Art by Dan Murayama ScottOriginally, I made this cube with cards that were sitting in my bulk box plus things sitting in my trade binder, which had been there for some time. I got sad looking at some of my favorite cards sitting around doing nothing. After sifting through bulk to find more playables, what is now the Treasure Cube was born.
The cube seeks to be a powerful, quick experience for veteran and unexperienced drafters. As such, you won't find crazy infinite combos or storm piles here.* However, this cube contains a plethora of powerful and iconic cards, coupled with favorites of mine from limited formats of the distant past--cards that I treasure, if you will.
Archetypes are a bit loose. What is below is a good suggestion on where to go with different two-color combinations, but that doesn't mean there isn't support for other playstyles in those colors. Furthermore, there are (currently) no three-color cards, but that doesn't mean you can't play those color combinations.
- Blink - Flicker your creatures in order to abuse their powerful enter the battlefield triggers and control the flow of the game
- Control - With powerful counterspells, removal, and discard, stop your opponents from playing Magic
- Graveyard Aggro - Utilizing powerful early game threats and recursion, quickly reduce your opponent's life total to 0 so you can go get a snack in between rounds
- Stompy Monsters - Ramp into and cast/build explosive threats that can punch through any defenses
- Tokens - Using manadorks, lifegain enablers, and token generators, stay alive until you can amass enough creatures to win
- Death and Taxes - Control the flow of the game by playing creatures and wraths that slow down your opponent's gameplan until you can get the upper hand
- Spellslinger - Creatures not your thing? Do you enjoy doing math? Cast a bunch of instants and sorceries to trigger powerful abilities and maybe storm off in the process
- Reanimator - Putting cards into your graveyard can be a good thing! Reanimate game-ending threats without paying your fair share
- Aggro/Burn - Don't worry about your opponent's expensive spells, after a few burn spells and aggressive, efficient creatures they will never have a chance to cast them
- Tempo - Flash in your threats and answer everything your opponent throws at you with something better until they run out of steam
*There are TWO infinite combos, and they are both Kiki-Jiki-based classics:
For newer drafters, here are some of the highest-valued first picks in the cube by color:
The other night I finished my bar prep before 10 pm, so I made changes to the cube but didn't make a blog post.
Not that anyone really reads these anyway.
I decided on some minor changes based on cards that I think will improve the cube.
- Qarsi Revenant was an immediate consideration when Tarkir Dragonstorm released, but I was really stuck between cutting Nighthawk Scavenger or having two very similar cards. In the end, I decided while the upside of Nighthawk Scavenger having Tarmogoyf-esque power, the Revenant has more utility from its controller's graveyard and the Scavenger being based solely on your opponent's graveyard didn't give a huge amount of agency to the player. Sometimes it was incidentally huge, but most games it was around 3 power. In that case, the Revenant is the cooler include because giving any creature deathtouch in the cube can let you do some sweet stuff.
- Gruul Spellbreaker was a Gruul card that served two primary purposes: it was a three drop and it shut off Settle the Wreckage. Turns out that's not very impressive in the year of our lord 2025. I had this cool Wolverine, Best There Is sitting in my binder and now green has a pretty sick target for pump spells and equipment. Very excited about this change pushing me toward a different kind of GR deck (one that maybe doesn't pack one get Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes lol).
- Werewolf Pack Leader was a weird one that isn't supremely powerful and has been around since this was a cube purely made out of my bulk (not that it isn't still mostly just crap I owned and then later bling for that crap). I like this card but I was in the minority, and green hasn't been particularly in high demand in pods recently. In my never-ending quest to make GW tokens good, I have elected to put in Twitching Doll. Its a mana dork that gets scarier the longer it sticks. I am afraid of dolls though irl.
Other thoughts
Other than these changes, I did receive some art upgrades. This cube is now so blinged out after only being a random side project that I'm really happy. Some balance in the cube concerns me a little bit, namely Black being incredibly powerful as a mono-color shell and a very solid splash. Psychic Frog continues to be a reason to be in UB, which is fine in my book, especially with how strong some of the removal is in this cube. None of the free spells I have chosen have seemed particularly egregious yet, though I have seen a Pyrokinesis kill three mana dorks on turn 3, which was tough. Overall pretty happy with the cube as it stands and while I may not get to play it for another few months due to bar prep, I have something to look forward to. Until next time.