Cube Overview

The goal for this cube is to provide players with a dynamic draft experience centered around a well-balanced format with a greater focus upon synergistic archetypes over sheer power, and reward players for good decision-making and drafting disciplines.

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Design Restrictions

This cube wants to remain as efficient as possible within an unpowered format while maintaining a synergistic approach. While there are powerful cards in this cube, the heavy density of interaction keeps balance in check. Unfortunately, some cards undermine balance and are excluded intentionally. In addition, there are some undesired effects. Here are a few examples:

Oppressive/Non-interactive cards - Too powerful and undermines synergy.
Mechanics Designed for Multiplayer - Non-intuitive for players/too powerful.
Free Spells - Too fast in this format/remove a player's agency to play around cards.
Fast Mana - Too fast for this format.
Extra Turns - Playgroup determined this playstyle was unfun.
Minimized Rocks - Abundancy leads to lack of green identity.
Minimized Protection - Too much leads to less interaction.
Persistent effects - Day/night, Call of the Ring, etc.

This cube intentionally avoids confining each color pair to a single archetype/strategy, as it can lead to predictable drafting. Instead, cross-pollinating cards are included across multiple colors, encouraging players to creatively draft unique decks based on the foundational archetypes. Please note that the list provided is not exhaustive but serves as a reference for players to generate ideas before the draft.

Harness the power of small, efficient creatures to overwhelm your opponents with relentless attacks.

Embrace the darkness with resilient creatures with ability to return after death, maintaining unyielding pressure on your adversaries.

Ignite the battlefield with swift and fiery spells and creatures, seeking victory swiftly and decisively.

Master the art of tactical maneuvering by temporarily removing and returning creatures, exploiting their "enter the battlefield" abilities for strategic advantages.

Keep your opponents forever on the defensive by playing early threats and disruption.

Grind your opponents out with efficient removal and build an engine to beat them in a game of attrition.

Blink/Flicker decks typically splash color to add high-value "enter the battlefield" effects, but may also look for more deck interaction or enabling engines via graveyard recursion.

Execute a sinister strategy, sacrificing your own creatures to extract value from death itself. Build an engine using sacrifice outlets, sacrifice fodder, and sacrifice payoffs to put your opponent in a difficult situation.

Combine early threats with the power of sacrificing creatures for value and claim victory with blood artist effects.

Impose additional costs to your opponent to exploit resource denial and pressure.

Aristocrat decks that splash color look to add token generators or additional graveyard recursion.

Generate and deploy a multitude of creature tokens to quickly overwhelm opponents with sheer numbers. By swarming the battlefield with these expendable forces, you gain a decisive advantage through the strength of unity and coordinated attacks.

Aiming for swift victory, this playstyle floods the board with numerous aggressive tokens, mounting an overwhelming assault to quickly overpower the opponent.

Emphasizing life drain effects, this playstyle creates tokens that sap the opponent's life, by either death triggers or combat.

Utilizes tokens to establish a solid board presence while maintaining flexibility to adapt to various game situations.

Employing counterspells and removal to seize control of the battlefield. Seek to gain an edge through card advantage and protect your win conditions.

Guide the forces of order, maintaining a firm grasp on the battlefield through counter-magic and efficient creature removal.

Prioritize card advantage, removal, and disruption to dismantle the opponent's plans, while utilizing potent win conditions that synergize with control elements.

Taking a unique approach, this playstyle leverages self-milling techniques to fill the graveyard with valuable resources, enabling powerful spells, creatures, and graveyard interactions, while maintaining control elements to manage the board and opponent's threats. Note that while there is support for this strategy, this is not intended as a quick way to win.

Control decks will typically splash red for added versatility and firepower.

Maximize the impact of non-creature spells, utilizing their interactions and effects to shape the course of the game. With a focus on spellcasting prowess, this archetype leverages various abilities that trigger or enhance based on the casting of spells.

This playstyle emphasizes casting low-cost spells and leveraging their effects to maintain a fast and aggressive tempo, disrupting the opponent's strategy while advancing your own.

Focused on defensive spellcasting, this playstyle utilizes counterspells, removal, and board control to thwart opponents' plans and maintain dominance throughout the game.

Utilize spells that interact with the graveyard, this playstyle capitalizes on the graveyard as a resource, enabling powerful spells and abilities that leverage the cards in the graveyard for advantage.

Accelerate mana production and summon higher-cost spells and creatures reshaping the battlefield to your advantage.

Benefit from red's powerful burn spells and green's mana acceleration and win with massive board threats.

Benefit from blue's powerful card draw and green's mana acceleration and win with massive board threats.

Ramp decks have excellent fixing, encouraging them more easily splash a color to cover a weakness. For instance, Red Green Ramp lacks card draw, while Blue Green Ramp lacks removal.

Utitilize mana dorks and cast midrange threats ahead of the curve, generating value through pressure or attrition. Unlike traditional ramp decks that prioritize larger creatures with a win condition, midrange decks will focus on multiple efficient 3-5 cmc cards to win the game.

Combine ramp, early threats, graveyard recursion effects, and discard effects to disrupt the opponent's plans, making it difficult for adversaries to recover or retaliate.

Play ahead of curve by ramping into well-stated creatures with aggression and resilience.

Use all 3 colors combinations to force an opponent to yield from disruption and efficient threats.

Midrange decks may splash for white's premium removal or powerful gold cards.

Turn the graveyard into a valuable resource, utilizing cards that interact with or utilize the graveyard to gain an advantage.

Utilize looting effects to pitch creatures to the graveyard to reanimate. This is not a quick combo deck, but functions more like an engine.
Splash green for a heavier self mill theme and creatures.

Mill things into graveyard and reanimate powerful threats.
Splash blue for a heavier self mill theme and card advantage.

Graveyard decks typically splash color for removal, or unique cards that will enable the graveyard strategy further.

Generate additional value from playing lands, from recurring fetch lands or "when a land enters the battlefield"

Loop fetchlands and ramp into threats that generate immense value.

Typically found in a green Lands Matter base, prioritize powerful fixing and utilize the strongest cards across multiple colors. This is not an archetype designed to appear every draft, but should be powerful if successfully constructed.

Generate additional value from cards that care about artifacts. Please note, this is a small subtheme, but can come together with the right pieces.

Artifacts are often incidental synergies generated from artifact producers or mana rocks. Use payoffs like grinding Urza, Lord High Artificer or Karn's constructs to close out a game.

Utilizing the graveyard, generate value with looping artifacts and delve effects. As mentioned previously, this is not designed to result in a quick win, but by all means, try it!

An Artifacts matter deck will typically splash a color for premium removal or hand disruption to protect their gameplan. A green splash may wish to seek additional artifact producers.