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.