I’ve been drafting a ton of Reality Fracture and I think this may be my favorite set ever to draft. With that in mind I think I’m finally ready to take on my first ever cube project and I’m thinking a Reality Fracture set cube would be a great way to go.

With that said, I wonder if the standard ratio of 4:2:1:1 that I’ve seen on most cube building guides would work well for this set or should I consider going a different route? I don’t much care for the whole “mirrored pairs” thing, but I would still like the cube to have a relatively authentic feel to drafting actual boosters of this set.

Any advice would be much appreciated as this is my first time dipping my toe into Cube and it seems a bit overwhelming.

Bonus question - are there any cards in particular that I should leave out as they don’t play well in a draft environment? Sphinx’s Approach comes to mind, but surely there’s others.

Hi there, I got an idea to bring a full 45 card set of Alchemy cards to a local stone soup. To make it more feasible, I want to add reminder text to some of them, especially since I want to delicately modify the mechanics for ease in paper (like Seek revealing cards from the top until you get one that fits). Do I have to make a full on new custom card, or is there a simpler way? Did any of you do something similar ever?

The winners from yesterday were [[Ouroboroid]] and [[Curious Obsession]]

Archetypes:

BG: Graveyard

WU, UB, BR, RG, GW, WB, UR, RW, GU: ???

Current cube link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/RDDPC

As usual, reply/upvote which cards you want to be included! :o)

In this episode of Powerful Nothing, Dan and James take a look at the Dual Commander Cube, and give it an update with some new hotness, along with checking the power level of some overperformers.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/gPlqAHLM3cM

Audio Version: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2184496/episodes/19966278

If we were to make a Strixhaven and Hexhaven Cube that followed the themes of the schools, would these be the right directions for each two-color pair?

Stingerquill (BR): Noncombat damage

Fatehold (WU): Surveil

Theorix (UB): Threshold

Prismari (UR): Mana value matters / spells matter

Konstrari (RG): Ramp

Lorehold (RW): Graveyard matters

Witherbloom (BG): Deathtouch / things dying matters

Quandrix (GU): Proliferate (planeswalkers, +1/+1 counters, and other counters)

Vigorbloom (GW): Lifegain

Silverquill (WB): Targeting matters

I know Witherbloom was focused on lifegain in the most recent set, but I'd rather avoid repeating that theme and explore something different.

What do you think? Do these themes fit the schools, or would you change any of them? I'm especially interested in ideas that would make each color pair feel unique while still capturing the spirit of Strixhaven and Hexhaven.

Edit: changed the names

The winners from yesterday were [[Glorybringer]] and [[Inti, Seneschal of the Sun]]

Archetypes:

BG: Graveyard

WU, UB, BR, RG, GW, WB, UR, RW, GU: ???

Current cube link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/RDDPC

As usual, reply/upvote which cards you want to be included! :o)

Working on monocolor one drop cubes for all five colors. Trying to decide what creature I want to use for black and narrowed it down to these four.

White

Red

The ones I’ve done already for example.

My peasant cube is on the higher end of the power band, running things like Library, FoW, Skullclamp etc. The only power level excludes are Sol Ring, Strip Mine, Mana Drain, and Karakas.

We're getting a ton of cards downshifted from mythic and rare to uncommon for the Zeta nonsense. Do any of you plan to play with any of them? Here's some thoughts on the downshifts and which ones I might use.

[[Cloud Key]] seems completely irrelevant. New Thalia seems like a much better card to offer you discounts and I can't see a reason to cube this.

[[Clown Car]] seems like it might be interesting because it has a variety of uses. It can just be a zero, there's a world where Land Lotus Petal Channel pay 19 life make a Clown Car and an army of tokens is a thing. It's an infinite mana sink if your cube makes that, and just in general an amusing card. I think I might give it a slot for a little while just to see what people come up with.

[[Cruel Reality]] costs 7 mana, and then they just get rid of their worst thing. I can't see this factoring into my cube life.

[[Dig Through Time]] and [[Treasure Cruise]] have always been two cards that I associate with one another, so having both as options in the same cube again is nice. They're both cards that are really on the fringes of higher powered cubes these days, so having an ever so slightly powered down environment with both of them in it hasn't happened for a while for me. This one is 100% getting a rollout for me.

The concept of [[Doomsday]] in Peasant cube is kind of hilarious. I am absolutely certain that it's terrible, and my friends threatened to disown me if I put [[Fblthp, Impossibly Lost]] and [Demonic Consultation]] into the peasant cube to be funny. I am super curious what people would choose as their Doomsday piles at uncommon, and I expect people who try to play Doomsday to lose terribly, but I absolutely want to give my friends the chance to cook with this one so I might give it a spin.

The Peasant mana base alone makes the likelihood of succeeding with [[Garth One-Eye]] in this format near zero, but Garth is one of my favorite commanders and a card I absolutely love playing with. Plus, it's hard to turn down the opportunity to play Black Lotus in peasant. My beloved [[Displaced Dinosaurs]] are arbitrarily uncommon too, so you can live the dream of actually killing someone with 7/7 trampling Black Lotusauruses. I don't expect it to stick, but I sure expect it to be funny.

It's been a long time since [[Hornet Queen]] was in the Vintage Cube, but this thing was an absolute house back in the day and it feels like the perfect sort of card for a downshift. As creature power creep has gone off the deep end, this seems like an absolutely fine inclusion for peasant and likely one of the ones that you'll see in the largest numbers.

[[Jester's Cap]]: Nope.

There might be cubes that want [[Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs]] but a non-evasive 5 drop with 4 toughness just dies more often than it serves as a wall or generates ogres. I think this card is just bad, and doubt it competes with the red 5 drops we already have.

[[Lord Skitter, Sewer King]] is a very strong card that seems absolutely fine. There aren't a ton of good rats (I was today years old when I learned that [[Shoreline Looter]] is a rat) so it's really just its own army in a can that will eat graveyards, but this card seems generically strong, produces a ton of game objects, and can defend against some of the strongest archetypes in the format while beating down. Feels like a perfect downshift for a card I'd have never cubed with otherwise.

[[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]] is a really fun card that feels like it's way more abuseable with stuff that's rare. It does allow you to end the turn instead of sacrificing all your single turn tokens and stuff, and I think this card is more "cool" than it is "cracked," but idk how many cubes actually want it.

[[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] sure is a lot of card to downshift from mythic to common. If you can cast it on turn 3 with peasant mana, it should provide crazy value, particularly if you get to start drawing right away. This card has been cut from most powered cubes that tried it, but at peasant, I imagine this will be a force. A totally fair force because it's hard to cast and still dies to all the removal, but this feels like one of the ones that sticks.

If someone makes [[Ruxa, Patient Professor]] work in cube, more power to you. I can't see a way or a need, so I'll keep moving.

I absolutely adore [[The Jolly Balloon Man]], so an opportunity to cube with it and a bunch of classic commons and uncommons with excellent ETBs seems like a great plan. From 1/1 FTKs to little Kioras that die to state based action while leaving behind dragons to endless Riftwing Cloudskates bouncing everything, I look forward to seeing what sort of abuse can be conjured up in peasant with this thing. It's almost like putting Kiki-Jiki in peasant, just without the infinites. I love this so much, and my peasant cube feels like a perfect power level home.

[[Wheel of Misfortune]] is certainly a choice. I suspect it's quite interesting when both players want to wheel, but it doesn't really combo off with things like Narset because they can just not wheel, and I think losing all the punishing wheel synergies of higher rarity cubes takes a lot of the edge off even though it's still a 3 mana draw 7 if you play your cards right.

[[White Sun's Zenith]] at triple white sure seems hard to cast, but it's a lot of card for peasant and probably an excellent finisher in UW control shells. I feel like there are cubes where this will play great in peasant, but 3 of the same colored pip is a lot.

That's all 16 uncommon downshifts. [[Gigantosaurus]] is also randomly a common now, and while I absolutely can't see it where I am, I bet someone is gonna get a laugh out of their 5 mana 10/10.

Ignoring the rarity shift? Making use of any of these? Think any are profoundly bad ideas? What have you got for me, fam?

The winners from yesterday were [[Consider]] and [[Sphinx of False Conclusions]]

Archetypes:

BG: Graveyard

WU, UB, BR, RG, GW, WB, UR, RW, GU: ???

Current cube link: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/RDDPC

As usual, reply/upvote which cards you want to be included! :o)

Has anyone tried playing sealed cube, with players allowed to trade cards before games? Does this work, or will it just end up with friends helping each other and everyone having broken decks or people not willing to trade because they don't want to help their opponent?

Has anyone successfully got Polymorph as an archetype to work in cube ? If so how did you make it work

See below for the Secrets of Strixhaven Cube Update article for The Awesome Cube

We're still using the blog feature on Cube Cobra since they deactivated the article feature.

Enjoy!

https://cubecobra.com/cube/about/3jy?view=blog&s1=Color+Category

TLDR: 2 days of chaos in a brewery/coffee shop/game store/temporary pizza oven dishing out Papa Murphy's pizza + ~70 people made for an INCREDIBLE time in Spokane WA.

Hi, I'm Tom and this past weekend I was privileged to participate one of the coolest nerd events I've ever been a part of, and I was at the original PAX in 2004 (AMA).

This year (and last year)'s Inland Northwest CubeFest (INW) 2026 took place in an amazing shared space building in the Hilliard district of Spokane. Inside, you'll find Bellweather Brewing, Derailer Coffee (the cube organizer is a part owner), our official host Bear Totem Games, and last but not least Pigasus Games, who we did not interact with whatsoever, but their space was very cute.

This year featured 10 cubes, which everyone ranked their desire to play or avoid via the incredible Hedron Network, and everyone played 2 cubes each day. There were additional "sicko drafts" in the evening both days, which I did not participate in, however, I heard much fun and laughter was had by all.

Before diving into my cube experience, I would highly recommend people to stay on the look out for next years event, the team did an incredible job of welcoming so many people to the area, and as a Spokane local, I enjoyed the opportunity to tell to people why I love this city.

Saturday

AM Round, Take 5 - "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed":

I queued up for /u/andymangold 's famous Take5 desert cube (my first desert cube experience ever), thinking I was hot shit in a champagne glass, but by the end I realized I was just cold diarrhea in a Dixie cup.

Draft Notes:

P1P1 contained 2 bounce lands, some other bull shit, and an Amulet of Vigor. After careful deliberation and thinking about the different episodes where Andy talked about designing Take 5 including a live draft, I snap-picked Amulet with a plan to grab every bounce land I could find, and look for cool stuff to do with them. By the time my pack wheeled, I had found one more bounce land, but neither of the 2 in my first pack had come back, and I'll be honest, at this point I had no idea what to do.

End of Pack 2, I realized I only had 9 lands, and Pack 3 was spent trying to find every MDFC and land I could find.

What was left was a non-functional lands deck, without any real payoffs or any way to win. I later learned that 2 other players were in lands matters decks, and we really took each other's enablers and payoffs, and 3 of us had mediocre decks garbage. I wound up 0-2-1 since I was able to tie in round 2 to avoid the 0-3, against one of the decks mentioned above, but by lunch time I realized I would not voluntarily play another desert cube this weekend.

My final self-aware note is that I left feeling bad, and from my perspective I literally ruined at least 2 other drafters' experience with that cube, and I was bummed out at my misunderstanding of the environment and inability to read signals.

PM draft: Middle Child "I can only go up from here!"

Draft Notes:

Middle Child is all of your favorite forgotten cards from the mid-2010s to create a nostalgic relatively high-powered synergy environment. I went in wanting to play something basic to see if I actually knew how to play Magic.

Looking at my draft photos and my notes, I'm not certain what my P1P1 was, but I believe it was either [[Llanowar Elves]] or [[Polukranos, World Eater]]. I wound up with several X hydra's, [[Kozilek, Butcher of Truth]], [[Platinum Angel]], great fixing, and a sweet, sweet top of [[Maellstrom Wanderer]].

I did live both sides of the Maelstrom Wander dream and nightmare. With my first resolution I hit an (0/0) X hydra that hit the graveyard immediately, and my llanowar elves, which is a less than exhilarating result. The next cast let me hit the dream of [[Karn Liberated]] and [[Platinum Angel]], needless to say, I won that game.

Without getting too excited, I beat my first 2 opponents 2-0 before falling 0-2 to a mono-black removal deck that had a couple of planeswalkers, [[Gary]] and a [[Massacure Wurm]] top end, and tutors to find it. Turned out he had all the answers to my deck that no one else drafted.

I left Saturday exhausted, unsure if I was lucky, good, or a terrible player.

Sunday

AM Draft - JuiceCube (Pauper) "What even am I?"

Draft Notes:

I knew that I wanted to play another simple cube, and having never played a pauper cube, but wanting to potentially build one, I thought this was a great opportunity. I'll be honest and tell you, my readers, that I didn't actually know it was a pauper cube when I sat down.

P1P1, after flipping through the cards for a while I audiblied sighed and exclaimed "why are these cards so shitty", and someone kindly told me "1. You're not supposed to say that; 2. It's a pauper cube". I wound up taking [[Overwhelming Remorse]] as a safe removal, and settling in to try and find good 2 for 1's and small value edges.

What I wound up with was 3 ways to reanimate, 1 way to put a card on top of deck from the graveyard and deal it's power as damage to a creature, 7 land cyclers, 7 removal, 6 fixing lands and an absolute house of an Azban deck. Once again ran my way to the finals, to lose in an absolute nailbiter 2-1 against a neat artifact deck. I did have a chance to win via [[Snuff Out]] if I had just waited for my opponent to cast [[All that glitters]] on his already enchanted creature for what would have been a 3 or 4 for 1. Instead, after my blunder, he put it on his 1/1 flyer and proceeded to beat me down with it over 5 turns while I tried to find one more answer. This was the only event where I felt like I had the best deck, and due to pilot error I missed out on a full 2-0 3-game sweep. After this performance, despite working in statistics and knowing that this isn't enough of a sample size, I did feel like I belonged.

PM Draft - One from Everything "Last chance for a pin, but let's have fun"

Draft Notes:

One from everything just takes 1 card from each set ever and slams it into the cube. What you're left with is a really neat musuem of magic's history. There is very little real synergy, so "good cards" is a valid strategy. I saw my boy [[Young Pyromancer]] in P1 and shipped it, figuring that I would see plenty of instants and sorceries and other similar cards.

What actually happened was that I had ~8 pieces of fixing lands to play Jeskai, a hand full of other spell slinger effects, no burn, and only 3 [[Opt]] effects. I did however land a [[Baneslayer Angel]] that won me 2 games and a single round. I can confidently say that I spell slung no one, but the card formerly known as "Bankslayer" helped me to avoid a sweep over my good friend I attended the even with.

Overall notes: The cubes were excellent, there was something for everyone, unless you wanted to play a powered cube, in which case there wasn't one for you. Being able to speak with the designers about their cubes, reasons and decision-making was amazing, and I learned so much about the what and why we/they/I do what we do.

I'm happy to answer questions over the next few days, and I hope anyone else that was there can speak to their experience. This was my first cube event, and I cannot wait to do it again, maybe I'll make it to Baltimore to see Andy again, or maybe I'll stick with a much closer Seattle next February. You can always see upcoming cube events on Lucky Paper Radio's community page. There is so much work that goes into organizing an event; be sure to shout organizers out, buy them a drink or give them a hug when you see them to show appreciation.

List of all cubes at the event:

- Bridges over Troubled Water

- Goblin Game

- JuiceCube

- Kill your Grandpa

- Middle Child

- One from Everything

- Sliverhome

- Take Five

- The Second Hand

- The Shepherd Cube

cubecobra.com/cube/list/ice-age

it's 4x of every Ice Age card, planning to do seeded packs for the draft so every pack has good cards.

I see a lot of people post cubes with envelopes or packs pre-made with cubes. Do you seed your cubes or just randomly shuffle your cards and draft that way?

Hey everyone,

over the last seven months a group of friends and myself have created our own powered vintage cube designing 450 custom cards and it's been a real blast to play for the couple of times we got around to it so far. That's why we decided to share it with you :)

You can find the cards here alongside an overview sheet:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wd8DO3dKAMO0jcSGo1fWZ3EhSQ2Nyf_UsoPlWM7PjYA/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GqDDsO-NMqc-yU4uZvnGCQxNS1DiO34xNtM2seUBKng/edit?usp=sharing

Whats the idea?

This is meant to be a cube of a power level equal to a powered vintage cube.

Why did we do this?

We are cube enthusiasts. I've been drafting vintage cubes for around 15 years now and it is my favorite way to play magic. I also enjoy game design - so this was a challenge I had always looked at excitedly.

What can we expect to find in it?

There is a custom power 9 in this cube alongside many colorshifted cards, relics of magic's design history, loveletters to lore and mechanics and (hopefully) unique and interesting designs we came up with.

The cards are meant to be used in this specific environment - they are not aiming to be balanced with the rest of existing magic cards meaning some will be quite strong. I've added a couple of examples as a slideshow :)

There are technically 5 new mechanics in the cube - but only one is found on more than 5 cards. It's an ability called "<Type>Shape X" - like "Landshape 5" that allows you to shape your hand and dig for cards of a specific type. The other mechanics all explain themselves on any card they are on.

What archetypes are in it?

While there are standard cube archetypes like Reanimator, Lands, RDW, Wheenies or Ramp there are also a couple more specific archetypes like TopDeck-"Show and Tell" and Second Breakfast.

Where is the art from?

All art is taken from existing cards - often with the intention to give more spotlight to great pieces of art that is "lost" on mediocre draft commons and uncommons or obscure promos few people know. That doesn't always work, but we did our best.

Whats up with the frames?

Every person who wins a draft (and once for all designers) got to pick their favorite card of the day and give it a custom frame.

Feel free to download it and play it or simply let me know what you think :)

What are your favorite Zombies in Cube? I made list of my top 10 favorites Peasant Cube. They're definitely one of the more prolific creature types in Magic, so maybe you know a cool zombie no one else has every played before! What are your favorites?