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WEDNESDAY night casual magic

 
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porty
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:06 am    Post subject: WEDNESDAY night casual magic Reply with quote

the casual night has been moved to wednesday starting 12/19.

my cube is looking hotter than ever and i want to show it off. everyone is welcome.

if you want to play for packs we can each buy one and throw it into the prize. or we can play for the sheer enjoyment of how awesome the cube is.
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Auron1993
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i will def be there
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full_blooded_ork
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Joined: 21 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What do you guys mean by the cube?
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porty
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

this is today's "ask wizards" question:

Q: Okay, so... Cube drafting is where you get an arbitrary number of "the best cards" in every color, including multi/artifacts. And then you make a deck, there are some question marks, and then everyone profits.

...Wait.

How the bleep does "cube drafting" work again? From the top, please.
–Stephen, Damascus, MD, USA

A: From Kelly Digges, editor of magicthegathering.com:

Our apologies, Stephen. Cube drafting has become so ubiquitous here at Wizards that when Alexis answered the question about our Cube, we made the classic mistake of the experienced and did not explain or define our starting terms.

Cube Draft (also called Box Draft) was one of this year's formats at the Magic Invitational, and since then there's been increasing interest in the format. It didn't start there, however. According to Cube connoisseur Tom LaPille, the Cube originated in Toronto, Canada many years ago and spread from there.

The Cube is, simply put, a collection of fun, powerful, exciting, and absurd Magic cards assembled for the purposes of Limited. What exactly meets these criteria is very much open to your collection and personal preference. Some people feel that resolving powerhouses such as Black Lotus, Mana Drain, and Winter Orb is a key component of the thrill and enjoyment of the Cube; others would rather not play games in which their opponent uses Upheaval, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault to end turn four with an Adarkar Valkyrie facing an empty board (Alan Comer actually did this).

In addition to power level, you'll have to make decisions regarding content. How many Constructed-level cards (say, Masticore, Umezawa's Jitte, and Garruk Wildspeaker), and how many more Limited-oriented power cards (such as Vedalken Dismisser or Oblivion Ring)? How much mana-fixing, and how many multicolored cards? How many combo cards (think High Tide or Brain Freeze) and how many straightforward ones (such as Lightning Bolt)? Will you use only cards in Vintage? Legacy? Extended? Un- cards or no? There are a lot of decisions to make—and the fun part is, you can always play with it one way for a while, then go back and change it up.

Finished Cubes can come in a wide variety of contents and sizes. Most are at least 360 cards to make sure that eight-person Booster Draft and Rotisserie Draft are practical. The one used at the Invitational was 720 cards for two simultaneous eight-person drafts. Some Cubes are even bigger; the bigger your Cube is, the more the experience will vary from draft to draft. Of course, with so many cards—and most Cubes including only one copy of any given card—the experience varies quite a bit even with a relatively small Cube.

As far as how to actually draft, the usual way is to pack the Cube cards into draft sets of 15, making some allowance for color balance (say, two cards of each color, two multicolored cards, and three artifacts / lands). However, some people vary the pack size depending on the number of players. Some like to Rotisserie Draft the Cube, while others assemble Cubes for the express purpose of Type Four. Around our office, where groups of six or eight are often difficult to come by, we have (as Alexis mentioned) increasingly turned to Winston Draft, a good format for two players or two Two-Headed Giant teams. The exact number of cards to use for this varies depending on the power level of your Cube; we've been using the usual six packs for two-player Winston but only ten (rather than twelve) for Two-Headed Giant.

Around the office, Mark Gottlieb's new rogue Cube is supposedly optimized for Winston (few combo cards, more Limited-level cards), whereas the Draft Club Cube is better for eight-person draft. Tom LaPille and Evan Erwin organized five eight-person Cube draft pods Saturday night at Worlds, and the differences between the Cubes involved greatly influenced the drafts and games that played out.

In the end, the best answer I can give you is what many before me have said: Cube Draft is, hands-down, the single most enjoyable way to play Magic. It's difficult to put a good Cube together, and I wouldn't want to do it all the time any more than I'd want to eat chocolate cake all the time. But every once in a while, it's fantastic fun to have the power and fun of Magic's past and present distilled, bottled, and delivered to my desk.

Oh, and one other piece of advice should you decide to assemble your own Cube: you're going to need a lot of matching sleeves....
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porty
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 3:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

we're starting tomorrow at 6. hope to see you all there
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full_blooded_ork
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I might stop by to watch.
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porty
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

so only dan and i showed up. i smacked him around for almost an hour before it was closing time.

NO WEDNESDAY NIGHT CUBE ON 12/26

i'll start up again on 1/3. let's get a better turnout this time.
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porty
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

happy holidays guys. we're back on.

i want to thank dan, rich, everett, and mike miranda for coming by tonight. and again for drafting awful decks for me to smash them with.
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