[MTG] Building my First Cube

[Resident Fascist]

My locals doesn't have a cube and I want to build one. Acquiring the cards won't be an issue as we will be using gold bordered proxies for certain cards. At the moment we're thinking on a medium sized cube intended for 8 players. I believe it's roughly 360 cards for that. I have an idea of the general outline for the cube, I want players to be able to draft a two color or wedge deck easily. No power 9. Maybe a full cycle of Mirrodin Swords. Undecided. 

[Flame Dragon]

The first thing you should do when building a cube is figure out your themes. Generally speaking, two color is much easier to build in archetypes. Given that, start by figuring out the cards you'd want to put in it and seeing what kinds of strategies they work best in. Also remember to allow the strategies to overlap, for example a BR sacrifice theme would be able to use similar cards from a RW token theme.

[.Rai]

The only Sword I'd consider running is Feast and Famine. the others fluctuate in power level so hugely between games, between being completely useless to just winning games on the spot, they don't really deserve precious slots if you're looking for a consistent, fun cube. Feast and Famine is just about interesting enough for those looking to grind out a game.

[Mysty]

Here are a few tips. I may edit this post as I think of more.

360 will be the MINIMUM for 8 player drafts because that's how many you need to make twenty-four 15-card "packs". Do note that means EVERY card will be in EVERY draft. This often leads to the same cards and the same archetypes popping up over and over again. If this is what you want, go for it, but you may find joy in the variance of a 540 or 720 card cube. (They also allow more people to draft.)

 

Try to aim for an average converted mana cost of 3 or lower. This will require putting in a lot of cards in CMC 1 and 2, a decent number of cards in 3 and 4, and a small number of cards in 5 and higher. This is good because it fits the different speeds of decks:
• Aggro needs a LOT of small, efficient threats to be viable.
• Midrange needs a considerable number of 3-4 drops to get off the ground.

• Control only needs a few high drops - after all, once the game's locked down, actually winning almost becomes a formality, and just about any big creature will get you there.

 

I mentioned this above, but aggro needs a LOT more dedication to function than midrange and control, but don't provide it so much that it becomes the only viable deck type. Unfortunately, I don't have hard numbers, but I heard that 50% of the cube supporting aggro usually does the trick.

[Poc]

My locals doesn't have a cube and I want to build one. Acquiring the cards won't be an issue as we will be using gold bordered proxies for certain cards. At the moment we're thinking on a medium sized cube intended for 8 players. I believe it's roughly 360 cards for that. I have an idea of the general outline for the cube, I want players to be able to draft a two color or wedge deck easily. No power 9. Maybe a full cycle of Mirrodin Swords. Undecided. 

 

Avoid swords and batterskull like the plague. They're so incredibly warping to any limited format. Plan your color pair archtypes and make sure to supply enough removal. cubes take a bit of playtesting to find what cards work and what ones don't. Just remember BREAD and apply that to your card choices.

[bury the year]

Keep in mind how much fixing you'll need for the cube as well. Someone wrote a good piece of advice that you should expect your drafters to try to draft decks that have one more color than you plan. Ex. if you support primarily bicolor decks, expect tricolored ones.

 

With that said, is there any particular theme you're looking to make overall? I've made a graveyard-focused unpowered cube design that fiddles with discard, reanimation and other themes from the most recent block. (Need to update it for EMN...)

 

Finally, there are some cards you should avoid including. Sword of Body and Mind and Jace, Memory Adept are two big ones - the mill they present is too hard to outrace in most circumstances.