Cube Drafting Revisited

This article was deleted from the WordPress site. It is restored from the Internet Archive copy of October 4, 2013.

Revisiting Cube Draft

In our previous article on drafting we laid out a basic framework for doing cube drafts in Netrunner. Since then several new data packs have been released and the Genesis Cycle has finally been completed. Cube drafting is a dynamic format that changes as more cards are released and as a result we will be explaining how to update and maintain your own cube as well as showing the specific changes we made to our own cube.

There are two main paths you can take with your own cube. The easiest path is to continue adding every new card from each data pack. This will leave you with a surplus of random cards not included in a given draft due to only needing 60 cards per player. Maintaining the cube is relatively straight forward with this method and it will lead to more varying experiences. The other alternative is to specifically choose what cards make it into your cube by keeping the size of the cube constant at 240 Corp cards and 240 Runner cards (for 4 players, add 60 for each additional player you want to add). Doing this refines your cube down to the cards you most want to draft. This helps to eliminate chafe cards that always get last picked and often end up unplayed. To do this method, put all of the cards into the cube, then start cutting cards you do not want to play with until you get to 240 cards.

In maintaining our own cube we decided to focus on card power level and try to take the best set of possible cards to draft with. Remember that there is no set in stone choices for your own cubes, and ultimately the decision of what to put into your cube is your own. You can use our choices as a good starting point for your own cubes.

The Stimhack Cube

One of every data pack
One core set

We then removed the following cards:

Runner Cards:
The runners do not have to cut too many cards, and we don’t have to worry about balancing agendas with other choices. The big consideration for the runner portion of your cube is to properly balance breakers, economy, and everything else.

Wyrm X 2
All Nighter X 3
Joshua B. X 3
Disrupter X 3
Muresh BodySuit X 3
Surge X 3
Data Leak Reversal X 3
Demolition Run X 3
Data Dealer X 1
Net Shield X 2
Cortez Chip X 3
Snitch X 1

Corp Cards:
When dealing with the corporate side of your cube, make sure to leave in enough agenda points so that players can draft enough agendas to play with. Remember that with a 40 card minimum deck size players only need 18 points. Furthermore it is especially important to leave in enough solid ice for players to draft, as a corp deck without ice is not much of a deck. Because there are currently more corporate cards than runner, we had to cut a lot more from the corp side.

Fetal AI X 3
Power Grid Overload X 3
Research Station X 2
Snowflake X 3
Ghost Branch X 3
Big Brother X 3
Chilo City Grid X 3
TMI X 3
Net Police X 3
Sunset X 3
Bullfrog X 3
Amazon Industrial Zone X 3
Tyrant X 3
Burke Bugs X 3
Woodcutter X 3
Rework X 3
Salvage X 3
Ruhr Valley X 3
Zaibatsu Loyalty X 1
Executive Retreat X 3
Restructured Datapool X 3
Shipment From Mirrormorph X 2
Shipment From Kaguya X 2
Mandatory Upgrades X 3

Making all of these cuts helped to increase the quality of our drafted decks, and lead to more interesting and difficult decisions during the drafting process. As more and more packs get released, we recommend slowly starting to increase the amount of cards in the cube to allow for more players.

A Note on Identities

In our previous article we mentioned alternatively adding identities into your cube. Although that is still a viable option, we recommend that players start cube drafting by not including identities and using neutral 40 card minimum identities. We have found that drafting without identities speeds up the process and leads to better drafts overall.