Art by Dan Murayama ScottOriginally, I made this cube with cards that were sitting in my bulk box plus things sitting in my trade binder, which had been there for some time. I got sad looking at some of my favorite cards sitting around doing nothing. After sifting through bulk to find more playables, what is now the Treasure Cube was born.
The cube seeks to be a powerful, quick experience for veteran and unexperienced drafters. As such, you won't find crazy infinite combos or storm piles here.* However, this cube contains a plethora of powerful and iconic cards, coupled with favorites of mine from limited formats of the distant past--cards that I treasure, if you will.
Archetypes are a bit loose. What is below is a good suggestion on where to go with different two-color combinations, but that doesn't mean there isn't support for other playstyles in those colors. Furthermore, there are (currently) no three-color cards, but that doesn't mean you can't play those color combinations.
- Blink - Flicker your creatures in order to abuse their powerful enter the battlefield triggers and control the flow of the game
- Control - With powerful counterspells, removal, and discard, stop your opponents from playing Magic
- Graveyard Aggro - Utilizing powerful early game threats and recursion, quickly reduce your opponent's life total to 0 so you can go get a snack in between rounds
- Stompy Monsters - Ramp into and cast/build explosive threats that can punch through any defenses
- Tokens - Using manadorks, lifegain enablers, and token generators, stay alive until you can amass enough creatures to win
- Death and Taxes - Control the flow of the game by playing creatures and wraths that slow down your opponent's gameplan until you can get the upper hand
- Spellslinger - Creatures not your thing? Do you enjoy doing math? Cast a bunch of instants and sorceries to trigger powerful abilities and maybe storm off in the process
- Reanimator - Putting cards into your graveyard can be a good thing! Reanimate game-ending threats without paying your fair share
- Aggro/Burn - Don't worry about your opponent's expensive spells, after a few burn spells and aggressive, efficient creatures they will never have a chance to cast them
- Tempo - Flash in your threats and answer everything your opponent throws at you with something better until they run out of steam
*There are TWO infinite combos, and they are both Kiki-Jiki-based classics:
For newer drafters, here are some of the highest-valued first picks in the cube by color:
I got a box of Innistrad Remastered for my birthday, and I opened a lot of cards that I want to play with so, here's some art changes and some card swaps with the goal of boosting the powerlevels of control and tokens.
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Treasure Cruise is a powerful card, but only in formats where you are filling your graveyard for very low investment quickly. This cube doesn't have fetchlands, and while it does have a ton of early cantrips to string together, Cruise saw very little play compared to the other graveyard payoff Murktide Regent. For this reason, I am trying Memory Deluge instead because it gets value twice, helps dig further for tools to control the board at instant speed, and I opened this old border foil. Cruise may come back in if/when I choose to bring in fetchlands.
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Alright look, I opened an old border foil Spider Spawning and I love this card. The issue is, as a long-time Golgari fanboy, I didn't want to get rid of any of the GB cards. And I know that people say that off-color flashback spells are not two color but I want to encourage new players to think that way at least until they get comfortable splashing. Spider Spawning is an awesome build around for GB but its also a reasonable card to play in GX tokens, which needs more tools AND often has been seen playing Lingering Souls. This change further emphasizes the potential for Abzan tokens to unseasoned drafters, and to be honest I'm gonna force Spider Spawning if given the opportunity in Pack 1 and that's going to bring me joy.
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Green has a lot of tools to deal with artifacts and enchantments in this cube. At 3 MV, it had 2 creatures with Thrashing Brontodon and Reclamation Sage. Sage was a fine card to play and blink, but only being a 2/1 never did it many favors, and honestly I think the brontodon working with the GB shell is much more interesting (and he survives a lot of red removal). Scute Swarm is coming in to boost the options in Green for GW tokens. Its a good card, and it also opens up a cool lane for landfall payoffs in Gx decks with Tireless Tracker.
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Sungold Sentinel is a fine 3/2 for 2 MV that has tiny gravehate and some weird flavor text about coven. Cathar Commando has flash, the same amount of power, and is also artifact/enchantment removal--something that White currently lacks. I like bringing this in for UW control decks and honestly its a great 2 drop roleplayer in any Wx deck.
Other Thoughts
Other than that, some art upgrades. I will be purchasing an old border foil Liliana of the Veil soon and a Join the Dance at the very least. Those won't get a blog post but I'm looking forward to next time around Aetherdrift release!