ISD-ODY-AKH set cube

Born of my love affair with the two blocks that defined my magic playing career: Odyssey and Innistrad. The overarching theme for both blocks is graveyards, so it was an easy fit to bash the two together. Amonkhet was added to be complimentary and fix the gaps to try and make a playable cube.

Design goals/restrictions:

• Built as a set cube to emulate retail draft experience: 19 commons per color/12 uncommons per color/6 rares per color. With drafting, this means drafting it with seeded packs: 10 commons/3 uncommons/1 rare.
• Powerlevel at ODY levels, also known as the Threshold-must-be-playable rule. 2 mana for a 2/2 is an exceptional rate for creatures. Finding equivalent power and toughness at 3 mana or above will not happen outside of Green or triggering a keyword like Threshold. Rares can break this rule (ie Curator of Mysteries)
• No ETB effects, we die like men.
• Limiting non-evergreen keywords to keep drafts streamlined for newer players.
• Graveyard is the central theme across the cube. Each color pair has archetypes, but all cards overlap and will incidentally use or enable graveyard strategies through keywords (cycling, flashback, etc.).
• Archetype specific payoffs are generally at uncommon or rare to make most commons playable in most decks.
• Heavy focus on synergy rather than individually powerful cards.

Engines and synergy:

Many cards that seem innocuous at first play key pieces to enable various engines. By design, these cards tend to be found at common, and can be made more powerful combined with the right uncommons and rares.

Design notes:

The problem with building this thing was, of course, that Odyssey is well over twenty years old, and power has crept up continuously in that time. The main design goal of this cube is to make cards from Odyssey block draftable. This means the power level of the average card is abysmally low. This is magic from an age where creatures were awful and slow. This is an enviroment where Battlewise Aven and Werebear need to be playable and strong picks.

Another key problem to overcome was deciding what to do with White. While white has access to a number of playable threshold cards like Mystic Zealot, it has next to no ways of filling the graveyard. Thankfully, Magic design has been evolving for the past twenty years, so leaning on other colours for self milling is easy and plentiful in this cube, with cards like Faithless Looting, Deranged Assistant, Mulch, or Corpse Churn.

Luckily, we have one more block to lean on: Amonkhet. A hefty dose of cycling support, and embalm to give Azorius a much needed identity, as the tribal themes from Innistrad have never really interested me. Embalm and Eternalize can rub elbows with the likes of Nimble Mongoose just fine.

One thing I have decided on is breaking singleton, and building this cube as a kitbashed set cube. It's meant to be drafted with 9 commons per pack, 3 uncommons, 1 rare/mythic, and one non-basic land. The reason why I've done so is because the number of playable cards from ODY is paltry, so going singleton would dillute that far too much. Limiting the number of uncommons and rares also greatly lowers the overal powerlevel of the cube, while still allowing for a rare bomb like Archfiend of Ifnir or Curator of Mysteries to feel like a big splashy rare that will decide games.