Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Yeti TLDR: Gold Cube!

Legends introduced the first multicolor, gold cards that have since become a staple of the cube format for their signpost mechanics and their above board power level. Gold cards occupy a special place in the old frame, premodern format as they provided expensive ways to do broken things that were typically constrained by color pie restrictions in a single color. This cube, above all, explores the way that WoTC designers thought about the color pie and bending/breaking the rules to create interesting interactions.

The Gold cube is a singleton project, with the exception of fixing lands, that spans the history of Magic from Legends to Scourge and is designed to be drafted for one on one play. The cube contains almost every gold card printed in the premodern era and includes many of the modern old frame gold card reprints to nudge the card total up to 360. There are only 324 gold/multicolor cards printed through Scourge; this cube utilizes 295 of them and excludes:

1. Elder Dragons as their casting costs are too hard to build toward
2. Cards that are 100% focused on land destruction
3. Split cards that are not actually gold
4. Cards that don't have real purpose as the keyword abilities are not present.

There are no single color cards and no artifacts. The environment varies significantly in speed and to help improve fixing, each player starts with a copy of Pillar of the Paruns in play to both enable first turn plays and help smooth out color fixing. The Pillar is indestructible and has shroud. Mana burn is also in effect.

CUBE ARCHETYPES AND STRATEGIES:

One of the unique aspects of this cube's design is that there were zero restrictions on which cards could be included based on color identity since there are so few cards to choose from the in card pool. As a result, we get a one of a kind snapshot of how WoTC viewed the color pie, what color pairs they thought were most important to pair (the allied colors), and what they lacked either motivation or creative direction (Abzan, Jeskai, Mardu, Sultai). Each color group has specific strategies for drafters to look for and are broken out as follows (Color Identity: Mana Symbols (Number of Cards):

Abzan: (1)
THEMES: Lifegain for Lands

Azorius: (39)
TEMPO: As usual, Azorius is all about rolling slow and steady, stalling and protecting then finishing up the game with a clutch major spell. Azorius centered decks will be control/midrange decks that keep permanents in play, use evasion and digs for answers.

THEMES: Control, Flying, Protection, Card Draw

Bant: (8)
THEMES: Board Manipulation

Boros: (14)
TEMPO: In typical aggro fashion, Boros is a support pair for white and red color identities that need some early pressure to get across the finish line. Since every player starts with a Pillar of the Paruns in play, Boros offers several turn one plays to get the game moving.

THEMES: Damage Redirection , Removal

Dimir: (39)
TEMPO: Dimir represents the other side of the control coin and also works in the same control/midrange capacity as Azorius. Dimir will attempt to remove threats from the board rapidly, prevent them from ever being cast and countering threats away while searching their library for their win condition.

THEMES: Removal, Filtering, Counter Magic, Hand Manipulation

Esper: (8)
TEMPO: Esper seeks to support Azorius and Dimir with combat tricks to take care of threats that slip past their control package.

THEMES: Combat Tricks

Five Color: (7)
TEMPO: Five color is a challenge to draft and pilot. It is a long game plan every time and the key is drafting enough elements from other color packages to survive until you can play your pay off. Five color decks need great fixing and either an early board presence to apply pressure as you build or a control shell to stave off aggression.

THEMES: Game Enders, Sliver Enablement

Golgari: (13)
TEMPO: Golgari helps midrange builds go wide with lifegain and token generation.

THEMES: Ramp, Power/Toughness Manipulation, Tokens

Grixis: (8)
TEMPO: Grixis brings faster board control and damage based on primary game function (card draw, etc.) to help speed up control/midrange decks.

THEMES: Hand Destruction, Board Manipulation

Gruul: (41)
TEMPO: Gruul represents aggro and fast midrange strategies to bring a lot of damage over the line very quickly. Combine this with the ability to cast spells for less and ramp into larger threats, Gruul is focused on closing out games quickly and in an overwhelming manner.

THEMES: Aggro, Combat Tricks, Ramp, Removal

Izzet: (11)
TEMPO: Izzet wants to deal damage outside of combat and use filtering to draw the right cards to finish the game quickly. Izzet functions in the midrange space but can assist both aggro and control plans.

THEMES: Direct Damage, Card Draw, Filtering

Jeskai: (1)
THEMES: Flying Beater

Jund: (7)
THEMES: Recursion, Beaters with Benefits

Land: (39)
TEMPO: Color fixing represents almost the entirety of the non-basic section of the cube. This is the only place where the cube breaks singleton. The triomes also have the basic land types that they represent.

Mardu: (1)
THEME: Combat Tricks

Naya: (8)
TEMPO: Naya is designed to close the game out late with tokens and combat tricks. Utilizing red, green, and white to survive to midgame, Naya helps you go wide and to finish with overwhelming force.

THEMES: Tokens, Combat Tricks

Orzhov: (14)
TEMPO: Orzhov is typical deadguy ale focused on using life as a resource and providing protection for your board while removing threats.

THEMES: Life Gain, Life Pay, Removal

Rakdos: (39)
TEMPO: Rakdos uses removal and recursion to prolong the game to midgame in an effort to whittle the opponent down through direct damage and recursion.

THEMES: Removal, Recursion, Land Destruction, Direct Damage Activated Abilities

Selesnya: (45)
TEMPO: Selesnya uses combat strategies like regeneration, combat tricks and cheating creatures in to build up a wall of beaters to end the game quickly. This color combination is based on midrange and battlefield control.

THEMES: Creature Cheating, Life Gain, Permanent Control, Combat Tricks

Simic: (14)
TEMPO: Simic is focused on accelerating blue and green based tempo/midrange decks to provide a faster, wider board presence.

THEMES: Flying, Tokens, Filtering

Sultai: (1)
THEMES: Card Draw, Hand Destruction

Temur: (2)
THEMES: Library Filtering, Card Draw

Niche Strategies / Combos:

Snow Permanents:
There is a two card combo with Ice-Fang Coatl and Dark Depths until it gets sacrificed for Marit Lage. Text of the Coatl has been modified to only require a single snow permanent in play. Winter's Night has also been errata'd to affect basic lands instead of snow lands.

Slivers:
Slivers are represented as a five color build around and can be accomplished with drafting fixing lands that produce multiple colors of mana and Crystal Cave early in the draft. Slivers can also be combined some of the combat trick enhancements like Fervent Charge.

Other Errata:
Queen Kayla bin-Kroog has been errata'd to:
Discard all the cards in your hand, then draw that many cards. You may choose an artifact or creature card with mana value 2 you discarded this way, then do the same for artifact or creature cards with mana values 3 and 4. Return those cards to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.

Decimate has been errata'd to:
Destroy target creature, target enchantment, and target land.

HOW TO DRAFT THIS CUBE SUCCESSFULLY:

Each pack is seeded with 1-2 multicolor fixing lands which should be drafted early if you plan on going wide color wise. The fundamental strategy is to draft two colors as your main board and any colors that stray outside of these colors should only deviate by one additional color. This way, you will be able to use your Pillar of the Paruns to support the off identity color and your basic lands to cast your main spells. Keep in mind, the Pillar of the Paruns CAN NOT be used on activated abilities of any cards, only to cast spells. This means that if you take any cards that require off color activation costs, you need to plan for that in your fixing strategy.

TLDR:

1. This is an all gold cube.
2. Drafting it is challenging; it requires you to read your cards carefully.
3. If you don't plan accordingly, you're gonna get mana scrod!