Art by Titus LunterMTGA Artisan cube for APD
This cube is designed for the APD crew @ https://discord.gg/MYJ2rG4r
Every card is of common or uncommon rarity and can be played entirely on the Magic Arena client.
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Archetypes are signaled by the gold cards. This cube rewards synergies between colors and between archetypes. Players will do well to stick to one archetype or blend two for a spicy brew.
Design goals:
- Support archetypes that easily blend into other archetypes
- Give players as many meaningful draft decisions as possible
- Restrict cards to common and uncommon rarity for light wildcard usage
- Limit the size of the cube at 360
- Use packages, engines, and activated abilities to maintain player agency
The first four questions cube designers should ask
How will your cube be played?
The cube will be drafted online over at the APD discord. See link above
What are your restrictions?
My restrictions are
- 360 cards
- Magic Arena commons and uncommons (break for fixing to avoid non-games)
- singleton
- no alchemy ( This cube is tracked in paper and alchemy is digital-only. Exceptions for paper playable )
How powerful do you want your cube to be?
About a 4 on the strix scale. Somewhere between retail limited and standard power level. Synergies/archetypes should be the most powerful part of every deck (rather than individual card power level)
How does your ideal environment play?
Decks should have a consistent gameplan with adequate support and win conditions primarily focused in one to two archetypes. Players should expect to find support for each archetype and packages that synergize with those archetypes.
The archetypes are clearly signaled in the gold section. They will reward players for pairing their colors and lead them towards a strategy that pulls from the best of what those colors do.
Notes:
Rare lands can be swapped out for dual tap lands if you don't have enough wildcards. I chose the most commonly used rare lands for this reason. Ideally you already have some of the lands and you'll craft enough of the cube that you wont need to use any wildcards anymore.
Mono Color Archetypes:
: Aggro - Tokens/ETB/Recursion
: Control - Spells
: Midrange - Graveyard/Death
: Aggro - Attack/Sac/Burn
: Midrange - Ramp/Beatdown
Two Color Archetypes:
| Color | Macro Archetype | Micro Archetype |
|---|---|---|
| midrange, control | Flicker / Fliers / tokens |
| control | Reanimator / Draw 3 / Spells in graveyard |
| aggro, midrange | Sakdos |
| midrange | Beatdown |
| midrange | Tokens / Go wide |
| midrange | Aristocrats |
| tempo | Spellslinging / Draw 2 |
| midrange | Graveyard recursion / reanimate |
| aggro | Go wide and pump |
| midrange, control | Flash(back) / "Island, go" |
cube archetypes list
Semantics:
ANCHOR CARDS - are cards whose objective power level is high enough that their inclusion in the Cube can be justified based on that alone. They are archetype-independent, but get even better when played in a certain archetype.
ARCHETYPE SPECIFIC CARDS - on the other side are cards that work really well in a given archetype, but are much weaker or unplayable in other decks.
CROSS-POLLINATION - occurs when two different archetypes share certain similarities, or rely partly on the same set of cards, so that it’s possible to include elements of both in the same deck. Think of it as “synergy between synergies”.
Archetypes - Strategies:
Blink / Flicker
A very broad archetype that abuses the many powerful creatures with ETB and LTB effects.
| Main Colors | Secondary Colors | Theatres | Cross Pollination |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Aggro, Midrange, Control | Defenders, Spells |
Anchor Cards
Archetype-specific Cards
Cross Pollinators
Reanimator
Get a big juicy creature, put it into the graveyard, and reanimate!
| Main Colors | Secondary Colors | Theatres | Cross Pollination |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Combo | Roots, Spells Matter |
Anchor Cards
Archetype-specific Cards
Cross Pollinators
Spells Matter
A dynamic and expressive archetype of slinging spells for combo synergies
| Main Colors | Secondary Colors | Theatres | Cross Pollination |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Any | Storm, Tokens, Burn |
Anchor Cards
Archetype-specific Cards
Cross Pollinators
Draw X
A more flexible alternative to spellslinging
| Main Colors | Secondary Colors | Theatres | Cross Pollination |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Any | Spellslinger, Reanimate, Recursion, Tokens |
Anchor Cards
Archetype-specific Cards
Cross Pollinators
Packages
Doomsday Endgame Endless Deck
Repeatable Removal
Alternate "reanimate"
Tutor for flicker+removal into more interaction
Each discard makes 2/2 zombies
Pudding
Aggro Support
One problem many cubes have is not supporting enough 1-2 drop creatures to make an aggressive curve
aggro creatures
How healthy is the power level amongst cards?
Distribution of tags
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10.69% | 48.43% | 31.76% | 9.12% |
We would expect a tier distribution of 10% 45% 35% 10%
What do the top picks look like?
tier one picks
Most popular lands to craft
top x lands on arena
We tried the trapper but found it to be too slow and inconsistent.
Under the skin caused too many recursive play patterns. I do like sultai going infinite decksize but I dont want play patterns of matches taking forever.