Art by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai10 classic 2-color archetypes meld together into 5 three-color archetypes. With overlapping synergies, payoffs, and glue cards, there is competition over the same cards instead of just "open lanes" during draft, and then decks can be built in more varied ways.
TLDR;
- Multicolored cards are power outliers. They are meant to tempt you to splash a third color.
- Focus on synergy. Not on individual card power (But higher overall power than retail limited).
- Answers are not as efficient as in constructed formats. Interaction will cost you about 1 mana more than you are used to.
- Reduced speed of ramp (no 1mv mana dorks, no Talismans).
- Aggro supported in R, W, B. But not with enough redudancy to succeed as a mono-colored deck.
- 40 lands for fixing: Just 5 "Macro Archetype Triomes", 5 MH3 Landscapes, Fetchlands, Shocklands, Surveil Lands.
- Power level: Strix 6, with Slow ramp and Neutral Aggro.
Macro archetypes supported (3-Wedges/2-Shards)
(adapted from an article by @Archytas)
The design goal of this cube is to promote synergistic gameplay while providing depth in deckbuilding possibilities. No goodstuff piles! No drafting on rails!
The cube follows a specific wedge+shard pattern to support each color pair with balanced density (triangular design). Overlapping archetypes ensure that there are less "open lanes" during drafting than there are players, and offers a cardpool that is relevant for more decks.
Gold cards are often the power outliers that tempt players to splash a third or even a fourth color, and function as signposts and anchors for their respective archetype.
This cube aims for a power level slightly higher than retail limited. Ramp and removal are about a turn slower than in constructed formats, but aggressive threats will still demand early interaction.
(Double shocks + double fecthes was too much, so I'm scaling back. Now trying 10x Fabled Passages and Double Triomes, that would help to highlight the seeded archetypes.)
Archetype breakdown:
| Guild | Archetype |
|---|---|
  | Blink |
 | Mill |
 | Aristocrats (sac for damage) |
 | Landfall |
| Go wide / token support |
| Stax (prison) |
| Spells matter |
| Graveyard matters and recursion |
| Artifacts matter (aggro) |
| Selfmill |
Articles on Cube and MtG design:
- Living in synergy - Mark Rosewater
- Building a Cube: Archetype Design, Jason Wadell
- Everything I have learned about Cube design (Powered Synergy Cube), Caleb Gannon
- (Bad) Archetype Design and Aristocrats, Riptide Lab
- Triangular design, @Archytas
- The Ultimate Guide to Cube, Part 1 – The Cards, Luis Scott-Vargas
Random Rant about "archetype design":
"Cube is all about drafting decks, not piles of cards,
and knowing how to draft the different decks (and how they overlap)
is how you deconstruct the mystery
of what to do when you see a pack of 15 insane cards."
— Luis Scott-Vargas
Contrary to popular belief about archetypes being "seeded into retail limited as an easy way to get into drafting", that is not the origin of archetypes nor the reason of their existence. Archetypes emerge as a deckbuilding property of value oriented interactions found in the card pool of the game. Broadly speaking, archetypes are what let you draft decks instead of piles.
Consider the immense design space that exist within the color pie. A single deck can't be efficient while trying to include each and every possible effect within its colors. The most efficient decks, will focus on more specific card interactions or sequences to optimize their strategy. This also applies to drafted decks, where a more focused deck will prevail over an unfocused one.
Since the inception of MtG, deckbuilding has been at its core. Since the very beginning, cards have been designed to motivate players to explore the inclusion of various colors in a single deck. From the Alpha Dual lands to the uncommon signposts in whatever the latest set is, plenty of individual cards have been designed to reward deck construction that includes more than one color. Multicolored decks often try to shore up each color inherent weaknesses and capitalize on their shared strengths. There are very specific portions within each slice the color pie that generate more value when they interact with another specific bit of another color.
The focus in a subset of interactions within a slice of the color pie is a more modern trend in modern archetype design, that is nowadays easily spotted by comparing one set to the next. Each set focuses on certain mechanics exploring specific design subspaces within a color pair (or occasionally color trio). For example, the color interactions encouraged by the combination of RW, can be Equipment matters, or Modular artifact aggro, or go-wide Battallion, or Lorehold recursion, etc., but only one of those per drafting environment in order to produce cohesive limited decks.
Bringing to mind MaRo's design lessons: "Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win", let's apply them now to cube design. Players will walk through the paths you are showing them ahead. If you expect that the main source of value during the game to be obtained by synergy, then you should intentionally seed the required redundancy for those synergies to ocurr succesfully. (Even if those are not color-centered, like Storm or Sneak Attack.) Also, synergy should be able generate more value than individual card quality. Otherwise, you have just designed convoluted traps to trick your players, who will feel betrayed by a designer who lead them to a dead end.
So now we have expressed how an archetype emerges: During design, embracing a self-imposed restriction to curate a cardpool that can breed consistent synergistic interactions that can and should outvalue bombs. During drafting and deckbuilding, identifying strong synergies.
However, Archetypes serve other relevant purposes beyond mere game actions and game pieces. They introduce a ludo-narrative to the game mechanics, engaging with the flavor of the cards they describe the flow and in-game progression but using a cinematic description. ("the squirrels teamed up against your fatty", "your creature wouldn't stay dead", "the last soldier picked up the sword and attacked"). Designing a set with archetypes in mind contributes to cohesive decks that can tell a story.
Bringing the topic back to Cube, Archetype-minded cubes focus on smaller subsections of design space within each color, that open deckbuilding opportunities (beyond curving out with high quality individual pieces), and make available cards that can produce game-winning value via synergy.
tldr: Archetypes are what let you draft decks instead of piles.