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Hello! Welcome to my own thematic twist on the classic "draft your lands" Desert Cube, inspired by the Desert theme in the Amonkhet block. There are heavy Cycling/Discard, Graveyard, and Desert themes from Amonkhet, plus MDFC lands and Landfall effects from Zendikar as I wanted lands to be especially important in both the draft and the play environment.

Thanks to all of the cycling, it is possible to draft a monocolor, color pair, or tricolor deck. This primer is intended to familiarize you with each of the color pair's themes and main cards that support its goals. There is currently no incentive to play more than 3 colors beyond having powerful multicolor cards, and it is generally not recommended.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This cube is designed to be drafted 18 cards per pack, players may not add ANY lands from outside the draft. The lands you draft are all you have available for deckbuilding.

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Table of Contents:

1. The Story
2. Cycling/Flicker
3. Discard Mill
4. Haste Aggro
5. Landfall
6. Tokens and Counters
7. Life and Death
8. Wizard Tempo
9. Undergrowth
10. Weenie Aggro
11. Self-Mill/Delirium
12. The Land Cycles

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After Nicol Bolas destroyed all known civilization on Amonkhet, and used his eternal army and zombie gods to invade Ravnica, the plane still had survivors trapped in a harsh, zombie-filled desert and only one god remaining to protect them. Elsewhere, Zendikar was devastated in the wake of the Eldrazi titans, with mana bonds weaker than ever before, and the expeditionary houses struggled just to survive. These two planes, shadows of their former selves, found their fates intertwined by an unknown force, and just as Rath was overlaid onto Dominaria: the dunes, undead, and survivors of Amonkhet were transported to Zendikar, burying the jungles, seas, and hedrons in miles of desert sand.

For the Zendikari, there are now all-new temples and landscapes to explore, new treasures and traps to discover, and their refuges become some of the only safe havens untouched by undead rising from fields of sand. The survivors of Amonkhet find themselves in a land more bountiful and verdant than they ever dared to imagine, no longer trapped in ruins at the center of an endless wasteland. And what's more, legends thought lost to time on other planes entirely have started walking in from the wastes with no memory of what brought them to this strange new world. Is this some final contingency plan from Nicol Bolas, now seemingly defeated? Has something, or someone else, brought them here for a larger purpose? Or are they simply another mirage?

Mysteries lie beneath every dune in... The Amonkar Desert.

You can read the first chapter of this story here!

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If built as purely Cycling, this can be one of the most straightforward archetypes, rewarding you for drawing cards and for discarding them. Simply collecting the most cards possible with these words on them, with the right colors of lands to support it, can lead to a cohesive deck. Simple draw payoffs like Ominous Seas or an engine like Bygone Bishop or Dennick help round out a deck full of the cycling keyword.

For those looking to get a little fancier, there is also a UW blink deck possible, with cards like Ninth Bridge Patrol, Archaeomancer, and Deadeye Harpooner. A UW counters deck can also potentially come together if you find the right blue cards, like Flourishing Fox, Sage of Fables, or Chasm Skulker.

Most color pairs have the ability to put together a cycling deck of some kind, and the same is true of landfall. The UW landfall deck would look something like Ruin Ghost or Retreat to Emeria and a payoff like Hedron Crab. Also note that with Retreat to Coralhelm and the Ghost, you can landfall over and over until you run out of W each turn.

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This pair can be a bit tricky, as sometimes it's more advantageous to mill yourself for effects like Vile Manifestation, but your win-con will mostly be running your opponent out of cards before yourself. As the graveyard is important to almost every color here, you will want to pick up an exile effect such as Rotten Reunion, Scarab Feast, or Scavenger Grounds.

Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer points toward the more discard/cycling centric control plan, and since he lets you cheat normal timing, sort of turns Cycling into a "Flash+Draw" kicker cost. Enablers like Scuttletide and Skirk Ridge Exhumer meet payoffs like Drake Haven and Feast of Sanity to keep the churning profitable all game long.

A Zombie tribal deck exists in theory, although the payoffs are mostly limited to Embalmer's Tools, Varina, Lich Queen, Undead Alchemist and Cryptbreaker.

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Despite being 'mindless aggro', this pair often requires some careful planning. You have to manage which cards to discard that could be used later by effects like Unearth, Claim//Fame, or Chainer as well as whether to cycle or hold cards like Viscera Dragger and Dash or cast creatures like Goblin Heelcutter. All this on top of also drafting enough lands for your spells and removal for enemy roadblocks can make for unique blend of aggro pressure and tempo control.

The BR Cycling deck wants to find effects like Ruthless Sniper, Vile Manifestation, and Drannith Stinger. This leads more toward tempo plays and chipping in haste damage where possible than the all-in aggro plan above.

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Another pair on the simpler side, this is the one most adept at pulling out of mana screw and benefitting from mana flood. Early game cards like Merfolk Branchwalker and Edge of Autumn can help find the lands necessary to get the deck running, then late-game cards like Devour in Flames or Mina and Denn can keep the landfall triggers flowing even after lands in hand have run out. Ancient Greenwarden and Moraug, Fury of Akoum offer excellent options as finishers.

There are a few alternatives for this color, tokens with Khalni Garden and Saproling Migration plus Battle Cry Goblin and Raid Bombardment, maybe a cycling deck if you get Invigorating Boon early enough, but for the most part Landfall will be the deck to build here.

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The primary deck for this pair is a 'board growth' archetype that is focused on widely spreading boosts across a wide team of creatures. The signpost Darien anthems all of the tokens and can sacrifice himself to save them, but also is a mana sink to grow himself and the board gradually.

A landfall deck is possible here with Ruin Ghost, although most of the payoffs are even more tokens and counters as seen on Tireless Tracker, Retreat to Emeria, and Retreat to Kazandu. A Cycling plan should generally be avoided except to feed an Invigorating Boon.

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This pair is the least well-defined, and has perhaps the highest deck diversity across drafts. There is a token angle with Start//Finish and the various Zombie and Spirit producers, there is a life-gain angle with Retreat to Hagra, Lunarch Veteran, and the white Desert support cards Solitary Camel and Desert's Hold. With Teysa specifically an aristocrats plan can come together with various effects like Wretched Camel and hopefully a Bastion of Remembrance. A long game that slowly grinds life and resources out of your opponent is the general plan.

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Gathering instant and sorcery spells, cycling cards, and Wizards shouldn't be too difficult and many of them can fit together to achieve different goals. The red Wizards like Irencrag Pyromancer and Rockslide Sorcerer can provide direct damage, while the blue Wizards like Windrider Wizard and Sage of Fables can sculpt your hand of answers. Adaptability and reaction to the enemy strategy is the name of the Wizarding game.

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Filling up the grave and reaping the rewards is the key focus here. Grim Discovery and Grapple with the Past can help us find the lands we need to get the ball rolling, and then payoff cards like Urborg Lhurgoyf and Spider Spawning can close out the game in no time. This is one of the few decks I would recommend to hate pick while drafting, since Scavenger Grounds or Scarab Feast can really set you back. You might even take Repopulate so that it isn't used against you and also as an emergency reset if you mill too far.

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Good old fashioned go-wide tokens and weenies aggro: fill the board, then swing and pump! The deck focuses on creatures with low power, so the curve will generally be low as well with some removal to back up the team. A cycling deck can work here as well, especially with Valiant Rescuer or Spirit Cairn filling out the board. So too can landfall, with Retreat to Emeria and Valakut Exploration. A number of the lands themselves also function as extra body makers, especially Kher Keep, Memorial to Glory, and Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance.

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This pair is actually just as much about self-mill as Black/Green, but rather than a big finish from counting all the creatures in the graveyard, typically either slowly buries the opponent in advantage, or strikes quickly with aggro beaters like Nightveil Sprite, Gnarlwood Dryad, or Moldgraf Scavenger. An early Tracker's Instincts, Merfolk Secretkeeper, or Compelling Argument can turn on Delirium very quickly! Slogurk supports the slower plan, and encourages you to find Deserts more than most color pairs, as those with cycling or that sacrifice for a trigger give it counters and can be brought back when it leaves. If you run out of cards and the opponent is still alive, Words of Wilding and Laboratory Maniac can be perfect payoffs at the very end.

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Amonkhet duals and Triomes (Cycling cycles) - The bread and butter of the set. I couldn't be happier with the fact that there is an ally-color set of cyclers and a wedge set to compliment it, so each color-pair is represented exactly twice across all ten cards.

Horizon lands - These provide good mana fixing with some pain, and can be recycled later, often working with the themes of land recursion or delirium.

Lairs - These 'drawback lands' do it all: double your landfall triggers, can pick up MDFC lands to cast the spell side, come in untapped and provide three whole colors, what's not to love?

Cycling Deserts - I originally had both these and the Forgotten cave cyclers, with the desert versions upside in them being deserts, but when it came time for cuts I realized it just made thematic sense to have the namesake lands be the more prevalent and lasting cycle to keep.

"Sacrifice a Desert" Deserts - In some ways the cube was built around Amonkhet's themes, but a few like Embalm and most -1/-1 counters don't make it. So while these lands usually suit decks perfectly, Ifnir Deadlands is one of only a handful of cards to use -1/-1 counters. Though usually, it kills the target and doesn't cause any confusion.

Zendikar lands - I love the versatility of these, especially with cards like Ruin Ghost turning them into repeatable tricks. Soaring Seacliff giving an enemy flying for a Shredded Sails or Thornado is priceless.

Dominaria lands - Dredge from Dakmor Salvage fuels the graveyard strategies and can provide a reliable extra land as needed, Keldon Megaliths can be activated in response to cycling your last card, and Llanowar Reborn's +1/+1 counter can be reset with flicker, recursion, or even proliferate. Memorial to Glory suits the WR and WG decks the most but works for any White deck. And finally Cephalid Coliseum can give you draw triggers, discard triggers, or even force a milled-out opponent to lose!

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In closing, thank you very much for your time and interest! I've been iterating with this cube for several years and although it may never be finished, the process itself has been a joy.

Header image art by Deltakosh

Full credit to Maramas (a.k.a. u/JuliusVinaigrette on Reddit) for both inspiring the writing of this primer and teaching me many methods for making it look nice. Their excellent primer article is here.