How to Test Your Cube

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:

• Andrew Elenbogen’s Tweet
• Jett’s Article on Analyzing Draft Data
• Two Player Cube Draft Formats
• Cube Cobra
• dr4ft.info
• mtgadraft.tk
• Cockatrice
• XMage
• untap.in
• Drafting the Hard Way by Ben Stark
• CubeArtisan
• Lucky Paper on Twitter: How do designers test their Cubes?
• Episode 31: Bread and Butter Breakdown
• Episode 111: The Texture of Removal
• Hypergeometric calculator

Timestamps:

• 3:22 — Introduction to Topic
• 4:23 — What do we mean by “testing”?
• 12:31 — Testing methods when drafting with a full pod
• 17:53 — Testing by drafting with smaller groups
• 22:23 — Testing by drafting against yourself
• 26:27 — Testing by drafting online with others
• 31:14 — Testing by playing online
• 32:28 — Testing by simulating solo drafts
• 36:44 — Testing by constructing decks from your cube list or playing sealed
• 40:14 — Testing by thinking really hard about your cube
• 48:43 — Common pitfalls of looking at your cube quantitatively

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

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

• Andy’s “Bun Magic” Cube
• Anthony’s “Regular” Cube

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.

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Musical production by DJ James Nasty.