Today we will finish my month long saga about Pauper Cube. We have discussed history, design, recent updates, and for my final act I will leave you with some fun facts and stories from my experiences with my own Pauper Cube.
- In my original design for the cube, it was split into three sections based on different eras of Magic: Early sets, the block era, and the modern era. The idea was to draft one pack composed of only cards from each era. This would give the feeling of a full block structure where the block was the entire history of the game. Ultimately, I scrapped the idea because it was annoying to separate all the cards back into the different groups after the draft, but I still like the idea and am looking for another way to implement it.
- There are sub-sets of cards that support specific archetypes like Storm, Infect, or Defenders, that wouldn't normally be playable in the cube because you wouldn't be guaranteed to see the cards that your deck needed. The sub-sets are 15-20 cards that are randomly inserted into the draft packs as a whole unit. That way you are sure that drafting a specific deck is possible, but it could be very dicey if multiple people try to go in on the archetype.
- I have also toyed around with the idea of shrinking the cube down to either 360 or 240, or at least having a sub-set for play in which all the relevant cards for Pauper combo decks would appear. It would be sweet to be able to have a limited environment where the archetypes are clearly defined. Storm, Midnight Presence, Blue/Black Reanimator, Jund/Reanimate, Dredge, etc. Who wouldn't love combo mirrors?
- I originally wanted to include stickers to cover the art on the cards. These stickers would feature pop culture references, funny/cute images, or eerily similar pieces of art from outside Magic. If this sounds like a silly idea, that would be because it is. But alas, this is the kind of thing that my friends and I get a kick out of. Example:
- In my original design I also had several uncommon cards that I felt improved the environment and played particularly well. Strip Mine, Maze of Ith, Complicate, and a few others were all included.During my update for Born of the Gods, I decided it was time to remove them and have a truly commons-only cube. I think it improved the format, but the loss of such defining cards has definitely lowered the power level.
- I had also created a sub set of uncommon cards that could be introduced into the packs just like I described earlier, but these were always uncommons from the latest set. A sort of 'Uncommon of the Month' club.
- Can you guess which Magic set has the most cards in my Cube? ...it's Gatecrash. Here's the top five:
- Gatecrash - 26
- Return to Ravnica - 22
- Khans of Tarkir - 21
- Rise of the Eldrazi - 21
- Ravnica, Time Spiral - 18
Notice anything? There are a lot of lands in my cube, and therefore it is no surprise that the sets with land cycles are at the top of this list. Here is what that list would look like if you discounted the sets with major land cycles:
- Rise of the Eldrazi -21
- Time Spiral - 18
- Innistrad - 13
- Alara Reborn, Eventide, Planar Chaos, Tempest, Theros - 11
- With the most current update, I have changed things around. My previous article stated that Portal Second Age was the only set from which I had not included a card. Well, that has changed. There are now two: Antiquities and M15. A situation that I will be looking to correct at my first opportunity. Past that, there are six sets at the bottom tied with only 1 card each. Those sets are: Urza's Destiny, Saviors of Kamigawa, Prophecy, and all three Portal Sets.
- I have chosen not to count Starter 1999 and 2000 as 'sets', but if I did count them, they would also be zeroes, technically. There are cards in the cube which have appeared in those sets, but I have not put any card into the cube that was ORIGINALLY printed in those sets. The reason being that they were mostly reprints so I treat them like pre-New World Order core sets (and all the cards pretty much sucked anyway).
- The most common Creature type is Human. I would make a list, but there really isn't anything else that is even close.
- I have played a two person Winston Draft where one of the players ended up with every single Extort Creature (there are 6). The odds of this happening are very slim, but not that unreasonable compared to what happened next. In one of our games he mulliganed to six cards and found that he had drawn all six Extort Creatures! The odds of this happening in his 40 card deck are 1 in 3,838,380. After staring in bewilderment for some time, he eventually decided that he needed to mulligan again.
- The most life that I have seen gained off of a Crypt Incursion: 36
- The most tokens that I have ever seen in play concurrently from a Lab Rats: 23
- The most tokens that I have ever seen in play concurrently from a Sprout Swarm: Strangely, only 7. This probably just means that you are more likely to outright WIN THE GAME soon if you go off with Sprout Swarm than if you go off with Lab Rats (citation needed).
- Most damage dealt with a Sparksmith: 7, this record is unlikely to be broken because I have since removed many of the Goblin cards.
- I have twice seen someone lose to a lethal Fireball for the full 20.
- Most Mulldrifters cast in a single game: 5
- The original build had a dedicated Tribal theme with spirits being featured prominently, but I never once successfully Soulshifted something.
- In my original 360 card design there were all six artifact lands and the UrzaTron, but no one ever got the full set of either into a single deck.
I can't recall anything else notable and this article has grown too long already. That is all she wrote on the Pauper Cube kiddies. I will be back next week with something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT involving one of my favorite new cards: Treasure Cruise
-GG
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