Invasion Foil Plains #331 & Old School Cube

[Prospero]

Most of us can remember a very specific point in time when Magic was magic to us.  I have significantly less time and desire to play now than I have ever before, but that desire still exists in some diminished form.

QuicksilverVII put together a cube that a few of us have drafted several times now.  It has been fun every time.  I have put together a cube as well, though it varies a little from his. 

Greg and I went through and chose lands, deciding on using the following:

Invasion Plains #331


Onslaught Island #337


Onslaught Swamp #342


Odyssey Mountain #344


Masques Forest #347


I had no problems ordering the Islands, Swamps, Mountains and Forests, but ran into a problem picking up Plains.  I checked SCG, TCGPlayer and eBay, but I haven't found a sufficient amount of them anywhere and I need 33 more.  Does anyone have any recommendations as to where one would find that many lands? 

The second thing that I've been thinking about (and the major reason why I didn't build a cube before this, or participate in many cube drafts) is the color sorting.  There were some 'packs' that had an incredible number of cards from one color, which made draft signals virtually impossible.  If you have a strong memory, you're OK to remember signals, but it still doesn't make the occasional color hosing any fun.  I would like to try color sorting the cube and then creating 'packs' with random cards from each pile, guaranteeing that there are no more of no less than two cards per color per pack.  Is this insanity?  Is there a strong case to be made for not doing this that I am currently unaware of?

Next up, does anyone out there with a cube have a rough breakdown on what their totals look like?  60 cards per color only leaves 60 slots for artifacts, gold cards and specialty lands.  Given that my cube is primarily 1996-2003 (with a few exceptions made for cards from the earlier days), I wanted artifact based decks to have a presence.  Kai's 1999 Wildfire deck and Finkel's 2000 Tinker deck are important to me and I have included many cards from both decks.  I have extra cards for every color, but I've cut back to 50 cards per color, which allots for 110 artifacts, gold cards and lands.  I'm aiming for 40, 30, 40 at the moment.

Finally, has anyone else had an issue with white being underpowered?  Matt Linde's Shadowclysm deck and some basic Counter-Rebels variants provided much of the backbone I used for white.  I wanted there to be an aggressive strategy and a control strategy, but it seems like there's really just a control strategy.  I'm not entirely sure how to power up white while staying true to the decks of the era.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts from people who have experience building and playing cube, as well as any help anyone might be able to give as far as those Invasion Plains go.

[Moy]

http://www.abugames.com/card144453-256295/Plains---331---FOIL-Invasion-Foil-Magic-The-Gathering-Single-Card.html

How about Abu games?!

[Prospero]

http://www.abugames.com/card144453-256295/Plains---331---FOIL-Invasion-Foil-Magic-The-Gathering-Single-Card.html

How about Abu games?!

Thank you very much, Mike!

It ran me more than I'd have liked to have spent, but $118 later, I have my Plains!  My lands are done, which I am thankful for.  White bordered lands are an abomination and should not be played.  Now, thankfully, they won't have to be anymore.   

[JPettie]

I believe you got the wrong swamp.....


Happy to hear you are done!

My pauper cube runs 54 of each color, allowing for 30 Multicolor, 30 Artifacts, and 30 Nonbasic Lands. 360 is the number I go by, and it drafts 8 comfortably. Good luck!

[boggyb]

Ack, I have one of those plains, foil. I'll give it to you, if you like. Unless you're all set.

[Prospero]

I believe you got the wrong swamp.....

If that Swamp was available in old border foil, I'd have happily ordered 40.  I love Ron Spears' work.

Happy to hear you are done!

My pauper cube runs 54 of each color, allowing for 30 Multicolor, 30 Artifacts, and 30 Nonbasic Lands. 360 is the number I go by, and it drafts 8 comfortably. Good luck!

Thanks!

54 of each color sounds like a good start.  I have to parse through the artifacts again. 

Ack, I have one of those plains, foil. I'll give it to you, if you like. Unless you're all set.

Thank you very much, but I'm set!  I appreciate the offer though.

[JPettie]

I believe you got the wrong swamp.....

If that Swamp was available in old border foil, I'd have happily ordered 40.  I love Ron Spears' work.

Yeah, I have a bunch of them foil and they are gorgeous, the island part of the landscape is gorgeous as well. I believe the original art includes both, if only I could afford it.
Good luck with the 54.

[JarofFortune]

Finally, has anyone else had an issue with white being underpowered?  Matt Linde's Shadowclysm deck and some basic Counter-Rebels variants provided much of the backbone I used for white.  I wanted there to be an aggressive strategy and a control strategy, but it seems like there's really just a control strategy.  I'm not entirely sure how to power up white while staying true to the decks of the era.

The rebel idea definitely sounds like a reason to play white. How far back are you going as far as core sets are concerned? Fourth and fifth edition have lots of goodies for white aggro such as Savannah Lions, Order of the white shield, White Knight, and Crusade. These go well both with rebels and pure beatdown with stuff like Soltari and shadow creatures. These sets also have mana denial cards like Armageddon and Winter Orb, which don't help rebels but are great in white weenie(The Shadowclysm deck you mentioned, for example). Another good thing about winter orb is that it can go into a variety of colors and archetypes, maybe even a Rising Waters style deck.  I don't know how good Empyrial armor and Heavy Ballista would be in your cardpool, but I hear those two were insane in Weatherlight/Mirage Block limited, so they might be worth testing. One thing I've learned is that aggro needs a lot of support if you want it to be competitive.

Additionally, you have to try to make Full English Breakfast a thing in your cube. People will love it when someone pulls that off.  

[WotC_Ethan]

Prospero,

When we playtest in R&D, it's very much like a cube draft (albeit not singleton). We sort the cards out by color to ensure a relatively even distribution of colors. I do the same thing with my cube. It's a lot more work to prepare for a cube draft, but I believe that it's worthwhile.

[Meddling Mike]

I love that plains. I've collected a number of them myself. I also love that Franz Vohwinkel mountain. I've always been a big fan of this swamp.


It's very similar to the one you chose, but I love that hint of color.

[Prospero]

I love that plains. I've collected a number of them myself. I also love that Franz Vohwinkel mountain. I've always been a big fan of this Swamp.

It's very similar to the one you chose, but I love that hint of color.

Mike, that Swamp is actually an excellent recommendation.  The pinks are awesome.  Frazier rocks.  I wish
that I had thought about it a little more before I had done my order.

Prospero,

When we playtest in R&D, it's very much like a cube draft (albeit not singleton). We sort the cards out by color to ensure a relatively even distribution of colors. I do the same thing with my cube. It's a lot more work to prepare for a cube draft, but I believe that it's worthwhile.

Ethan, thank you for that tidbit.  Even a quick glance into the inner workings of R&D is nice.  I'm glad to see that I'm not crazy!  Color breakdowns in packs can be unbelievable in cube drafts and while the randomness does add some fun to it, the hosing really can be brutal. 

Additionally, you have to try to make Full English Breakfast a thing in your cube. People will love it when someone pulls that off. 

I forgot about Full English Breakfast!  Volrath's Shapeshifter makes the cut and I am looking forward to trying to pull that off sometime in the near future!

[Changster]

Nick, I have a lot of foil lands that will not likely see any play.  I'll check tonight to see if I have any of those basics, but I know for sure I have multiple copies of that plains.  Years ago, I collected foil lands for no good reason.  So I will have a little stack for you at NYSE and consider them yours, gratis!

[Prospero]

Nick, I have a lot of foil lands that will not likely see any play.  I'll check tonight to see if I have any of those basics, but I know for sure I have multiple copies of that plains.  Years ago, I collected foil lands for no good reason.  So I will have a little stack for you at NYSE and consider them yours, gratis!

You are a good man, Roland.  Thank you.

I've hit my quota on all of them except for the Forest as things stand now.  There was some internal error with TCGPlayer.com and for whatever reason, their system equated Masques foil Forest #349 as Masques foil Forest #347.  I'm four short on the Forests and I haven't put an order through yet to replace them.  If you have any of the Forests I would be most appreciative.

[evil-rage]

Hey Prospero, I've been playing mostly with my cube recently and I have a process that's a decent balance between quick and random, but still collating cards in a way that makes acceptable packs.

First off, my cube. I have 8 separate 'colors:' WUBRG, plus three separate piles for non-basic lands, gold/hybrid/multicolor, and artifacts. Each 'color' has approximately 60 cards in it. They all remain separated in the cube, and I shuffle each pile before making packs.

Anyway, here's the collation process. I have been playing mostly 4-man drafts, so I'm not sure how well this will work for more than 5 or 6 people (since I think you start to run out of cards as you approach 8 players).

Step 1: create 3 packs per player. Each pack will initially contain 16 cards - 2 from each pile.
Step 2: shuffle each pack individually (having multiple people setup makes this easier), then remove 3 cards randomly.
Step 3: add 2 cards to each pack randomly from the remaining stock, using the following formula: roll 2d6. On a 1-5, add W, U, B, R, or G (I try to keep which pile is which hidden so I don't know what colors are going into packs). On a 6, re-roll. On the re-roll, a 1 or 2 means add an artifact. 3-4 for non-basic, 5-6 for multicolor (again, these piles are random, so I won't know from which of the 3 piles I'm pulling cards). Shuffle packs afterwards for extra randomness/better signaling.

I've probably run 30+ drafts with this format and I've been really pleased with how the packs turn out. Random, but each color still shows up decently. Weighted so that the colored cards show up more often than others (though you can change the weighting if you want, depending on the effect you are going for. I used to use 2d8 instead of 2d6, for example).

What I've noticed is that no pack is really heavy in a single color, but also artifacts/non-basics/multicolor don't show up excessively. We still have primarily two or three color decks, but I've run a monocolor deck that beat face, and I've seen plenty of 4 or 5 color decks that had greedy manabases and still pulled out plenty of wins.

I've got a decent balance of aggro, control, and midrange, but because there are usually only 4 people drafting, combo is a little bit too tricky to draft, so I don't run a lot of combos in the cube (though there's plenty of synergy to be found).

That's about it. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can clarify anything for you. I know it sounds like a lot, but after getting the rhythm, I now go through the process really quickly. It also helps having a large box of six-sided dice, so we can all add cards simultaneously. =)