General A brief timeline of cube history

[FlowerSunRain]

So, I was randomly reading this cube review. It bashed Seacoast Drake, but there is no need to revisit that topic. What struck me wasn't the content of the article, it was the header! Here is what it said:

Anthony Avitollo has one of the oldest cubes in existence. Dating back to 2005,

I was dumbfounded. How can someone make such a statement? I know my personal cube has been being played since 1997. I played with someone's cube in 1998. I know I talked to people who had cubes from around the same time. None of us had "taught" each other cube. We just came to the same creation independently, because as we all know, cube is awesome. It's a simple conclusion to come to really. Anyone who loves Magic, yet is dissatisfied with official formats will probably eventually "invent" cube themselves. Cube is a naturally occurring phenomenon in Magic. It combines the desire to customize with the leveling of a shared card pool. It is deliberate, requiring its curator to take responsibility for the flaws of the format. It is elegant, cutting out extraneous elements. It is creative, allowing both the player and the designer different avenues to express themselves. It is a clear improvement on the stack and the "shoebox filled with all my cards that we grab from and draft".

Maybe 2005 was when Cube was named. Maybe 2005 was when a community began talking about Cube. I wouldn't know. I was too busy Cubing to notice.

 

[Lucre]

Cool! I think I started playing one around scourge but those guys were all really old hand's at it by then. Though I hear it used to be an Ontario thing so maybe lots of older magic players have had cracks at cubes for ages before I figured out how the game was played properly. I heard somewhere that there is some historical application to picking through an old workhorse of a forum called MTG Ontario but I can't be bothered to put that effort in without the motivation of a real goal.

Would love to see some real vets dish on the subject though. Hopefully I'll get the guy who's cube I started with to open up about it next time I see him.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

My story is very simple.

My store stopped supporting Type 1 and 1.5

I didn't really like Type 2.

I was tired of buying Tempest boosters every week just to play Magic.

Pulling random cards out of the shoebox was slipshod.

So, I stopped randomly pulling the cards out of the shoebox. My playgroup began PURPOSEFULLY pulling cards out of the shoebox, selecting cards and combinations of cards that would make for what we thought would be the best games. We each picked 1/4 of the cards, mixed them up and drafted them. Our rule was 8 of each color and 5 misc cards (land/gold/artifact). After one such session we decided that the cards we selected that time were particularly good, so we set them to the side so we could play them again.

That is moment my cube was born.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Cubing is such an intuitive concept that it's astounding how much effort goes into claiming it or restricting its definition. I do like the name though. Props to whoever came up with it.

 

[Antknee42]

Well, not exactly the welcome for which I was hoping to join a Cube website, but there you go. This is Anthony Avitollo, and I'm here to talk about your post about me and actually talk about Cube history.

A few things first:

- Thank you for reading my article. Even if it was only 'randomly'.
- I wish you actually would have talked about the content in your feedback, instead of only briefly mentioning the fact that I panned your favorite card and the bolded statement above.
- I actually like when words mean specific things. I've talked about it before, but I think language should be clear and not obfuscated. I like that 'Cube' means a specific thing, for example.

Now, to your original post.

- I am not claiming ownership of inventing/defining the Cube, but I do know that I've had one (in its commonly accepted definition) longer than any of the people who wrote about it when it first started making an impact on the Magic community at large. People have been putting cards in boxes and pulling them out to play with them for years, often called a 'box draft' and other similar names (like this one: https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/bb33), but the accepted timeline for the Cube (by currently accepted definition) starts in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is placed around the late 90's into early 2000s; here is the website where I originally got the idea (that belongs to Brett Allen and is likely the oldest resource for Cube drafting online): http://www.snazzorama.com/magic/cube/. Although Cube drafting was going on there, the community at large really didn't know much about it until 2005-2006, when a series of articles and other media came about to bring it to the forefront:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/9372_SCg_Daily_FunSUP3SUP.html - Noah Weil, 04/08/05
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/9975_Gleaming_the_Cube.html - Sam Gomersall, 6/30/05
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/11755_The_Cube_20.html - Evan Erwin, 4/19/06
http://www.tomlapille.com/cube/cube.html - Tom LaPille, 2006
The Magic Show, Episode 61 - Evan Erwin, 9/13/07

By 2007, Cube drafting was known by most because of its inclusion in the 2007 Magic Invitational (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtgevent/mi07/blog1#3). All of the above factors contributed greatly into mainstreaming Cube into Magic communities far and wide. Every person with which I've had conversations with over the years regarding Cube and when they started theirs were inspired by one of the above articles. Plainly put, my Cube existed before any of that list of things.

- Just because you have been doing your shoebox drafts and you know in your heart you have been Cube drafting since 1997 doesn't exclude my Cube from being amongst the oldest. If I said "Shawn Bradley was one of the tallest players in the NBA" and you replied with "What are you, crazy? I can't believe you said that; Manute Bol was taller!!!1!1", that wouldn't make any sense logically because of the 'one of the' qualifier. I feel like the same thing is going on here, that you are very much overreacting to such a statement with your hipster arrogant statement of "I was too busy Cubing to notice [that others were discovering the format]". It also makes you sound ignorant, as your closing statement admits that you know close to nothing about the history about the format you supposedly love. How can you be both an authority and ignorant on a subject, but speak as though you are the former?

- Why come here, instead of the original article, to talk junk about me? Why did I have to hear it from friends that 'some dude is calling you a liar about Cube'? I would have gladly discussed it with you in the forums of the article had you been brave enough to mention it there and we could have had a discussion about it. On top of that, the title of this forum 'A brief timeline of cube history' is nothing of the sort. I feel as though this was nothing more than you wanting people to read how old your 'Cube' is and to belittle me, and you put a legitimate title (that sounds like an interesting topic, actually) on it to garner eyeballs. Why didn't you actually talk about the timeline of Cube history and not just 'I've been doing something similar since 1997, how cool am I?'

I know I should take your comments with a grain of salt, since you obviously crave attention/like sensationalism ("Seachrome Drake is the best card in M14") and likely wrote this just to try to get a rise out of people/go over the top with your opinions. Unfortunately, I don't appreciate being called out by name in our small/close community without you reaching out to me to answer your words. So here I am. You got me to join a forum that I was previously avoiding participating in because of the negative posts that I always seem to read here. Salvation may not be optimal for Cube talk, but at least there I don't see people outright calling people's writings and contribuitions false, hard to read, or not worthy of consumption. The main feeling I get from these boards are 'we're right; you're wrong', and that isn't a healthy environment for discussion.

Thank you for reading, and my apologies for the book post. At least I actually talked about the timeline of Cube history, though! (Seriously, you should read some of those articles)

-AA

 

[Miasmir]

I'd like to welcome you to this neck of the woods; sorry about the circumstances.

I'm pretty sure the point of this thread wasn't to hurt you personally, although I can see how it might read that way to you.

Please don't personally attack anyone in the future. "He did it first" is not an acceptable defense.

 

[Lucre]

Hahhaha what a weird welcome. I'm sorry you're first interactions were so negative! I was actually hoping that we could get more ears like yours in here and start creating conversations that would bridge gaps between the cube philosophies and the identities that are forming between designers but I guess something about the tone here scared you off. I think that's something to look at. I think you get a lot of "we're the little guy" syndrome here and coupled with the bluntness and hyperbolic sass you see in a lot of magic players you get something that seems kinda belligerent and pathetically crtical. I guess it takes sorta a negotiated kinda reading to not walk away from those vibes with a bad taste in your mouth.

I think if you give it a chance you'll realize that a lot of the people here feel like other mediums of discussion have quickly become really oppressive of outlier or atypical ideas and that this feels like their place to kick the old shoes off with the few they've bonded with and maybe vent a little or get overly sassy. I do get the feeling people here forget it's not just folks that have a read on them viewing the forums. Maybe it's leaving the wrong impression the sorta club atmosphere that's been cultivated.

Despite all that I have to say this board tends to flesh out design decisions and understanding consequences of things so much more satisfyingly than MTGS or whatever. When a strange decision comes up you hear a lot of angles about it and you start to see how the systems can be shaped as opposed to the old, my players like to play with the best cards and X is just not going to make it in Y mana slot because it's not as good or it won't be able to keep up. That isn't the only example of the malaise but it's telling of the sort of atmosphere a lot of people here are sick of. It sort of reminds me of when you are talking about an idea for a card and people just want to explain to you how they found precedence to dismiss it rather than to discuss what would be right or wrong in it's ramifications and what would work with that.

Love the history links by the way. Always been a fan of your show.