Lucky Paper Radio

Our Strixhaven and Commander 2021 Cube surveys are open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new sets. Andy and Anthony talk about the new mechanics in Strixhaven and what they have us most excited for in cube. They cover the unique draft mechanic of Learn and Lesson and the ways it can be applied to cube, and the exciting expansion of spells matter a...

Our Strixhaven and Commander 2021 Cube surveys are open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new sets. Due to the loss of a close, personal friend, Andy and Anthony are off this week. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please consult the resources available from The American Association of Suicidology . If you’re able, please consider donating b...

Our Strixhaven and Commander 2021 Cube surveys are open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new sets. This week, Andy and Anthony share a little of their personal history and how important their tools for critical discourse they learned in art school have been to their lives, Magic very much included. They talk about how they first met and the ubiqui...

This week, Andy and Anthony take aim at the dominating rhetoric about Cube which takes for granted it is a format showcasing the most powerful cards in Magic. They tackle the big effects that small patterns in language can have, excluding huge areas of creative cube design. Our hosts reflect on just how effective the Cube Map is at visualizing the existing diversity in the format, and hinting at t...

This week, Andy and Anthony discuss changes to Andy’s Bun Magic Cube , updated to include a dramatic increase in the number of mana fixing lands and filling out a suite of fast mana. Our hosts discuss how this level of mana fixing changes a draft, and what questions they’re asking themselves to try to recalibrate expectations when drafting the shifted environment. Andy argues increasing the amount...

The Cube Map: Exploring over 20,000 Magic: the Gathering Cube lists On this very special bonus episode, Andy and Anthony are joined by Jett to tell everyone about a project they have been working on for a long time: the Cube Map ! Read more about how the map was made in Jett’s in depth article . A huge thanks to Cube Cobra for providing us with the data to make the map possible. If you have the me...

Anyone who has spent any time in Cube design circles has heard the supposed virtues of an environment with a “flat” power level, where the worst card is no less appealing or less playable than the best. On this week’s Lucky Paper Radio , Andy and Anthony are unpacking this truism and discussing the impacts of individual card power delta on a given cube more broadly. They two also touch on Magic as...

Andy and Anthony welcome Justin Parnell on this week’s episode of Lucky Paper Radio. Justin was one of the first Magic writers to write about Cube and graciously shares stories from the format’s earlier days. From curating his own cube to designing environments for open, competitive play, we get a glimpse into how Justin thinks about Magic. Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes fro...

Do you like your podcast episodes to be carefully planned and tightly edited, with the hosts staying laser focused on the topic at hand? If so, then this episode of Lucky Paper Radio is probably not for you! This week, Andy and Anthony are jumping around between a couple of topics, some only dubiously related to Magic, so let the timestamps be your guide if you think musings on world geography are...

On this week’s Lucky Paper Radio, Andy and Anthony are answering a question from listener Nate about how to decide which cards to “ban” from his Peasant Cube . To date, Nate has used the Legacy banned list for his cube, but the recent addition of Arcum's Astrolabe has him wondering if he should drop this restriction. Then, they discuss the video “Should Cubes be Singleton?” , recounting their own...

View the Rotisserie Draft Discussed in this Episode Use the Template in Your Own Rotisserie Drafts On this week’s Lucky Paper Radio, Andy and Anthony are returning to one of their favorite ways to play Cube in the time of covid: online, asynchronous rotisserie drafting. Our heroes are in the midst of the matches following a recent rotisserie draft of Anthony’s “Regular” Cube and they’re discussing...

As a follow up to last week’s Kaldheim Set Review episode , Andy and Anthony are going back to first principles and asking, what is card evaluation? How do we look at a piece of paper with a bunch of text on it and make predictions about what that piece of paper will do to other pieces of paper, and ultimately our win percentage, in the future? Is card evaluation important for Cube design? Why or...

Our Kaldheim Prospective is out! Thank you to everyone who participated. Buckle your seatbelts and charge up your podcatchers, because this is our most in-depth set review ever and our longest episode to date. Andy and Anthony are joined by Jett, the author of Lucky Paper’s set prospective series, for a detailed discussion of the results of our Kaldheim Cube survey. Timestamps: White 20:18 Blue 50...

This is our last chance to complete our Kaldheim Cube Survey ! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set. Every once in a while, something in your head clicks and the way you think about your cube changes forever. On this episode, Andy and Anthony take some time to reflect on each of their personal biggest Cube design level-up moments. Anthony’s lev...

Our Kaldheim Cube Survey is open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set. As Andy tinkers with two lower powered and novel cubes, he finds himself presented with a question he hasn’t actually confronted in depth before: what percentage of a cube should be removal? Or countermagic? Or cantrips and card draw? With higher-powered cubes you’re often...

Given that we’re in the throes of spoiler season, Andy and Anthony are giving their first impressions on the mechanics of Kaldheim and how they relate to other mechanics in Magic or might be integrated into a cube environment. They also do a pack one, pick one from listener Arjan’s Legacy Cube . Thanks, Arjan! Discussed in this episode: Speks Magnet Balls Kinder Eggs Licking Nintendo Switch Cartri...

Try as they might, our beloved hosts just can’t stay on track. On this episode, Andy’s attempt to tie up a few loose ends from last week’s episode ends up leading our heroes down another rabbit hole about the Cube design process and how it relates to the player psychographics. It was not a fruitless journey, though! On this episode, Andy and Anthony propose the application of the “Vision Design” a...

It’s a new year and Lucky Paper Radio is back! They also never went anywhere, but they’re back nonetheless. On this episode, Andy and Anthony intend to talk about Anthony’s multiplayer cube that he couldn’t help but make after our little string of multiplayer-focused episodes a couple months back, but instead, our hosts get riled up and end up talking about what it means to be a “cube spike”, and...

In a year-end extravaganza, Andy and Anthony dedicate an entire episode to doing pack 1, pick 1s from listener submitted cubes. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? We don’t know, but you should tell us what you think ! Listener cubes discussed in this episode: Jason’s 600 Card Unpowered Vintage Cube Sir_Magic_Toast’s Pauper Cube Brimlock’s “Fair” 360 Card Vintage Cube Dave, A.K.A. “Guaplord“‘s High...

In a decidedly not-so-special holiday episode, Andy and Anthony are talking about tribal synergies in Cube and announce their first formalized rivalry. They do a pack 1, pick 1 from listener Bastian’s GöCube 1.2 and get real sad about how rude people on the internet have tried to convince him that tribal synergies are “bad for Cube”. Anthony sets the table with an open-faced compliment sandwich ab...

Our hosts are finally ready to share the Degenerate Micro Cube with the world. This episode is a deep dive on what this cube is all about, why Andy loves it so much, and why it’s just not Anthony’s cup of tea. They do a pack 1, pick 1 from the Degenerate Micro Cube , and discuss how it came to be, why storm is always a trap, the value that secret information plays in game design, how speed is inex...

This episode is all about tempo — what is it, when does it matter, and how do you apply it to your Cube design and gameplay decisions. Andy and Anthony talk about what “aggro” really means, why some games feel like they’re completely out of your control from the first land you play, the tempo vs value axis, taplands, low CMC spells, scaleable threats, cheap interaction, and what Llanowar Elves, Az...

This is a comparatively aimless episode where our hosts meander through a couple of vaguely related cube topics. They start off by recapping their recent draft of a friend’s greenless, “Breya” cube , which they also do a pack 1, pick 1 from, then move on to cover how draft decisions change in a cube with only four colors, their evaluation of Karn with pants, the dangers of shortcutting cards in yo...

This is your last chance to participate in our Commander Legends Cube Survey ! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set. On this episode, Andy and Anthony are discussing how they would approach building a Commander cube. After giving a little bit of their personal history with EDH and talking about what it has in common with Cube, our dynamic duo g...

Our Commander Legends Cube Survey is open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set. On this episode, Andy and Anthony are joined by their friend and Commander connoisseur Daniel to discuss his all-gold cube and review the cards from Commander Legends. Find out how you can draft a filthy aggro deck from a cube with zero one drops, how the Monarch m...