General CBS

[Velrun]

Pokemon TCG has a legality code printed on the card in the same corner as the rarity and set symbol and artist and collector number. Their version of Standard is defined as "all cards with codes E, F, or G" or whatever they're currently on at the moment:

They've only had it for five years but it certainly seems to be working for them and it was intuitive to me when I briefly played that game because it mostly correlated with Standard rotations (they'll print E for a year, then F for a year, etc etc). Of course, they also reprinted old cards more often, so people were used to looking for the symbol and playing older versions that lacked it, idk if that'd work as well with Magic's lower reprint rate, who knows.

Didn’t know that. The idea came to me in a dream

 

[anotak]

y'all are missing the two most important things about the lands system.

having useless cards in your deck makes the game surprising, having useless cards in your deck makes bluffing/guessing much more interesting. these stay true no matter how good or bad you are at the game.

having played several other games without lands it's so fucking obvious what card or narrow subset of cards the opponent is holding all the time. there's so much less "what could they have?" because you know what they have. there's just so many fewer cards that they could draw and not just play immediately, so the possibility space shrinks instantly.

and the tension of "maybe they wont draw something" is just so much reduced when you know their draws are always on. like that moment is so important to magic's emotional texture.

and as a third smaller issue, drawing cards in mtg is classic skinner-box stuff. honestly i fucking hate skinner-box stuff in general but in certain doses it's an effective game design tool. have you noticed how popular slay the spire is? and how much of that game you spend drawing useless wounds? or drawing a defend when no enemy is attacking? or a strike when the enemy has more armor?

not having lands in the deck makes the games feel like being forced to eat a plate of dry cornbread with nothing to drink. it's miserable honestly

 

[Onderzeeboot]

having played several other games without lands it's so fucking obvious what card or narrow subset of cards the opponent is holding all the time. there's so much less "what could they have?" because you know what they have. there's just so many fewer cards that they could draw and not just play immediately, so the possibility space shrinks instantly.

Having played a lot of Hearthstone, I simply think this ain't true. You can't play more than 2 of each card or 1 of each legend in a 30 card deck. Some cards you run as singletons as well, so you don't always max out on the cap. On average there's about 16-20 unique cards in a Hearthstone deck. Compare this to a Magic deck, where you can play 4 of each card in a 60 card deck. This looks like double numbers from Hearthstone, except in Magic you need to play 20-26 lands, so it comes down to about 10-14 unique cards plus lands? And let's be real, if they have a land, it doesnt matter which one. Chances they drew a land are a lot bigger than anything in Hearthstone too, so it's actually easier to predict what your opponent is holding.

and the tension of "maybe they wont draw something" is just so much reduced when you know their draws are always on. like that moment is so important to magic's emotional texture.

Again, drawing from experience with Hearthstone, you can equally draw dead without your deck containing naturally dead cards. If I have a big creature in play, and you draw something that can only deal with something small, that's a dead draw. If I'm beating down and you draw an insignificant creature, that's a dead draw. And so on.

and as a third smaller issue, drawing cards in mtg is classic skinner-box stuff. honestly i fucking hate skinner-box stuff in general but in certain doses it's an effective game design tool. have you noticed how popular slay the spire is? and how much of that game you spend drawing useless wounds? or drawing a defend when no enemy is attacking? or a strike when the enemy has more armor?

I don't think drawing useless wounds is what makes people come back to Slay the Spire time and again. Obviously there's tension in the ratio of offensive and defensive cards in your deck, and that's a fun thing, but lands aren't needed for providing that tension. Now, there's no denying the fights with those monsters that add chaff to your deck are tense, but there's a time and place for that tension. There's a reason Slay the Spire doesn't add wounds to your deck in every fight. In that regard, it's not at all similar to Magic, where your deck will always have a good chunk of lands in it that may or may not end in a mana screw or mana flood, regardless of how well your ratio of lands to nonlands is.

not having lands in the deck makes the games feel like being forced to eat a plate of dry cornbread with nothing to drink. it's miserable honestly

I wish I could introduce you to my Battlebox. It's Magic, but without lands in the deck. Actually, it's a lot like Magic with Hearthstone's mana system, and imho it's a lot of fun. Not at all like being forced to eat a plate of dry cornbread with nothing to drink.

Now, obviously Hearthstone isn't for everyone, it just happens to be a system different from Magic that I'm intimately familiar with. Many people find the amount of randomness distasteful, or they hate the economy (it can be hard to cobble a deck together as a new or infrequent player). However, I hardly ever hear someone complain about the mana system. It just works. And all these things you say lands play a vital role in? They're there, despite Hearthstone having no lands.

PS I don't actually mind lands in Magic. I think it's an interesting resource system with a lot of cool nuances. The importance of mana fixing is something every newer drafter undervalues. Crafting a good mana base with the correct ratio of lands to nonlands and the right amount of taplands is so much more subtle than the "24 lands" rule of thumb implies. And yes, the variance it brings is actually important, because it levels the playing field to an extent. Even a very experienced player can lose to a newbie if their draws are unlucky (or the newbie's draws are lucky). And yes, you can bluff by holding a land in hand (just like you can bluff by holding a one drop in hand if it's not going to have a board impact anyway).

 

[Brad]

having useless cards in your deck makes bluffing/guessing much more interesting.

How is this more interesting than having cards whose value changes dependent on the game? For example, Counterspell vs a resolved bomb is still a relatively dead draw without being completely dead.

having played several other games without lands it's so fucking obvious what card or narrow subset of cards the opponent is holding all the time. there's so much less "what could they have?"

"Do they have a land?" is easier to solve than "What card with an actual effect do they have?"

I've never played a game where it was "so fucking obvious" what card(s) my opponent had in their deck of 20+ unique cards.

and the tension of "maybe they wont draw something" is just so much reduced when you know their draws are always on. like that moment is so important to magic's emotional texture.

As stated above, their draws are never "always on." Every spell has a varying amount of value depending on what's going on.

not having lands in the deck makes the games feel like being forced to eat a plate of dry cornbread with nothing to drink. it's miserable honestly

Do you draw 4 lands in a row and thank MaRo for your drink?

 

[Velrun]

My very brief take

The difference between:

1. A game where there can be an absolute dead draw (Land or wound as examples from above) and

2. A game where the dead draw is not actually dead but instead it is a counterspell after a bomb has already resolved

is massive. For me the biggest difference is variance. I like to play Slay the Spire because sometimes I can get good cards right from the start and high roll. If every game is a medium experience where I never really have anything super good or super bad happening then it gets more dry cornbread to me.

 

[anotak]

i have played both hearthstone and battlebox more than once and i was partially basing my post off those experiences

and yeah drawing many lands in a row can be unpleasant but on both the mean and median it makes the games just play better

 

[TrainmasterGT]

One of the things I've noticed in environments using "Hearthstone Mana" is that high-mana plays are more powerful than they usually are since players can play them on time guaranteed. As such, using a card as simplistic as the humble Colossal Dreadmaw as top end necessitates bumping up the power level of the early game plays.

Oh, you want Siege Rhino in your Hearthstone mana environment? Your one drop needs to be Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.

 

[Tavahka]

I've been playing a lot of the One Piece TCG recently and I have really been liking how their mana system works. It's a Hearthstone-style get-a-certain-number-of-resource-per-turn, but it does a couple of things I really like. First, each player gets two a turn, but the first player has just one on their first turn. So there are different curve considerarions based on going first (1-3-5-7-9-10 curve) or second (2-4-6-8-10).

In addition, rather than using the resource to play cards, you can attach them to a character for the turn to temporarily increase their power. I find most systems to try and "fix" the land system try to take the non-resource cards and let them become a resource. I like how this one rather adds an additional axis through which the resource can be used instead. Then to compensate for the higher cost cards being more consistent, most cards are also able to be discarded to temporarily buff power when on the defensive. The topend cards generally(never, maybe?) don't have that ability, so they are a liability if you include too many in your deck.

I highly recommend checking it out to see what they are doing with it. The resource system is so good it got me to start playing despite the fact that it is an anime card game with all the design flaws I find with that genre. (cards unreadable from the other side of the table, numbers being way inflated, very little consideration for any form of limited, etc)

 

[Seeker]

The Spongebob Secret Lairs are actually fire and you cannot possibly change my mind because for once they actually committed far enough to "we are making a deliberately absurd thing":

full spoilers for them all are in this reddit thread

 

[Chris Taylor]

The flavor text here is a subtle reference to the fact that this is a joke, and that you the viewer don't get it

 

[MilesOfficial]

I wish the mountain in the basic cycle was more evocative of the show. Mt. Bikini Bottom looks like it debuted in Season 7 and aired in 2011. Considering every other moment captured in the Secret Lair is from the pre-movie run (generally considered the golden age of the Sponge), this is an (extremely small) disappointment. I'll be picking up a set of the basics for my Cube's land box and an extra mountain for my mountain binder as is tradition.

I think my playgroup would be 70/30 split on "upgrading" Counterspell to the meme version. Following MaRo's advice, I should do it anyways, because it's better to give people experiences with the highest resonance than provide a great experience in aggregate, even if it upsets some players. But also, I do think the negative on this is bigger than most things -- I can't see any of my friends "quitting Cube" for the inclusion, but it may make them a lot less likely to be jazzed about it! I guess I'll ask them what they think, but it doesn't do anything for me personally.

Fun fact: I made a SpongeBob TCG when I was in middle school using Pokémon Project Studio! Maybe I'll post it here at some point, I recently found the cards and they're pretty funny when I compare them to this.

--

On another note, I was watching LSV's first draft of his Retro Cube the other day, which is meant to evoke the era of Cube in the mid-2010s, with cards generally only coming from pre-Amonkhet but with a modern design sensibility. While it's funny for me to consider this a "retro" cube, it certainly is in Magic terms, with hardly a card under 10 years of age. My own Cube looked reasonably similar to this a decade ago!

It did make me nostalgic on its face, but it also brought up three big takeaways for me:

1. It was much more skill-testing

Looking through LSV's decklist, it's not a "gigabrain" deck or anything, but it's something that would be hard for anyone beyond a Limited grinder to concept. The gameplay is also much more compelling than modern Vintage 8-mans, with a lot more focus on midrange and incremental value.

Honestly, this is not necessarily a good thing! Most of my playgroup is reasonably casual, and I remember how easy it was for the lower half of my playgroup to make it through Cube night without a single win under their belt during this time. If I'm trying to maximize for fun, having Cube be the most competitive format around isn't ideal, and the occasional card like Sheoldred act like mythics in retail draft that give a fighting chance to players across skill levels.


2. The lack of haymakers was refreshing

This may sound contrary to my previous point, but it's not: the most popular bombs in Cube these days are not 5-mana, they're Gut, True Soul Zealot or Ajani, Nacatl Pariah that are engines and payoffs all in one. It was lovely to watch some Cube where every card had to pull its weight, but rarely did more than one thing for the larger strategy.

I've talked about this elsewhere on these forums, but I recently took my first step in de-powering my Cube, and am looking for a big shift in cutting off a bit of the top end -- the very kinds of cards I just referenced. Inti is one of my favorite cards in terms of play-pattern from recent years, but I also do acknowledge it's a single card that's very capable of taking over a game...for just two mana. It very much feels like the whole "I play Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to support discard and artifacts-matter" meme from that one Cube "bracket" system I very much resemble.

I want Cube to be a place where my playgroup can play with some of the most powerful cards from Magic's history, where they can make sweet decks and play with the best of the best, but the best of the best in the last few years have been so much so that they're seriously invalidating the 30 years of Magic before them. Like Andy said on Paper Radio, Psychic Frog is essentially fair but super powerful, but can the same be said about Broadside Bombardiers or Ocelot Pride?

Immediately after watching the draft, I went back to my Cube and looked at what it would mean to get rid of my most egregious haymakers. Just removing ~20 cards from my 720 list would be enough. "Much to think about," as a wise poet once said.


3. I feel validated

One thing I do really like about modern cards is: Commander-specific cards.



One thing I really missed watching LSV's Cube was all of the cards designed with Commander in mind. From Toxic Deluge to Occult Epiphany, Commander-made cards align more with the design principles I have for my Cube than a retail Magic expansion. That may seem weird, considering I am a big fan of retail limited and want as much of that feeling in Cube as possible, but when Jace, the Mind Sculptor is the same "rarity" as every other card in your list, the juiced cards that make their way into precons are, in the same vein as Modern Horizons sets, the best way to enable new archetypes and strategies for many Cubes.

I think Cube is a better format with hyper-specific synergies available to include as archetypes. I like being able to get powerful individual cards doing things that are weird or beg to be built around in a bigger way. I think Staff of the Storyteller and Astrid Peth are excellent tools that would be impossibly hard to justify in a mainline expansion and that Death-Greeter's Champion would ruin too any retail limited experience.

It's not my first or second priority, but I still want Cube to be a collection of the best and most famous cards from the game's history, and now, that means Commander, too. There are plenty of ways the sensibilities of that multiplayer experience are at odds with what I'm going for with Cube, but there's more overlap than folks give credit for. Also, most of my players (and most Magic players in general) are Commander players first and foremost, and catering Cube to those sensibilities is not just reasonable, but thoughtful.

Thanks LSV for making me think all these things, I guess?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Hey everyone,

I just put out a podcast episode about the Top 5 Sets for Cube. Understandably, this list is a bit subjective, so I thought it would be a fun thing to discuss here! I would love to hear some of your thoughts once you listen to the episode!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Hey everyone,

I just put out a podcast episode about the Top 5 Sets for Cube. Understandably, this list is a bit subjective, so I thought it would be a fun thing to discuss here! I would love to hear some of your thoughts once you listen to the episode!

Interesting picks for your top 5. Though it remains a bit nebulous what you mean by "for Cube", 3 of the 5 also would make my own top 5!

I don't want to think too hard on the order, but NEO, MH2, and ELD are the three I would also put in my personal top 5. My top 5 is rounded out by Lord of the Rings and New Capenna though.

LOTR has a lot of interesting designs, and a couple of really cool mechanics. I haven't incorporated The Ring Tempts You, yet, but it plays exceedingly well, and would go very well with both the ninja's and the self discard theme I am already running. Amass remains a cool mechanic, and the set has a number of really solid additions. And then there's the 1 mana cyclers, of which at least the Sultai ones are very playable. And then there's some personal favorites, like Reprieve for bonus points.

New Capenna completed the triland cycle, which alone is worth massive points, but also added a number of spicy options, like Ledger Shredder and Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second. The accompanying Commander cards are a smash hit though and push this one into top 5 category for me. Yeah yeah yeah, SNC and NCC are two different set codes, but they premiered on the same day and are so closely connected that I definitely feel like they should count for the same spot. NCC had ridiculously great cards, like Lethal Scheme, Currency Converter, Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer, Dogged Detective, and Bennie Bracks, Zoologist. I just love what Capenna added to my cube!

On the other hand, I can't, in good conscience, give Khans a spot. The entire block is down to under 10 cards in my cube (I think, it's hard to count considering I run reprints in newer borders when available, like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant). They're cool cards, like Monastery Mentor, but Morph isn't good for most cubes, and neither is a slew of subpar three color cards (even though my cube runs more than average and I just sang New Capenna's praise). Delve and prowess are huge though, and Siege Rhino will always have a special place in your heart, so I don't fault you for looking past the weaker parts of the set and picking your favorite

Amonkhet was a cool set with a bunch of cool designs, but I don't think embalm and the focus on -1/-1 counters were that widely usable in cubes. Definitely a good set that's up there for me, not quite top 5 though.

An honorable mention goes out to the tag team of Kaladesh and Aether Revolt, which heavily inspired themes in my cube, and are still overrepresented. I just loved all of the mechanics here, especially the support for cool artifact decks and the revolt mechanic. Revolt, especially, still holds it weight in fetch-heavy environments.

 

[Mondschwein]

Off the top of my head I'd choose INN, MH1, MH2, NEO, FND but I do ignore most of the rares and mythics.

I also think that BLB, MID, DMU, BRO, MKM, DOM, OTJ, SNC, WOE, MOM, AFR (+commander) and MH3 were great for lower power/peasant power level. Also M19/20/21 era. Best old sets are INV and APC.

 

[Mown]

After some deliberation, not having read/listened to anyone else, I have landed on:

Alpha: Cube, to some extent, exists in the first place because people want to play with the power nine. While I'm not one for Vintage cubes, it is the face of the format, and Alpha is probably the most defining part of it. It also has dual lands, which will be relevant when we come to...

Onslaught: Solely here for introducing fetchlands, likely the most valuable mana-fixing tool in the entire game, and plays excellently in cube. Not only are they dual lands that appeal to players in only one of the colors, they can even make other dual lands viable in your deck when they otherwise wouldn't, adding a lot of extra layers to the draft.

Conspiracy: The first official set to give credence to the idea that draft doesn't have to be 8 people drafting 3 packs of 15 cards and playing three games of bo3. Conspiracy is probably the most important set towards making players more comfortable with experimenting with their limited environments.

Innistrad: I think this set, to a lot of people, exists as some sort of platonic ideal of a limited format. It's a good case study of what makes an enjoyable draft, and my impression is it inspired more set cubes than any other.

30th Anni: Might seem like an outlandish inclusion, but I think this set is one of the more culturally relevant ones, representing one of the low points of WotC's public image, although there are several. I've heard several sentiments of people seeking refuge in cubes away from the rest of magic, and while there are many sets I could choose from that have alienated enfranchised players, 30A is also relevant for pushing the needle on public sentiment towards the use of proxies.

 

[MilesOfficial]

With 720 cards, my five most-represented sets in Cube are:

Modern Horizons 3 (33)
Modern Horizons 2 (26)
Outlaws of Thunder Junction (23, 10 from BIG)
Wilds of Eldraine (21)
Lord of the Rings (18)

And then just outside of the top 5:
Lost Caverns of Ixalan / Duskmourn / Aetherdrift (17)

I think this says more about the problems with modern card design than what's important for Cube. Outside of MH3, I don't think any of these sets are in the top 5 of my "most important" for Cube, even my Cube, but I'd have to admit in terms of gameplay, many of the best decks I've got running around are centered around cards from these sets. I recognize I'm looking at this more pragmatically than philosophically, but the sets that inspired the changes to the games are less important when it comes to sitting down for a draft than the cards that they inspired if that's what I'm actually playing with. Cube can be anything you want it to be, and I guess my Cube is making a statement that I'm OK with the modern world of Magic for all the issues I have with it.

How can I say that the cards that take up the most real estate in my carefully curated list are anything less than the most important? Well, easily, but I fear that'd simply be cope on my part.

Super annoyed that Aetherdrift, the ugliest set is nearly represented here, but I do like the Verges quite a bit more than their much prettier Kaldheim Pathway cousins and half a land cycle counts for a lot in these kinds of stats. New sets tend to get rose colored glasses for their first year in the list, and I'm also OK with that...even when it's a set a despise like DFT.

I'm surprised The Brother's War is still one of the top sets with 14 inclusions, but I guess that speaks to my personal bias as I'm regularly revisiting that set for more potential additions. Also surprised that March of the Machines is down to 10: when that set came out, I was convinced that was the most voluminous set I'd ever get from a standard-legal product.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I think this says more about the problems with modern card design than what's important for Cube. Outside of MH3, I don't think any of these sets are in the top 5 of my "most important" for Cube, even my Cube, but I'd have to admit in terms of gameplay, many of the best decks I've got running around are centered around cards from these sets. I recognize I'm looking at this more pragmatically than philosophically, but the sets that inspired the changes to the games are less important when it comes to sitting down for a draft than the cards that they inspired if that's what I'm actually playing with. Cube can be anything you want it to be, and I guess my Cube is making a statement that I'm OK with the modern world of Magic for all the issues I have with it.

Super annoyed that Aetherdrift, the ugliest set is nearly represented here, but I do like the Verges quite a bit more than their much prettier Kaldheim Pathway cousins and half a land cycle counts for a lot in these kinds of stats. New sets tend to get rose colored glasses for their first year in the list, and I'm also OK with that...even when it's a set a despise like DFT.

Interesting thought: is the fact that recent sets have so many cool cards people want to Cube with really a problem with modern design?

You mention how Aetherdrift is a set you both dislike but also has a relatively large number of cards that you're giving a whirl in your Cube. And yeah, Aetherdrift has a lot of issues as a set. The theming is off, the art is mostly mediocre, and the new mechanics are only ok (sans Exhaust, which is great but not fully explored here). It's also not a very impactful set– the two most played Constructed cards appear to be Ride's End, and Up the Beanstalk combo piece, and Momentum Breaker, an extra card for Nurturing Pixie decks. Despite these many failings, the set manages to have a lot of cool cards for Cubes. So here's my question: is this actually worse than previous "bad sets" where the theme/lore/designs didn't land? My gut feeling is that this is preferable to something like Dragon's Maze or Born of the Gods, where the whole set was boring, and only two or three cards would appeal to any given Cube designer.

Just food for thought!

 

[LadyMapi]

the two most played Constructed cards appear to be Ride's End, and Up the Beanstalk combo piece, and Momentum Breaker, an extra card for Nurturing Pixie decks.

Stock Up is apparently seeing Legacy play. Like, a lot of Legacy play. We're talking "this is potentially a future staple" levels of play.

Sol lands + fast mana are a hell of a drug.

 

[Velrun]

Yeah I also run it in Duel Commander.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Stock Up is apparently seeing Legacy play. Like, a lot of Legacy play. We're talking "this is potentially a future staple" levels of play.4

Sol lands + fast mana are a hell of a drug.

I also forgot about Ketramose, who is seeing some play in WB Midrange in Modern at the moment.

Still, this set’s impact is reasonably small compared to the number of cool Cubeables in the set!

 

[MilesOfficial]

Interesting thought: is the fact that recent sets have so many cool cards people want to Cube with really a problem with modern design?

I mean, not to me as much, in all honesty. I don't mind most UB cards either like so many folks do, and will mind it less with the axing of the awful UB frame.

That said, it does water down the "Cube as a museum of Magic" thing, and so many pushed modern cards can easily invalidate old favorites if you're not careful. I've said it elsewhere but DFT has a lot of sweet and clean designs that are evocative, simple, and novel. I'm mostly bitter about it because the set as a whole looks and feels like everything I don't want Magic to continue to be, and the set symbol is the ugliest in the game's history (for a main set, the Modern Masters line was pretty bad too).

My gut feeling is that this is preferable to something like Dragon's Maze or Born of the Gods, where the whole set was boring, and only two or three cards would appeal to any given Cube designer.

It is preferable to sets like that, but Dragon's Maze draft made me feel high on life. What a lovely, convoluted experience. But yeah, I'd prefer the 1st quartile modern designed set to anything within the block structure from a Cube perspective, as much as it makes me a little wistful to say so.

 

[Seeker]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/arena-cube-draft

The latest Arena cube is a normal-looking Arena cube, except it's got 3x fetches and 2x shocks and they explicitly told everyone why.

A heartening step forward that they're willing to do this, definitely the right cards to do it with, and I'm looking forward to the Arena team maybe doing even more cool stuff with it.

 

[Brad]

3x fetches and 2x shocks

Me playing a strict two color deck with 6 fetches and my shock never shows up.

 

[Velrun]

Me playing a strict two color deck with 6 fetches and my shock never shows up.

Have you tried fetching it?

 

[shamizy]

CubeCon Submissions are live for 2025.

I'm submitting mine this year and if I get selected as a featured cube I'll likely be making the trip in October.