Art by Nils HammThe hybrid devotion cube: AKA The Dream Realm of Niv-Mizzet
Bound by being the Living Guildpack, Niv-Mizzet has been trapped on Ravnica for a while now. The stress of leadership and defending a realm that has seen its fair share of action since his ascension was achieved. It's constant work, and he is happy to do it. But it can be draining, and harnessing the immense powers of the plane as the Living Guildpack has resulted in more than one unintended consequence. His home is a museum to his accomplishments, filled with some of the multiverse's most powerful, sophisticated, and delicate artifacts. He can often be found marveling as his collection feeding that inner dragon hoarder instincts brings him much solace.
One day engaged in one of those many battles we mentioned before Ol Mizzy used a little too much juice, and overdid it. While recuperating from winning the day and being the badass he is, he comes home exhausted and passes out. Hard. Iin the corner of the room a tiny silver box starts making watch-like ticking noises. As the eyes of a giant brass skull hanging on the wall begins to glow a deep purple. A voice rises from deep inside the skull as if from a deep well. It sounded dry and raspy and ancient.
“It’s harvest time”
Niv-Mizzet found himself frozen in place. This might have been an issue for a mortal, but as an avatar of the realm this was not that big a problem. The Problem was being trapped in a dream realm conjured from the remains of the artifacts used to resurrect his spirit from the dead. Those items have channeled a new spirit from across the void. Something let it out and it wants to destroy everything. He is driven to possess Niv-Mizzet and use his power to carry out some nightmarish plot.
The Dream Realm is very bizarre to Niv-Mizzet. It has a vibrant colorful glow, with a dark inky black edge at the horizon. Everywhere he looks mana is fused together in familiar combinations, but he has never seen such an abundance. He finds it fascinating, he can feel the power of the Guildpack here, but also he feels an almost constant dizzy sensation. As if he is being spun around in circles. He is haunted by seeing so many recognizable faces, but something is wrong with everyone here. They don't seem to want to work together. Instead, the citizens in this realm only seem to care about one thing. Their devotion to the Leyline. Everyone must stay connected to the Leyline or face the darkness at the edge. If they wander too far away from the Leylines they fear death is waiting for them. Death is a strong motivator here. As Niv peers out into the inky edges he sees shadows. Some look menacing and statue-like while other shadows flit about quickly and silently. He cannot sense a connection to them. That has him a little concerned as all of this is in his head. Isn't it?
WHAT IT IS!
This is a 60 card singleton cube designed around the use of hybrid mana and mono color devotion. Players draft 4 - 16 card packs and build a 60 card pile to take on their opponent.
Each pack contains 1 random card from each of the 16 card pools.
The 16 pools are:
10 dual color hybrid combo cards
5 mono color devotion matters cards
1 scarecrow at the end of the pack
Each of these 16 pools have addition pieces of strength as well as cycles and a healthy amount of rare, mythic, and powerful support. included in the mono color slot is also the chance to find a multicolor wild card. these multi-color (4 and 5 color) cards highlight how each color of mana has an impact on the realm. They also synergize really well with the colors they are representing, creating tempting veins of deckbuilding.
Everyone is drinking each others milkshake throughout the draft, and giggling menacingly all the way. This cube will have you dizzy with options as you try to fight the urge to go all in on mono red devotion.
Each deck will contain exactly 60 cards however, the companions are also in here and if you meet those conditions you can socket them on for the ride!
starting life total 20 life
best of 3
shuffle up and play magic
and Don't complain about mana screw if you stray too far the the Leylines.
Drafted this in person with 3 other players. We played heads up in a round robin style play, best of 3.
Drafters fielded these decks
P1 80 card deck White Blue Red with 2 companions (lutri, and yorion)
P2 mono red devotion
p3 Blue Green
p4 mono black devotion
P4 won all 3 of his matches 2-0 and it was discussed that mono black might have to easy a time dispatching an opponent.
Matchups were stronger and faster then the drafters anticipated. Explosive games, not swingy but the potential for lethal by players almost anytime after turn 4 or 5 kept people nervous the game would end before they could play some of the bigger spells in the draft.
There was also some confusion over the inclusion of 4 color cards outside of story relevant 5 color characters. I initially was frustrated at the idea that they were questioning if I understood what a Devotion cube was. as those cards are the opposite of devotion. I uttered something about wanting to temp players away from the devotion. to give them a reason to want to splash. something powerful to tempt them from their devotion, but that came across as me saying don't draft that card, then why is it in the cube? What I was hoping to convey was that they represented what those colors working together could achieve as kind of not quite fully unified 5 color pie cards, but ones that worked really well with the card pool available to support them. al alternative to devotion that would allow them to navigate the packs more freely. We will see if anyone actually decides to try that rout.
I was hoping the story intro would have had more of impact, but my group does not really have that energy. so, I think that effort was mostly a fan fiction narrative.