The Common Pitfalls of First-Time Cube Designers

Andy and Anthony talk about common pitfalls new Cube designers fall into. There’s no right way to build a Cube, but new designers very often fall into similar patterns and a few pieces of feedback consistently come up.

• Play more mana fixing lands
• Lower the average mana cost of cards
• Increase the amount of interactive spells
• Lower the number of multi-color cards
• Don’t let power outliers outshine the fun
• Don’t feel obligated to adhere to 10 themes for each two color pair
• Be aware of the high cost of rules modifications

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from Garrett Townsend’s Frozen Solid Cube. View all cards mentioned in the episode →

Timestamps:

• 2:59 — Regular Cube Draft Recap
• 13:12 — Common Pitfalls of New Cube Designers
• 15:38 — Mistake Number 1: Including Too Few Lands
• 21:52 — Mistake Number 2: Having Too High a Mana Curve
• 27:05 — Mistake Number 3: Not Including Enough Interaction
• 30:10 — Mistake Number 4: Including Too Many Gold Cards
• 33:17 — Summary of Mistakes: Focusing on Cards Instead of Decks
• 36:04 — Mistake Number 5: Overshadowing Synergies with Power Outliers
• 40:11 — Mistake Number 6: Rigidly Adhering to Two-Color Archetypes
• 42:42 — Mistake Number 7: Underestimating the Cost of Rules Modifications

Discussed in this episode:

• MagicCon Philly
• Neoclassical Cube
• Dear Gonti, Love Sophie
• Neoclassical Cube Want List
• Guardian Project Podcast
• Regular Cube Games on YouTube
• r/mtgcube
• How Many Lands Should You Include in Your Cube?
• Lucky Paper Radio Episode on Archetype Driven Design
• The Trolley Problem

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.

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.