Magic the Gathering is a fun and intricate game, which is why I complain about it so much.
I tire of the four-hour games, the fourty-minute wait for your turn, the way players instinctively shut down perceived threats in irrational ways[1]. I've watched some interesting videos that critique ways casual players build their Commander-format decks: board-wipes without purpose, lack of clear win conditions, and sluggish build-up that results in an overbearing board presence that cannot be shaken off. I am guilty of most of these at some point in time.
I am also an ardent follower of the school of thought of Get The Fuck On With It. Perfect optimisation is a waste of time. Humming and hawing over how to play the perfect turn, getting it wrong anyways after 10 minutes, and begging the other players to revert so you can pull it off this time, is insulting to everyone involved. This card game essentially simulates a war raging over a massive battlefield: lean into that! Jump rashly into a course of action that may or may not play out! You'll learn more either way!
Some people share this train of thought, and still turn up to the table with a pre-constructed deck that generates tokens that they don't have cardboard for. I've decided to be more proactive in my pushing of my clearly superior ideology.
Hells Cube is a community dedicated to making incredibly stupid cards, sometimes overpowered, ideally pushing the limits of what a MtG card should do. They can reference silly memes, build on top of in-community jokes, and create their own game-ending spells with suitable grandeur. Humour is of the utmost importance.
This captures the essence of why we play this silly game - to pull off some insane bullshit, and have fun. If the bullshit has a semblance of balance, even better. I fell in love with Hells Cube designs a few months ago, and set to work on creating my own tailored set, aiming to create a full Cube of cards to torment people with.
There were some hefty challenges here. The minimum recommended cards in a Cube is 360, going up to 720 for beefier Cubes. 360 custom cards is ludicrous even by my standards, so after the font of inspiration began to run dry, I returned to the Hells Cube 9 and 9.1 sets, and pulled about 150 of my favourites into my own Cube. The rest are custom-built, home-reared, kink-referencing nonsense. I love them very much.
- White remains underpowered, outside of some bizarre battlefield-reshaping mechanics. Players becoming creatures is one I enjoy toying with.
- Blue is for petty control, hypnosis[2], and the silliest "counter target spell" justifications I could find.
- Black destroys/manipulates things, in ways that aim to punish enemy players for mis-stepping in amusing ways.
- Red is about POWERRRRRR with no semblance of control, because that makes me giggle and teeheehee~
- Green takes its usual approach of mana ramp and counters, but makes them dependent on kinks. Because, again, teeheehee.
It's not complete yet: I'm just under the 300-card count at the moment. More creatures are needed; at least 50 of them. Instants and Sorceries are easier because they pull off some silly bullshit and disappear. The creatures need a little bit more synergy, or control, or aggro, while not feeling overly punishing to play against. Also I want to shove more kinks into this set.
When it's finished, I may post the complete card list here or host it elsewhere. It's taken weeks of work already, and I'd be very excited to show off this inane nonsense.
Eat your fucking heart out Mark Rosewater.