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Hi! I hope you're here to have fun & play some Magic in good company! If you also want to win, or at least get less of a headache trying to read all 360 cards on draft night, here's a handy guide for drafting and playing this Cube.

The 360-card Cube is designed to create 8-player draft experiences involving powerful and synergistic decks. It supports more than dozen of distinct archetypes available to several viable colour pairings.

/JTM

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This guide is the product of immeasurable procrastination and may seem overwhelmingly long – feel free to jump through it with the table of contents!

General tips

• Have fun!
• Mana requirements and drafting lands
• Being mindful of your mana curve
• Tempo
• Drafting removal
• Synergies and combos

Colour Identities

• White: Balance
• Blue: Flyers and controlling spells
• Black: Premium removal and late threats
• Red: Aggro creatures and abundant removal
• Green: Mana-fixing and solid creatures
• Multi-colour: Signposts & fan favourites

Archetypes

• eller Aggro: Nak din fætter/kusine inden 5. tur med hurtige væsner.
• Blink: Spil væsner der får bonus når de kommer på banen og 'blink' dem frem og tilbage.
• +1/+1 Counters: Byg store monstre med masser af +1/+1 counters
• eller Lifegain: Få liv fra hvid, dræn modstanderens med sort og byg store monstre med grøn.
• Spellslinger: Fyr en hel masse instants og sorceries afsted
• eller Discarding: Smid dine kort i kirkegården fra hånden og få bonuser når du gør det
• , lidt Graveyard interactions: Fyld kirkegården og se den komme til live.
• eller , med lidt Sacrifice: Vind ved at ofre dine og modstanderens ting.
• /// Going wide with many creatures: Fyld banen med så mange væsner som muligt.
• og /// Mana ramp: Investér i mana og få de dyre kort i spil tidligt.
• og Alternative win conditions (sub-theme): Der er 3 måder at vinde på der ikke involverer at få modstanderen på 0 liv.
• ///// A pile of good stuff: Byg et deck med de bedste kort du drafter, uden noget bestemt tema.

Patch Notes

• Patch 1.0

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Have fun!

The great thing about a Cube is its replayability, so there’ll always be another chance to draft a better deck! So, rather than a high-stakes competition, you can treat it like an opportunity to have some fun with new, interesting cards!

Mana requirements and drafting lands

With a very high average card quality, you'll often end with many more than 23 playable non-land cards, especially if you're playing multiple colours and have kept your manacurve in mind during the draft. Consequently, prioritising fixing lands (Xander's Lounge, Spirebluff Canal) highly in the draft may be a good idea, especially if you hope to play more than two colours.

Also be mindful that multi-colour cards like Maestros Ascendancy aren't the only ones that can be difficult to cast. Cards requiring multiple of the same mana can be deceptively hard to get out in multi-colour decks, especially in the early game. For example, a deck would likely struggle to reliably cast Magus of the Bridge or Dreamshackle Geist on turn 3 without access to at least several mana-fixing lands.

Being mindful of your mana curve

In this kind of draft, it can be tempting to always take the most powerful card – how can you pass up a bomb like Noxious Gearhulk for a measly Virus Beetle? But most decks need a healthy amount of two-three drops to work consistently, so keep this in mind while drafting.

Tempo

Of course, the ideal manacurve depends on which tempo you're going for. A true aggro deck wants several 1-drops, numerous 2 and 3-drops, and no cards above 5 mana, while some control archetypes thrive by surviving the first few turns and then dishing out the expensive heavy-hitters. To some extent this is some game-theoretical rock-paper-scissors: If most others at the table are going for ramp into Kogla, the Titan Ape and Artisan of Kozilek, you can steal games with a fast-paced aggro deck that uses Earthshaker Khenra and Reckless Stormseeker to win by turn 6 – except for when you run into a mid-range deck with Ophiomancer or Devastation Tide that you can't get through.

Drafting removal

Because many cards in this cube will be very painful if left unanswered, it's a good idea to draft removal highly – I don't think it's crazy to take premium removal like Ultimate Price with your 2nd or 3rd pick in a pack. Given the strong artifacts and enchantments, removal like Broken Wings or Sanctify may also be surprisingly useful.

Synergies and combos

I've constructed this cube to support highly synergistic decks: about 90% of cards have some kind of combo potential, and some cards have synergies across multiple archetypes. So, while some cards will be good in any deck and it's probably a viable strategy to just draft a pile of 'good stuff', I expect that the best synergy decks will be better (and more satisfying!) than the best good-stuff decks.

Sure, Halana and Alena, Partners or Simic Sky Swallower are great but have you tried playing Hardened Scales with Luminarch Aspirant and Ainok Bond-Kin to give all of your creatures first-strike and endless +1/+1 counters, or Soulherder with Mulldrifter and Mentor of the Meek to draw 3 extra cards each turn? How about Selhoff Entomber with Containment Construct to draw cards for free, while spawning drakes from Drake Haven & dishing out -1/-1 counters from Archfiend of Ifnir? If you're in the mood to gain 10 life, deal 10 damage, and distribute 10 +1/+1 counters on a single turn, try Sanguine Bond with Doomgape and Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn! Of course, you won't get perfect combo moments like this every game, but the cube is constructed such that players reliably should be able to draft decks with 10-20 cards that directly synergise.

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In addition to the multi-colour archetypes that define this Cube, each colour has distinct identities that will form the backbone of your deck.

White: Balance

White is perhaps the most well-rounded colour: Strong early game (Luminarch Aspirant, Lavabrink Venturer), with solid removal (Path to Exile, Repel the Vile), some powerful cards to win the game (Citadel Siege, Spear of Heliod), and the strongest board-wipes in the cube (Day of Judgment, Balance).

Blue: Flyers and controlling spells

Blue has the most flying creatures of any colour, including some absolute bombs (Glyph Keeper, All-Seeing Arbiter). While some blue removal doesn't get fully rid of its target (Witness Protection), others offer very powerful creature-stealing (Kefnet's Last Word, Invoke the Winds) and counterspells (Counterspell, Spell Pierce.) There's also some beautiful combo potential with things like Torrential Gearhulk and Sublime Epiphany. Blue has the fewest creatures of all the colours, so most decks will want to play another colour or rely heavily on non-creature spells.

Black: Premium removal and late threats

Black has some of the strongest removal (Ultimate Price, Murder, Soul Transfer) and most game-breaking threats (Dreadfeast Demon, Liliana, Death's Majesty). Its biggest weakness is perhaps that some of its mid-game creatures strongly rely on synergies to be useful (Merciless Executioner, Courier Bat, Braids, Cabal Minion).

Red: Aggro creatures and abundant removal

Red is the aggressive colour: access to the most one-drops (Reckless Waif, Goblin Guide) as well as abundant cheap removal (Lightning Bolt, Abrade). Its weaknesses are that its removal struggles on targets with >4 toughness, as well as a scarcity of strong creatures that really say "deal with this now, or you lose."

Green: Mana-fixing and solid creatures

Green has numerous cards for ramping up your mana count (Llanowar Elves, Lotus Cobra, Weaver of Blossoms), which also work well for mana-fixing in decks with 3 to 5 colours. Green also has some very solid creatures that don't require any synergy to be strong throughout the game (Cemetery Prowler, Ulvenwald Oddity) as well as the greatest access to artifact/enchantment removal (Natural End, Outland Liberator). Its absolutely biggest weakness is the lack of any creature removal and limited ways of dealing with flying creatures (Hatchery Spider, Broken Wings), forcing players to obtain these in other colours.

Multi-colour: Signposts & fan favourites

Most multicoloured cards in this cube are intended as signposts: They indicate which themes (or archetypes) exist in different colour pairs. When you see a thematic card like Wandering Mind, you can infer that there's some type of spells-oriented deck going on in , while Trelasarra, Moon Dancer signals the availability of a lifegain deck. There are a few exceptions like Halana and Alena, Partners and Lord Xander, the Collector which are not part of a clear theme but are included as fan favourites.

Note: The double-sided card Torrent Sculptor can be played in either of its two forms, so make sure to read its backside! Hybrid-mana cards like Burning-Tree Emissary can be played using either of its two colours, e.g., can be paid for with two mana in any combination of and .

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Rush your opponent with quick creatures like Goblin Guide, Rabbit Battery, Village Messenger, Usher of the Fallen, Accorder Paladin, and Kargan Intimidator.

Then finish them off with Blistering Firecat, Blade Historian, Reckless Abandon, and Devil's Play.

This deck can also be made as mono-red , which may be more consistent in terms of always having mana for playing creatures on the first 4 turns.

... you like winning by turn 5 when you hit the perfect mana curve, and don't mind losing at the first sight of a big fat creature that you can't remove.

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Use Flickerwisp, Soulherder, Restoration Angel, Galepowder Mage, Planar Incision, Teleportation Circle, and Touch the Spirit Realm to 'flicker' creatures in-and-out of the battlefield to trigger the benefits of cards like Circuit Mender, Mulldrifter, Reveillark, and Sphinx of Uthuun. (Note: There aren't that many cards with 'flicker' effects, so make sure to draft a deck that is strong without relying too much on that synergy.)

... you like squeezing the maximal amount of value of a small number of cards when the combo really works.

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Give +1/+1 counters to your creatures with Dormant Grove, Citadel Siege, Luminarch Aspirant, and Angelic Quartermaster to trigger synergies with cards like Hardened Scales, Ainok Bond-Kin, Parish-Blade Trainee, Cloaked Cadet, and Gladehart Cavalry.

... you want a safe bet that probably is going to be strong even if you don't draft all the right pieces.

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Use cards like Traveling Minister, Heron of Hope, Impassioned Orator, Exalted Angel, Gala Greeters, Recumbent Bliss, Panicked Bystander, Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist, and Sanctum of Stone Fangs to gain life.

If you're in , drain your opponent's life with Sanguine Blood, Cliffhaven Vampire, and Vizkopa Guildmage; if you're in , boost creatures like Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, Trelasarra, Moon Dancer, Honor Troll, and Ageless Entity by gaining life.

... you want to win a game by dealing 10 or 20 damage with Doomgape and Vizkopa Guildmage.

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The plan is simple: Play wolves and werewolves like Cemetery Prowler, Reckless Stormseeker, and Child of the Pack to enable synergies with Packsong Pup, Mayor of Avabruck, Runebound Wolf, Howlpack Piper, Howling Moon, and Wolfkin Outcast. Transform Tovolar's Huntmaster to access the only source of removal in with its unusually powerful activated ability.

... you don't mind the hassle of flipping your cards in their sleeves every time a werewolf transforms.

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Put out creatures and enchantments like Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Shark Typhoon, Cruel Witness, Manaform Hellkite, and Sprite Dragon to benefit each time you cast a non-creature spell.

Prioritise cheap spells that draw you cards like Preordain and Ponder and spells that can be played twice like Staggershock and Devil's Play.

This deck is definitely best supported in , but can benefit from splashing to access powerful combos with Sedgemoor Witch, Maestros Ascendancy, and Poppet Stitcher.

... you never listen to the advice of "max 6-7 non-creature spells in your deck."

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Discard cards with creatures like Hypnotic Grifter, Selhoff Entomber, Looter il-Kor, Jeskai Elder; blood tokens from Voldaren Epicure and Blood Petal Celebrant; spells like Faithless Looting and Thirst for Discovery; and cycling cards like Unearth, Canyon Slough, and Neutralize.

Then, trigger benefits from discarding with Drake Haven, Archfiend of Ifnir, Containment Construct, Bag of Holding, and Ruthless Sniper, and discard cards that don't mind being discarded, like Edgar's Awakening, Broken Concentration and Welcome to the Fold.

... you really want to say the sentence "So, I pay 5 mana to discard my whole hand... And this is bad news for you."

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Build out a board of synergistic artifact creatures like Foundry Inspector, Lodestone Golem, Chief of the Foundry, and Merchant's Dockhand, to benefit from things like Quicksmith Rebel, Saheeli's Artistry, and Daretti, Scrap Savant.

There are also some wild possibilities of using Tinker or Saheeli Rai to cheat in expensive game-winners like Walking Skryscraper, Myr Battlesphere, Bosh, Iron Golem, or Combustible Gearhulk.

You could splash and for Oni-Cult Anvil or Dovin, Grand Arbiter to enable reliable artifact creation, but and are definitely the primary colours for artifact decks.

... you live for the dream of playing Perilous Myr on turn 2 followed by Tinker to deploy Walking Skyscraper on turn 3, into Saheeli Rai to attack with two 8/8 tramplers on turn 4.

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Create hordes of zombies with Magus of the Bridge, Liliana's Reaver, Poppet Stitcher, and Necromaster Dragon, turn them into flying, lifedraining super-zombies with Geralf, Visionary Stitcher, Havengul Runebinder, and Diregraf Captain, before killing everything your opponent has with Liliana, Death's Majesty's ultimate ability. Splash a bit of for Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as the cherry on top.

... you always rooted for the Zombies in Plants vs Zombies.

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Put cards in your graveyard through self-milling cards like Deal Gone Bad, Satyr Wayfinder, Mulch, and Old Rutstein, as well as anything involving discards or sacrifices.

Then, play cards directly from your graveyard with Living Death, Gruesome Menagerie, Graveyard Shift, Unearth, and Recurring Nightmare or play cards that benefit from having a full graveyard, such as Werebear, Soul Swallower, Hatchery Spider, and Varolz, the Scar-Striped.

Though and are the primary colours, this archetype can benefit from splashing for Snooping Newsie, Go-Shintai of Lost Wisdom, Vilespawn Spider, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant.

... you like the idea bringing back powerful creatures from your graveyard – especially ones that you put there on purpose.

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really is the backbone of any sacrifice-oriented deck: Persistent Specimen, Bloodsoaked Champion, and Sultai Emissary don't mind a trip to the graveyard, making forced sacrifices from Merciless Executioner and Braids, Cabal Minion asymmetrical in your favour. Ophiomancer and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder can create more fodder for Bone Splinters and Eater of Hope.

is the most obvious second choice, with Body Dropper, Oni-Cult Anvil, and Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos. also has good synergies with Ruthless Deathfang, Snooping Newsie, Geralf, Visionary Stitcher, and Profaner of the Dead.

and can both generate tokens for sacrifice fodder (Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose, Awakening Zone, Honden of Life's Web), and cards like Moldgraf Millipede, Hatchery Spider, Varolz, the Scar-Striped, and Cataclysmic Gearhulk also fit the theme, but it's not obvious that either of the colours are suitable for a sacrifice deck.

... you like the cards available in and want to combine them with almost any other colour.

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Create numerous creatures and tokens with Go-Shintai of Shared Purpose, Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder, Awakening Zone, Goblin Fodder, Stensia Uprising, and Honden of Life's Web.

Benefit from creatures entering the battlefield with Mentor of the Meek, Rumor Gatherer, and Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second; from creatures leaving the battlefield with Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat; and from having a large army with Halo Fountain, Akroan Hoplite, and Spear of Heliod.

... you have a lot of small things available to use as creature tokens.

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Green has more than a dozen cards that increase your resources, either by tapping for mana (Llanowar Elves, Beastcaller Savant), via unique mana effects like (Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest, Awakening Zone), or simply by fetching lands (Satyr Wayfinder, Mulch) – the latter of which is especially useful for cards that care about your land count (Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer, Boseiju Reaches Skyward).

Since does not have access to any creature removal and since many of the best expensive creatures are found in other colours (Dreadfeast Demon, Sphinx of Uthuun, Simic Sky Swallower), you'll likely want to play multiple colours rather than mono-green – thankfully many (but not all!) ramp cards also work as mana-fixing, allowing for decks with 3 or 4 (or even 5; The Kami War, anyone?!) colours.

... you love playing big creatures way earlier than should be legally allowed.

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The Shrines deck is slightly different in that it encourages playing 4 or even 5 colours. Draft as many shrine cards like Go-Shintai of Ancient Wars, Sanctum of Calm Waters, Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty, and Shrine Steward as possible. If you get 3-4 in play at once you're in a good spot, if you then get Sanctum of All down, it's probably game over. When playing for multiple colours, consider picking almost all of the fixing lands you can get, and playing as your base colour to access fixing cards like Satyr Wayfinder and Hiveheart Shaman.

... you have the ambition of playing a 5-colour deck.

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Humans are the most abundant creature type in every colour except . There aren't enough synergy cards to enable a proper 'humans archetype', but if you notice that you already have a handful of them (or especially Stensia Uprising), it'll be a nice bonus to pick up one of the few cards that do give you a payoff for playing humans.

... you're so concerned with humanity that you can't help but draft 'em.

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Most games are won or lost by one player reaching a life total of zero. But this cube features three unconventional ways of claiming victory:

• Play Approach of the Second Sun and survive 7 turns (or fewer if you can draw some cards).
• Attack with at least 15 creatures while having available for Halo Fountain.
• Equip Vorpal Sword on a creature that won't get blocked.

... you want to win but refuse to damage your opponent, "because they're my friend!"

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Finally, some cards don't necessarily have to be in a specific deck and will almost always be very strong when you play them. It's possible to draft great decks without any obvious synergies – though you'll have to trade off the pleasure of playing bomb after bomb against the satisfaction of pulling off a creatively designed combo!

Below are some of the biggest bombs in each of the five colours, as well as some of the strongest artifact & multicolour cards:

... you think synergies are overrated.

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Patch 1.0

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Since our first draft of this cube, I've made some changes to improve the balance and fun-factor of the cube. Below are some of the themes in these changes.

No nerfs

In general, I have avoided removing cards to weaken any particular colour or archetype. There's one exception, though...

Hasta la vista, Wargear – Welcome, new equipments

I'm sorry, but Grafted Wargear has got to go. The problem isn't that it's too good, it's that it's too unconditionally good. This is a game-winning threat in any deck, requiring zero effort to build around it. I do want equipments to be relevant, so I've added a few others that should be pretty strong but require a bit more planning to use.

Options against aggro

The strong performance of red-white aggro in our first draft was on my mind when trying to balance the cube further. Since I didn't want to make aggro weaker – I think it's really important to have fun and well-supported aggro options in the cube – I instead opted to provide more potential answers to aggro in the card pool. In green, black, and colourless I added cheap walls, in red and white I added mass removal. This way, aggro remains viable and those drafting slower decks will actively have to pick up some of these answers to guard themselves against it.

Boosting non-black colours

Mono-black (with a splash of red) also performed very well, and while this may have been because the colour was wide open, it's also clear that cards like Ophiomancer, Abyssal Persecutor, and Dreadfeast Demon are going to be all-stars every time you draft them. Again, I didn't want to take away anything from black, so I've instead focused on adding more exciting options for the other colours.

Beefing up green

I added some better options for early mana-ramp and replaced some of the late-game creatures.

Late-game spells for blue

Since blue has the fewest creatures and it can be hard to fit costly noncreature spells in a deck, I want the colour to have some really exciting options in that slot.

A couple of new creatures for white and red

The addition of new board wipes are the most important buffs for red and white, but I did also add two other new exciting creatures.

Removing unplayed or vanilla cards.

To make room for additions, I removed various cards that I don't anticipate would see much future play (Evra, Halcyon Witness, Mardu Ascendancy, Explosive Vegetation), or that didn't have a particularly unique or interesting role in the cube (Virus Beetle, Sleep with the Fishes).

On the watchlist.

There are a couple of cards that I'm considering cutting, but which will stay for now:

• Dreadfeast Demon and Simic Sky Swallower because they have the common feature that most decks will be able to do ~nothing about them once they're in play. For now, they get to stay since playing a 7-mana creature is supposed to be a big deal. (On that note, Rekindling Phoenix and Glyph Keeper have the same feature of being ~unremoveable, but they are at least a bit easier to interact with.)
• Awakening Zone, Howling Moon, Maestros Ascendancy and other janky cards that will only be good in very specific situations.