General Getting Started - The Core of A Cube

[Karn Cuberated]

Hello, everyone!
I'm new to cube, so I tried to learn as much as possible about building it, but, unfortunately, I ommited one thing. Many people advise others to start building their cubes with creating the core of a cube. But I don't understand, what the core of a set or a cube is. Does this term cover the anchor cards for archetypes, or there's some another meaning?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hey, thanks for your post.

If you haven't seen it already, we once upon a time made a number of resources for new cube designers, call the Cube Academy: http://riptidelab.com/cube-academy/

Regarding the "core", I'm not sure exactly what others have posted, but I think it can actually take some time to get a sense of what the core of your cube is. In the beginning, I just had a box of cards, many of them borrowed, that my friends and I drafted from. Hundreds of iterations later, I really had the thought of "these cards are essential to the structure of my environment" versus, like, "this is a red three drop that might as well be any other card". The cards I think of as my core are things like mana fixing, mass removal, archetype anchors / multi-archetype supporters.

Things like control finishers, ramp cards, random "good stuff" is often pretty interchangeable.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Thank you very much, I have been looking for sth like structured cube-creating-course for a while

 

[Jason Waddell]

As a general note, feel free to ask as many questions as you want. People here love being helpful (it's kind of weird).

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Hello, everyone!
I'm new to cube, so I tried to learn as much as possible about building it, but, unfortunately, I ommited one thing. Many people advise others to start building their cubes with creating the core of a cube. But I don't understand, what the core of a set or a cube is. Does this term cover the anchor cards for archetypes, or there's some another meaning?

I would interpret that as narrowing the question of "what is my cube format" down to its most essential elements. You'll never really do that on your first draft, which is fine, but its a continual process, and at least you have some articulated point that you're moving towards. Early on, looking at everything all at once is paralyzing, but reducing it down to the essetial elements, can make it easier to see a general direction to move towards.

There are a lot of different excerise you can do to help figure that out. I always suggest the guild exercise, where you take the 10 guilds and think of a theme and sub theme for each of them, and imagine how that might look. Its actually pretty difficult, but it can get you thinking about what you want from the cube, and how you plan to achieve it. To do it, you have to both conceptualize the theory, as well as think about what cards would help you achieve it.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

I would interpret that as narrowing the question of "what is my cube format" down to its most essential elements. You'll never really do that on your first draft, which is fine, but its a continual process, and at least you have some articulated point that you're moving towards. Early on, looking at everything all at once is paralyzing, but reducing it down to the essetial elements, can make it easier to see a general direction to move towards.

There are a lot of different excerise you can do to help figure that out. I always suggest the guild exercise, where you take the 10 guilds and think of a theme and sub theme for each of them, and imagine how that might look. Its actually pretty difficult, but it can get you thinking about what you want from the cube, and how you plan to achieve it. To do it, you have to both conceptualize the theory, as well as think about what cards would help you achieve it.

You say this exercise can get me thinking of what I want from my cube. It means that a cube has (must have?) some general direction?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Its extremely difficult to design a cube without some general direction. If something is everything all at once, it trends towards being a poorly articulated nothing. Even something as simple and crude as power max as a goal, at least takes the fog of infinite possibility away, and allows for something to at least start to be made.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Thank you for the help!

 

[Chris Taylor]

If you're more wondering about how many cards you need in various places, one of the few things I've ever written might be able to help: http://riptidelab.com/cube-academy/building-your-first-cube/

It's old, and meandering, but if you need to know if you've got too many blue 4 drops creatures, I think it can help.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Thank you so much, that's definetely gonna be useful!

 

[whydirt]

Another tip that can help combat the decision paralysis that comes with a completely blank canvas is to figure out what themes you know you don't want to support in your cube, whether it's something already obviously narrow like OGW true colorless cards or infect or even artifacts matter. Adding even a few restrictions can definitely push your mind to latch onto things you are actively interested in putting in your cube.

Good luck!

 

[Peter LaCara]

Also, be prepared for your first attempt to suck. Don't worry, it almost always does. In game design (and when you build a cube you are a game designer) you almost never get it right on the first try. You are going to playtest and make changes. Sometimes you'll seize on what you think is a brilliant idea and it turns out to be boring garbage in play. Sometimes you make what you think as a sketchy include and it turns out to be an all-star. The only way to know is to playtest and get feedback from your players. Don't get too hung up on getting it perfect the first time. It's better to build something and edit it than to be paralyzed by perfectionism.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Also, be prepared for your first attempt to suck.

But know that a sucky cube still has a very high chance of being enjoyable to draft and play.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Thank you for your support and pieces of advice, guys! You’re really helpful
Of course, every process that demands some creativity can have a bad result for the first time, so, I feel I'm prepared for that)

 

[James Stevenson]

Yeah my first cube was a pile of junk and it was soooooo fun

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Another moment I'd like to clarify is the connection between guild combinations and archetypes. So, how guild themes can be connected with archetypes? The question can seem to be quite blurred, but I can try to make it more clear if it's needed. The only thing I know for now is that we don't have to bond the whole archetype to one colour combination.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

The reason archetypes (and by that I mean a specific kind of deck like "really slow control deck that wins by decking he opponent" or "aggro deck that plays a bunch of combat tricks and double strikers") are usually tied to color pairs is because it's something that directly relates to the draft process for the players.

Decks are almost always two colored, and needs to have some kind of plan, so it's usually nice when we design the cubed so that each color pair has a very clearly communicated plan.

Of course two color pairs can have related themes, maybe RG and BR both have aggressive archetypes so it's easier to share cards between them, but it to me is a layer on top of the basic idea of clear pair identities.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Generally, you're just deliberaly nesting the archetypes into guild combinations, at this point of the process.

Of course, in practice, you aren't trying to keep people from coloring outside of the lines (nor would it be good to do so), but its a good mental excerise to go through. For example, you have to look at the total body of UR izzet cards, and look for where you have a density of unique cards in those colors that compliment one another in doing something interesting. Than you can say: "Izzet focuses on <x>, which is a unique archetype, so I will select these cards to enable the theme to come together."

This requires you to see color patterns, set a goal for the guild reflected in those patterns, and form a hierarchy of cards that can meet that goal.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

I think I understand. Thank you!
By the way, could you, please, tell me, what does it mean - "niche archetype"? In fact, English is not my native language, so sometimes I can't feel or realize the meaning of some word which is new for me.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

The word niche usually means that something is specialized in a very narrow field and only to interest of a few people. This forum is, in fact, dealing with a niche topic since not a lot of people play magic the gathering and even fewer play the cube-format (compare this to, say, a football forum or a videogame forum).

A niche archetype would be a deck-plan that is very narrow and doesn't share much with the other archetypes in the format. I would say that a combo-archetype like the "value storm"-decks that were discussed here in this thread is an example of a niche archetype. The meaning might differ with other people.

 

[sigh]

There are 10 "Guild" threads here in the Talk forum. They all have some pretty good discussions about core themes and important cards (multicolor and monocolor) for each guild. They are all named with the color pair and Ravnica guild name. Might help focus on color themes somewhat.

In exploratory design (the very first project phases), the only really important rule is to not go too in-depth on any one topic at first. If you get a general idea of what each color pair might be doing in your cube, that's enough to start. Very simple is fine. "Boros will be fast. Dimir will be control. Gruul will be big monsters" is perfect.

The only other piece of advice I'd have right now is that once you have a rough draft (it can be very rough), put up a Blog Thread in the Cube Blogs forum. There you can describe the ideas you've come up with, the directions you think you want to go, as well as discussing cards, decks, drafts, etc. CubeTutor.com is also widely used here, and is a great cube organization and draft-testing tool. Then you can link the cubetutor version of your cube into the Blog thread so people can see what you are working on and discuss.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

The word niche usually means that something is specialized in a very narrow field and only to interest of a few people. This forum is, in fact, dealing with a niche topic since not a lot of people play magic the gathering and even fewer play the cube-format (compare this to, say, a football forum or a videogame forum).

A niche archetype would be a deck-plan that is very narrow and doesn't share much with the other archetypes in the format. I would say that a combo-archetype like the "value storm"-decks that were discussed here in this thread is an example of a niche archetype. The meaning might differ with other people.

Now I understand it completely, thank you

 

[Karn Cuberated]

There are 10 "Guild" threads here in the Talk forum. They all have some pretty good discussions about core themes and important cards (multicolor and monocolor) for each guild. They are all named with the color pair and Ravnica guild name. Might help focus on color themes somewhat.

In exploratory design (the very first project phases), the only really important rule is to not go too in-depth on any one topic at first. If you get a general idea of what each color pair might be doing in your cube, that's enough to start. Very simple is fine. "Boros will be fast. Dimir will be control. Gruul will be big monsters" is perfect.

The only other piece of advice I'd have right now is that once you have a rough draft (it can be very rough), put up a Blog Thread in the Cube Blogs forum. There you can describe the ideas you've come up with, the directions you think you want to go, as well as discussing cards, decks, drafts, etc. CubeTutor.com is also widely used here, and is a great cube organization and draft-testing tool. Then you can link the cubetutor version of your cube into the Blog thread so people can see what you are working on and discuss.

Ok, I'll definetely do these things. Thanks)

 

[Karn Cuberated]

Hello once again, guys! I've got a new question.
Many experienced people say that every cube designer who wants to build an archetype-based cube must (or at least should) reward players for drafting synergy-cards insted of drafting "good-stuff". Is there a way to control this aspect? Or it's based only on the feeling of every particular person and play-group and on experience? Thank you very much in advance!

 

[James Stevenson]

Hello once again, guys! I've got a new question.
Many experienced people say that every cube designer who wants to build an archetype-based cube must (or at least should) reward players for drafting synergy-cards insted of drafting "good-stuff". Is there a way to control this aspect? Or it's based only on the feeling of every particular person and play-group and on experience? Thank you very much in advance!

"Reward" in this sense means that your deck will be better if you draft synergistically. We're going by the idea that it's already more fun/interesting to draft synergistic decks. We don't want the fun drafting to lose to generic goodstuff limited decks, we want the fun and interesting decks to win!

That said sometimes you just want to mong out and draft brainlessly. I guess there's the modo cube.