Art by Noah BradleyCloned from 180 card 2 player grid draft cube
TLDR- Use the Grid draft option for drafting the cube in the Playtest tab.
- Designed for 2p, can also play 4p without issues.
- No
cards for a better 2p draft experience (less dead cards). - Avoiding double-faced cards, Artifacts/Enchantments and walls of text when possible.
Grid is this cube's default format and is primarily balanced around this. This means including extra redundancy for required effects for archetype enabling cards, such as aggro one drops and 1cmc mana elves due to the more restrictive card selection process. Cards are publicly visible so it's easy to discuss them and options for picks with new players.
Pancake+ results in stronger decks than grid drafting due to first/second picking exact cards from draft packs. It's also the closest 2p experience to 8 player drafting. The modified rules I use, described in the table below, ensure you see each pack twice, and that burning cards matter slightly more. It's more difficult for new players as it relies on private card assessment.
Sealed is good for newer players. Sealed can be played with public information so you can discuss/explain cards and avoids the new player having to read and compare a lot of new cards all the time in Draft-based formats.
4P Draft: Draft five packs of 9 cards the regular way.
Draft Formats Breakdown| Name | Cards used | Pool size | Power | Beginner Friendly? | Drafting Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sealed | 140 | 70 | Lowest | Yes | --- |
| Grid | 162 | 45-54 | Medium | Medium | Place a grid of 9 cards, pick a row or column, opponent picks, alternate first player. repeat x18. |
| Pancake+ | 160 | 40 | High | No | Draft eight 10 card packs. Four actions a pack: (1) Pick 1, swap packs. (2) Pick 2, burn 1, swap packs. (3) Pick 1, burn 1, swap packs. (4) Pick 1, discard last three. |
| 4P Draft | 180 | 45 | High | No | Draft five 9 card packs. |
| Colours | Style | Details & Key Cards | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
  | Aggro | mostly 1-2 cmc cards. Burn and removal spells. | example |
| Midrange | 2-6 cmc value focused - pw's, thoughtsiezes/removal, 2 for 1's | example |
  | Tempo | Cheap growing threats such as Faerie Vandal, Dragonsguard Elite, Managorger Hydra. Then protect them: Counterspell, Snakeskin Veil | example |
| Midrange | Green ramp+fatties, blue card draw | example |
| Aggro | 1-4 cmc aggro + tempo | example |
| Spells matter | Cantrips + creatures with spell payoff: Sprite Dragon, Young pyromancer, Faerie Vandal | example |
| Control | Mizzium Mortars, Inferno Titan, Rise from the tides | old |
| Midrange | Graveyard matters: self mill & recursion | example |
| Aggro | Red aggro, green pump. Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin+pump. | example |
| Midrange | Ramp/stompy | example |
| Tempo | Cheap blue fliers + black recursive threats | example |
| Control | Eating yard (Dig Through time, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Woe Strider) | old |
All design principles for cards can be bent a little for an otherwise perfect card.
Power level
The cube aims to have cards of a similar power band, currently 4N (an average standard format powerlevel). It is based on ideas discussed in the strix/serra scale: https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/byqv1o/the_serra_scale_v2/
This cube's colour pie
One of the best bits about cube is you get to create your own colour pie by choosing which cards you include/exclude. For example, Modern Green card designs are now second-to-best after blue cards at card advantage, but I do not want that in my cube and so card advantage is still a weakness for green here.
| Colour | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|
| Fliers, Instant speed interaction, Card advantage, Control | Weaker P/T creatures, Defending against aggro |
| Recursive Aggro, Removal, Graveyard play | Defending against aggro (weaker toughness + some can't block) |
| Aggro, Burn, Control, Card Filtering | Expensive card advantage |
| Ramp, Midrange, Graveyard filling, Stronger Creatures, Aggro Defense | Card Advantage, Fliers, Softer to removal |
- Why 4c? 5c has a lack of competition for colours at 2p and leads to feel-bad drafting experience with lots of dead cards. 3c drafting has issues with all fixing being on colour and therefore always ending up in the same 3c deck (except for aggro strategies) which loses replayability for me.
- Why cut White? felt like it had the least unique mechanics out of all of the colours, most of 's mechanical identity can be found in other colours too. Thinking about the 2c guilds, and decks tend to be pretty "vanilla" unexciting aggro and midrange colours, respectively. is also usually interchangable with . Only has a distinct style and flavour that I'll miss having.
Player Count
This cube is designed for 2 players but can play up to 4 without issues.
No walls of text and double faced cards
From around 2020, WOTC's card design includes as many words on a card as possible by introducing lots of conditional/niche rules paragraphs (or entire sides of cards with double faced cards). This slows down both the drafting and playing experience of the cube. If a card introduces additional complexity, I would expect a large payoff in the gameplay it provides. The best card designs are simple but provide plenty of agency in how you play them, such as Lightning Strike and Counterspell.
Limited Card Types
This cube does not run artifacts or enchantments. Due to the size of the cube, it is hard to support them along with sufficient interaction for their card types in 180 slots. Removing these card types allows more in depth gameplay around card types that are included in the cube, instead of stretching the 180 cards too thinly.
Archetypes
When designing for 180 cards, it's harder to have each guild have a distinct strategy, i.e. "Tokens", "Lifegain" etc. You need generalist cards that fit into at least two guilds in 180 that are independently strong and have lots of mechanical overlap between guilds. The overall theme of this cube is graveyard-based synergies by including mechanics in each colour like Delve, Flashback and Escape.
Answers
Most unconditional Blue/Black answers cost 3 cmc+ to allow cheap aggressive decks time to get under the control decks.
Breaking Singleton
I prefer what's best for gameplay over self-imposed restrictions.
Creature Mana Curve
I tend to favor aggressively slanted stats on creatures, such as 3 mana 3/2's, as they encourage aggressive play and allow favorable trades. Too many defensive bodies like 3 mana 2/4's shut down aggro strategies and lead to board stall games.
Red burn spells also have to match up appropriately to each mana's average toughness stats in order to make the environment as balanced as possible.
A part of my Green's identity is anti-aggro, so it's allowed to have bigger creatures for the same CMC which helps both against red aggro creatures and their burn spells.
| CMC | Max Stats | Red Burn Spell Damage |
|---|---|---|
 | ground 2/1, flying 1/1 | 2 damage |
 | ground 2/2, flying 2/1 | 3 damage if targets player, 4 otherwise |
 | ground 3/2, green 3/3. flying 3/x | 4 if targets player |
 | ground 3/3, green 4/4, flying 3/x | -- |
Card Balance
I've fixed the worst offenders, but I'm always monitoring for underperformers that never make main decks.
Gold & Colorless Cards
I'm considering running no gold cards and maybe 6 colorless cards instead, offering a mixture of aggro/midrange/control styles. This would increase options for deckbuilding.
Green's top end
It lacks identity and power, so some buffs are needed. Each "big" creature in each colour offer something unique to the cube, except for greens: Blue offers overwhelming Card Advantage, Black has great removal and recursion and Red has haste with powerful burn options. Green doesn't have such a direction for it's top end and feels weaker as a result.
- Changes now made: Better threats, second planeswalker, lots more Flash keywords. Seems more balanced in current version of cube.