My fiancee got into magic via cube, and we've always cubed a lot together. Recently, though, with cube becoming a much more popular format, many of my other magic playing friends have started playing with us, and the cube has expanded to 450 and become optimized for 10 player drafting. This means that when we sit down and do a Winston draft with a section of the cube, the decks simply don't seem as good, and we don't have nearly as much fun as we used to.
I'm considering building a cube designed for two players. I don't know exactly what that would mean, how big it would be, and what it would include, so I'm soliciting ideas. Would you build on a theme? (Artifacts, Combo, Tribal), or would you just try to build a 120-180 card "goodstuff" cube? Would you include all the colors and fixing, or would you limit it somehow?
One of the big problems we've run into is that when you play with a small percentage of the cube (we usually draft around 120 of the 450), the fixing is super random. Sometimes you'll end up with one player who has 3 or 4 good color fixers, and the other player has nothing, and not through any fault of their own. How would you build a cube such that these kind of issues go away, other than just building a super small one and drafting the whole thing? I'm loosely considering what it would mean if the cube had no fixing lands in it, and you simply had access to 1 of each dual or fetch in your colors when it comes time for deckbuilding, or something like that. Then you'd have good mana in your decks and the draft would be more about finding the right cards.
Since I'm not getting rid of my existing cube, I don't need to get the full cube experience here, I just want to have something fun to draft while we're watching baseball, y'know?
I feel like Winston drafting with my regular cube has taught me some things about the design, and helped to improve the cube as a whole even for more players.
Maybe a good way to do it would be to set aside some mana fixing and then add it to the stack/packs before drafting, or even have fixed quantities of each color, mana fixing, etc.
Another idea we've toyed around with is drafting more cards with 2 people, instead of 90 per person, do like 110 or something.
Both ideas could work together too. Basically, I like using a semi-random selection from the larger cube because it would help prevent a smaller cube from getting stale. Plus, I think building a 120-180 card cube would be agonizing because of all the hard cuts. If I were to do it, I would probably do it with some restrictions or a theme just to make it easier and make it a unique experience.
@Trunkers: That's actually how my cube used to be built. It was great for drafting with 2 players because it was set up with so much versatility and fixing, but we lost out on a bunch of awesome things like Necropotence, and narrow strategies like Tinker, because the cards were so bad in 2 player. By optimizing the cube for 10 people, I get to include those kind of things, but it's much less good for 2 players. Instead of going back to that and having the same problems at 10 that I used to, I'd prefer to just build a cube designed for us.
I'm really intrigued by your 2 player drafting method though. That seems like something we'll definitely try. I like that it leaves cards that go undrafted, so you see a lot more cards even though everything doesn't end up in somebody's pool. When the first player drafts a row or column, you're left with a 3x2 grid. Does the other player have to take a set of 3, or if they want can they take a row of 2 instead?
@Big Jim: We've definitely tried the "adding more cards" method. We've been going with 120 lately, and it still doesn't fix the problems we're running into. The fixing is still super random. Last time we drafted I had a U/B/w control deck with Tundra, Underground Sea, Flooded Strand, Creeping Tar Pit, and Hallowed Fountain, and she had a R/G aggro deck with all basics. I didnt' have any fixing that would've helped her, it just wasn't in the pool. I got lucky and she didn't. That's not fun.
Doing a semi-random section from the larger cube might work, but we're really looking for something quick for while we're watching TV or something on a random night, and I don't know that I'm going to sort out all the fixing from my 450, then create a semi-random section to draft from each time we want to play. I'm kinda hoping to come up with something that's more plug-and-play. I agree with you that the cuts for a 120-180 card cube would be agonizing though, which is why I'm soliciting ideas and trying to figure out some good way of doing it.
I ran into this problem recently and decided that Myr Servitor cube was the way to go for 2 player draft.
You can find lists online. I made mine at 180 cards, which might sound small but remember that 6-12 cards per deck will be servitors.
The benefits of this cube for 2 players, and the reasons I chose it with head to head drafting in mind, are: there are a ton of archetypes with the cube, the cube supports aggro, combo, and control well, and it plays a lot of cards that don't appear in other formats.
i regularly winston my 360 cube (it's our primary method for drafting) and i'm quite satisfied with its current iteration. we draft 105 cards with two people. i agree with you about the fixing being somewhat random, but i guess it just doesn't bother me much. you can run more fixing (painlands, scarslands, and/or m10/innistrad lands are all good options), and you can run fewer cards with restrictive costs. you could also draft fixing lands separately (maybe rotisserie draft them).
my advice is to just adjust to the format. i pick fixing very highly, i don't maindeck colorless lands if my mana base can't handle it, and i draft and build accordingly if i'm not seeing a lot of nonbasics. fixing can also put me in a color combination faster than it would in a regular draft. i think it's the best two player option, but winston is a format that has crucial differences from regular drafting. so i just try and approach it from a winston-specific perspective.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
@qq: "Adjust to the format and pick fixing highly" doesn't really solve the problem. If you get a first pick Jace the Mind Sculptor, and a 2nd pick Day of Judgment, you're probably going to try and go U/W control. And when the cards for that deck keep showing up, you're going to play it. After that point you can take every single fixing card you see, and still get 0 if they aren't there.
I do first pick lands if I can, but when you're only seeing a very few cards each time, sometimes its 10 cards into the draft before you see a land.
I also have 0 interest in running fewer cards with restrictive costs. The whole point of this thread is that I don't want to change my cube to optimize it for 2 player, because it's optimized for 10 player, and we do that more often.
We've done Trunker's 3x3 grid draft 3 times so far, and it's proven to be really cool. You defninitely see more cards and have more control over what's going on, which is really cool. We've both managed to draft some truly interesting decks with it.
I'll have to see what she thinks about the Servitor cube.
Do team Rochester where you each draft 3 or 4 decks (or 2 if it takes to much time). This way the quality of the decks and the drafting goes up, while you still can play with two without changing any rules.
So the general consensus when it comes to two player cubes is it's more about the way you draft it rather than the way you build it?
For sure. You can make a difference by excluding narrow cards or playing around with how many fixers you include, but the biggest difference will be the way you draft.
For example, we in our group play mostly Rochester. We have noticed that their is a definitive difference between how cube plays out in Booster or Rochester draft. This means that sometimes advice or opinions here on the forum are not 100% correct for our environment.
I have some sweet 2-player variants in my thread (link in signature).
When my Cube was designed solely for 2-player drafts I cut down on heavy color commitment cards (likeKargan Dragonlord) as well as the number of multicolor cards (I only had three spells per guild in 500 cards) and I also increased the number of lands. I even decreased the size of my Cube to 475 for a short time to help aggro & mana-fixing. Now that we do more 4-8 player drafts I went back to 500.
I didn't support reanimator with my 2-player Cube. Now I heavily support it with my Cube. Even when we do Winston drafts with my updated Cube it can still come together from time to time. This has led me to change my philosophy on supporting it if I ever went back to a 2-player Cube.
Remember that the more cards you see, the better your deck is. It seems obvious but I would always limit the number of cards we ended up with when we drafted 2-player & now I err on the high side (100 cards in a Winston draft, for example). I prefer styles of draft where many of the cards are face-up. The deck quality greatly increases even if it removes some of the mystery.
Related to cube with small numbers, I really don't like Winston or Winchester drafting, because you start with a pile of say 90 cards, and all those cards get divided between two players somehow. The result is that is produces really loose and unfocussed 3 color decks for each player that really just feel like a pile of cards.
For two players, I have been playing a draft format I made up:
Start with 18 packs of 9 cards.
For each pack, lay it out in a 3x3 grid face up (just lay them out in order, don't look at the cards and decide where each one should go).
The first player takes a row or column.
The second player takes a remaining row or column. Discard the undrafted cards (which will be 3 or 4 cards per pack).
Alternate who goes first each pack.
We've been doing this for a few weeks now. I've gotta be honest with you, it's easily the best 2 player draft format I've ever played. When we added more cards to winston draft so we'd see more cards total, we were still only drafting around 110 at the most. Now we're drafting with 162.
We've had multiple drafts where we both ended up sharing a color and it didn't negatively impact our decks. I cannot speak highly enough of this draft format, it really does make things a lot more fun than winston or winchester.
To address the initial question: a dutch footballer once said "every disadvantage has an advantage" and in german, there are the phrases "turning a need into a virtue" and "connecting the necessary with the useful" and that's precisely what I suggest here. You are thinking of making an ultra small list, and themes requie small lists to work, so you can now try to incorporate all the themes that don't quite work out in the big list here. Rebels in white, slivers, elves if you want to go tribal, storm and prison which both rely on rituals, or the fattiecheating that's been going in larger cubes as well recently, Natural Order, Channel, Show and Tell, and such. Or madness and graveyard things? Try it out!
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
wow, great question as I have been building 2-player winston for a few months now.
I settled on set constructed set cubes. (tweak however you like)
rules:
1) 100 cards.
2) all cards must come from the same set
3)all rares and uncommons must be singleton
4)commons may be duplicates (no more than 2)
5)the number of each colors and artifacts and lands are distributed analogous to the colors and artifacts of the real set.
6) no more than 6 rare or uncommons for each color
7) no more than 1 rare for each color/artifact
why these rules
a)100 is a great round number that fits in an EDH box.
B)If you do set constructed, the mechanics and story line fit together. You also get to relive and capture the spirit of the set, the way wizards intended.
C) rares and uncommons are singleton and kept to 6 or fewer for each color to control the power level of the cube. you want it to be fun and interactive right.
D) duplicates might raise an eye, but some cards work as duplicates. if you eliminate them, some cards become useless. But most of all you need duplicates, since removal is at a premium. That is, wizards prints many removal spells at the common level. To balance the cube you will need multiple removal spells. Also, some sets were meant to be played with a stand alone set. For example, worldwake was meant to be played with Zendikar. Thus, in small sets where the card pool is limited, you must have duplicates to balance out the cube.
E) A typical cube will have 18 of each color (4-5 uncommon and 1 rare with the rest being common). The last 11 cards are artifact/land.
creating a 2 player cube that has duplicates is an option, but regardless I think its a mistake to go below 180 or even a bit higher say 270. I'm really not sure how you can build a smaller cube for 2 player drafting that maintains the same variance on play styles as your 10 player cube.
However, maybe that is for the best. there are a couple of things you could try including drafting fixers seperately. AKA, separate the lands from your 450 cube and draft them after you draft your winston decks. That both increases the number of real cards and helps greatly with being able to cast those cards.
I'm considering building a cube designed for two players. I don't know exactly what that would mean, how big it would be, and what it would include, so I'm soliciting ideas. Would you build on a theme? (Artifacts, Combo, Tribal), or would you just try to build a 120-180 card "goodstuff" cube? Would you include all the colors and fixing, or would you limit it somehow?
One of the big problems we've run into is that when you play with a small percentage of the cube (we usually draft around 120 of the 450), the fixing is super random. Sometimes you'll end up with one player who has 3 or 4 good color fixers, and the other player has nothing, and not through any fault of their own. How would you build a cube such that these kind of issues go away, other than just building a super small one and drafting the whole thing? I'm loosely considering what it would mean if the cube had no fixing lands in it, and you simply had access to 1 of each dual or fetch in your colors when it comes time for deckbuilding, or something like that. Then you'd have good mana in your decks and the draft would be more about finding the right cards.
Since I'm not getting rid of my existing cube, I don't need to get the full cube experience here, I just want to have something fun to draft while we're watching baseball, y'know?
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
Maybe a good way to do it would be to set aside some mana fixing and then add it to the stack/packs before drafting, or even have fixed quantities of each color, mana fixing, etc.
Another idea we've toyed around with is drafting more cards with 2 people, instead of 90 per person, do like 110 or something.
Both ideas could work together too. Basically, I like using a semi-random selection from the larger cube because it would help prevent a smaller cube from getting stale. Plus, I think building a 120-180 card cube would be agonizing because of all the hard cuts. If I were to do it, I would probably do it with some restrictions or a theme just to make it easier and make it a unique experience.
I'm really intrigued by your 2 player drafting method though. That seems like something we'll definitely try. I like that it leaves cards that go undrafted, so you see a lot more cards even though everything doesn't end up in somebody's pool. When the first player drafts a row or column, you're left with a 3x2 grid. Does the other player have to take a set of 3, or if they want can they take a row of 2 instead?
@Big Jim: We've definitely tried the "adding more cards" method. We've been going with 120 lately, and it still doesn't fix the problems we're running into. The fixing is still super random. Last time we drafted I had a U/B/w control deck with Tundra, Underground Sea, Flooded Strand, Creeping Tar Pit, and Hallowed Fountain, and she had a R/G aggro deck with all basics. I didnt' have any fixing that would've helped her, it just wasn't in the pool. I got lucky and she didn't. That's not fun.
Doing a semi-random section from the larger cube might work, but we're really looking for something quick for while we're watching TV or something on a random night, and I don't know that I'm going to sort out all the fixing from my 450, then create a semi-random section to draft from each time we want to play. I'm kinda hoping to come up with something that's more plug-and-play. I agree with you that the cuts for a 120-180 card cube would be agonizing though, which is why I'm soliciting ideas and trying to figure out some good way of doing it.
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
You can find lists online. I made mine at 180 cards, which might sound small but remember that 6-12 cards per deck will be servitors.
The benefits of this cube for 2 players, and the reasons I chose it with head to head drafting in mind, are: there are a ton of archetypes with the cube, the cube supports aggro, combo, and control well, and it plays a lot of cards that don't appear in other formats.
my advice is to just adjust to the format. i pick fixing very highly, i don't maindeck colorless lands if my mana base can't handle it, and i draft and build accordingly if i'm not seeing a lot of nonbasics. fixing can also put me in a color combination faster than it would in a regular draft. i think it's the best two player option, but winston is a format that has crucial differences from regular drafting. so i just try and approach it from a winston-specific perspective.
I do first pick lands if I can, but when you're only seeing a very few cards each time, sometimes its 10 cards into the draft before you see a land.
I also have 0 interest in running fewer cards with restrictive costs. The whole point of this thread is that I don't want to change my cube to optimize it for 2 player, because it's optimized for 10 player, and we do that more often.
We've done Trunker's 3x3 grid draft 3 times so far, and it's proven to be really cool. You defninitely see more cards and have more control over what's going on, which is really cool. We've both managed to draft some truly interesting decks with it.
I'll have to see what she thinks about the Servitor cube.
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
For sure. You can make a difference by excluding narrow cards or playing around with how many fixers you include, but the biggest difference will be the way you draft.
For example, we in our group play mostly Rochester. We have noticed that their is a definitive difference between how cube plays out in Booster or Rochester draft. This means that sometimes advice or opinions here on the forum are not 100% correct for our environment.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
When my Cube was designed solely for 2-player drafts I cut down on heavy color commitment cards (likeKargan Dragonlord) as well as the number of multicolor cards (I only had three spells per guild in 500 cards) and I also increased the number of lands. I even decreased the size of my Cube to 475 for a short time to help aggro & mana-fixing. Now that we do more 4-8 player drafts I went back to 500.
I didn't support reanimator with my 2-player Cube. Now I heavily support it with my Cube. Even when we do Winston drafts with my updated Cube it can still come together from time to time. This has led me to change my philosophy on supporting it if I ever went back to a 2-player Cube.
Remember that the more cards you see, the better your deck is. It seems obvious but I would always limit the number of cards we ended up with when we drafted 2-player & now I err on the high side (100 cards in a Winston draft, for example). I prefer styles of draft where many of the cards are face-up. The deck quality greatly increases even if it removes some of the mystery.
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
We've been doing this for a few weeks now. I've gotta be honest with you, it's easily the best 2 player draft format I've ever played. When we added more cards to winston draft so we'd see more cards total, we were still only drafting around 110 at the most. Now we're drafting with 162.
We've had multiple drafts where we both ended up sharing a color and it didn't negatively impact our decks. I cannot speak highly enough of this draft format, it really does make things a lot more fun than winston or winchester.
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
To address the initial question: a dutch footballer once said "every disadvantage has an advantage" and in german, there are the phrases "turning a need into a virtue" and "connecting the necessary with the useful" and that's precisely what I suggest here. You are thinking of making an ultra small list, and themes requie small lists to work, so you can now try to incorporate all the themes that don't quite work out in the big list here. Rebels in white, slivers, elves if you want to go tribal, storm and prison which both rely on rituals, or the fattiecheating that's been going in larger cubes as well recently, Natural Order, Channel, Show and Tell, and such. Or madness and graveyard things? Try it out!
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I settled on set constructed set cubes. (tweak however you like)
rules:
1) 100 cards.
2) all cards must come from the same set
3)all rares and uncommons must be singleton
4)commons may be duplicates (no more than 2)
5)the number of each colors and artifacts and lands are distributed analogous to the colors and artifacts of the real set.
6) no more than 6 rare or uncommons for each color
7) no more than 1 rare for each color/artifact
why these rules
a)100 is a great round number that fits in an EDH box.
B)If you do set constructed, the mechanics and story line fit together. You also get to relive and capture the spirit of the set, the way wizards intended.
C) rares and uncommons are singleton and kept to 6 or fewer for each color to control the power level of the cube. you want it to be fun and interactive right.
D) duplicates might raise an eye, but some cards work as duplicates. if you eliminate them, some cards become useless. But most of all you need duplicates, since removal is at a premium. That is, wizards prints many removal spells at the common level. To balance the cube you will need multiple removal spells. Also, some sets were meant to be played with a stand alone set. For example, worldwake was meant to be played with Zendikar. Thus, in small sets where the card pool is limited, you must have duplicates to balance out the cube.
E) A typical cube will have 18 of each color (4-5 uncommon and 1 rare with the rest being common). The last 11 cards are artifact/land.
Hope that helps.
DW
However, maybe that is for the best. there are a couple of things you could try including drafting fixers seperately. AKA, separate the lands from your 450 cube and draft them after you draft your winston decks. That both increases the number of real cards and helps greatly with being able to cast those cards.
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