Cube Design Introduction

I’ve talked about trading, and that’s one end of the quest. However, the other also deserves some discussion. Some basics to start us off:

What is a “cube”?

Basically, a cube is a set of cards, typically powerful and fun ones from Magic’s entire history, that can be used for limited play like drafting and sealed decks. Some cubes are “Powered” and include the most powerful Magic cards ever printed, like Black Lotus, Time Walk, and Sol Ring. Other, “unpowered” cubes omit those cards, but still use cards of a very high power level, such as Force of Will and Umenzawa’s Jitte. A third segment of cubes are budgeted and only include commons, commons/uncommons, or have an overall cost cutoff. Finally, some cubes are “themed,” featuring abilities such as Tribal or only multicolor cards.

How are cubes used?

Most cubes are used for different kinds of drafting or sealed. Drafting is where the participants take turns picking different cards and build decks out of the cards they picked. Most drafts are “booster drafts” where each player gets a random “pack” of cube cards, picks a card, and then passes the remainder of the pack to their right. The participants repeat until each player has drafted enough cards to build a deck. Sealed is where each player simply builds a deck out of a random selection of cards.

Cube Design

Cubes are tricky things to build. Each color has to have balanced mana costs, synergistic effects, and be level in power compared to the other colors and color combinations. Archetypes must be worked in and balanced as well, and artifacts, multicolored spells, and mana fixing must be adjusted to fit the needs of a cube as a whole. In many ways, building a cube is like designing a Magic set.

Of course, I say all this from an armchair (Ironically, I’m actually sitting in an armchair as I write this). I’ve  never designed a cube before, so this will be my first. Here are some of my tentative ideas:

Archetypes

• Aggro– Each color should have significant support for aggressive decks. Black will probably be Suicide, Red and White will probably be Sligh, Green and Red to an extent will probably be Stompy, and Blue will mainly be evasion.
• Control– Blue (countermagic), Black (discard and removal), and White (sweepers and removal) will probably be the main control colors. Red should be viable as a splash for sweepers and burn, but Green probably won’t have much of a role.
• Midrange– The classic Black/Green Rock deck should be very viable here, and White/Blue should have some midrange options. Red is probably more suited to aggressive strategies.
• Combo- Since most of my cards are cheap, the classic combos (Voltaic Key/Time Vault, Tinker/Some big artifact fatty) are probably off-limits. That said, I’ll be looking for combo cards, probably focusing on stuff that’s good on its own but better when combined with other cards. For example, I’ll try to include a good number of big fat creatures in order to make reanimator and cheat-into-play viable strategies.

Color Roles:

• White should be a mix of weenies and control cards. I’ll try to find some Wrath options (Sunblast Angel), team boosters, Pacifism effects (Arrest), weenies (Elite Vanguard), weenies with evasion (Stormfront Pegasus), and exiling removal (Oblivion Ring, Condemn). I might add a Soldier or Kithkin tribal theme.
• Blue needs to have card drawing (Mulldrifter), card filtering (Merfolk Looter, Preordain) counterspells (Mana Leak, Counterspell), bounce effects (Into the Roil, AEther Adept), Control Magic effects (Volition Reins) and evasive creatures. A Merfolk tribal theme could be viable.
• Black wants to have both aggro and control themes. Most importantly, it needs removal (Doom Blade, Skinrender), cheap creatures (Vampire Lacerator, Black Knight), discard (Liliana’s Specter, Duress), and some reanimation (Makeshift Manequin).
• Red is all about burn and cheap creatures. It should include cheaper burn spells (Lightning Bolt, Arc Trail), mass removal (Pyroclasm), efficient creatures (Plated Geopode, Keldon Marauders), a bit of land destruction (Stone Rain), and some artifact kill (Manic Vandal).
• Green will focus on powerful creatures (Pelakka Wurm), mana ramp (Llanowar Elves, Cultivate), Naturalize effects (Naturalize), and utility (Creeping Mold, Acidic Slime).

Well, those are my preliminary cube musings. In my next article on cubing, I’ll discuss community feedback to my design notes and talk about the multicolor and artifact sections. Have a comment, either here or in my Cube Design thread over at MTGSalvation.com. Next time, hopefully: the first trade!

Also, if you’re curious about what a particular card does, check out Magiccards.info. It has records on every Magic card mentioned here.