Great guide! First time making a cube of my own. I'm having a hard time understanding theme selection.

What do you mean when you say "20 themes, separated into 4 of each monocolor"?
Does this mean you have 20 distinctly unique themes with connections within each color? eg. White: sacrifice, artifacts, tokens, fliers. Black: Reanimate, discard, life loss, demons. etc.
Or does this mean 4 overarching themes with a half-deck representing the theme for each color with its own pizazz? eg. White: sacrifice, artifacts, tokens, fliers. Black: sacrifice, artifacts, tokens, fliers. etc.

Thanks again for the guide! It's really helping me take that first step.

Very well-written, easy to understand all the information presented here. I have a 540 tri-color cube. Would the general structure of a jumpstart cube still be there? I like the idea of having jumpstart packs for when there's not enough time to draft, and I've tried to have overlapping synergy in my cube as much as possible.

This article is FIRE! I think there is so much merit to jumpstart cube as a way of bringing magic to the people in your life who enjoy the game but aren't obsessed lol.
It has endless tinkering and brewing potential to keep you excited about. Creating these mini 'decks' is a great fun way to find archetypes and synergies in your jank boxes... I own so... many... cards... that are just a bit slow and don't have homes anywhere else, but have a cool effect and might have been fun to play anyway... in a slower time... or in limited sigh. Wait! you mean we can make our own meta? Its fun to play unbroken, fair magic sometimes... y'know.!? I'm sold.

Thanks for the helpful article! I've been formulating personal themes as well as lightly collecting retail packs since jumpstart came out last year. I have a couple questions, since you seem like you've been thinking deeply about this cube variant:

1. What has been your approach to integrating retail jumpstart themes with custom themes in your cube? Have you been freely mixing them? Refining and smoothing out retail packs to better fit your advice above? Eschewing them completely in favor of custom packs?
2. What is your process for revisiting and updating established themes? Do you consider them "closed" when they're completed? Or do you make periodic updates?
3. If you do refine retail packs what does "done" look like to you? Are you satisfied when you can hammer them into your formula above? Or do you usually burn them down and start from scratch?

Thanks!

Great work! Been building a Jumpstart cube for a while and this article was a big help! 😁👍