We reassess the game design of Gatecrash. Though it may be nearly identical to its predecessor, the differences are striking – and instructive for Cube designers!

The risk-reward tradeoff of synergy contributes to a cube's replayability, strategic depth, and elegance – but it can be tricky to balance. This guide discusses tools to tune any synergy toward your design goals.

To prove that I'm not just a sucker for the Mirrodin border, we're going even further back in time with our design-focused set reviews, to a troubled classic: graveyard-focused Odyssey.

Five incredibly good mechanics, seven-mana rares that rock, and two-color Draft architecture: Return to Ravnica is a special set. In this design-focused review, we'll break down lessons for modern-day Cube designers.

Creature type synergies like Elves or Goblins are incredibly popular in Commander and Constructed, but notoriously tricky in Limited and Cube. We survey four historical formats to see what makes typal decks tick.

We're finishing a block of Cube-focused design review with Alara Reborn, an ambitious set whose every card was gold-framed. We'll discuss which themes are successful, and which Modern powerhouse is only sometimes worth the trouble in Limited.

It might be a series! Once again, we're reviewing older Magic sets to level up our current-day Cube design. This time: Conflux, a set with good intentions that overcommits to nearly everything Shards of Alara got right.

Cube design has historically focused on mechanical novelty because Magic's aesthetics were chosen for us. That time is past. It's time to start designing our cubes' art and flavor with as much care as their mechanics.

A look back at one of Magic's first multicolor sets. Which features of Shards of Alara are most useful for present-day Cubes, and which cards might be overlooked? Find out in this design-focused retrospective!

Tournament Magic rules are meant to enforce standards of fair play, but they fall short of what your Cube community needs to thrive. How can we players conduct honorable wizard duels? And what's The Princess Bride got to do with it?

Because Cubes are designed and owned by super-invested players, we sometimes forget a simple truth: half our players on any given night will lose more than they win. If it's fun to lose at Cube, winning will take care of itself.

Join us as Usman shares some evergreen Cube design lessons from eight years of love for one special Equipment.

Ever wondered how to shuffle a cube? It can be intimidating, but we have a proven method to shuffle hundreds of cards effectively, even for one person shuffling alone.

The conventional Cube wisdom may be to shuffle a cube as a group, exchanging piles randomly around the table, but in this case the shuffler is in fact broken! Here's why and how to shuffle your cube the way you deserve.

2024 saw an explosion in small, grassroots Cube events the world over. For our annual Cube in Review we invited the organizers of these events to reflect on what the past year has meant for Cube.

Many cubes pursue strategic depth, but sometimes what appears to be depth is really trivial memorization. We diagnose these tricky design problems and offer ways to make your cube more replayable!

Thunder Junction is not Magic’s finest expansion, but it’s no fault of its designers: the Magic ruleset has never been philosophically neutral. We investigate what it looks like to pick the roses and trim the thorns on this mess of a set.

2023 has come and gone, so we have once again reached out to friends from around the Cube community to help us put a bow on the year.

We drove 1,700 miles for CubeCon 2023, and all we have to show for it is this lousy tournament report.

Find out how to design a cube where the basic lands must be drafted! We trace the history of land-restricted cubes and go start-to-finish on a new cube design.

Exploring the fundamental nature of games from the very different perspectives of player and designer, through my own, personal, Cube design journey.

A reintroduction to one of Magic’s classic sandbox formats: self-contained, zero setup, and fully customizable.

Is Cube the best way to play Magic? Of course! ... wait, you still have questions? Then check out this cube lightning round.

The options for Cubes are practically infinite, but the best building materials for your favorite cube may already be at hand.

Set Cubes are one of the easiest entry points to Cube – the perfect opportunity to recapture bygone draft formats, reimagine a draft format, or dive deep into a plane or theme.

The first comprehensive history of the Cube format — an ever-evolving tapestry driven by creative Magic players shaping the game to their own desires.

2022 was a big year for Cube and for Magic more broadly. As always, we've reached out to some of our friends from across the Cube world to paint a picture of what 2022 meant for the format.

An examination of precedent from limited and constructed is paired with analysis of over 75,000 Cube draft decks to help answer one of the most universal questions in Cube design.

The Commander Map visualizes over two and a half million and a half Commander decks, showing the incredible depth of the Commander format in an interactive tool.

Learn the math behind how we made the Cube Map and Commander Map—interactive visualizations that celebrate the diversity of beloved Magic formats.

Battle Box is a unique twist on Magic: a quick, self-contained format, without resource variance, great for pick up games between other activities.

An in depth exploration of one of a Cube designer’s most important tools — power level.

With 2021 winding down, we've once again invited friends from across the Cube landscape to reminisce about this year's offerings for the best Magic format.

Finding every relevant card for your deck or cube can be a challenge. Scryfall's simple, but powerful search syntax let's you find everything you're looking for from the vast history of Magic in moments.

Rotisserie drafting a cube is the perfect option for asynchronous, remote Magic. Our template makes keeping your draft organized a breeze.

If you’re reading this, congratulations, you officially made it through 2020. While this was a challenging year for many of us, and for our favorite way to play Magic, that's even more reason to gather our friends from around the community and reminisce about the highlights of 2020 for Cube.

A primer on a cube with a 15 card minimum deck size that pushes the most powerful strategies in Magic’s history to their limits — a drafted format that plays like constructed Vintage.

We propose four basic questions that can help you communicate your Cube design goals to yourself and others.

Finding all cards that fit a particular effect or mechanical theme can be a challenge. Simple Regular Expressions enable powerful, nuanced searching.

If you’re interested in making your cube faster, more powerful, and more skill testing you ought to consider an often overlooked category of cards: scalable threats.

With 2019 in the rear-view mirror, we reached out to some of our friends to get their takes on the brightest moments from the past year for our favorite format — Cube.

An introduction to tracking and analyzing data from your own Cube drafts. We examine my dataset of 400 Cube decklists and analyze archetype balance, individual card strength, and color distributions. I also prove definitively that Jackal Pup one of the top ten cards in Cube.

Our primer on the Vindicate Test — one of the most ubiquitous card-evaluation heuristics. What does it mean? How can you apply it to your game? Does your opponent have that removal spell? We’ll tell you once and for all.