Art by Drew BakerShamim's Cube: 420 Unpowered
Welcome to my cube overview! Do you miss Birthing Pod in Modern? You can play it here! Also Black Aggro hasn't sucked since 2014! Some cards break singleton here and there; this is by design to enable certain archetypes in the the cube by exploiting synergies and giving drafters more nuanced decisions during draft.
My goal is to create an immersive draft environment with synergistic payoffs. I want both players to be engaged throughout the game and fighting to gain incremental advantages all throughout. I want there to be more decision making when it comes to sequencing and playing spells rather than having generically powerful haymakers across the curve. I believe that this kind of environmental design leads to far more engaging gameplay than a typical power-maxed build where you can have non-games as early as T3 or T4 depending on what uninteractive garbage someone else has deployed. That is not to say that classically powerful cards are not present, just that they have been evaluated on a card-by-card basis towards promoting a more engaging gameplay experience. Are you a fan of Jund-styled gameplay where it's all about gaining incremental advantages and a lot of back and forth interaction? Miss how Modern felt back in 2014 with intricate games and nuanced decision-making? You've come to the right place!
I prefer to keep archetype specific cards few and far between. Drafting on wheels is some of the more uninspired gameplay that can be present within draft environments as a whole, and I try to minimize it whenever possible. As a designer I find it far more interesting to have multiple cards that might be 7/10 or 8/10 in multiple archetypes than one that is a clear 10/10 and then 1/10 elsewhere. Don't worry, you can still draft hyper specific stuff like Reanimator decks going all in on bringing back fatties or a Tinker package! They just won't be as overwhelming with the payoff options you might be accustomed to in similarly powered environments. Think more value-oriented rather than flip the game on its head type threat.
This may lead to some perceived homogeneity in the draft process, but it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make if it leads to better gameplay and diverse deckbuilding options. What I really want is for my drafters to be able to discover things within the draft process to make the entire experience especially enjoyable and memorable. Powerful cards are great, but you know what's even more fun? Feeling like YOU made a deck possible through your draft decisions and by discovering the little synergies sprinkled throughout. To that end, I'd like to believe that any given draft pool can really let a drafter explore and create their own deck rather than feeling obligated to pick a certain open archetype. I want there to be many possible avenues at any given seat.
There is more fixing than in your typical cube environment and this is to ensure that drafters don't run into issues color-wise when constructing their decks. On average you'll see the majority of decks leaning towards two colors and some splashing a third because of the options available through double fetches and two fetch-able dual options per color (alongside a 3rd mixed lands cycle). That's not to say that midrange goodstuff should be the go-to, but like most cubes it is available as a fallback option for unfamiliar newcomers. The more experienced the drafter, however, the more options there are to explore with tighter archetypes that are focused around two-color pairs. Obviously this will change depending upon the final 360 within the draft pool and how highly individual drafters prioritize fixing.
Here's a brief overview of some of the archetypes and themes currently available:
: UW Control, UW Blink
: UB Control, UB Steal Stuff
: BR Aggro, BR Sacrifice/Aristocrats
: RG Midrange, RG Ramp, RG Wildfire
: GW Landfall, GW Collected Company, G/x Pod
: WB Human Aggro, WB Stax
: BG Grindy Midrange, BG Graveyard
: GU Midrange
: UR Artifacts, UR Spellslinger
: RW Aggro, RW Humans
I have a few draft enhancements in my cube to improve the draft and promote the gameplay experience I want for my drafters. This includes breaking singleton on fetchlands, a duplicate voucher system for build-arounds and archetype defining cards, squadron lands to provide additional fixing options with certain cards, and a Utility Land Draft to add more spice to mana bases. All cards contained within cube are marked with the appropriate sticker on the bottom left corner based on the legend above.
Learn more about each of these features below!
Non-Singletons
- Double Fetchlands - Promote better access to fixing, open up card interactions
- Double Shock (Enemy) - Waiting on Enemy Battle-lands to be printed
- Four Voucher Cards - Learn more below!
Duplicate Voucher System
I've implemented a Voucher System for cards that I'd like to see more often but did not wish to place a second copy into the cube. The idea is to enable more chances to see an archetype defining card/build-around without running into the issue of too many dead slots in a given draft. If Birthing Pod comes around too late in Pack 2 for someone to get into the archetype, then it's essentially a dead card in that pack. A 2nd one is even worse once Pack 3 rolls around. This voucher system was created to solve this problem.
If you draft the original card AND draft a voucher card, you can trade in the voucher for a 2nd copy of that original card. This can only be done once per given card; no double-dipping with multiple vouchers on one card. So for example if you drafted Collected Company and a voucher card, you would receive a 2nd copy of Collected Company. A 2nd voucher? Doesn't get you a 3rd copy of Coco, but if you have another voucher-elibigle card, you can cash it in for a 2nd copy of that.
With this method I can introduce more potential opportunities for a drafter to grab a 2nd copy of a given card AND reduce the number of dead slots for cards that might be too narrow or show up too late in a draft to built with. Best of all? Demand for a voucher card is extremely flexible and adaptable within a given draft pool.
If you're going for a aggressive deck, then a voucher card can hold extreme flexibility with the potential of being a 2nd copy of Champion of the Parish, a Bloodsoaked Champion or a Gravecrawler. In this case, you might just pick up a voucher early with the hope of grabbing one of these later in the draft. On the flip side cards like Birthing Pod or Collected Company have particular builds in mind with chains and 3-drops respectively, so for those you'd want to pick up a copy early and focus on a build while hoping for a voucher to come your way. Finally you have support cards to an archetype with the likes of Young Pyromancer and Urborg Lhurgoyf where the 2nd copy just brings greater consistency to your gameplan.
This variance in demand creates differing incentives for drafters when it comes to these wildcard vouchers and that has led to a more engaging draft process. With 4 vouchers and 9 possible options, the chances are very high that these won't be wheeling as the 15th card very often. Take advantage of it!
Squadron Lands
Three-color cards explore some interesting niches in design, but casting them consistently on curve can be a hassle in most draft environments. If only you had the right fixing to get the job done. Wait, what am I saying? This is cube. We can make this happen easily through squadroning!
How does it work? Simple, when you draft specific cards in this cube marked with a blue sticker in the bottom left corner, you will receive an additional land post-draft. This is mostly limited to 3-color cards for now, though I will make exceptions for specific cards if it fits flavorfully. Post-draft any drafter that shows me a copy of a drafted squadron card will receive the appropriate land for use. No obligation to play the two cards in your final deck, but it's an extra incentive. On CubeCobra you may add these cards from the basic land box when constructing your deck; just imagine that that Siege Rhino you drafted came with a copy of Indatha Triome or Kess, Dissident Mage with a Xander's Lounge.
Utility Land Draft
Ever wanted to play with some narrow lands but couldn't find the space for them in your main cube? Too niche or cute for inclusion? We all know that the best part of any cube draft is the drafting portion, so why not try out the Utility Land Draft! Originally conceived by Jason Waddell over at Riptide Labs years ago, I've ported over my own version of this system.
After the main draft I run another mini-draft to allow drafters to pick up utility lands that they might not be willing to use a pick on during the main draft. We roll to decide which drafter goes first, then continue in a snake-draft format (i.e. 1-8, 8-1, 1-8, etc.) for 3 rounds allowing players to pick out lands to help flesh out their specific decks.
I've got around 32 options for my current utility land set-up and these range from lands with specific activation costs like Gavony Township and Academy Ruins to give some extra options to decks like Midrange and Artifacts, cycling lands like the Barren Moor cycle to exploit synergies with the likes of The Gitrog Monster, the Castle cycle from Throne of Eldraine, or even just lands with cool interactions with specific cards like Cavern of Souls in a Humans deck or Phyrexian Tower in a sac-oriented R/B deck. It's all about giving drafters more choices and promoting an even more engaging gameplay experience by emulating a Constructed mana base that they might not get with other cube drafts.
If you'd like to learn more about my cube and design philosophy in detail, I have a cube blog over at Riptide Lab that I've maintained since I first built my cube in 2014. It's where I have posted any major updates, ideas, and cube musisngs that come to mind.
Stop by the forums and say hello sometime, there's a lot of great discussion and ideas on the regular. We Lab Maniacs welcome all cube designers with open minds!
Articles/Primers
B/W Human Aggro
The Duplicate Voucher System
U/R Artifacts