Posting this ridiculous idea here since I'm not active on any dedicated MtG forums ("But Tangent, it isn't like you are active on TT either...").
I'm thinking about trying to put together a 180-card cube meant for four player draft (probably as 5 packs of 9 cards per player). So far, so simple. The part where things get a complicated is that I want the same 180 cards to be usable as a way to introduce new(-ish) players to the game and gradually get them ready for drafting.
I want the 180 cards that make up the cube to be divisible into 5 pre-determined piles of 36 cards each, such that adding 24 appropriate basic lands to each pile gives us 5 preconstructed 60-card "theme" decks. Beginning players would then just need to pick one of the 5 decks and get started; not too many choices.
Next, I want those 180 cards to also be divislbe into 15 pre-determined piles of 12 cards each: one for each color and one for each color pair. By adding 8 appropriate basic lands to each of those piles, you'd get 15 preconstructed 20-card "jumpstart" decks. Players who have gotten a bit of familiarity with the cards by playing in "theme deck mode" would hopefully not be overwhelmed by the extra choices in "jumpstart mode."
My current thinking is to aim for a breakdown where each 20-card "jumpstart" pack looks like:
- 4 cards and 4 basic lands in color A
- 4 cards and 4 basic lands in color B
- 2 dual-color cards to establish the theme/archetype (ideally one planeswalker and one other card)
- 1 colorless card
- 1 color-fixing land ("thriving" lands for mono-color, and a similarly-powerful dual land for two-color)
(Obviously in a mono-color pack the colors A and B would be the same, and the dual-color cards would be replaced with mono-color)
By the numbers this should be possible. Including color-fixing means the preconstructed packs will all be a bit land-heavy, but not by much. The big question is whether it is possible to pick cards so that the result is fun and balanced in each mode.
I'm looking at Zendikar Rising limited as a starting point because of the way its cards tends to play into multiple archtetypes/themes at once (which seems necessary for a small cube). Even so, some of the color pairs don't have as obviously visible draft archetypes (and its even less clear for mono-colors). If I throw in the constraint of having a planeswalker in every pack (because planeswalkers are exciting for new players), the range of mecanical themes available to each color pair becomes even more limited.
I have a feeling that this is a doomed enterprise (in large part because I'm still a very new player myself), but the idea has really gripped me.