Versatile Vistas is a 360 cards "Unpowered Fair" Legacy+ cube, which supports traditional archetypes but provides enough ground to explore unusual strategies. The cube aims to minimize non-game complexity, removing unnecessary moving parts, simplifying draft, and steering away from game interactions that would require a couple of judges to solve.

The cube is designed with both new and experienced players alike. While significantly more complex than a Premiere Set environment, Versatile Vistas is built on most of the same philosophies and rules used by WotC to design premiere draft sets. It is also high on fixing, but the fixing comes at the cost of life or tempo. No ABUR duals in this babe!

The name of the cube is "Versatile Vistas". This used to be followed by a "v2.0 Future" moniker, since this was build on an already existing cube, but the old list has been depreciated and I have decided to drop the moniker.

What's in the Box and What's Not in the Box

Things you will find in this cube:
• Aggro, Control and Midrange support
• Redundancy of effects (e.g. Removal, Cantrips, Beaters)
• Great fixing (double-fetches, double-shocks, triomes)
• Straightforward gameplay

Things you will not find in this cube:
• Reserved List cards
• Cards not legal or restricted in Vintage
• Parasitic mechanics
• DFC, Morph, Mutate, etc.
• Mechanics that refer to outside-the-game objects (Monarch, Venture, Initiative)

Goal & Core Philosophy

The main goal of Versatile Vistas is to emulate Legacy-style gameplay at an accessible level and without using Reserved List cards. Both the draft and match portions of the game have been streamlined and pruned from cards or mechanics that affect playability. Some mechanics – such as double-faced cards – are intentionally omitted from the cube, while others – such as graveyard matters mechanics like Flashback or Escape – are closely monitored.

I also try to limit the number of token generators in my cube, although this is becoming much more difficult with WotC's current design philosophy.

Rule of thumb – if a card frequently creates board states that are hard to mentally keep track of, that card most likely needs to go.

Breaking Singleton

This cube is a singleton environment with two exceptions – I run a two cycles of shock lands, and two cycles of fetch lands for consistency purposes. I've grown to love the design of both shocks and fetches. For consistency's sake, you'll find 20 of each in this cube.

Archetypes & Gameplay

All 10 guilds get roughly equal levels of support, though not all guilds are created equal. Thus while all color pairs are playable, well-defined archetypes exist only in some of the color combinations.

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White aggro is a creature-based aggressive strategy that seeks to overwhelm the opponent with Savannah Lion variants (creatures that cost and have 2/1 power and toughness) while stalling the game with mana disruption. White aggro is resilient to Day of Judgement spells through giving their creatures indestructible or taxing such spells, but suffers from lack of reach and good card draw.

White is the best color when it comes to removal and efficient board wipe spells (also known as Wraths). White can remove unconditionally almost any permanent, though usually at the price of giving your opponent something in return. Combines best with .

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Blue wins the game by finding answers for each threat the opponent can deploy. While blue lacks both single-target and mass removal, it has a wide range of counterspells, as well as the most powerful card selection in the cube. After depleting the opponent's resources, Blue tends to close the game with a powerful Planeswalker, such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Tezzeret, Artifice Master.

A blue proactive deck that deals with opponent's threats only temporarily in order to close the game as quickly as possible. As an archetype, Tempo is hard to define, but revolves around creatures with Flying that generate advantage or disrupt the opponent on their own. Combines best with .

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Another creature-based aggressive strategy, the black aggro deck is characterized by recursive small creatures and hand disruption. There is also a small Zombie package. However, unlike many other environments, this black aggro archetype does not include a sacrifice package.

Black control is a deck perfectly capable of holding ground on its own. It's a versatile combination of a strong hand disruption package (Thoughtseize, Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, Pilfer), plentiful removal (Infernal Grasp, Cut Down, Fatal Push, Lethal Scheme), top-end threats, and a few mass removal spells. It combines well with for an attrition control type of a deck.

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A versatile package that's best combined with but can also exist on its own. Casting instant and sorcery spells generates additional advantages through powerful prowess creatures such as Monastery Swiftspear or Electrostatic Infantry. Taxing your opponent's life total through Eidolon of the Great Revels and Cemetery Gatekeeper speeds the clock even further. Most of the burn spells are variants of Shock, though Lightning Bolt is also in the cube – for now.

Red is a good support color for midrange decks through a small package of 4-5 mana threats such as Goldspan Dragon and Sarkhan the Masterless plus the previously mentioned burn spells, which both and can happily pick in order to keep the board clear from threats. Shivan Devastator is one of the newer additions, adding a scalable flying haste game-ender.

Red is also home to the four best 1-drop and 2-drop aggressive creatures in the cube. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Goblin Guide are power outliers, but they are not enough in order to make the Red aggro package viable by itself. Red Aggro is best combined with either or , or with both in a Mardu shell, though Gruul decks are also possible.

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Green Ramp is an unique deck that sacrifices tempo in the early game for mana acceleration in turns 4-6 that allows it to end the game with a massive threat such as Titan of Industry or Carnage Tyrant. The ramp deck is very versatile, as by nature it can easily splash other colors for removal and counterspells without worrying about drafting fixing lands. Ramp is also premium to Green, as unlike Vintage cubes there is no colorless fast mana artifact ramp.

Green Stompy is a midrange deck that utilizes some of the ramp pieces in order to get 3-5 mana threats out on the board as fast as possible. Most of the green creatures in that mana range are very resilient and either offer some sort of an Enter the Battlefield effect, or some sort of protection.

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