I document my evolving design philosophy piecemeal with a thorough changelog and discuss Cube design more broadly every week on the podcast Lucky Paper Radio.
The Bun Magic Cube was born in December of 2016. It was the first cube in my local playgroup, 'The Bun Magic Kitchen Table Pro Tour', from which it takes its name. It began as an attempt to reproduce many aspects of the Magic Online Vintage Cube which I had fallen in love with watching LSV's draft videos on YouTube. Over time, the cube evolved alongside my relationship to the game — I got heavily invested in Magic through playing Commander, and cube draft became an outlet for my more competitive nature. As a spectator of eternal constructed Magic, the current iteration of the Bun Magic Cube is a venue to draft lean, efficient decks akin to fair strategies in Legacy.
Gameplay Goals"Small games; big decisions."
The following design choices have emerged from the gameplay goals stated above:
My chosen power level is influenced by my desire to play with specific, personally beloved and iconic cards, such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, Umezawa’s Jitte, and Rishadan Port. I also aim to minimize the disparity between the least and most powerful cards in the cube. I believe a flatter power level leads to more nuanced draft picks and a broader diversity of decks in addition to reducing the number of games decided by players drawing cards of different raw power levels. These two factors combined substantially narrow the pool of viable cards for this environment — only the upper crust of Magic’s most powerful and efficient cards are considerations.
Even though power level is an important factor in which cards are included, the Bun Magic Cube embodies specific gameplay patterns I’ve explicitly chosen rather than blindly power-optimizing. There are many powerful, viable cards that are intentionally excluded, including but not limited to cards that:
The Bun Magic Cube is singleton with the exception of fetchlands and shocklands, of which I run two and three full cycles, respectively. I avoid cards from un-sets, Mystery Booster playtest cards, and conspiracies. I own this cube in paper, with no proxies, so in rare occasions budget is a limiting factor. Beyond that, my card choices are unrestricted.
A Note on Mana FixingRelative to the average Cube on Cube Cobra, I include a very high density of fixing lands. This density has been carefully calibrated with the goal of allowing players access to two and three-color manabases that can compete with the consistency of mono-colored decks. The increased number of fetch lands impacts the effectiveness of delve and escape threats, cards like Wrenn and Six, and landfall payoffs such as Lotus Cobra and Field of the Dead. Four and five color decks are occasionally possible, but far from a dominant strategy given the strength of aggressive decks in the Bun Magic Cube and the life loss from an extensive fetch/dual manabase. For more information, read my article "How many lands should you include in your Cube?".