The Hall of Mirrors
In this cube, when you build your deck, you can include a second copy of up to two cards that you drafted.
• You can include up to two mirrors in your deck.• Your two mirrors must copy different cards from your draft pool.
• You can change your mirrors between games.
• To mirror a card, sleeve a paper copy over a card you aren't using.
To facilitate this, every card is backsleeved with a second copy, printed in paper in grayscale (for ease of finding and resetting post cube night). Also, everyone gets a custom pack topper with the above rules printed out on it.
Although this cube adds a "rule" to deckbuilding, it is not a gimmick or recontextualization cube. Instead, the structure and restrictions of this cube emerged from exploring a number of goals that I wanted my primary canon cube to meet:
1: Maximizing slot equity - an experiment in how many unique-feeling decks can be packed into in a reasonably sized box.
Slot equity is about using every slot with intention to create a replayable format where decks are highly varied and feel unique from night to night, without creating a thousand-card behemoth.What makes decks feel unique - the mirrors as defining cards.
The rare section as a tool to make defining card vary from game to game.
Many cubes struggle with cool cards that are just not reliable enough to be worth building around, and get beaten by on rate threats and answers. Mirrors and cube curation try to solve that, and make this a home for those very cool cards.
Payoffs should not be so narrow that there is only one way to build around them.
Glue that forms the bulk of the core and allows synergies to appear in many flavors and color combinations.
Why two mirrors is exactly the right number.
Elaboration coming soon.
2: There is vast emergent complexity in the interactions between cards, but the comprehension complexity to process the cards and put your head into that emergent space is kept in check.
This is what I would call elegance. A web of synergies with no rails, emerging from mostly simple cards.Limiting wordiness, cards should be simple enough to stick in your head.
The cards with the highest ceilings (that set the bar for power outliers) require work in drafting/deckbuilding to earn the payoff.
Elaboration coming soon.
3: The cube is accessible to a broad range of Magic players. Players can go in blind, leverage preexisting heuristics about Magic, and not trainwreck.
Reading the pack explains the cube.Don't expect everyone to have an encyclopedic knowledge about magic.
Reading the cards is cool, actually.
Expectations about power level and function from other cubes and other formats carry over.
Keep the amount that needs to be explained at the start of the draft to one sentence.
Elaboration coming soon.
4: Fun is not a zero sum game. Prioritize exciting moments beyond [outplaying your opponents and winning] in draft, deckbuilding, and gameplay.
Making drafting and deckbuilding as hype as possible.You should get to live the dream. Your opponent might just live the dream harder.
Plenty of interaction, but it's not the strongest thing around.
There's always an out - no uninteractible threats, no feeling totally locked out by answers, no two card combos that end the game on the spot.
Combat is fun, everyone should have to go to combat and also be able to block sometimes.
Elaboration coming soon.
5: The DIY ethos. Taking matters into my own hands, not waiting for WotC to do better.
This cube is heavily proxied, and I go out of my way to make proxies that are more accessible and less sell-out than what WotC has on offer.Single-faced versions of MDFC spell/lands.
Universes Within versions of u-beyond cards.
Printing cards with reminder text whose canon printings lack reminder text.
This is not a custom cube but it gets right up against the edge of what people would constider custom, without crossing that line.
Elaboration coming soon.
