From my Amonkhet prerelease!! Lost the first match 1-2 because I tried going UW control, but I changed to GB -1/-1 counters and ended up winning every game afterwards and got third, the best I’ve ever done! I’ll upload the deck I used tomorrow!
Decided to start double sleeving my cube last night... Got the basic lands done (250 cards) and now starting on the rest of the cube. Still missing 25-30 cards, but it is still over 500.
In my quest to make Limited Yugioh more of a thing I am going to be showcasing my Cube next week during my stream by having 2 players do a Rochester Draft with it. Afterwards each player will compose a decklist and I will record myself dueling with these decklists. If wished the players may also duel each other with these decklists online with a program of their choice.
So I need 3 volunteers! I need 2 Duelists who have a fair amount of knowledge about a wide variety of cards. Being skilled is not a requirement but knowing about a lot of different cards help. I will also need one person to be a recorder who can type fast. I could probably do that job myself but I will busy coordinating other stuff so I need someone who can check our work and type up a list of what each player has chosen.
You will need to have Skype to participate. Don’t worry I am new to Skype too and my name is “facebook:voicesofchaos”. If interested please send me a message on Tumblr or email me at [email protected]
I really look forward to the spectacle of drafting a Yugioh Cube in front of an audience. It will be fun!
With there no longer being a modern pro tour there is nothing for me to aspire to in a competitive sense. I think I'm going to liquidate most of what I own, and start building block cubes starting with the 4 Lorwyn and Shadowmoor blocks, not only is the flavor and art great a lot of the Commons and uncommons are very affordable, even playsets are not bad sprinkle in that I only need 1 or 2 of each rare and it becomes very realistic to build 4 cubes very quickly to use over and over again.
A long while ago I wrote this article for a site and it was well-liked quite a bit over time the website decided to take down all of their articles. So I am reposting it here. Please feel free send me any questions, comments, or feedbacks on Cubes and other forms of Limited formats.
If you ask just about any player “What is the worst part about Yugioh?” it is very likely the reply will be something along the lines of 'the meta-game' or 'the Forbidden List'. For as wonderful as our game is, we all know it is far from perfect. It has built-in flaws that we have developed a love-hate relationship with. Those that can't develop that relationship and cannot look past the game's flaws to see it beauty usually quit, often moving on to a different game. Obviously this is not healthy for a game but those of us still around grin and bear it. I am sure we have all had that friend who quit the game that we tried to pull back in so we can have another person to play with but one little thing or another just ruined it for that friend. I am here this week to tell you that you, yes you, can change that and fix the problem.
Now you may be thinking I mean something like winning a high-level tournament with a rogue deck that nobody saw coming therefor crushing everyone's expectations and grasp on reality. Fear not for my solution is nowhere near that complicated or even requires earth-shattering actions. Instead of trying to change 'the meta-game' on a grand national scale, I mean the exact opposite. Create your own meta-game within your community. The rules of Yugioh are universal. There are thousands and thousands of cards. Yet everyone just seems to accept that the only way to use these rules and thousands of cards are in Advance Format tournaments. Even when you just want to a make a fun deck to try a combo out you need to label it as a 'casual deck' so that it is clear you know it could never win against an Advance Format tournament-winning deck as if that fact some how diminishes all the hard work and soul you put into your deck. None of that needs to be true as there are other formats of Yugioh.
Today in particular we are looking at how to create a Cube. A Cube is a pile of cards meant to be drafted by players and used to make a Limited deck. Then each player in the Cube plays each other in your typical tournament fashion. But that is about the only thing typical about it. Being a Limited Format means all the meta-rules are out the window and completely re-written fresh. The maker of the Cube can craft exactly what environment they want to play with. If you ever wanted to play a deck with all the most powerful cards like Raigeki and Change Of Heart without playing in a Traditional Format tournament (do those even exist?) you can! If you want to play in a more nostalgic era when La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp and 7 Colored Fish were the most powerful monsters in the game since they had 1800 ATK, no tribute, and no drawback you can re-live that time! The variety of environments a Cube maker can craft are truly endless.
A Yugioh Cube made several years ago would face many struggles in order to make it fun and exciting. But I believe with the cards we have today that it is really time for Cubes and Limited Formats to really take off in Yugioh. I am not saying that Constructed formats are bad. The Advance Format will always be around and announcements of new Forbidden Lists will always bring a mix of joy and sorrow. I am just saying that there is more then one way to play Yugioh and it is about time we start mixing it up and exploring new ways to play from time to time.
In this article I will explain what I believe the best way to construct your own Cube. Afterward you can get some friends together, draft the cube, build decks, play games, and then at the end everybody returns the cards to the Cube for next time, a next time that is sure to be a very different experience every time.
It is important to note that while I have done much research, making, testing, and playing of Yugioh Cubes I am by no means an expert. I don't think anyone is right now as it is such a limitless beast. So if you disagree with anything in this article please I encourage you go ahead and try something different. That is the beauty of Cubes that it is your baby to make so go wild and try some different ideas. Please tell me what worked out, what didn't, and just what was completely unexpected.
Deck Size
One of the first questions you will probably ask your self is “How many cards do I need to make a Cube” but really to answer that question we need to think smaller and answer some other questions first. The first really important decision to figure out is what is the minimum about of cards in each player's Main Deck. We know in normal Yugioh it is forty cards. But at Sneak Peaks, another Limited Format, it is twenty cards. Konami has stated that for the Battle Packs you should play with forty card decks because Yugioh was designed to be played with forty card decks. This statement really rung true for me. I have found that twenty card decks are too consistent which can be boring. On the other hand forty card decks made completely of cards you drafted can have its own problems of being too sporadic, especially if every card is different. I normally go for forty card draft decks but I can see a good case being made for twenty card draft decks. I have never tried thirty card draft decks but I think it may actually be a nice medium between the two for a Limited environment. You can pick whatever number best suits the needs of your Cube but be sure to commit to that number and let all the players know what the number is.
Pack Size
Lets assume you decide the minimum deck size is forty and there will be no Extra Deck (see below) cards. You also decide that you want each player to have sixty cards total in their pool to allow for a twenty card Side Deck. If you hand sixty cards to each player, expect them to keep one, pass the rest, and repeat then expect a disaster! People can only process so much information at one time. How you break the amount of information they receive at once is very crucial. If you have each player draft a pack of twelve cards five times it will feel different then if each player drafts a pack of ten cards six times. It definitely takes some practice to kind of feel out the right number. Also if you do have Extra Deck monsters then you will want a larger total number overall. Before my Cube drafted six packs of ten cards but I found I wanted players to have a slightly larger final card pool so they had a few more options and felt less forced into a corner with what to play. So I increased the total number of cards in my cube and made players draft six packs of twelve cards. But I realized by the sixth pack so players felt their choices were a bit tedious with so much already picked they were locked into certain angles that made the last pack more frustrating then helpful. So next time I will probably have them draft five packs of fifteen cards so they have a few more choices upfront. As you can see the precise interval of how many cards you draft at once is much more important then some random number so experiment and find out what works best for your Cube.
Cube Size
So once you have the minimum deck size and the pack size then figuring out the total number of cards in your cube is easy. Just multiply the total number of cards in each player's card pool by how many players you want to draft with. Traditionally, Cubes typically seem to be drafted with eight players but given some of the intricacies of Yugioh and just the often painful fact that it is hard to get eight friends together all at once to play sometimes this number could be too high. I made my Cube to be drafted by four players which makes it a pretty comfortable amount of cards too but if you are real ambitious and have the resources then you are certainly free to try a Cube made for sixteen people! I would be curious to see the results.
Extra Deck or Not
So as mentioned above, whether or not you choose to include Extra Deck cards in your Cube is very important to the dynamic of how it works. Years ago making a Yugioh Cube would have been very hard since so many cards rely on other specific cards to work. Fusion monsters are still pretty out of the question. It may seem like a Cube with Elemental HERO fusions would be possible but it would need to be very focused around that and that would still be pretty forced.
But now a days we have Synchros and Xyz monsters! In both cases they won't fair too well if they are too specific in what they need like only DARK monsters (or a certain Tuner) but the generic requirement ones can certainly work. Xyz monsters with ranks equal to the most common level in the Cube are pretty simple to slot in. Synchro monsters require more work as you need to have a balanced number of Tuners spread throughout a couple of different levels but it is definitely possible.
An important thing to remember is that you need more cards overall if you are including Extra Deck cards. Imagine if every players except one passes on every Extra Deck monster they are passed and that one player picks every single one in the Cube. Will that player have enough main deck cards to make a deck of the minimum deck requirement?
Having Extra Deck monsters in your Cube makes the building process more complicated but it can lead to some fun pay-off. So think careful about if you want none, just Xyz, just Synchros, or both.
Singleton (One of a Kind)
For whatever reason by default Cube is thought of to be a Singleton Format which means there is only one copy of each card available to play with. This goes against a lot of how Yugioh is played. Such cards like Hyena and Assault Dog lose all value. Despite being the default, this rule is completely optional.
There is upside to using this rule. When someone sees a card they want in a pack they know that is the only one on the whole Cube that another will not come along so they must pick it now or chance somebody else getting it. It does add excitement and allows for a wider range of cards overall to be played.
On the flip side, some cards only work well in copies or you just might want more of a certain card to show up. Or perhaps similar effects are not good enough substitute. Maybe you want several Mystical Space Typhoon cards in the Cube and Dust Tornado is just not a good enough second Mystical Space Typhoon. Keep in mind that if you do ignore Singleton you neither need to adhere to the three copy limit ether. You could put six Nimble Momonga cards in your Cube just to see what happens if somebody can collect them all and run all six in one deck!
Changeling Rule
In the past I would have ignored all cards that benefit a single Monster Type unless the entire Cube was set-up to be focused on it. The Battle Pack 3: Monster League came up with a very interesting solution to this problem though. I call it the “Changeling Rule” although I don't know if that name will become common-usage or not. It says “All monsters are treated as all Types.” This allows Type-specific support cards to affect all of your monsters. It is a very interesting way to sneak those cards into a Limited Environment easily. Think clearly about whether or not you want to use this rule in your Cube and how it will affect your Cube.
Power Level
This is probably the most varied and controversial topic when talking about a Cube. Let's first say that power level is not a simple linear graph, it is often more complex and has more dimensions then just that. Many players do indeed want to play Cube just to play with broken cards like Raigeki, Pot of Greed, Harpie's Feather Duster, Change of Heart, etc. Others want to play their useless cards like Twister or Final Flame. It is important to remember that power level is very relative to the environment. If every single Limited and Semi-Limited card along with several staple cards all became Forbidden on the next Forbidden list then what you would consider a 'good' card would drastically change.
How good do you want level 4 monsters to be? How good do you want monster destruction to be? How good do you want spell/trap destruction to be? How good do you want draw power to be? How good do you want search power to be? How good do you want ATK boosts to be?
You get the picture how each can have wildly different answers. You might feel Dark Hole is too powerful for your Cube but you are just fine including Harpier's Feather Duster. For my personal Cube I have monster destruction weaken but have draw power and search power stronger such as by not having Mirror Force but having Pot of Avarice and Witch of the Black Forest. Play many games and note how the experience of playing feels. It will probably take several tries with many little adjustments to get the perfect visceral play style you are aiming for.
Theme
If you want to make a really different play experience you can really emphasis on certain cards. Perhaps your Cube has no LIGHT or DARK attribute monsters with just EARTH, FIRE, WATER, and WIND attribute monsters making Frost and Flame Dragon and Desert Twister very sought after cards. Instead of the Changeling rule your Cube only has monsters of about five different Types (lets say Dragon, Warrior, Fiend, Spellcaster, and Machine) along with several support cards for each Type.
You don't need to be so extreme and make your entire Cube dedicated to one theme. Perhaps only ten percent of the cards follow a sub-theme. My personal Cube has some powerful Normal monsters and Gemini monsters along with Swing of Memories to make an interesting niche to work with.
It is perfectly fine to have no clear theme to a Cube other than “fun cards I want to play with” but don't be afraid ether to use a theme to add extra spice to your Cube.
Narrow VS Wide
If you look-up any articles about how to make a Cube in Magic the Gathering then most of what it says will probably translate to making a Yugioh Cube. There is one topic though where I do feel Yugioh and MTG differ greatly. I have already touched upon it when talking about Extra Deck monsters and Type-specific support but it basically comes down to Yugioh cards are a lot more narrow then MTG cards.
To clarify let's look at a very wide card, Cyber Dragon. This card under a very general condition can special summon itself in ether position. It can also be tribute summoned or set like normal. Plus it has good stats and lots of support both for its attribute and type. Now let's look at a very narrow card, Cyber Repair Plant. This card only works at all if you have a very specific card in your graveyard (or any of the cards that treat themselves as that name in the graveyard) and only gets better if you have a lot of them in your graveyard already. If you do not have Cyber Dragon in your deck then there is no way you would ever want Cyber Repair Plant in your deck which therefor makes it terrible for Cube!
So of course you want a lot of very wide cards in your Cube. Cards that when people see them they say “I must have this card!” I am here to tell you though that while most of your Cube should be wide cards that does get boring. Don't be afraid to include just a few slightly narrow cards that makes players tilt their head and ask themselves “What is the best way I can use this?” It won't be the first card they pick in a pack but as their choices dwindle down it leads them in very interesting deck drafting directions. Leave yourself a little room to experiment.
I have a 240-card Yugioh Cube made to be pack drafted between 4 people across 4 15-card packs. Includes 20 Extra Deck cards. I was thinking though about trying it with 2 people. Probably switch to Rochester and seed the 20 extra deck cards in among 6 20-card packs. Anyone think this is a good idea? Does anybody have any idea what I am talking about? Do any other Yugioh players evwn play draft?
I drafted R/U last night with nice things like Stormchaser Chimera, Spellheart Chimera, x2 Triton Shorestalker, spawn of thraxes, a bunch of control and some other big creatures but what I didn't do is splash green for the Prophet of Kruphix I opened in my last pack, and the Prophet that was passed to me on the first pass, and for the flying cockatrice that I also had. Learn from your wounds, kids, because I probably would have done much better with them in there. I also had a Springleaf Drum for the mana wtf is wrong with me.
