3-4 player multiplayer commander
100 starting life
20 card decks
Each player starts with a Descent into Avernus in play
Don't bother with lands
Yeah.
A few words of advice to first time drafters...
(The Countdown is at One is not in the cube, it just seemed appropriate here)
As a result of the absurd nature of this environment, games will typically end during the third or fourth turn cycle. Players may be knocked out as early as the second. Those turn cycles will be dense, with players often taking actions during each other's turns. Expect games to take about an hour, but particularly intense games can take longer.
Because of the pace of this environment, at least half of your deck should playable at instant speed. More is better. Your opponents are going to cast existentially threatening spells, and you need to be capable of answering them immediately. Similarly, the best windows to cast your own game-winning spells will usually be on someone else's turn. Don't get caught waiting around.
By now you may have done the math: 20 cards, -1 for your commander, -7 for your starting hand. You're left with 12 cards. That's not very many, and once those are gone you're one draw away from losing. Mill is at least as likely to kill you as hitting 0 life. To that end, there are five copies of Elixir of Immortality floating around; the lifegain is nice, but the shuffle is existential.
Brain Freeze is its own beast among mill cards. It's the most powerful card in the cube and a centralizing presence. You need a plan for when this card is put on the stack or you will lose to it. Keep in mind that storm is a single triggered ability that can be responded to and you're already well on your way.
When you first open up a pack of this cube you're going to shocked by how powerful the creatures seem. Reckless Fireweaver isn't a power outlier; it's the baseline for how much damage a threat should be doing in this environment. Aggressive (usually ) decks want a critical mass of pingers, but many other decks plan to win games in ways that don't benefit much from the pressure. Don't get distracted from your game plan by how absurd the numbers on these cards sound. Relatedly, keep in mind that these pingers resolving is often not a terminal problem in a cube full of truly terminal problems.
There are two prominent (and overlapping) infinite combos in this environment, centered in :
After running with it for a while I'm certain that 2 grixis commanders is 1 more than I want. I don't enjoy half the players in every draft ignoring magic's color mechanic entirely, and the 2 color commanders are more interesting. If I'm pairing down to 1, I'm keeping Parnesse. That's for a lot of reasons:
First is sentimental: Chris Mooney signed Parnesse at the 2023 cubecon after party, excited because they never see anyone playing her.
Second is that I favor cards that play off the environment in ways you have to really think through to arrive at, and Parnesse's ward is a really good, subtle, example; Zevlor on the other hand is straightforward. She has higher Aha! equity.
Third is that Parnesse is probably worse. I want the 3 color option to be pretty well below most 2 color commanders for balance reasons, and I think Parnesse is marginally worse but I'm not confident in that assessment.
Fourth is that she has triggered abilities and not activated abilities so she works with Harmonic Prodigy.
I'm a sucker for conspiracies, and I enjoy using this environment to explore more bafflingly powerful weird cards. Unfortunately most conspiracies either do nothing or are way too good.
Brago's Favor is boring but in the correct power band and feels interesting to evaluate during that draft. I like having a second hidden agenda to create a tiny bit of uncertainty with immediate action.
Hymn of the wilds sounds really funny, but I have no idea where the power level lands. It's a way bigger challenge than normal, but the payoff with flash creatures is huge.