the Stickered Cube

[ellogeyen]

the Stickered Cube
180 cards | 2 or 4 players
​

---

I really love the stickers that Unfinity introduces, but am not a fan of the ticket-system accompanying them. I've been brainstorming a way to use these stickers in cube without their current rules baggage, instead allowing stickers to bring permanent change to a cube's cards. I've made a forum post discussing the potential, and eventually decided on the following rules:

The Draft

2 players

• shuffle 20 sticker sheets into the cube
• grid-draft the entire 180-card pile

4 players

• divide the cube into 20 9-card packs
• draft the cube, 5 packs per player

Deckbuilding

Each player builds their 40-card deck as normal, except that they may put a sticker from their drafted sticker cards on each card with power/toughness (both vehicles and creatures). Double-faced cards will have stickers on each side with power/toughness. The stickers will remain on the cards in every zone during the entire event. Stickers may not be re-stickered between matches.

The creature's toughness must be equal to or higher than the ticket value of its sticker. Each card('s side) may only have a single sticker.

+ = ​

The winner may put an art sticker and a name sticker on a single stickered card in their deck, making those stickers eternally permanent. All other stickers reset after the draft. The following cards have been eternally stickered this way:

Spoiler: Stickered Cards

 

[ellogeyen]

Stickering to 180
I've playtested the cube a few times, upped the size to 180 (with 20 sticker sheets) and made it a Jund cube. 3 more creatures have been eternallized in the past two months, bringing the total up to 6.


This card is the perfect example of the potential of stickers to overpower cards. Some sticker sheets have far more potential than others, and this particular card finalized my decision to remove certain sticker sheets from the rotation.


Double-faced cards are amazing for the environment, as they give you twice the sticker real estate! I've added numerous werewolves, one of which shows his might here (do you even want this to flip?)


With the addition of Black and Green I also added more graveyard shenanigans. Getting stickered creatures back just seems like you get more bang for your buck. This particular good boy can get itself back whenever he dies for the low low price of milling 3 cards.

 

[ellogeyen]

Stickers to Cut
When I started this project, I wanted to add as many stickers to the cube as possible. Balance be damned! Now that I've had a few drafts under my belt, I've realized it's best to bring that number down a little to the stickers I think provide the best gameplay. This post will detail the categories of cuts I've made to the available sticker sheets.


Unfinity Mechanisms: These cards were immediately removed due to them referencing irrelevant keywords or mechanics.


Creature Types: I play a lot of underpowered creatures in this cube, which results in playing a lot of old(-bordered) creatures in this cube, which results in the creature types on cards not being up-to-date. To avoid confusion in general, I cut all stickers caring about the creatures' types.


Overpowered: "Indestructible" was immediately on my watchlist, and when I saw the power of "protection from even mana values", I cut both immediately. "Sacrifice this creature: draw two cards" is more subtle, but since I want to add 1mv creatures to this cube, a 1mv: draw two cards (as a baseline!) is just too much.


Restrictions: Some cards restrict my choices too much for my liking. "Infect" speaks for itself, but the [6] stickers might be a little more ambiguous. I just don't want myself to have to add 6-toughness creatures to the cube.


Defensive: Generally, games are more fun when creatures attack. Some stickers sheets advocate defensive play too much, mainly due to the stat lines they provide. I'd like to avoid these.


Underpowered: Most sticker sheets have one sticker that generally isn't worth it. If there are more unplayable(?) stickers than that, the sheet really should be cut.

---

That brings the total down from 48 to 32 sticker sheets. I expect to cut a few more as we'll get a better grip which stickers aren't worth it, but that's be a post for another time! With _____ Goblin becoming banned across all formats, I do hope the sheets will drop down in price a little, as my current ones are wearing out a new sheets have tripled in price since I last bought them. Oh well...