The Agile Cube
(386 Card Cube)
The Agile Cube
Cube ID
Art by Svetlin VelinovArt by Svetlin Velinov
386 Card Cube61 followers
Designed by AgileDrunk
Owned
$194
Buy
$1,491
Purchase
Mana Pool$1791.52
Intro/Manifesto

The experience® this cube aims to cultivate is defined by:

  • Fast paced games, with lots of decision points and few board stalls.
  • Good decks outperform good cards.
  • Aggro, Midrange and Control all being able to 3:0.
  • Good mana bases. Breaking singleton on Fetches and Shocks
  • 70% power level. This is a Dragon's Rage Channeler format, not a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer format.
  • Narrow power band. Limiting losses/wins due to single card quality outliers à la retail limited or Vintage Cube.
  • Colourless is the 6th colour.

Design Considerations to Achieve The experience®:

  • Mana fixing lands are plentiful and good - I want drafters to be able to draft decks with reliable access to 2 colours on turn 1.
  • Interaction - Lines up appropriately with threats. (More detailed thoughts on my design considerations here)
  • Flexible cards are prioritized for inclusion - leading to more draft decisions and opportunity for play expression.
    Notable Exclusions:
  • No planeswalkers - Planeswalkers provide too much impact and re-shape games in such a significant way that they are at odds with the “Good decks outperform good cards” goal.
  • No infinite or instant-win combo - Combo seeks to ignore tempo and resource balancing that I find so enjoyable in most drafted magic.


Archetype breakdown

Macro:
Aggro:- Primary: r, Secondary w,b,c, Tertiary: u,g
Midrange:- Primary: g, Secondary: b,w,r,c, Tertiary: u
Control:- Primary: u,b, Secondary: r,w, Tertiary: x

Micro:
Blink:- Primary: w, Secondary: u, Tertiary: g
Spellslinger:- Primary: ur, Secondary: w Tertiary: b
+1/+1 Counters:- Primary: x, Secondary: g, Tertiary: w,c
Equipment:- Primary: x, Secondary: w, Tertiary: r
Artifacts matter:- Primary: u, secondary w,r, Tertiary: b
Aristocrats:- Primary: x, Secondary: b,r, Tertiary: x


Further detail

Lands - My current land balance of double fetches, triple shocks + a couple extras is carefully considered. So carefully in fact that I’ve written a whole article about nonbasic lands in cube. You can find it here if you want to dive deep on mana math for cube.

Front leaning creatures - One of the dials available to turn to keep a format aggressive and reduce board stalls is to provide creatures with toughness lower than their power. This results in more boardstates where it’s advantageous to attack, as you’re more likely to trade.

Few DFCs - While DFCs add modality and options which can be beneficial to an environment, I’ve chosen to limit this affect as the added complexity cost while drafting and playing typically isn’t worth it to me.

Removal baseline - at instant speed 1MV spells should deal with 2 toughness or MV, 2MV spells should deal with 3 toughness, 3MV spells should deal with anything. Improving on these rates should require additional cost or downsides. E.g. Feed the Swarm has 2 downsides: it’s sorcery speed & it causes life loss.
The density of removal in the cube is tuned so that players have access to enough interaction, but that the quality doesn’t invalidate playing larger threats. Committing 4-5 mana and a full turn to a large creature only to have it Swords to Plowshares’d is not gameplay I’m interested in.

Similarly, the threats need to line up with removal, typically cards in this cube at 4+ MV will have high enough toughness that they don’t fold to 1-2MV removal without providing some upside.


Occasionals:

Alongside the main cube, I curate a second list of “occasional cards” . 24 cards are selected at random from this list before drafting the Agile cube, and 1 added to each booster pack. These cards aim to provide some variety in the cube, allowing for inclusion of more narrow cards without taking up cube real estate.
Occasional cards are added to the packs on top of the typical draft amount, increasing pack size and avoiding replacing important cards. The beauty of this system is that people have the opportunity to draft with some variety without losing the cohesive baseline of a fully drafted cube.


Scattered Thoughts and Miscellaneous Stuff
Typical Draft Methods:

x packs of y (draft pool)(cards drafted)

PlayersPrimary MethodAlternate Method
83 packs of 16 (48)(384)
64 packs of 16, burn last 4 (48)(384)4 packs of 12 (48)(288)
46 packs of 16, burn last 8 (48)(384)5 packs of 9 (45)(180) or 16 pack of 15 grid
2Hausmann draft or 100 card Winston draft or Minneapolis draft18 packs of 9 grid
Wedge/Shard drafts:

Use the below links to filter the cube by wedge or shard before exporting to draft with lower player count without needing to burn.
Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, Naya
Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai, Mardu, Temur


Tagging Threats & Removal:

Inspired by lucky paper radio episode 127, I've decided to rank the threats in my cube by resilience against removal. Using a 1-4 scale from "Baneslayer" to "Mulldrifter". Cards on this scale have been tagged BM1 through BM4 depending on the below subjective criteria.
Click on the headings to be taken to the corresponding filter of the cube.

BM1:
"Baneslayers".
A BM1 card will need more than the turn it's played to utilise its intrinsic value.
Ward - 1 Life.
Examples:
Usher of the Fallen / Woodland Wanderer

BM2:
Some value against removal.
Value typically added before sorcery speed interaction. e.g. luminarch aspirant / Feldon, Ronom Excavator / Soulherder.
Cards which can be sequenced to provide immediate separate value e.g. young Pyromancer -> Shock on turn 3.
Flashable blockers
Lower impact adventures
Slightly punishing to remove: Ward 1 or 2-3 life.

BM3:
Substantial value against removal (Mulldrifters of all sorts)
Value typically added before instant speed interaction.
Higher impact adventures
Harder to remove: Ward 2, 4+ life, higher costed hexproof or indestructible

BM4:
Resistant to removal or actively bad to remove (great death triggers, trivially recurred threats)
Hardest to remove: Ward 3+ / free or low costed hexproof or indestructible

Note:
Cards which remove cards from graveyards (like Scavenging Ooze) are ranked as BM1 here. In a cube with much stronger graveyard support and/or reanimator I'd bump these up to BM2.

Removal
Similarly, I've decided to rank the removal in my cube by effectiveness and condition requirement. Using some made-up buckets, cards on this scale have been tagged depending on the below subjective criteria.
Click on the headings to be taken to the corresponding filter of the cube.

RU - Unconditional Removal:
Removes a creature all the time (excl. hexproof/protection etc.)
e.g. murder / vindicate / Vraska's Contempt

RD - Removal with downside:
Removes a thing all the time, but has a downside.
e.g. fateful absence / pacifism / pongify
Opponent has control over the downside element.

RA - Removal with additional costs:
e.g. Ulcerate / Bone Shards / Lightning Axe
You have control over this additional cost as a downside.

RT - Removal that can be undone (temporary):
Removes unconditionally but can be rolled back by Opp.
e.g. Oblivion Ring / Skyclave apparition / Dungeon Geists

RS- Soft removal:
Doesn't actually remove the threat, but does temporarily neutralise it.
e.g. Flickerwisp / unsummon / Earthshaker Khenra

RCM - Conditional - Main Attributes:
MV, power, toughness, important keywords
e.g. Fatal Push / Shock / Plummet

RCP - Conditional - Parallel Attributes:
Colour, creature type, etc.
e.g. Terror / Walk the Plank

RCB - Conditional - Board State:
Fight spells, attacking/blocking, edicts, combat tricks, Flashable blockers with 2+ power.
e.g. Ram Through / Settle the Wreckage / Diabolic Edict / Bannerhide Krushok / Cathar Commando

✅Dream Eater added as a blue control signpost/wincon. Based on feedback from one player that they normally like to draft control but didn't see anything loudly shouting "control!".

✅Scrawling Crawler in as a versatile value piece. Enjoyed playing it in FDN limited.

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