If you haven’t played this cube before there can be a lot to process. There are a lot overlapping themes and mechanics, and this cheat sheet is here to point out some of the themes and decks to help you get started.
These aren’t the only paths to take in the cube, there’s a lot of synergy across colors and there’s a lot to discover. There’s probably plenty of sweet decks that I don’t know exist.
Enjoy and let me know if you have any thoughts/suggestions about this cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
- Cycling & Blinking
- Discard Control
- Madness aggro
- Lands of many uses
- Big big tokens
- Aristocrats
- Spells matter (and matter again)
- Vengevine & co.
- Artifact Reanimator
- Self-Mill
Azorius WU - Cycling + Blinking
The strong theme in this section is a combination of cycling and blink. All of the cycling-specific payoffs in the cube are in White and some of the strongest cycling cards are in blue.
Cycling matters
Blinkers
Value creatures
Dimir UB - Discard Control
These colors have an almost ludicrous amount of discard synergies and one way you can win is to use those synergies to grind your way to victory and win the game by smashing your opponent with a win condition like Psychatog.
What do look out for:
Cheap discard outlets
Mean stuff that cares about discarding
Things that like to be discarded
Rakdos BR - Madness aggro
Rakdos is a bit of a strange beast because I think both an aggressive discard matters or sacrifice deck can both work. I’ve even combined the two and built a pretty sweet deck. I originally built this as an aggressive madness deck.
What to look out for:
Easy ways to discard
Aggressive creatures with Madness
Recursive creatures that don’t mind being discarded
Gruul RG - Land of many uses
Lands! This deck focuses on getting value from recycling your lands through the graveyard. Mill ‘em, sacrifice ‘em, discard ‘em, but make sure you can get ‘em back
What to look out for:
Crucible effects
Landfall payoffs
Sacrifice your own lands
Selesnya WG - Big big tokens
This color pair has a lot of nonsense going on, but one direction to go is for something like to call Big Big tokens.
Make some big tokens
Copy those tokens
Turn little tokens into big tokens
Orzhov WB - Aristocrats!
One of the first decks I ever played was the Battle for Zendikar Event Deck that was actually a pretty darn good sacrifice deck. I’ve been hooked ever since. This deck can be tricky to get going, but essentially you need three things to make it happen:
Sacrifice Outlets
Blood Artists
Sacrifice fodder
Bonus: Recursive stuff so you can do it again
Izzet UR - Cast those spells
This has been a tough color combination to define. It has a lot of cycling and discard, and a few ways to pay that off. It also has a lot of ways to cast and recast your spells. Let’s focus on what that might look like:
Spells matter cards
Cheap spells
Cast some spells from the graveyard
Golgari BG - Vengine + Dredge stuff
Essentially this is THE graveyard color pair, and there are a few ways to get this going, but I like this as an ‘Undergrowth’ style deck where you get your value from having a lot of creatures in the graveyard. Here’s some key pieces for how that works:
Get your stuff in the yard
Get your creatures big
Bring ‘em back
Lorehold RW - Artifact reanimator
Lorehold is one that is very tricky. Essentially it’s the B-side of the sacrifice decks, so it can pump out a lot of tokens and has access to a lot of ways to take advantage of artifacts. Let’s look at some key components of artifact reanimator
Get your artifacts in the yard
Recycle them for fun
Recycle them for profit
Simic UG - Self-Mill
Self-Mill is the name of the game for this color pair, though there are other options if you’re a fan of Slogurk, the Overslime and Trade Routes. This deck can put a lot of cards in the graveyard and then can win with an empty library or with a big giant creature
Get your cards in the graveyard***
Bring back what you need
Win with an empty library