, as well as some lands, and just build some cube out of what you have? Seems like it'd work pretty well, and you could spend a lot of time tinkering with it.

I think you'd DEFINITELY spend a lot of time tinkering with it, because it sounds fucking crazy hard as hell to get right. To me it sounds like way way way way too much effort. And then, to me, you're losing the primary draw of a Cube (to me the big draw is "best cards evar"). But you ARE keeping the primary draw of a Cube to many people (infinite drafts without spending money on booster packs).

If you DO want to buy a random lot of cards, then PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE contact me. I've got a few thousand extra cards I've been planning to sell off sometime on eBay or something. "All" I keep is a complete set of every card, plus a set or two of commons/uncommons, plus Legacy staples, so everything else is stuff taking up space in my cramped apartment.

Also, you might want to talk to IguanaDitty: I know he tried doing this (building a Cube out a pile of random cards) and had it turn out not too well. He asked me for advice afterward, and I redirected him to my friend, who started his Cube in the same way (just the best cards from his collection), but I know gradually moved towards a very very very standard Cube. He actually Cubes way more often than I do, and puts a lot more thought into its construction. PM me for his e-mail address.

Edit: Also, bioball is a fucking saint, and the previous post is brilliant. But please, if you're going to buy a bunch of random commons & uncommons, buy them from me, I will give you a better deal than anything you can find anywhere, promise. Also, while I haven't played, I agree with his "Duels of the Planeswalkers" advice: from what I hear, it is a great great great way to actually learn the rules of the game, just like I've always previously said that a week on MTGO will teach you the rules more clearly than reading a rulebook or fumbling around with paper cards with a friend who doesn't know what he's doing either.

Here are a couple of very good BGG articles for Cube:

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/555781/turn...t-lcg-notes-on-build

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/694888/the-core-set-cube

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/772388/a-di...e-on-a-core-set-cube

The latter two have cardlists for kind of a "Cube for Noobs", so it might especially be of interest, and apparently cost around $60 to put together (I strongly dislike his idea that "removal is not fun for new players", though).

Edit: This really should have been one of the first things I mentioned. I regret that these links are not on the first page of this thread.

dragonstout wrote: I will give you a better deal than anything you can find anywhere, promise.

THIS. For those interested in "loose" cards, buy cheaply (esp common/uncommons!). dragonstout, I trust, to give you a good mix of cards for a low entry level price and that is what you want when starting out. Save your money for when you get rolling.

I too support the "don't blow a bunch of money on over priced cards" stance.

If you're thinking about easing into a "best of" Cube (I don't call it "power Cube" because that typically denotes you're using the Power 9): start with Lanxal's Cube (do a google search, it's on MTGSalvation). All commons, cheap as hell. Then once you feel ready to spend a bit more, go for Klug's cube. All commons AND uncommons this time, still cheap, though there are around 10 exorbitantly expensive uncommons in it (work doesn't let me access mtgsalvation, but I think Library of Alexandria and Mana Drain might be in his cube), so just proxy those up. I might be able to help with a lot of the singles needed for those cubes as well.

The nice thing about this is that obvious a lot of the cards from Lanxal's Cube are also in Klug's cube, and a lot of the cards in Klug's cube are in hardcore "best of" cubes.

I'll admit my eBay skills do kind of suck but it's not conversion rates that are holding me back (we've been close to parity for like five years now ) but shipping costs. Most of those auctions charge $30 for shipping. The price for Eldrazi seems alright to me assuming I can get it for prices closer to what you quoted. I just don't want to do a bunch of random purchases and end up with a bunch of cards that won't end up in the cube. I have no intention to play the game outside of this format (that may change after I play for a while but I doubt it, I already have one card game). Also the concept of a block-cube appeals to me because I've always felt that Magic was a bit weak on theme so having all my cards from a single block seems like it'll lead to a better experience on that front.

A duel deck would probably be the intelligent choice but I figure if I may as well put that money towards the cube instead. My friends have several decks they could lend me for the purpose of learning rules.

If and when I do bite I'll definitely pick up my lands from you. I guess now I lurk on eBay waiting for a good price.

I am summoned!

The pile of cards we had to work with in doing our "random cards" cube was a bunch of the prebuilt themed starter decks from various sets. It didn't work well at all, really - what we mostly found was that across sets there isn't very much cohesion. Not surprising.

I haven't heard back from your friend, Dragonstout, but that's no biggie. Reading all this stuff has made me think that an Eldrazi cube might be really cool...but if I wanted to do a full draft of 8 I wonder how much the extra commons would dilute and get sorta boring. Alternately I could probably fill in with cards from Lanxal's or Klug's cube or something.

Just as a matter of interest, if you make proxies via those chinese guys, whats to stop some bastard selling them?

Are real MTG cards watermarked or something?

sfunk37 wrote: If and when I do bite I'll definitely pick up my lands from you. I guess now I lurk on eBay waiting for a good price.

Shipping is a serious bummer for Canadians; I have no idea how much sets will cost for you then. And you should probably get lands from someone locally; I'll sell lands for a fraction of a penny each, but even then the shipping will be probably more than double the cost of the lands.

I haven't heard back from your friend, Dragonstout, but that's no biggie. Reading all this stuff has made me think that an Eldrazi cube might be really cool...but if I wanted to do a full draft of 8 I wonder how much the extra commons would dilute and get sorta boring. Alternately I could probably fill in with cards from Lanxal's or Klug's cube or something.

I'll send you a PM with his e-mail address so you can bug him yourself. He asked me a favor to give his girlfriend a ton of advice for comics, so he oughta give someone Cube advice.

Personally, I'd guess that the drafts are probably *better* when you stick to normal rarity distribution, so I think the extra commons are just fine. You might think it'd be boring to be seeing those commons every draft, but you need to be able to rely on seeing some of them in order to build more focused decks. For example, you'd have a hard time going for the wall deck (no, seriously) in a strict 1-of-each-card, all rarities equal cube, because the typical key kill condition is a common that you really need multiples of to make it work; but believe it or not, I actually successfully drafted decks at the time that won via walls.

Just as a matter of interest, if you make proxies via those chinese guys, whats to stop some bastard selling them?

Are real MTG cards watermarked or something?

Artscow? I can tell an artscow card from a real Magic card blindfolded, literally. I can probably tell an Artscow card from a Magic card with my elbow. That's not a problem.

Counterfeit Magic cards do exist, however. But only for the high-value cards. One of the first high-value cards I bought was a Timetwister, before I realized I had to worry about counterfeits; in retrospect, it was an obvious counterfeit. Thankfully, I had bought it from a store and went to talk to them about what had happened. UN-thankfully, that store is the SLIME OF THE EARTH. "Cards and Comics Central" in San Francisco, please spit on their cards for me. The owner literally told me to "go fuck myself". His barely less assholish partner agreed to buy it back from me if I didn't tell anyone that they sold me a counterfeit; yeah, FUCK THAT. To add extra insult, he gave me store credit for it, and the only fucking thing I wanted in that whole store cost $4 more than he wanted to give me, so he made me pay them an extra goddamn $4 worth of cash.

After that, and before I completed my set of the Power 9, I bought equipment for testing for fakes, and did about 5 or 6 different tests on each high-value card.

But assuming you're not buying any >$100 cards, you're safe. If you are, let me know and I'll tell you everything you need to know.

So, if I bought an entire block from Artscrow, including lands, would it be significantly less expensive then buying the real cards.

I get that they won't feel like magic cards, but seeings as none of my friends have ever even heard of MTG......it won't make a hell of a lot of difference.

andyinkuwait wrote: So, if I bought an entire block from Artscrow, including lands, would it be significantly less expensive then buying the real cards.

I get that they won't feel like magic cards, but seeings as none of my friends have ever even heard of MTG......it won't make a hell of a lot of difference.

That, I doubt. Rather, it probably WOULD be cheaper, but isn't it a ton of work setting up a 400+ card artscow set? I don't know, I've never done it; that's a question for the serious artscow-heads at BGG (just don't mention that it'd be proxies of Magic cards). For a "best of" cube, though, you wouldn't just be saving a few hundred dollars, you'd be saving a few *thousand* dollars; that's the point where I think a lot of people would call it "worth it".

Also, if you put your cards in sleeves, I'm not sure if an artscow card is as easy to tell from a Magic card by touch; so you could buy sets of commons & uncommons for your block, and then just artscow the rares, that way it'd only be a hundred or so cards; or if it's Shards of Alara or later, you could buy sets with everything but the mythic rares (WAY cheaper), and then just proxy up like 30 cards.

If it pushes anyone towards a Rise of Eldrazi cube:
www.channelfireball.com/home/magic-tv-to...-all-time-best-sets/

Skip to minute 10:30, I think. Ravnica and Innistrad are on there too, but they're both calling Rise of Eldrazi the best limited set ever (and I'd agree, from my experience).

dragonstout wrote: If it pushes anyone towards a Rise of Eldrazi cube:
www.channelfireball.com/home/magic-tv-to...-all-time-best-sets/

Skip to minute 10:30, I think. Ravnica and Innistrad are on there too, but they're both calling Rise of Eldrazi the best limited set ever (and I'd agree, from my experience).

Haha, way ahead of you now. I've already purchased a set 4x set of commons/uncommons and am waiting for an auction to end to jump on the rares.

I'll be using the distribution format of this cube for the start:
forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=385027

So he includes 4xCommons, 2xUncommons, and 1xRares. The only difference is I won't make any cuts until I've played with the entire block several times. After that I'll start paring things down. If it all seems hopeless I'll just copy his list verbatim. I'm looking forward to this now, currently reading the rules and trying to convince a buddy to teach me.

Edit: So when talking about cubes the issue of shuffling invariable comes up. I was planning on shuffling everything, except basic land, together and doing a Winston draft. This seemed easiest and I'm a bit lazy; however, several times I've seen it suggested that you should seed your booster packs by separating out your rares/uncommons/commons and constructing "boosters" with standard distributions prior to drafting. (As an aside, standard distribution is 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 11 commons?) Some people even go so far as to ensure proper colour distribution. It seems like the last one would ruin some of the fun of drafting, I mean you'd pretty much know what colour everyone was playing. So any recommendations on how you store and shuffle your cube? I think I'm in favour of a more random cube but I'm open to suggestions.

Reminder, I've got extra sets of Rise of the Eldrazi commons and uncommons! Hopefully you got a good deal on shipping due to someone being in Canada.

Personally, I'd say that the best thing is to construct boosters with standard distribution prior to drafting; 1 rare, 3 uncommons, and 10 commons (not 11). Ensuring color distribution has a huge number of problems, don't do it, for exactly the reason you mentioned. I wouldn't pare things down, one of the awesome thing about Rise of the Eldrazi drafting (which they refer to in that video) is that a lot of cards which seemed completely awful turned out to be *amazing* after playing with the set for a few months.

However, shuffling everything up disregarding rarity is also a choice, it's up to you. I assure you that it's *not* a lot of work at all to do the normal distribution, and actually, I'd say it's a lot EASIER, and here's why: you shuffle everything together and you're shuffling a bajillion cards. By having three separate stacks you're shuffling, C/U/R, the stacks are smaller and more manageable. But shuffling is indeed still a big pain.

Another question, it might seem like a preference thing, but there seems to be three main draft formats: Booster, Rochester and Winston. I've discounted Rochester for the same reason previously mentioned, why bother drafting if you know what everyone's deck is? The real question is which of the remaining two would you recommend?

Also, now I feel like a dick for not buying Eldrazi commons/uncommons from you. After you mentioned the no sale on land I just kind of wrote things off but now I realized if I had bought both from you the shipping costs probably would have evened off. Sorry . I'm sure you can unload them on ebay for a reasonable price though. If I fall headlong into this scene (which I feel is about to happen to me, the more I read the more I want to buy) I'll remember to keep you in mind. So have any C/U sets of Ravnica ?