Art by Robbie Trevino
This cube is dedicated to my favorite of the tri-color pairings. I want to showcase some of the interesting things you can do without Islands or Forests. Most importantly though, this cube is built to be fun to draft and play.
There are a number of challenges involved in constructing a cube without Blue and Green. Blue has almost every good counterspell and draw spell in the game. Green has most of the ramp and good ETB effects. To make up for the lack of counterspells you won't find many combos that win out of no where. Card draw is another problem that Mardu has few answers for, but white has weenie based card draw, black can pay life, and red is starting to get more impulse draw. What these colors lack in ramp they more that make up for with ways to cheat things into play, and we still have access to artifact ramp.
Archetypes/Decks Tokens
There are a lot of cards in the cube that make tokens. Want cheap tokens? Gather the Townsfolk. Want expensive tokens? Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Want lots of tokens? Anointed Procession. Want big tokens? Starnheim Unleashed. Want tokens every turn? Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Card draw for tokens? Skullclamp. Token payoffs? Rally the Peasants
Splashes & Spice. You can easily splash black for the obvious Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls, but a big one to look for is Brutal Hordechief, which turns your 1/1s into virtual 2/1s. In red Hellrider does the same thing, and red has more token producers like Hanweir Garrison and Najeela, the Blade-Blossom.
Aristocrats is the thing Mardu is known for outside of aggro. Kill your own stuff, generate value, destroy your opponent. The number one card you want is Recurring Nightmare, but you can have a powerful deck without it. There are are 3 main things you need for a good aristocrats deck, sacrifice enablers, fodder to sacrifice, and payoffs. The best sacrifice outlets are free like Viscera Seer, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, and Phyrexian Altar. The second best ones get you a lot of extra value like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Eradicator Valkyrie. Fodder can come in a variety of packages, but is usually small creatures that sometimes come with built in recursion, cards like Skyclave Shade, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Murderous Redcap. Payoffs are your win con, the whole reason you're feeding things to vampires. They let you ping your opponent (Zulaport Cutthroat & Blood Artist) or give you value in other ways (Grim Haruspex & Liliana, Dreadhorde General).
Splashes & Spice The biggest choking point for aristocrats is usually fodder. You only need one enabler and one payoff, but a lot of fodder. Consider picking up token makers like Bitterblossom or Secure the Wastes. All colors can be can be useful for aristocrats each color has it's own payoffs (Judith, the Scourge Diva & Corpse Knight) as well as it's own enablers (Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, Luminous Broodmoth, & Butcher of the Horde).
One way that both Red and White have to generate card advantage and make threats is through equipments. There are cards that can turn an equipment into a cantrip. They also have a lot of cards that care about equipment in general. When drafting this archetype it's much better to get a few good equipment first, then draft the equipment matters cards. The equipment will fit into a lot of random decks and can get taken pretty quickly. Doing so means you can always pivot out to a red or white aggro/midrange deck if necessary.
Splashes & Spice You're not likely to splash black, but it's not impossible. Instead I suggest going much harder on the artifact route, Porcelain Legionnaire and Gingerbrute both love equipment. On the other hand if you're playing against an equipment deck Kazuul's Toll Collector can be neat sideboard tech.
All colors support aggro. Red has its best card Goblin Guide, and a few 1/1 friends. White has a couple savannah lions as well as Thalia. Black's aggro threats just don't die. Take the good one, two, and three drops. All colors have amazing three drops that close out the game if cast on curve. Be on the look out for the colorless aggro cards like Smuggler's Copter and Porcelain Legionnaire.
There are other non-creature cards that support aggro. A late Sulfuric Vortex or Koth of the Hammer is a signal that no one else is drafting your deck.
Splashes & Spice You can build a two-color aggro deck, but unless you have good fixing I'd leave the two-color pairings for midrange. There are a few 1 drop equipment I would be on the lookout for during the draft. Bonesplitter and Shadowspear can turn a tiny creature into a big threat.
Midrange isn't so much an archetype. It's what happens when you draft generically good cards. It's characterized by cards that 2-for-1. Value-based grindy decks also tend to get lumped into this label. Look for creature cards that have good ETB effects, removal, and planeswalkers.
Splashes & Spice Midrange is the spice you sprinkle into all the other decks. It comes in all colors and shapes, but in general look for the really powerful 3, 4, and 5 drops.
Spells is the weird love child of storm and burn. When drafting be sure to pick up the good red burn spells first and the spells payoff cards later. You can always transition to midrange or red deck wins if the draft doesn't pay out. Look for major pay offs like Aria of Flame, Wheel of Fortune, and Past in Flames.
Splashes & Spice There are a lot of random red cards for this archetype, but the big combo I want to see happen is Pyromancer's Goggles and Fight with Fire.
This deck can easily splash black for draw spells like Night's Whisper, but there isn't much else. In white you can get token making spells to prolong the game or to sac for mana to Phyrexian Altar
Brown is almost a fourth color in the cube. There isn't just one artifacts deck, but a number depending on how you want to build it. There's Goblin Welder and Trash for Treasure for cheating out expensive artifacts early. There's also the mono brown option of just lucking into every artifact and ramping into big spells or making a ton of tokens with Retrofitter Foundry. Digsite Engineer and Karn, Scion of Urza can help your artifact army go wider and taller.
Splashes and Spice Red and white are your friends, they have the most support cards that care about artifacts. If you have a chance at getting Zirda, the Dawnwaker, Retrofitter Foundry, and Phyrexian Altar to work, have fun.
ControlControl in this cube is focused more on delaying the game until you can cast a win condition.
Notable Inclusions / Combos- Golos, Tireless Pilgrim + The World Tree/Coalition Relic/Chromatic Lantern
- Recurring Nightmare
- Birthing Pod
- Goblin Welder/Trash for Treasure + Myr Battlesphere/Ancient Stone Idol
- Pyromancer's Goggles + Fight with Fire
- Metalworker
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker / Splinter Twin
- Reveillark, but Karmic Guide is in the cube
- Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia Plenty of other sack outlets exist
- Fast Mana Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mox whatever, etc.
- Griselbrand, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn There are other reanimator payoffs though
- Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek. They have been replaced with Divest & Duress
- Sneak Attack, Through the Breach
- I didn't remember it
- Cutting cards is hard
- I'm stupid
- Cause it has a blue pip
- I think it would be fun
- I think it helps support an archetype
- I'm stupid