Pretty helpful write-up, I'll definitely be thinking on this! I probably completely glossed over Nettle Drone and Molten Nursery when looking through cards once or twice because I am Devoid's number one hater and it is a fake mechanic to me, but gameplay-wise the incentives are pretty cool and interesting for this list. It's really tough to gauge how things will perform in this cube because it is so low-power and stupid, I'm constantly waffling between "Pia's Revolution will be dogshit" and "Pia's Revolution will be cracked in half". The answer is to just test it of course but I'm trying to decide whether or not to put it in blind before the cube goes in an event in a couple months and I don't have a lot of time for testing rn lol.
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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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I have a new cube idea, but I still have some rest of doubts. So my inspiration was to have a cube that feels much more like constructed. I've been eagerly following the MTG Goldfish Best Standard Deck Ever series on YouTube, and it reminded me that constructed magic can be really cool sometimes. The bracket matches showed that the decks between the inception of the game and 2018 could almost all face each other on a relatively equal level, with a few exceptions. Looking at you, broken jar. I wanted to capture this golden era of constructed play where you had interesting and powerful decks (often ones that were difficult to resemble in a traditional singleton cube) but you weren't dead if you had no 2-drop.
My approach would be a cube that heavily breaks singleton. I would have two, three, or sometimes even four copies of cards in the cube, so decks will really feel more like constructed decks, despite sticking to 40-card decks for practical reasons. I've also considered expanding the cube size to 480, but then still draft the whole cube in four packs of 15 to enable larger sideboards and allow for more pigs for hate cards and things like that that can make matches in constructed more open.
Of course, the draft would not feel like a traditional draft, but I think a draft like this could still be fun. You are not scraping for playables, but instead the draft portion would resemble the feeling of tinkering with a constructed deck because you have so many options in the end. You can always be sure to get two or three copies of key cards that only your strategy might need.
Of course, drafts would be quite different. I would include narrow or parasitic cards and a few synergistic decks that have a lot of cards in them nobody else wants. Drafting could be on rails sometimes, but I think all that would be fine because it would not really be about the traditional way of drafting. For example, if you choose to build the astral slide deck, it is about how you construct your version of it. Of course, you want all the one-mana cycling cards. But do you main deck that Reclamation sage? Do you splash red for Flametongue Kavus? For which match ups did you prioritize cards in the draft for your sideboard? Scrabbling Claws, or Pithing needle?
What do you think of my idea? Do you believe this could be fun?
My approach would be a cube that heavily breaks singleton. I would have two, three, or sometimes even four copies of cards in the cube, so decks will really feel more like constructed decks, despite sticking to 40-card decks for practical reasons. I've also considered expanding the cube size to 480, but then still draft the whole cube in four packs of 15 to enable larger sideboards and allow for more pigs for hate cards and things like that that can make matches in constructed more open.
Of course, the draft would not feel like a traditional draft, but I think a draft like this could still be fun. You are not scraping for playables, but instead the draft portion would resemble the feeling of tinkering with a constructed deck because you have so many options in the end. You can always be sure to get two or three copies of key cards that only your strategy might need.
Of course, drafts would be quite different. I would include narrow or parasitic cards and a few synergistic decks that have a lot of cards in them nobody else wants. Drafting could be on rails sometimes, but I think all that would be fine because it would not really be about the traditional way of drafting. For example, if you choose to build the astral slide deck, it is about how you construct your version of it. Of course, you want all the one-mana cycling cards. But do you main deck that Reclamation sage? Do you splash red for Flametongue Kavus? For which match ups did you prioritize cards in the draft for your sideboard? Scrabbling Claws, or Pithing needle?
What do you think of my idea? Do you believe this could be fun?
Any pile of cards that you like set up with any amount of intent will turn out fine at worst.
Joe's World Championship Museum cube is like this and it seems to work out well! Haven't played it myself but I know a lot of folks who have and say it was a lot of fun.
Oh right, heard about that one on LPR. That's enough encouragement for me to go down that rabbit hole now...