I think I mentioned briefly in a previous post the idea of creating a Dice Masters version of an MtG cube.
So what is a cube?
Basically a cube is a large pool of cards selected to play a limited version of the game, ie draft.
A cube is a casual format. Apart from I think CardKingdom there are no commercial cubes to purchase. A cube is normally put together by a person to play with friends or gaming group.
Usually a cube reflects a theme or mechanics that the person putting it together enjoys. So the cube could be a tribal cube containing cards that are tribes the creator likes playing like elves, slithers, dinosaurs, etc. Or it could be cards from MtG sets that the creator enjoyed playing, or a pauper cube with just commons.
There are usually at least 360 different cards in a cube, but can be more depending on how many players the cube is designed to support.
A cube is also a living thing. As you play them they get tweaked, new cards added, etc.
A cube is a very personal thing. It’s an expression of the person that created it. But they are fun. If you like the draft format that is.
So what about Dice Masters?
I think it is possible to create a cube for Dice Masters.
Currently draft in Dice Masters uses the blind draft packs that contain 2 or 3 basic action cards (depending which set draft pack you are using), 12 cards and 2 dice for each of the 12 cards.
It is this draft pack that I will suggest we try and recreate over the old draft of using booster packs.
I think as a minimum our Dice Masters cube should support up to four players (but could be built to support more players).
So with this in mind our cube when finished will have
- 48 cards (a mixture of character and action cards), that’s 12 cards per player
- 12 basic action cards, that’s 3 basic actions per player
- 96 dice to go with the 48 cards
Obviously these numbers will go up depending on the number of players we want to support with the cube.
Now the hard part choosing the cards to include in your cube.
Here are some ideas:
- Pauper – only common cards from a set/sets
- Only rare and super rare cards
- Only certain teams, so just Avengers or X-Men for example
- Cards only from certain sets like D&D
- Hero team vs Villian team
- Only Villians
- Only female characters
- No global actions
- Only cards with global actions
- No cards over a certain purchase cost
- Only promo cards (are there 48 promo cards?)
You get the idea.
When it comes to play. Before hand I’d sleeve the cards. Ideally I’d sleeve the basic action cards a different colour.
Shuffle the basic action cards deal 3 per player.
Then shuffle the rest of the cards and deal 12 to each to player.
After that you follow the Double Rainbow Draft rules that Wizkids publish here.
This is a great format for breathing life into those cards from older sets or even cards you don’t use in newer sets. Let me know in the comments below if you tried building a cube and how it went when you used it with your friends.
In the meantime I will post on here any Dice Master cubes that I create.