Cube Template
If you’re looking for something to help you put together a spreadsheet that documents all of the cards of your cube you’ve come to the right place!
The actual breakdown and “outline” of designing a cube is something far beyond the scope of a generic template: this spreadsheet is a straightforward way to break down and track the cards in your cube.
Using the Template
This template requires some work. If you’re not comfortable using Excel or OpenOffice.org’s Calc you’ll find the features aren’t fully functional for you. That settled, let’s run through the tabs.
Spoiler Tab
Each field can be entered manually, except for Forum Code and DeckStats.net Code. These fields are driven by formulas. See my brief discussion on setting Actual Cost and Actual Converted Mana Cost (A_CMC) for why these fields are different. Setting these properly will drive the cost that can be set in DeckStats.net for online breakdowns. These actual costs are what you’ll be driving for the next steps.
The Creature/Spell breakdown is driven by simply plugging in the correct number of creature and noncreature spells by color, as well as the total number of nonbasic lands. All of the percentages will automatically populate.
The Pimpage Data is option and is driven by a formula counting the status of a card being foil or signed by the artist: Y, N, and N/A are the only values that will be counted.
The automation for online codes and pimp is set up to go out to 999 records (that it, 999 cards). If you’re cube is really big let me know and I can expand further.
Mana Curves (and Spoiler Pivot) Tab(s)
By running a pivot to total values, like type or actual cost, by color you can plug in the counts of mana cost by color and so soft checks on totals for creatures and spells.
Simplicity
And really, that’s all there is too it! Plugging the cards in is most certainly the hard and tedious part, but once it’s in updating things is a snap since you can just update the card you took out for the only coming in! Please leave a comment if you need further clarifications, would like examples, or have some feedback for the future of the template.
This is a rough, but fair, spot to start. With your help it will only get better for everyone!
The Pauper Cube 
Love the spreadsheet template, although the pivot table part for the mana curve is a bit confusing. Is this part generated automatically by Excel, or did you fill the values in manually?
I’ll take a look at it soon and see if I accidentally left it broken. The pivot is something I had hoped to simplify fir other users but rarely do pivot tables seem stable.
Thanks for the head’s up!
I have just started using this template and love it. Takes a lot of time to imput the info first off, but so easy once you want to make changes/updates etc.
One thing, can you please expand on the Forum Code and Deckstats.net Code columns please?
Sure! Forum Code is the basic code most Magic sites use. That is “[card]” and “[/card]” wrapped around a card’s full English title results in it auto-linking to a card database. This is useful if you want to share the cube list, in part or whole, on a forum.
DeckStats.net code allows you to not only enter English card names for curve and color distribution analysis, but also to manually set mana cards for cards that override the printed cost. This means you can properly configure Daze to have a mana cost of one blue mana – the Island you need to have in play for it’s alternate casting cost – rather than one and a blue, which you’re rarely going to be paying.
If I want to put a full set into this template, can it be pasted in or automated?