Got to play one of my favorite board games on Saturday. Argent:The Consortium. It ran 4 hours instead of the expected 3, but there was a new player and a lot of drinking involved. The final score can be so funny since it felt like a very close game but the final scores were 7-2-2-1-0.

Playing this Nuzlocke and got an eevee. Looked at its stats and it has a +Def nature and 31 SpeD IVs. I turned it into my favorite Pokemon (Umbreon) and it is just the chonkiest thing in my box. I got so lucky 🥲

Drafted my own cube, the Lich get Licher yesterday. Haven’t made many changes since the initial build, still wildly unbalanced. You start with a Lich’s mastery in play, and games devolve from there. Drafted BW clerics and got completely hosed. The last player to draft BW also had similar issues. 0-3

Nuzloking Royal Sapphire right now and it is incredible fun. I’m not a seasoned Pokemon player, so the difficulty feels perfect.

Drafted the All A’s, no B’s (working title) cube on Wednesday. Has Kiki no pestermite, Hulk but no Flash, etc. I got to draft a Ketramose deck, which would have probably popped off if I ever drew it. Never played the card before. I loved the deck, the draft, the games, everything was fantastic. 3-0

Second Ice Cube 3 draft was old border foil. Opened pack one and saw bolt, piledriver, and spiritmonger. Was sitting to the right of a drafter I suspected would move into red no matter what I took, so I grabbed spiritmonger. Drafted a really fun GB rock deck. Had an absolute blast. 2-1 lost finals

First draft of Ice Cube was way worse than the one I did the day before. First picked what looked like a pretty solid green rare but then got passed a pyre zombie which looked pretty powerful and moved into BR. Deck was kinda mediocre, lost to an aggressive deck in round 1, flooded a bit game 3. 2-1

Ice Cube 3 was on Saturday, so last week I discovered I put my preferences in backwards and got my “#1” and “#2” picks of an Invasion block cube and Old Border Foil. Thankfully I got to practice the IPA cube the day before the event.

Team drafted the Heavy Metal cube on Wednesday. A great artifact-heavy proactive cube. I drafted a classic Shariq Deck of a bunch of 2-drops and removal. In retrospect I think I needed a bit more top end against one of my opponents. My team drafted RB/BW/RW vs UG/UG/U. Ended up 2-1, team won 5-4.

I’m sure it was just a coincidence for Himmel that he spent every day of his journey with Frieren, and that the quest was drawn out to be 10 years long.

Drafted the Environmental Protections cube on Wednesday. Shared game object that massively altered gameplay. Games were either incredibly interesting and complex or tedious and annoying. Drafted a bunch of cards to interact with the shared object, but any that didn’t cost <=1mv were garbage. 2-1

Been in a Roto draft of a graveyardish cube and drafted a very strong cloudpost deck (6xcloud,2xGlimmer, 2xNexus). I achieved a mindslaver lock on Turn 4. T1,2&3 cloudpost, T3 solemn get island. T4 nexus play mindslaver. T5 Academy Ruins put mindslaver on top. Proph Prism to draw and play it.

First cube of 2026 on Wednesday. Drafted my Mardu cube. Mana was bad. I ended up playing one of the 1-0-1 players in the finals, probably would have lost to the other 1-0-1 player. Need to make changes before Ice Cube. Going to cut the artifact stuff and buff aggro. Wake the dead was awesome. 3-0

Having possibly my worst week of the year this year. Came in right under the wire, crazy.

We had 9 for Wednesday cube this week so I volunteered to sit out this week. Helped a newer drafter draft a sick RW aggro deck in a lower-power Old-Border cube. It was fun explaining that Exalted Angel and FTK are some of the best cards in the cube since we’re grading creatures on a curve here.

I was a little down on Glass Onion after watching Wake Up, Dead Man. But I rewatched it tonight and after three years it still holds up. Maybe I’ve changed more than the movie has.

Drafted twice on Saturday for @stav.gold’s birthday. First cube was the Gizmo cube, one of my favorites. Drafted this bad-ish Abzan control pile with Thopter Sword as the win con. The biggest mistake I made was prolly picking Foundry over Damnation. I think I needed to wheel it. 2-1 Lost in Finals.

❄️ THE ICE CUBE 3 IS COMING! ❄️ Join us January 24th for our next 64-player Cube Tournament featuring special guest Stephen Menton (@aquaone.bsky.social) 🧊8 unique cubes 🧊$2500+ in prizes 🧊Lunch included 🧊$65 entry (58 spots left!) Sign up below! ⬇️ 1/X

If Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig could just keep making these for the next 20 years, that’d be great.

Drafted a 10-person vintage cube. Drafted a Jund breach shallow grave pile. The last pick survival was pretty clutch. Combo decks are not my forte, so decks that need specific card pairs feel absolutely horrendous to me. Mind twist was playable with vault, tomb and lotus cobra. 3-0

Drafted the Clean Evergreen cube on Wednesday. No tokens and only evergreen keywords. Felt like I drafted my seat pretty well, but had some issues dealing with stuff like future sight. I liked the cube a lot, the power level of the cube is quite low, and the power outliers make it great fun. 2-1

It occurs to me that in Frieren, Heiter gave up alcohol to raise Fern for as long as he could.

Drafted my mardu desert cube again last night. 4-mana Gideon is incredibly strong, I was not planning on cutting it, but I’m likely going to add some more planeswalker removal. I think I need to fix up the Greasefang archetype a little, there might not be enough ways to bin the vehicles in BW. 2-1

Drafted the 1-UP cube on Wednesday, where you start at 1 life. My deck was kind of a pile, it didn’t really do anything. The 4 mana 6/5 that winter orbs you was mostly a trap. 2-1

Been a pretty good month lol

Just moved the cat from my place to the new marital home. She’s not having a great time, but better than I feared.

Finally not 6th pick in a Roto draft. I get to be 4th this time. Better? Marginally better?

Drafted a lovely artifact cube this evening, 4 color non-green. Aggro deck with some minor reanimation. Deck felt very strong. Figured BW was open after Caves of Kolios and fracture wheeled pack 1. 3-0

Workin’ on another out-there cube idea. Trying to build a cube around a card without involving any special rules. First attempt at solving this issue is 16 copies in the cube.

I spoke with @sharkman1231.bsky.social about his victory @cubecon.org this past weekend! Check it out: themanavault.com/news-posts/s...

CubeCon 2025 thread 🧵 Pool photos are in order starting top left and going down.

I won CubeCon 2025! Top 8 RW Aggro deck Top 64 BR Artifact-y sac

Looks like the town was big enough.

It’s crazy that just being around JD Vance killed the Pope.

6th pick in the Roto draft again 😭

Took my engagement photos today in the 8 degree weather. At least no one was around to be in the shot.

Not really a New Years Resolution guy, but this year I’m going to read more. Didn’t read hardly anything last year and I want to recapture the passion I had for reading.

I very much enjoy working in the email mines.

Played a great bar cube yesterday that had a few cards sharpied to have learn/lesson. Borderlands Ranger was the goat, ETB Demonic Tutor because all you want is lands.

Played a lovely little mushroom board game deckbuilder called Mycelia last night. The fact that your hand is always three cards with no ability to draw more made it have a very nice pace. There was also the rest of the game, which was good.

cutting all the rings in my plastic six pack holder before feeding it to my neighbor's dog

My dumb little baby.

Cube round timers should be 60 minutes.

Been playing Metaphor: Refantazio lately and have found the storyline about grief incredibly compelling. (The game is also fun)