I finally sold off my goblins deck.
But the deck that got me into Legacy will live on in spirit by helping finance my cube!
I am a huge fan of the look and style of the original sets of Magic. I also suffered a minor bite from the collector bug at some point in my life. This project will let me indulge in my desire to own and play with many cards I would otherwise never have had the excuse to own or play with. This thread will act as a blog of sorts, documenting the construction and development of my cube. Eventually I hope to post pictures of the 40 card decks constructed from drafts for everyone to enjoy.
So here are the guidelines I have set for myself:
- All cards must be from Beta, Antiquities, Arabian Nights, Legends, or The Dark (Alpha is excluded because of price and different corners)
- This is NOT a powered cube
- This is NOT a highlander cube
- No Banding
The original sets were not designed with drafting in mind. But there is a large enough card pool to pick and choose a selection of cards that encourage a fun limited environment. Most cards will only have one copy in the cube, but some seem fine to have in multiples (Lightning Bolt, Giant Growth, Terror all come to mind). There are also cards with 4 different arts (Mishra's Factory, Strip Mine) which seem safe enough to include 4 copies of. Legendary cards will be one-of's as well as cards that name a specific thing (I'm looking at you Uncle Istvan).
My first goal is to get 360 usable cards. From there I will slowly start adding more valuable cards until I am happy with the balance between power and enjoyment. Due to the collectability of cards from these sets, I fear I have been priced out of getting any Birds of Paradise... Wah wah! Pricing will probably limit me to one copy of many iconic cards like Wrath of God and Shivan Dragon. But we will see what the future brings!
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*UPDATE*
This project has grown in scale pretty significantly since I originally posted about it. From my experiences documented within the thread, I've determined a static cube can get stale or solved after enough use. I've also found it difficult at times to find 7 other people willing to spend an evening playing Magic with my cards rather than the ones they've purchased and compiled into decks...
So I've expanded the cardpool all the way to Alliances and no longer intend to have a static group of 360 cards. Instead I will do my very best to acquire as many of the cards from Beta through Alliances. From that cardpool I will be able to construct a cube of 360 cards or even as few as 180 (because it is usually easier to find 3 interested players). This will allow me to find several different ways to make a fun cube and will hopefully keep the experience fun and exciting for anyone choosing to join me.
Link to of all the cards I currently have.
Last edited by Ace/Homebrew; 03-30-2018 at 04:23 PM.
Good luck with this man! I can't wait to play once it's done.
You should truly get the birds of paradise, it's an investment and you'll always want one. Get it !
I'm hoping to have a usable pile by the end of the year, if not sooner! Since I'm not using proxies, we can get Karl to sanction our draft to build up planeswalker points!!!Originally Posted by kingsey
As soon as I have $400 lying around that wouldn't be better spent on anything else, I'll look into buying one (!) copy...
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Here is the original 'usable pile' I constructed.
Beta - The Dark Cube Card List
White Cards (57)
Sorcery (5)
Blue Cards (57)
Sorcery (3)
Black Cards (57)
Sorcery (6)
Red Cards (57)
Sorcery (6)
Green Cards (57)
Sorcery (7)
Multicolor Cards (16)
Azorious (1)
Gruul (3)
Artifacts (40)
1 CMC (6)
3 CMC (9)
6 CMC (3)
Non-Basic Lands (19)
Last edited by Ace/Homebrew; 08-22-2017 at 04:15 PM.
Amazing project and I really love it. I'm looking forward the pictures!
Also, as a firm believer in "lets not waste money" doctrine, I recommend Unlimited whenever possible. If the white boarders pester you too much, you may always support your local friendly alterer who'll bb-ize your cards for the fraction of real betas' cost, and he may be nice enough to take care of the white dots if you'll give him a chocolade, cigar or w/e his favourite joy. ;)
Otoh, beta-only will be extremely nice.
There's probably a couple of issues you'll have to sort out with this project.
For starters, green. Green is terrible in these sets. It's supposed to be - among other things - the color of ramp and fatties, but the fatties are mostly bad, saddled with hideous drawbacks, and/or die to the format's flagship cheap removal. Actually, pretty much all of the fatties are bad in these sets. You've got Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Shivan Dragon, Mahamoti Djinn, and...um...Craw Wurm? The Legends common and uncommon legendaries are probably some of the best beef players can run.
Second, removal. You've got some incredibly powerful one-for-ones, like Terror, Bolt, Chain Lightning, and StP. Then you've got efficient sweepers like Disk and WoG. The problem is that after all that, the removal that's left is hot garbage. Green has zero actually playable removal and blue has basically just Unsummon. Red has some burn spells and Fissure, which is probably sufficient since most of the 3+ toughness guys are crap. White has Swords and WoG, but after that its "removal" is just damage prevention/redirection effects unless you want to run Balance. Black has Terror and not much else.
So, yeah, I could see the format quickly devolving into ground stalls between weenie armies since fatties will either die at the drop of a hat or be unplayably awful out of the gates. If you can solve that problem, though, it should be a fun cube.
BDP - As a last resort, I'll take a sharpie to some revised cards.
Aggro Zombies - Thank you for the constructive concerns! I am certain you are right. Since these sets were not designed with limited in mind, it will take effort to craft a cube from the available card pool that has a balance. My goal is for the pool to allow players to construct a deck that will win or lose before they get tired of playing. Ground stalls are awful!
Green is good in dark or antiquities limited. Decent in nights. Not good in beta. Mono colored sucks in legends. Overall in this cube it isn't what you want to be drafting. Outside of fastbond, or erhnam the color has actual nothing over the others. You could push up to like 12 grizzly bears and beat out most other 2 drops until beta knights or erg raiders hit play.
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