General Archetype Printouts

Do you use any Archetype Printout with your cube?


  • Total voters
    15
My playgroup has been engaging a lot more with retail draft than cube drafting for the past couple of years, and one of the things that I'm picking up to add to my cubes is the Archetype Printout.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's these things that come in every draft booster box:
en_arKWGb2PKR.png

As I was preparing my Changeling Challenge cube for a draft, I felt like the drafting experience could be horrible without a handout, since I couldn't even remember all the supported tribes and wouldn't expect my players to study the list before a draft to get an idea.

If you folks haven't ever done something like this, I highly recommend it for a multitude of reasons:

1. Good for newcomers. If you are playing with someone that haven't tried your cube before, you don't need to tell them what archetypes are available or rely so much on as-fan, archetype anchors and signposts.
2. Helps players during draft. Especially mid pack one, when players are still figuring if they should pivot archetypes because they see something clearly powerful, it helps to calculate if it's worth it.
3. Communicates unwritten rules (by making them written somewhere). As it's something that players will be looking at before/during draft, you can highlight important things about the draft, like if you get additional cards during the draft, if there's an auxiliary land draft, if you have non-basic lands in your basics pool, etc.
4. Helps you find holes in your archetypes. I noticed this when doing my handout for the Changeling cube: As you try to condense all archetypes into a handout, you start noticing that some color pairs have boring or poorly supported archetypes. {G}{U}, for example, had a lot of themes, but no clear archetype, so it's something that I'm keeping an eye out to improve.
5. It keeps archetype design lean. If you want to fit all/most archetypes in a tiny sheet of paper, you are incentivized to figure out shorter ways to communicate the play experience, or to cut away poorly explored themes.

There's how my handout looks like:
sz5X4Av.jpg
I printed 4 of these in A5 size to have them available during drafting. As I mentioned, thinking the handout as part of the experience already had me rethinking the next iterations of the cube, and how I should handle some color combinations and more possibilities for cross-support between strategies. I haven't come up with handouts for my other cubes yet, but as I start doing so, it's getting me to rethink and streamline themes and archetypes.

How about YOU? Are you folks also using handouts?




As for tips on how to make your own, I found a Reddit post from 3 years ago with a simplified template that looks neat, and I imagine that it should be fairly simple to whip something up in Google Docs that is good-looking and functional. I did mine in Photoshop using fonts that came with Magic Set Editor for title and mana symbols.
 
I am on the fence. I like it, but at the same time it has the tendency to prevent people trying out things you did not even know that were there due to “forcing” players to adhere to the handout.

I share your feelings. I don't want newbies to feel stranded, but I purposefully design my cube to be as sandboxy as possible (while still rewarding drafting decks, not cards). I want them to explore and make their own game plan.
 
I am on the fence. I like it, but at the same time it has the tendency to prevent people trying out things you did not even know that were there due to “forcing” players to adhere to the handout.
This has not been my experience when reading one of WotC:s own handouts, rather it's given me a reference point of where I'm taking the draft. If the color pair really is deep, I think people that are interested in exploring that depth will explore it.
 
I am on the fence. I like it, but at the same time it has the tendency to prevent people trying out things you did not even know that were there due to “forcing” players to adhere to the handout.
Same for me. That's why I also added the supported tribes after each color pair in my handout. You can always focus on highlighting themes and not archetypes so that people can mix and match those.

I think you could even have the handout be a piece of pride for the players by writing down on the handout the new archetypes that people try out that seem to work. The advantage of this over retail draft is that we can update the handout as much as we want, and the same handouts will always be available for the next groups, so they can have a history to them.

This has not been my experience when reading one of WotC:s own handouts, rather it's given me a reference point of where I'm taking the draft. If the color pair really is deep, I think people that are interested in exploring that depth will explore it.
This has been my experience as well. It's also a good guide to know if you should get a third color.
 
I knew you would like this :D I think handouts would be particularly useful for you, since your cube has all sorts of tournament-based rules. If you are not doing it yet, you should definitely try it!

Thank you

My cube is now a deck-building, rogue-like experience with slowly increasing powerlevel as the tournament progresses for any number of players (2+ players)

It’s fairly easy in the beginning and fairly complicated in the end.

Maybe I should try to explain the rules on a printout.
 
I ran the Changeling Cube yesterday and got to see many players that weren't familiar with the cube try it out for the first time. Some additional learnings on handouts:

What worked well:
Non-prescriptive. People were not totally attached to the archetypes, so it worked well as a guide to possibilities.
Sub-themes were useful! Good to help find the main theme of the deck during draft when your colors are contested.

What could be improved:
Highlight named cards. The handout mentions Secluded Courtyard but doesn't provide a text for it. Next iteration should include a preview to help out players that are not familiar with it.
Highlight occasionals and other sleeve markings. I usually do 16-card boosters, with the 16th being a test card in a marked inner sleeve. My group already knows that I do this, but could be good to highlight sleeve markings for new players. Would be useful to highlight the Pick 1, Get X cards that I have for another cube, as I remember once someone not getting the extras they needed.

Even for folks with very open-ended cubes, I would once again suggest trying it out and seeing how the players pick up on the handouts!


And speaking of more open ended cubes, I've been trying to make a handout for the Tarmocube along with the latest batch of changes.
NmUzT1q.jpg
Some learnings in the process:
The best time to make a handout! I was accumulating changes to this cube since last I played it after Brother's War came out, so it felt like the perfect moment to be planning the handout. Around 60/540 cards changed in this revision, and with these I was able to narrow down some multicolor support cards because I could see in the handout planning that I was trying to do too much.
Disconnected themes. I think through the handout it is already clear that {R}{G} is a bit everywhere with some half-disconnected themes, which is something that I've already been trying to solve in the design, but working on the handout just made it clearer that it is hard to communicate what's going on there.
Per-color Theme. This is a compromise to the open-endedness of the cube, as it does themes better than archetypes. The themes/color text could also be colors/theme or even a matrix with colors on Y and themes on X, given that most themes have a large design overlap.

I haven't figured out the best way to display the occasionals in the handout, but I already added the sample of the tapped duals to call more attention to their presence in the draft. It might take a while until I get to play this iteration of the cube with the handouts, but I'll see if I report here how it goes when it happen!
 
I'll probably do this for my custom Pokémagic cube. It has some themes that will be new for even the most enfranchised veteran and three complicated custom mechanics that are pretty key to gameplay (evolutions, attacks and three different status changes) – I think here it'll be very useful.
 
Disconnected themes. I think through the handout it is already clear that {R}{G} is a bit everywhere with some half-disconnected themes, which is something that I've already been trying to solve in the design, but working on the handout just made it clearer that it is hard to communicate what's going on there.

This I find so interesting. For me this is the most important reason so try out Archetype Printouts. It reveals the flaws in our designs.
 
I did something recently and needed to share it here: I played one of my cubes without the printouts and it was the one thing that players were talking about as being a lesser experience than with the previous cube drafts. Granted, it was the Modern Horizons Horizons cube, and I didn't even remember all the themes that were around, so I think most players just focused on the one thing they knew about the format and went with it.

Next time I'm cubing I know to have the archetypes handout prepared! :D
 
How were you making your printouts before? The template from reddit is gone. Yours look really good so I was hoping to piggyback on that a bit, haha.
 
How were you making your printouts before? The template from reddit is gone. Yours look really good so I was hoping to piggyback on that a bit, haha.
I made a template for myself using photoshop and the Magic fonts you can get from Magic Set Editor. I'll check if I can clean it up and upload it somewhere when I'm off work!
 

The Handout Template Primer​


What do you need to use this template?​

Adobe Illustrator. At least version CS6, which is what I have used. There are alternatives to it, but I haven't tested any of them.
Template file. Uploaded here.
Magic Fonts: MagicSymbols2008, Beleren, and BelerenSmallCaps. Uploaded here for your convenience, but you probably have it if you use MagicSetEditor. The MagicSymbols is important to make it easy to have the mana symbols inline with the text, while the other are just decorative.
Text font. The template uses the Roboto family.
Optional:
Photoshop, Gimp, or similar. You'll need it if you are adding a side-image with a transparent background.
Palette Generator. Totally unnecessary, but you can use something like Coolors to create a palette based on your key image.

What's in the template?​

This is what you will see when you open the template in Illustrator:
1694620992466.png
The template contains the text and images from the Tarmocube handout, and I've kept some useful information over the first artboard.

The content is separated in layers, as seen below:
1694620881628.png
A bit of text to the right of the first artboard describes what's in each layer.
1694621017161.png

Below is the second artboard, with the image from the back side:
1694621225261.png
If you are not printing a backside or if you are using it to add more info, feel free to delete the BackImage layer or the second artboard.

How to use the template?​

Step 1: Images and Colors​

The goal here is to make it look good so everyone would want to at least take a glance.
Find images that you like to represent your cube. If you are using the exact same layout as the template, you will need a key image on the left, and a background image for the text.
Choose a color palette that will keep your text readable and that complements the key image you are selecting or whatever colors you use to identify the cube. I'd suggest to avoid pure black and pure white. If you have custom sleeves or colored sleeves, consider using that color (or a variation of) in the palette as well.

Step 2: Figure out you text​

Just write it either in a text file or directly in the template. Maybe you won't need the themes and archetypes section, or maybe you'd like to use the space to add an introduction or some flavor text. Go crazy! But also keep it short and to the point. Nobody wants to read the text. People just want to see what they can do with the crap they are picking.
I highly recommend just keeping the mana symbols and substituting the text that comes after in the template because the symbols are a pain to deal with. I left a little guide on how to use the font in case you need to manually add the mana symbols.

Step 3: The back side​

I just used an image for the two handouts I made so far to emulate the ones that Wizards does, but I can imagine that a more complex cube might want to have more info in there. Again, if you are printing only one side, you don't even need to worry about this.

Step 4: Export and print!​

Export each artboard separated (or just the first one, if you are not using a backside) and you are ready to print and use your handouts!
What I did for mine was to export them as images, build a PDF that has two copies of each side in an A4 paper, then print that. You can always just print it directly from Illustrator or print what you have exported. I can't remember exactly why I fit two in the same page.
Here's some additional tips for the print:
Print on adhesive paper and glue it to a thin cardboard. Something like cereal box works perfectly, as it makes the handout sturdy. I used a softer paper for the Changeling Challenge and it feels flimsy, so don't make that mistake!
If you can, use a laser printer and not an inkjet printer. Inkjet ink is not waterproof. If you only have inkjets available, consider laminating the handout to reduce the chance that liquids will ruin it.
If you have a corner puncher, use it! It just looks nicer. I don't have one, but I'm considering getting one :D
Print multiple! At least 2 so more than one person can read it at once. 4 has worked well for me.

1694624838338.png
Done! Now you have your own handouts! Don't forget to post them here so everyone can appreciate it.
 
Last edited:
Top