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logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Kasonic posted:

How does everyone feel about Un-cards? I'm currently using Booster Tutor, Common Courtesy, Symbol Status, and Blast from the Past. Booster Tutor is so fun I'm considering making four custom cards to complete a booster-meddling cycle. I think Symbol Status is too drat much of a bomb, but I suppose that's my fault for using a mishmash of lands. Toy Boat is a good generic guy, but I found Duh just didn't end up worth it my cube.

My cube is true* singleton. When you cast Symbol Status, you can be sure that you will be making the maximum number of tokens.

And Booster Tutor is always fun. For me, fun = stories. (Also, fun = winning, but that's different).
Such as:
I cast Booster Tutor EOT. I open an Avacyn pack. Several choices, but I go with Grave Exchange (again, for fun). Untap, cast it. My opponent has 2 mid-range creatures, I have none. Suddenly, I have Griselbrand in my hand and he goes down to one creature; I cast Grisy the following turn and go on to win the game. Is Grave Exchange Cube worthy? No. But Booster Tutor is!

*(Ok, my land base is 97% there; just give it a few more sets)

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logis
Dec 30, 2004
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WhiteWolf123 posted:

And you can't cheat the Eldrazi into play with Reanimate, because you have to reshuffle them into your library when they go to the 'yard.

I'd trim some fat and bring in some aggro support.

Unless you're LSV in that one Cube video, where he resorts to discarding Emrakul, casting Necromancy in response to the trigger thereby reanimating Emrakul, then swinging for almost(?) all his opponents permanents (this is also the match where he calls his own shot, i.e. "Well, the worst draw for my Dark Confidant would be Emrakul...(reveals for DC...reveals Emrakul)...Ok well then").

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Tonde Mo Nai posted:

That's the first (only?) card from Born of the Gods so far that has jumped out as an instant include in my cube. Fake Searing Blaze is tempting since I'm still running Searing Blaze, but nothing else has jumped out at me.

My list:
Spirit of the Labyrinth
Semi-Dark Confidant

maybe that cat...
maybe searing blaze

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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BaronVonVaderham posted:

Time to share some pictues. After fifteen months of nonstop trading, IT'S DONE! The last cards came in the mail today, as did my massive box of sleeves. I decided to take pictures for insurance purposes, since carrying around a $4000 box of cards is inherently risky, but I thought I'd share it here. This was a solo cube, so I'm pretty proud of getting this done in just over a year, most of which was spent unemployed (which left tons of times to make proxies to trade away).

CUBE PORN!!

Power!! How many multi-colored cards are you running (as a percentage)?

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Stinky Pit posted:

I need to pull all the power and duals out of my cube because the proxies are way too thick and have started to "curl" does anyone have any good suggestions?

Or am I about to spend 1000+ dollars for Collectors Edition Duals and Power :suicide:

EDIT: Oh man, I forgot that's library and tabernacle too, fuuuccckkk

My proxies are hand-drawn on World Championship Gold Border. Feel the same, uniquely proxied.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Definite: Gnarled Scarhide
Probably: Banishing Light
Maybe: Prophetic Flamespeaker, Master of Feasts

Though the card that I'm most interested in testing is Setessan Tactics (which would replace XX in my Cube). Is it the green pseudo-wrath (i.e. 1GGG)? (LSV rates it a 4.5 in his JOU limited (not Cube) review). Obviously it's not a standalone card (you need creatures to fight their creatures), but the +1/+1 and the fact that your creatures are typically bigger anyway (3/3s vs 2/2s and 2/1s) helps. The dream: untapping with Set Tactics after casting Deranged Hermit (or Meloku or ...).

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Null1fy posted:

Are those cards you're putting in? They all seem fine to me. Also try out:


Warden of the Third Path (if you support green

To name a few...

Which card is this?

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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BaronVonVaderham posted:

Hmmm, you guys convinced me to investigate adding Conspiracies to my cube. I have been meaning to add Dack Fayden already but keep forgetting.

Also, I love Booster Tutor. My old shop did and Unhinged draft before I moved and it was so goddamn fun. I drafted a full playset of those and had packs of Innistrad block standing by. It was 50/50 on getting a useful card, but it was really fun.

Had one guy open the newest 3W Ajani out of a booster pack. He played it (he was in white), and then I added it to the Cube permanently (I needed one!!)

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Andante posted:

It's probably Warden of the First Tree, a new rare in Fate Reforged that kind of hearkens back to Figure of Destiny.

I'm running both of those; Warden mainly b/c I got the timestamped-foil version from the pre-release, which is enough to convince me to try it out. Feldon b/c reanimator is sweet, and 2/3 for 3 isn't terrible stats.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Balon posted:

My group and I have run in to a dilemma - I have a 4-man cube with exactly enough cards for 4 people. The issue we've run in to is that we've played enough that everyone knows every card in the cube; there's no variance now. Since it's 4-man it's pretty much "grab the best cards in your colors uncontested". It's getting a little... stale.

So I'm considering, as curator of the cube, expanding the amount of cards in the cube to accommodate 8 people, but only use half of the cards each time we draft. The cards would be sorted by color, then half of each color would be chosen, at random, and shuffled together for "packs". That way you can't count on getting certain cards. Has anyone done anything like this? Does this tactic work? I understand that doing something like this may, unintentionally, weaken some colors. Is that something that I should avoid?

When we draft (normally 6-8 people for cube sized at 9-10 people), we divide up the types (color, land, artifact, multicolor) into stacks (usually at least 6+ stacks, up to the number of drafters) so that each type if equally distributed among stacks. Then shuffle that stack and make 3 packs out of it. Packs won't have equally distributed types (like real packs), but the probability is much higher for an even distribution so packs containing like 9 black cards and 5 lands don't happen too often.
After playing, I sort the Cube into types and count them, mostly just to make sure no card got lost (I know the count of each type, so easy to check). Leaving someone's sideboard somewhere sometimes happens; this prevents it and also prepares for the next time we Cube.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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T-Bone posted:

If I want to do some kitchen table drafting, is it possible to make a solid cube for like 3-6 players? Would it be too hard to balance it for my high end and low end player bases?

Basically I've got a group who really likes the on the spot deck building element of Dominion and I think drafting from a cube would be a fun way to get them interested in Magic. They have tended to be on the overwhelmed side previously when playing around with some of my other decks, and my thinking is that they would enjoy it a bit more if they saw all the cards laid out in front of them ala Dominion (so I guess I would do a rotisserie draft, at least to start). So hopefully there would be enough variety to keep them interested, but not so much information as to overwhelm them.

e: I think the perceived level playing level field of everyone picking from the same pool, and the control that goes along with that would be pretty big pluses for them too.

You might like another game: 7 Wonders.

For magic, if they're new to the game, you might just have to start with something 'simple' like choosing mostly Core Set cards. For me, Cube is fun because of the power level of the cards and being able to build a cohesive deck out of what's available to draft (i.e. taking what comes and finding the synergies). Try using mostly Core Set cards (single color cards go in most decks, vanilla creatures are easy to understand). Rotisserie draft can be pretty overwhelming though...In Dominion you only really have to choose from something like 13 or 15 card choices; each Magic pack starts with that many unique cards, whereas Rotisserie presents well perhaps up to 15*5*3 cards. It can take a long time to draft and it's tough on new players (not that I would have an easy time). You could draft each pack of 15 separately and face up instead (rotate who chooses first); that can kind of be fun.

Maybe you want something like combined sealed + draft? There's a format that the local store plays where you get 3 packs, open them and review, then draft 3 more packs in a normal draft environment; your pool is the draft result + those 3 packs. It's pretty swingy based on what you open (it's sealed), but at least you have some idea of where you might want to go with the draft (Opened red cards? Take some more!) as opposed to trying to decide from scratch. Maybe something like 3 sealed packs + 1 or 2 pack/player Rotisserie?

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Pontius Pilate posted:

Dragons so far for cube: two sweet red one drops, Narset for some lists, and a couple other potentials? Am I overlooking anything? Seems fairly weak but I suppose I can't really complain after small set FRF gifted so much. And those red one drops are just so good at getting red aggro to the required mass of one drops.

For me:

Definite: Zurgo

Most Likely: Thunderbreak Regent

Possible: Axe Mom, Ghost Anafenza, Silumagar Assassin

Wishful/Possible: Sidisi Undead (Tutor is just really powerful; this just depends reviewing the curve and seeing if there's room)


What are people's includes from Fate Reforged?

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Xeom posted:

if I've already got duals and fetchs how do people feel about fast lands as my 3rd cycle? I know the usual is shocks, but I feel like fasts would be better most of the time.

What are fast lands?

Its almost always fetches + duals/shocks b/c they interact so well:
one fetch can get multiple different lands so you can either tutor for your one main two-color dual or your splash dual;
duals/shocks are the best as they always can come into play untapped unlike every other conditional land

For me, its:
fetches/shocks/duals
manlands/scrylands (if there were enemy color manlands, this would be 10x manlands)
'other' (stripmine, mutavault, treetop village if you want to put them in this category instead of in green, etc...)

ravnica bounce lands are also good, but super midrangey; some cubes also vary which color pair gets which (non-shock/dual) two color land (ie RW gets the pain land b/c you always need the mana for aggro and the cost doesnt matter, whereas GB gets the bounce land b/c its mana intensive large spells/creatures, whereas BW gets the filter land b/c of mana intensive costs)

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Lurchington posted:

Probably not. I'm going to go with them again despite have to pay in-state sales tax. (I don't double sleeve anymore though)

there's been a lot of renewed interest in rotisserie drafting around here after seeing some twitter folks do modern rotisserie. I heavily recommend it with your cube if you have 8 people and don't mind the draft taking 1-2 weeks over a google doc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AZKjfg8w9j2dZwpi-nqeuEjEWVmT2YsR6XvPmItA-BI/edit#gid=0

Why not double sleeve? Also, is there a difference between colors in terms of quality among the kmc standard size? Black hypermatt and perfect fit should work?

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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For years, the only real 3 color card that I've run is Nicol Bolas PW, as some people just like to play control and like to dream (one guy last draft took Karn P1P1, then NB PW P1P2; I laughed at his greed when he told me). Three color cards are just really hard to pull off since they go in so few decks:

Artifacts: any deck
Single-color: 2/5 decks (assuming you play 2 color deck)
Two-color: 1/10 decks (assuming you play 2 color deck)
Three-color: ... less than 1/10

Those numbers go up when you can stretch your mana with mana fixers/rocks/fetch lands, and I like where that's at (for example, UW with black splash off of dual land and two fetch lands for flashback on Lingering Souls and maybe a planeswalker like Sorin and a strong card like Vindicate). Jam too much fixing and durdle and decks gravitate to 'take all the fixing, take all the midrange/expensive bombs'.

That said, with the new cards like Tasigur, Alesha, the green one drop, I've added those as they support possibly three different decks (Tasigur/Alesha are ok in their primary colors alone; all 3 are better with the additional color pair); this addition is also just to keep changing up the Cube to keep it from being stale.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Kytheon, Jace, Abbot of Keral Keep.
Maybe: Evolutionary Leap, Bounding Krasis

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Entropic posted:

Conspiracies in a powered cube are kind of ridiculous, even the non rare ones. Double Stroke naming Lighting Bolt or god forbid, Ancestral Recall is a bit much.

Temporarily put double stroke in my unpowered cube, mostly because I got a foil one.

Took it out after the first draft after someone cast blightning with it like 5 times to go x-0

Conspiracit's are awesome, but most of them are on the mox or better level. So I keep a sideboard of them and all power (including jack in the mox, blacker lotus, etc)

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Some Numbers posted:

Because the Boros and Izzet Keyrune are very bad.

I can agree that Power Play and Unexpected Potential should probably come out.

I have PP in my cube, but errata'd to just game 1. It's still really powerful, pick 1/2 kind of card, IMO.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Some Numbers posted:

Double Stroke with Time Walk sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I had Double Stroke in because I got a foil one. First draft with it:
"Dude, you need to cut this. Double Stroke + Blightning in both games is not fun"
So I put in the Power-9 sideboard (its a Legacy cube, with the broken cards like Power 9, Conspiracies, etc kept standalone in a sideboard)

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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muon posted:

What draft methods do you guys use for drafting 4 or 6 of an 8 person cube?

6 people: either normal (3 packs of 14/15) or mix it up a bit with 4 packs of 11/12 (more first picks, less stuff wheels)

4 people: can also do more packs of smaller size (like 4 packs of 12), but it's not great.
can also do stuff like 'take two cards. keep one, remove the other from the draft'.
Or, flip a pack of 6, everyone takes a card (order changes each time so it's fair), then no one gets the remaining cards.
I have tried other schemes, but really nothing is that great at 4 players. But it's Cube, so about any format is going to be fun.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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FreelanceSocialist posted:

I'm using this KMC box thing for cube storage (mine is a 400-ish card cube, so this actually holds all the lands as well). I have an old LowePro DSLR backpack (similar to this) that I use to haul cards around. The adjustable dividers in camera backpacks are perfect for securing deckboxes, etc. Check thrift stores and eBay - you can score a camera bag super cheap.

I use the exact same box. Cant beat the price. Wish it was just a little bit bigger, but otherwise the perfect size for my ~400,450ish size cube (plus about 20-30 of each basic land; double-sleeved).
If anyone knows of something the same but like 10% bigger, let me know.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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suicidesteve posted:

Jitte should only be in cubes where it's bad. It's one of the most miserable play experiences you'll ever have.

Played Jitte in my friend's Cube last night. Easiest P1/P1. I keep telling him to take it out (it's Modern Cube, i.e. only-cards-from-modern).

Played it game 2 against someone.

He had played Turn 2 bitterblossom, I played turn 2 Young Pyro, and we had been trading tokens. Decent game going. I draw, slam Jitte, equip a token, and attack. He blocks with a token, like the last few turns.
Me: "Shoot the other token"
Him: "No, you didnt deal damage to me...wait, does it still get counters?"
Me: "Yes, any damage counts"
Him: <wtf>

Playing Jitte against people not familiar with it; doesnt take long to see how dumb it is.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Cube list.

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/137484

For a long time, it had just been Legacy cube. But after EMA, which I think is one of the best sets (for drafting) ever, I added a bunch of graveyard/discard outlets and payoffs. I have only done one draft of it so far, but several people put together madness/reanimator/Survival decks, which was neat. Winner had Survival; if he drew it, it was pretty nuts.

Posting here mostly for advice on how to make it better. Some notes:

1. There is a Vintage sideboard. Moxes, Conspiracies, etc. All the broken cards (Do you take Black Lotus, Blacker Lotus, or Backup Plan out of your P1P1 pack??). If a really strong card is not included, it is likely in the Vintage sideboard. Strong equipment is intentionally left out (Jitte, Most swords) as any creature + sword is not really an interesting combo (I think of one game where I was stuck on 3 lands, 1 creature, and U/G sword. I still rolled my opponent who played like 8 spells, but his U/G deck couldnt interact with my Pro-U/G creature).

2. Looking for more combos and payoffs. That was the part that I think I really liked about EMA. Rewards for deck building, vs just jamming powerful cards. Graveyard Masters was fun. Keyword-soup does happen to mash all the themes, but then, I think Time Spiral was fine!

3. Not sure what to do about white. It has a Humans theme, but that's about it.

4. Other themes (that I tried to put it):
UR spells
Wx Humans
Bx Zombies (Eternalize etc helps here in other colors)
BR / BU / BG Madness/Reanimator (cool to find some gems like Mask of Memory)
Gx Ramp
R aggro
W aggro
Bx sacrifice

What other themes could W / U / G that might fit? I'm not sure; maybe Wx tokens / swarm?

5. Tried to keep the curve low, planeswalkers very few. Intentionally few expensive cards in each color (CC > 4) besides green, which gets a bit more. Try to support aggro and combo. Midrange always happens, so no reason to support it by having a bunch of planeswalkers and CC > 4 cards.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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BaronVonVaderham posted:

Apparently I've been neglecting my cube since last November, so I had quite a few sets to review for potential updates.

Here's the full list of things I'm considering: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/4787

I'm also seriously considering upping my cube from 600 to 720. These updates just keep getting harder, and I think having more space might help. Then again, it weakens some archetypes if they don't see half of the cube in the draft and never get to pick some key cards.

I could just keep the 600 updated, but run a parallel 720 list and keep the other 120 cards separate, then choose a list when it comes time to draft based on how many people we have, etc.

I've done this with a "powered sideboard" for my legacy cube for if people want to play with Power/etc. Perfect fits have a sticker put on them (2$ circle stickers from Target), so it's easy to identify what's in the SB and what's part of the regular legacy cube.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Stickers are also useful for color-labeling, for example is Bomat Courier a Red Card or colorless card (I have a red sticker on it, so easy to identify as Red after the draft when I sort and count the Cube). For 2 or 3$ for a bunch of stickers, totally worth it.

Also, big fan of your foiling out the cube. I have part of mine foiled out, but dang it's expensive!! Had a friend foil out his modern cube....at which point he just sold it, heh.

I should mention that my 'sideboard' is probably up to like 70 cards by now. It's all things that I consider 'power'. Obviously, power, but I include Unhinged/Unglued/Unstable as well as Conspiracies, since there's really no other format that they can be played in. Ends up with stories like...

"I passed Black Lotus". "For what???" "Blacker Lotus!!"
"I am at 5 life. All I need to win is to play this Jack in the Mox and not roll 6; 1-5 and I win." <rolls dice> "Hmmm. A six....well, I'm dead!"
"Let's roll a dice to see who goes first. Just kidding, I'll reveal this conspiracy which says I go first!"
"Cool. Took a while to get my basic mana base right." "Why?" <Taps 4 mana> "I'll cast Symbol Status, and make 10 1/1s for 4 mana" "Well then...."

logis fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Aug 28, 2019

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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I run a Legacy Cube with a heavy-ish graveyard theme (I really think that UMA was fun and liked the deckbuilding synergy with the graveyard madness/flashback/reanimate/delve/spell count in graveyards matter) as well as a +1/+1 / proliferate theme (white needs to do something besides be aggro).

So, I am 100% interested in the U/G mythic (reward getting cards in your graveyard). Maybe the Red Phoneix as well, since it only requires a small cost to buy it back.

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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I am considering new cards from Commander Legends for my graveyard-matters cube. The blue throne (Court of Cunning) looked good, as you can mill yourself for value and/or mill your opponent as a blue win condition. I should note that I have no other 'mill your opponent' cards besides Brain Freeze (in my Cube, Blue has several different build-around-me 'win-con' cards that are all different).

However, milling your opponent 10 in a 1v1 game is very different than milling all your 60-card deck opponents in 4-player with 3 opponents. Is this card too good? Is it almost as obnoxious as 5-mana-mill-Jace? Is the play pattern not "Oh, neat card. I can mill myself for value" like I would hope, but instead normally just "Ah, an easy win con. I play this, block 1-3 times, draw some extra cards, and my opponent loses".

I would playtest this, but Covid etc etc

logis
Dec 30, 2004
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AngryBooch posted:

The storage and transport I use:

https://dexprotection.com/product/supreme-game-chest/



540 double sleeved on the bottom row, lands in the top center, tokens (plus infinitokens and short dry erase markers in my case) in one box, dice in the other. Extra sleeves / boosters / jumpstart packs tucked away here and there to make everything snug and I throw this thing in my backpack. Haven't had any issues yet.

I don't use cubeamajigs or anything for packs though. They probably won't fit. To create packs I just deal out stacks of 15 or a big stack divisible by 9 if we're going to grid draft.

Ditto on this solution, almost exactly on how it's used. I've had it for probably 6 or 7 years; works great.
Bottom row has the main part of the Cube (double-sleeved; no cubemajic)
Top middle has the basic lands
Top right has the tokens

Top left has a "bonus section" for my Legacy Cube, which turns it into a Vintage Cube (~50 cards, labeled with a sticker in order to sort later. Cards include Power 9, Conspiracies, Unglued, etc that would be too powerful for just a Legacy cube)

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logis
Dec 30, 2004
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Johnny Truant posted:

So I just wholesale snagged the MtGO vintage cube, since this is just 102% gas is it just for randomizing all the cards, then 15 per pack?

I think usually there's rarity and stuff involved per pack in other cubes? Idk I'm an absolute cube noob

My method, towards trying to generate a distribution of cards that is more uniform/typical of magic packs (more uniform number of colors and types per pack):

1. sort the cube by stacks. Typical stacks: 5x color, artifact/colorless, land, multi-color.
2. shuffle each stack
3. pick a number of cards per player, in total. If you want 15 cards per pack per player, then 3x15= 45 total cards.
4. pick a number of 'output' stacks to create. No exact method to pick this number...Best explained by example below.
Note that shorter stacks will have less variance, and taller stacks more variance. That is, really tall stacks can cause packs with 6+ blue cards to happen more often
5. Divide up each stack from step 1 into N 'output' stacks, where N was chosen in step 4. Each 'output' stack will contain cards from each input stack, like a cake
6. Each player chooses an output stack, shuffles it, then creates 3x packs of the size chosen in step 3.

Example:
Cube is 500 cards.
You choose 45 cards per player, so stacks need to be at least 45 cards.
You have 6 players. If you choose '8' for output stacks just so there will be less variance per stack, then 500/8 ~= 62 cards per stack. 62 > 45, so that's fine
Each output stack of 62 cards will have some number of red/blue/.../artifact/land/multi-color cards.
After shuffling, then picking 45/62 cards to use for packs, the distribution of cards per pack should be more uniform than if you had just shuffled the entire cube and chosen 15 cards at random, while still allowing for more randomness than forcing each pack to have exactly 2 blue,2 red, 2 green, ... cards.
Leftover output stacks and the 17 cards per output pack go back in the box.

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