Budget EDH cube

This cube was created in the late summer of 2024. It does include some more expensive cards I had lying around, but those are exceptions. The main philosophy of the cube is to support slower EDH games with an emphasis on combat and battlefield presence. Each colour pair has a clear theme but also includes a commander outside of that theme to embrace more nuanced drafting. To push the variability further, each colour has four partner commanders, each colour triplet has a build-around commander, and there are four 5-colour commanders to support varying playstyles.

Main philosophy

• No player should snowball out of reach in the early turns. Thus the average mana value is quite high and fast mana is minimal. Ramp should be interactable, i.e. only selected land-ramp options.
• One game should not take too long. Drafting is a time expense in itself, and shorter games are more easily accommodated.
• Combat and board presence should be relevant. No instant win combos and the card pool is selected to emphasize combat while limiting board wipes.
• Player choices should be present throughout the draft and game. This is a rather vague philosophy, but one concrete part of the idea is to prevent stalemates where no player can act.

Draft ruleset

Currently, the main ruleset is:

• 4 packs of 18 cards
• 2 picks per pack
• 60 card decks
• One free The Prismatic Piper for each player after draft
• 30 life at the start
• 16 commander damage is lethal
• Normal colour identity rules apply

The main point of contention has been pack size and count. With 4-5 drafters, 4 packs of 18 has been a good place where pivoting and drafting 5-colour decks is possible, but being able to pick an open 2-colour lane is still powerful. These can be changed to accommodate a larger player count and varying levels of experience among players.

Archetypes

These are the main two-colour archetypes. In addition to these archetypes, each colour pair has one off-theme commander supported, each colour triplet has one build-around commander, and there are four five-color commanders.

Azorius Flicker ()

Dimir Evasive threats ()

Rakdos Sacrifice ()

Gruul Stompy ()

Selesnya Enchantments ()

Orzhov Lifegain ()

Izzet Spellslinger ()

Golgari Graveyard ()

Boros Artifact aggro ()

Simic +1/+1 counters ()