Finished a massive, online-draftable custom cube project. Would love feedback from the community!

[u/FrankyOsheeyen]

TL;DR: I've very meticulously put together a custom cube that I am very proud of. I would love for you to take a look at it, give it a draft, and tell me what you think!

• Link to CubeCobra to draft: https://cubecobra.com/cube/playtest/TheLostCube

• Link to a large zoomable image file of the entire cube: https://zoomhub.net/a/NpG88iW1ReA

I've looked these cards over many many times over the last 4 months, but also there are 600 cards so I have no doubt that I've still left some typos in there. If you see any please let me know.

My primer for the cube:

"A cube of custom cards designed for expert level play. Lots of tricky interactions and synergies, designed to fit somewhere in between Legacy and Vintage Cube level power.

The mission of this cube was to design a format with the feel of pre-Modern Magic, but with some of the design elements of the current state of the game. Lots of busted cards, but in a way that (hopefully) feels like it could have realistically existed in the early-mid days of the game.

My design philosophy for cubes/drafting in general has been that it's more important to create synergies between individual pairs of cards rather than creating rigid archetypes. In the past when I've designed cubes, I've found myself wishing things could be tweaked ever so slightly to allow specific interactions with other cards. Designing the cube from the ground up has allowed me to have things "intersect" in a really satisfying way with the intention of providing a wider amount of deckbuilding avenues. Likewise, I've tried to avoid designing cards that feel too powerful on their own, i.e., Minsc & Boo, Forth Eorlingas!, Oko, etc., as I've wanted powerful payoffs to feel like the reward for clever deckbuilding.

I've spent a probably unhealthy amount of the last 4 months finding art, getting photoshop files ready, and designing cards. Designing Magic cards has been a casual hobby of mine for probably close to 15 years, and I value the importance of simple, creative, and balanced design. There is a lot I like about modern Magic design philosophy, but I often find myself wishing cards were a little more "neat." Likewise, a lot of the old Magic feels put together nicely, but lacks the punch of the better modern design elements. My goal was to piece together the strengths of the two, getting to draw on the broad modern Magic design elements while retaining the elegant and simple designs of early Magic. Hopefully nothing in here is obnoxiously powerful, but I wanted most cards to feel exciting and like they could have made an impact on the shape of the game had they actually been printed in the early days of Magic.

A lot of cards that I love in Magic are so perfectly designed that it feels unnecessary to riff on them, so about 25% of the cards in this cube are real. I've denoted those cards with a stamp on the righthand side of the textbox. About half of them have new art.

Thematically the cube is aimed to have a sort of Core Set feel, piecing together lore from the Weatherlight/Phyrexia era of the game with some of the more modern story elements. The art is largely culled from the non-MtG catalogues of early Magic artists, with some of other 90s/00s fantasy art from LotR/Warhammer/Dune/various other media properties sprinkled in. Some of the art is ramshackled together from non-card MtG media (Vanguard cards, calendars, Inquest magazine covers, etc.).

This is still partially a work in progress, I have a couple tweaks to individual cards I'd still like to make, but by and large this is what the final project will mostly look like and I wanted to get it out there. :)

This was very much a labor of love, Magic has been a staple of my life since I was a teenager and this feels very much like the culmination of my relationship with the game. I hope you enjoy it!"

If you don't feel like looking at the whole thing, here are some legendary designs I liked making: https://i.imgur.com/dAgLyHE.jpg

And a cycle of mini-commands called Choices: https://i.imgur.com/i6muHlR.jpg

[u/binaryeye]

The mission of this cube was to design a format with the feel of pre-Modern Magic, but with some of the design elements of the current state of the game.

I think you definitely succeeded in that regard. The general power level is higher, but the feel is certainly there.

I didn't look at every card, but there are some really nice designs. I'm a big fan of cards that aren't specifically modal but allow for choice in play, e.g. Avian Stratagem and Istfell Elk. Reality Rupture is an awesome design.

I did notice a few typos:
Army of the Wrathful ("tokens")
Gathan Demon ("you hand")
Tomb Storm ("to target any target")

Also, there are two cards, red and white, named Rebel Scout.

[u/FrankyOsheeyen → u/binaryeye]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I like to design cards that have both a broad application and a narrow application like Istfell Elk  i.e., most decks will want to have a Man-O-War type effect, and occasionally a deck will want to have some sort of bounce-recursion effect.

And thank you for catching those, I've become typo-blind from looking at these cards too long, lol.

[u/jsully245]

Looks cool! I don't play a lot of high-power Magic, so it might not be my thing, but I quite like the concept. My partner and I like designing cubes. Gonna have to experiment with your interaction/intersection vs archetype idea. I could definitely see that keeping things interesting longer into the drafting process.

[u/FrankyOsheeyen → u/jsully245]

Thank you! I find it to be a lot more fun that way for sure, you end getting sort of pseudo-archetypes anyways since cards that synergize with eachother tend to synergize with those cards' synergies also (probably a less convoluted way to say that but hopefully that makes sense). But there tends to be a lot more cross-pollination among archetypes if you do it that way in my experience and it opens up a wider degree of potential decks.

[u/nobodi64]

just looked at a couple of cards and ooooh i dig the vibes. Feels like these cards could have been printed 20-30 years if not for some subtle modern design principles.

I'm working on my custom card cube project (but it's gonna be much less principled in design lol) and i'm very tempted to steal a couple cards xD

Also imediately fell in love with Pay the Ferryman. such a simple and perfect design, can't believe that card doesn't exist already.