Cube Overview:
This cube is based on one of my favorite cube archetypes of all time: Aristocrats. This cube promotes token-based strategies and sacrificing things for value and profit. It was initially envisioned as a 3 color Twobert (Mardu colors), but I decided to expand into green and upped it to 270 and then 360 after getting feedback on additional themes that I thought would play well in this environment (Persist Combo, Artifact Aggro, KCI Shenanigans). There is no blue section (my playgroup plays enough blue in all of our other Magic endeavors). The cube is base black (and red as a secondary color) due to the nature of Aristocrats, and fixing in the cube is more prominent for black-based strategies.

As with any good Aristocrat deck, there are a number of small value recursion engines that use the graveyard. I've included enough graveyard hate to "break up" loops or combos, but mostly want it to be 1-shot style effects. Lion Sash, Scavenging Ooze, and Deathrite Shaman are included as repeatable effects, but I like that these cards are in the "off colors" of the cube and that justifies them staying for now.

Since the games can already be quite grindy (There will be board stalls and token battles in these matches), I've decided to stray away from most planeswalkers, except for a few specific archetype enablers. To combat these board stalls, there are a number of sweepers in the cube now (some of these are focused on wiping tokens while others are on theme like Living Death). Along with being able to break through a board stall, I want to make sure that sweepers don't feel rare enough that they feel like "gotcha" cards when they are cast. I want players always considering them as a possibility when deciding on their lines of play.

I want an 8 player draft to be an option, but will probably draft this much more often with 2-4 players. As such, we'll grid draft with a larger number of packs or do some style of burn draft to see more cards. I could see this cube getting stale if it was drafted too often, but our playgroup cycles through cubes and different formats quite frequently.

Self Restricted Limitations:

• Limited Planeswalkers (I think Wrenn and Six is the only one right now?)
• No/limited double faced cards (Willing to break this only for the perfect cards)

Themes:

• Black: Sacrifice Bodies, Recursive Threats, Sac Outlets, Removal, Base Color of Cube.
• Red: Secondary Aristocrats Color, Goblin Tribal, Artifact (Treasure and Thopter) focus.
• White: Artifact Aggro (Fabricate/Servos, Thopters, Modular), Artifact Combo, Exile Effects as Removal, Some Team Pump.
• Green: Slight Ramp and Fixing, Lands Based Strategies, Persist Combo Base Color, Creature Search Effects.
• Colorless: Artifact Aggro, Sac Outlets, KCI and Artifact Recursion/Combo Opportunities.
• Blue: Who?

Possible Decks I see Right Now (Without playing a lot yet):

• Your "usual" B/W or B/R Aristocrats Decks: This is the base of the cube. Could probably support 2-3 of these players per draft.
• BRAINS: Zombie Tribal
• Artifact Aggro in R/W/b. This could take the form of a Modular style artifact aggro, Equipment based aggro, or a mix of these with an Aristrocrats sub-theme on the side.
• Goblin Tribal in R/B: I think this could be the most aggressive deck in the cube with the right cards (Tokens into Hellrider).
• Persist Combo: Base green with enablers and sac outlets in the three other colors.
• Lands: Green Based
• Mill Based Strategies with Altar of Dementia/Grinding Station
• KCI and Artifact Recursion/Combo Strategies
• Stax-based Strategies

Goals Moving Forward:

• Test and cut to 360
• Other on-theme strategies to consider?
• I like having more fixing in black based pairs, but probably want more unique lands for the lands theme, right? Suggestions on lands for those colors? Or do we like the double fetch/shock setup?
• Possible adds if needed later for wipes/graveyard: Powder Keg, Engineered Explosives, Surgical Extraction, Phyrexian Furnace
• Cut list for too clunky/not good enough:
• Watch list for too strong: Skullclamp, Scav Ooze?, Lion Sash?, Deathrite?, Lurrus, Balance
• Possibility list: Survival of Fittest, Squee, Earthcraft, E Tutor, Phrexian Altar, Pitiless Plunderer