Magic: The Gathering is truly in a weird spot these days. Product sales are skyrocketing because collectors and flippers are buying Universes Beyond sets like they are going out of style (see "Hasbro"). However, the player base seems less than enthused about having to spend lots of time and money tracking down singles for constructed format decks (see "'Ongoing Complaints'") and draft and sealed formats are mostly out-of-the-question due to lack of product on shelves. It might be time to try something a little different, a little seasonal. A Halloween Cube Draft might be the answer to providing a spark to in-store events. The Cube Draft format has been around a while now, and is a simple way stores can make use some of the bulk commons and uncommons in the store.

As a brief overview of how to build a Halloween Cube, tournament organizers rummage through cards to create a 360-card draft set; only one of each individual card is included in the set. Once a draft set is built, the cards are then randomly inserted into store-created "packs" of 15. Cube Draft is then run like a normal draft, where eight players draft three packs each then play in a three-round tournament (cards are returned to the store's Cube at the end of play; expensive cards are proxied to avoid possible theft). Most Cubes are themed, as they are customized by the builder, and can be a valuable store asset for times when other formats get dull.

There are several sets that can provide solid, horror-inspired cards to include as part of a 360-card Halloween Cube. The primary sets to look to for cards are as follows: The Dark, Legends, Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn Restored, Shadows Over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Innistrad: Double Feature, Murders at Karlov Manor, and Duskmourn: House of Horrors. In terms of theming a Cube for Halloween, consider including the following creature types: Beasts, Demons, Eldrazi, Goblins, Ghouls, Horrors, Humans, Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, Spiders, and Zombies. There are, of course, more horror-based creature types to choose from, but these selections offer players cohesive strategies for draft. As a side note, Spiders will likely get a boost from the upcoming Spider-Man set (see "Deets Revealed").

In general, players will add basic lands to their draft decks to finish off their decks, but there should also be a draftable portion of the land base included in the Cube. It is good practice to add dual-colored lands from various sets to make mana-fixing easier. Also, mana-fixing artifacts are probably a good include as well to help speed up the game and prevent players from getting locked out of casting multicolor spells. 

Once the base of the Cube is constructed, it will be on the Cube's creator to spice it up a bit with some more powerful cards. The fun part of drafting a Cube is often seeing how older cards interact with newer cards. However, some of these older cards are expensive, so it's a good idea for retailers to leave the originals in a display case (or at home) and let players draft proxies (as mentioned earlier). Proxy cards can be made out of almost any token card, but better proxies are often created from the old, gold-bordered World Championship blank cards (which can usually be found cheaply on eBay). Retailers can have a local artist or shop patron draw up a proxy or look online for a printable proxy. 

Here are some examples of good power cards to put in a Halloween Cube:

All Hallow's Eve. This one pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as the season goes; it is the most Halloweeny Magic card out there. It functions as a fun reanimator card in the Cube. 

Entomb, Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, etc. The tutor cards are a good include in Cube Draft decks as power cards. However, one of the issues with a Halloween Cube is that the on-theme cards are often Black, which can skew draft. Be mindful of this when choosing tutors. 

Ancient Tomb. In general, cards that ramp mana are probably not a great choice for Cube drafts (players tend to enjoy slower formats with Cube). However, Ancient Tomb does ping a for 2 damage for using it, and it's on-theme, so it might be included. 

Chaos Orb and Falling Star. Both cards are super-fun dexterity cards that are on-theme cards. These cards are  

Annointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus. If the Cube includes tokens, these token doublers are good on-theme power cards.

Diamond Valley. The Valley creates really interesting combos when combined with some of the Innistrad block cards.  

The Abyss. This is another classic card from the olden days of Magic: The Gathering that is a global enchantment for players to build artifact decks around.

Lich. This is probably the most fun old card to let players mess around with in a Halloween Cube. It's always a good idea for players to try to cast this card (until it isn't).

As for entry fee and prize support, Cube Draft should have some sort of reasonable entry fee ($5 to $10) with a fun payout. Since WotC isn't providing prize support for this type of home brew tournament, stores can do things like give away plastic pumpkins filled with goodies (covered by the entry fee, of course) and other seasonally-supported prizes. The overall goal of Halloween Cube Draft is to get a community of players into the store for an unique event that isn't too competitive. Halloween Cube Draft can also be tweaked a little to allow players to include Commanders as part of their decks, but that is a whole different style event that would need to be worked out within each individual FLGS.

Now, go forth and scare up a draft!       

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