LAST UPDATED: 3/4/25 W/ DRT

Present-day Magic is a different game. Cards like Fable of the Mirror-breaker, Reckoner Bankbuster, and Wedding Announcement completely redefine what it means to be a Magic card in 202X for better or for worse. Regardless, here we are taking new magic and rolling with it to… infinity!

Over the years I’ve felt a congealment of overall cube design towards a rather “optimal” drafting experience with preferences splashed in here and there. I am a player who has multiple friends with cubes, and so, to provide a different play experience than the majority of unpowered Vintage or Legacy+ cubes, I stumbled onto a wildly different design philosophy for this cube. Infinite Cube is designed to be different: to be a new and exciting play experience unlike any other.

The general design philosophy of the “Infinite Cube” is to lean into Magic’s modern approach of pushing the complex design space of cards by tapping into uncharted waters. Thus, many mechanics and unique designs. Here, in the Infinite Cube, we have taken this idea to its extreme and replaced all simple one-for-one cards like Counterspell or Doom Blade with more complex cards like Forbid or virtue of persistence. The reasoning behind this boils down to two main purposes:

1. To make every draft pick exciting and feel big. The removal of “filler” good cards for more complex cards accomplishes this goal.
2. To increase the decisions throughout a game. I find games with more options and more depth to be more fun.

Therefore, Infinite Cube is very complicated and is not for everyone: it is designed for veteran players who have a deep understanding of the game, people who are open-minded to new experiences and enjoy a challenge, or players who like complex game-states like Commander provides.

Now let’s talk about the self-imposed design rules and constraints. Imagine an uncountably infinite deck of cards and life totals. In this theoretical space, which cards can persist forever? Which cards will always, eventually, provide you with some sort of value?

For a card to be considered for inclusion in this cube, it must, given infinite time, either generate infinite cardboard, infinitely interact, get infinite big, infinitely affect the board (current AND future, like an anthem for example), or deal infinite damage (not including combat damage) while ignoring certain limitations of mana, life, graveyard, deck size, turns, and either player’s cardboard in play. Obviously, this is rather theoretical and games certainly do not go on ad infinitum (thank god). In actuality, games tend to play out as you would expect a normal game of magic to because there is an intense focus on injected interaction in the Infinity Cube due to the removal of single-use spells.

There are some exceptions to the rule just stated. Lands are necessary to the game and most of the time don’t follow this rule. Therefore, lands are exempt from the rule and, by extension, cards that always get lands are exempt as well, but are still considered higher if they lend themselves to the core design philosophies like den of the bugbear or horizon canopy. Luckily, this means we can cheat a little bit and play a few “single-use spells” like bad counterspell: jwari’s disruption and bad doom blade: fell the profane. These cards also are still great examples of adding meaningful decisions to a game. Another “exception” is theft effects like control magic because they can almost always be used on a creature that fits the infinite clause. Lastly, cards that get other cards are exempt because they will always lead you to something that fits the criteria. Although, these cards are carefully selected. Cantrips such as brainstorm and ponder are excluded despite them counting according to this rule. As are simple draw cards like thraben inspector and wall of roots because they do not mesh with the design philosophies of the cube; think censor or lethal scheme for more on-brand draw-exception cards because they either give meaningful options and/or interact. The recent discover mechanic is a great example of these cards that get other cards such as contest of claws and trumpeting carnosaur. Another good example is gix’s command: a complex card with many choices and different situational uses that can simply get a creature to remain “infiniteable”. As you can see, this exception is almost exclusively reserved for interaction.

There are obvious cards that work without any exceptions under these rules like tireless tracker or teferi, hero of dominaria. For the former, every time you draw and play a land you can grow him and draw again. For the latter, it is self-contained: no land needs to be played; if it’s there, it will give you an extra card once a turn. Both forms are allowed in the cube because, within an infinite game, you will always eventually find a land to get value out of Tracker infinitely. This premise could technically be applied to almost anything. For example, a spell can theoretically be recurred infinitely and a creature with an ETB can be infinitely flickered. These do not count because if you are just drawing a regrowth every turn and playing the same spell every turn then you are never generating additional value in the way Tracker does with lands or Teferi does by himself. With this said, there are a few cards included in the cube that are often “single-use” or “limited-uses” by themselves but also have neat abilities that allow them to go infinite with specific cards. Such as:

Virtue of Courage + Walking Ballista

Wicked Wolf + Oko, Thief of Crowns

vampire hexmage + any battle

These cards certainly can be multi-use even without these specific interactions but are rarely infinite outside of their specific combinations. Another exception is made for these fence cases.

This is a high-power environment and not all cards are created equal. That said, I try to only include cards that I believe to be powerful in the environment and not too pushed, and cards are considered under the unique context of this cube.

Cards that do many things are prominent, so that novel gameplay can happen and the play experience can feel fresh every time. “Minigames” are heavily featured, including Planeswalkers, and Battles. For the 360 version most monarch and initiative cards were unfortunately cut despite their emphasis on combat and inherent infinitum.

Complexity is obviously at an all-time high in this cube, and that isn’t done without hesitation. Needless complexity is avoided when possible, but richness of options takes priority.

Despite the emphasis on infinity, there is currently no infinite combo in the cube (that I know of) and that is done intentionally because of the limited access to countermagic.

Additionally, cards that are over-warping or generally become “game-overs” unless dealt with quickly are avoided. Even if they are perfectly infinite. Such as, sheoldred, the apocalypse and bonehoard dracosaur. Planeswalkers are given extra attention due to this as well.

A quick note on the expanded version: Infinite Cube - I don’t get consistent 8 pods for draft so I value keeping the cube as lean as possible while leaving the option for 8 available so 360 works best for me, but ideally I would go a bit higher if I was drafting with 8 every week. So I keep this expanded version for that (IT IS NOT UP TO DATE, THIS IS THE REGULARLY UPDATED VERSION).

Quick note on the maybeboard: I use the maybeboard for both cards I have tested and taken out (and generally wouldn’t put back into the 360 card environment but maybe would include in a larger cube) and also for cards I have not tested but didn’t make the cut. It is mostly used just as a reference/reminder for myself.

Battles

Battles are what inspired this cube because they allow for “spell-like-effects” to be played without the need for them to be single-use. Removal and board wipe battles perfectly slot in and fix some gaps.

Planeswalkers

Planeswalkers by nature fit the requirement of infinite. However, too many planewalkers can lead to poor play experiences. Therefore, included walkers are limited to specific ones that interact or lend themselves to particular archetypes like nissa, voice of zendikar to tokens or vivien, champion of the wilds to flash. Furthermore, certain slow cards that technically infinitely acquire value but don’t commit to the board in any way like phyrexian arena are also specifically avoided.

Snow

Lastly, for mechanics, all basic lands are snow. This is only currently relevant for ascendant spirit and faceless haven, but it is an extremely low opportunity cost as it doesn’t have any other affect on gameplay to just make the basics snow.

Midrange

An unfortunate by-product of this design means the exclusion of archetypes I have loved in the past such as “spells matter”, “flicker”, and “classic control”. Spells are mostly cut in favor of permanents. However, that doesn’t mean a lack of interaction: instant speed or otherwise. Interaction is heavily prioritized. Cards like the wandering emperor, attrition, outland liberator, and much more are great examples of the board-controlling cards favored over traditional simple-texted spells.

Any combination of colors can, and has, made strongly successful ranges of midrange to tap-out control. Between tri-lands and landscapes 3 color decks are encouraged and very common.

Tap Out Control

Use value generation, removal, and board control effects to protect yourself and overpower in the late game.

Aggro: The Rack

Just because there isn’t room for Isamaru, Hound of Konda doesn’t mean there isn’t room for aggro.

No duress, no thoughtseize? No problem! The Rack deck is heaping with activators and payoffs. Pair them with an efficient creature clock and you’ve got a recipe to punish any greedy deck.

Aggro: Red-deck-wins OR Goblins

What’s better than infinite value? Infinite damage! Punish greed with fire.

Aggro: Attackin’ Wheenies

A historic aggro deck: white weenies, but with a fun new package of multiple-creatures-attacking-at-once-upside.

Theft Control

Primary:
Secondary:

Why counter spells when you can steal them? Theft Control is all about protecting yourself by seizing your opponent’s offense for yourself, thanks friend: yoink!

Fight Green

Primary:
Secondary:

Who said green can’t interact? time to FIGHT!

Ramp

Primary:
Secondary:

No llanowar elves, no birds of paradise. Fast mana proved to be exceptionally strong in this cube. Even cards like cultivate were pushing ramp or just Gruul Monsters over the top too quickly. Therefore, the guaranteed ramp now starts at turn 4 in the cube. Find ways of generating additional mana earlier with cards like shigeki, jukai visionary or deeproot wayfinder and leverage your ramp into a game-breaking finisher card like cityscape leveler or ugin, the spirit dragon.

Tokens

Primary:
Secondary:

Go quick and go wide! Going wide with tokens is a great way to beat the midrange curve/value if that’s your thing.

Flash

Primary:

Simic Flash is centered around disruption, card advantage, and infinite wolves, this tricky deck offers a nice tempo archetype that was seemingly lacking before. There are a plethora of cool flash creatures and instant speed activated abilities to use as you continue to generate value with Vivien or nightpack ambusher.

Artifacts

Primary:
Secondary:

Artifacts are the epitome of grindy value! Use cards like steel overseer or legion extruder to slowly amass a formidable board stronger than your opponent’s. Alone they are innocuous, but together they are strong.

In general, multicolor cards are chosen based on this loose framework:

Azorious - control, tempo
Dimir - control, mid
Rakdos - mid, aggro
Gruul - mid (incl. fight), ramp
Selesnya - tokens, mid
Orzhov - aggro, control
Izzet - tempo, artifacts, control (steal)
Golgari - mid
Boros - aggro, mid, tokens
Simic - mid, tempo (incl. flash)

This cube is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, obviously, and that’s okay. I’ve drafted a lot at this point and have refined it to a point where it works really well and my play group has a ton of fun with it. Who knows what our future of Magic holds, and the possibilities for games like this one within this beloved game of ours are endless. Go forth and enjoy infinity!

This is the forced 360 version for my personal drafts, Cards are cut which would otherwise be great includes. The initiative is a notable cut, it facilitates my gameplay goals but generally can be too snowbally.

Note on alters and such: sorry if it makes it more difficult for you to parse through the cube, but I use this as a digital organizer for my IRL cube so I try to keep it the same. I’m a collector too, and label cards “premium owned” when I have the most premiere version and have notes attached to specific cards that are signed or artist proofs/ones with pieces on them by the artists.