Art by Erica YangThis is a 96 cards Grixis cube designed for Solomon draft with 2 players.
There are a lot of interractions between the two players, and taking control of the board in the early game is a fierce battle. Both players still have to carefully manage their ressources to survive the end game as they only have a finite amount of removal and life points !
There is a rock-paper-scissors relationship between the 3 colors of the cube (Blue > Red > Black > Blue).
Blue has access to some really potent counterspells in the context of this cube (Mental Misstep and Spellstutter Sprite) and can mill its opponent whith tough creatures able to defend the player (Ruin Crab, Manic Scribe, Merfolk Secretkeeper, Riddlekeeper...). However, Blue has to make a choice between protecting its creatures or interfer with the opponent's own gameplan with its counterspells.
Black is the obvious answer to blue with good removal spells and creatures like Vendetta, Doom Blade, Shriekmaw or Noxious Gearhulk. However, it cannot kill black creatures easily, and it is really vulnerable to red burn spells because of the cost of Vendetta, Murderous Rider and Dismember.
Red is the most oppressive color with its access to burn spells (Burst Lightning and Lightning Strike) and efficient token generators (Young Pyromancer, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin). But with its lack of removal spells or counterspells, red can't deal with endgame creatures and struggles to kill blue creatures.
Solomon draft is a perfect-information style of draft. You can find everything about it here : https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Solomon_Draft
The whole cube is drafted everytime it is played, with twelve 8-cards boosters.
You should read the following presentation on how a typical game happens to help you evaluate the power of the cards in the cube before having your first draft (in addition to consulting the whole list once). The way you split your boosters might get very technical !
Early GameThe relationship between those 3 colors is embodied in their 1-drops :
Ruin Crab can protect from Voldaren Stinger in the early game and mill a huge chunk of the opponent's deck if left unchecked, but it does not protect from Vampire of the Dire Moon, which itself doesn't protect from Voldaren Stinger.
Black can remove Ruin Crab and any Red creature with Vendetta, but cannot remove Black creatures.
Red has to wait until Burst Lightning can be kicked in order to remove Ruin Crab, but its target has no restriction.
Blue can get rid of any 1-drop with Mental Misstep, but sacrifices its ability to protect Ruin Crab by doing so.
This is where the game can get a little bit grindy. Each color now has access to its best weapons, and milling becomes more punishing for Blue because of cards like Tenacious Underdog, the 2 incarnations and the fact that threshold is now active for the Odyssey lands. Life points also start to matter a lot, because they are used for so much things : phyrexian mana costs, Vendetta, tapping non-basics for mana, targeting a creature equipped with Livewire Lash... Black can shine in this phase if its lifelink creatures still live. This is also where players start to fight with their equipments (2 of them are "draw engines", 2 are "defensive", 3 are reconfigure creatures).
Each color can close the game in a different way : Blue can finish milling the opponent, Red can burn for the last points of damage, and if Black did well, its presence on the board should be superior to the other colors (Recursive threats, +1 value creatures...).
Obviously, you won't draft a single color during the draft sequence. Here is what you can aim for :
: mill your opponent while using lifelink creatures and removals to gain the time you need.
: gain control of the board and make sure your opponent loses life faster than you with aggressive creatures and burn spells.
: attack your opponent as quickly as possible with a maximum of creatures protected by counterspells.
You can even splash a 3rd color or use off-colored cards with phyrexian mana.
Tips- Don't let your opponent have every Mental Misstep. Even if you don't play Blue, this is one of the best cards in the cube.
- Don't underestimate the speed at which your life points will deplete. Each loss of life point is important.
- Blue needs to trigger Ruin Crab or activate similar effects 8-9 times before decking out the opponent (9*3=27 -> The number of cards in your library turn 6 if you only drew during your draw step).
- Your mana curve will be quite low, so you might want to play less than 17 lands.
The manlands always felt out of place in the cube : coming to the battlefield tapped was too much of a loss of tempo, and with 3 painlands and 4 fetches, there is already enough fixing for 2 players.
On the other hand, the desert cycle from Hour of Devastation seems like it was meant to be in this cube. Each of the 3 deserts provides a nice effect in line with its color game plan and costs life to be used. They make for a nice redundancy with the Odyssey lands as "Spell lands". Since the mana curves tend to be pretty low, it's always nice to have a side effect on some of the lands.