Thranduil's Movie Block CubeI've been thinking about ways for people to use their old cards in new and exciting ways, and one of them is a cube draft. I compiled this list a while ago and have finally got around to actually posting it. Following is a description of drafting, of the cube draft format, of how it might work in LotR TCG, and finally the list for the cube itself. Do read on!
IntroductionsCube draft is a great way for you and your friends
(6-8 people) to test your knowledge and skills of LotR, as well as getting extra use out of old and rarely-used cards.
What is Cube draft?There are obviously two elements to a cube draft: (i) the
draft and (ii) the
cube. I'll explain each term below:
i) Drafting a cube is most like
booster drafts. Booster draft is not something that LotR has historically done (excepting only, to my knowledge, for the Two Towers draft packs), but is a key part of many trading card games, not least
Magic: the Gathering. Essentially, it works like this:
1) You get a certain number of players together, usually 8, round a table.
2) Each player gets a certain number of booster packs, usually 3. These can be from the same set or from different sets, whatever it is that the players agree on ahead of time.
3) Each player opens their first booster, looks through it and selects 1 card from it.
4) Once a player has chosen a card, they put the card face down in front of them and pass the remainder of the booster to the next person. (You normally alternate whether you pass left or right).
5) Once you have your next booster, you select another card from this one, add it to your face down pile, and pass it on. This will continue until there are no cards left in the first booster.
6) When the last card in the booster has been taken, each player gets a certain amount of time (say 2 mins) to review their chosen cards so far. It is often forbidden to look at your cards in between reviews.
7) After the review time, each player opens their second booster, and repeats steps 3-6 until the last card from the last booster has been taken, when the draft finishes.
8) Once the draft is over, each player takes the cards they have selected throughout the draft and has a certain amount of time (say 15 mins) to build a deck using the cards they have selected. Deck construction rules might vary, but it often requires a 40 card deck.
9) Now that everyone has built a deck, it is time to play the decks against each other! This can be done in any way that is agreeable for the players, whether it's a knockout tournament, multiplayer madness, or points-based tournament.
ii) The cube draft works in exactly the same way as that described above,
except that you do not draft with random unopened boosters: you draft with a
cube. A cube is a fixed collection of cards (usually where each card appears only once) which players will have agreed upon ahead of time. Many cubes are chosen for different purposes, for example a cube where you get the most powerful cards of a particular game together is common, or one where you are trying to promote specific strategies. The cube is the list of cards which I have prepared, which is
Thranduil's Movie Block Cube containing some of the most powerful and most fun cards from sets 1-10 from all different cultures. So, when you are drafting, instead of opening a booster pack, you shuffle all the cards in the cube together and deal a random selection of cards to each player as it were a booster.
How do you draft an LotR cube?There are some complications for drafting in LotR TCG which other games, like MTG, do not have which have to be addressed. I hope I will address these in these points below:
• This cube is made up of
480 cards, 240 Free Peoples (well, 236 and 4 Rings) and 240 Shadow cards. It is designed for
6-8 players (preferably 8) and for each player to make decks of
40 cards (minimum), each being comprised of 20 FP and 20 SH cards.
• Each "booster" should be
15 cards (for 8 players, this is ideal because packs go around twice). This seems the best to me, but is flexible as long as you physically have enough cards to make a deck at the end. Your "boosters" should be separated between Shadow and Free Peoples "boosters" containing only Shadow or only Free Peoples cards.
• You should draft
4 "boosters", 2 Free Peoples and 2 Shadow. The order is flexible and debatable, but I would probably say this:
Pack 1: Free Peoples (pass right)
Pack 2: Free Peoples (pass left)
Pack 3: Shadow (pass right)
Pack 4: Shadow (pass left)
Alternating who you are passing cards to is very important because the "boosters" you pass to your neighbours completely dictates what cards they see and so what decks they make.
• Though there are Ring-bearers and rings in the cube itself, I would recommend that each player starts the draft with a copy of
Frodo, Hope of Free Peoples (or other agreed Frodo Ring-bearer) and
The One Ring, The Ruling Ring. In this way, you are able to play with a Ring-bearer and Ring even if you do not pick one up during the draft.
• There are no
sites in this cube. In this regard, I would follow one of two options:
i) Collect all the sites you want to use (probably King sites for Movie Block, but I would be happy to allow all sites from FotR, TT, and RotK and pretend they are all any sites) and draft them in exactly the same way as you drafted your decks, and do so as a pack 5. This continues the skill of the draft, but may make the draft take too long and also you have to somehow make sure that everyone has at least 1 of each site.
ii) Or, more simply, you could let everyone have a set of 9 sites (again probably King sites, but see my note above—I have not included any cards in the cube that reference FotR or TT sites, only RotK sites, except for
Durin's Tower) which they choose before they have even begun drafting to go with their Frodo and
Ruling Ring.
• Due to the large amount of card draw in LotR compared to other games, I would also recommend that you allow every player a
free reshuffle during games, so that if they go through their entire deck once, they can shuffle their discard pile into their draw deck and carry on going.
What did I put in this cube?I selected cards for the cube based on a number of criteria, for example:
• The card is powerful
• The card is iconic
• The card rarely gets played in constructed, but would work in draft
• The card is lots of fun
• The card is on an X-list so can't be played otherwise
• The card helps a strategy that needs a critical volume of cards to work (eg. fortifications, site control)
In general, by far the most powerful and necessary cards in draft are characters, so I think it is something like 50% characters, with a lot of repeats of key characters like Gandalf and Gollum to make those strategies viable for different players. There are also a lot of conditions, but fewer possessions and events because those are more difficult to play in draft. In general, events that got in were utility, either good removal like
Discovered or good support like
Delving.
Where to now?Obviously, my list is only the very beginning! I have chosen a set of cards, but you may find that you don't like some of them—maybe some cards are obviously too good and everyone always picks it and wins, or maybe some cards no one ever wants to pick, or maybe some strategies never quite work, or maybe you simply don't have some of the cards. Hence, I encourage you to tinker with the list and find the balance that suits you and your player group the best, bearing in mind the sorts of things I was thinking about when I put the list together. And indeed, if you want to make other cubes, then do so! Standard, Extended, FotR, Towers Standard, Hunters—the possibilities are many.
I do hope that you play the cube. I haven't actually managed to get 8 people together to test it, so your feedback and suggestions I would hugely appreciate.
Similarly, if you have any questions about the list or how the cube draft works, do not hesitate to post below or send me a message.
Most importantly, I hope you enjoy this format and that it gives you at least a few hours of fun with your old cards!
(The list will be posted below in other posts).
Thran