Thanks! Me and my friends have been “drafting” this whole time in my garage with an extremely janky “cube” of 13 decks I’d made totally exhausting my 7 year old card collection that I hadn’t looked at in years. This video was my first exposure to a universal idea of a “cube” and “drafting” with friends what we have kind of been doing all a long! But I am so excited to dismantle and resemble my decks into a more organized and enjoyable cube experience! Very informative thank you!
Jean-Philippe Bélanger Agreed, i got back into magic a few months ago and without the proffesor id be confused as hell in creating a deck for standard of which i now have two, the mono black deck he posted about a few weeks ago and a g/r dragons deck i made off a list from star city games, both do very well. But my G/R Dragon deck cost 200 dollars more than the mono black budget deck. Ive also beaten my G/R deck with my mono a few times more its insane but really fun! I am sad that when the rotation hits most of my cards from some of these are going to no longer be standard legal like Stormbreath Dragon but most are modern legal and i think ill end up making a cube with them.
NerdAndANoob Yea I am kindda in the same boat. I got back into magic recently too. I used to play in High School, and back then we didnt care about all those ''formats'' and all. I think I'll just end up building a few balanced decks to play with friends and/or a cube. Not too interested in other formats
Jean-Philippe Bélanger I hear ya, Ive actually played a few games over skype and it was pretty fun :D just use a webcam and have have the cards focused well and you have a fun little game :D Also in the same boat about highschool i didnt give two shites about deck construction or the formats we just played with 60 card decks made of whatever we felt like. (they were shite decks compared to what i have built now but it was about the fun and still is for me) I plan on teaching my oldest son to play when hes able to grasp the games concept so we can go to FNM together which seems fun!
NerdAndANoob That's how I built my first Cube. Odyssey block was about to rotate out of Standard and I used those cards to trade for the dual lands and other things I wanted for Cube. I'm still using the Cube to this day, however it has changed a LOT since then.
Milo: The Gathering yea so far my favorite is that is block so I guess I'm going to start with a pauper cube with a few cards etc and then work my way through it. I'm going to keep it a small cube though.
deathpyre42 The best advice I've heard for doing a cube like this is to make sure you don't create boring stalemates of games. Pack the cube too full of walls and high toughness creatures, bad removal, and situational cards, and you can guarantee boring, stalemate games. Just be sure to include enough aggressive cards to ensure that games can be ended reasonably quickly, even if it's just from goblin piker beats.
I like Pauper and Peasant Cubes much more then powered or regular cubes. The main reason is that tinkering with those is much easier and you can do cool little things. Adding a second Delver, throw in Myr as a tribal strategy in Peasant (which is one of the most awesome tribals in cubes like these since the strategy can change from one draft to the next) or simply just try something out that comes into your mind because it probably isn't expensive.
Milo: The Gathering TCC always brings the highest quality when it comes to Magic, and basically anything he posts. I'm always glad too. Excellent from start to finish.
super useful for beginners. There are many explicit statements regarding do and do not, but as my programming professor said, "You have to know the rules in order to know how to break them" - Plaid Magic would love to have you on our cast some day, thank you for all the wonderful content and contributions to the community!
TY for the basics! I love to draft, it has to be one of my favorite formats and my roommate told me that I should start getting a cube going. I am super stoked to see this video and appreciate it very much.
Professor, this is my favorite video you have ever done. I want to build a cube as soon as possible now. Thank you for explaining it an an easy to understand format.
@@PsychoEditor A group of content creators called LoadingReadyRun did a comedy series with/for wotc since ~2014. Look up Friday nights mtg and you’ll find what they’re referencing
Cube has always intrigued me, so thanks for these videos. I'm a bit confused as to why it's a singleton format though, as in a normal draft, you'd see multiples of commons, and even a couple uncommons. For your Innistrad cube, you'd pretty much have to use multiples, right? I would probably love a Cube that had cards from my early days of Magic, up through Ice Age. Maybe have fun with broken cards with an Urza's block cube.
Just completed my first pauper cube!!! There's a few things I wanna update (like getting original common versions of some cards), but I'm really happy how it turned out!
greenghost2008 Yes. The group I play Cube with have pretty much all quit Magic and many of them have sold all their cards, but we can still Cube and it doesn't cost them a penny. :)
greenghost2008 yeah, but you have to get the cards in the first place. If you regularly update your cube then it's actually just as expensive. However you can make some pretty sweet cards only using commons. Delver decks, red aggro, green stompy and such. There are also some very powerful cheap common cards like dark ritual, lightning bolt, brainstorm and so on. here's mine www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/12945
Jane Murphy You must have a nice group of friends! I got pretty much all the cards for my cube myself. Took ages, and it still isn't really finished yet, it's playable, but not totally finished. I have a friend who gave me a couple of kind of inexpensive cards for it, but other than that i just had to use my own collection and buy the rest.
Finally, yes. I thank you for this professor. I have been on your channel for a year now. All the guides and the other random MTG related stuff you do really inspires me how to be a better fun loving player. I wish you more power, keep rockin and stay awesome!
Thanks for your help. You by far have the most comprehensive resource for MTG online. I have learned a lot from you and I plan on building a pauper cube to help my friends learn how to play the game without incurring a high cost of entry. Thank you again
I’m so excited to draft Cube! I have a lot of friends that play Magic, and love to draft, but they’ve never done Cube, so it’ll be very interesting on how they play Cube. Thank you so much Prof for inspiring me to play Cube!
You know its funny because this channel helps me learn more about magic and the English language. I had to look up Apotheosis in the dictionary. Thanks Tolarian you're educating in more ways than one.
Currently in the process of building a Tarkir cube. My group started playing just last year and a lot of us love Tarkir as a result. We have since all branch into different formats (most of us still play standard) and differing levels of financial commitment to the game (I'm the dude who went $1500 in), but we will always have this Tarkir cube to go back to.
After watching this video years ago, I built a pauper cube, we have played it a bit. But now I own a ful no proxied legacy cube and we have been drafting it monthly at our LGS, its the best!
Professor, this is one of if not THE best video I have ever seen on UA-cam, and I watch 2-4 hours of it a day (don't judge me lol), it is so detailed and informative, and even though I'm not building a cube anytime soon, as I'm only going to my first ever FNM on Friday, but when I do I will refer to this, but just a few questions: 1) How much basic land should I include? 2) Is using a block ,etc Khans block, a good start? Using some of the cheap but definitely not dirt cards and slowly upgrade to the more powerful cards like fetchs and planeswalkers. 3) Could you do a video about convincing someone not to leave the game please, i need to show it to someone. Thank you so much! :-)
Luca Scanu 1) It depends a lot on you cube. Maybe you have an artifact, or multicolored cube with a lot of nonbasic lands within it and thus you wont need as many basics. Maybe you want to supply nonbasics for people to use when building theirs decks. but for a regular basic cube i'd say something around (card number)*0,10. This would be 36 lands of each type for a 360 card cube. 2) I personally think you should start off with cards you own or can access easily, so you don't spend a lot of money on something you don't want. Upgrade as fitting if you like cubing :) 3) building a cube for them to play with you would ensure they don't quit completely :) I actually plan doing this for a friend myself :P
Johan Borbye Thank you soooo much! I have most of the Khans cards so it won't be to expensive! And I just want to keep this person into Magic until next year so we can go to a Grand Prix if it's near us. :p
My current exercise in constructing a Cube is currently starting with a more idealized Inn/RTR draft cube, where I keep rarities from the sets, and create packs based on the 1R/3U/10C structure, with one Guildgate in each pack. I want to recreate an authentic draft experience, while trimming away the cards that are just not as good as others. My cube is about 400 cards, all together, and I'm looking where to cut some lesser powered commons for more powerful commons, without ruining some of the themes. My Kamigawa Brick (It's designed for drafting for two players) is much more like the cubes presented here. Just one of each common, and trimmed a bit to provide interesting themes to draft for two players. It's a lot less work, but I've not been as satisfied with the experience.
Get everybody to help out. Give everyone a stack to shuffle, and after a couple shuffles, each person passes half their stack to a random player to mix together the different stacks. Example: for a small, 360-card cube and 4 players, each player gets a stack of approximately 90 cards and shuffles them a few times (probably by shuffling 40-50 at a time and mixing the stacks between 1-3 shuffles). After everyone has shuffled their stack of 90, each player passes 40-50 cards to someone else to mix in with theirs. Repeat this a few times for good mixing.
professor, thank you soo much for this. i've been out of magic for years and i've always craved getting back into it. however, the cost of constructed formats (and even regular drafts) have deterred me from it though. this seems like a very worthwile investment to make. also, i've always enjoyed constructing decks even more than playing. this is too good to be true. never heard of it before.
Awesome video as usual professor. Perfect for those wanting to try out cube. Those of us creating cubes are the next generation of dungeon masters, doing our part to create a healthy gaming community.
Thank you so much for explaining this, I'm new to this format and since nobody plays it where I live I couldn't find if the "booster packs" were asambled with rarity in mind.
building a pauper ravnica block now. with the commons from the 2 blocks because I learned paying with gatecrash. so the the storyling with the guilds is precious to me. feels perfect to make a cube for it :)
Did this years ago maybe 8😅 when I was 13 or so and brought it to the teen center at the library and we played it a lot and it ways really fun. It took all day and was just commons and uncommon cards. I regret getting rid of it but I’m considering making one again.
Hi Professor. First up - you are responsible for my love of magic, I started with MTG in July 2015 and soon after found you - thank you for all the advice & help. I'm really looking forward to the advanced Cube video. Q: Is it really necessary to have the 'best' cards for cube? I'm building a foil pauper cube...slowly - I am running junk cards at the moment, but it is good to have gorgeous cards to look at & also play cards that would otherwise not be played - hence value. I realise that a better pool of cards will give a more fulfilling 'gaming' experience. BUT building up the 'cube itself' is part of the joy for me...and THAT in itself slakes my thirst :)
I have a lot of experience in magic but I have no experience in a cube even though do I always wanted to do one. This video is extremely helpful, thank you
Professor, I really appreciate your cube videos. I wanted to try and build a cube online with the website you requested us and the motivation to do so, so I thank you for this incredibly valuable information. I'm going towards more a creature-based cube, and with that said, I want your opinion (or anyone in the comments section): Do you think it wold be a good idea to make a cube with Dragons as their main theme? There have been a lot of dragons that came out in Dragons of Tarkir (a majority of them not red) and I thought I could try to implement that in a sort of cube. I do see flaws, of course. Even post-DTK, a lot of dragons in MTG are red, so I would have to find a reason to play a deck that's not red. It would also be kind of hard to try and find more variety when making something like this, since that kind of cube idea would encourage you to run dragons. Tell me, anyone: would this be an idea worth it to try out?
I know this is a basic cube video so you wouldn't necessarily mention this but make sure in your advanced video to explain "Set Cubes" and what they for and that they are a cube that does ensure that each pack has a rare, X uncommons, X commons, X other.
Gabe's Let's Plays Also, funny enough since you mentioned it, a close friend and I worked together to build an Innistrad set cube that replicated the draft environment. Let me know if you want some info on what we did.
See I've built a cube that isnt focused on mechanics but instead on flavour. It predominantely features cards from amonkhet block, and some of the eternal stuff from war of the spark, as well as some cards (like march of the returned) from other sets that have great flavour. the best things to draft are tribal zombies, deserts, catouche/trials, or reddeckwins. is this good? there is a lot of jank as its literally all the Amonkhet cards i could find including strictly worse cards, and I was thinking of setting it up where the 'packs' follow sealed rarity guidelines. its definately more casual.
Well, yeah, I can make a cube using only the best crds avaible for my cube, but I can also make a cube with trash cards and make it like an regular draft or even sealed experience, because my cube my rules! haha
My personal opinion (I have a 750-card cube to support 16 players in addition to Booster Tutor and Lore Seeker) is that you shouldn't necessarily build your cube based on the number of people who will be drafting it. I like the variety of draft experiences that larger cubes provide. You also state that you should always choose the most powerful / "ideal" options, but I very heavily shy away from oppressively un-fun cards, even if they are powerful. Other than those opinions, this video is a very good start if you want to build a cube. Wonderful work as always! What's your cube ID? I'd like to give it a draft if you would care to give it out.
720 cards ravnica/return to ravnica cube: 100 cards of each color (500 cards); the 4 legendary creatures of each guild (40 cards); Guildgates, Guildhomes, Signets and Keyrunes for each guild (40 cards); 14 dual-colored cardsfor each guild (140 cards); Ta-Dah! 8D
I'm thinking of building my very first cube, from scratch because I have an already somewhat balanced idea in mind: build a small cube, and each color contains the creature, token, and spell types the color is most known for. Goblins and Burn for red, Soldiers/Angels and Pacifism/borderline control for white, Zombies and Death/Destruction for black, Elves/fat creatures and mana ramp for green. The only one I have trouble with is blue and the creature blue is most known for. Merfolk? Obviously blue will have control spells.
I have a couple of questions, both inspired by Loading Ready Run. Could I buy a booster box, sleeve that and basically have a cube? And secondly, how would you build a Strictly Worse cube?
For the first question, try to avoid it, as boosters can have jank and dirt, and that's not what cube is about, and as for the second question, Strictly Worse was meant for reverse drafting, where your opponent drafts your deck
Okay sooo I've been building a small cube , made up of only rares and mythics ( that's my rule ) , and another is that they shouldn't be worth much more than a 1$. The idea is to give life to many of those jank cheap rares that barely see any play outside of some kitchen table fun times. I finally completed a version. After many cuts and adding better cards and cutting again and balancing again. But when I suggested to the guys at my LGS they said oh no it has too few removals ( ratio is about 2/3 creatures 1/3 spells most of which removals ) per color , and that it would creature a board stall all the time. I want to make a more midrange cube and that's why while there are some counterspells and some more aggressive cards , full on aggro and heavy control decks I don't want to be possible. But people tell me which the trinity of aggro-midrange-control an optimal environment can't be had. Is this true ?
Thanks for this second part of your cube series. It is very helpful indeed. At the moment, I'm constructing a Pauper Cube with Alex Ullman's list as a starting template. By the way, if considering Adam Styborski's list, what can be good replacements for those super expensive commons? Again...keep up the good work, and I hope you can explore Pauper more (my favourite format).
Stupid question: Say, for fun (for sh*ts and giggles), you wanted to do something like a cube, but just with another friend, a 2-person-cube so to speak. Silliness of the idea aside, would you stick to a small cube of 360 cards, or would you be able to get away with halving that to 180 cards?
"Ixoran's Pauper cube is by far the most drafted" is what you say in the description, as a person who has never played cube is this a good cube to start playing cube with?
So, Professor, I am looking to build my first cube and I can't really decide if I use Adam's or Ixoran's list as the base for it. Could you explain some of the differences between them?
Really great video and has gotten me rather excited! How is your Innistrad set Tolarian Community College? I must say it's possibly one of my favorite sets, heck it got me back into Magic! So I would love to see a balanced Innistrad CUBE. Would you be willing to share your version, or possibly better yet do you know of any good templates I can work off of? Many thanks and I look forwards to future vids!
Richie Demo Traditionally it is an 8-player tournament. Draft is generally more fun than Sealed, plus the Cube size the Professor was talking about referred to the amount of cards you would need for draft.
Yes, it will work! Just like any set WotC comes out with, you will have less control over what type of deck you can build when playing Sealed over Draft. That doesn't mean it won't work. If you really like playing Sealed - Go for it!! :-)
Milo: The Gathering Thank you for the reply! :D I've been avoiding Cube for a long time, the people in my community treat Cube as though it's Elitist, and only the best people can play it. So, to learn all these things is great!
I’m watching this in 2023…too bad the site mentioned is gone, but hopefully I can find alternatives. Either way, the video is informative and insightful.
I always thought cube was really cool but I started playing after conspiracy and the people at my LGS who've been playing for longer said that it was the best draft set ever so now I'm trying to build a conspiracy cube so I can try it out without having to buy a bunch of old booster boxes. Draft matters is one of the main themes.
I want to make something [that I'm sure a million people have already done] that's like Cube, but instead of having the most ideal cards in Magic, I want to make a Cube consisting of just the worst cards in magic. Probably called Sphere. The rules are that it must still be interesting, and fair. But the cards are just the worst in certain formats. A 1 drop that turns in to a 3/2 flier on turn two is great! A 1 drop that is a 0/1 with cumulitive upkeep Lose 1 life at the beginning of your turn is not! ^Example [Probably a horrible one] [Also, I love your tie so much. I wish I had one like it. Your vest is pretty snazzy, too.]
TheCaliger LoadyReadyRun made a skit about that, they called it the "Strictly Worst Cube", where they would find cards that are only strictly worst than another card, such as Hand of Death instead of Doom Blade. It was only a sketch, so they didn't actually make it, but I'd totally be interested to see your take on it, and if you could tell us if the drafting experience is as bad as they say or not. :P
Wouldn't making cubes a jumstart like experience where each 15 card packs has been prebuilt lead to a better experience? That way you could tailor each packs to ensure they come with their own mini theme and synergy.
I made a cube 1/3 uncommons 2/3 commons and I made it from scratch without looking at any other lists first (and I just picked cards that I liked) I haven't had the chance to draft it with more than just 1 person (My wife and I Winston'd it) one time I'm hoping to draft it soon (its been over a year since I made it
Where would you place Hybrids? should they be categorized as multicolored or should they count twice for each color it is (ie, Boros Reckoner would take up a creature slot for red and a creature slot for white)
Total newb question. I am just starting to build a cube. I am going to order some KMC hypers because of how often cube cards will be played by many people and I want the sleeves to last. How many sleeves should I get in total for a 360 card cube? I am asking this because the video did not include "How many basic lands is needed in a cube?" Because the basic lands needs to be in the same sleeves as the cube. Thanks !
So are multicoloured cards in a cube not that good for beginners?? Also wow professor you subscriber numbers are raising so rapidly!! Keep up the good work!!
Chris Iver Best answer I found was 30 to 35 of each, but I had the same question, also. Since you have to buy sleeves for them that match the cube, I find it interesting that none of the cube vids talk about this.
Every time I have thought about drafting a cube I care way more than I should about multicolored cards. I should just try out some of my favorite archetypes and see how it goes.
I remembered watching this 7 years ago when I was 21 and considering making a cube... I'm finally ready.
here i am, 21 and considering building a cube. i hope i can start before 2030
I was also watching this years ago, I'm starting on my first cube too
LMAO literally same had to come back to rewatch
same but was 18 and now i'm 25 starting to theory craft my cube
I am 21 looking at building one now lol
Great, i made my own cube!
Now, where is the guide on how to get friends?
That is LITERALLY me rn XD
i feel the same way lol
Allan Perl Haha! Same here. Is it safe to ask if you all are near Chicago? Could meet at an LGS.
actually it's a d&d spell. simple confusion. But i don't see how it would help for playing magic...
Just go to a LGS and play magic
Thanks! Me and my friends have been “drafting” this whole time in my garage with an extremely janky “cube” of 13 decks I’d made totally exhausting my 7 year old card collection that I hadn’t looked at in years. This video was my first exposure to a universal idea of a “cube” and “drafting” with friends what we have kind of been doing all a long! But I am so excited to dismantle and resemble my decks into a more organized and enjoyable cube experience! Very informative thank you!
the rate at which this channel is pumping out good content is amazing !
Jean-Philippe Bélanger Agreed, i got back into magic a few months ago and without the proffesor id be confused as hell in creating a deck for standard of which i now have two, the mono black deck he posted about a few weeks ago and a g/r dragons deck i made off a list from star city games, both do very well.
But my G/R Dragon deck cost 200 dollars more than the mono black budget deck. Ive also beaten my G/R deck with my mono a few times more its insane but really fun! I am sad that when the rotation hits most of my cards from some of these are going to no longer be standard legal like Stormbreath Dragon but most are modern legal and i think ill end up making a cube with them.
NerdAndANoob Yea I am kindda in the same boat. I got back into magic recently too. I used to play in High School, and back then we didnt care about all those ''formats'' and all. I think I'll just end up building a few balanced decks to play with friends and/or a cube. Not too interested in other formats
Jean-Philippe Bélanger I hear ya, Ive actually played a few games over skype and it was pretty fun :D just use a webcam and have have the cards focused well and you have a fun little game :D
Also in the same boat about highschool i didnt give two shites about deck construction or the formats we just played with 60 card decks made of whatever we felt like. (they were shite decks compared to what i have built now but it was about the fun and still is for me) I plan on teaching my oldest son to play when hes able to grasp the games concept so we can go to FNM together which seems fun!
NerdAndANoob That's how I built my first Cube. Odyssey block was about to rotate out of Standard and I used those cards to trade for the dual lands and other things I wanted for Cube. I'm still using the Cube to this day, however it has changed a LOT since then.
Milo: The Gathering yea so far my favorite is that is block so I guess I'm going to start with a pauper cube with a few cards etc and then work my way through it. I'm going to keep it a small cube though.
I really like the idea of an Unhinged+Unglued cube. That sounds like a lot of fun. :D
TheMagicalNerd Booster tutor is pretty popular for cubes
TheMagicalNerd How about a cube entirely composed of mediocre filler cards, junk rares, etc.
deathpyre42 I have one of those for teaching novice players how to cube.
deathpyre42 The best advice I've heard for doing a cube like this is to make sure you don't create boring stalemates of games. Pack the cube too full of walls and high toughness creatures, bad removal, and situational cards, and you can guarantee boring, stalemate games. Just be sure to include enough aggressive cards to ensure that games can be ended reasonably quickly, even if it's just from goblin piker beats.
I'm thinking this as well for unstable! Would a booster box that I keep as a cube work? Or would I have to be more selective
I like Pauper and Peasant Cubes much more then powered or regular cubes. The main reason is that tinkering with those is much easier and you can do cool little things. Adding a second Delver, throw in Myr as a tribal strategy in Peasant (which is one of the most awesome tribals in cubes like these since the strategy can change from one draft to the next) or simply just try something out that comes into your mind because it probably isn't expensive.
Based.
I think this is the best video about Cube on youtube. There. I said it.
Milo: The Gathering TCC always brings the highest quality when it comes to Magic, and basically anything he posts. I'm always glad too. Excellent from start to finish.
super useful for beginners. There are many explicit statements regarding do and do not, but as my programming professor said, "You have to know the rules in order to know how to break them" - Plaid Magic would love to have you on our cast some day, thank you for all the wonderful content and contributions to the community!
TY for the basics! I love to draft, it has to be one of my favorite formats and my roommate told me that I should start getting a cube going. I am super stoked to see this video and appreciate it very much.
Professor, this is my favorite video you have ever done. I want to build a cube as soon as possible now. Thank you for explaining it an an easy to understand format.
>No Jank, No Dirt, No Duds
Tell that to Cameron Lauder from LoadingReadyRun
PewPew_McPewster the cube “strictly worse” shall never be spoken of again.
I am a disciple of the Great Cam. My cube is exclusively jank commons and uncommons for that ideal useless magic feel
Link?
@@PsychoEditor A group of content creators called LoadingReadyRun did a comedy series with/for wotc since ~2014. Look up Friday nights mtg and you’ll find what they’re referencing
Cube has always intrigued me, so thanks for these videos. I'm a bit confused as to why it's a singleton format though, as in a normal draft, you'd see multiples of commons, and even a couple uncommons. For your Innistrad cube, you'd pretty much have to use multiples, right? I would probably love a Cube that had cards from my early days of Magic, up through Ice Age. Maybe have fun with broken cards with an Urza's block cube.
This is the first TCC video I ever watched and have been a fan ever since.
Just completed my first pauper cube!!!
There's a few things I wanna update (like getting original common versions of some cards), but I'm really happy how it turned out!
So this is drafting for people who don't want to buy tons of cards all the time?
greenghost2008 It's also based around better all around cards. You'll probably build it with strong cards. :)
greenghost2008 Yes. The group I play Cube with have pretty much all quit Magic and many of them have sold all their cards, but we can still Cube and it doesn't cost them a penny. :)
greenghost2008 yeah, but you have to get the cards in the first place. If you regularly update your cube then it's actually just as expensive. However you can make some pretty sweet cards only using commons. Delver decks, red aggro, green stompy and such. There are also some very powerful cheap common cards like dark ritual, lightning bolt, brainstorm and so on.
here's mine www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/12945
Izzy Spint It's not very expensive if your group of friends all chips in. As long as you avoid the really expensive cards.
Jane Murphy You must have a nice group of friends! I got pretty much all the cards for my cube myself. Took ages, and it still isn't really finished yet, it's playable, but not totally finished. I have a friend who gave me a couple of kind of inexpensive cards for it, but other than that i just had to use my own collection and buy the rest.
I've played with a cube that's about 60% proxy a few times. Great way to keep the price down.
"only the best"
What about the Strictly Worse cube?
...Strictly Worse...
...Strictly W--...
+Nanofuture87 I'm trying to make the worst cube ever made, I think the meta would be Aladdins ring and grey ogre meta
+Nanofuture87 Hey, if it has storm crow, its a great cube no matter what.
Jack Seiffert Why would I include the best card ever printed?
I get your reference... Also, hand of death?
Hand of death is pretty horrible, thanks for the suggestion.
Finally, yes. I thank you for this professor. I have been on your channel for a year now. All the guides and the other random MTG related stuff you do really inspires me how to be a better fun loving player. I wish you more power, keep rockin and stay awesome!
Aww, I have great memories from my Commander Cube. It is so complex, but so much fun!!
I Beggin in cube, I'm French and not English really fluent, but this video is so great with simplicity and good tips. Many thanks.
And yet again, you've opened my mind further when it comes to the world of Magic. Building my first cube right away!
Thanks for your help. You by far have the most comprehensive resource for MTG online. I have learned a lot from you and I plan on building a pauper cube to help my friends learn how to play the game without incurring a high cost of entry. Thank you again
I’m so excited to draft Cube! I have a lot of friends that play Magic, and love to draft, but they’ve never done Cube, so it’ll be very interesting on how they play Cube. Thank you so much Prof for inspiring me to play Cube!
Awesome job professor. Please, keep up the amazing quality!
You know its funny because this channel helps me learn more about magic and the English language. I had to look up Apotheosis in the dictionary. Thanks Tolarian you're educating in more ways than one.
That's awesome
Currently in the process of building a Tarkir cube. My group started playing just last year and a lot of us love Tarkir as a result. We have since all branch into different formats (most of us still play standard) and differing levels of financial commitment to the game (I'm the dude who went $1500 in), but we will always have this Tarkir cube to go back to.
After watching this video years ago, I built a pauper cube, we have played it a bit. But now I own a ful no proxied legacy cube and we have been drafting it monthly at our LGS, its the best!
Professor, this is one of if not THE best video I have ever seen on UA-cam, and I watch 2-4 hours of it a day (don't judge me lol), it is so detailed and informative, and even though I'm not building a cube anytime soon, as I'm only going to my first ever FNM on Friday, but when I do I will refer to this, but just a few questions:
1) How much basic land should I include?
2) Is using a block ,etc Khans block, a good start? Using some of the cheap but definitely not dirt cards and slowly upgrade to the more powerful cards like fetchs and planeswalkers.
3) Could you do a video about convincing someone not to leave the game please, i need to show it to someone.
Thank you so much! :-)
Luca Scanu
1) It depends a lot on you cube. Maybe you have an artifact, or multicolored cube with a lot of nonbasic lands within it and thus you wont need as many basics. Maybe you want to supply nonbasics for people to use when building theirs decks. but for a regular basic cube i'd say something around (card number)*0,10. This would be 36 lands of each type for a 360 card cube.
2) I personally think you should start off with cards you own or can access easily, so you don't spend a lot of money on something you don't want. Upgrade as fitting if you like cubing :)
3) building a cube for them to play with you would ensure they don't quit completely :) I actually plan doing this for a friend myself :P
Johan Borbye Thank you soooo much! I have most of the Khans cards so it won't be to expensive! And I just want to keep this person into Magic until next year so we can go to a Grand Prix if it's near us. :p
My current exercise in constructing a Cube is currently starting with a more idealized Inn/RTR draft cube, where I keep rarities from the sets, and create packs based on the 1R/3U/10C structure, with one Guildgate in each pack. I want to recreate an authentic draft experience, while trimming away the cards that are just not as good as others. My cube is about 400 cards, all together, and I'm looking where to cut some lesser powered commons for more powerful commons, without ruining some of the themes.
My Kamigawa Brick (It's designed for drafting for two players) is much more like the cubes presented here. Just one of each common, and trimmed a bit to provide interesting themes to draft for two players. It's a lot less work, but I've not been as satisfied with the experience.
Any suggestions on how to shuffle a cube?
Jared B. You don't, you pick Random for your packs (not next to each other)
Get everybody to help out. Give everyone a stack to shuffle, and after a couple shuffles, each person passes half their stack to a random player to mix together the different stacks. Example: for a small, 360-card cube and 4 players, each player gets a stack of approximately 90 cards and shuffles them a few times (probably by shuffling 40-50 at a time and mixing the stacks between 1-3 shuffles). After everyone has shuffled their stack of 90, each player passes 40-50 cards to someone else to mix in with theirs. Repeat this a few times for good mixing.
Go on cstimer
professor, thank you soo much for this. i've been out of magic for years and i've always craved getting back into it. however, the cost of constructed formats (and even regular drafts) have deterred me from it though. this seems like a very worthwile investment to make. also, i've always enjoyed constructing decks even more than playing. this is too good to be true. never heard of it before.
hahaha when the professor says "use the internet" needs to be a gif... anyone?
I actually drafted a "strictly worse" cube that contained nothing but the worst of the worst and it was hilarious to say the least.
Awesome video as usual professor. Perfect for those wanting to try out cube. Those of us creating cubes are the next generation of dungeon masters, doing our part to create a healthy gaming community.
Thank you so much for explaining this, I'm new to this format and since nobody plays it where I live I couldn't find if the "booster packs" were asambled with rarity in mind.
building a pauper ravnica block now.
with the commons from the 2 blocks because I learned paying with gatecrash. so the the storyling with the guilds is precious to me.
feels perfect to make a cube for it :)
Did this years ago maybe 8😅 when I was 13 or so and brought it to the teen center at the library and we played it a lot and it ways really fun. It took all day and was just commons and uncommon cards. I regret getting rid of it but I’m considering making one again.
Hi Professor.
First up - you are responsible for my love of magic, I started with MTG in July 2015 and soon after found you - thank you for all the advice & help.
I'm really looking forward to the advanced Cube video.
Q: Is it really necessary to have the 'best' cards for cube? I'm building a foil pauper cube...slowly - I am running junk cards at the moment, but it is good to have gorgeous cards to look at & also play cards that would otherwise not be played - hence value. I realise that a better pool of cards will give a more fulfilling 'gaming' experience. BUT building up the 'cube itself' is part of the joy for me...and THAT in itself slakes my thirst :)
I have a lot of experience in magic but I have no experience in a cube even though do I always wanted to do one. This video is extremely helpful, thank you
love this series i always wanted to build a cube
Professor, I really appreciate your cube videos. I wanted to try and build a cube online with the website you requested us and the motivation to do so, so I thank you for this incredibly valuable information. I'm going towards more a creature-based cube, and with that said, I want your opinion (or anyone in the comments section): Do you think it wold be a good idea to make a cube with Dragons as their main theme? There have been a lot of dragons that came out in Dragons of Tarkir (a majority of them not red) and I thought I could try to implement that in a sort of cube. I do see flaws, of course. Even post-DTK, a lot of dragons in MTG are red, so I would have to find a reason to play a deck that's not red. It would also be kind of hard to try and find more variety when making something like this, since that kind of cube idea would encourage you to run dragons. Tell me, anyone: would this be an idea worth it to try out?
Thanks for the advice and the links, prof! My friends and I are making a Ravnica themed cube!
How does Tolearian only have 50k subs whereas Mtg Headquarters have 90k ?!
Maitre Vince Word of mouth. Tell your friends to subscribe.
KainScion You said that with far more tact than I would have. The Professor is awesome.
Glad to see we all agree on the question !
This aged nicely
Awwwww... Baby Professor!
Thanks for the videos there amazingly helpful for an eleven year old kid like me to make the best purchases for my favorite game thanks alot
Another solid video professor!!
I know this is a basic cube video so you wouldn't necessarily mention this but make sure in your advanced video to explain "Set Cubes" and what they for and that they are a cube that does ensure that each pack has a rare, X uncommons, X commons, X other.
Gabe's Let's Plays Also, funny enough since you mentioned it, a close friend and I worked together to build an Innistrad set cube that replicated the draft environment. Let me know if you want some info on what we did.
I actually like the "feature" of bad cards in a draft because you won't use em anywhere else anyway, so they see play only there
I wholeheartedly agree. as a yugioh player, most of our cards are bad but are good in a vacuum. I might try yugioh cube.
Just now getting in to cube. the vids were very helpful!
See I've built a cube that isnt focused on mechanics but instead on flavour. It predominantely features cards from amonkhet block, and some of the eternal stuff from war of the spark, as well as some cards (like march of the returned) from other sets that have great flavour. the best things to draft are tribal zombies, deserts, catouche/trials, or reddeckwins. is this good? there is a lot of jank as its literally all the Amonkhet cards i could find including strictly worse cards, and I was thinking of setting it up where the 'packs' follow sealed rarity guidelines. its definately more casual.
Well, yeah, I can make a cube using only the best crds avaible for my cube, but I can also make a cube with trash cards and make it like an regular draft or even sealed experience, because my cube my rules! haha
My personal opinion (I have a 750-card cube to support 16 players in addition to Booster Tutor and Lore Seeker) is that you shouldn't necessarily build your cube based on the number of people who will be drafting it. I like the variety of draft experiences that larger cubes provide. You also state that you should always choose the most powerful / "ideal" options, but I very heavily shy away from oppressively un-fun cards, even if they are powerful.
Other than those opinions, this video is a very good start if you want to build a cube. Wonderful work as always! What's your cube ID? I'd like to give it a draft if you would care to give it out.
720 cards ravnica/return to ravnica cube:
100 cards of each color (500 cards);
the 4 legendary creatures of each guild (40 cards);
Guildgates, Guildhomes, Signets and Keyrunes for each guild (40 cards);
14 dual-colored cardsfor each guild (140 cards);
Ta-Dah! 8D
I'm thinking of building my very first cube, from scratch because I have an already somewhat balanced idea in mind: build a small cube, and each color contains the creature, token, and spell types the color is most known for. Goblins and Burn for red, Soldiers/Angels and Pacifism/borderline control for white, Zombies and Death/Destruction for black, Elves/fat creatures and mana ramp for green. The only one I have trouble with is blue and the creature blue is most known for. Merfolk? Obviously blue will have control spells.
blue is most known for wizards
Creating a cube around In Innistrad sounds exciting! I think I'll add in Dark Ascencion as well. :). As always, great vid!
I have a couple of questions, both inspired by Loading Ready Run. Could I buy a booster box, sleeve that and basically have a cube? And secondly, how would you build a Strictly Worse cube?
For the first question, try to avoid it, as boosters can have jank and dirt, and that's not what cube is about, and as for the second question, Strictly Worse was meant for reverse drafting, where your opponent drafts your deck
Okay sooo I've been building a small cube , made up of only rares and mythics ( that's my rule ) , and another is that they shouldn't be worth much more than a 1$. The idea is to give life to many of those jank cheap rares that barely see any play outside of some kitchen table fun times. I finally completed a version. After many cuts and adding better cards and cutting again and balancing again. But when I suggested to the guys at my LGS they said oh no it has too few removals ( ratio is about 2/3 creatures 1/3 spells most of which removals ) per color , and that it would creature a board stall all the time.
I want to make a more midrange cube and that's why while there are some counterspells and some more aggressive cards , full on aggro and heavy control decks I don't want to be possible. But people tell me which the trinity of aggro-midrange-control an optimal environment can't be had. Is this true ?
My experience with cube is the "Combo Cube" we play once in a while at a friend's house, such a head hake but so fun XD
Thanks for this second part of your cube series. It is very helpful indeed. At the moment, I'm constructing a Pauper Cube with Alex Ullman's list as a starting template.
By the way, if considering Adam Styborski's list, what can be good replacements for those super expensive commons?
Again...keep up the good work, and I hope you can explore Pauper more (my favourite format).
I would love it to have this updated. Cube tutor is no longer a resource. :(
7:40 Yeah we saw you look the other way when you said "under $100" hahaha very funny professor.
Very nice clear and concise video =D
Liked it a lot!
Love your vids Tolarian! Keep up the good work!
Stupid question: Say, for fun (for sh*ts and giggles), you wanted to do something like a cube, but just with another friend, a 2-person-cube so to speak. Silliness of the idea aside, would you stick to a small cube of 360 cards, or would you be able to get away with halving that to 180 cards?
I am thinking the same. You want to make such drafts varied, so make the packs from more than just 90 cards. Glimpse draft is often recommended here.
Winston draft
Great intro to building cubes.
"Ixoran's Pauper cube is by far the most drafted" is what you say in the description, as a person who has never played cube is this a good cube to start playing cube with?
Savis Thorv Absolutely, or Styborsky's. Both are great.
Thanks!
Excellent video!
So, Professor, I am looking to build my first cube and I can't really decide if I use Adam's or Ixoran's list as the base for it. Could you explain some of the differences between them?
Really great video and has gotten me rather excited! How is your Innistrad set Tolarian Community College? I must say it's possibly one of my favorite sets, heck it got me back into Magic! So I would love to see a balanced Innistrad CUBE.
Would you be willing to share your version, or possibly better yet do you know of any good templates I can work off of? Many thanks and I look forwards to future vids!
I am also building Adam's pauper cube and I hope it plays well
I would like to see what that Innistrad cube is going to look like, can we see the deck list whenever you guys complete it?
Professor, sorry being late for this study!!!
SARMANTINE xD
So how exactly is cube played? Is it draft or sealed? Is it an 8 player free-for-all, or an 8-player tournament?
Richie Demo Traditionally it is an 8-player tournament. Draft is generally more fun than Sealed, plus the Cube size the Professor was talking about referred to the amount of cards you would need for draft.
Milo: The Gathering Can you use Cube for a sealed deck? Say I only had one other person, could the cube work in that manner?
Yes, it will work! Just like any set WotC comes out with, you will have less control over what type of deck you can build when playing Sealed over Draft. That doesn't mean it won't work. If you really like playing Sealed - Go for it!! :-)
Milo: The Gathering Thank you for the reply! :D
I've been avoiding Cube for a long time, the people in my community treat Cube as though it's Elitist, and only the best people can play it. So, to learn all these things is great!
Lol can you imagine playing an 8 player game with draft decks
Watching this in 2021!
I’m watching this in 2023…too bad the site mentioned is gone, but hopefully I can find alternatives. Either way, the video is informative and insightful.
Great video! Thanks for the explain, Cube excites me!
I always thought cube was really cool but I started playing after conspiracy and the people at my LGS who've been playing for longer said that it was the best draft set ever so now I'm trying to build a conspiracy cube so I can try it out without having to buy a bunch of old booster boxes. Draft matters is one of the main themes.
After a night of cubing... haha. Sounds fun, and hilarious.
This is excellent, thank you and keep them coming please!
Tolarian Community College: What box is that? Where would I find one?
need to know that as well
Awesome Video!
That is a great tie...
I want to make something [that I'm sure a million people have already done] that's like Cube, but instead of having the most ideal cards in Magic, I want to make a Cube consisting of just the worst cards in magic. Probably called Sphere.
The rules are that it must still be interesting, and fair. But the cards are just the worst in certain formats.
A 1 drop that turns in to a 3/2 flier on turn two is great!
A 1 drop that is a 0/1 with cumulitive upkeep Lose 1 life at the beginning of your turn is not!
^Example [Probably a horrible one]
[Also, I love your tie so much. I wish I had one like it. Your vest is pretty snazzy, too.]
TheCaliger LoadyReadyRun made a skit about that, they called it the "Strictly Worst Cube", where they would find cards that are only strictly worst than another card, such as Hand of Death instead of Doom Blade. It was only a sketch, so they didn't actually make it, but I'd totally be interested to see your take on it, and if you could tell us if the drafting experience is as bad as they say or not. :P
VAB0L0 Thanks for the resource. If I ever do get it up and running I'll report it.
Edit: Found it.
could you make a video on cube on starting to pick out the cards.
I thought this would suck at first but you did a good job
Wouldn't making cubes a jumstart like experience where each 15 card packs has been prebuilt lead to a better experience?
That way you could tailor each packs to ensure they come with their own mini theme and synergy.
My friends and I did a cube from unglued and unhinged. It was a night to be remembered :)
I made a cube 1/3 uncommons 2/3 commons and I made it from scratch without looking at any other lists first (and I just picked cards that I liked)
I haven't had the chance to draft it with more than just 1 person (My wife and I Winston'd it) one time I'm hoping to draft it soon (its been over a year since I made it
If it is available; can you please provide a link to the innistrad cube you mentioned? Thank you! Keep up the quality videos. Love the channel.
Where would you place Hybrids? should they be categorized as multicolored or should they count twice for each color it is (ie, Boros Reckoner would take up a creature slot for red and a creature slot for white)
Thanks!
I have a dream of building a Ravnica cube including cards from both original and return to Ravnica sets
xLadyDangerx Hi, check out my cube! www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/8924
0:33 Perfect, thats me 🤣
Total newb question. I am just starting to build a cube. I am going to order some KMC hypers because of how often cube cards will be played by many people and I want the sleeves to last. How many sleeves should I get in total for a 360 card cube? I am asking this because the video did not include "How many basic lands is needed in a cube?" Because the basic lands needs to be in the same sleeves as the cube. Thanks !
Great video
So are multicoloured cards in a cube not that good for beginners?? Also wow professor you subscriber numbers are raising so rapidly!! Keep up the good work!!
how many basic lands do you generally want for a small cube? just wondering, great vid
Chris Iver Best answer I found was 30 to 35 of each, but I had the same question, also. Since you have to buy sleeves for them that match the cube, I find it interesting that none of the cube vids talk about this.
so far i've been using 40 of each, thx for tip
Every time I have thought about drafting a cube I care way more than I should about multicolored cards. I should just try out some of my favorite archetypes and see how it goes.
Thanks for the pauper cube list suggestion! I'm trying to look for a list for peasant as well, anything you particularly recommend?
So Helpful you are the best
So, I’m about 7 years late on learning about a Cube. Has there been an alternate to cubetutor since it went offline?