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I feel bad for everyone that submitted, I kind of expected the contest had less to do with cube or the contestants, and more to do with WOTC contracting almost free labor because they don't want to hire designers to build cubes for them.

1. obligatory tribal/synergy/graveyard cube, with only 50 color fixing lands at 540. Looks pretty unbalanced though, with a number of bombs (p and K, siege gang commander, zealous conscripts, sower of temptation) that threaten the synergy. Lots of things to make me nervous: tribal is hard enough...

Let me rephrase that maybe a little better. In constructed, or even in cube draft, you can kind of think of a format in terms of matchups, and the way different match ups are paced out: faster aggro matches, grindy midrange, or card advantage focused control. Because card selection allows...

Looking at an energy patch. Energy cards in general solve the combat buff problem important to the aggressive RG or UG stompy decks that basically want to combo kill you after playing a positional game between your removal and their pump (alla legacy infect or pauper stompy), while...

Energy is a brilliant way to solve the decades long problem of creature pump, as well as how to make non-interactive mechanics more acceptable (hexproof, shroud, protection). Really hope it goes evergreen, as the game overall really wants it i.m.o.

Do you have any opinions on game pacing? I suppose this goes somewhat to how games are supposed to play out in sealed, but I'm still curious. To make that less hopelessly vague: I'm imagining games are supposed to be dictated more on a macro level: slower, more card advantage focused; however...

Its relevant in a context when identifying when card X largely replaces any practical reason for card Y to exist in a specific pool, as well as the conditions for doing so. Heuristics don't have to be perfect to be useful.

genesis wave genesis hydra If these cards have a home anywhere, they have to be here.

People have ran it here. The complaint was, as I remember, that the body doesn't have any evasion on it, so you're always getting a below the curve creature. Its highly dependent on the quality of the threat you can triggered ability into it. Serviceable, but didn't meet expectations for a...

I really like the idea of running harsh scrutiny. The card appeals to me as a reasonable way to simulate the feel of thoughtseize, but tailored for a limited environment. Recover seems really good given the grindy nature of a lot of these duals. In general, I think being able to get back your...

How did your opponent feel (or look to feel) about the draft and the games? Its pretty understandable that he we would lose his first time doing it, but did he enjoy it enough to want to try again, and get better? His deck looks like it didn't quite come together, being a convoke/ramp deck...

Right, but you have to remember that your format is 13% artifacts before we even start discussing artifacts from the colored sections or lands. The Penny cube, which has an artifact sub-theme, is only 8% before the main cube/lands, and whose original affinity theme was scaled back after months...

I think the important caveat is that as a heuristic, all its generally going to get you is a theoretical archetype count, rather than an actual archetype count. Which is somewhat helpful during the initial design process, but always is going to be adjusted based on play results, which is fine...

The terms "archetype" and "theme" are pretty ambiguous. I like to think in terms of supporting "decks," because I think thats a little easier to pin down, but its a mess either way. I think a qualifier should be added here. Adding cards increases the theoretical amount of archetype...

Basically, you have to remember this is going to involve running some semi-narrow cards, and be cool with it. Artifacts (at least as we design our formats) is always going to default to a disjointed axis from what the cube is looking to do, and what you want to do is smooth that out as much as...

Daretti and spy network should be fine. Sharding sphinx is fine, and prob academy ruins. You could run etched champion, and if you are fine with shock, galv blast. Tinker is probably Still too hard to work, but it might be more generally playable now with a bunch of fabricate tokens running...

To make an artifact deck work, you need density, and some deck overlap within a shard or a wedge. Ideally you would be running signets, since that provides a high demand artifact pick. If you're not blossoming the artifact section out from 30-50 cards, that raw space has to be made up within...