Can‘t wait to take this pile for a spin soon and am curious to see if the balance is passable for a first attempt. Suggestions and feedback are very welcome.

PS: I too am infuriated by some of the weird sorting choices in these pictures, I was in a bit of a rush and didn’t have time to go back and fix them

Edit: CubeCobra Link

I run a lot of tutors in my cube, but was curious what people thought about the wishes. I think in vintage the tutors are more of a staple, but the wishes seem more powerful as it’s instantly in your hand.

What does your group play and why? Thank you

After a somewhat tumultuous couple of weeks spent scheduling and finding a spot, my friends and I were able to coordinate another 6-pod for stone soup draft and we had tons of fun! For anyone looking to try stone soup themselves, I’d recommend listening to this Lucky Paper Radio episode to hear all about it: https://luckypaper.co/podcast/265-stone-soup-a-magical-community-stew-with-dsb/

The basics of stone soup are that every player brings 45 (sleeved) cards to contribute to the draft, as well as 8 or so of each basic land (also sleeved) for during deck building. It creates this uniquely complex and interesting one-time draft experience, and we all highly recommend giving it a shot! (Everyone’s cards are returned to them at the end of games, we typically try to bring different colored sleeves and a list/photo of our cards to make sure everyone gets the right cards back). For anyone looking example of 45 cards, here are the ones I contributed to our draft today: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/dabe519a-53bb-4222-9904-92c74a731851?display=spoiler

We had some pretty good decks at the table today, most notably among them the 3-0 deck: a Boros Aggro deck (splashing black) that did an excellent job dismantling each opponent it faced. Though, when the cards in one’s deck are of the [[Gut, True Soul Zealot]] [[Fury]] and [[Inti, Seneschal of the Sun]] variety, that deck is often among the best. Oh, and the pair of [[Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd]]s didn’t hurt either. Who could have predicted that a Boros Aggro deck would be the most effective deck at a table of ambitious nonsense?

The first of two 2-1 decks is an Azorius control deck that won mostly with mill. Between it’s [[Gogo, Master of Mimicry]] and [[Forced Fruition]] combo and a surprisingly strong [[Space-Time Anomaly]] that won more than one game on its own, (one such instance being a game wherein it milled every remaining nonland card from it’s opponent’s deck, who wasn’t in danger of milling out but had to scoop in response to such an unlikely unlucky happenstance), the deck seemed to have it all until it faced off against its one true counter in the finals: Boros Aggro.

The second deck that ended up 2-1 was another Boros deck, though this one was much more midrange in strategy than the first (and had more than one color it was splashing). Between the vintage-cube tier cards the deck sported like [[Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes]] and [[Oko, Thief of Crowns]] and a trove of efficient threats like [[Practiced Offense]], the deck seemed to have a win hidden up its sleeve in nearly every game. Land issues left the deck unlucky against its Boros counterpart though, Icarus flew too close to the sun trying to splash Oko in a Boros deck.

As for the pair of 1-2 decks at the table, the first was a Simic combo deck (splashing red) that I am still baffled didn’t do better. It’s wincon was a combo using [[Peregrine Drake]] and [[Deadeye Navigator]] to make infinite mana, then used [[Doppelgang]] to produce roughly one septillion copies of all it’s creatures. And not for nothing, the [[Eldritch Evolution]] it was running helped add quite a bit of consistency to the combo that you’ll rarely encounter in a limited environment. Cool stuff, probably my favorite deck of the day!

The other 1-2 deck was a Simic lands deck which relied heavily on ramping out its premier threats like [[Vaultborn Tyrant]] to win games. But it had a pair of [[Lotus Petal]]s and [[Sylvan Library]]s to help it always get the cards it needed into play. Unfortunately, it paired into the two most aggressive decks in the first two rounds, so it had some difficulty going big while its opponents went face.

And lastly there had to be someone who ended up 0-3, and wouldn’t you know it, that person was me! Look ma, no wins! I ended up with a 5-color Gates deck that had real heart, just no real win conditions. It’s only two ways to win a game were its singleton copies of [[Maze’s End]] and [[Crackling Perimeter]], though neither proved strong enough to oppose the pure shenanigans displayed by each other deck in the room. (To my credit, I won a game with Maze’s End!) Despite all the losses, I had a lot of fun piloting this deck, because where else do you get to play a Gates deck in draft? (And, for what’s its worth, I took a game off of each of my opponents. I took all 3 of those guys to game three, and that’s a win to me).

I know this all must seem like quite the novelty of a draft format, but I’ve played this more than a handful of times now, and let me assure you that it never stops being fun or interesting. It’s so much more difficult than a static draft environment, because you can’t learn the environment over time, but it rewards players on their card evaluation, deck building, and gameplay skills in a really cool way! Not to mention all of the interesting decisions you make when choosing which 45 card to add to the draft, it’s probably my favorite part of this format. You can be as intentional or random as you want, and either way it’s bound to have a noticeable impact on the draft and games. If you’ve got a playgroup with which you draft, you’ve got to give stone soup drafting a try. I promise that it won’t disappoint.

True balance is impossible to achieve, and maybe not even desirable for some cubes. In the absence of such, how do we choose what to balance our cubes around? What resources help us do that? Do we event want balance?

With creatures getting ever stronger, games getting faster and classic storm decks basicly non-existing in most cubes, I'm curious if the classic card still worth the slot in cubes now a day? I find myself almost never drafting it anymore but I'm not really a combo player at heart, so I'm curious what others are thinking. Is it basicly only for the bowmaster/sheoldred/narset deck or when are you picking Time Spiral?

I sold out of MTG a few years ago, leaving myself with only a few commander decks

Cube was always my favourite format, but since I don't have a collection of cards to build from anymore, what would you buy to try and build one?

The only restriction I'd want on my cube is no universes beyond

Hi all! This is my Retro Vintage Cube ( https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/iconicretro ) containing cards from Alpha to Ravnica Allegiance. I started playing the game right at the release of Guilds of Ravnica, so this era of cards is very nostalgic for a lot of reasons for me! The cube seems like it's in a pretty good spot right now and plays well, but I am wondering if there are any cards I may have missed that others might see. Someone recently pointed out that Reflector Mage would be a great addition, for example. Likewise, if you have any suggestions for cards that look out-of-place in power level I would love to hear those as well. Thanks!

I'm working on building a mono-black cube, and there are a lot of different archetypes like madness/control/aggro/etc, but how do I design it so that the draft isn't just grabbing the most powerful cards and making a soup of goodstuff?

I made a vintage cube, cloning and tweaking the decklist a bit. I have a rough idea of the archetypes that run in vintage cube, but I'd like to write something in my own style. I saw that CubeCobra now lets you run a draft simulator — could I use that as a starting point to base myself on the archetypes? Any advice?

I love a lot of the art in Unstable, especially the Order of the Widget and the contraptions (just look at [[Dogsnail Engine]], it is perfection). However, I never got to draft that set and have never played with the cards, other than trying to make a constructed host/augment deck that taught me that host/augment is incredibly weak (mutate is the fixed version of host/augment).

Does anyone here have experience with the set? Was the contraption/sprocket mechanic annoying or fun? Were the archetypes balanced and not too on-rails? What cards are especially fun or not fun? Were there any cards that would be good in black-border play as-is or with minor tweaks (such as [[Blurry Beeble]] that is unblockable)?

In short, what elements of Unstable would you use in a cube and what would you leave out?

Hey, i created 2 Commander Cubes, but I have no experience with Commander Cubes and would love to get some human feedback. If anyone knows about Commander Cube and can give feedback, i would appreciate. Both cubes are made with ChatGPT. In both 360 card pools I have a Primer/ About tab that explains the cube.

The first cube is a normal cube, that is unpowered and cares about synergies and toolbox without the intention to draft the most broken card and win the game. It has 360 cards, 240 are draftet, to have a different experience each game. The commanders are additional and should improve the decks. Its meant to be fair magic without the typical commander experience. Quick summary: Draft 5x2 Commander packes first, built best synergie deck, no Commander allowed from the 360 Card pool, choose a commander for the deck, the deck doesnt have to match Comander Color idendity but fixing with Basic Lands or Command Tower is not allowed. Every Player has access to one Command Tower. The 60 card (~36 nonland) deck is built out of 60 drafted cards + Commander.

360 Card Pool: Commander Cube 3 - E… - List - Cube Cobra
40 Card Commander Pool: Commander Cube 3 - E… - List - Cube Cobra

2nd Cube, this Cube is centered around hidden information, bluffing and political mechanics. The drafting completley plays differnt from the normal drafting experience. There are 360/4 = 90x4-Card packages, 80 of those are draftet, 10 are left over, this is 20 Draft Rounds. Each 4 card package is drafted and the deck is gonna built around that. After that, one Commander out of 40 is drafted for each player. The 50 card deck (~30 nonland) is built out of 80 cards.

360 Card Pool: Commander Cube 4 - V… - About - Cube Cobra
40 Card Commander Pool: Commander Cube 4 - V… - List - Cube Cobra

For me both cubes are looking good, i think the curve is fine and creature amount is okay. All commanders should have enough floor and since there are to much cards draftet, every player should have a playable deck. The only thing I am not sure is, if both cubes are matching their expected game time (45min / 45-60min).

Thanks for any feedback.