Cloned from Tom's Commander Cube

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Table of Contents:

1. Rules Quick Guide
2. Overview
3. Archetypes
4. Draft/Commander Rules
5. Draft Primer

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RULES QUICK GUIDE

• Start with Command Tower, Commander's Sphere, Sol Ring, and The Prismatic Piper
• Draft 3 packs of 20, seeding 2 commanders in each pack
• Draft 2 cards at a time
• No color identity rules apply to cards drafted
• Players can only include basic lands of your commander's color identity
• Build a 60 card deck + general(s)
• Starting life totals are 40
• Commander damage is 21
• Friendly mulligan rules (first mulligan is free)

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OVERVIEW

Since the release of Commander Legends, this cube has became my greatest MtG project. This cube is designed to replicate a fun and engaging EDH experience that is new every time you sit down to play. Supporting upwards to 16 players, draft with your friends and break into 4-player pods.

Special thanks to @Y4N4ST0S for their contribution to helping maintain the cube and discuss edits. Link to their version of the cube here.

WHAT TO EXPECT

• Maintain the aesthetics of EDH: My number one priority when designing this cube was to curate an experience that closely replicates the feel of the Commander constructed environment. This means that I have maintained a number of sacred cows of the format. Cards are powerful, fun, splashy and decks should feel as though they were genuine-made Commander decks. To me, it isn't really Commander unless everyone has a Sol Ring, someone overloads a Cyclonic Rift, asks me to pay the for Smothering Tithe, or crashes in with a Craterhoof Behemoth for the win.

• Streamlined drafting and deck building rules: I tried to keep from deviating from the standard rules of Magic. The draft rules from Commander Legends are used here with little innovation to make the process as simple and intuitive as possible.

• Combat focused gameplay: the cube rewards combat to prevent boring board stalls and keep games shorter with effects like goad and monarch. I've pushed most archetypes into being aggressive in some way, such as curating with cards that heavily favor attacking for payoff and dampening the number of board wipes.

• Archetypes that are well-supported and overlap together: many of the 3-color generals exemplify this. Each of the archetypes should have interesting synergies with each other to keep drafting and gameplay smooth and fresh every time.

• Combos that reward creative deck building and player knowledge: combos exist but should be easy to interact with and require many pieces to achieve. I want combos to be a rare occurrence but vital to ensure that every game can end in a reasonable amount of time and decks don't devolve into boring good-stuff piles.

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ARCHETYPES

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This classic blink deck plays permanents with "enters the battlefield" effects and builds value by exiling them and returning them to the battlefield to re-trigger their effects.

Primary Theme: Blink, Flying
Secondary: Tokens, Control
Notable Generals: Tivit, Seller of Secrets, Pramikon, Sky Rampart, and Roon of the Hidden Realm

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This deck is an aggressive version of the theft strategy. It heavily rewards dealing damage to opponents in exchange for taking their spells and/or drawing cards.

Primary Theme: Theft, Tempo
Secondary: Copy Tokens, Control
Notable Generals: Sen Triplets, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, and Gonti, Canny Acquisitor

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No pain, no gain. This group-slug style deck wants you and your opponents to sacrifice permanents to gain value. While the core theme is sacrificing, many cards in this archetype also deal increments of damage and cause opponents to discard cards.

Primary Theme: Sacrifice, Treasure
Secondary: Burn, Discard
Notable Generals: Extus, Oriq Overlord, Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

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This deck is the go-tall stompy strategy. Ramp into large threats with attack and landfall triggers that put pressure on your opponents' life totals.

Primary Theme: Ramp, Stompy
Secondary: +1/+1 Counters, Tokens, Burn
Notable generals: Xyris, the Writhing Storm, Marisi, Breaker of the Coil, and Henzie "Toolbox" Torre

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This deck wants to go-wide with an onslaught of tokens. Utilize anthems and combat tricks to make an unbeatable army.

Primary Theme: Tokens
Secondary: +1/+1 Counters
Notable generals: Phabine, Boss's Confidant, Brenard, Ginger Sculptor, and Ghave, Guru of Spores

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This aristocrats style of play wants you to generate tokens or play creatures with death triggers and sacrifice them for greater value. There is a secondary strategy of life gain.

Primary Theme: Tokens, Sacrifice
Secondary: Life Gain, Reanimator, Control
Notable generals: Extus, Oriq Overlord, Tivit, Seller of Secrets, and Ghave, Guru of Spores

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This is the spell-slinging, combo-adjacent deck. Many of the cards in this archetype will care about the casting of non-creature spells and reward explosive turns where you cast many spells in succession.

Primary Theme: Spellslinger, Burn
Secondary: Tokens, Combo
Notable generals: Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Narset, Enlightened Exile, and Riku of Two Reflections

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This is the reanimator/morbid strategy. This archetype rewards you for putting cards in graveyards with discard and removal as well as allows you to use the graveyard as a resource to pull back from.

Primary Theme: Reanimator, Morbid
Secondary: Sacrifice, +1/+1 Counters, Tokens
Notable generals: Myrkul, Lord of Bones, Lord Windgrace, and Xavier Sal, Infested Captain

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This archetype is centered around aggression and controlling combat. It takes advantage of creatures with attack triggers, equipment to suit them up, and combat tricks.

Primary Theme: Aggro, Goad
Secondary: Equipment, Burn, Tokens
Notable generals: Marisi, Breaker of the Coil, Pramikon, Sky Rampart, and Isshin, Two Heavens as One

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This deck wants to ramp into big threats and make copy tokens of them. This deck also has a +1/+1 counter subtheme to support growing your creatures.

Primary Theme: Copy Tokens, Ramp
Secondary: +1/+1 Counters, Value
Notable generals: Riku of Two Reflections, Brenard, Ginger Sculptor, and Xavier Sal, Infested Captain

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DRAFT/COMMANDER RULES

Players draft 3 packs of 20 from the cube and build a deck of 60 + general(s) (commanders do not count toward your deck size), drafting two cards at a time.

Each pack is seeded with two legendary creatures from the Commander section of the cube. This section is in the "hybrid" column of the cube list, with each commander card being marked with the tag "Commander" and highlighted with a teal color.

Inspired by @dekkerglen 's Tiny Leaders cube, I have decided to alter the rules regarding color identity going forward. There are no restrictions on which cards you may include in your deck from the draft, however you may only include basic lands that are in your commander's color identity. This keeps the draft super open and rewards players for drafting mana fixing to splash spells they otherwise wouldn't be able to consider.

In order to replicate the feel of commander (and for the sake of balance and drafting freedom), it is vital that some staples be made available to all players. Players each start the draft with the following cards in their draft pool:

These cards may be added at the end of the draft when constructing your deck with the "Add Basic Lands" tool.

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DRAFT PRIMER

I've found that this cube does a really good job of appealing to different types of drafters. Newer players should have an easy time grabbing the first legendary creature they like and forcing a deck that should work fairly well, however, the draft environment doesn't have to be all "on-rails" as you might expect. I've developed a guide to the value drafter that should help players build nuanced, effective, and fun decks.

During the draft you should prioritize your picks effectively. The following guide is to help beginners with the cube accomplish this:

There are 4 major card types to look out for in packs 1 and 2.

1. Game Enders -- the highest priority are the game winning cards. This includes cards like Approach of the Second Sun, Expropriate, Rise of the Dark Realms, Insurrection, and Craterhoof Behemoth. These cards are first pick-able, as resolving one will usually result in a game win.

2. Fixing/Ramp -- Second is mana fixing. Both lands and rocks fit nicely here. It is often correct to pick these up before you are even locked into any colors, as the ability to cast your spells more consistently greatly increases your deck viability.

3. Commanders -- Third is your general. Many players will snap up legendary creatures immediately, passing up on cards that would otherwise greatly improve their deck. I find it is often best to make sure you aren't passing either of the first two categories of cards first before making a move into locking your deck's colors and strategy down. This does still need to be a high priority as your deck legality hinges on it.

4. Haymakers -- Finally are cards that, no matter what, will always make the cut and are strong signals that a color is open when passed. Notable cards in this category are Luminarch Ascension, Teferi's Protection, Smothering Tithe, Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, Deadeye Navigator, Reanimate, Bolas's Citadel, Revel in Riches, Dockside Extortionist, Etali, Primal Storm, Arcane Bombardment, Avenger of Zendikar, Triumph of the Hordes, and Oracle of Mul Daya.

After these conditions are met, you should begin looking for cards that fit your deck appropriately and help along your game-plan.