Cube on my own Server

[Suroh]

Hello MAGE-community

Yesterday night I had an idea of how to create a "Cube" on my local server. It is a cheaty way and has a few problems, but maybe some of you know whether this could work out.

So my idea was to just pick a set we never really play (like arabian nights for example) and look for a configfile, where i just change the list of cards that are in this set, so that when we play draft the server will give us cards from the new pool.
The problems where of course, that there would only be 1 rare/mythic and 3 uncommons and so on but for the purpose of a simple cube simulator in MAGE it would just be fine.

Does anyone of you know, whether this could work out?
I haven't put so much effort in getting to know how MAGE works up to now and maybe there is a major problem with it I don't know.

I hope you understand my idea and can help me find a solution (if there is one).

Greetings
Suroh

[Backfir3]

If you can compile your own server you could create a new "fake" expansion set and add to it all the cards in your cube (even with custom rarity), not a normal cube but it will work.
If not, I doubt you can accomplish that. Every set has its own cards, if you can't compile a custom build you cannot add a card to your set.
You can wait LevelX or another dev to have a better / correct answer.

[Suroh]

Sounds like a plan
I'll wait for another response to see if there are other ways too

[LevelX]

It would be a lot of work to create all the classes for the cards.
There is no config file to do it. Also you had to add a distinct "cube extension" for each cube. And you have the drawbacks to see no images for this set (at least not without additional manual work) and that the boosters of a draft will include cards multiple times. Don't do it, it won't be satisfying.

I already thought about of implementing cubes in magic.
I guess it won't be a big thing to implement.

The cube can be defined as a deck with e.g. 360 cards.
I would allow to define some fixed cube formats on the server or a custom cube format where the creater of the draft can set up a cube by selecting a deck that defines the cube. The boosters would be created randomly from the cards of the cube without taking rarity of the cards into account. Each card of the cube would be used one time until all cards are used. If more cards are needed, the cube would be refilled and same logic repeats.

But I see very rarly drafts with 4 or more players on the public mage server, so I don't estimated the demand for this very high.

Are you drafting on your local server with mage currently?

Any other suggestions/requirements for a cube implementation in Mage?
E.g. should it also work with sealed tournament?

[Suroh]

I personaly have 4-6 friends who would like to play cube draft/sealed on MAGE since we are not living close to each other and it is way more fun to play with overpowered Cubes than with my cube of crap

It would be really great if, what you just explained, would work, because I think I could get more friends to play with me. Sadly it is true that most of the time we are only 2-4 people.
Tournament support would be great! And I like the concept of people being able to open up a tournament with their own cubes! This sounds like a lot of fun
For the public cube you could (for example) take the current holiday cube. A lot of people would like to play the Cube on MODO but don't like the idea of spending money twice on their magic cards so they are looking for an alternative.

I'm looking out for further updates on that topic

[LevelX]

I'm finished with implementing in MAGE the possibility to play cube draft/sealed. I added already the Holiday Cube 2013 from Wizards.

Any other suggestions what Cubes to add as predefined formats?

[Suroh]

WHAT? ALREADY?
You're amazing!
Didn't not expect it to be done so fast
Great work! Thanks a lot!

Sadly I don't know many good formats for Cubes. Maybe a Pauper Cube? Too spice it up a little
Or maybe others have good ideas too.

[chenegan]

Is there anyway to draft a custom cube that I have made? not on public servers but on a local one. How are the cubes stored? Great program, btw.

[LevelX]

Is there anyway to draft a custom cube that I have made? not on public servers but on a local one. How are the cubes stored? Great program, btw.

Currently it's only possible to add/use cubes by adding it to the java source code.
Each cube is a own class, that is added to the server config file if the server should provide the cube.
At least if it's a somehow finished cube, I can easily add it to the next XMage version, if you post the cards or give me a link to the included cards.

[wintermuet]

What is the current state of cube implementation? I just became aware of this program when looking for an online custom cube drafting program. I'm interested in working on the functionality to import custom draft card lists.

I'm a Java developer myself and just cloned the repo to begin digging
I don't want to spend a bunch of time digging through this if this feature is coming soon.

[LevelX]

What is the current state of cube implementation? I just became aware of this program when looking for an online custom cube drafting program. I'm interested in working on the functionality to import custom draft card lists.

I'm a Java developer myself and just cloned the repo to begin digging
I don't want to spend a bunch of time digging through this if this feature is coming soon.

It's only on my internal list of possible extensions with no high priority.
It shoudn't be to complicated to implement.
The hardest part should be the UI changes to the client to be able to qualify a custom cube on table start if cube format is selected (I would recommend to define the cube as a deck with at least X cards).
To create than a cube object on the fly by using the cards of the deck (like the predefined cube classes) is straight forward easy.

Regards
LevelX2

[Hemnon]

The idea of custom cube support is still popular enough to get brought up over on the Xmage subreddit... Any chance we could convince you to implement it?

[Billeh007]

Custom cubes would be amazing if they were easier to implement. I wanted to draft a cube for fun with my friends but it was way too difficult to try and figure out how I'd do that