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Just want to let you know that you're on fire with this blog! I've been reading every post.

You can count me in the population of people that would find this to be a fun puzzle that's worth the while to draft even if the deck wasn't a barn burner.

That would be The Elegant Cube. The occasionals bump it from 70 in the core cards to 102 overall. Occasionals are a good place to add a non-overwhelming amount of variety, so that makes sense. Exactly half of the keywords from the core cards appear exactly once, so as expected, a single number...

I've written some new code to look at keyword content of sets and cubes. Here's a visual: This won't come as a surprise: cubes usually have more unique keywords than retail draft sets. "Other" sets include masters sets, Jumpstart, Commander Legends, and Modern Horizons. Those sets are...

I made a project of putting some basics together that I like for my beginner cube. I only chose basics with modern borders and went for variety. This is a set of 21 of each, but I couldn't help myself and collected a bunch more beyond this. When you don't buy the old, expensive ones, nice...

Yeah, comparing colors could be interesting for some cubes. And it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have an imbalance in that regard. I looked at that for my list and noticed some imbalance, but it was a little more interesting to me to notice a few cards that were a lot of words for what they...

Hey, it's a Confiscate reprint with current border and rules text. Nice!

I was curious how these numbers compare to a retail draft set, so I wrote some more code to run through the set files available from mtgjson to figure that out. I also looked at the differences between rarities. These numbers are for the full oracle text. A handful of sets are excluded because...

I added that to the list. Sorry for missing it the first time - I tried to include lots of cubes from the regulars on the forums. That cube is indeed on the lower side for average words per card. I also added the old version of Graveyard Cube.

I found a bug and fixed the algorithm. Likely, other bugs exist, considering the wide variety of cards. Data table image has been updated. I also added the other cubes you asked about. Zoss, here's an attempt to share the Python code. If it doesn't show up properly, you can private message me...

For fun, I downloaded some JSON card data and wrote a bit of Python code to find the average number of words per card in a bunch of cubes from this site. It's a metric I'm trying to minimize in my cube, within reason, so this interests me. I looked at full oracle text, but also the text...

I gave the vampire update a try: Gutterbones -> Vampire Lacerator ("upkeep"... dammit) Gravecrawler -> Vampire of the Dire Moon Shambling Ghoul -> Child of Night Royal Assassin -> Blood Artist Cursed Minotaur->Marauding Blight-Priest Death Baron/Lord of the Accursed-> Thirsting Bloodlord...

I've been grappling with the graveyard challenge with black. I like the graveyard theme, but facing off against Gutterbones or Gravecrawler or even Reassembling Skeleton would get frustrating with Death Baron in play to give them deathtouch. So at a minimum, I'm switching to Lord of the Accursed...

I tried drafting your cube a few times, and the lack of keywords didn't feel at all limiting. My last one produced a pretty strong deck, starting with a first pick Spell Queller. I was initially thinking control deck with counter magic. Then I saw a ton of small evasive creatures and ninjas...

Thanks for this feedback - that gives me some useful stuff to chew on. I have to process a few of those things, but here are some initial reactions. Master of Diversions is something I had considered at one point and then forgotten to switch in. I like its flavor better than a dinosaur that...

If these were mixed in with my real cards and the only way to get rid of them was to pay $5, I would pay.

I've updated a few things in the beginner cube. Disenchant is always a sideboard card, and the number of important targets isn't that big. Replacing with Guided Strike. Kitesail Freebooter has 7 lines of rules text and flavor isn't especially resonant. Replacing with Gurmag Swiftwing...

You're not wrong. I was just looking for good enough stats to pull somebody into the colors, but really, 4/4 for 4 mana is still fine in this cube. I'll switch to the Raging Regisaur. That's a pretty good card design that would probably be good in any RG deck this format can muster. I overlooked...

Thanks for the kind words! Ok, I'll go with two sets of tri-lands. I was trying to increase the number of lands that can support a given 2 color deck, but having 20 tri-lands is probably a good setup. I suppose that also supports more of a normal draft experience for teaching purposes. I've...

I've had the nagging feeling that this cube has too many wordy cards, too many tokens, and some unneeded keywords for a cube that purports to be as simple as possible. But it seems to be balanced enough to be worth keeping around, so I made a new ultra simple version that addresses my gripes...