Games

Lucky Paper Radio

Lucky Paper Radio is a podcast about Magic: the Gathering hosted by lifelong friends Andy Mangold and Anthony Mattox. Focused primarily on sandbox formats like Cube, which are free of banlists, rotation, and net decking, the show is about the best parts of Magic and how to get the most out of the game.

Latest Episodes:

Restrictions & Inspiration Mar 01, 2021

Show notes

On this week’s Lucky Paper Radio, Andy and Anthony are answering a question from listener Nate about how to decide which cards to “ban” from his Peasant Cube. To date, Nate has used the Legacy banned list for his cube, but the recent addition of Arcum's Astrolabe has him wondering if he should drop this restriction. Then, they discuss the video “Should Cubes be Singleton?”, recounting their own experiences designing for both singleton and non-singleton environments. The confluence of these topics leads to a lengthy and detailed discussion about the role that restrictions play in cube design.

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from Forrest716’s Three-Color Cube. Thanks, Forrest!

Discussed in this episode:

Timestamps:

Intro 0:00
Listener Submitted Pack 1, Pick 1 3:30
Mail bag — Answering Nate’s Question 11:18
“Should Cubes be Singleton?” 34:26
Outro 1:05:43

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If you have a question for the show, or want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube, email us at mail@luckypaper.co. Please include how you’d like to be credited on air, your pronouns, and if you’re submitting a cube for the pack 1, pick 1, a link to said cube.

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Spreadsheet: the Gathering Feb 22, 2021

Show notes

View the Rotisserie Draft Discussed in this Episode

Use the Template in Your Own Rotisserie Drafts

On this week’s Lucky Paper Radio, Andy and Anthony are returning to one of their favorite ways to play Cube in the time of covid: online, asynchronous rotisserie drafting. Our heroes are in the midst of the matches following a recent rotisserie draft of Anthony’s “Regular” Cube and they’re discussing everything Anthony has learned from the experience. In their chat they touch on what rotisserie draft is, Puppet Conjurer, what you can learn from doing one with your own cube, how to talk trash effectively with your playgroup, the game of chicken that decides when the eight copies of Prismatic Vista get taken, and how drafter biases affect normal and face-up drafts differently. Plus, Anthony introduces a new, new vanilla test!

Timestamps:

Intro 0:00
Pack 1, Pick 1 5:43
Reviewing Anthony’s Rotisserie Draft 10:53
Draft Signals 43:53
Rotisserie Variance 47:57
Match Discussion 59:24
Outro 1:11:12
Andy’s Pickled Onion Recipe 1:12:30

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

If you’d like to show your support for the show, please leave us a review on iTunes.

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Card Evaluation and the Playtesting Paradox Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

As a follow up to last week’s Kaldheim Set Review episode, Andy and Anthony are going back to first principles and asking, what is card evaluation? How do we look at a piece of paper with a bunch of text on it and make predictions about what that piece of paper will do to other pieces of paper, and ultimately our win percentage, in the future? Is card evaluation important for Cube design? Why or why not? Why did they reference Limited Resources so much in this episode? How many Relentless Rats is too many Relentless Rats?

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week is from Mikko’s Mirrodin Extended Cube. That has a nice ring to it. Thanks, Mikko!

Timestamps:

Intro/Pasta Parley 0:00
Listener Submitted p1p1 7:12
Relentless Rats Talk 14:53
What is Card Evaluation? 17:43
The Playtesting Paradox 36:45
Local Maximums (again!?) 55:20
Outro Part 1 1:12:30
Outro For Real 1:15:48

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Kaldheim Cube Set Review Feb 08, 2021

Show notes

Our Kaldheim Prospective is out! Thank you to everyone who participated.

Buckle your seatbelts and charge up your podcatchers, because this is our most in-depth set review ever and our longest episode to date. Andy and Anthony are joined by Jett, the author of Lucky Paper’s set prospective series, for a detailed discussion of the results of our Kaldheim Cube survey.

Timestamps:

White 20:18
Blue 50:12
Black 1:15:38
Red 1:40:56
Green 1:51:08
Lands 2:12:20
Colorless 2:22:07
Gold 2:23:01

Discussed in this episode:

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Personal Cube Level Ups Feb 01, 2021

Show notes

This is our last chance to complete our Kaldheim Cube Survey! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set.

Every once in a while, something in your head clicks and the way you think about your cube changes forever. On this episode, Andy and Anthony take some time to reflect on each of their personal biggest Cube design level-up moments.

Anthony’s level ups are:

Including many more fixing lands
The value of hybrid cards as a counterbalance to a deep gold section
Tuning the distribution of overlapping and non-overlapping synergies
Focusing on play patterns instead of power level

Andy’s level ups are:

Supporting your aggro deck
Focusing on good decks, not good cards
Loosening up aesthetic “balance”
How to process pet cards and the opposite of pet cards

Because this topic is a little deeper than our normal subject matter, our hosts decide to skip the listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 segment and get right to the main discussion. Don’t stop sending in those cube lists, though!

Discussed in this episode:

An Ode to Scalable Threats

No timestamps in this episode — just the main topic straight through.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Bread and Butter Breakdown Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

Our Kaldheim Cube Survey is open! Please take a few minutes to let us know what you’re testing in your cube from the new set.

As Andy tinkers with two lower powered and novel cubes, he finds himself presented with a question he hasn’t actually confronted in depth before: what percentage of a cube should be removal? Or countermagic? Or cantrips and card draw? With higher-powered cubes you’re often constrained by the available card pool, and end up playing as much of these effects as you can without sacrificing individual card quality, but at lower power levels, the density is entirely up to you. In preparation for the discussion, Andy tallies up all of these different “bread and butter” effects in his and Anthony’s main cubes, as well as the Degenerate Micro Cube, and our hosts discuss the results and what it says about their respective environments — or whether it really says anything at all.

View the table with all the values discussed in this episode on our website.

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week is Max’s Junk Cube, submitted by listener Quinn. Thanks, Quinn!

Discussed in this episode:

Anthony’s Turbo Cube
Degenerate Micro Cube
Lucky Paper Radio Episode 8 — Matchup Matrix
Andy and Anthony on Cube Outside the Box — Part 1 and Part 2

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
4:15 Listener submitted p1p1
12:30 Main Topic
58:30 Outro

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Kaldheim First Look Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

Given that we’re in the throes of spoiler season, Andy and Anthony are giving their first impressions on the mechanics of Kaldheim and how they relate to other mechanics in Magic or might be integrated into a cube environment. They also do a pack one, pick one from listener Arjan’s Legacy Cube. Thanks, Arjan!

Discussed in this episode:

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
6:29 Listener submitted p1p1
15:04 KHM Mechanics
15:37 Foretell
26:50 Boast
31:48 MDFCs
38:57 Snow
45:50 Sagas
50:39 Changeling
53:56 Unofficial Mechanics
1:00:54 Outro

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Vision Design vs. Play Design in Cube Jan 11, 2021

Show notes

Try as they might, our beloved hosts just can’t stay on track. On this episode, Andy’s attempt to tie up a few loose ends from last week’s episode ends up leading our heroes down another rabbit hole about the Cube design process and how it relates to the player psychographics. It was not a fruitless journey, though! On this episode, Andy and Anthony propose the application of the “Vision Design” and “Play Design” distinction that exists within Magic R&D to Cube design. Tune in to learn all about Midnight Cube, The Ballmer Peak, and second-hand Drive to Work episodes.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

On Being a Cube Spike Jan 04, 2021

Show notes

It’s a new year and Lucky Paper Radio is back! They also never went anywhere, but they’re back nonetheless. On this episode, Andy and Anthony intend to talk about Anthony’s multiplayer cube that he couldn’t help but make after our little string of multiplayer-focused episodes a couple months back, but instead, our hosts get riled up and end up talking about what it means to be a “cube spike”, and whether or not such a thing even exists. Things really kick off about 1/3rd of the way through, so buckle up!

Talking points include:

The game theory of multiplayer Magic
Magic: the Gathering’s Psychographics
What it means to be a spike as a player
What it means to design a cube with a spike mentality
How the concept of simply cutting bad cards and adding good ones doesn’t really hold up to any scrutiny
Local maximums
How the power level of a card is always relative
Baneslayers and Mulldrifters (yes, AGAIN)

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Listener Submitted Chaos Supreme Dec 28, 2020

Show notes

In a year-end extravaganza, Andy and Anthony dedicate an entire episode to doing pack 1, pick 1s from listener submitted cubes. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? We don’t know, but you should tell us what you think!

Listener cubes discussed in this episode:

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

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