Un-balanced cube
(408 Card Cube)
Un-balanced cube
Cube ID
Art by Dave DormanArt by Dave Dorman
408 Card Silver-bordered Vintage Cube0 followers
Designed by tmurdock
Owned
$198
Buy
$95
Purchase
Mana Pool$132.63

The attraction of this cube is that it's rigged up as a contraption hosting a mix of all five un-sets augmented by playtest cards. I did sneak in a couple non-un cards (for fixing) and a few duplicates (so host/augment is viable), but otherwise it is fully singleton. Unstable and Unfinity have really left their watermarks on the cube as they are the complete draft formats, but there is plenty of outside assistance from Unglued and Unhinged, as well as the Unsanctioned box set. While the archetypes are not as even as in other cube environments, in draft the art matters, so it's worth rolling the dice with a league of dastardly drafters.

Things to know
  • There are non-main-deck cards in the cube with different card backs but there is no seeding into packs.
  • To ensure that archetypes that use non-main-deck cards are viable, packs have 17 cards.
  • There are a small number of cards that care about stickers. If you draft one of these you can randomly pick ONE sticker card after the draft.
  • I have included plenty of mana-fixing (mostly lands) and all the basics are from different sets. This helps cards like symbol status.
  • Below you will find info by archetype and then how that shakes out for each colour pair
  • Below that you will find general Un-reminders, and then specific Un-rulings to cards (usually) in the cube
Archetypes

Here is a breakdown of the main archetypes such as they are cobbled from 5 un-sets.

  • Artifacts matter: w > u/r
  • Attractions: b/u
  • Contraptions: r > u > g/b/w
  • Dice matter: u/g > r > b
  • Hats matter: w/b
  • Host/Augment: w/g
  • Kindred: Squirrels g/b, Robots r/w, Goblins r/g, Riggers r/g, Knights w
  • Not heavily supported in a colour: Art matters, Stickers, Watermarks, Words matter
Colour pairs
  • wu Azorius Artifacts matter So many artifact creatures here. And contraptions & attractions are too. The Grand Calcultron, Rules Lawyer, a wrath, and some counterspells can also make this play out as a control deck.
  • ub Dimir Attractions Almost all open attraction cards are in these two colours including Dee Kay, Finder of the Lost. You also get Phoebe, Head of S.N.E.A.K. who pairs nicely with all your evasion.
  • br Rakdos Good stuff Mid-range or control, you have good finishers in this deck but The Big Idea is one of the best and it will not wheel. You can make a good number of contraptions too.
  • rg Gruul Goblin Riggers There are kindred synergies to be had here, heavy contraptions, and you can have a powerful dice matters sub-theme.
  • gw Selesnya Host/Augment With Teacher's Pet and Clever Combo tutors this deck can get be real consistent, especially with Dr. Julius Jumblemorph. You have to prioritize hosts over all else except the tutors, so may be low on removal.
  • wb Orzhov Midrange A bit of a good stuff deck but with the potential for synergies in one or more of attractions, contraptions, artifacts matter, host/augment. Also, hats! You might even pick up Knight synergy with Syr Cadian, Knight Owl.
  • bg Golgari Squirrels There are enough squirrels for Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher but you have to fight for the best pieces. Earl of Squirrel is a bomb, any black deck that cares about dice will snag Snickering Squirrel and Simic wants Chittering Doom badly. Golgari can dabble in attractions thanks to The Most Dangerous Gamer or augment if you grab clever combo.
  • gu Simic Dice Matters Pippa, Duchess of Dice wants cards like Willing Test Subject, As Luck would have it and anything that will let you roll or manipulate dice. The deck is low on removal so roll with it.
  • ur Izzet Contraption control Both colours assemble a lot of contraptions and have artifact synergy. Blue enchantment based removal and counterspells pair with red burn to make the deck controlling.
  • rw Boros Go-wide artifacts Unfinity's robots pair with Unstable's artifact creatures in white and contraptions in red. Robots can be aggressive but more often grindier go-wide (also using goblin token makers and Start // Fire). You can also use Stet, Draconic Proofreader for full value.
Judge!

Some general info about how things work in Un-games from Blogatog and the FAQs for unstable and unfinity.

What does referring to silver border now mean?

Effects that previously referred to "silver-bordered games" now refer to any game that includes at least one player using cards with acorn symbols or silver-bordered cards. Effects of cards that refer to a card's border, like Border Guardian, still care about the border on the actual printed card, and acorn cards have black borders.

What are hats?

  • A hat is a garment worn on the head that's not part of another garment.
  • Wigs and headbands
  • If the card represents multiple creatures and only some of them are wearing hats that counts.

What are not-hats?

  • Someone in the background wearing a hat.
  • Hoodies
  • Items that only cover the face and not the top of the head, such as a face mask.
  • Space helmets (although some creatures with space helmets also are wearing hats underneath those helmets)

Other relevUNt notes

  • If a die is rerolled, that counts only as a single roll. The original roll doesn't count.
  • You "have a hat" if you have a hat with you, not if you own one somewhere. You don't have to be wearing the hat. Creatures can also "have a hat" without wearing it, say if they are carrying it.
  • Hyphenated words count as one word.
  • Articles in names are not counted. The big top starts with a "B" weirdly.
  • You can stand up but can't move around the room (or area outside) when something asks if you can (a certain number of) something. You can't move your seat to do this either.
  • A "number word" uses letters. Number words are not numbers. A number has a specific value, and doesn't just refer to the digit (if you change the number 1 to the number 2, you don't also change the number 14 to 24.
  • Things in your command zone follow you into subgames, as do your contraption and attraction decks (only ones not in play or in scrapyard). Subgames count as games for purposes of "the next game played" cards.
  • Collector numbers are on some tokens and not others. Similarly for "playtest" cards - some versions have them printed and some don't. Un-games care about what is actually printed on the card. If a card does not have a collector number on it, then it can't be either even or odd or anything else (along the lines of colourless is not a colour).
  • Flavour text counts as "words in a text box"
Card-specific notes

Ral's Vanguard has house errata to ignore the deck building restriction.

Bamboozling Beeble lets you choose which roll to ignore after seeing all the results. The ignored roll is considered never to have happened. It can't cause any abilities to trigger, and no effect will see its result.

The big top can count any garment that other players can see, regardless if it's on multiple layers. There's wide latitude for what counts - any shade of red qualifies as red, and so on. Some dark shades of purple can likely pass for black mana, and some light shades of yellow can pass for white. You can add any color of mana in Un- games, though, so if you really want turquoise mana, go for it.

For Blufferfish the statement doesn't need to be personal, but it does need to be about themself. Something like "I had toast for breakfast" is fine. The opponent is the authority on whether the statement they make is true or false but lying isn't allowed, and they should be sporting about it.

Common courtesy requires you to ask permission to cast your own spells as well.

Deadhead does not work when an opponent has no hand (along the lines of colourless is not a colour).

Do it yourself Seraph can pick up text boxes that contradict each other, if so the most recent one wins.

Don't Try This at Home has minor errata - the first ability is now a replacement effect instead of a triggered ability. Also hot refers to temperature only. Hot items may include objects that are traditionally hot, such as flames or the sun, or they may also include objects that are shown to be hot, such as a magic sword melting the item it's touching.

Entirely Normal Armchair needs to be hidden on YOUR turn, it can be hidden under something but doesn't have to be, and an opponent has to demonstrate they know where it is to return it - they can't just speculate that it's hidden somewhere.

Form of the approach of the second sun requires you to balance cards on top of your head. The cards must be above your head and physically connected to your head in some way, held up only by gravity. They don't have to be touching your head, so they can be balanced on top of a hat, for example, but you can't do something to keep them in place. A good test to see if you're balancing them properly is that the cards should be able to fall off if you tilt your head until it is horizontal.

Frazzled editor only counts lines of RULES text because that's what how the Wordy ability now reads, even though other cards that count things in a card's text box include flavour and reminder text.

Get your in the game on the other hand just cares about contact and anywhere on your head is good—chin, cheek, ears, forehead, other cheek—it all works, and the card doesn't have to balanced on your head to be in contact with it.

Gus only cares about Magic games.

Phone a friend has options that may not have any legal targets, in this case ask the friend to choose a new target. "Phone" can be text or even someone else in another game if necessary, but use speakerphone or some way that opponent can verify the result.

Proper Laboratory Attire offers protection not just from die rolls themselves but any spell or permanent that requires or allows a die roll, but not cards that just refer to die rolls.

Richard Garfield, Ph.D. and Standard Procedure let you plan Mental Magic. In the spirit of Un, it would be fun to TRY to name cards by memory, but also in the spirit of Un, it's fine to quickly check card legality. To help games finish in a reasonable speed though, please consult the legal cards and jot down a few you might want to use in your deck before matches start. Here is a handy list for colourless and blue cards at least, another handy list for standard procedure.

Sex appeal has had an oracle update in light of the fact that non-binary people also exist. Remember that people are the gender that they say they are. Also don't abuse that fact here - lying to gain strategic advantage is the opposite of Un even in general.

Slaying Mantis having just a second is not just about preventing people from moving permanents, it also means you can't can anything in response to it being cast, including even tapping lands or activating abilities, so yes it's also uncounterable. When the fight happens though, it has entered the battlefield, and that goes on the stack, so the just a second no longer applies, and THAT ability CAN be responded to.

Spatula of the ages has oracle text of "Sacrifice Spatula of the Ages: You may put a [b]silver-bordered or acorn[/b] permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield."

Urza's Fun House and Urza, Academy Headmaster have some modes that require targets, if there are no legal targets choose another mode. Also, while you can respond with this trigger on the stack, no one gets priority after the result is known and before it happens.

Last but not least
Here is a link to the video on the un-cube this was based on (though it has veered a fair but from it now) and how you can build your own.

Mainboard Changelist+0, -1
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