Great tips! I have an Ice Age block set cube, Mirage block set cube, Snow-themed cube, LOTR cube and a Bloomburrow cube with two more in the works (super vintage - anything before Ice Age and an Urza block set cube which is muy expensivo). The more fire your basic/nonbasic lands are, the more fire your cube is kids. Get feedback and cut out the junk that nobody is drafting.
12:34 am I missing something? Why is Narset good against/with fetch lands? Did you mean Ashiok? Or are you talking about the fixing for double blue? Narset doesn't interact with fetch lands.
Following up on this video, what are your thoughts on card density in relation to a cube's size and archetypes (i.e. how many cards of a specific archetype would you want for each supported archetype in a cube that mainly focuses on guild-style 2-color pairings)?
That's a great question that I don't have a perfect answer to. Like I said, I really like to find crossover cards, that fill multiple roles. Personally in this example assuming a 360 cube, I would prefer to have less than 5 cards per each of the 10 guilds that ONLY work in that guild. But with 10 different pairings, you will naturally have some crossover to alleviate that. A blue spells-matter card may be good in Izzet spells but it's also playable in Dimir control. With my synergy cube, I actually tried to design it with three color wedges in mind. So for example, Abzan is +1/+1 counters, but then Selesnya and Golgari each approach that theme slightly differently, but will still share a similar pool of cards. Of course you can have the opposite problem of not enough support for a theme. In that case, it's important to support themes in non-obvious ways through your design choices. One of my favorite example is that if you have cards that want creatures in the graveyard, replace certain noncreature spells with creatures that have similar abilities. So like Ravenous Chupacabra instead of Murder. That has the same effect but it's one more creature that can die and fill your graveyard, but it is also a generic card that doesn't signal a theme or force a drafter in a certain direction.
Great video appreciate the cube content! I mostly do vintage cube. I like the direction the mtgo cube has went in recently where they are rotating some of the targeted archetypes/sub-archetypes in and out regularly like lands/twin combos/doomsday packages/ draw 7 punishers and tweaking artifact support level etc. while still maintaining the nostalgia (reanimator/ hard control/ red aggro/ mono white etc..) and to your point on the use case of interaction cards like ravenoua chupacabra i think it is getting more important to pay attention to those aspects and magic design has pushed to that effect in the last few years the text boxes are getting bigger and bigger and now there are alot of lands that are also spells ( boseiju/ ottawarra etc..) the evoke elementals cycle (grief, solitude etc.. and double faced card lands. Power creeeeeppp!! Thanks again foe the great content !
I don't cube at all online. I cube mostly in person, but not as often as I'd like since it's hard to get people together - and on top of that, several people in my playgroup have cubes, so we rotate through them all. To test my cubes otherwise, though, I do a lot of bot drafts on CubeCobra to see how it feels to draft different archetypes. Obviously that's not as useful as a real draft but it helps me get a general feel for how balanced my draft themes are.
Lol yeah I mixed Narset up with Ashiok, that's my bad. So here's a bonus lesson with Narset. 😅 Narset is more powerful if you have a lot of cantrips in your cube or a "Whenever you draw your second card" type of theme, but without something like that, her static ability is pretty inconsequential.
Thanks for laying out all these thoughts! Definitely lots of good advice here, especially for less experienced cube curators.
Great tips! I have an Ice Age block set cube, Mirage block set cube, Snow-themed cube, LOTR cube and a Bloomburrow cube with two more in the works (super vintage - anything before Ice Age and an Urza block set cube which is muy expensivo). The more fire your basic/nonbasic lands are, the more fire your cube is kids. Get feedback and cut out the junk that nobody is drafting.
Those are some wild cubes! Love it.
I’ve recently finished building my first pauper cube, your videos are absolutely fantastic! Such great advice and overviews! Thanks
12:34 am I missing something? Why is Narset good against/with fetch lands? Did you mean Ashiok? Or are you talking about the fixing for double blue? Narset doesn't interact with fetch lands.
As others have pointed out, I meant Ashiok and totally just mixed around the two cards. Got the oppressive passives confused!
Love this style of video, please teach me more, Senpai 🙏
Dude, you do an amazing work. Thanks a lot for the video.
Thank you!
My first cube is a bloomburrow set cube. My first session NOBODY drafted blue, needless to say I had to adjust some of the archetypes 😅
Great video Mason!
Following up on this video, what are your thoughts on card density in relation to a cube's size and archetypes (i.e. how many cards of a specific archetype would you want for each supported archetype in a cube that mainly focuses on guild-style 2-color pairings)?
That's a great question that I don't have a perfect answer to. Like I said, I really like to find crossover cards, that fill multiple roles. Personally in this example assuming a 360 cube, I would prefer to have less than 5 cards per each of the 10 guilds that ONLY work in that guild. But with 10 different pairings, you will naturally have some crossover to alleviate that. A blue spells-matter card may be good in Izzet spells but it's also playable in Dimir control. With my synergy cube, I actually tried to design it with three color wedges in mind. So for example, Abzan is +1/+1 counters, but then Selesnya and Golgari each approach that theme slightly differently, but will still share a similar pool of cards.
Of course you can have the opposite problem of not enough support for a theme. In that case, it's important to support themes in non-obvious ways through your design choices. One of my favorite example is that if you have cards that want creatures in the graveyard, replace certain noncreature spells with creatures that have similar abilities. So like Ravenous Chupacabra instead of Murder. That has the same effect but it's one more creature that can die and fill your graveyard, but it is also a generic card that doesn't signal a theme or force a drafter in a certain direction.
Good video.
Any advice for pauper cube? Do you have a video on the subject already?
I have a video on my channel about how I designed my pauper cube!
Would you ever be interested in doing a cube review? I recently built a pauper/peasant cube of my own and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
I can certainly try, but I am definitely not great at looking at the full picture of someone else's cube.
I do have a video on my channel about how I designed my pauper cube, hopefully that is helpful!
Narset doesn’t do anything to fetchlands 🤔, did you mean Ashiok?
Haha yes, as every single comment has pointed out, I did mean Ashiok.
Hey my name is mason too!
Hello, fellow Mason!
Great video appreciate the cube content! I mostly do vintage cube. I like the direction the mtgo cube has went in recently where they are rotating some of the targeted archetypes/sub-archetypes in and out regularly like lands/twin combos/doomsday packages/ draw 7 punishers and tweaking artifact support level etc. while still maintaining the nostalgia (reanimator/ hard control/ red aggro/ mono white etc..) and to your point on the use case of interaction cards like ravenoua chupacabra i think it is getting more important to pay attention to those aspects and magic design has pushed to that effect in the last few years the text boxes are getting bigger and bigger and now there are alot of lands that are also spells ( boseiju/ ottawarra etc..) the evoke elementals cycle (grief, solitude etc.. and double faced card lands. Power creeeeeppp!! Thanks again foe the great content !
Thanks for the comment! Totally agree!
Do you mainly cube in person, online, or mainly as a thought exercise? Would love to see you do some hot takes by doing.a cube tier list.
I don't cube at all online. I cube mostly in person, but not as often as I'd like since it's hard to get people together - and on top of that, several people in my playgroup have cubes, so we rotate through them all. To test my cubes otherwise, though, I do a lot of bot drafts on CubeCobra to see how it feels to draft different archetypes. Obviously that's not as useful as a real draft but it helps me get a general feel for how balanced my draft themes are.
great advice
sorry what does narset have to do with fetch lands? Because they thin out the deck?
I think he mixed Narset up with Ashiok
Lol yeah I mixed Narset up with Ashiok, that's my bad.
So here's a bonus lesson with Narset. 😅 Narset is more powerful if you have a lot of cantrips in your cube or a "Whenever you draw your second card" type of theme, but without something like that, her static ability is pretty inconsequential.
Great video! Some interesting thoughts. I totally agree with cards that are relavent in multiple decks.