Bun Magic Cube

The Bun Magic Cube is an eternal, 360 card cube named after my local playgroup. It’s an efficient, low-curving environment designed to explore the limits of fair Magic — decks that compete on the tempo and value axes and cover the aggro → midrange → control spectrum.

I document my evolving design philosophy piecemeal with a thorough changelog and discuss Cube design more broadly every week on the podcast Lucky Paper Radio.

History

The Bun Magic Cube was born in December of 2016. It was the first cube in my local playgroup, 'The Bun Magic Kitchen Table Pro Tour', from which it takes its name. It began as an attempt to reproduce many aspects of the Magic Online Vintage Cube which I had fallen in love with watching LSV's draft videos on YouTube. Over time, the cube evolved alongside my relationship to the game — I got heavily invested in Magic through playing Commander, and cube draft became an outlet for my more competitive nature. As a spectator of eternal constructed Magic, the current iteration of the Bun Magic Cube is a venue to draft lean, efficient decks akin to fair strategies in Legacy.

Gameplay Goals

"Small games; big decisions."

Decision Rich — Players get are presented with important, strategic choices starting from the earliest turns of the game.
Lean — Decisions with marginal strategic impact are minimized and games are relatively short. Quality of decisions is more important that quantity: games hinge on a handful of high-impact decisions as opposed to many 51/49, "small edge" choices. Sprawling board states with lots of accounting and potential for overlooked information are eschewed. Another way to describe this goal is with Sam Black's definition of "small games".
Interactive — Decks are non-linear and must adjust their strategy and sequencing in each match and game depending on their opponent's deck. The tempo of the game and impact of strategic choices is a result of the interplay between both decks. No parallel solitaire!
Diverse — Decks are not prescriptive. Players are encouraged to combine cards in new and unexpected ways.

Emergent Design Patterns

The following design choices have emerged from the gameplay goals stated above:

A high density of removal, countermagic, and hand hate, which are fundamentally interactive and force their casters to decide where and how to use them while simultaneously limiting board complexity and promoting smaller games.
A very low mana curve, which allows for double-spelling earlier in the game and forces players to make decisions about their sequencing by offering them many different options for what to do with their resources in a given turn.
A high density of cantrips and card selection, which minimizes the number of games decided by variance, contributes to meaningful decision density, and allows players to adjust their strategy on the fly.
Aggressively sized creatures, which lead to shorter games, smaller board states, and more trades in combat.
Minimal game-prolonging effects, like lifelink. Cards are chosen which help decisively end games rather than draw them out.
No non-interactive threats, which limit decisions by both players and often lead to linear play patterns.
A variety of top-end threats, (as opposed to interchangeable cards such as multiple [[Rabblemaster|Goblin Rabblemaster]] variants or generic, token-producing green planeswalkers) which contributes to a diversity of decks and playstyles.

Power Level

My chosen power level is influenced by my desire to play with specific, personally beloved and iconic cards, such as [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]], [[Snapcaster Mage]], [[Dark Confidant]], [[Dreadhorde Arcanist]], [[Titania, Protector of Argoth]], [[Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger]], [[Umezawa’s Jitte]], and [[Rishadan Port]]. I also aim to minimize the disparity between the least and most powerful cards in the cube. I believe a flatter power level leads to more nuanced draft picks and a broader diversity of decks in addition to reducing the number of games decided by players drawing cards of different raw power levels. These two factors combined substantially narrow the pool of viable cards for this environment — only the upper crust of Magic’s most powerful and efficient cards are considerations.

Even though power level is an important factor in which cards are included, the Bun Magic Cube embodies specific gameplay patterns I’ve explicitly chosen rather than blindly power-optimizing. There are many powerful, viable cards that are intentionally excluded, including but not limited to cards that:

provide their caster an outsized advantage with minimal or no deck building cost
discourage interactivity or limit decision making
are likely to unnecessarily prolong games or encourage board stalls
have narrow or non-interactive counterplay
contribute to linear, non-interactive strategies
have a very polarized matchup spread
cheat mana costs
are too similar to other cards included in the list (as decided purely subjectively by me)
introduce complexity that does not contribute to strategic depth

Restrictions

The Bun Magic Cube is singleton with the exception of fetchlands and shocklands, of which I run two and three full cycles, respectively. I avoid cards from un-sets, Mystery Booster playtest cards, and conspiracies. I own this cube in paper, with no proxies, so in rare occasions budget is a limiting factor. Beyond that, my card choices are unrestricted.

A Note on Mana Fixing

Relative to the average Cube on Cube Cobra, I include a very high density of fixing lands. This density has been carefully calibrated with the goal of allowing players access to two and three-color manabases that can compete with the consistency of mono-colored decks. The increased number of fetch lands impacts the effectiveness of delve and escape threats, cards like [[Wrenn and Six]], and landfall payoffs such as [[Lotus Cobra]] and [[Field of the Dead]]. Four and five color decks are occasionally possible, but far from a dominant strategy given the strength of aggressive decks in the Bun Magic Cube and the life loss from an extensive fetch/dual manabase. For more information, read my article "How many lands should you include in your Cube?".

dsoskey/andymangold