Lower powered cubes are about finding small edges and driving them home. Often built on small two for ones or out drawing your opponent, you will find yourself enjoying games with lots of decision points during the draft and in game play.
Let's get the archetypes:
Azorius
Skys: I tried not to push forward this archetype that much, since flying is already quite strong in this meta. Get your evasive creatures and pump them for the win. This is also the core of the blink archetype.
ETB matters: Drafting creatures with strong enters the battlefield effects grants you tons of value while developing your board. Get some blink/flicker effects like Ephemerate and your resources will be game ending.
Orzhov
Tokens:Death by 20 cuts is the name of the game. This will grind the opponent out by sacrifice combined with control elements.
Control: One of the three control archetypes, I have given BW control the only monarch card of the cube with Knights of the Black Rose. Removals and creatures such as Seeker of the Way will do the trick.
Boros
Equipment Matters: One of the newer additions to the cube. Most of the equipment can be played outside the equipment deck or will come in with creatures are being created with them, example,Barbed Batterfist. Bladehold War-Whip , Kazuul's Toll Collector.
Weenies: Small aggro decks are just amazing. Easy to build, hard to disrupt. Goblin Bushwhacker pumping your army will bring the game to a quick end.
Selesnya
General Creature Midrange: This deck can go toe to toe with most fair decks in the meta. It can go wide with tokens while also going bigger than other white based fair decks.
Kitchen Finks also enables an infinite life combo in the deck.
This guild is probably the least supported in the cube.
Dimir
Control: This is your classic slow control deck of counter spells and removal with a sticky threat to finish the opponent off. This deck can have a cheeky win with
Laboratory Maniac as the finisher.
Discard Matters: This color combo also combines some synergy to create some extra payoffs for discarding cards. Windfall and Dark Deal act as a disruptive plan while also fueling the decks strategy.
Izzet
Draw Two Dot Deck: Izzet decks often build themself in any format. This deck has the classic token producers like
Young Pyromancer and
Murmuring Mystic to go wide while dealing out burn and counter your opponent's spells. This would be the closest thing to a tempo deck this cube can produce.
Simic
Ramp: You will be able to throw the strongest creatures of this cube at your opponent's face in no time. Some of you might also know that
Tatyova, Benthic Druid is a huge pet card of mine. After
Rampant Growth-ing into the sixth mana, nothing will stop you.
Rakdos
Sacrifice: Get your creatures to the dump for profit. The more expandable the creatures, the best. Add some strong recursion creatures, like
Reassembling Skeleton to make the party complete.
Midrange: Black and Red are equipped with so many efficient creatures and great removals it was impossible not to have this archetype. This can take many different forms and shapes from making tokens or just straight value 2 for 1s with your cards.
Golgari
Graveyard Matters: Another classic making it to the cube. Once again, black's efficiency creates another archetype. This time, you will be able to extract tons of value from yard, since it has the most efficient grave filling cards, such as
Satyr Wayfinder. Play this as the old midrange BG Rock deck with strong grave synergies. This may not be the fastest deck, but surely is the most resilient.
Spiders: A small extra payoff for committing to the gold cards.
Gruul
Beat Down: A more aggressively slanted creature midrange deck. Small aggressive creatures, burn spells, occasional pump and protection, turn everything sideways and crash through any defenses. Often sacrifices staying power for speed.
Combo: This color pair also enables infinite damage with Murderous Redcap, Grumgully, the Generous/Rhythm of the Wild, plus a sacrifice outlet.
Another new addition to the cube. This archetype gives you pay offs in a few yet very powerful cards in the form of
Gates Ablaze,
Guild Summit, and
Saruli Gatekeepers. Land fetchers in the cube have been shifted to get gate cards as well to help support this archetype. This deck can branch into multiple colors with Simic being the main ones with some white and red splashes. This is not an archetype to force but more just a "if you grab one of the pay offs early it can reward you for taking a slower mana base."