Lucky Paper Radio is a podcast about Magic: the Gathering hosted by lifelong friends Andy Mangold and Anthony Mattox. Focused primarily on sandbox formats like Cube, which are free of banlists, rotation, and net decking, the show is about the best parts of Magic and how to get the most out of the game.
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Using Little Pieces of Paper as a Supermassive Random Number Generator
Episode 215
Monday, September 2, 2024 • Duration 01:02:39
Andy and Anthony talk about randomness in Magic, and specifically just how much randomness there is in a Cube draft. They talk about where randomness comes from and how different mechanics use the library or other sets of cards as a random source to make them work. They also go into their own preferences and how they thing about randomness in their Cube designs.
Andy and Anthony talk about some of the past and pending Cube events they are attending. This year has seen a proliferation of new small Cube events. Anthony reviews his experience at the Capitol Cube Champs and they talk about what they’re excited about in the upcoming Cube 4 Charity hosted by Upkeep New York.
Andy and Anthony are joined by Richard Garfield, legendary game designer and the creator of Magic: the Gathering. Richard talks about how he got interested in modifying and tweaking games, his concept that players can be loosely understood as either ‘honers’ or ‘innovators’, and why some games with great mechanics have no soul as a result of overdevelopment. Andy and Anthony also take advantage of this opportunity to ask Richard about his relationship to Cube, getting insight into how he designs his own and what he values about the format. They cover all the most salient Cube topics, including handling feedback from players, how to approach power level outliers, and how to manage complexity.
Andy and Anthony talk about a fundamental component of playing Magic, exploring and finding new cards. They talk about their goals and process for finding new cards and talk about leveraging Scryfall’s powerful search features to make this critical component a breeze. They even touch on some of the advanced features that can save you from missing potential pieces. Check out Anthony’s articles on using Scryfall’s search syntax and advanced searches with Regular Expressions for the details on the topics they cover.
Andy and Anthony talk about how they approach drafting Anthony’s novel Turbo Cube where all spells and activated abilities cost less. The Cube will be featured at the inaugural Cube Con. Our hosts talk about the themes and individual cards that define the format. They talk about the ramification of the rules modification and what to look out for when approaching the format.
In advance of Anthony’s Regular Cube being featured at CubeCon, Andy and Anthony talk about how they approach the format. The talk about the themes and strategies they think are the most powerful, cards that overperform, and cards that don’t behave like you might expect.
Timestamps:
2:14 — Topic Introduction
4:51 — Overview of The Regular Cube
7:00 — Tip: Look for Synergy
11:40 — Theme: Zombies
14:20 — Archetype: Red Black Sacrifice
19:37 — Theme: Oketra’s Monument “Combo”
21:58 — Key Card: Feather, the Redeemed
24:11 — Theme: Artifacts
27:41 — Naya Aggro
34:13 — Esper Value
38:21 — Musings on Mana Curve
40:59 — The Mana in the Regular Cube
46:45 — Board Wipes
51:47 — Cards that Overperform in the Regular Cube
Andy, Anthony, and Parker take the 2022 standard set rotation as an opportunity to look back on sets from the not-too-distant past. Sets rotating out of standard include everything from Zendikar Rising to Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. They look back on card they rated (or conspicuously didn’t rate) in Lucky Paper’s prospective surveys, each picking the cards they feel they most under and over rated for their particular environments and cards they think they got just right.
Andy, Anthony, and Parker talk about the results from the Dominaria United community set review. Almost 350 Cube designers submitted the cards they were interested in from DMU and rated them on how likely they expected to stay in their environment long term. Our hosts talk about the most tested and top-rated cards, examine trends, look at how the set compares to past sets, and offer their own qualitative observations.
Andy and Anthony discuss the new cards from Dominaria United they’re interested in for their own Cube environments. They talk about some powerful new options for Andy’s eternal cube, off-color kicker cards and clean variations on classic cards for Anthony’s unrestricted cube, and a few cards that fit more novel environments.
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