Andy and Anthony absolutely obliterate the notion that you need eight people to draft a cube. While a full pod might be your ideal, with tons of different draft formats, there’s a great way to play regardless of the size of your playgroup.

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from Moon’s Fast and Friendly Cube. Thanks, Moon!

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps:

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Andy and Anthony talk about growing a local Cube playgroup. They reflect on what’s been working for them to get a consistent, weekly Cube night running as well as challenges that need to be overcome. The talk specifically about the importance of consistency and a good location and managing events to engage new players.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps:

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Andy and Anthony look back at 2022 on the highs and lows for Cube design and the Cube Community. They talk about the sets and cards they think will have the biggest, lasting impact on Cube design. Cube is a unique format that requires specific tooling to support design, the community, and events. They talk about the challenges these unique needs present as the community grows. Beyond Cube, they talk about the broader state of Magic in 2022 and how they see changes in the game influencing their relationship to it in the future.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps: 

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

On the heels of last week’s episode, wherein Andy realized that his 3 drop slot is perhaps inappropriately high-value in the face of removal, and in response to some grumbling from his local playgroup about reactive strategies not being viable because of there being too many recursive threats, the boys are talking through 18 different three drop creatures Andy is considering adding. All of these creatures are more ”Baneslayer” than ”Mulldrifter” with the goal of making removal a bit better in the environment.

To inform his decisions Andy polled his local playgroup, the MTG Cube Talk Discord, and Twitter about which cards they perceived to be the most powerful, least powerful, most fun, and least fun. Some of the results were surprising and throughout this episode Andy and Anthony go into detail about how to parse them.

Our show notes were too long this week for the timestamps to fit, so make sure to check them out on our website.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from Pino’s The CoMa Cube.

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Andy and Anthony talk the types and distributions of threats in their Cubes. Like they’ve done with removal and fixing in the past with interaction and fixing, they make a somewhat subjective categorization of how resilient threats are against removal and look at how the distribution changes across the mana curve in each of their main cubes.

View the full show notes, including the graphs discussed in this episode →

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps:

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Andy, Anthony, and Parker review the results of The Brothers’ War community set survey. They talk about the top cards being tested by the most people as well as some cards that surprised them, being rated higher or lower than they expected.

While the set didn’t have many huge stand out cards, one catching the attention of more than half of respondents, a lot of novel cards lurk lower down the list that might inspire new designs if there isn’t already an obvious home for them.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

View the full show notes with timestamps →

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Many cube designers, Andy and Anthony included, have way more time an energy to put into their Cubes than the rest of their playgroup. Given that designers do spend so much more time thinking about and tinkering with their lists than playing them, how do you set up a feedback loop so you can effectively test your Cube? What are the compromises of testing in different ways? What information should you listen to and what should you ignore? How much trust can you actually put into bot drafts?

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Discussed in this episode:

Timestamps:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Our survey for The Brothers’ War is up now! Share what cards you’re interested in for your Cube!

Andy and Anthony talk about the new cards from The Brothers’ War they’re interested in giving a chance in their own cubes.They talk about slam dunks for environments from Anthony’s limited-emulating Regular Cube, to Andy’s novel, vintage Degenerate Micro Cube and some cards they’re more speculatively giving a try.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Discussed in this episode:

Timestamps:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Our survey for The Brothers’ War is up now! Share what cards you’re interested in for your Cube!

Andy and Anthony review the mechanics and themes from The Brothers’ War. They talk through the headline mechanics and smaller themes in the set all in the context of what might be most valuable to Cube designers of all types. The set is jam packed with new takes and synergistic payoffs for artifacts, but also includes tons of open, flexible cards that could be great new options for many Cubes.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps:

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

After one last draft, Andy and Anthony look back on the now disassembled Mono Black Cube. They talk about highlights and lessons learned from the particular design. Unique constraints pushed Anthony to explore new space that will inform future projects. More broadly, they discuss the life-cycle of cubes: why it makes sense to start from scratch and iterate rather than circling around a local maximum to improve one’s Cube design skills.

View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from listener donald_k_magic’s Changeling Cube.

Timestamps:

Discussed in this episode:

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube submit it on our website. Send in questions to the show at [email protected]. You can also find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.