Clooney’s Machine
Context
This 450 card cube is meant to be played on paper, in 1v1 drafts. It is most commonly drafted in pods of 8-10.
Restrictions
Outside of multiple lands, the cube is singleton, and I've tried to maintain that in spirit as well. I try to minimize the number of duplicated effects and "strictly worse" cards in this environment, with few exceptions. No sets are off-limits, but I have not included conspiracies. When possible, I use modern borders and the card with the most up-to-date rules text for consistency purposes.
Custom Cards
This cube involves an amount of custom content. Care has been taken to balance these cards within their respective roles, with hefty inspiration and straight-up theft from Caleb Gannon's Powered Synergy Cube.
Power
This cube is (hopefully) tuned to a highly-specific power band. I want decks to feel quite strong, though not "broken." I've stayed away from the fastest mana options, preferring to keep all ramp effects constrained to green's slice of the color pie.
Effects which "cheat" mana are few. Reanimator is not supported.
Aristocrats, storm, Green rainbow, and lands-matter have all been given support, with the intention that these tools will lead to interesting board states and lines of play. My hope is that each color and archetype contains enough "bridge" cards that the draft never feels like it has rails.
Gameplay
For me, the most fun part of MtG is the tactical decision-making and branching gameplans. Reducing color screw is important, and as such have a robust set of lands available to draft. A strong deck should rarely have more than 3 colors, and doing so should require a hefty investment in draft picks. The exception is the Green-centered greedy "rainbow" deck, which will look to cards like Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and The Prismatic Bridge for payoffs.
I want to support games with a lot of decision points, and as such am not shy about encouraging the occasional grindy deck. However, it's important for "fair" decks to exist, and that aggro should be able to keep greedy decks in check.
Cube Updated – Automatic Post
Mercia posted to Clooney’s Machine -
Mainboard Changelist+0, -0
- Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
- Tireless Tribe
- Flicker of Fate
- Second Sunrise
- Brought Back
- Glass Casket
- Flying Men
- Cabal Therapist
- Cauldron Familiar
- Grim Lavamancer
- Mons's Goblin Waiters
- Electrostatic Infantry
- Falkenrath Gorger
- Birgi, God of Storytelling
- Desperate Ritual
- Magmatic Insight
- Pyretic Ritual
- Groundskeeper
- Noble Hierarch
- Noble Hierarch
- Noble Hierarch
- Noble Hierarch
- Antique Collector
- Biophagus
- Fecundity
- Glimpse of Nature
- Contraband Kingpin
- Welding Jar
- Fodder Cannon