On May 11, we had our third playthrough of the Collaborative Cube! Thanks to Nick, Garrett, Noah, Charles, Tavish, and Kyle for participating. After another long draft period (again, there are a lot of new cards to read), we had a three-round tournament full of close and exciting games!

At this point, it’s fair to say that it’s Kyle’s cube, and we’re just playing in it. Kyle claimed first place for the second consecutive session, once again going 3-0. This time, he played what he described as a “Mountain value” deck focusing on Mountains entering and leaving play and a heavy devotion to red (while also splashing a little white). Kyle has had great success with three very different archetypes; congratulations to Kyle for his mastery!

Nick secured second place with a 2-0-1 playing a Uw tempo/control deck centered around Spritehome and Brineborn Cutthroat when ahead and Farewell and Descend Upon the Sinful when behind. Supported by cards like Counterspell, Logic Knot, and Dig Through Time, it was incredibly disruptive. It was also incredibly long, which resulted in a round 1 draw with Noah. Our boy even sided in Smokestack for a few matchups, so kudos to him!

Tavish came in third with a 2-1 record, losing only to Kyle in the final round! Tavish had continuously improved across prior playthroughs, and we’re all happy to see him find the success we knew was coming! He leveraged a Weight Advantage in a ‘Butts’ deck to great effect, improving what are already universally strong cards like Life Crafter (Genju of the Falls in our list) while also taking advantage of cards no one else really wanted like Seraph of Dawn (how does for a 4/4 lifelink flying sound?). Well done to Tavish for finding and utilizing an open lane!

Noah came in fourth with a 1-1-1 record by piloting a ramp/stompy deck that accelerated out massive threats like Genesis Hydra and Warden of the Wilds (Blinding Powder) ahead of schedule with Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Fyndhorn Elves, and Mox Emerald. His deck had a really nasty combo of Genesis Hydra and Fecund Tombs (Split-Tail Miko) that really only needed two forests to go off. He also has the distinction of dealing all twenty damage in a game against Nick with Lightning Shrieker found continuously off a recurring Genesis Hydra.

Garrett had a rough night, going 0-3 with a Boros () Aggro deck. In an interesting twist, his aggro deck had a strong delirium component, taking advantage of cards like Dragon’s Rage Channeler or Gibbering Fiend as payoffs and Lorehold Excavation and Incandescent Lance (Genju of the Spires) as enablers (along with the aforementioned Dragon’s Rage Channeler). Garrett went 1-2 in each of his three matches (against the top three finishers, as well!) and probably could have had a much different record with a few more opportune draws.

Our newest player (or most longstanding if you count his Magic experience from the 90’s) Charles was baptized with an 0-3 record and finished sixth. He piloted an interesting recursion deck with cards like Mnemonic Wall, Entreat the Dead, Bone Splinters, Master of Death, and Sin Eater (Hundred Talon Strike), topped off with Lord of the Void. The deck also had some disruptive elements like coupling Baral, Chief of Compliance with Essence Scatter and similar cards. On the whole, the core of the deck was intimidating, but there was some extra chaff gumming things up, like Tormented Soul or Untamed Hunger. I think Charles had some nice ideas, and with a little more deckbuilding experience, he will find himself winning with regularity. Also, poor guy got Smokestack’d in his first cube draft.

As a result of these finishes, Kyle will swap four cards, Nick will swap three cards, Tavish will swap two cards, and Noah, Garrett, and Charles will each get to swap one card. Noah also deferred his swap from the last session, so we may see two changes from him in the upcoming writeup.

Speaking of swaps, how did our most recent batch play out? Pretty well! Kyle was Lightning Bolting people, Garrett was playing Robin Hood with Robber of the Rich, Tavish played the Go-Shintai of Boundless Vigor, and Noah rocked the Mana Geode in his ramp deck. Nick had Carnage Priest as a sideboard card for when he would swap into black, an option given to him by Sean’s change. Despite playing RW aggro, Garrett chose not to play Legion of the Faithful (the same card Chris ‘splashed’ in his mono-black deck last time), so maybe that nerf came down on it too hard. All in all, I think many of the changes from last time were shown favorably. Good job, team!

Finally, how are the colors? Thankfully, we had no one running a five-color Sovereign’s Domain deck this time (first time that’s happened, by the way), so we can get an authentic read on the color breakdown:

with Kyle playing Rw, Nick playing Uw, Tavish playing GW, Noah playing RG, Garrett playing RW, and Charles playing UB (note that a lowercase letter means the player was only splashing it; for example, I counted Garrett and Tavish as both playing and counted Nick’s and Kyle’s very minor splashes (roughly 2-3 cards apiece) as half a white player combined). What a Stunning Reversal! Black went from the most played color the past two times (including two players playing effectively mono-black in the same draft) to only being played in one deck! Alternatively, Red went from practically nothing to the top-played color. While a great deal of this is going to be natural variance, it does offer the gentle suggestion that efforts to balance the colors are paying off. Everyone played two-color decks, all styles (aggro, midrange, and control) were represented, and every color but black had solid representation. If we want the cube to be more ‘standard,’ this is how that looks.

The next writeup will be detailing the changes our competitors make to the cube. Until then, bye for now.