In 2009, when I first heard about a non-competitive format called Elder Dragon Highlander, I built a deck, commander: Tolsimir, that I felt embodied my MtG sensibilities. It ended up being a GW stompy deck that tried to go wide with creatures that were both green and white. I would play a Verdant Force and immediately become raid boss. This cube celebrates how far MtG has come over the years.

Green/White can now do almost everything the other colors can; so we wanted to explore that design-space. We have infinite combos w/ Reveillark/Karmic Guide or Devoted Druid/Swift Reconfiguration. We’ve got tokens going wide, mono-white going quick, control going slow, and a proliferate deck that loves an Ajani or Elspeth. The Tolsimir Cube has something for you if you want to play fair, unfair, fast, slow, reasonable, or degenerate.

Note: If you'd rather dive headfirst into what this cube is all about, skip to the end for some gameplay videos!

Here is the first of many standard G/W draft archetypes. The gameplan is rather straightforward for this deck: play creatures, make them big. There are plenty of cards that put counters on, such as Luminarch Aspirant and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar as well as cards that benefit from those counters, like Kodama of the West Tree and Dusk Legion Zealot. There's some obvious overlap with tokens, but more subtle interactions with life gain. This is a rather simple deck to draft for a first-timer, since most of the important cards say the name of the archetype right in the text box!

Another classic! If +1/+1 counters is about going tall, tokens is about going wide. You can benefit from a ton of creatures in many ways. Gain a bunch of life with Essence or Soul Warden, draw a bunch of cards with Mentor of the Meek or Toski, Bearer of Secrets, or cut right to the chase and kill your opponent with Harmonious Archon or Return of the Wildspeaker. This archetype operates on pretty much every axis in this cube, by flickering token creators, using landfall triggers to make more creatures, and by using your army to protect your Planeswalker win conditions.

Let's branch into something a bit crazier. We have a few familiar combos that you can assemble that were pulled straight from other formats but easily found homes in the Tolsimir Cube. We won't tell you exactly how to draft this deck, but we do suggest keeping an eye on known war criminals such as Earthcraft , Devoted Druid, and any sac outlets.

This cube has many roots back to 2009, and elves is a prime example. Back when extended still existed, this deck took the world by storm, resulting in the banning of high-octane Magic enabler, Glimpse of Nature. We have no such ban here, and in fact we've added Rite of Harmony and even the elven Beast Whisperer to the mix, making sure that you can deploy your dorks with reckless abandon, culminating in a classic elf-ball finish of Mirror Entity or Craterhoof Behemoth. This deck is iconic and explosive, so if you see the signs that it's open, don't hesitate to jump in!

No self-respecting Selesnya cube could be complete without a nod to Enchantress decks. This is one of the most value-centric styles of play, since almost every card gains the text "Draw a card" with any of Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Eidolon of Blossoms, or Mesa Enchantress. There are many role-filling enchantments in this cube (Seal from Existence as removal, Wild Growth as ramp, etc.) as well as game-ending threats (Angelic Destiny, Weaver of Harmony). Whether you end up more controlling with Soul Snare or more aggressive with Rancor, you'll be able to bury your opponent in cards. What is magic about, if not drawing cards?

This is a tale as old as time (or at least as old as Lorwyn): Play a planeswalker, keep it alive, win. There are 24 'walkers in this cube, and 20 of those have some way to protect themselves. The level one play is to combo these walkers with board wipes, specifically Martial Coup or Sunfall which can continue blocking when needed. The spicier option is to include everyone's favorites, Armageddon and Smokestack to choke your opponent out of the game and win with incremental advantage.

This strategy is near and dear to my heart. We've loved the play pattern of Field of the Dead in other cubes (especially the desire to train wreck drafts to make it work) and wanted to see it shine here. Despite the fact that the cube is only two colors, there are 41 unique lands that can be drafted and many ways to play multiple lands each turn so you can make as many zombies as possible. Singleton is also broken for this archetype, with an additional copy of Life from the Loam floating around and five total copies of Windswept Heath. The late game for this deck is unparalleled. Sidequest: Defeat an opponent in the Tolsimir cube using only damage from black creatures.

In addition to the fleshed out archetypes above, there are several smaller, build-around strategies that can emerge with the right set of circumstances. We won't name all of them here, but our favorites are Captain Sisay (over one hundred cards in the cube are legendary!), Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and Oketra's Monument (and to a lesser extent, Torens, Fist of the Angels. If you sit down to draft against one of us, don't be surprised if we take one and run with it!

Cube is a wonderful format, in our opinion the best way to play Magic. This is largely in part to how personal it is. We all get excited by different things when we play, and cube not only lets us explore those spaces but in many cases discover them. That said, here is a list of dreams that I want to live in this cube. Hopefully this inspires you to find a dream of your very own!

• Activate Mirror Entity for X = 0 with Polukranos, Engine of Ruin on the field.
• Pelt Collector into Botanical Brawler into Kodama of the West Tree. This happened to me...
• Mill someone out with Titania, Protector of Argoth and Altar of Dementia

The following cards have accessibility issues that will be addressed prior to CubeCon:
Brave the Elements (textless)
Esper Sentinel (proxy)
Archangel of Thune (foreign language)
Worldly Tutor (proxy)
Harmonize (textless)
Kodama of the East Tree (foreign language)