The cube started out as a clone of a popular Vintage cube. After getting the joy of casting some powerful cards out of my system, I've been scaling back the power level as well adding archetypes myself and my playgroup enjoy. My goal is to land on a level that allows fun and powerful plays to happen but more often than not leads to a multi-turn game. This is inspired by not having all that much time to get together with friends to play. So, when drafts do happen, I want to make sure we have fun matches.

I've tried to accomplish this goal by powering down targets as well as enablers. An example is removing Natural Order for Magus of the Order and Griselbrand in favor of Archon of Cruelty. While a card like Tinker can be absolutely busted, it's really only as good as your best target. In the case of this cube, the best targets are Ancient Stone Idol, Wurmcoil Engine, Myr Battlesphere, or Bolas's Citadel. While these are powerful payoffs they are not as instant win or feels bad as Inkwell Leviathan or Blightsteel Colossus. I do support and aggro, which can police the degenerate decks to a point, but I'm often glimpse drafting in smaller groups of 2-4 people so, it's not as much of a sure thing that an aggro deck will show up.

I've also put more emphasis on the gold section signposting the included archetypes. This will be an ongoing effort as there will still be good stuff gold cards that I'll always want to run. I'm looking at you Dragonlord Atarka. I'm pairing this down a bit. I wasn't thrilled with how 12 gold cards in each section played.

I've recently decided to start playing with more combos recently. The main reason is to keep things feeling explosive and reward knowing the cube and pulling these off. The combos in here aren't the most obvious but they are sweet and should be fun. They are listed below.

Combos added:

:
Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista
:
Thassa, Deep Dwelling + Archaeomancer + Time Warp
:
Archaeomancer + Time Warp + Ephemerate
Soulherder + Archaeomancer + Time Warp
:
Dualcaster Mage + Sublime Epiphany
Dualcaster Mage + Ghostly Flicker
:
Spike Feeder + Heliod + Sun-Crowned
:
Eternal Witness + Thassa, Deep Dwelling + Time Warp
:
Eternal Witness + Soulherder + Time Warp
:
Dualcaster Mage + Ghostly Flicker + Gonti, Lord of Luxury

This type of philosophy of fun but powerful cube things has brought me to where we are now. I feel I'm closer to the experience I'm looking to have than I have ever been. The times are exciting. While the power level is still high, the fun level is off the charts. Don't believe me? That's on you. Good luck sleeping at night.