This account is devoted to a series of planar cubes, one for each plane with a Standard-legal expansion during the Modern block era (Mirrodin through Ixalan).

Background

I stumbled into Magic by way of board games and was immediately drawn to the praise for cubes, including this exemplary post on BoardGameGeek. Unfortunately, most cubes I read about were more expensive than your typical board game, and I did not want to invest that much in a game I wasn't sure about.

Instead, I made basic draft simulations of recent sets, which soon evolved into curated versions of entire blocks. These early designs ("Phase I") feel like "flashback" drafts of their original limited environments and usually have 270 cards, making them good for 6-player drafts or 2-person grid drafts.

As we graduated to planes with multiple blocks and thus larger card pools, I was able to make more complex sets. These "Phase II" sets shifted to focus on 15-card microdecks, which allowed me to stuff more deckbuilding possibilities into each set, and they are specifically devoted to 4-player sessions.

The final batch of cubes ("Phase III") explores Magic's most popular planes and is currently under development.

Design Parameters

Each cube has its own particularities, but in general I kept within a few basic parameters:

1. The total cost of the set should be comparable to a typical board game, usually topping out at 40 dollars. I generally avoid cards that cost more than a buck. Hard core Magic fans will probably notice some "signature" cards missing, but most won't notice anything at all.
2. My group size varies from just 2 to 6 players, so these sets are smaller than most cubes and come in between 250 to 300 cards.
3. Each set consists of cards only from a single plane, though later sets brought in generic cards from Core Sets or other expansions. Sometimes, there have been on-theme cards released in otherwise generic expansions, like the Kamigawa-flavored shrines in Core Set 2021.
4. A small group of sets regarded as "best of all time" draft formats are excluded from the card pool for their respective plane. For example, my version of Zendikar does not include any cards from Rise of the Eldrazi.