r/mtgcube

You draft my cube, I'll draft yours!

Hello everyone! I like to do this every so often since it gives me good feedback on my cube and I get to see other people's passion projects. If you draft my cube and leave a link to your deck, a couple lines of feedback, and a link to your cube that you want me to draft, I'll draft yours in return and leave the same.

The Link to my cube: Rally the Peasants

It might take me a little to get to everyone depending on how much engagement I get so please be patient. Also feel free to join in and draft other commenters cubes with me.

Edit: Got swamped at work so I haven't been able to slack off as much as I was expecting. I'm gonna slowly be working through all the comments over the next day or two.

reddit.com
u/sling_cr — 19 hours ago
▲ 63 r/mtgcube+1 crossposts

Baby made his first cube 🥰

I’ve been playing since right around the time this channel was created, (coincidence???), and the boys have had me itching to build one since the first cube video.

I’ve been having less and less fun lately with commander since I have a newborn and I only get like one game a week. Sometimes you just draw shit and get wafflestomped in 6 turns and it’s like cool, guess I’ll see you guys in a week maybe.

I think a cube will help freshen up my playgroup’s game nights, so I tore apart three decks that I didn’t like playing with anymore, and the rest is bulk, but I think it’s going to play well! List is in the comments if you even care.

Edit: link is *not* in the comments because I can’t read rules!

u/austinapaul — 1 day ago
▲ 241 r/mtgcube+1 crossposts

My Universes Within reskins for some legendaries I figure you all would enjoy

[[Agent Frank Harrigan]]
[[Ioreth of the Healing House]]
[[Seymour Flux]]
[[Ultima, Origin of Oblivion]]
[[The Walls of Ba Sing Se]]
[[The Capitoline Triad]]
[[The Warring Triad]]
[[Spider Slayer, Hatred Honed]]
[[Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade]]
[[Krang, Utrom Warlord]]
[[Missy]]

u/Yawgmothlives — 1 day ago
▲ 41 r/mtgcube

I built my first commander cube!!!!

Pictured is the complete cube, the commanders list, and the free picks handed out at the start of draft.

I had a blast working on it and I’m definitely going to build a second at some point once this one is in a state where I am confident it’s fun.

▲ 193 r/mtgcube

Cube Cobra Update 1.7.0

If you're not familiar with Cube Cobra, we're an open source cube management website with a very passionate development team. We update the site frequently and make sure we make the changes most requested by the community. You can check it out here: https://cubecobra.com/

I'm very excited to announce a large number of changes that we have been working on the last few months. Myself and a handful of contributors have been enormously productive, as you may have noticed from so many of the UX changes on the site recently!

Some New Stuff

I've added a special "Voucher Card". Similar to "Custom Card" - this is a special cased card. This one allows you to add cards nested inside the voucher. When you draft a voucher, you get all the cards contained in it! Perfect for if you want a buy-one-get-four Squadron Hawk, or perhaps want to allow drafters to pick up a copy of Urza's Tower, Power Plant, and Mine all in one pick.

"At a Glance" is a new feature heavily inspired by the work done by @haganbmj here. The existing analysis tools technically could do everything shown here, but this page makes it much easier to get some simple analysis done.

Point-in-time views have finally arrived. Our data model has always supported this, but I haven't gotten around to implementing this until now. Click on any Cube changelog and now you can look at that Cube as a point-in-time directly after that changelog was applied. Compare it with the current list, maybe export the difference. This one has definitely grown to be one of my go-tos for figuring out all the changes I made to my Cube list over a few weeks (and many small changelogs) that I now need to reflect in the physical copy.

We added a page with some API docs. Hope this makes tinkering on your side project easier!

Draft Simulator is a very large new feature that one of our contributors has been tinkering with over the last few months. A lot of really good engineering work has been put into making this feature a reality - including setting up a system that supports our ML model to run in-browser. This allows us to run simulated bot drafts without creating unreasonable compute costs on our end, allowing us to run several thousand drafts and do some fascinating analysis on the results. It uses the archetype annotation to label clusters, and also uses the Smart Search to find new cards for a specific discovered archetype. There is really a lot going on here, so please try it out and let us know what you think!

ML Features

CubeCobra has maintained a fairly sophisticated machine learning model that has evolved a lot over the years. This model powers our draftbots, card synergy (seen on card pages), bot deckbuilder, and also the Smart Search (previously called recommender). We have just published a new version of the model, freshly trained! This model architecture has been tweaked so the draftbots now have full context of the Cube that is being drafted. The deckbuilder has been overhauled, but the model is the same - we only changed the algorithm that uses the model. The results look quite good, but we're still keeping an eye out for edge cases and anomalies and will adjust as needed.

As I mentioned earlier, the Recommender has now been rebranded as Smart Search. I believe this feature has suffered from bad branding, and a UX that doesn't encourage users to use it in a useful way. This feature isn't meant to just give you cards to add to your Cube - it is a way to search for cards and use the context of the Cube to sort the cards in a more meaningful way. When I explore cards on Scryfall, I would often use "EDHRec Rank" sorting, which is fine, but not great for Cube. Using the same queries in Smart Search yields more fruitful results, in my experience.

I've created a new development tool I call "Archetype Annotater". Similar to the Lucky Paper Cube Map, it projects all decks drafted on Cobra, and then clusters them. I've tuned the tool to result in around 50 clusters, of which I've hand annotated. Now your drafts (and the bot seats) will automatically have more meaningful names, by projecting the deck into that same space and figuring out which cluster it belongs to.

UI Changes

We have restructured the overall navigation of the site. Outside of Cube pages, there are four main sections: Landing, Explore, Resources, and Help. Resources is brand new - I do think CubeCobra should be a hub where we link and promote other projects in the Cube space. If you have or use a project you feel is appropriate to be listed there, please let me know and I will consider adding it! Help pages are a consolidation of other miscellaneous pages, now bundled into a more organized hub. These pages now feature splash images using some of the artwork I have commissioned over the years - it feels very satisfying to put those gorgeous (imo) pieces in a place they can be appreciated by more people.

The home page has mostly been simplified. This refers to both the logged out and logged in variants. I've removed sections for recent drafts and content. A search component has been added that can be toggled between searching for Cubes, Cards, and Packages - with some example queries. I believe that putting this here will lead to more organic discovery of features.

Packages have been a feature on the site for many years, but for most of that time have been clunky and/or broken. I've now promoted packages to be a front and center entity alongside Cubes. You can now quickly create a new package, view your packages, and view the packages you've liked. When you're editing a Cube, you can easily pull up those lists of packages and add them directly to your Cube. Packages have been moved under the explore menu. Of note — packages are immutable by design. Similar philosophy to sites like Twitter where we don't want to allow packages with a lot of likes to be modified.

User profile pages have been overhauled. Packages have been added as a new tab, and now it is easy to view a user's follows, followers, liked cubes, and liked packages. The Cube and deck preview component has been revised, I think it looks a little sleeker now. "Account Information" has been rebranded as "Settings" and also has an overhauled UI.

I've streamlined the new user workflow. Cubes can now be created with a simple click. When you open an empty Cube, you are now presented with a getting started guide, with a couple options for adding cards into the Cube. I think we have underestimated the gap that non-Cube designers have to experience to actually start designing a Cube. My hope is that these changes help bridge that gap, and make Cube curation more accessible and easier to get started with.

Content

The changes here are the ones I'm probably the least confident about, but these feelings have been growing for several years now. When CubeCobra was in its infancy, I looked towards deck building and other Magic websites for inspiration on what features users may want. I recognized that Cube designers want a place to share their thoughts, and may appreciate reading about other designers' thoughts. That is why I created the content sections of the site. In hindsight, I see this as a mistake. I think it is more important that CubeCobra focuses on its core product, being a Cube management platform, and other platforms dedicated for content sharing are where that happens.

With this update, I will no longer be publishing new content on Cube Cobra. I will leave registered podcasts up on the Resources page, and I am happy to add new Cube related podcasts there as well. All content will still be accessible in our content archive, so nothing is lost. I hope that deciding to remove the suite of features will allow us to focus more on the stuff that is actually essential to the platform.

New Features

  • New API Documentation page (/apidocs) — reference for all public API endpoints
  • New "Voucher" card type — contains a list of other cards; when drafted it expands into its contained cards instead of being picked directly. Supports custom names, is:voucher filter, and CSV import/export
  • New "At a Glance" analysis page — dashboard of key stats, pricing, mana curve, and distribution charts
  • New Cubes get a random art crop from a curated card set instead of always Doubling Cube
  • Changelog entries are now clickable, each linking to a detail page with the full changelog
  • Point-in-time Cube list view on changelog detail pages — same view controls (table, visual spoiler, curve, stacks), filter, sort, and display sidebar as the main list, boards kept distinct (mainboard, maybeboard)
  • "Download Point in Time Cube" on changelog detail pages — reconstructs the historical Cube as CSV
  • "Compare Point in Time Cube with Present" — side-by-side historical vs current
  • Export button on all compare pages (regular and PIT) — text file with In Both, Only in Base, Only in Comparison
  • New First Year group sort (year a card was first printed)
  • New Keywords group sort (group by keyword, e.g. Flying, Trample)
  • New year:/firstyear:/fy: filter for first print year (e.g. year>2000, fy<=1995)
  • New kw:/keyword:/keywords: filter by keyword (e.g. kw:flying, keywords>3)
  • New is:standard filter — first printed in a standard expansion
  • New is:supplemental filter — first printed in a supplemental product
  • New board:/board= filter (e.g. board=mainboard, board=basics) — matches cards by which board they're in; custom draft format slots now use it (default board=mainboard, or draw from multiple boards like ci=r (board=mainboard or board=modulex)), replacing the per-slot board dropdown
  • Improved bot deckbuilding — no changes to model but changed how we are using it
  • game:arena/game:paper/game:mtgo now match any printing ever available in that game, not just the current printing
  • New game:is-arena/game:is-paper/game:is-mtgo filter — only the specific printing's availability (the old strict behavior)
  • Adding a collaborator now notifies that user
  • Added date_last_updated to Cube exports
  • New "Use Base Card Data" display option — sorts/filters use a card's original printed attributes (CMC, colors, color category, type, rarity, name) instead of overrides
  • New "Disable Follow Notifications" setting — suppress notifications when users follow your Cube or you
  • Bot decks get meaningful archetype names (e.g. "UW Control", "RG Aggro") from hand annotated ML cluster centers instead of generic labels
  • Deck naming is back — set your own deck name in the deckbuilder; blank auto-generates a cluster-based archetype name
  • New Draft Simulator (in the Cube nav) — runs hundreds of full drafts against the ML bots in your browser, then shows per-card pick stats (average pick, wheel rate, draft rating vs. Elo), the archetypes that emerged with color-pair breakdown, a draft map, and the simulated bot decks and pools; choose drafts/seats, filter and sort the stats, and drill into any archetype or deck
  • Streamlined Cube creation — "Create A New Cube" creates it instantly (named <username>'s New Cube) and lands you on its list page, no modal; rename from the Cube hero anytime
  • Edit sidebar expanded by default on desktop when viewing the list page of an empty Cube you own
  • New "Welcome to your new Cube!" onboarding card on an empty owned Cube's list page, pointing to the edit sidebar, packages, or the seed crystal generator
  • New "Seed Crystal" generator — bootstrap a partial or complete Cube from one seed card using the draftbot and smart search models
  • Renamed the "Recommender" Analysis tab to "Smart Search" and rebuilt it to match CubeCobra's search UX: inline filter, paginated grid of card images, same context-aware sort. Core Cards panel, maybeboard toggle, and show-images checkbox removed
  • Brought back "Save as Default Sort" in the display sidebar — saves the current sort as the active view's default
  • New help blurbs at the bottom of the display and edit sidebars (links to Boards/Views settings and Smart Search)
  • Edit sidebar's Board dropdown defaults to the first board in the current view (and follows view switches) instead of always Mainboard
  • Richer link previews for shared blog posts and comments — comment links show the comment text and poster avatar; blog links show an excerpt plus a changelist summary with the Cube's image
  • Redesigned landing page and dashboard with a new hero — unified search across cubes, cards, and packages with suggestion chips, and a Featured Cubes marquee. Landing is hero-only; the dashboard sits below with Daily P1P1 and Your Cubes split 50/50 and the activity feed under Daily P1P1 (standalone "Latest Content" and "Featured Cubes" cards removed)
  • Redesigned Cube preview tiles — cover image fills the tile, with name, category tags, follower/card counts, and owner overlaid on a bottom gradient
  • New Resources page at /resources (top nav) — community tools, the content archive (articles, videos, podcasts), Cube communities, Hedron Network, the Cube Map, and latest podcasts
  • Restructured top nav and footer — Home is top-level, Explore is a richer sectioned dropdown with a Search Cubes shortcut, a top-level Resources entry, separate Login/Register for logged-out users; navbar Cube search and the Explore Cubes page removed; footer reorganized with Popular / Recently Updated / Recently Drafted links
  • Redesigned Cube Search, Card Search, and Packages pages with the Landing/Dashboard hero treatment; Top Cards consolidated into Search Cards with a Card Images / Info Rows toggle (sortable table: Cost, Type, Elo, Total Picks, Cube Count)
  • Packages are created on a dedicated page; users get a Packages profile tab; navbar gains a + quick-create dropdown and a Your Packages menu
  • New Help hub at /help with a shared layout — Filter Syntax, Markdown Guide, API Docs, Card Updates, Contact, and Donate share a hero with a sticky pill nav
  • Liked Packages — upvoting a package also records a like (browse Packages You've Liked). Cube edit sidebar gains "Add Package" (Import): a modal with your packages and liked packages dropdowns that adds the package's cards to your changelist
  • Liked Cubes page — browsable list of Cubes you've liked, previously followed (also viewable for any user)
  • Followers and Following pages — each its own page with the new profile layout, replacing /user/social
  • Redesigned user profile pages — left side card (avatar, name, supporter badges, follower/following/liked-cubes/liked-packages count links, Edit Profile or Follow/Report, markdown bio); right-side floating tabs (Cubes/Packages/Drafts/Blog) across all profile sub-pages including Liked and Followers/Following. "Decks" tab renamed "Drafts"
  • Supporter badges — active Patreon supporters get an animated "Patron" pill; tiered supporters (Cobra Hatchling, Coiling Oracle, Lotus Cobra) get a tier-coloured pill that shimmers on hover
  • Settings page restyled like the Help hub — root shows section tiles (Profile, Change Password, Update Email, Display Preferences, Patreon Integration, Delete Account); picking one collapses to left pill buttons with content on the right
  • Your Cubes and Packages navbar dropdowns each gain a "Liked" link
  • Username menu cleanup — "Your Profile" → Profile, "Account Information" → Settings, redundant "Followed and Followers" link removed (moved to the new Followers/Following pages)
  • Drafts of your cubes get their own full-width page (from the Your Cubes dropdown) with a responsive grid up to 6 per row
  • Dashboard activity feed loads asynchronously after the page, uses "Show More" instead of pagination, and its empty state links to Popular Cubes; non-supporters get a banner ad every 10 posts
  • Reorganized the "Your Stuff" / mobile cubes dropdown into Your Cubes, Actions (create Cube/package), and More (View all, Liked, Drafts, View all packages, Liked packages)
  • Pin your own Cubes — a Pin toggle replaces Like on Cubes you own; pinned Cubes sort to the top of the Your Cubes dropdown, your dashboard, and your profile's Cubes page

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed deck data exports containing invalid -1 card values — exports now exclude cards that couldn't be mapped to valid IDs
  • Fixed quarterly data exports including private/unlisted cubes — Cube and deck export jobs now only export public Cubes
  • Fixed blog posts from private/unlisted Cubes leaking into follower feeds — blog posts, commits, package adds, and bulk imports for non-public Cubes no longer publish feed items
  • Fixed unlisted-Cube blog posts visible on user blog pages and dashboard feeds — display filtering now excludes private and unlisted (was private only)
  • Fixed blog pagination (getmoreblogsbycube) missing a visibility check — now verifies the Cube exists and is viewable
  • Fixed Cube JSON API (/cube/api/cubeJSON/:id) using stale Cube.defaultSorts — now returns all boards and applies the standard default sort (Color Category → Types-Multicolor → Mana Value → Alphabetical)
  • Fixed moving cards between boards keeping the card on the same board — the target board selector wasn't resetting when switching between cards on different boards
  • Fixed "Cannot set properties of undefined (setting 'markedForDelete')" crash from stale localStorage changes referencing missing card indices — now treated as a version mismatch via the existing recovery flow
  • Fixed sample pack/P1P1 generation failing for custom draft formats referencing non-mainboard boards — pack generation now passes all boards to the draft engine
  • Fixed view-level defaultSorts not applied on page load (only Cube-level sorts were)
  • Fixed bookmarked URLs with query params (view, sort, filters) not applied on load — the view-defaults effect was also firing on initial mount and overwriting URL values
  • Fixed Scunthorpe problem in the profanity filter — spam/marketing terms use word-boundary matching while slurs use substring matching, so words like "senft" no longer falsely trigger
  • Fixed list view selections persisting after removing cards — checked state used stale indices after "Edit Selected" → "Remove all" → "Save Changes"
  • Improved draft creation errors — now distinguish no cards in a board, running out of cards mid-draft (with count and suggestions), and remaining cards not matching a slot filter (with filter text and counts)
  • Improved date display — within 7 days shows relative time ("3 hours ago"), older shows absolute ("Feb 7, 2026")
  • Fixed Cube card count not updating in the hero as mainboard changes were saved
  • Fixed selecting cards with accented characters (e.g. Lórien) when adding to a draft record
  • Fixed deckbuild land/non-land count settings not being saved
  • Moved bot deckbuilding to the client with a progress bar — instead of one long server request that could time out, the client makes ~31 small incremental ML calls (1 batch build + ~30 draft steps) with a live percentage/step counter
  • Improved draft naming durability for unknown/malformed cards — naming skips missing card references instead of throwing during finish/update
  • Fixed invalid-card image fallback pointing to an unreachable external URL — now uses the local default card image
  • Fixed pick-by-pick breakdown collapsing duplicate cards when "collapse duplicates" is enabled
  • Fixed board display order in Cube list views not respecting view settings
  • Right Sidebar inline position now respected when adjusting Cube Table and Stacks layouts
  • Fixed "Disable Clone Notifications" Cube setting not persisting
  • Fixed edit/remove card only searching the filtered list — name lookup now searches the full unfiltered list
  • Fixed card edits inflating +/- counts — edited cards now show as a separate count with a wrench icon (e.g. "+5, -3, 🔧2") in the pending panel and committed changelogs
  • Fixed committing large changelogs (e.g. bulk uploads) timing out
  • Improved performance of saving large updates — card data fetched in a single batch instead of one-at-a-time
  • Fixed newly-released cards missing "Drafted With" and other cross-card data after being added
  • Fixed Top Cards deduping rows by card name — distinct cards sharing a name (e.g. Everythingamajig) appear separately, while alternate-name printings of one card (e.g. omenpath) collapse into one
  • Fixed Card Search infinite spinner on first load with no filter
  • Fixed stale "0 results" while a fetch was in flight — now shows "Searching…"
  • Fixed open dropdown nav menus going white-on-white in light mode on transparent-navbar hero pages
  • Fixed automatic deck archetype names not applied in production — cluster-center and annotation data files were missing from production deploys, so decks fell back to a blank archetype
  • Fixed draftbots making worse picks than the pick-by-pick breakdown for the same state — the live path sent raw oracle IDs while the breakdown sent normalized ones; substitution fallbacks are now skipped when the card is already known to the model, fixing stale pointers from the previous model
reddit.com
u/Dekkaru — 1 day ago

[Seattle] High-Stakes Proxy Vintage Cube –

Hey everyone,
Looking to put together a competitive 8-man cube draft group here in Seattle. The venue will be **Stoup Brewing** in capital hill.

**Example** **Buy-in:** $200 cash upon arrival, prize cards are already purchased.
**Example Prize Support:** 1st Place takes a **Gaea's Cradle** (LP). 2nd Place takes a real **Revised Dual Land** (e.g., Underground Sea/Volcanic Island depending on final pool).
**Format:** 8-player draft, competitive Swiss or single-elimination bracket (timed rounds).
I’d be the first player and am looking for **7 more** who want to play for serious stakes. I am entirely open to collaborating with the final group on adjusting the exact buy-in amount ($50-300 range) and voting on which specific Reserved List or High end cards you guys want to target for the prize pool.

**DM me if you're interested.**

reddit.com

How many extra packs dhould I have for Booster Tutor?

I recently got my hands on a booster tutor and Im very excited to add it to my cube because it's just such a fun card. The question though is, assuming I use extra cube packs, how many extra packs should I keep left over to booster tutor from? With my current set up, It works out so that I have exactly one extra pack but that doesnt seen like enough. I assume I probably need atleast three. Maybe more? I should note that the cube in question is a mono black cube, so the booster tutor is going to be incredibly powerful, but it also means that you probably wont be casting it multiple times per game. In a three round tournament, three feels like enough, but what do you think?

reddit.com
u/Porygon96 — 2 days ago
▲ 0 r/mtgcube+1 crossposts

43 creatures - Remaking Arabian Nights / Rabiah as a custom Cube — looking for wording, balance, rarity, and archetype feedback

Remaking Arabian Nights / Rabiah as a custom Cube — looking for feedback

Small disclaimer: I wrote the project and card designs myself, but English is not my first language, so I used AI to help translate and polish the text of this post. Any design mistakes, wording problems, or flavor decisions are mine.

Hi everyone.

I’m working on a custom Magic project: a modern remake / reinterpretation of Arabian Nights, with the final goal of building it as a custom Cube.

This is still early, and I’m looking for feedback on Oracle wording, power level, rarity, color pie, Cube structure, archetype clarity, and top-down flavor.

The goal is not just to update the original cards one by one, but to imagine what an Arabian Nights-inspired Rabiah Cube could look like if it were designed today: clearer archetypes, modern templating, better Limited play patterns, and more room for legendary characters, stories, relics, Djinns, Efreets, deserts, bargains, and strange top-down designs.

Since this is meant to be a Cube, I’m not trying to follow premier set structure perfectly. I still want the cards to feel clean and printable, but I’m allowing more legends, build-arounds, nostalgic designs, and weird top-down effects than a normal Standard-legal set would usually have.

For now, I started with the creatures from the original Arabian Nights. I know the full Cube will need many more cards later: removal, fixing, artifacts, enchantments, lands, Sagas, and additional “reflections” of existing Rabiah concepts.

I’m showing two rendered examples:

Aladdin
Aladdin is designed around the idea of the three wishes. His three activated abilities represent different kinds of wishes: wealth, destruction, and restoration. The restriction “Activate Aladdin’s abilities only if you control a Djinn” is meant to tie his power to the classic wish-granting Djinn fantasy rather than making him a generic value engine.

Old Man of the Sea
Old Man of the Sea is based on the episode from Sindbad’s voyages where the Old Man clings to Sindbad and forces him to carry him, until Sindbad eventually gets him drunk and escapes. Mechanically, the card tries to capture that story: he locks down another creature as long as he remains tapped, but over time he accumulates drunkenness counters until he finally untaps and releases the victim.

The rest of the creature file is below in text form so people can review it more easily.The rest of the creature file is below in text form so people can review it more easily.

Project context

In Magic lore, Rabiah is associated with many reflected / mirrored versions of itself. I want to use that as a design tool: some old cards or concepts can have “reflections” that preserve the original identity while expanding the Cube mechanically.

I also want to eventually add more characters from Rabiah-related Magic lore and Arabian Nights-inspired stories, such as Taysir and Fatima, and more Djinns, Efreets, storytellers, merchants, thieves, and legendary figures.

About Stone-Throwing Devils

I intentionally left Stone-Throwing Devils out of the active design file.

Respecting Wizards of the Coast’s decision to remove that card from the game, I don’t want to preserve or redesign it here. I kept the slot only as a historical note in my working file.

Current Cube archetypes

WU — Sagas / Storytellers
Sagas, historic cards, Storytellers, memory, protection, and stories unfolding over time.

UB — Illicit Commerce
Gold tokens, smugglers, evasive attacks, surveil, artifacts, and uneven deals.

BR — Pain
Self-damage, life payment, above-rate creatures with drawbacks, and turning pain into pressure.

RG — Ferocious
Power 4 or greater, large creatures, trample, Djinns/Efreets with chaotic drawbacks, and risky combat.

GW — Food
Food tokens, survival, caravans, desert provisions, lifegain, sacrifice-for-value, and creatures that convert Food into combat advantages.

WB — Judgment
Death, sacrifice, punishment, blocking, martyrdom, and destroying “guilty” creatures.

UR — Flying
Flying creatures, aerial pressure, Rukh tokens, Serendib creatures, tempo, and damage.

BG — Cursed Bargains
Cursed relics, artifact protection, and venom.
Venom counters are not poison counters. At the beginning of a player’s upkeep, if they have one or more venom counters, they may pay {1}. If they don’t, they lose 1 life. Then they remove a venom counter from themselves. The idea is that venom works like a temporary debt or delayed tax, not an alternate poison-win condition.

RW — Legendary Heroes
Legendary creatures, heroic attacks, relics, dramatic combat scenes, and survival moments.

GU — Tap / Untap
Activated abilities, tapping and untapping creatures, restraint, power manipulation, and slow value engines.

Some cards are marked as Structural if they support the Cube generally rather than one specific archetype.

Creature file for review

White

Abu Ja’far — {W}
Legendary Creature — Human Storyteller — 0/1
Uncommon — Archetype: WB / RW
Whenever Abu Ja’far blocks or becomes blocked by a nonartifact creature, destroy that creature at end of combat.
When Abu Ja’far dies, you gain 1 life for each historic permanent you control.

Camel — {W}
Creature — Camel — 1/1
Common — Archetype: GW
Vigilance
When Camel enters the battlefield, create a Food token.

King Suleiman — {2}{W}
Legendary Creature — Human Noble — 2/3
Rare — Archetype: RW
Other legendary creatures you control get +1/+1.
{2}{W}, {T}: Destroy target Djinn or Efreet.

Moorish Cavalry — {2}{W}
Creature — Human Knight Rider — 2/2
Uncommon — Archetype: GW / RW
Trample
Whenever Moorish Cavalry attacks, you may sacrifice a Food. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on Moorish Cavalry and create a Gold token.

Repentant Blacksmith — {1}{W}
Creature — Human Artificer — 1/2
Uncommon — Archetype: RW
Prevent all noncombat damage that would be dealt to Repentant Blacksmith.
Whenever one or more artifacts enter the battlefield under your control, you may pay {R}. If you do, Repentant Blacksmith deals 1 damage to any target. This ability triggers only once each turn.

War Elephant — {3}{W}
Creature — Elephant — 3/4
Common — Archetype: GW
Trample
When War Elephant enters the battlefield, create a Food token.
Whenever War Elephant attacks, you may sacrifice a Food. If you do, War Elephant gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

Blue

Dandân — {U}{U}
Creature — Fish Horror — 4/1
Uncommon — Archetype: GU
Dandân can’t attack unless defending player controls a tapped creature.
Whenever Dandân becomes untapped, target creature an opponent controls gets -1/-0 until end of turn.

Flying Men — {U}
Creature — Human Soldier — 1/1
Common — Archetype: UR
Flying
This creature can block only creatures with flying.

Giant Tortoise — {1}{U}
Creature — Turtle — 1/1
Common — Archetype: GU
Giant Tortoise gets +0/+3 as long as it’s untapped.
Whenever Giant Tortoise becomes tapped, target creature gets +0/+3 until end of turn.

Island Fish Jasconius — {1}{U}{U}{U}
Legendary Creature — Fish Leviathan — 10/10
Rare — Archetype: GU
Island Fish Jasconius enters tapped with four slumber counters on it.
As long as Island Fish Jasconius has a slumber counter on it, it’s an Island land. It isn’t a creature.
Whenever Island Fish Jasconius becomes untapped, remove a slumber counter from it.

Merchant Ship — {1}{U}
Artifact — Vehicle — 0/5
Uncommon — Archetype: UB / GU
Whenever Merchant Ship attacks and isn’t blocked, target opponent creates a Food token and you create a Gold token. Then surveil 1.
Crew 2

Old Man of the Sea — {1}{U}{U}
Legendary Creature — Djinn Marid Rogue — 2/3
Rare — Archetype: GU
Old Man of the Sea doesn’t untap during your untap step.
{1}, {T}: Tap target creature an opponent controls. That creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap step for as long as Old Man of the Sea remains tapped.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Old Man of the Sea is tapped, put a drunkenness counter on it. Then if it has three or more drunkenness counters on it, remove all drunkenness counters from it and untap it.

Serendib Djinn — {2}{U}{U}
Creature — Djinn — 5/6
Rare — Archetype: UR / GU
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice another nontoken permanent. If an Island was sacrificed this way, Serendib Djinn deals 2 damage to you and taps each creature without flying you control.

Serendib Efreet — {2}{U}
Creature — Efreet — 3/4
Uncommon — Archetype: UR
Flying
Serendib Efreet can block only creatures with flying.
At the beginning of your upkeep, Serendib Efreet deals 1 damage to you.

Sindbad — {1}{U}
Legendary Creature — Human Sailor Storyteller — 2/2
Rare — Archetype: WU / GU
Whenever Sindbad becomes tapped, surveil 1. Then you may reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a historic card, you may put it into your hand.

Black

Cuombajj Witches — {B}{B}
Creature — Human Witch — 1/3
Uncommon — Archetype: BR
{T}: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn. Cuombajj Witches deals 1 damage to you.

El-Hajjâj — {1}{B}{B}
Legendary Creature — Human Wizard — 1/3
Rare — Archetype: BG / WB
When El-Hajjâj enters the battlefield, you may search your hand, graveyard, and/or library for a card named City in a Bottle and put it onto the battlefield. If you search your library this way, shuffle.
Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control for the first time each turn, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

Erg Raiders — {1}{B}
Creature — Human Warrior Rider — 2/3
Common — Archetype: BR
At the beginning of your end step, if Erg Raiders didn’t attack this turn and didn’t enter the battlefield this turn, Erg Raiders deals 2 damage to you unless you pay {1}.

Guardian Beast — {3}{B}
Legendary Creature — Beast — 2/4
Rare — Archetype: BG
Noncreature artifacts you control have ward—Sacrifice a creature.
Guardian Beast gets +2/+0 for each noncreature artifact you control.

Hasran Ogress — {B}{B}
Creature — Ogre — 3/2
Common — Archetype: BR
Whenever Hasran Ogress attacks, it deals 2 damage to you unless you pay {1}.

Junún Efreet — {1}{B}{B}
Creature — Efreet — 4/3
Uncommon — Archetype: BR
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 2 life. If you don’t, sacrifice Junún Efreet.

Juzám Djinn — {2}{B}{B}
Creature — Djinn — 5/5
Mythic Rare — Archetype: BR
At the beginning of your upkeep, Juzám Djinn deals 2 damage to you and you draw a card.

Khabál Ghoul — {2}{B}
Creature — Ghoul — 1/1
Uncommon — Archetype: WB / BG
Whenever another creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Khabál Ghoul.

Nailah, Sorceress Queen — {1}{B}{B}
Legendary Creature — Human Sorcerer — 1/1
Rare — Archetype: Structural
{T}: Target creature other than Nailah has base power and toughness 0/2 until end of turn.
{4}{B}: Destroy target creature with toughness 2 or less.

Red

Aladdin — {2}{R}{R}
Legendary Creature — Human Rogue — 2/3
Mythic Rare — Archetype: RW / UB
Activate Aladdin’s abilities only if you control a Djinn.
{R}, {T}: Create a Gold token.
{3}{R}, {T}: Aladdin deals 4 damage to any target.
{5}{W}, {T}: Return target historic creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Ali Baba — {1}{R}
Legendary Creature — Human Rogue — 2/2
Mythic Rare — Archetype: RW / UB
Whenever Ali Baba attacks, create a Gold token.
{8}{R}, {T}: This ability costs {1} less to activate for each historic permanent you control. Exile the top seven cards of your library. You may play one of them without paying its mana cost. Activate only as a sorcery.

Ali from Cairo — {4}{R}{R}
Legendary Creature — Human Mystic — 0/3
Mythic Rare — Archetype: RW / BR
Flash
This spell costs {1} less to cast for each historic permanent you control.
When Ali from Cairo enters the battlefield, until end of turn, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead.

Bird Maiden — {1}{R}
Creature — Human Bird — 1/2
Common — Archetype: UR
Flying
When Bird Maiden enters the battlefield, another target creature with flying you control gets +1/+1 and gains haste until end of turn.

Desert Nomads — {1}{R}
Creature — Human Nomad — 2/2
Common — Archetype: Structural / RW
When Desert Nomads enters the battlefield, up to one target creature can’t block this turn.

Hurr Jackal — {1}{R}
Creature — Jackal — 2/1
Common — Archetype: Structural / BR
When Hurr Jackal enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature an opponent controls that was dealt damage this turn.

Kird Ape — {R}
Creature — Ape — 1/1
Uncommon — Archetype: RG
Kird Ape gets +1/+2 as long as you control a Forest.
When Kird Ape enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with power 4 or greater, add {G}.

Mijae Djinn — {2}{R}
Creature — Djinn — 5/4
Uncommon — Archetype: RG / BR
Whenever Mijae Djinn attacks, flip a coin. If you lose the flip, remove Mijae Djinn from combat, tap it, and it deals 2 damage to you.

Rukh Egg — {1}{R}
Creature — Bird Egg — 0/3
Uncommon — Archetype: UR / RW
Defender
When Rukh Egg dies, create Zahra, Mother Rukh, a legendary 4/4 red Bird creature token with flying and haste.

Ydwen Efreet — {2}{R}
Creature — Efreet — 4/4
Uncommon — Archetype: RG
Defender
{3}: Ydwen Efreet loses defender until end of turn.
Whenever Ydwen Efreet blocks, flip a coin. If you lose the flip, remove Ydwen Efreet from combat.

Green

Erhnam Djinn — {2}{G}
Creature — Djinn — 4/5
Uncommon — Archetype: RG
At the beginning of combat on each opponent’s turn, that player may have target creature they control get +2/+0 and gain trample until end of turn.

Ghazbán Ogre — {G}
Creature — Ogre — 2/2
Uncommon — Archetype: BG / GW
At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent has more life than you, you may sacrifice a Food or Gold. If you don’t, that player gains control of Ghazbán Ogre.

Ifh-Bíff Efreet — {X}{2}{G}
Creature — Efreet — 3/3
Rare — Archetype: Structural
Flying
When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals X damage to each other creature with flying.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dealt damage this way dies this turn, that creature’s controller creates a Gold token.

Nafs Asp — {G}
Creature — Snake — 1/1
Uncommon — Archetype: BG
Deathtouch
Whenever Nafs Asp deals combat damage to a player, that player gets a venom counter.

Singing Tree — {2}{G}
Legendary Creature — Plant — 0/4
Uncommon — Archetype: GU
Defender
{T}: Target creature has base power 0 until end of turn.

Wyluli Wolf — {1}{G}
Creature — Wolf — 1/2
Common — Archetype: GU / RG
{T}: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. If that creature has power 4 or greater, it gains trample until end of turn.

Colorless / Artifacts

Brass Man — {1}
Artifact Creature — Construct Soldier — 1/3
Common — Archetype: Structural / GU
This creature doesn’t untap during your untap step.
{1}: Untap this creature.
{2}, {T}: Brass Man deals 1 damage to target player or planeswalker.

Dancing Scimitar — {4}
Artifact Creature — Equipment Spirit — 1/5
Uncommon — Archetype: RW / UR
Flying
Equipped creature gets +1/+5 and has flying.
{3}: Attach Dancing Scimitar to target legendary creature you control. Activate only as a sorcery.
While attached, this isn’t a creature.

Venom counters

At the beginning of a player’s upkeep, if that player has one or more venom counters, that player may pay {1}. If they don’t, they lose 1 life. Then they remove a venom counter from themselves.

Feedback I’m looking for

I would appreciate feedback on:

  • Oracle wording / templating problems.
  • Power level and Cube balance.
  • Rarity and complexity.
  • Color pie issues.
  • Whether the archetypes are clear and draftable.
  • Whether some cards are too narrow, too parasitic, or too complex.
  • Whether the cards still feel like Arabian Nights / Rabiah.
  • What kind of noncreature support this Cube would need most urgently.

Thanks in advance. This is a rough file, and I expect many corrections. My goal is to improve the Cube iteratively, not defend every current version.

u/Advanced-Pie-145 — 2 days ago

New Cuberviews Episode! The Ball Pit with Jane

Good morning Cubers! On the newest episode of Cuberviews, I am excited to be joined by Jane to discuss all things the Ball Pit! We go over topics like the gameplay tempo considerations surrounding when to play a card as a chromatic sphere, how the multiple rule changes of the cube all blend together coherently, and more. I hope you like the episode!

https://cubecobra.com/cube/about/ballpit?view=primer

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2PWGejWb6NjcStkPAIluLz?si=f9d82954dc1f4cb4

reddit.com
u/ianbraverman — 2 days ago

Brainstorming a Tron Cube

I am still in my first year of actually playing Magic, and I have fallen head first into building cubes. While learning about the history Magic games, Tron has interested me and I want to consider what does a cube built around Tron look like.

The cube would be a spin on a desert cube. All basic lands must be drafted, but each player gets 4 copies of the Tron lands to use (I think 4 should be enough but really I would give as many as people want). I am just beginning my research into what other people have done in this space but I would love help from people who are more experienced in the hobby. Links to other Tron Cube, constructed Tron lists, card recommendations would all be welcome.

reddit.com
u/Thechaoticmagnet — 2 days ago

Is there a tool that already exists for this?

Here's my situation:

I have a lot of cards in boxes, organized by set.

I have three or four cubes I want to start building.

Some cards have been printed in multiple sets (big if true).

I want to make a list of the cards in a given cube, and all the sets that they've been printed in, to make it easier to go through old boxes. A local shop has binders organized by set as well. If I can go to, say, the UMA binder for 8 cards and not have to go to AVR, AKH, M13, M12, ZEN, AND JOU, then that would be lovely.

I COULD go to Scryfall for each and every one of these, but I didn't know if CubeCobra or someone else had this data in a database that I could pull from instead.

reddit.com
u/CanoCeano — 3 days ago
▲ 38 r/mtgcube

SOS Alchemy: Unbreakable Remnant

Hear me out. Under most circumstances, perpetual cards aren't playable in paper. However, the nature of singleton makes this much easier to track! Frankly, this might have potential even without the power boost.

u/corbiewhite — 3 days ago

Have you ever given players a starting card on the battlefield in your cube? Tell me about your unique turn 0 rules/cards.

I’m currently working on a new cube where players randomly choose a card from a pool of 8 before the draft. That card starts on the battlefield and is meant to loosely guide their draft and reward players if they build around it, but not punishing them if they ignore it.

Tell me about any turn 0 cards or rules you’ve tried in your cubes. What worked/what didn’t and any suggestions you may have.

reddit.com
u/meka_ghidorah — 3 days ago
▲ 87 r/mtgcube

Made my first Cube from my collection!

I've always wanted to make / draft a Cube and recently I've found a regular pod of players, but I'm between jobs (nice way of saying unemployed) so I don't have much money to invest, so I thought I would just try making one from my existing collection (some 11+ yrs of it), plus some bulk bin buys / booster pulls now and then.

I've now been able to do some small draft 'events' with 3 friends and it has been a blast, even though some of them are new to draft, the games were relatively even and interesting with back and forth plays. As I wasn't ordering singles I couldn't guarantee archetypes, fixing, balance, I had to design from what I had but all things considered I think it is relatively balanced / synergistic. It's been great/nostalgic to see some old or niche cards from my collection finally see play again.

It is 180 cards for 4 players but I'd like to expand it into a 240 or 360 card cube as time goes on, my collection expands and I get more playtests in! Just happy to make a start in this awesome format.

CubeCobra list here - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/e42c2d21-fa81-4552-994f-70722394344f

u/NettleSwine — 4 days ago

If [[Cauldron of Essence]] didn’t have the text “Activate only as a sorcery” would you run it in a power cube?

Curious people’s thoughts, had a long discussion with some friends about the value of [[Cauldron of Essence]]. Personally I think it would be fringe playable at best in a powered cube, but I also love green black sacrifice shenanigans so I’m highly tempted to run it. It’s such a nice signpost two color card but seems just short of the optimal power level.

Sorcery only seriously limits the power of the card, activating the ability at instant speed would kick the feet out from under most if not all removal and make the card a monster to deal with.

reddit.com
u/Aethoni_Iralis — 4 days ago

Jumpstart modern cube

I've been mulling over the idea of making a jumpstart cube that has a bunch of modern combo packages or archetypes as the packs that you would slap together to make a deck. Instead of two 20 card packs I think I would do 15 card packs and have players merge 3 packs together and cut 5 cards. If I was able to scrape together 48 themes I could accommodate 8 players drafting 6 of these packs to build from.

Part of the inspiration here has been my inability to get my modern cube to feel like constructed modern. Im currently of the opinion that it is impossible to get a draft cube to feel like a constructed format because of how difficult it is to get the necessary duplicates needed to make a deck function. Say I wanted to get a combo working with pestermite - kiki - splinter twin. That could be a pack! Im also considering having the land base be separate so there would be basic land station and a nonbasic station per player that they can build with that will have 4 copies of a bunch of modern staple land cycles. This is gonna have to be very proxy heavy but I think it could be done!

reddit.com
u/Far_Nothing9897 — 4 days ago