Tips for "Reject Rare" Cube Construction
Deck Help forum
Posted on July 23, 2013, 12:28 p.m. by pookypuppy6
Hello peeps!
I have been looking into the Cube format and wanted to do something that I've always wanted to do; give love to the unwanted rare Magic cards of the world. So, my mind immediately went "Hey! Why not a 360 card cube of the cheaper/jankier rares to get started! It will be unique whilst still hopefully kind on the wallet, and will hopefully lead to hectic and mad-ass gameplay!" The original basic premise would be the cube would contain ONLY rares (no commons, uncommons and mythics) and would be an ode to many underused, $1 rares that yet enrich the Magic experience. I already imagine myself cracking a pack of Ghostway , Gloom Surgeon , Hive Mind and all sorts.
However, while this concept SOUNDS fun, I believe it may not be so. Here is my reasoning:
-NUMBER OF AVAILABLE CARDS: I tend to limit myself to Modern cards only (I haven't broken into Legacy familiarity yet), and that means that, if I allocated 60 cards to each colour, for example, that means . I'm afraid I'll struggle to either a) Avoid cards that cost quite a bit and b) Fill the needs of a healthy limited format.
-THE ACTUAL GAMEPLAY: I worry that the format will either have too few interactions or just be really frustrating to draft with boosters with only rares. Lots of rares tend to work best with commons and uncommons and whatnot, and I'm afraid not enough interactions and combinations that'll make the gameplay exciting and deep will appear to make for a fun, playable cube.
-MY INEXPERIENCE: Well, yeah.
Any tips on building/designing such a Cube? It sounds like a really fun idea in my head and I don't want it to go to waste!
pookypuppy6 says... #3
Accounting for that now, I've done set design before so I'm working out things using something similar to a design skeleton. I'm actually changing it to 50 cards per colour to allow for more room for more multicolour cards but more preferably more artifacts, to help with the fact I'm not likely to go out and get rare lands.
I was just more concerned about the "All rare modern cards" from a concept level. Can I put in enough cards to make multiple feasible archetypes? How do I keep each colour balanced? Will it be possible to colour fix everything without wasting a bomb on rare lands?
July 23, 2013 2:20 p.m.
To keep each color balanced, you'll need to playtest your cube over and over and keep tweaking it until the power level for each archetype is fairly even.
I have a pauper cube that I put on here and playtested it a bunch of times and asked friends to playtest it a bunch. We had a discussion and made a few tweaks and now I have the physical cube at my house.
It takes a lot of work to get it right, but I thought that building a cube was a lot of fun.
Smith_and_Tonic says... #2
When you are designing a cube, you should sit down and figure out how you want the numbers to run. Sure you have 60 cards devoted to each color, what of those percentages are creatures? instants? sorceries? See what I'm getting at? This will keep your cubees from having either too many creatures or too many spells. Look up some cubes already constructed on the internet for a feel of the split between each card type. Plan ahead! haha
July 23, 2013 12:36 p.m.