General Cube Box Thread

I intend to post several times in this thread to highlight some boxes I like, along with some cube storage configurations that I've played around with for fun. Feel free to join in and post your own.

First up, I really like the Vault X Exo-Tec Card Box 450+ for a small cube.

It is a convertible box - the magnetic top is removable and can attach to the bottom. I much prefer this type of box to a box with a top that has to lay out on the table.

This is a box that can do the job but still fit into a backpack. The inside of the compartment is 330 mm long by 85 mm wide. Sleeved cards are only 67 mm wide, so that's an oversized compartment that's setup to hold commander deck boxes. That's annoying at first, but in fact it ends up being a good thing. This is a convenient width, because it's just the right size to fit a sideways row of six Cubeamajigs or other cube packs.

Vaultx1.jpg

Pictured above, we see the Vault X 450+ box loaded up with 16 cube packs, 22 of each basic land (double sleeved), 60 single sleeved tokens, and a box of dice.

As you can see, the box is long enough for four sideways rows, plus an extra 45-50 mm of extra space at the end. Packing sideways rows uses more of the space than running cards the long way.

The dice box is a 3D printed box, 30 mm wide, which is a good size to hold a combination of d20 and 16mm d6 dice. It is pictured with 18 dice in it. If you don't have 3D printer access, don't worry - the Gamegenic Token Holder is the exact same size, and it's cheap. (Not to be confused with their Token Keep, which is slightly too wide to fit)

The red plastic containers you see are from another inexpensive product that I really like: Gamegenic Double Deck Holder 200+XL.
DoubleDeck1.jpg

The outer shell of the box is just right for 12 cube packs, if that is of interest to anybody. You could make a pretty decent land and token station out of this little box if your other box is full of packs. But I especially like the open top box inserts, because they're almost the perfect size for sideways rows of sleeved cards. In the left side above, I have 110 double sleeved (Dragon Shield + KMC perfect fit) lands, plus the six thin plastic dividers. The left side has three cube packs plus the 60 single sleeved tokens.

You can just barely fit the outside box into the Exo-Tec 450+ if you want. That would be for people who are worried about spilling cards if the magnetic top comes off. I did do a shake test, and I did find that the top can pop off. There's extra space at the top, so if you shake it up and down, the cards/boxes have enough room to move and gain enough momentum to pop the top. Without that type of momentum and shaking / bad decision making, the top is held on quite strongly and stays put.

Of course, that top space can be used for a few more cube packs. That would address the momentum / shaking problem. Using that space would let you push things to 20 cube packs for some cubes, depending on the bulk of your tokens and basics. You could also simply put a piece of foam on the bottom to take up the extra vertical space. My personal preference is to just leave that space empty.

VaultX3.jpg

By the way, there's also a Triple Deck Holder 300+XL product. With three rows, this product is big enough to house certain types of cube in its own right. It could handle a "bar cube" with no tokens, or a 162 card grid draft cube, or a 3-4 color cube that doesn't need as many basic lands.

TripleDeck1.jpg
I removed two of the inserts in favor of cube packs here, but you could also just put cards in the boxes. For something like a 162 card grid drafting cube, you'd have plenty of room for the cube, basics, and tokens. If your tokens don't take up too much space, you could even fit some dice in there, perhaps in a Burger Tokens Perfect Fit Deckbox (22.5 mm or 27 mm version would work). And for a bar cube, you'd have a nicer box that's only slightly more expensive than a cardboard box. The shape of the box tops does make them stay closed on their own fairly well, but the way, because the square corners have to flex a bit to open and close. It's a simple and clever design.

I'll be posting some more cube arrangements soon!
 
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1000 count. No markings on the outside so nobody knows it's a cube (much less necessary if you don't fear theft, most of mine historically have had CUBE written on them in sharpie). Important information to know before the draft gets written on the inside top.

...is "cheapest possible" an aesthetic? Seriously though, they're durable for cardboard, they fit in every backpack I've ever had (sometimes only diagonally), they're replaceable for like seven bucks, you can buy in bulk if you're one of those people that doesn't move every year (couldn't be me), I am literally brand loyal to BCW for these cheap disposable pieces of garbage that have held my cube for fifteen years at this point. Love 'em to pieces (and then replace 'em with a new one that's not in pieces, then repeat...)
 
Yeah, I own my share of BCW cardboard boxes. I have my main collection in a pair of two row boxes stacked on top of each other. (Removable tops that go on the bottom and out of the way!) I don't like the bits of cardboard dust that always get into sleeves, but they work well. Still, why spend $3 when you can spend $50?
 
I have this thing because they had it at my LGS and I love to spend money on stupid bullshit:
https://www.gamegenic.com/product/dungeon-1100-convertible/?attribute_pa_color=midnight-gray

It's okay. I don't really like how the columns are not quite wide enough to fit cards or cube packs horizontally but are too wide for them to fit neatly vertically, so it's a sort of awkward middle ground for cube. Think it would be better if it was just for deck boxes. But I do like how big and sturdy it is and how it can fit multiple cubes in it if you want it to. Probably like a 8/10 product but a 6/10 for my purposes. But I have it now so it's what I've been using lol. I use BCWs for most other things.

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I've been very happy with this baby, using it for all three of my cubes.

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It's big enough for a 500 card cube with tokens and if your cube is a bit smaller, you also get the basic lands in there. All those considering I'm on double sleeving. For my main cube, I use a very old and ugly yugioh box for the basic lands. It's this one here, only that mine wouldn'tget a half decent grading anymore, looks really used lol

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It's very practical though, has the same lentgh as the cube box and has this nice handle to carry around.
 
I use the same thing as @ravnic, but mine has stronger cards in it.

I use the top-left for basics, the bottom-left small slot for tokens, and the rest for the cube. You can see the compartments better on Amazon.

It's 23 USD right now, but it basically is impossible to pop open on accident and it's sturdy. I'd absolutely buy another if I make another cube.
 
I didn't want to spend too much, so I got some docsmagic boxes for my ~360 cube. They cost around 20€, look quite decent (many different colors) and are reasonably hight quality. Definitely an option, if you live in Europe!

The only downside so far is, that the top is foldable and you cannot remove it, difficult to make space for it on my cluttered desk.

Also, if it interests you, make damn sure you get the right size! I bought the wrong one first. They provide card fit size in cm, so it's easy to measure. I got the Long Box Large for 385 cube cards + 60 tokens + ~ 100 lands.

Screenshot_20240214-103454-01.jpeg
PS: they also have tons of different sleeves. I don't use them for magic but they do have all imaginable board game card sleeve sizes, if that's something you're looking for.
 
I didn't want to spend too much, so I got some docsmagic boxes for my ~360 cube. They cost around 20€, look quite decent (many different colors) and are reasonably hight quality. Definitely an option, if you live in Europe!

The only downside so far is, that the top is foldable and you cannot remove it, difficult to make space for it on my cluttered desk.

Also, if it interests you, make damn sure you get the right size! I bought the wrong one first. They provide card fit size in cm, so it's easy to measure. I got the Long Box Large for 385 cube cards + 60 tokens + ~ 100 lands.

View attachment 9273
PS: they also have tons of different sleeves. I don't use them for magic but they do have all imaginable board game card sleeve sizes, if that's something you're looking for.
This is what I use for my Jumpstart cube, with Dragon Shield Cube Shells for each pack.

The main cube is in a Quiver case, which I recommend. It does limit my cube to 450-500 cards single sleeved if I want space for tokens, dice and basic lands, but that is my preferred cube size anyway.

IMG_0808.jpeg
 
I didn't want to spend too much, so I got some docsmagic boxes for my ~360 cube. They cost around 20€, look quite decent (many different colors) and are reasonably hight quality. Definitely an option, if you live in Europe!
That looks like a nice store! I see that they also have a 36 Euro two row box with removable top that looks great for a 360-450 size cube, maybe even 540. Its rows are 79 mm wide, which avoids some of the unecessary extra width of other boxes.

docsmagic_2_row.jpg
 
I am rocking something similar but this is the true pride of my cube storage:

[land and dice box picture snipped]
Nice design work here. I'm a little obsessed with making a nice land station that looks cool and handy on the table and packages easy in a cube box. I have several variants, and I'll post some when I get the right stuff stuff in the mail.
 
I'm might be alone in my storage solution needs and trade-offs I'm willing to make, but I recently found BCW has a box that is perfect for my land station situation.

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https://www.bcwsupplies.com/sorting-tray-storage-box

I like collecting sets of basic lands and occasionally swap them out of my deckbox for prerelease or retail draft events with friends. I was never satisfied with how I could practically lay these out for cube drafts, transport them effectively, and still keep them organized.

BCW 400/800/etc count boxes don't fit the Burger Token cases I use for cube packs and basic land sets. So, was ecstatic when I came across these boxes that solved all of my problems! I love the design so much, I might see what it would take to find/make this box from wood, to go with my cube storage box -- which I've had for several years now and still very happy with the purchase!

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The black bag holding everything is Miniature Market's Board Game Travel Bag: https://www.miniaturemarket.com/mm-bag03.html

The three black BCW boxes in the bag are BCWs 500 count matte sleeve boxes (sleeves which I use for other board games) which perfectly fit the Burger Token cases I use for cube packs.
 
Oh, I forgot to post my old cube on deck box! The store I FNM'd at back in 2007 found a pile of these babies in the back and went "eh, $1 each" and they instantly sold out to the FNM grinder crowd...

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It's kind of small, so that's why it was only the on deck box. Fit two vertical stacks of sleeved cards of about maybe 200 each? Plenty enough for my purposes, gave me an excuse to purge every so often. And it's official WotC merchanise! Technically.

(also this link is from troll and toad's website where they are out of stock on these at thirty dollars?!)
 
In this post, I'm going up a size to the Gamegenic Dungeon 550+. It's another quality box with magnetic removable top that stays on very securely. This box is 414 mm long (16.3 inches), which is among the longest boxes on the market. Its bulk is a disadvantage. It barely fits in my laptop backpack. I don't think I'd be able to fit the Dungeon 1100+ two row box in there.

BackpackDungeon.jpg

It's shown next to a BCW 800 count box. The Dungeon is 34 mm longer and quite a bit bigger in cross section area, and overall it has 78% more volume. Fortunately, it's possible to put that extra space to some good use.

The storage row is about 90 mm wide (cube packs are 68 mm wide). This is about the widest row size you'll find on a trading card box. You can fit five sideways rows of cards with more space left at the end. Pretty much any deck box fits in here, so there are many ways to subdivide the space. This is what makes the box fun for me, and part of what compelled me spend a silly amount on deck boxes so I could play around with organization schemes. I could do a dozen configurations with this box, but I'll limit myself to just a few.

First, here's one with a nifty land station concept using Boulder 40+ deck boxes:

Dungeon1A.jpg
Dungeon1B.jpg

I bought a Boulder 40+ of each color and mixed the halves into three land boxes, and then they make a nice land station like you see above. Isn't that nifty? If you only use those three boxes to store basics, you can do 24 x 5 = 120 basics. If you want more, you can stash the extras elsewhere in the Dungeon.

The token box is a Boulder 60+ box, which can fit 75+ single sleeved tokens or around 140 unsleeved. The dice box is a Gamegenic Token Keep. I can fit 6x d20 and 11x d6 (16mm) in there. If I switch that out for the plastic Token Holder, I can fit a few more.

Boulders leave space for two extra cube packs on the sides, so this arrangement makes room for 20 cube packs - a nice number for a 4-6 player cube draft.

You can do a similar land station setup using Gamegenic Bastion 50+XL boxes. A CAD drawing is below since I didn't buy four of those boxes, but I did buy one to test fit some cards. I can comfortably fit 53 double sleeved lands (Dragon Shield Matte + KMC perfect fit inner) or 68 single sleeved tokens (Ultra Pro Matte). In this setup I only have 18 cube packs in the box, but there's room for 30+ basics of each color plus 60+ tokens and some dice. Purchasing this setup is slightly more convenient, because you'd buy the red+blue+green Bastion 50+XL and then the black+clear combo option as your fourth box. Bastion halves aren't as symmetrical as Boulders, so it probably wouldn't look quite as cool when setup as a land station. Still, I find this to be a satisfying cube setup.

Dungeon2.png

Here's one last setup that features two deck boxes that fit nicely. Either box can become a nice land station or token box.

Dungeon3A.jpg
Dungeon3B.jpg
Left:Vault X 100 Side Loading Deck box (black/red) holds 100 double sleeved cards (tight fit). When you cube, you can turn the cards the tall way for a land station. In that configuration, you can easily fit 25-27 lands per color. So you could store 25 forests in the other box and move them over when you get setup.

This box is the same size as the old Gamegenic Sidekick 100+, but those have been replaced by the 100+XL version, which doesn't fit the Dungeon in the same orientation that you can fit a Vault X or the smaller Sidekick. You could also do a Squire 100+ upright box, because it's the same overall size.

Right: Gamegenic Bastion 100+XL deck box holds about 115 double sleeved cards comfortably and fits perfectly across a row (88 mm) while taking up only 77 mm long along the length of the row. Up to six cube packs fit inside.

This box is essentially overkill for a small cube, and you could actually fit a 360 cube if you organize it efficiently. If a person has a smaller cube and wants a nice organizing system and a bunch of extra conveniences in the box, at the expense of a bulky box, I like the Dungeon 550+.
 
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Quick follow-up post on larger cubes and the Dungeon 1100+ box (shout out to gaytransmulldrifter for posting a picture of the actual box earlier).

Here's an example of how you fit a 720 cube into a Dungeon 1100+ box. I photographed the 550+ box twice to mock this up, but this equals the same amount of space, and it would work.

Dungeon720.png

That's 48 cube packs plus the following capacity to hold double sleeved cards:
Bastion 100+XL (115)
Boulder 100+ (100)
Dragon Shield Sleeve box (65)
Cube Pocket 15+ (15 or some 12mm dice)
Token Holders (40 each, or some dice)
Total = 375 cards, minus an allowance for dice, extra sleeves, etc.

So that's a box that's big enough for just about any cube. Maybe not a complete Momir cube, but most cubes.
 
Next up is Dex Supreme One Row box. I went with this over The Game Chest (same size but with 3 compartments and some removable 80 card boxes). Supreme One Row is cheaper, and it annoys me when internal dividers can't be adjusted to my liking. It's made of nice materials, and it doesn't have the extra bulk beyond sleeved card size like these other boxes. Rows are horizontal instead of vertical for people who are into that. Compared to a BCW 800 count cardboard box, the internal space is exactly the same height and width and about 10 mm longer, so it's very close to identical functionality. The outside dimensions are only slightly larger than the cardboard counterpart, so it fits easily into a backpack. It's about 1/3 smaller than the Dungeon 550+ by volume.

The next time I do a 3-4 player cube, it might look like one of these pictures:
Dex2.jpg

Dex1.jpg

Cubeamajigs or Card Holder 15+ packs fit with a couple of mm of extra space. Internet pictures suggest that Burger Token boxes (slightly taller) also fit just fine.

It's possible to fit the inserts from GameGenic Double Deck Holder 200+XL in there for basics (top photo). The fit is close to exact, but some people might debate whether it's about 0.5 mm too deep for an exact fit. The top closes for me. I like the inserts, because it prevents the loose cards from falling over when you remove the other stuff. The insert also makes the basic lands easier to remove from the box. This is the only aspect of Dex (or BCW) boxes that I dislike - you take the packs out, and cards fall over in their row. Subdividing things keeps things a bit tidier, but it also takes up more space. Like I said above, The Game Chest comes with insert boxes that fit nicely, so that's an option as well. If they come back in stock as individual items, I might order one for dice or tokens.

Dragon Shield sleeve boxes are an exact fit. The Dragon Shield box is a nice size for dice, because it's big enough to fit 24 d20 dice, which means it can easily fit 8 d20's plus many d16's.

The black thing on the left of the second image is a printed two piece dice holder that I designed to fit in a Dex or BCW box (70 x 95 x 30 mm).
Fitting dice can be frustrating, because certain compartment sizes don't allow efficient packing of the dice I want. Increasing that to a 50 mm wide box would hold maybe more than twice as many dice, so that depends if I want extra dice or extra tokens.

dice_printed.jpg

The Dex Supreme One Row is big enough to very easily fit a small cube that's not in cube packs, or a cube that only needs 12 packs. For 15 or 16 packs, one has to be careful on the amounts of tokens, dice, and basics that are included in the box. I think it's the perfect size for some of these cubes, and I like how it doesn't have the oversized rows for deck boxes. For 18 or 20 packs, the box starts to be a little too small to fit packs, dice, basics, and tokens.

This box doesn't have the removable top that I like, but it's ok. Since it's not a giant box, the flap is less of a nuisance than it would be for something like an Arkhive 800+.

It's a $40 box that does the same thing as the $3 cardboard version while looking cooler and not getting cardboard dust into my sleeves. I think it's a pretty cool box.
 
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