A Dozen Friends, Eleven Cube Drafts, and One Flat Tire

Last week, some friends and I rented a 15-passenger van from a guy with a shark-jaw tattoo gnawing on his elbow. Jaws asked where we were going and why we needed a van that big. One of my buddies (the whale-tattooed one) played it cool, saying, “Fifteen of us are going to a convention in Madison, WI.” But Jaws wouldn’t let go, and though it was like pulling teeth baleen, Fluke eventually gave up the truth. “We’re going to a Magic convention, you know, with elves and dragons and shit,” he said reluctantly, coiled up to fend off the inevitable perplexity and possible jeering that comes from being outed as a Big Nerd.

Jaws’ friendly grin only widened. “That’s awesome! So you’re like an NBA team!” Close enough, I guess. Then Jaws reassured us for the third time that our van was “nearly ready” and invited us to use the kiddie basketball hoop in the Enterprise lobby while we waited.

After a half-hour of looking skeptically at the basketball hoop and ten more minutes of rejecting every add-on except the $6 roadside assistance, it was time to drive. We tested the van’s ceilings for standing room, promptly dubbed it “the Cathedral,” picked up our friends (The Hub, Gourmet, and Appleseed) and three dozen cans of La Croix, and hit the road.

CubeCon 2023, here we come.

Driving through Ohio was a nightmare, obviously; each lane was 90% semi trailers and 10% road. And a little old lady matter-of-factly told me in the lobby of Quality Inn that “you were really loud last night, you know.” (This stung more than I care to admit.) But seltzers and friends make Midwestern suburban hellscapes go by quick. Fluke subjected us to several ribald podcasts that I’ll never admit are funny, Gourmet had vegan-friendly food options ready for every single stop, The Hub tolerated me reading short stories aloud, and Appleseed slept nearly the whole thirteen hours. Add a little brunchtime cross-fade of coffee and pancake syrup, and before you know it we’re in Wisconsin.

Our first stop was Misty Mountain Games. Amazed at the palatial size of non-coastal LGSes, I kept making eye contact with some elderlies playing Scrabble on the other side of the room. One cheerful grandma had double-queued on two different Scrabble boards, a half-bushel of apples by her side that I concluded must be the table stakes. Awed by the competitive geriatric spirit, I sat down to draft Doodle’s Medium Ancient Times. Doodle had 3D-printed a trophy with a “surprise under the tape” for whoever had the “coolest brew.”

I crammed as many Good Cards as I could find in this deck, since I wasn’t sure this cube’s rules of engagement would be. I promptly lost Round 1 to Lingering Souls and a skilled pilot, but Round 2 I paired off against a Masticore player I knew as Teridax online. This was one of those matches that remind me why I play this game. We both had a bunch of face-up information and on-board tricks, so it was more a matter of bluffing and maneuvering than it was about sequencing or spending my mana correctly. Or at least, that’s what games 1 and 2 were about. Game 3 got blown wide open by my Parallax Wave shenanigans. (Doodle, whose cube is primarily an outlet for socializing among tipsy parents, had no idea this was possible.) Ended the match with whole bunch of respect for both Teridax and Masticore.

Round 3 was against Doodle himself. The games went fast, but we had a great time chatting, and even got apples from our Scrabbling neighbors.

2-1 overall. And the apple was small, firm, and not too sweet — my favorite.

Thirteen matching track jackets spilled out of the Cathedral, ready to conquer CubeCon’s open play day. You already know Fluke, The Hub, Gourmet, Appleseed, and yours truly, but we’d also picked up Cupid, Trophy, Dirt, Nike, Cat Dad, Mr. T, The Invisible Man, The Cuke, and Beard — and all of us were lookin’ hot and hopped up on Perrier.

We said hello to some old friends but quickly sat down to draft Cupid’s cube. I don’t have a decklist for this one, but it was a

Thursday afternoon was dinrovaHorror’s Atomic Cube, and true to my word, my only blue card was a late Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath.

My first match was — hold on, this report is boring even me. Why am I writing down who won each match like I’m Mike Flores or Pat Chapin? I’m bad at Magic (mediocre at best). Let’s refocus on what I know better: Cube design and my friends.

Since the Atomic Cube focuses on interactive “small games,” it’s perhaps no surprise that my match against Dirt’s

One downside of these power outliers is they can derail newer drafters. The player to my right opened a P3P1 Wrenn and Six, tried to shoehorn it into a Lurrus aggro deck, and dropped after their first round (although they still had a good time).

The bye wasn’t a big deal, though, since Dirt and The Hub were getting hangry and I was the only insured Cathedral driver available. Hot pot with the crew was the perfect end to the day, even if my shoes did get waterlogged by a surprise rainstorm.

CubeCon’s first events might have been just like any other Magic tournament, if not for all the root beer. Along with a pin, tallboys of soda were given out to trophy winners, but it wasn’t long before everyone in attendance knew their favorite flavor — the tallboys were about three times too sweet for a lone human to finish. Reid Duke started giving cans away by his second trophy.

I (with shoes still soggy from last night) was on the hunt for a pin/tallboy combo myself, but first I had to rank cubes to draft — no easy task with fifty choices and only six opportunities to draft!

Luckily, I have some rules when vacationing, Magic events included. Rule #1: any vacation activity that begins before 7 a.m. is a scam. Rule #2: any Magic that resembles technical writing or tax season is right out. So, when I saw a cube that had 0 counters and 0 tokens, I knew I’d found the cube for me. Appleseed happened to be paired next to me, so we sat down to draft.

A total lack of extra game pieces really changes a card pool, even one that aspires to higher power. Removal gets much better, while synergy decks have to look for resilience against removal. It was no surprise, then, to see the Penrose Cube’s robust support for Madness, self-mill, and other gravy-yard synergies. (Other synergies, like Domain, used hard-to-kill lands as their enablers, or used the death triggers to turn a profit.) I knew graveyard interaction and exile would be paramount.

With my Deathgorge Scavenger and Soul-Guide Lantern maindeck, I had a fun couple of matches against “oops all Delve” and a Madness mirror match. But then came round 3 against Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. The self-recursion on this behemoth meant that my opponent could fade my first removal spell, and that their self-mill turned into the most powerful card-draw in the cube. At least an 8/8 trample ends games quickly, and at least I didn’t have to dig out a bunch of unique tokens just to be ‘Gaaked. (This may sound salty, but I’m actually grateful! I appreciate that the best threat in the cube is incapable of playing with its food.)

Lunch (a veggie “grinder” sub) and a seltzer didn’t do anything to change my Vacation Rule #2, so I signed up for another round of relatively simple card-pools. The Museum of Modern, had duplicates of nearly every card, and the cards themselves were nostalgic classics that needed no parsing. I really respected the restraint showed by both cubes I’d drafted so far: both valued my first-time experience more than they cared about being interesting on the 50th draft, and that was exactly the ingredient that made me want more!

Speaking of which, why do so many cubes strive to be “all things to all people”? This only matters if you draft your cube literally every week; the more often your group drafts, the more likely they are to have cubes of their own, so any one cube gets played less and less… It’s probably because cube designers spend more time thinking about their Cube than playing it. Another article for another time, I guess, because now we’re going to the Zoo!

My first pairing was a

I wanted my last cube of the evening to be a land-restricted cube, to help inform my own design in this space. Dragons of Winter’s Night was a neat take on land-restricted cubes with an emphasis on the snowy mechanics of Kaldheim and Modern Horizons. I knew from perusing the list that its designer, Chill, intended + mana Dragons to be playable, and I wanted to max out on that top end along with ramp and removal.

As I battled to the finals of this draft (where I lost to a friend I’d just met for the first time in meatspace), I got to see my bombs do their thing over and over. The match next to me was resolving even bigger dragons, and on the other side a player was comboing off with Krark-Clan Ironworks for lethal. I realized: this cube had the bigger, slower gameplay of Rise of the Eldrazi or Crimson Vow, but with a land-restricted draft! In that sense, the quality and speed of one’s threats was really the thing to optimize, while the draft of lands functioned to tamp down on the greed. The two or three most aggressive decks in the format were Equipment Aggro in

Unfortunately, my opponent out-drafted and outplayed me, putting me LL in the finals. My consolation was that I could finally leave the con hall and get some food! Dirt and Fluke nearly got mistaken as the owners of Sal’s Tomato Pies, but apart from Sal’s near-catastrophic case of mistaking identities, I highly recommend the joint.

I’d been sacrificed to the cube-pod-pairing app, the only person among the 8 at the table who hadn’t chosen to draft this cube. Making matters worse, this draft would determine whether I could stay in contention for Top 64.

I drafted what I believed was the best aggro deck at the table, with Urza's Saga+Shadowspear as the finisher. However, I got my teeth kicked in by my round 1 opponent, whose deck was effectively a singleton version of Legacy Delver. (Something crystallized for me as I was chump-blocking an 8/8 Murktide Regent and making no other meaningful game actions: Cube drafts are won by the player who can accurately guess the format’s rules of engagement mid-draft. The Murktide player had done so today; last night’s Equipment player had done the same; Reid Duke did it like 17 times all weekend.)

Anyways, I dropped from the event after that loss. It’s not because I lost; it’s not because the pairing app put me in a cube I’d have rather avoided; it’s not even because The Hub and Cupid were getting a relaxed lunch and I wanted to join them. It was that all of those things combined violated my Vacation Rule #4: enjoy your matches.

Why would I pay hundreds of dollars and 5 days of vacation to attend this thing, just to absorb the stress of my opponents and the pain of losing matches at a cube I’m only drafting to see my score increase?! That’s nuts! So, I left the con hall to join my friends, which would turn out to be the best decision I’d made all weekend…

While sipping on seltzer and root beer in the cafeteria, Cupid, The Hub and I ran into our new friend Donkey. Donkey was staying with Doodle, and both of them were following their own Vacation Rule #4s. Doodle was earning his sobriquet by drawing Sharpied token after Sharpied token, while Donkey was going to Magic trivia events instead of playing official drafts. At one point, each of them said something like, “these vibes seem off — my opponents won’t joke around with me, and that’s what I love about Magic!”

Anyways, Donkey offered us some hotel ham (apparently this is a Doodle tradition). We diplomatically counter-offered with a Friend Draft, and a couple hours later found ourselves sitting down to Donkey’s Alternate Timeline.

Donkey introduced the cube as “old-school Magic in the same way that you could describe red wine as having hints of boot leather and cologne: not at all the same thing, but it’s got the same vibes.”

Sure enough, Alternate Timeline perfectly recaptured my just-getting-started ineptitude at deckbuilding and wonder at the possiblities of Magic. I was 105% sure that Kor Spiritdancer was bad in my deck, but I literally had no better cards. The same could be said for about 12 of my other spells. I was playing the best I had, and it was horrible by the standards of any of the other cubes I’d drafted this week. But in this context, my opponents’ decks were equally bad!

Coming off of the main event’s casual rules enforcement, it was also stark just how much more fun it ws to draft with friends! The joking and laughter was worth far more than any can of root beer. Fluke and I mututally lost it when I attacked with a team of 0/1 enchantresses, only to Bolster 9 for lethal. (I’d forgotten that Argothian Enchantress was a nonbo there, but I still attacked with it for the intimidation factor.) Beside us, Gourmet and Cupid and The Hub and Donkey and Doodle and Mr. T were having the same fun.

It reminded me of how much fun my brother and I had learning Magic, belly-down and pile-shuffled on our bedroom carpet, 3:30 Monday afternoon, right after school. I knew it intellectually already, but the Alternate Timeline taught my heart that Cube can be anything.

After drafting, we packed up the Cathedral to find dinner. I made the mistake of telling CubeHeads about our first choice of restaurant and they scooped us. (Don’t ever trust a man with a Platonic solid for a head, people.) We still found a next-door ramen place that hit the spot.

Me and Trophy got breakfast (diner food @ Short Stack Eatery) at about 7 a.m. on the last day of CubeCon. I drove Trophy, Nike, and Beard to the con hall for their Top 64 drafts (wow, my friends are good at this game) and back with the Cathedral to pick up the sleepyheads and eat my favorite meal: second breakfast. Then, to the con hall and to Cube!

I found myself in a second draft of The Museum of Modern.

Again, I followed where the Bloodbraid Elves led. Just like yesterday’s Friend Draft, this one was full of laughter and good-natured ribbing. And it might be coincidence, but once I started relaxing, I also played better! After defeating Appleseed’s Jund deck, I played a relative stranger whose

In the finals, I faced my friend Cat Dad’s Birthing Pod deck. The games were incredible, but the highlight was when my Lightning Bolt in response to a Huntmaster trigger was fizzled by a Restoration Angel. I was staring down lethal, but I topdecked Bring to Light, cast it for 5, and found my one out: Tribal Flames for exactsies.

With my first 3-0 of the tournament, I didn’t win any root beer or a neat pin, but I had fun in every single match, and that’s the thing I’d been chasing all along.

We had more to celebrate, too: Nike had won her pod of The Cascade Cube and earned a spot in the Top 8! What’s more, Trophy, despite losing a Top 8 seat to Nike, was the overall leader in match points in the whole field. Like I said: wow, my friends are good at this game.

Half-watching the final draft pod, we fired a draft of Bones’ Sticker Cube. During the draft, cards are permanently modified with new abilities or keywords. Prodigal Sorcerer with Deathtouch is an obvious combo, but how about Accorder's Shield with a “: add one mana of any color” ability? Kiln Fiend with two instances of Prowess? Soul's Fire with Cipher? Needless to say, it was wild.

Considering how tired I was at this point, I was extremely lucky to defeat Dirt, Gourmet, and The Invisible Man, but I ended the night with a back-to-back trophy.

You wouldn’t think we’d have time to fire a cube draft during our 13-hour travel day. And, if not for a 3-inch staple, you’d be right.

But that 3-inch staple found its way into one of the Cathedral’s tires somewhere near the Maryland border. (Turns out that $6 roadside insurance wasn’t such a bad idea.) We pulled over safely (thanks, Fluke and Gourmet, for being safety chiefs), called the tow truck, and without further ado grabbed the Neoclassical Cube. This unsleeved, old-school cube was simply born to be played at the in-store Pizza Hut of a ghost-town Flying J at 11:30 pm under the watchful eye of Rich (the only employee present).

I was deckbuilding a

Ponyboy asked us why we needed a big van — “is it nerd shit?” (Deja vu.) When Fluke, once again, reluctantly copped to being a Magic nerd, Ponyboy surprised us all. He looked down at the impact driver in his hand and said, thoughtfully, “Huh. I guess I’m a nerd for this car shit. Maybe being a nerd isn’t so bad.”

You’re right, Ponyboy. When you’ve got a dozen friends, eleven cubes, and a big van, being a nerd is one of the best things I can imagine.

LOVE

MORDOR