What Makes A Cube Good? | #106

In this episode of Powerful Nothing, Dan and James look to answer the question, "What makes a cube good?". While every cube is different, there are things that good cubes share, and this is what is dived into today, to hopefully help everyone get the most out of their own cube environments.

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/0NaaGtAmvkyI35UZxL4D2A

Timecodes:
1:00 - Main Topic - What makes a cube good?
2:42 - Important of a cube goal/theme, executed well
10:17 - Making sure the answers match the threats
15:54 - Making sure the cube fits its size
20:50 - Having enough things to do
29:41 - Playing cards you like, and avoiding cards you don't like
37:06 - Avoiding traps
40:41 - Being too clever
48:06 - The importance of balace
55:31 - Does replayability matter?
1:04:48 - Who wants to be a cubeillionair - GAME SHOW!!

Video Version: https://youtu.be/_K0r-LKXDVA

Cube Skeleton Episode: https://youtu.be/92aS4ZU_nd8

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

Social Links: https://linktr.ee/toosweetmtg

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Transcript

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0:03

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James James. How are you doing this week? Yeah, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. How you doing? Yeah, I'm doing well, thank you. And as always, we have another banger topic for everyone. Today we're going to be doing a bit of kind of like, a lot of our episodes. I kind of like nitty gritty in terms of like, this card is good. This is how you build this off, that kind of thing. Today we're gonna be stepping back a bit and kind of doing a bit of an overview of like, what makes a cube good. Today, we're gonna be having a conversation about some things that we think all good cubes generally share. So hopefully you can take this away and look at your own cubes to try and get the most out of them. Before we get into our main topic, as a reminder, there will be a link to a card gallery down in the show notes below, along with time codes. If you want to jump around, also stick to it. Stick with us to the end because we are going to be trialing a new little quiz game show thing I have in mind for James. Should be a lot of fun, right? So with that preamble out of the way, let's move on to our actual big topic of the day. So today we're going to be talking about what we think makes a cube good. Now I got the idea for this, Limited Resources recently did an episode on what they think makes a good limited set for drafting, which kind of got me thinking, like, what makes a good cube? What things to all good cubes have in common? Because if you're listening to this, there's a high chance that you like cube. Me and James love cube is probably the main way that both of us play magic nowadays. I know definitely myself. It's like the main way I interact with Magic The Gathering. Nowadays, I when I'm taking the time to play magic, I want to make sure that I'm having as much fun as possible. Yeah for sure. We've got to acknowledge have a fit. This is a really subjective judgment, right? Because ultimately V the best cube is for one that you and your playing group are going to enjoy most. Right. But we think there are some, like, common properties that make cubes enjoyable for most people. Yeah. That there's there's some things that will really appeal to specific groups of people. But there's, I think a few properties that cube cubes that work well and get played for a long time, that do have in common and are worth calling out. Yeah. The term good is is similar to like the term fun in that it kind of like it's everyone's got their own different version of what that means. But generally speaking, good cubes and cubes that I have enjoyed and I think this will be the same for you, James. Do share a number of factors, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. So that, you, the listener, can apply this to your own cubes or cubes that you play. I think the first place to start is that most is that the cubes that I generally like playing and have enjoyed mostly have a theme or a goal, and I'm executing it well. Now, this this one is also a little bit vague, but I'll try and describe it as best I can. So like the mic go vintage Cube, the cube that most people interact with more than any other. Cute because it's the one that's on mic go is traditionally where people have played cube. That is, a cube where the goal is to basically try and run the most powerful cards possible. It's the place we get to run the power nine, and like all the other broken cards, it might try new things, but generally it doesn't have pet cards. Like if a new card comes out, it will generally cut old favorites to make room for it. If they don't hold up from a personal point of view, you also have like my unpowered vintage cube. This is trying to run the best cards, but just below the power level of most powerful cards. And like for me, that has taken time to find works. And like there's been times where I've not enjoyed my cube as much because I haven't found that power level. It's kind of like I haven't executed my goal as well as I think it can. I think I example other people might be aware of, it's like the 100 only top two cube. Like it took the idea of how can I run a 100 on the top tips and make that fun, and really thought about what cards work with the card. On a top down like that, cubes are adding a bunch of wind cones that didn't involve all doctors. Then that would kind of throw it all off. It wouldn't do well with the theming and it wouldn't exp, and it won't be doing its goal as as much as possible. But then like this can also apply to like a budget cube made from cards you like. Like that's still a theme and a goal. Like if you start adding more efficient and expensive cards and that's going to start warping the environment and it'll lead to less fun games. That's kind of what I'm trying to like. Just does that kind of make sense? What I'm saying? Yeah, I think so. I think I would focus more on the word goal from the word team because, like a bunch of really good cubes I've played have not had, like a super discernable theme outside of here's a bunch of cards I like and I think play well together. But I think what you do definitely need is a goal in terms of how you want the games to play out and what experience you're going for for your drafters. Right. Because if you just mesh together cards you like, but some of them are super high power levels and then that super low power level, some of them push very quick games. And the firm, can't cope with that aggression. Then. Then you can have like some quite unsatisfying draft experiences and gameplay experiences because, the, the, the decks just aren't going to, necessarily lead to like positive, balanced, interactive gameplay. Whereas if, if, if for you, I mean, one thing you need, regardless of whether it's a V for matic cube or not, is some ideas about, what power level you're going for. And, how you want the decks to play against each other. I think one, one quite useful experience is what exercise to do when you're building a cube is, just knock together like a fairly typical deck for most color pairs and think about how they would play against each other. And because you do need to make sure that all of your archetypes have tools in every match up, right? Like they might have positive and negative match ups, but you really want to feel like you have game and all the match ups. I think one thing that can be a really negative experience in cube is the thing you guessing constructed sometimes where, one deck just can't beat another attack, right? Like as in this is how old of a magic player I am. For example, when you used to play modern like Jun against fun, like for Jun, that could just never be too much fun. Deck because it was too big. You don't really want those experiences in cube. I think because, it's kind of unsatisfying to like, draft what you think is a pretty good version of one archetype and run into a match up, but you just can never win. So I think you need you need for that. Balancing is in lots of ways essential in a way. But like having a theme can be really cool. Like 100 on Fox. This thing is a great example. But I don't think it's essential because I think you can just build a bunch of cards I like, for example, like one of the themes we often have is Peasant Cube, right? Peasant cube for reason. Peasant cube is fun is not because all the cards are common. Like that actually doesn't matter, right? The reason peasant Cube is fun is because when you set out to build a peasant cube, the verity constraint pushes you towards a particular kind of gameplay, which is pretty, pretty interesting. And the verity constraint sort of keeps you on the rails for that sort of gameplay experience. Assuming you don't go and add like solving and skill clamp and stuff, which are also uncommon. So yeah, I think theme like can be great but is optional. And but even if you have a theme, the theme doesn't take away from the need to think about things like power level and gameplay. Like, I've, I've tended to think about cubes. I've started with what sort of game player one or what server types I want. And then, sometimes you're fitting the cube to, to make that work, right? Like, if you have a cubes, like, you have really, like flavor driven themes of, like, all the cards have hats or whatever, like, that's great. That doesn't make my gameplay better or worse. And the cards have hats, you know, so you need to think about the gameplay outside of that theme, right? No, I think that's a very good point. I think, you know, when I put theme down it, because a lot of ways people do build cubes is with like, yeah, like the hats one, it's one on that I think for like snow cubes, like horror themed cubes for like Halloween, that kind of stuff. But you are right in terms of like theming in that aspect, it's basically it's similar to peasant and pauper. It's like narrowing down your pool of cards. But yeah, that does make sense. I don't I was saying times in terms of like, you've narrowed it down to say it's a snow cube, you've narrowed it down to be like winter themed, but then you still need to think about the gameplay beyond that to actually make the games interesting. And make it a good cube. That does make it a lot of sense to me. Yeah, for sure. And you need to think about when you're figuring out what power level your cube is going to end up at. You know, if you have specific archetypes you want to make work or particular cards you like non-negotiable for, you have to be in there. You want to be thinking about, okay, what power level can those cards so that archetype, that theme, whatever might be, what what power level can those cards cope with? And still be effective cube cards because you don't want to, you don't want to be in a spot where the sort of face cards of a cube, the, the theme that's meant to be drawing people in is actually not that good. And it's better to be playing other things, you know? Yeah, I think that does bring us onto nicely, like what you're saying about in terms of, like setting, like what are the key cards, what are the key interactions? What do you want to work like? Like one big thing that I found important to make sure that a cube is good, is making sure that the answers are matching the threads on the thread. So matching the answers you want to make sure that that people can answer what's going on. You don't just want someone to be able to just get ahead and then steamroll their opponent like magic is a game that needs to be back and forth. If it's just like, like, like two ships crossing in the night that don't interact, then what is the point of meeting up in person and playing a game of magic? You could just be playing solitaire, you know what I mean? But likewise, you also can't have too many answers. You can't have all the interaction be more powerful than the threads. Or if you're on a slower clip, you can't have like super efficient answers if you're trying to build slow, big engines like they have to match. Like it's why in like the the Mega Vintage Cube over the last couple of years is the best example of this. Like there is now like there was like a switch where out became where out went from unplayable to really important to decks because threats are getting cheaper and there's more and there's more of them than ever. So therefore having ways of interacting with your opponent on turn one and two is now and in that cube anyway, more important than ever. So we're just saying it. So as the threats are getting better in powered cube, we're seeing more cheap answers coming in, like things like snuff out like free answers as well are becoming more and more important because we have to interact with our opponent. That's the cube adapting to the threats that are there. The threats have got better. Therefore, answers have to get better in that environment. Like the opposite is true. And my Treat Yourself cube something we'll touch on a bit more detail towards the end, because I think it's a good example of, how I'm adjusting it to try and make it better. But, in my treat yourself cube, the threat start at like 3 to 5 mana, not 1 to 3. So therefore I can't have like swords to plowshares or like mana leak in there because just the the manner that someone's investing in the answer is so much less than the manner they're investing and the threat that it's always going to be a blowout. Therefore, like Hero's Downfall, the three mana destroy target creature, that's kind of like the best we want to be. We don't want something at one mana, because it's just going to blow out your opponent way too consistently. Yeah for sure. And where you want to set that balance again goes back to what sort of gameplay you're trying to encourage, right? Because, it's sort of a common cube where you say, I see this balance being quite skewed in the direction of answers. Being really powerful is is the, peasant cubes with all of the best comments and, commons? Well, yeah, you've got like counterspell and salsa plowshares and facial push into, you have honestly most of the best answers in magic, a common and uncommon light. Not at there. But the creatures in effects. And not the power level of, of most of cubes. And that's not a bad thing. Like, those cubes can be very fun, but it is pushing a very particular sort of gameplay wise becomes really a very much about value one and be working very hard feel to for ones, all that stuff really matters, which is really fun. It's it's kind of an old school, gameplay experience in a lot of ways, but, it feels like the scenes matter. It's really interesting. It really disincentivize trying to pull off, like, big, splashy things, you know, because you don't want to invest loads of mana, loads of cards and trying to get one really big effects, and then your opponent just has the right answer for the time and deals with it very basically. So I think you'll treat yourself cubes are great examples where you're very much trying to push for a big splashy thing, right? So, the answers need to be at a level where you can still pull that stuff off. And it's it's worth the the deck building effort of trying to make them make a big, splashy engine, because your opponent isn't going to be able to deal with it without a big investment of mana. Exactly. Unlike, like the treat Yourself cube, exactly where you're trying to go big and slow it. But like the same would apply to like a budget cube or like someone's first cube. Like people might have saws to plowshares and path to exile because they have them from like a commander decks, something like that. If you're building your first cube, there's a world where that's too efficient. Maybe you want like the two mana version, like, get lost. Like like those. Kind of like maybe you want you want a less efficient one to begin with. If your answers and like, if your big splashy spells are at five and six mana again, it's also something to consider. It's just. And there isn't a like there isn't like a firm formula for this. It is more like what is the goal like? It comes back to what is the goal and was the thing if you're if you are trying to build a more budget, more slower cube, then it is a thing of don't run the most efficient things. Like if you're not running the most efficient threads, don't run the most efficient answers. Yeah for sure. And be aware of the the incentives you're putting on the deck, building with the answers you're putting in. Right. Like when you see a lot of very efficient counter spells that they're so punishing to expensive cards. Not not that bad to include, but just be aware than the more cheap permission you put in, the more you're sort of putting a lot of downward pressure on cards, and you really disincentivize some people from playing the, the five and six mana spells. And then another thing to keep in mind is making sure the cube fits its size by that I'm trying to get across is making sure that the cards you're picking work with the size of cube that you have going for so a great way of explaining this is not putting narrow two card combos in a 720 cube, because the chances of them being seen and coming up is so small. This kind of also works with, things like archetypes. If you're building a large cube, make sure that if you want a deck to be supported or a theme to be supported, make sure that there is enough redundancy there. Otherwise it's not going to come up like this will come. We'll also touch on this later when we come to like avoiding traps in cube, but like specifically like like it is a massive feel bad for someone if they see half of a combo and then like, okay, this is this is there. And then because it's a 720, we just don't see the other half. And if someone's tried to commit the whole deck around it, that can lead to a feel bad and isn't a good cube environment. James, would you kind of go along with that? Yeah, it can, it can it can certainly be a problem. I would certainly say if you're looking at a 720, you shouldn't be including like two card combos with no redundancy because, they're just not going to come up enough. I think part of this, though, also comes down to your play group like, I think players who have drafted a lot will, like, understand that dynamic a little bit better and aren't going to build their deck around the combo until they actually have that combo in there in that pool, you know, I certainly feel like newer players, so like, oh, like, I mean, not new applies to magic, but people haven't cubed quite as much. A concern if they ever, ever feel bad. This I think so, yeah. There are certainly some, some problems of running a very large cube. And in those scenarios there can also be some traps. You run into a very small cube. So or specifically cubes where you're drafting a very large percentage of the cards. Every time I think in those cubes, if you have, if you're a cube with very clearly defined archetypes, like a lot of cards that are very specifically go in like one color player, one on archetype, you can end up in a spot where if you're in that archetype, then you're basically getting the same deck every time because there's no because the same cards are opened every time, and no one else wants the cards for your deck, because they're the cards for your archetype, and no one else is drafting that you can. You can end up in a spot where if you draft the same archetype, it feels like you're just playing the same deck. And that's also not fun. And like, it's fine for 1 or 2 to ask for a really hurts replayability of cube, I think, I think if you're in those like very well defined archetypes, I think there's a pretty strong argument that you should be looking at. If you're drafting players, for example, doing a 540 of often a 360. Yeah. Completely agree. Like, like matching the cube size to the amount of players you're expecting to draw with it. Yeah. It's it's it's a different bonus. It's kind of why. So like most of my cubes have been 540. But the last couple months basically over summer people have had things to do. We haven't, hit eight people at draft as often. So my last cube, my modern I'm my old board cube, is a 450 because it works better with like six people that we're often hitting, but like, like like I'm also building a lot more like, two boats, like one cubes, because we're also drafting with four people. Like, like it's tailoring, like, that's also a the cube is fitting the size in that aspect because the, the size requirement is like, yeah, for me the perfect amount is the cube is about a third to 50% bigger than the amount of people who were drafting it. And that's something that's important to kind of think about and think about as you are building a cube, but also as you continue to maintain it. Because we all get older, people move away, people get busy, that kind of stuff, like with the best intentions. Like everyone wants to cube as much as possible, but sometimes you can't get to eight, does it? Well, do I? I like, like like like a. In a few years I could see myself making my 540 cube a 450. If we're constantly hitting six people, having that additional size of people having the 540 doesn't make sense. There's a world where making it smaller might make sense. That's something I kind of like. People should kind of not. I'm not saying after every draft think about, well, well, this time we only got six people. Therefore my cube must be smaller. Kind of. One of the nice things about cube is that you can make your your decisions a bit slower, like over six months or a year, that kind of stuff as like life goes on, basically. But one thing that you touched on, James, that I think is good to move on to, is, having enough things to do in your cube is something you mentioned with like the smaller cubes and just having the decks be similar every time. But I think just having enough things and enough variety is one of the main things I look for in a cube. Like what the best example of like the bad version of this is like the small standard sets that have, been out recently. So like, we're currently coming towards the end probably I'm assuming I'm assuming there'll be a new set soon, but, like The Hobbit, is a small set. We've also had Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles in the last like six months to a year. Generally speaking, those have been considered some of the worst sets for like for, for limited in a, in a long time. And it doesn't mean people don't like them. There's some cool cars in there, like there's some individual standouts I've liked from every set. But as like draft environments and draft experiences that generally considered to be some of the shallowest and some of the worst. And that's primarily because they don't have enough things for people to do. Like, I think all of those sets only have like five archetypes. And in most of them, like 1 or 2 of them have been quite bad. Which realistically means that if you want to do something good, if you want to, if you want, if you're spending your money on drafting them, you you have three options. Basically. And how many times are you going to want to do that? Like and it's why we often see when people start in cubes. It's it's how I built like the first couple of my cubes for quite a while. Starting with your ten color pairs, it guarantees that there is enough different decks in your cube. It's why me and James are very high on adding packages, so they're kind of like, as you kind of get more comfortable building cubes, you can kind of make the whole cube all packages. But effectively a package is a different flavor of deck on top of your color pairs. And that's why. And that I think, is a fantastic way of building a cube, but also just keeping it fresh. And it just guarantees you have enough things to do because at a minimum, if you have eight people drafting and there are ten color pairs of things to do, it means that there is built in replayability because at least because there's at least two decks that haven't been played, and that's if everyone does the same. The Allison everyone plays as intended. But what all human people will do different things or splash here and there. Yeah, I totally agree. I think the the cubes where the decks feel very unveils, and there's not much scope for variety between within those sets. Ask types can do get old pretty quickly. I think one thing that can really help with this is looking out for, individual cards or very small packages, which, you know, don't, don't cost you a lot of slots, but when they come up in the right scenario, you can make your deck play very, very differently and in a way that will feel like a very new deck. Even if a lot of the other cards sag at cards you've played before. So an example I would use for this. It and power tube is something like Lotus, right. That costs you one slot to include. So if people don't companion at Adventure Time, it's not an issue. It's not cost you anything. But, the that's where Lotus works out. It's really, really cool. And it feels very, very different from anything else you can do in that cube. Similar with something like oath to it. Right? Like you put Oath of True. It's in your deck. You're completely changing the composition of your deck. You're changing what your deck is trying to do. You're changing the pick order of your card slot. I think one thing that is, Really important for the playability of cubes is that. How you value the cards changes a lot depending on what you have in your pool. Right. And outside of just, I invite colors. You don't. I think the cubes where it's just. These are a good cards. You should prioritize them over these cards, which are less good. But face cubes get old pretty quickly. But the cards, the cubes where it's an. And not not combos in this sense of a plus B win the game. But, whatever combinations of cards in your deck really matter and building lo pack two cards for work well together. I'm giving you guys have two different incentives to draft differently depending on their early picks. I think that that adds a lot of replayability. So keep that like it's it's why we've done two episodes on our favorite build arounds, like some other bangers that we've, that we've talked about in those episodes of cards like dream Halls or cards like Fast Bone, because I just like, and I know you're a big fan of opposition, like, just like, just buy them existing in the cube, like they are one cards that add that variety of that flavor, that something different to do. And that's really important. And like for me, the best cubes, it's only something kind of like like as I've kind of built more and more cubes and got better. And I feel better with, with cube design things, just like I like things just overall overlap and intertwine so much more. Like the more that the more that card A interacts interestingly with card Z, you know what I mean? Like just like like the more overlap on the more of a web it becomes, the better the cube is, because it's more replayability, it's more interesting. Like I often I, I consider myself to be good at making cubes. It's I've built so many of the last couple years and also think about it in theory craft in my head when I'm not recording this quite a lot, I don't know, since we have a cube podcast exactly like talking about this stuff, but like, yeah, as I've built more cubes, I am definitely got more into testing packages of cards like like interactions that I see in other formats, like looking at old, like modern decks or like Canadian Highlander decks and saying, oh, that card synergize with that card. That's cool. How would that work in cube? And like, sometimes. Yeah, yeah, as I mentioned, like I would like, like this big overarching weave of things that work out but sometimes narrow two card combos are also interesting. Like, like in my main cube I'm running green sun zenith. This is X and a green search a library for a green creature card with mana value x or less, but on the battlefield. Then shuffle. Then you shuffle it back into its own. His library. I'm running that as a tutor. I'm running a card like Dried Arbor because I want some support for the delirium deck. But those two work really nicely together. Like, effectively they turns green Sun Zenith into a ramp spell by having those two existing, and that is a nice combination. You have to have both cards in your deck and draw the queens, and then if it's not gonna come up all the time, but when it comes up, you do feel a little bit smart. Having those like, little interactions as well as, like the bigger overarching themes that overlap, I think is important as well. It kind of adds a nice level of texture to your weave that makes sense. What we're doing a lot of big metaphors this week. I like it, yeah. For, looking at constructs and formats, for inspiration, I think can be very useful because, it means that we're not just recycling ideas from other cubes. But realistically, we can't all hold however many thousand magic cards, in our heads at all times. And, and I think for once, we want, like, building dual command cube, for example, I did look quite a lot of dual command of a constructed format for some ideas and, some very cool cards to see play in that format that just I have never heard of and they don't see play anywhere else. Stuff like Skyfire. Phoenix was one of so like that card slaps actually read that one out, which I like. Yeah. For two. Red, red. So four mana. Three, three flying haste. When you cast your command over return sky fire. Phoenix from the graveyard to the battlefield. It's one of those where it's it's weirdly format specific, right? Because obviously it needs to be in a format with a commander in order to work that and a four player game of Commander Vector commander, where everyone starts off 40 life. This is a bit too small ball, right? It's not really matter. But, for Dual commander, where you're playing one on one, your opponent's on 20, but you serve a command that this card slaps. It's and especially if you're able to discard it early, this, this can be very, very powerful. And those are cards, you know, you're not you're not going to find looking at just random other cube lists, you know, and and that's you found the dual commander cube specifically to to left from, you know. Yeah, I really like like I didn't like like it does like again it part of that comes back to you put the time to look through Skyfall I'm assuming. Or just just go through and look for cards that like like a lot of the cubes I've been building actually, like, like like the mono blue desert that we talked about about a month or two ago. And the, the successor to that them on a red one I'm building. I just enjoyed going like, scroll like look for the theme or the effect I want and then do Skyfall oldest first and just look at some old nonsense until we find some goodness that we want somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I've been really enjoying that. Let's keep going. James, I think this is a two parter, which will make sense. The first part is shorter than the second part. The first bit is including cards that you and people around you like. Think about the players that are playing the cube, and this might to sound really obvious. Just play cards that you like, but like it is a it's a it's that there's a bit of new wants to it. It's play cards that like that still fit the theme. Like like try and avoid pet cards. This is something I am very bad at and I'm again, do as I say, not as I do. James is going to testify how many times God Gary Grapeshot has been in and out of my main cube. But like include cards that work that people like I think is very important because, and and you'll find that out just by talking to your play group. Like what? What what do they like? What are the people who are drafting the cube, like doing by talking to them? You will get a better idea and they're more likely to come back if if they're playing cards or doing things that, that they like. And then the flip side of that, maybe more obvious, but it's, it's it's something that needs to be said. Avoid cards that people don't like or importantly, make games take longer, like unless unless is the point of the cube to have long, interesting grinding games. Respect your players times. There's a difference. There's a massive difference between having a control deck, being good in a cube, and adding cards like warp World or like Sha is out there. Like actively make the game take longer and don't really do much. Again, if the whole point of the cube is to have sub games off to sub games and maybe there's something that could build that. But like if I'm just building like a mid-range IQ, but like a budget cube, I get Charizard is like two grand probably, but like adding just like big chaos effects affects like just like just only exist to drag out a game and give you a very small benefit. I don't I would avoid at all costs basically. Again, unless the the caveat of unless it's what the cube is doing will apply to everything we're saying in this episode. But like specifically, just yeah, respecting your player's time, I think is very important. If people are taking the time to come and drop with you in person especially, do you want the whole thing to be done in around 4 to 5 hours? You want like people want to hang out afterwards because your friends are awesome. We do that all the time, but like people have lives, it's important to respect that. Yeah, for sure. If there's a reason. Nice to organized magic events have things like round timers that, tell people to pack it in after events. It's their third stuff game, which is that, we don't tend to do that in cube. I don't know, maybe some play groups do. But it feels a little bit, a little bit annoying to stick a 50 minute round time on every time. But, you do have to design your cube with that in mind, because what the problem with fans going along as well as it's not fair, everyone's playing magic for longer. It's that two people are playing magic for longer, whilst six people sit and watch and play magic because they're amounts finished in a normal amount of time. But you put a bunch of cards in the cube that made one book, one game go on for an hour and a half, and I if I'm honest with you, I think this is one reason why I've never built a full commander cube like your duel commander cube I love because it's you get the cool part of commander where you get to build around a card, but the game ends in a reasonable time. You have an interesting one on one game. I've never built a full like eight players drafting. You have two parts where you play a full game of commander afterwards, because my experiences of them have been they've just taken way too long. I think there's a there's a nice niche there or there's a nice level there where like literally the conspiracy method I think is the perfect level for that, where people sit on 20 likes, you have 40 card decks. I think that's actually the way to do it. But the full Commander Cube, I've never built because but because, because to me, I feel the games take too long and that's not. And that's me not respecting my players time. If I were to build that and organize that, basically, yeah, for sure. I think four player draft environments are pretty challenging to get right, to be honest. Oh, I like draft environments where you play four play games. Because there's this inherent disincentive, attacking and ending the game. Right? Because you swing out and attack one player, then comes down to the next person who like, who doesn't have blockers, the guy who just attack. Wait, I'll attack him. And player two does the same. Player three does the same. And, it turns out you'd been much better just leaving up your blockers. Listen, there ways you can build cubes to try and get around that. I'm not saying that there aren't good versions of these cubes, but, it's a pretty big challenge, and I would very strongly lean towards if you're building a cube to be played with four players, you should probably try and draft with four players rather than eight players. The problem if you split it up into two games is what one of those games is gonna finish in ten minutes and one of them is going to take an hour, and that's really annoying. Yeah, it is like I do see people asking like how to build a command cube quite a lot online. And I think it's because command is the most popular format. People like the idea of cube and kind of like, oh, I'll just take the parts I like and put it into a cube. Maybe there's something we should do an episode on it at some point, James. But like, Like for me, like, I, I like the idea of a multiplayer cube environment. I'm going to build it at some point once I've got the mono red desert out of the way and some other bits I need to update because you know, too many cubes and drag it. I have too many cubes, but for me, I when I build it, it's going to be something along the lines of it's going to be the conspiracy rules of 40 cards, 20 life. And you see it in mechanics like the monarchy, which incentivize people to attack. And you keep the power level simple, like if you run a card like, like and commander, when I play in general, because of the the capacity load of commander nowadays, I've just if there's a simple version of a card I'm running that I ignore any kind of card with like set mechanic, additional I'm running murder. I'm running like simple card draw effect, simple rap. I'm there's too much going on. And I think with cube that the complexity really kind of ramps up. I think let's keep going games because I know I, I feel this is probably going to be a website at some point talking about how, how to command a cube. But one thing that I think is important, and is something that I've been guilty of over the years, is avoiding traps. This kind of comes back to something we were touching on earlier in terms of size, but don't put something in in a cube if it implies something else will be there. If I see a kick in a cube, I expect because to combo it to be in there, and now, as someone who organizes a bunch of cubes, I always like say, okay, who's up for a cube on this day? Cool. We're dropping this cube. Here's the cube list. You can't assume everyone is going to go through the cube in granular detail and see, oh, there's Kiki, but actually it's just here to copy an Inferno Titan. It's not here to combo off, it's a value card. A lot of times people will be seeing the cards in the cube is when they open the pack, and if you see something in there, there needs to be a reward for it. So Kiki Juke is one example, but like Dark Depths is not a classic example. If Dark Depths is in the cube, I am expecting to see a way of cheating a legend to play. I'm not expecting to pay as it's 30 mana over a number of turns. I'm expecting to see ways of cheating it into play, and I'm also expecting to see ways that I recognize. And I know I'm not expecting to like like like I was like to see thespian stage. I'm expecting to see, Vampire hex makes like something that I know easily works with that. Not like like because there's a lot of cards that cheat marinades into play nowadays. I'm expecting to see the ones that everyone knows, not some random esoteric one that works in a niche way, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think you want a couple that are familiar to players, right? I think one one thing that's actually quite important to Sophie, how much you enjoy a new cube like, the first time you, you play it is you you need a sort of balance of familiarity and novelty, right? It's cool if I get to play with some new cards, I want to play with some new cards that I haven't played with before. But if I'm reading every card in the pack, every time, that's a little bit overwhelming. It's fine. You can do it, but it makes it, it means you're probably not thinking that much about, you know, strategy or what, like, oh, well, you might be trying to build, right? You're just trying to process all of these 15 new cards and see if any of them are any good. I think it's nice to have a few familiar handholds. So if you're. But yeah, if you're running something like a dog steps put in the obvious ones and then maybe a couple of weird ones too, you know? But, don't be all the, you know, all of the nonsense. What was the one where we like to manually trigger something? There's, like, a red sorcery where you like target triggered ability triggers or something. Oh, that was trigger happy. That's, infinity card one, the red instant. Choose a trigger. The ability of target permanent. It triggers you control that ability. That's cool. Your players might not figure out that that works with dark. That's. You know, it's not that obvious. And you need to be aware of that when you're building your cube. Don't have tons of stuff that needs explaining to people. The cards should ideally explain themselves. Yeah. I think this comes on to, next point quite well is, try to avoid being too clever. This is something again, I think I feel at times I've been guilty of, like I've done this a bunch in the past when trying to support, like, combos, like I think like again, we'll touch on why treat yourself cube at the end of this episode is kind of an example of maybe some things to kind of learn from, but like. There's definitely been points where I just throw, I'm not throwing cards away. Basically, I've gone down the rabbit hole of, oh, this card interacts with this this way. That's cool. This card overlaps with this, this way. Cool. And then you kind of you, you have that lattice. You have that web that I was after earlier is like this card works with this is card with works with this. But then because it's not focused, because it it's a bit too scattergun, it means that none of it comes off or you get people fighting over, halves of combos they don't fully understand. And it's why Kikuchi explained it to an I don't mean to keep going back to it, but it's why it's so clean, because it's a group of cards that just work and people can understand it. And because because people have seen it in modern, that's kind of where it came from. Like like because people saw it index, they understood how it worked. And they see in cube and they're replicating it. I definitely feel like in my Treat Yourself tube, I was I've been guilty of, oh, these are cool combos from commander. Oh, these are cool combos that kind of like someone doing the food deck and commander Will. No, not people in the wider public. So so when I when I put it in my cube. But like I've tried to do, well I put it in the cube. I like put an explainer of how it works in the guide. But again, I can't expect people to read like I people want to. Awesome. It's they're fun, but if people don't have the time or aren't able to like, I can't expect them to just know automatically how these three command two cards over the last couple of years interact infinitely with food, and I feel that at times I've. Yeah, at times it is taken away from the play experience or people drafting it because they may have got two parts of the combo or maybe even the whole whole combo, but because it isn't the most commonly used or easy to explain, they haven't got the most out of it. And that's kind of led to people not enjoying it at times. Yeah, I think it's very easy to fall into. I think I definitely did this a little bit in command Commander Cube with the creature combo stuff. I think I think this is still true of I'm the only person to have actually drafted that deck. And, quite a few playthroughs of, and I think a decent part of that is because, we set about talk about cube floats, and therefore we think about all these little niche combos which are cool to put together. Most people aren't entirely clear on, like, how what you're meant to do with that Saphira also, or, Samwise Gamgee or whatever, you know, like some people will be, but a lot of people won't be, or it's just like, have you happened to come across that combo in a game of command at some time? You know, and even if you you have, you might not remember, like all the cards involved or how it all works or have thought about exactly what you need to make that come together. And it means that people often like speaking on the cards, but then they're not quite sure, how to optimize them. And it ends with a bit of an unsatisfying experience. I think you'll command the cube sort of gets away with it, because that's very much one archetype. And all the other archetypes sort of work how you do expect them to and, and even if people haven't played with all the cards, they very much go in that theme, and that's fine. People can make them work. But, it is definitely something you want to be conscious of. I think. Yeah, I think on that point, I think specifically whyI say, like, I think the food combos have been severely guilty of it and my Treat Yourself cube, because it's a tri color cube. So there's a lot of three color decks. So you can have two players going into it. You can have like the green black player and the white black player or something like that. Like like you can have people starting from a two color combination, like saying, oh, there's some food stuff I'll go into. And then you kind of ends up making up two people's drafts. That's something I think I need to look at. But like there's some other examples of things I have learned, I'm gonna put these in here. I'm gonna say them, like, there's times where I've just been too clever in my cube and kind of like, looking back on it. I need to ask more. I've had to ask myself, like, did they make the experience better? Like, there was a period in my main cube where I was running double fetch lands, snow basics, companions with the original rules and draft matters cards I have kept in some of the draft mixed cards, cuz I think that they they're cool when they add something to the draft, but like the other three did, they? I've had to ask myself when I was rebuilding my cube, did they actually make my cube better, or did it hinder players, or did it hinder new players? That kind of stuff like, the truth is that I put them in initially as tests because we have a cube podcast and it's something to talk about. We've definitely made episodes on all of these or but like, yeah, all these I had in my cube for like a number of years until I rebuilt it and then had to ask myself, do these add in this thing? Kind of like James, as someone who has played my cube, who is not me, do you think the gameplay experience was better, the same or different by having these extra things in it or out or taken out? I think for me personally, it was better, because I really like having new stuff to do and think about. But I'm where I'm coming at it from a very specific position where, you also have a cube podcast. I also have a cube podcast. It's also called For Nothing. Oh my God, I love those guys. Subscribe. I, I'm not sure I am, actually, but, nevermind. James. I've also played like so many games of cube and have therefore played lots of games with most of these other cards. So having a it's that thing of familiarity versus novelty, like lots of other stuff in the cube is very familiar to me. So having these little bits of novelty and there's a very big puzzle for me, right? Where is if you're coming from it, even if you've played loads of magic? Lots of other cards in the cube, maybe less familiar to you. And therefore when you add in even more new cards like this, which, doing something quite unique and sort of requires thoughts about how to, how to use, it's maybe pushing off that balance a little that I. So I think, yeah, maybe the thing is just like, yes, do it, but do it in moderation. Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah, I know, don't touch it. Or like maybe one at a time. So I so I actually see what the effect of that one is. Might have been better than throwing all of these at the cube in any one go. Yeah, I think that makes sense. So I'm basically going to finish up on James. What do you how do you feel about balance? How do you feel about the balance of the cube mattering in terms of, like, is a cube good? I think it's not the only thing that's important. I think it's not even the main thing, but it's important. And cubes can cope with, imbalance up to a certain level. Right. Because they self-correct, especially if you're playing a bunch of times. Players will naturally start fighting over the archetypes that have done well in previous cubes. And then and then other things are open and they will self-correct. But that's only true for certain point, right? If there's one thing that's doing way better, and even with advanced people fighting over it, the sort of diluted version is still doing really well, then. Yeah, that's a problem. The other thing that I think is a very big problem is if you have powerful outliers, it sends the types in the other direction where you have archetypes that look like very well supported, and there's lots of cards telling you to draft them. But actually even when it comes together, it's just not powerful enough to to compete with what else is going on in the cube. That's such a bad, feel bad experience for people because you you gave them the cards that told them to go and do whatever it is you to say, and then they got all the food cause they put them all in that deck, and they looked like they should do a bunch of cool stuff together. But actually, that stuff was just less powerful than the other things going on in the cube. That's kind of like the cube designer letting you down at that as a player in my mind, you know, so I think that's that's a balance thought to be very conscious of, to not, not try and support something and that it's actually going to be powerful enough to, to, to be worth drafting, you know. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of very good points there. Yeah. From from my end. Yeah. I'm less, less worried about archetypes like, like specifically being like overpowered because yeah, that is very self-correcting. Because if there's a deck that's like the best, multiple people will try and draft it and then neither will get the 100% version and then that kind of self-correct. Yeah, that and the letting players down thing I think is very important as well. I would agree with that. I think for me, the, the balancing part from, from an archetype point of view is more like if you have multiple people in the same deck and it's still the best deck, like Boris in the arena, Power Cube, when that went live, that was like egregious and it just meant a lot of people didn't enjoy it as much. And again, that's subjective to people. Smashing face with it, I'm sure had a lovely time. But like just seeing the same deck again and again because it's physically the best deck and a key and a cube dwarf could support two people in it. That was something they had to address, and that something they did for me balanced. What am I going to do? For me, it's gets way more of a of a feel bad or thing when it's like individual cars that are unbalanced, specifically like high powered cards. Like take my keep, for example, like my main cube, like when forth Aer Lingus in Minsk and Blue were in those cards. If you drew those cards, you kind of just won the game. It didn't really matter in a large portion of cases what happened before the game or but before you drew them or played them, they were just too powerful for the environment and led to a lot of feel bad. So I felt, and that was a balancing thing that I had to find. That's kind of where I am from, a balancing point to be kind of. What do you think about individual cards, James? And like and like power spikes? Yeah. Can certainly be an issue, especially when the card doesn't actually ask very much of you. Like, I think it's one thing if there's, you know, a card which if you build around it and do the work and enable it, then it can be really powerful and take over a game. That to me is okay because you have a wanting your players for, of of the commitment to the card and you have your opponent deals with it, you might be behind them. That's that's a balance. That's interesting. If it's just like solving, solving ten out of ten every time you, you, it's really just you opens the solving. It's not even doesn't even have a color. Right. That to me is not an interesting experience. Like it's fine, you can have fast stuff like. I mean, Power Cube is a great example, right? How is cube? Is not less fun? Because there's power. Even though power is all exactly this, right? It's it's it's out of outliers. With past events, I think you can cope with it, but it's, It's fun to be mindful of and some, some formats can cope with it better than others. But I think the reason it's okay in Powered Cube is because most people had the opportunity to get something powerful. Like, sure, your opponent opened, you know, Box Jackson solving that you have a busted underworld for each combo, and we get to see who draws that very thing cards and gets you something busted. And that's quite fun. If I'm sitting here with a bunch of, like, decent interaction and threats and mid-range stuff and you have a solving and a for failing us, that's not that fun because there's not actually much I can do about it. And my proactive stuff is never going to be able to keep up with that. So yeah, I mean, it's not not a problem. It's almost better if there's more of, power spikes, you know, it's when there's like just 2 or 3 and it feels like everyone else is doing fast stuff. And then a couple of people open for business cards that then it can be a problem. No, I agree, and like, this might just be something as as me, as a player, I feel less bad losing to the best deck compared to just losing to one broken card. Like, because yeah, if we all know something's the best deck, they still had to draft it and like, yes, they could force it, but realistically anyone could force it if someone. But if someone builds the best deck and they beat me with it, they have drafted that, they have played that and they have done all of those things. It's not just play one, but like I think I saw like the last, cube draft we did of mine where I did win it. Humble brags. I do win magic every now and then. But there was a couple of games where I was incredibly behind, and I just played a paragraph and that was enough to, like, well, to just win me the game. Like, especially against, like, a friend of ours who was like the aggro deck. I just landed like a turn five paragraph. That was like A56. And they just couldn't I they didn't have the answer for immediately. And I just gained ten life and won the game like, like one, two rounds. With that card, I can see a world where maybe like, that wasn't the best cube experience. So for me, as a cube designer, even though I had a lovely time and I won the cube draft with Paragon, if there's a world where it might, I might need to look at that card because it felt like a power low, it felt like I didn't have to do much to make it be really good. Something to consider. Anyway. And then lastly, James, how much do you think replayability matters in terms of a good cube? I think that's a very personal question because it's, I think they leave a question lasting as if you're going to the effort of building a cube. How many times do you want to play it before you feel like that was worth it? I think that's very different for different people. That's. Yeah, that's very fair. I don't like I don't like doing the admin. So, like, you know, I mean like play. I love the admin. I hate the admin, man. And trying to get for a cube and topher's like quite a lot of effort and it's like I'm down for it's really fun, but it's that what once you have that and you get to draft it, but I need to draft it quite a few times before I feel like I've, I've got paid back on that effort. So, for me, replayability is really important because I'm looking to get a bunch of drafts once I'm going through the effort of putting in a cube. I think you feel a bit differently because you've got lots of cubes, which I like. You only really want to draft a couple of times. Oh, yeah, I treat cube like command decks. It's like I've done with that. No, I know I one of the reasons I like it is that I'm always tinkering with it, and I can always make changes to it. I think I think for me it's kind of like like if I only had one cube, I would want as much replayability as possible. There's kind to comes back to like the having enough things to do. That's kind of what I think we mean by replayability. Like like having the different architects, having the different decks, constantly looking at packages. If it's not your first cube, then I think it does matter less. So like if you have your cube that you're drafting all the time. I want replayability in that because that's the one I'm kind of putting the effort into, if that makes sense. If there's like a second key where it's a bit more of a theme or like or like it's it is the. So my first, let's say your first cube is like a unpowered cube like mine, but second cube can be a bit more narrow. I'm looking at them through different lenses, if that makes sense. I so this the second one could be a bit more like, oh, it's building ten. But like ten engines if that makes sense. Like that's the goal. The goal with the cube that is, is a bit narrower. It's like, is this to build some kind of cool artifact, Rube Goldberg machine and pop up with energy and pulling things out of that? But like, like what I'm saying is, like, for the second cube, it can look like a good example is actually the desert cube I built, like the one at Desert Cube. There's there's a bunch of different packages in different modules in there, and you'll never end up with the same like two things coming together in a deck, but you will see similar things in there, if that makes sense. And because it's smaller, that's more like more likely to be a thing. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think this cubes work really well. I've, I've been really fun to draft, but yeah, I don't imagine we're getting to draft 15 of any of them right now. Exactly. And that's why they're all quite cheap to make. Awesome. I think that's a good conversation. I do want to touch on like an example to kind of like hammer this home a little bit like my treat yourself cuz I really like it's one of my favorite cubes that I've built. But I'm not sure if I can call it a good cube. And what I mean by that is I feel like the majority of people who have played it have really enjoyed it, but we've had because it's been at things like Cube Clash, it's been out in the wild, it's been plagued with people who aren't in our play group who like, didn't have like a hand in building it. So that makes sense. It's kind of people just sitting down and like they're being told, oh, if you play this game, you can treat yourself, because that is a bit of a vague statement. Some people have left the cube not feeling like they have treated themselves. And as a cube designer, I kind of have to think about that. So like we've touched on some bits, earlier in terms of some of the combos, I think some of the combos that the more kind of random ones I need to cut, but also like if the goal is treating yourself, I need to think more about, like the goal in the game is players be able to do the thing. Are there cards in there that stop people doing that, or are there cards in there that, end games too early before people were able to to to do the thing and the answer like like at the moment because I haven't looked at it in about six months or so. I think there are like, one of the cards that got brought up, was a card like. Unstoppable slasher two and a black two three death touch. When it does come at damage to a player, they lose half their life, rounded up when it dies. If it had no counts on it, returned about, or tapped on its own risk control with two stun counters on it. So this is kind of weird, as like, games do need to end card, but also does some like cool things with like solemnity. It's like an it's like an infinite sack out lit with solemnity. And that's like a cool thing it can do. But the other part is that it's a three man death toucher. This is a cube where three man is like the starting point. So this is like one of the first which is coming down. It holds down the board. And if your opponent doesn't do anything, it will have their life. And then you can kill them really quickly. Is this card being in there? Is this an example of me not following some of the things that we talk about in this episode, like, is this me being too clever because like, yes, it is a cool interaction, but do people know that am I being too clever with that? And then is it and then does it answer the goal of the cube? Is it a card that is allowing people to treat themselves like, yes, again, if if you combine it with limiting in a circle, you can do infinite, but like, is it having the adverse effect on someone by halving their life total and killing them too quickly, other games ending too quickly, and there's a few other cards like that, but like, from my end, I think that's something that I need to go back and look at and reevaluate that cube. And just like, basically go back through the things we talked about in this in this episode and touch on like, do the choices I've made, do the cards I put in match the goal, match what I'm trying to get out of it? What do you think of that example, James? Yeah, it feels like the card you need is unsat on the show without the half Your Life text, right? That would be the perfect card. The thing about, you know, maybe people don't care how it works with sanity. I think. It is fine for a cube to have a target audience, you know? And if it is working for that target audience, then it is a good. Kubernetes achieved its goals. Right. And I think all the people we play with actually love that cube. I think it's certainly like one of the best the cubes I have enjoyed most as I was drafted. And I think sometimes the things that play well in a group that has played multiple times are not always going to play well. On the first draft out in the wild, and that's fine. I think that doesn't make it a failure. But if you're if you were designing a cube specifically to play well, like out in the wild, then I think you'd make different choices, right? And that's okay. Yeah. Not every cube works first time for every, every group. And I think that's okay. I think that doesn't make it a failure. Oh, no, I'm saying like like it's still one of my I like it's one of my favorite cubes. And I think there's so much cool stuff in it. I think just. Yeah, like maybe, maybe this end point is actually what I cube. That is good for you. One play group isn't always good for another play group. And if we are like again, like in the UK, in London we've only had a couple of cube events, like bigger events. I know in the States they're more common. So people have had more experience putting their cubes out there. Maybe it's something that kind of I need to think about when putting my cubes forward. Like, is things a bit too niche? Is it does it does this work for everyone, not just us? Does that make sense? Because yeah. Because like like like I think that's a good a good shout. Also worth saying that. Like I think there are a bunch of people at those events who did really like for cube and you know, you're not always because the solution to this, right, is you play like a more middle of the road cube that those events and those find like those cubes are also very much available at those events. And people do get to pick. So, yeah, I, I think that's okay. No, that's a no no, I, I would agree with that. And the person who won the last time this was that was at Cube Birmingham. The person who won that did sound like they were treating themselves. They were like a five color dream deck with like sovereign's realm, I think the one that you have to play every card you draft, but you can't have basics. You can like exotic. Oh yeah, that's one of the it's like a five dream fall. Sounds phenomenal. Yeah, yeah. Like that. That and a bunch of wheels. And they were just going have. But it sounded awesome. So yeah. So so that sounds awesome. But yeah, I think there's still things I can take away from the feedback from that. And, and look at. Right. I think that's where we're gonna, end our main conversation, but we're introducing a new segment title. Like, we're still gonna nail this down, but like, I'm gonna put some fancy music names. Let's title it. Who wants to be a Q billionaire? I'm gonna change this every week. All right. James, what I want from you, I would like you to pick a color. Let's say blue. All right. James, I have pulled from cube Cobra a list of every magic card in their database. I have them listed from top to bottom by cube count. I would like you to name for me the top five blue enchantments by cube count. This is every cube listed on Cube Cobra enchantments. Enchantments. You thought I was going to go instance? Initially I was, but like, now you know all these. And to be fair, you know all these two. I'm open to give you clues if you'd like. But yeah, the top five by cube count enchantments. That's our blue. And if you're listening to our listener, do give us before you get to the end. Put your puts. Your guesses in the comments below greatly helps us out with that engagement. Do we have to try to think of what's, What cubes are going to mean? Most obviously, I feel like there's loads of power cuz there's loads of, like, mid power, heavy loads of cards. I own cubes I'm going to go with, such as cancer. I think that's going to be a loads of them. Search risk cancer card. He's good. So that's for scan to is number four with 16,712. These numbers are correct as of time of recording. Is that number four that's you're you're almost at the base that there's only has of about 700 more than number five. Not that these numbers mean anything to you because you've not seen this. Okay. I think one that's come out recently and it's really powerful in loads of cubes now storm chasers talent. Do we have a storm Chasers talent in there? I can tell you it is not in the top five. It might be too new. I don't think your talent is one. So intense. Is talent. Is seven teams maybe a bit too new. It's only got 8845. Most of these cards. Old one of on number one is about five years old, but everything else is much older. Where are they? That's interesting. Yes. I think is figuring out, what what sorts of cubes have any nice versions of on Cube Cove? Right. Like if is these going to be peasant stuff? Okay. If we're going old, I'm going to try a propaganda. Propaganda? I think that's about tense. You're in to the 10,000. It's got 10,137, but it's not in the top five. Interesting. All right. As a clue, only one of these is an uncommon. There's no commons either. Okay, so these are all of us. Do we have a dream? False is true. False on that. We do not have a dream horse people. Reach has not grown enough games to get the goal. Honestly, a dream horse higher on the list. Okay, for the one that's five years old, I'm going to try an enduring curiosity. Nope. That is about 20th. A random sneeze. Okay, before I give up and you give me the answer saying one more. Let's try a curiosity out of curiosity. Number six. Oh, around number six. All right, I'll give you a clue that that will help you get these. Most of these you would see in high powered cubes. Number five is do you want the set? It's from the help go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Number five, the number five is from us. Is Destiny. This this. The thing is, I said this like it was going to help, but this was a long time before I started playing magic. Now you're going to have to tell me number five is treachery. Sure. Yeah. That one is kind of crap. Treachery. Five man, comes into play, and that's five lands you control. Enchanted creature. Number three. The clue is you love. This card is opposition on one of them is off. Opposition is number three. Oh, and this is number three. Great taste people. No, I feel about opposition now was like, no, it's only me that loves this enough. You know. No. The third most played, blue enchantment of all time. All right. Number two is from Alpha and has a similar effect to a card we've already mentioned. It's been printed 24 times. So I should really remember as what it's saying. No idea. Control magic is number two with 24,532 gives. Make sense because it's a peasant card. And also like a good budget card as well. All right. Number one I'm I'm surprised this one is number one. But it makes sense that this is one we have seen a lot in power games. Maybe not there any more, but still a very solid card. I'll give you a clue. It's from a Korea blue enchantment. From a Korea being in Power Cube, but maybe not in powered cubes. Now, I cut it from mine because I didn't think it was powerful enough, but it might be in the power cube. Shark typhoon. Shark typhoon is correct. So shark Typhoon is the most played blue enchantment in all of Cuba. 26. Yeah, yeah. With 26,228 appearances in cube. Okay. Fair enough. Nine. All right, well done. You spell the game for the first run, and I did. I'll be honest with you. I did load up instance before you said blue and I was like, nah, it's too easy. Yeah. Blue enchantments is really, really kills me though. Okay, well let's see, I'll try again in future. And, Well done. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Well, we'll run this back. So. Yeah, I hope everyone enjoyed that. All right. That's why we're going to leave it for today. James. Well done with our game. And thank you very much for our chat today. Thanks, Sam. Oh, it's a pleasure. Nice one. Just leads me to thank you all very much for listening. Do make sure you like the podcast, give us a five star review. Tell a friend greatly helps us out. Until next week, it's goodbye from me and say bye from James and we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.