Last time, I mentioned debating whether to maintain a hard limit of 336 cards for my Year One cube, which correlates to twenty-four packs of fourteen cards, or to greatly increase the count in order to cover all three sets (SOR, SHD, and TWI). This also means I’d want to increase the count of included Leaders and Bases, of which I ask, “Do I want to?”
There is a certain freedom to just putting everything and the kitchen sink into your cube. As I was going through my binders, I was reminded of all the cards I haven’t looked at seriously for quite a while. It’s been so long since I have played limited with these three sets, I’m excited to see more unusual plays and interactions we don’t see in constructed. I feel like having more cards and more variation would be better; as well, I should include all the other Leaders and Bases that I have available. Much like the Legendaries I mentioned in the previous article, though, I don’t necessarily have multiple copies to spare for inclusion in a cube that will sit idle until such time as I have friends around the table.
As I keep saying, I am trying to avoid too much power in this cube. For those familiar with cubes from other games, full power cubes are definitely a thing. That can also be expensive. I’m planning to use cards I already own that are not in Premiere rotation. As I’ve been trying to maintain a certain power level, I have been reminded that most of the “problem” Leaders from year one were commons, while the bases were rares. I also have to re-evaluate how I view these power cards. Their known effect on the game was from the specific experience of Premiere play, where decks are far more optimized and synergized than what is ever found in a limited environment. In other words, their power levels in cube would not be equivalent to their constructed reputation.
If I’m not needing to be so worried about power levels, should I reconsider the whole “no Legendaries allowed” thing? I’m still going to maintain that. Even with the lower frequency of impact that a single copy of any given Legendary can have in a limited environment, I would still hate to see it turn a series of games into THAT ONE CARD being the deciding factor. Again, a cube is reflective of the builder’s tastes and personality and this is definitely mine.
With all that having been said, rare leaders not being a problem, rare bases not having the impact they had in constructed, and liking the potential for greater variety, I’m going to go for the higher card count. That does mean I’ll need more card sleeves, but that’s life. Remember, I had mentioned you should sleeve every single card in your cube since they will be getting passed around and handled by many people, hopefully frequently. I will definitely stand by my original 336 estimate for a single set cube, however. Especially if you happen to be lacking in rares or legendaries, doubling up on commons and uncommons, particularly from the Neutral card pool, can take a set of almost 300 cards up to 336. For a multi-set cube, though, I do want to see more different cards rather than fewer across multiple draft sessions. As this cube is meant to highlight the entirety of the first year, there’s nothing lost by including all the leaders and all the bases; we only gain that stated greater variety.
Speaking of sleeving every card, I suppose I should also invest in more tokens. I may not have emphasized this before, but the cube should be viewed as an all-in-one experience. This means you shouldn’t have to rely on players bringing in their own token sets. You, as the cube owner, should have everything that you and your friends need in your cube carrier. If you purchased several of the original token packs, but you’ve since swapped in the Pro token set to go with your Premiere deck, this might be a good place to shove off those older tokens. Okay, no, you don’t need to supply playmats. I know someone was gonna say, “Um, actually, what about…”
Oh, yeah. Storing your cube. We should probably talk about that next time, huh?