Grimble's Cube
(360 Card Cube)
Grimble's Cube
Cube ID
Art by Greg SpalenkaArt by Greg Spalenka
360 Card Unpowered Legacy+ Cube1 follower
Designed by Grimble

Small, interesting games with an eternal card pool.

This is my main cube, heavily cribbed from Andy Mangold's Bun Magic Cube. I like fast, decision rich games with few game pieces; hard to process, gummed up boardstates are not my taste.

Aggressive strategies are dominant by design, as I want them to set the pace for the non-aggro decks. Have a plan against aggro or you'll have a bad time.

I try to keep token diversity to a minimum, and limit mechanics that have play patterns I don't like (e.g., The Initiative and Lifelink).

This cube is meant to be drafted with 8 players and 15-card packs. Optionally, each player may start the draft with a face-up Cogwork Librarian.

Design Philosophies
  • I want to power-max the list without the expense of fun; every card should be fun before anything else. Oko, Thief of Crowns is monstrously strong, sure, but most player's probably don't like losing to him.
  • I prefer low variance to high; cards with extreme variance can be unfun. Hymn to Tourach is a powerful discard spell, but in some cases it can read "bb: Win the game" if it hits the other player's lands. Player's should always feel like they lost to their opponent's gameplan, not lucky high-rolls with swingy cards.
  • I prefer more fixing than less; players will have a better experience if the frequency of non-games due to mana/color screw is minimized. This decision does not necessarily produce more 5-color goodstuff decks! I refer you to this article if you'd like a more substantial take.
  • I prefer small games over big; there is a lower frequency of cards that add multiple permanents to the board. While big, complicated boardstates can be fun to puzzle through, I'd rather players have less to track when forming their gameplan. Players can make important and thought provoking decisions without a dozen permanents in play.
Grimble posted to Grimble's Cube -

It's been a while since I've bothered to make a blog post here, but that's because I haven't felt like making any major changes to my cube. I've had loads of small swaps here and there, mostly as new sets come out, but nothing significant. Here's a few new cards that have really interested me:

That last one has me more excited than any others, because I've used proxies of that exact land in a half dozen other projects for years now and they finally printed a paper copy for me. :D

View All Blog Posts