Since this is an Innistrad Limited cube, my goal is for the shuffling method to produce balanced packs that recreate what you would open in an actual Innistrad booster.

This Cube follows a 5+37/3/1/0.5 distribution, which totals up to 848 cards. See the blog post about the Golden Ratio for an in depth discussion about how this ratio was created. The advantage of this ratio is that we can make exactly 60 booster packs with every card in the Cube (minus 8 leftover mythics). This is enough for two pods of 8 and one half pod of 4.

Each pack contains 9 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare/mythic, and 1 double faced card of any rarity, for a total of 14 cards. Original Innistrad packs also included two more cards, but since those were basic lands and marketing/token/checklist cards, they're unnecessary for a Cube.

My personal preference is to shuffle and create all the packs ahead of time, which is why we don't need a player count. Packs are just pulled as required for drafts, and once all of the packs have been used, everything is shuffled up and prepackaged again. Creating the packs can be done in an evening, and if you're drafting with three other friends, this Cube will let you have five drafts before needing to create packs again. Even more time can be saved if you ask your friends to sort cards by color and rarity at the end of the night. Though it sounds like a lot of work, the reality is that everyone only needs to sort 42 cards plus lands, which takes just a couple of minutes.

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Making Packs:

My process is an adaptation of the method described by Metamind on mtgsalvation.com (reproduced at the end of this post), which creates well shuffled and pretty color balanced booster packs. I adjusted it to suit my own tastes, the goals of my Cube, and to properly account for rarities and dual faced cards.

The Preshuffle:

• Take all the uncommons, shuffle them together, and put them into a pile. Set that pile aside for now.

• Take all the rares, shuffle them together, and put them into a pile. Set that pile aside for now.

• Take all the non-dual faced mythics and shuffle them together. Randomly choose seven, and shuffle those into the rares pile. Take the unused mythics (there should be eight) and put them back into your Cube storage solution; they won't be used this time.

• Take all the dual faced cards, shuffle them together, and put them into a pile. Set that pile aside for now.

The Shuffle:

1. Sort the commons by making a pile for each color and artifacts (6 piles total). I put the multicolored cards and land cards in with the artifacts.

2. Take a pile of commons, thoroughly shuffle it and then calculate the number of cards to add to each booster. This is done by taking the number of cards in that common pile and dividing by the number of booster packs (in our case, 60), then rounding down. Add that many cards face down to 60 separate piles that represent the individual booster packs. Take the remaining cards of the common pile (if any) and put them into a "leftovers" pile. All other common leftovers will be added to this pile. If the number of cards to add was rounded down to zero, put the whole stack into the leftovers pile.

3. Repeat Step 2 for each common pile, then take the leftovers pile, shuffle it, and put one card face down on each booster pack pile (looping back to the starting pile when you get to the end) until the leftovers pile runs out. Each booster pack pile should now have 9 cards in it.

4. Choose a booster pack pile of 9, shuffle and randomly put one card into a new leftovers pile. Repeat for each booster pack pile, then shuffle the leftovers pile and put one card onto each booster pack pile. Each booster pack pile should once again have 9 cards in it.

5. Take the shuffled uncommon pile and put one card face down on each booster pile until the uncommon pile runs out. Each booster pack should now have 12 cards.

6. Take the shuffled rare pile and put one card face down on each booster pack pile.

7. Take the shuffled double faced card pile and put one card face down on each booster pack pile. If you are using checklist cards, then check each double-faced card as you put it on the pile and add its corresponding checklist card.

8. You now have 60 well shuffled and color-balanced Innistrad booster packs. Store them in the solution of your choice (I double-sleeved my Cube so I use Burger Tokens 22S PerfectFit deckboxes), and pull out packs as necessary for your drafts. Enjoy!

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Metamind's Method (Reply #14):

1. Calculate the maximum number of boosters needed. It usually is the maximum number of players*3. A shortcut can be made, making only the number of boosters necessary, but making the maximum number of boosters makes the shuffle better and eases it.

2. Take number of cards you have in each color, divide it by the number of boosters and round it down. In my cube it's 96 cards, for 283 boosters, which is exactly 2. For most of us this number is going to be between 1 to 2. Also, for most of us the number of cards in each color is equal. If it isn't, then calculate again for each color.

3. Put that many cards from each color in a face-down pile. Those piles will be your boosters. All the remaining cards will be added to those piles.

4. If you have any leftovers, put them aside in one face-down stack called the leftovers stack.

Do stages 2-4 for each color, artifacts and lands. If some sections are rounded down to zero, put all the cards in that section in the leftovers stack.

1. All your boosters should have the same number of cards. Count a booster or calculate what it is. At my cube it should be 2*5 for each color, 1 artifact, 1 multicolored and 1 land = 13 cards in each booster. Go to each face down booster, count the number of cards in it, shuffle it, remove one card from it and put it in the leftovers pile. The number of cards in each booster after this stage should be the number calculated at #5 -1, and if you have too many cards remove them until you reach exactly that number. If you have too few, add that many random cards from the leftovers stack. If the number of cards ends up at 14 or 13 I'd consider taking out two cards from each boosters to increase the randomness.

2. Shuffle the leftovers stack.

3. Add cards to each booster so it has 15 cards.

4. Enjoy your draft