Dalmuti's has a regular cube built and maintained by local legend Dan Leonard. It has nearly everything you would expect from a non powered cube and he has and still does put a huge amount of time, energy and resources into building and maintaining it.
Rather than try and replicate what he was doing I have built a multi player cube for those times when we have just a handful of players. The regular cube uses cards from throughout the history of Magic and features more mechanics than I can count. Every card is a singleton so it can be a very overwhelming but exciting experience for newer players.
With that in mind I have put a second restraint on my cube and that is to try and keep it simple. More in line with what a core set draft would be like. The amount of mechanics used will be limited (especially at common and uncommon) and the singleton rule is also broken at the common/uncommon level so that people don't have to read every card each time.
Those restraints risk making the cube a little dry. At the Rare/Mythic level I am prepared to be a lot looser. I have grouped the commons and uncommons together (pool A) and the rares/mythics/draft matters cards together (pool B). If I put more cards from pool B in a pack, the draft is probably more fun for veteran players but more daunting for newer players. Getting that ratio just right is probably something I will get wrong, but I plan to start with 3 cards from pool B and 12 from pool A in a pack.
The two times we have drafted so far the packs have been set up to replicate the retail conspiracy experience. We had fun both times, with the last match featuring a player dying from his Gamekeeper trigger revealing Phage the Untouchable.
That is not a combo kids.
Conspiracy does feel underpowered compared to Khans of Tarkir though so it is time to take the training wheels off and start adding and subtracting cards.
The subtracting is pretty easy to start off with. There are a lot of cards that aren't drafted often, others that are traps for new players and some that don't bring a lot to the table but are fairly complex.
The adding cards is where it gets tough. I plan on adding a morph theme despite the mechanics complexity. Players should be familiar with it thanks to drafting and playing Khans of Tarkir and there are morph cards in all five colours. That one mechanic does a lot of work and seems a good replacement for the Morbid cards in Conspiracy which haven't really been pulling their weight.
I want to have cards that encourage players to be proactive so the games don't stall out for too long but also want everyone to feel like they got to play. I think Dethrone and Parlay are good mechanics for promoting that but am not sure how well morph will play into that until I see it in action.
The list so far is (http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/8529) and is now subject to change.
Rather than try and replicate what he was doing I have built a multi player cube for those times when we have just a handful of players. The regular cube uses cards from throughout the history of Magic and features more mechanics than I can count. Every card is a singleton so it can be a very overwhelming but exciting experience for newer players.
With that in mind I have put a second restraint on my cube and that is to try and keep it simple. More in line with what a core set draft would be like. The amount of mechanics used will be limited (especially at common and uncommon) and the singleton rule is also broken at the common/uncommon level so that people don't have to read every card each time.
Those restraints risk making the cube a little dry. At the Rare/Mythic level I am prepared to be a lot looser. I have grouped the commons and uncommons together (pool A) and the rares/mythics/draft matters cards together (pool B). If I put more cards from pool B in a pack, the draft is probably more fun for veteran players but more daunting for newer players. Getting that ratio just right is probably something I will get wrong, but I plan to start with 3 cards from pool B and 12 from pool A in a pack.
The two times we have drafted so far the packs have been set up to replicate the retail conspiracy experience. We had fun both times, with the last match featuring a player dying from his Gamekeeper trigger revealing Phage the Untouchable.
That is not a combo kids.
Conspiracy does feel underpowered compared to Khans of Tarkir though so it is time to take the training wheels off and start adding and subtracting cards.
The subtracting is pretty easy to start off with. There are a lot of cards that aren't drafted often, others that are traps for new players and some that don't bring a lot to the table but are fairly complex.
The adding cards is where it gets tough. I plan on adding a morph theme despite the mechanics complexity. Players should be familiar with it thanks to drafting and playing Khans of Tarkir and there are morph cards in all five colours. That one mechanic does a lot of work and seems a good replacement for the Morbid cards in Conspiracy which haven't really been pulling their weight.
I want to have cards that encourage players to be proactive so the games don't stall out for too long but also want everyone to feel like they got to play. I think Dethrone and Parlay are good mechanics for promoting that but am not sure how well morph will play into that until I see it in action.
The list so far is (http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/8529) and is now subject to change.
