Usman's Cube Content

FAQ

tl;dr I’ve written and podcasted about cube since 2010.

These are the comprehensive lists of:

A short summary of my cube content creation history and what I’m doing now:

  • I started playing M:TG in 1994 until around 2000, where most of my interest was lost from the Tolarian Academy decks and Mercadian Masques not doing much. I occasionally lurked the mothership and attended the Betrayers of Kamigawa pre-release, and since Standard was in a terrible state, got into booster drafting. I started my cube journey from hearing about it in the Magic Show episode “Gleaming the Cube” and made my own, in late 2008-2009.
  • I started writing about cube in 2010 with a one-off article for MTGSalvation. I’ve written for Quiet Speculation, Star City Games, Coolstuffinc, Hipsters of the Coast and Lucky Paper. I’ve written many set reviews and theory-based articles on cube design over the years, with the latter shaping much of modern cube design when it was mostly in an undefined state in the late 2000s.
  • I created the first cube podcast, The Third Power, in 2010. (Since the host, MTGCast.com, is down, most of the episodes are lost to the sands of time, but I was able to salvage some and I’ll be posting some on here) and created the Pack One Slick Ones podcast, where I’m one of the hosts. I’ve also been a guest on various cube podcasts over the years.
  • For several years, I’ve served on the committee for The Pauper Cube for curating the list and participating in the discord. I similarly work on a committee for updating the MTGO Cube.
  • I created a cube for Magic Online, The Ravnica Cube, which was on Magic Online in 2022 for a week. The cube’s theme was based on the plane of Ravnica, using planar neutral cards to flesh out the cube and to make it a better format.
  • I hosted a panel at CubeCon 2024: “Cube Building for Dummies: Everything you wanted to know but were too afraid to ask” and presented the panel again at CubeCon 2025 and in the Table Top Talks discord.
  • I’ve had a cube since 2009, initially a “powered cube” but one that has since become a “Legacy-Lite” cube. I also maintain a pauper and various cubes in various states of creation.