Magpie - Concept and Cube

Inspired by Jay Dragon's Magpie format, I created a cube for drafting this crazy Magic variant.

Magpie is a legacy cube for Magic: The Gathering. If you're not familiar with these concepts, here's a breakdown.

Magic: The Gathering—Undoubtedly the world's most popular collectible card game (for better or worse).

Cube—A pre-selected collection of cards used for drafting decks.

Draft—A method of card selection where each player selects one card from a pack, then passes the rest to the next player. As the packs circulate, each player assembles a pile of cards from which they can build a deck for playing against others in the same draft pool.

Legacy—The cube contents change over time, and those changes go forward into future draft cycles.

In short, it's a collection of cards that players build decks from and it'll change over time.

This idea is nothing new. What's different is how Magpie handles it. Magpie has some guiding principles.

• Celebrate the physicality of the cards

• Subvert the idea of card value as tied to physical state

• Embrace the ephemeral and shifting nature of the meta

• Abandon any illusion of control

• Enjoy the mythos and storytelling that will inevitably accompany this "y'all remember that one time..."

• Have fun

These manifest as a draft environment where cards are permanently altered with stickers or by being cut apart and pasted back together. Suffice to say, it gets WEIRD.

If you'd like more details on the origins of Magpie, I highly recommend reading Jay Dragon's write-up on it: Medium.com—Jay Dragon—The Magpie’s Cube (Magic The Gathering)