The function of this cube is to teach new players to play Magic. This isn't immediately obvious! It's a pretty powerful cube, and cube seems like a weird place to start teaching folks to play magic. After all, it's a difficult format. However, this cube doesn't start with dropping people into playing cube. Instead, it follows a series of stages using cards from the cube.

It begins with 4 40-card, sorcery speed only, mono-colored singleton decks, each designed around a simple to understand strategy. Later, once I get them uploaded to moxfield, I'll post the links here.

Then, players get taught the stack: a different set of 5 60-card, mono-colored decks that include instants and abilities can be built out of the cube as well.

Once players are comfortable with the stack, another set of decks is introduced, each using 2 colors and a less straightforward strategy.

In the fourth step, deckbuilding is taught by running sealed deck. Finally, players are taught how to draft using the cube, which consists mostly of cards that by this stage the players are all very familiar with.

The reason that I've taken this approach is that it allows player to get a sense of what playing magic is really like. Typically, introductory sets use primarily cards that are just plain bad, and it doesn't really show players what it's like to play magic for real. The cards in this deck are cube staples and all stars, but curated to be simple enough to understand even to a new player. A key rule is that for every card in the cube RTCETC. As best as possible, all the keywords have reminder text, and no non-evergreen keywords are included unless they have reminder text.

Finally, why 428 cards over 360 or 450? This cube is drafted in 14 card packs, to reflect current play boosters. that means that a minimum of 334 cards would be necessary. The equivalent for 450 is 420 (14x3x10, also, nice). However, the cube includes 8 pieces of power/semi-power (5 moxen, sol ring, library, and mana crypt), which in a 4 person sealed or 8 person draft are seeded in the first pack, since the cube in general doesn't have the overall power level to balance disparities in power opened (which is also why the blue pieces of power and lotus aren't included). But, a reason to run 420 is so that you can have up to 10 drafters. So, an extra 8 cards are added to the pool in a 10 person draft, and the power is cut out.

Later, I may update to 512 cards (14x3x12+8), to allow for two pods of 6 or 6 sealed players, as well as the possibility of allowing commander or oathbreaker decks to be built out of the cube, and add to the learning goodness.