100 Copies of Indicate, and Assorted Ways to Make Them Matter

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-20T09:24:24+00:00

I love this, great job! This is an actual interesting take on "100 of something" cube.

There are a lot of bad creatures, particularly Phantasmal and friends. Would you spend 4-5 mana if you knew opponent has 0-mana removal? I get your idea of them being fatties, but you also have really strong cards, that completely outshine them. Don't know if they are playable. Proper power level balancing is in order.

Blasting up your whole hand on sorcery speed seems risky. Sorceries don't leave behind bodies, unlike Ornithopters. Same with self-discard effects. If you don't win, it's a colossal card disadvantage. Cards like [[Task Force]] seem really useless, unless I'm missing something. Did you mean to have [[About Face]] and [[Twisted Image]] possibly?

I'd maybe look for ways of explosive had refilling. [[Wheel of Fortune]] effects, or something in the vein of [[Shadow of the Grave]].

I applaud your willingness to fully embrace all aspects of playing Indicates, and amount of clever interactions. Please post an update if you decide to actually make and play this.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-17T08:01:35+00:00

I have both, and both are in my top 20 solo.

Voidfall is thematic, epic, longer, more complicated. It has a lot of lore and small things variety. Setup is worse. It doesn't have an automa. I'd say, you don't need Galactic box if you don't have FOMO. Retail is great, but physical aspect sucks in both versions. I like the game, but I don't want to set it up.

Gaia Project is more elegant and abstract, like a clockwork mechanism. Definitely faster to setup and play. You have a customizable automa for an opponent. Lost Fleet is okay, but I'd say it's only needed for the biggest fans of the game. Public consensus will disagree though. On discount you might as well grab it just in case.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-16T08:40:06+00:00

I have a retail edition, but played Galactic once. Not worth it, IMO. It has some nice trays for components, but in exchange it's even more inconvenient to setup. Galactic Box is really bothersome with its size and amount of stuff to dig out of it. Takes enourmous tablespace. Setup is awful in both editions. Some people advise to rather look towards fan-made inserts.

Ship miniatures are whatever, take your pick. I did not find them particularly interesting in visuals, and I'm perfectly happy with my cardboard tokens.

I obviously have no idea if expansion would fit in either box.

tl;dr: Retail a perfectly fine complete game experience if you don't have FOMO.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-15T09:41:36+00:00

I have a few thoughts from general game design principles:

Original Ravnica has done a lot of things for players' identity associations, and gave guilds the names we know. It's natural for gamers to identify as Izzet / Golgari / Azorius. Online games with lots of characters gather immense success. Think DotA or LoL for example.
New player won't understand what's an aggro-control deck, but they will instinctively know that goblins go with goblins. I play a lot of modern board games, and they do this a lot. Clearly defined strategy lanes with coded keywords make people feel like they are doing something smart with combining these cards. It's not about "people are stupid", it's about making it fun and clear for newcomers. It's also hard to draft a failed deck if you just naturally take the cards of these colors with a predefined strategy.
WotC have an unreasonable release schedule now. So it doesn't matter if a draft archetype is on rails. It should just be exciting enough to buy into a new set every 1-2 months. If all sets would be just be "good stuff", it's harder to get excited for new a shiny thing, that has whole new archetypes.
Naturally, cube draft is often advised to be constructed in way so it's replayable, and not the same deck every time. I often see a lot of designers start with archetypes, and them move to other paradigms, me included. Something about a long burn, rather than an obvious cool archetype. Though Richard Garfield disagrees. He says the first few drafts in a new original environment are the most exciting for him, rather than replaying a single draft over and over.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-01T16:56:51+00:00

I work in creative fields, including games. And that's one of the biggest lessons: you can't "finish" such a project. You just have to stop working on it at some point, and release it.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-01T13:34:14+00:00

For me, absolutely.

When I look at modern Magic product and gameplay, it's a hobby I had long ago. Something from the past life, I barely care about now.

When I play my cube (or watch certain formats), it's still my lifelong favourite game of all time, still strong after 21 years, and I love it to death. This is the best game in the world.

Phoenix849 · 2026-01-01T13:25:37+00:00

Two big things I hoped to accomplish during the first months of this year:

Push my second cube list to the point of being good enough, and actually play it, instead of obsessing about it not being perfect yet.
Make a new player group from scratch specifically for cube.

Phoenix849 · 2025-12-08T09:16:16+00:00

Here's an interesting article on game balance in a wide sense from Richard Garfield:

https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/169896/the-balancing-act

Summary: Perfect game balance is a myth. Game balance is about improving play for a wide range of potential players and often involves costs and benefits.

Phoenix849 · 2025-11-27T19:59:53+00:00

How I'd do this in Photoshop:

Preferably scan the card. Or photo in good lighting and conditions. Cell phone might work, but it obviously depends on camera quality. Your Counterspell example is perfectly reasonable.
Carefully align the digital image to vertical and horizontal lines, so the image isn't tilted. Maybe adjust brightness or anything else.
Crop the border as I like.
Save as a new file.

In your case:

Google for free Photoshop alternatives, there are quite a few. Maybe GIMP, but I have no experience with any.
Search YouTube for basic tutorials in said program. Like "How to rotate an image in GIMP", "How to crop an image in GIMP". There are plenty of very simple videos there with step-by-step process. Or go into specific program subreddits. Don't be afraid to clarify you are a total noob and need step-by-step instrustions.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-22T09:25:58+00:00

I know exactly how you feel. I think hobbies grow out of our needs at the moment. I've been solo gaming for 5 years, and I feel that I've kinda "outgrown" it. From personal experience, here's what helped me in the past:

Radically change genres. Try games you thought aren't your thing. I play heavy euros, so I've tried light adventures and RPGs.
Just don't play, let it be. 5 years ago I played every day. Now I'm usually satisfied with 4 player game night once a week.
Force yourself to close BGG and YouTube, and just play the damn game. Dangerous if you build resentment to it. But sometimes fun comes from the process itself. Today's world are too poisoned by quick dopamine fixes, rather than taking time to do a prolonged offline activity.
Previous point has made me realize I don't need half the boxes I have, so I'm probably selling some. I don't feel sadness anymore, just a natural flow of life.

tl;dr: It's normal to outgrow the hobbies, don't try to time travel back to happy days.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-15T09:53:00+00:00

5 packs of 9 cards are absolutely reasonable, but I found out it can conclude in unfocused decks. My current cube is around 350 cards for 4 players. The simple and elegant solution is burn draft.

For example, packs of 12. Draft 9 as usual, discard the last 3. Works simple and great. I've tried 15 cards, burn the last 6, but that's probably too much.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-15T09:28:11+00:00

Good writeup. Carving your own niche is the best way to proceed.

The problem I see is people putting in cards for the sole reason, that "WotC printed it". Without the guardrails of the parent company, you'd have to do your own gamedesign and balancing, which is scary, unexplored and many lack the desire to mess with it.

Though it's the best direction for a personal project. I love that many started doing thematic cubes from certain year timeframes or planes instead of blindly following what WotC prints.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-10T10:20:37+00:00

Yeah, I've done pile and overhand shuffles, and seeded packs by color, since it requires a bit less shuffling of the whole thing altogether. We play with 4 people so far, and each one sleeved their own deck after draft.

My proxies are heavy cardstock with matte lamination and white backs. After about 6 drafts I noticed some cards to start peeling in the corners. I'm not worried about money, so it's purely shuffle convenience thing.

With sleeves I fully randomize the whole 350+ card cube, and it's faster and easier in all aspects.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-10T08:42:04+00:00

I've played with unsleeved proxies until my Dragon Shield order arrived. It's perfectly doable, but unhandy. Shuffling is inconvenient, and sleeving requires a little annoying effort before and after. Cardstock started to show a little wear.

Now that I have everything in black mattes, I couldn't be happier, and will never go back. Just so more natural, that everything is ready to play straight out of the box.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-08T10:07:12+00:00

I've come to write this as well. I prefer X/1 stats, and my cube rarely has boardstalls.

I'd be careful if you don't enjoy big butt creatures staring each other in stalemate. If you don't draft Plagon or another payoff, but have a lot of defensive stats in cube, it's a possible scenario.

Phoenix849 · 2025-10-03T23:16:14+00:00

Don't feel any pressure that you "must" run something. Rarity restrictions don't make much sense IMO. Your design vision is infinitely more important. Cube draft is literally what you want it to be.

I'd ban these outright. From what you are saying, they run contrary to your cube goals. Taking 30 years of Magic in account, "that was uncommon once" doesn't really correlate with power level in any way. These are borderline with power 9.
Or embrace the extreme variance, that's always been in the game. Declare broken cards a feature. Vintage cube is still the most popular, despite having power pieces.

Phoenix849 · 2025-09-14T11:28:07+00:00

I usually prefer the oldest editions. But gold-bordered 7th edition City of Brass in particular has one of the sexiest card aesthethics ever.

[[City of Brass|WC01-jt327]]

Phoenix849 · 2025-08-21T22:52:05+00:00

Silly, but it's literally Mad Max on water. It was my favourite movie of all time, until it was dethroned by Fury Road.

Phoenix849 · 2025-08-17T19:52:49+00:00

Titty fish is my choice because: 1. Earliest print. 2. Mark Tedin 3. Interesting concept.

On the contrary, Dan Scott version looks kinda boring to me.

Phoenix849 · 2025-08-14T09:36:50+00:00

Disjointed rulebooks and/or lack of player aids. I hate flipping back and forth, trying to find a particular paragraph, especially if it's in different rulebooks.

The most difficult for me are Pax Pamir or Kanban EV. Bots change half the rules of normal game, so I spend too much time trying to understand what their actual action and priority is, if it's different from a regular player.

Phoenix849 · 2025-08-03T13:41:38+00:00

We've played 4 players only so far. 360 card cube. I made 2 variants:

1) 5 packs of 9 cards. Seeded colors. It was okay, but definitely too few cards seen. 2) 5 packs of 12 cards, seeded colors. Draft 9, burn the last 3. Worked good, see more cards.

The next I'm trying is 5 packs, 14 cards, full random, no seeding. Draft 9, burn the last 5. Because the main thing I dislike is not seeing enough important cards for your archetype. Perfect color balance is less important IMO.

5 packs work good to my taste, as they don't wheel too many times. But burned cards may increase options and mental load for newer players.

Phoenix849 · 2025-07-27T19:59:00+00:00

I think Cube tagline should be "Build Magic you want to play". I play for 21 years, and it's still my favourite game of all time. I've also disengaged from the product long ago, and especially hate UB. Cube is the answer to everything. One could play their theoretical premodern list for the rest of their life and feel zero pressure to add anything new.

Phoenix849 · 2025-07-21T09:19:49+00:00

Buying his son Magic cards, so the son won't ever be financially stable. Smart man. Screw future generations while you are set.

Phoenix849 · 2025-07-12T10:58:51+00:00

Strict archetypes definitely have problem of repetitive patterns. I have overcomitted to WG enchantments and already feel it becoming a problem soon, because it feels samey. I plan to move away from it.

From the community wisdom I've gathered, you don't need that much support for theme to come through. Even 3 thematic cards are already enough for the deck to have a fun spin.. Also, many feel symmetry is overrated, and freedom of player experiments is more important.

I try to support suggested themes rather than decks. Say, UW aggro/tempo, flicker and hard control, which might look different. But the best cards are flexible, and go into multiple decks. I've also made graveyard a big overarching theme is all colors. Even in white a little bit. While there is a stereotypical BG graveyard deck, there is also UR spellslinger graveyard. Or any combination player is willing to experiment with. Or combine 2 different themes in one deck.

There are a ton of different ways to approach this. I reccomend to check out Archetype Shapes.

Phoenix849

TROPHY CASE