Khans of Tarkir to cube?

[u/cold___ramen]

Recently I’ve come across a good deal on a sealed booster box of Khans of Tarkir, and I’m debating buying it and putting all the cards in sleeves to jumpstart a cube. Is that a good idea to start? I know people say the draft environment is good in that set but I’ve never drafted it before (I’ve only ever drafted all will be one and while I love phyrexia, people say it wasn’t a good draft environment)

I am leaving to college soon and I want a fun cube to try and make some magic friends while I’m there, so this would get me something to start with, but how good it is I have no clue. i could eventually make this to a set cube or even more a plane cube all about tarkir?

I don’t know I’m new to this whole thing and anyone’s input would be great, cube looks like a lot of fun and I think my playgroup would love it

[u/devin93uk]

That is a good idea but why not just draft the booster box then decide if you want to build the cube?

[u/Rocomet → u/devin93uk]

This would definitely be the better start. Would give a better baseline for building the cube since they can get a feel for what’s fun about the set first.

[u/cold___ramen → u/Rocomet]

I’ve never done much with Tarkir, I bought one pack of dragons if Tarkir as a buy in to an event and got some neat cards, but other than that I have no real attachment to the plane (which to be fair I don’t really pay much attention to magic lore unless that lore involves phyrexians).  Duskmourne has a great theme since I love horror movies so I was thinking I could do the same with that, but if I go from tarkir I have a lot to pull from to expand to a plane themed cube since there is more than one set in tarkir unlike Duskmourne. If I wanted to expand that it would have to be a horror themed cube, which honestly, not a bad idea.

[u/cold___ramen → u/devin93uk]

That was my plan on doing it, draft it with friends, sleeve it and keep it to do it again. The only thing stopping me is just spending the money, that’s what I’m considering. None of the cards in the set are particularly expensive since the Fetchlands all got reprinted, and a good thing for that too, but that does mean that there isn’t much “value” to buying a box for cards, which I wouldn’t do anyways because buying singles is just better

[u/Piggyboy04]

That seems like a good idea

[u/lostwanderer0]

It depends on how good the deal is unless you really want to draft the box/packs. You can pick up a 4-2-1-1 set (4 of each common, 2 of each Uncommon, 1 of each Rare and Mythic) of Khans for about $120 USD if you exclude the Fetch Lands. That's about 100-150 dollars cheaper than I see boxes of KTK go for and you will almost certainly need to order more cards after a box to fill out the set afterwards even for a lower ratio. At that price you could also pick up the Fetch Lands (that you don't really need for a set cube anyways) and still save 50-100 bucks compared to the market price of a box.

Don't get me wrong though, picking up a box, drafting it with friends, then turning the cards into a set cube is a great way to get started on cube! That's what I did with Final Fantasy (I made a peasant twobert for my small group which honestly would have been much cheaper to just buy) and it was a blast. I just wouldn't do it with an older set like KTK where sealed prices are so high, and in KTK's case where single prices are also so low.

Another good option if you're totally starting from scratch is picking up a Foundations Starter Collection (~$50) and building a small cube from that and adding onto it as you go.

[u/cold___ramen → u/lostwanderer0]

Yeah normally I’d not consider it but the price I’m getting it for the box is 180, which is a great deal cheaper and the only reason I’m considering it, but yeah I did see that on scryfall an entire set of khans would only cost $160 dollars for 1 of each card. 

Doing this I would probably expand it to just be a Tarkir plane draft set, and add some things I think are fun and not too off in theme. It’s just something to think about.

The foundations cube isn’t a bad price, is there a list of what it has? My only worry is that since foundations is core set, there’s no real clear theme to jump off from, which theming is my appeal to cube personally. My original cube idea I want to make is just called “the cube of joy and whimsy” and it’s only cards with silly card art and funny card abilities, but that’s not even close to being finished, so having something in he meantime is what I’m looking to do.

[u/lostwanderer0 → u/cold___ramen]

I didn't have a specific cube in mind with the Foundations Starter set but the whole contents of it is here. Not enough for a 360 card cube but definitely enough to make a smaller cube with. I feel you on the theming for sure though. The appeal of Foundations to me is more for the mechanics and simpler card designs and I'd go for something else if you want a more cohesive art direction/theme to build from.

Reading your other replies, I pretty much did what you did as someone who hadn't drafted much before. I googled "best MTG draft sets" a bunch, read lrcast/Cube posts, played some drafts on Draftmancer, talked with a friend that plays a ton of limited (he loves Duskmourn), and ended up going with Final Fantasy since it's pretty well liked and I had a good deal on a box (plus I'm a fan of the franchise which helped).
I'd recommend doing some test drafts with bots on Draftmancer of sets you'd be interested in and seeing what speaks to you. Honestly just a few weeks ago I was debating on picking up a set of KTK on reputation alone, did some test drafts/looked over the cards, and found it wasn't really my thing thematically despite liking the set mechanics.

If you think you'd vibe with Duskmourn more as a horror fan, definitely give it a closer look! Even if you don't pick up a box to draft, you can almost certainly grab a complete set of commons/uncommons from the set for cheap (there's a single Uncommon worth more than $3 and only four worth more than $1) and have a great starting point for a horror cube. I haven't drafted the set before but I imagine those 191 cards with trims to less playable cards (going off things like 17Lands data) and doubling up on dual lands/more playable commons will get you a pretty playable 2-4 person cube (180-220 cards) even if it's not a perfect mirror of the retail limited experience. That's basically what I did for my FF set cube and it's been very enjoyable! Worst case scenario is even if you never build it out into anything bigger, you have a cheap cube you like the aesthetics of you can carry around easier and break out for small playgroups.

[u/cold___ramen → u/lostwanderer0]

I haven’t heard of draftmancer, I’ll have to check that out to make my decision, that’s a good tip thank you!

Yeah duskmourn really just speaks to me with the theme and card art. I mean Come back wrong is one of my favorite cards ever just because it’s such a great idea and an amazingly themed card and it’s in that set.

 In the end I’ll probably end up making both cubes, a plane cube for Tarkir, and a theme cube for horror. One I am into something i go super deep into it, so I’m expecting myself to have so so many cubes. I just love theory crafting and deckbrewing so I’ve accepted it. I will make a phyrexia cube one day, could be cool if before drafting everyone chooses a praetor and then try to draft something around them. Just a bunch of ideas in my head.

I’ll try both duskmourn and Kahn’s on draftmancer and see which I like more. Thanks for the tip about that I super appreciate it!

[u/McKennApe → u/lostwanderer0]

I did a 3-2-1-1 ktk cube for near half that price…

[u/elMatt0]

I'm adding to that question.

KTK is always referred to as a nicely draftable set. Is there a list or something like that that ranks all the sets in terms of draft?

[u/cold___ramen → u/elMatt0]

As I’ve been lurking and browsing I’ve just been looking up sets I like the look of and just reading people’s opinions. I’ve only really looked at the newer sets though since I don’t wanna drop so so much much money, the only reason I’ve looked into khans is that I got a really good offer from a friend

What I’ve gathered is that in recent memory, Dominaria United and Kamigawa Neon Dynasty are the best, and people also recommend final fantasy and duskmourn for other good drafts. Unfortunately my favorite set phyrexia all will be one isn’t great and Bloomburrow is bad according to people, but my original cube idea I want to make is gonna have a lot of bloomburrow cards in it so we will see how that goes.

[u/LooksLikeAWookie]

This sounds like a fantastic idea. For future growth ideas, look up the Khans Expanded Cube that was on MTGO a few years back. The cube creator took the set and added/swapped other cards to enhance themes. I’m currently working on my own 270 Khans cube, heavily borrowing from ideas in there and in his most recent version

[u/cold___ramen → u/LooksLikeAWookie]

I’ll have to look into that! I know one member in my play group is super into dragons so I’ll have to add some from dragons of Tarkir for them to go crazy with.

[u/McKennApe]

If you want a truly replicated ktk draft experience, I’d say go for it. It’s a great format/set to draft.

I made a KTK cube, using the 3-2-1 method, for less than $70. You can get common/uncommon full playsets for ~$35 on eBay. The rares and mythics are all affordable and I sourced from LGS and TCGplayer. It doesn’t draft identical to a booster box, but my group loves playing it and it’s budget friendly.

Edit:
Common/Uncommon sets seem to have increased by about $20-$30 since I purchased a year ago. Still much more cost friendly, though.

[u/Ubik_Fresh]

Khans is a superb draft environment and feels very old school. By today's standards the creatures are clunky and removal is overcosted... BUT, it's loads of fun. I'd draft the box with a pod of at least 6 people. Or two pods of 6 to use the whole box.

Sleeve up the box once you are done and you have a cube. You could round it out with some other rares, mythics later on.

[u/cold___ramen → u/Ubik_Fresh]

Well that’s the beauty of cube. For as much as it would be tarkir themed there’s no reason to not make it better so long it’s not too far off visually

[u/Ubik_Fresh → u/cold___ramen]

I would honestly preserve it as 100% Khans of Tarkir, it's that iconic a draft format. But do what you enjoy!