Initial Pitch & Objectives

This cube is attempting to have its cake and eat it to.
For inexperienced drafters, I want mostly simpler cards and very clear color pair archetypes, such that they can draft "on-rails" by focusing on a keyword/phrase, taking all those cards, and end up with a playable deck ("keywords" such as: flying, zombie, gain life, enchantment, sacrifice, instant/sorcery/noncreature, token, trample, +1/+1 counter, artifact). But I also want room for veterans to "draft the hard way" and explore the much less obvious decks & interactions that are potentially more powerful but harder to draft: examples include Astral Drift/Escape Protocol engines; grinding out a Kindlespark Duo win with Scrap Trawler recursion; copying Back for More with Kalamax, the Stormsire (I've made that deck twice; it's awesome) or assemble one of the several convoluted infinite combos awaiting discovery.

This is summed up in the following 4 objectives:

1. Don't be too overwhelming or difficult for new drafters or even lapsed veterans (who stopped playing regularly around Kamigawa).
2. Don't be too boring for current veteran players.
3. Appeal primarily (not exclusively) to Johnny/Jenny: Every deck should feel like all the pieces click together!
4. Astral Slide (now Astral Drift) should be good. It's my favorite card; My Cube, My Rules.*

A deeper dive into each rule is found below the adjustments & archetypes.

Current Archetypes Available

The classics (and handholds for new players)

UW - Fliers
WB - Lifegain
BG - Spider Spawning / Reanimator
GR - Beef & Trample
RU - Spells

UB - Zombies
BR - Sacrifice Tokens
RW - Token Swarm
WG - Enchantments
GU - Draw triggers (& +1/+1 counters)

Esper (UWB) - Artifacts
Abzan (WBG) - Control
Jund (BGR) - Death/Sacrifice
Temur (GRU) - Value (and/or Kalamax)
Jeskai (RUW) - Go-wide spells (Also 6 of the 7 "whenever you cycle" payoffs are in these colors)

Other decks I've seen built in person:
RW Scrap Trawler/Traxos Aggro/Sac
Jeskai Cycling
Sultai-red Cycling/Lazotep Chancellor//Reanimator
UGbr Back for More/Kalamax, the Stormsire
Gw Artifacts
Naya Control
There's also a handful of convoluted (3-6 card) infinite combos (in W and/or U, and RG) that have yet to be assembled. There's a couple that require so many pieces that I doubt they'll ever happen, but dreaming of them is still fun.

Strategies I'm considering bolstering if possible and without confusing players (strategies that are different than the normal color overlaps):
Bant (GWU) - Blink (relies heavily on Slide & Escape; conflicts with GW enchantments)
Sultai (GUB) - Self-Mill (Arguably a strong UB/BG overlap)
Grixis (UBR) - Discard (also a cycling variant)
Mardu (BRW) - Historic/Legendary (Not enough elegant support here; may never be).
Naya (RWG) - Alliance (great overlap with tokens; GR; and blink. Still conflicts with GW enchantments). Could do Equipment? (It's good with both tokens and with trample; and avoids Enchantment conflict)

The 4 Rules Deep Dive...

#1 (N00bs) - This objective drives a lot of key decisions, like:

• Having clear archetypes with signpost guild cards. "Play fliers", "Play enchantments", or "Play zombies" helps newer drafters stick to a single plan and narrow down the cards they read (both in terms of color and "what says 'flying'?"). On a related note, try to avoid traps: for instance, since BW is the lifegain deck, if there were too many cards in green that gained life then newer players just scanning for "gain life" might drift towards a BG or WG lifegain deck that isn't really supported, even though for an expert that'd be fun crossover synergy.
• Keep the curve low and fixing plentiful. I've noticed inexperienced drafters don't often think about their curve or pick fixing very highly, so I keep the costs (including options like cycling) low enough that it's hard not to do something with a random hand of an average/bad deck. I've also increased the artifact count gradually so there's more colorless cards to smooth out the deck, and there's a lot of incidental fixing; although this can enable 5-color decks more often, it's slow and there's so much synergy elsewhere that there isn't as much generic "good stuff" to abuse the abundant fixing; 5 color decks need a plan, like cycling or reanimator.
• Bombs exist and look the part: Cavalier of Night, Shark Typhoon, Traxos, Scourge of Kroog... these cards both look powerful, and ARE powerful, and also drive players towards certain colors or strategies (in contrast with signets, which would look innocuous despite their strength)
• Limit the number of keywords. Even if each one is not hard to understand, the 11th new keyword mechanic you have to read feels like "OMG I'm never going to understand/remember all this". For instance, there's no Scry (except 1 card now I think?), Protection, Hexproof, Prowess, or Doublestrike. Currently the only evergreen mechanics are Flying, First Strike, Haste, Vigilance, Lifelink, Trample, Menace, Flash, Indestructible, Defender, Colored Artifacts, Hybrid Mana, Treasures, and Hexproof on 2 instants (not to mention "new" terms for some like Battlefield and Exile); the only other non-Evergreen mechanics are Cycling, Flashback, Amass, Enchantment Creatures, Food tokens, "historic" (2 cards), "Constellation" (1 card), and Regenerate (1 card) - Regen is a compromise for including Twisted Abomination.
• I've begun tracking both "wall of text" cards, and those I think are complicated (either to understand or to assess once they're in play). They can be distinct, but I also want to make sure that each one pulls their weight (the "complicated" tag especially).
• Utilize Lenticular Design. To a vet, Retraction Helix signals an infinite combo buried somewhere; to a newbie, it just looks like a restrictive bounce spell.
• Avoid traps & "WTF" cards. I used to have Prime Speaker Vannifar in the list to make fun Pod decks, but not only was that tough to build, it sent the wrong signal to the less experienced since UG isn't about sacrificing things OR Enter effects. Aetherflux Resevoir is also a potential trap since some newbies love gaining life in any deck, but so far it's been OK.
• 360 Card limit - This helps curate the experience much more carefully, especially since replayability isn't as big an issue when targeting lapsed/newer players that are going to play this 2-4x/year instead of 1-4x/month.

#2 (Veterans) - I'm predisposed to up the complexity, so this one's not really a problem. Beyond the normal color pairs, there's tons of build-arounds, cycling strategies, 5-color, etc. It's the other objectives that keep this one in check. I've definitely been upping the word count and rares recently, so I really need to be cautious here (see "text wall" and "complicated" tags).

#3 (Johnny) - I want to maximize two feelings:

• The feeling of looking through a pack and thinking "OH! That card is PERFECT for my deck!" and not just because it fills out your curve. Healer's Hawk is a good example: "this is perfect for my [Lifegain/fliers/go-wide/enchantment] deck!" Or Hordeling Outburst, which feels great in RW go-wide, RU Spells, or RB sacrifice (vs. RG, where it's essentially just 3/3 for 3). If a card only really goes in one deck, it better be one of the clear signposts that drives the direction of the draft.
• The feeling in-game of "Yes, my deck is really doing its thing!" This usually means getting engines going, which can be dangerous if there aren't enough answers to engine pieces. However, too many answers and no one gets to do their thing. This is a delicate balance that's been tough to test with so few real-life drafts, and also contributes to the cube's power level. For the most part, engines essentially trade a turn or mana to "draw a card" whether from your deck or graveyard, rather than repeatedly disrupting the opponent. This allows for opportunities to interact, but unhindered can generate a gradual game-ending advantage. Examples: Astral Drift + Trusty Retriever; Mindless Conscription/Lorescale Coatl + Sage of Fables/Shapers of Nature; Sythis, Harvest's Hand/Ajani's Chosen + Whip Silk/Cage of Hands; Whip Silk + Gnarlback Rhino; Mad Ratter/Alandra, Sky Dreamer + Witch's Cauldron/Spark Reaper; Nyx-Fleece Ram + Any Lifegain Payoff; Traxos, Scourge of Kroog + Esperzoa/Squee, the Immortal; Kindlespark Duo/Blisterspit Goblin + Keen Sense...

#4 (Astral Slide/Astral Drift) - This (and #3 & #1 to lesser degrees) is the one that dictates power level. It's easy to find classic Slide buddies like Eternal Witness; it's harder to find enough cycling cards to enable it (although it's been better since it became Deciduous). Cycling is so good in any deck that you need enough in the cube to make sure Slide gets a critical mass, but there aren't enough at the higher power level to make them all feel at home anywhere except in Slide. So, the cube is built such that as many of the cycling cards as possible are good in decks that aren't specifically built around cycling; Furnace Host Charger and Quakefoot Cyclops should not be embarrassing to play in an average RG or RB deck, even if they're below the curve when cast. There's also plenty of other cycling payoffs (both explicit and subtle) that offer competition between players, and are spread out enough among colors that it's hard to build manabases that support several of them: UG draw triggers, Black reanimation; the enchantments in W, U, R. To keep slow cycling decks in check, aggressive decks (WR, WG, and UR in particular) can also be very fast, fixing is slow (landcycling into ETB tapped lands), and enough trample, incidental enchantment removal, and aristocrat-style effects to get past annoying strategies like chumping then blinking with Escape Protocol. This Slide/cycling restriction also contributes to the 360 card limit.