The end is nigh! This Cube explores the many different scenarios in which humanity might get into a spot of trouble. Each color pairing primarily explores one of those themes with "hard synergy," and each Alara "Shard" adds an additional "soft-synergy" theme to tie it all together. Read further below for a full archetype breakdown.

This Cube is designed to be enjoyed by 8 players. It is a "Vintage"-legal Cube, but is not meant to replicate the full power of, say, an MTGO Vintage Cube. There are no infinite combos in this Cube, though it should hopefully reward synergistic decks with high-impact turns.

To achieve this goal, Vintage cards have been added sparingly. The Moxen are primarily useful for accelerating the overall pace of play; there is little ramp in this set, even in Green, and most decks will typically not have an abundance of options on turn one (or even turn two). Other Vintage cards are hopefully able to bolster archetypes that seem, at least in initial testing, to need a little boost of power.

The mana base consists of these cycles: Fetch Lands, ABUR Dual Lands, Shock Lands, all 10 “Triomes,” and the Modern Horizons 3 "Tri" Fetch Lands. This should be plenty fixing for most strategies - there is not much incentive to stray far from the archetypes designed, and since there are no combo cards scattered throughout the colors of the list I should not expect players to need to go far to find what works best in their deck.

Additionally, the basic lands that players may build with are Snow-Covered Basics, including the Snow-Covered Waste from MH3. This achieves a few things: First, there is a running "Nuclear Wasteland"/"Nuclear Winter" theme in the Cube, which is bolstered by these snowy lands. Second, there is a "soft-synergy" Snow Permanents theme in the Bant color shard. Lastly, there are some instances of "Colorless" mana-pips among Eldrazi cards which I'd like to make tenable to choose and play. Oh, and they just look good and make the format a bit more wacky!

There is a medium/high density of 2-Color Gold cards in the set, which primarily act as signpost cards for the archetype of their color pairing. Those that don't bluntly point to an archetype are generically powerful interaction spells that should make play more dynamic. I don't expect this Cube to be played often by any one individual, so it seemed prudent to do a little extra to help players navigate what might otherwise be an intimidating sea of cardboard. To wit, this is a fairly complex Cube, with interwoven Hard- and Soft-Synergy archetypes and many cards per pack that a given player may be unfamiliar with.

There are only a very limited number of cards in the Cube that could be considered "archetype hate," so as to let players feel like they get in some full games of Magic. Again, this is not designed for players to grind away at, it is instead hopefully a limited -- in all senses of the word -- experience that can bring some mirth and unexpectedly intricate gameplay. Those cards that do affect an over-sized impact on other archetypes are picked to be a speedbump, not a roadblock, and should probably not lead to unrecoverable game states.

Here are the Archetypes of the Apocalypse (Not That One) Cube

Shards [Soft-Synergy, Generically Powerful Toolboxes that have Inroads to the Hard-Synergy Color Pairs]:

Bant - Nuclear Winter is Cold, Bring a Jacket! | Snow permanents that intrinsically get a boost from the Basic Land manabase of the format.

Naya - It's "Gone," MacReady. | Big (and medium) Eldrazi creatures that either play well alone or, in many cases, fit loosely into some of the tighter archetypes. This also includes a number of Colorless cards.

Jund - They Finally Really Did It, You Maniacs! | Lhurgoyfs abound in this color shard. Mostly just fine cards to play alone, but get a few of them together and you've got a stew going.

Esper - So Much for the Three Laws of Robotics... | A collective of high-impact Affinity & Metalcraft options to slot into any of the artifact-themed archetypes.

Grixis - I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds. | A smattering of Energy generation. All energy cards in this Cube are basically self-sustaining, though some get a little boost from having others around. There is not a "enabler/payoff" dynamic, merely "here is some energy, use it right now."

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Color Pairs [Hard-Synergy, Aiming for Dense Combinations of Like-Cards to Achieve Powerful Gameplans]

Azorius (White/Blue): Detectives Apocalypse Noir | A mix of creature tribal payoffs and Clue token synergy. Plays well with Affinity, Metalcraft, Artifact Creatures.

Dimir (Black/Blue): Zombies Night of the Living Dead | Classic tribal zombies, with some elements of sacrificing, recursion, and tribal pumping. Plays well with Reanimation Stuff, Card Draw.

Rakdos (Black/Red): Artifacts & Sacrificing Terminator | All-in Artifact theme. Rewards a high density of Artifact creatures. Plays well with Sacrificing, Removal.

Gruul (Green/Red): Dinosaurs Jurassic Park | A stompy deck with one of the highest densities of ramp (though still not much!). Dinosaurs often like to be dealt damage. Plays well with Reanimation Stuff, Ramp, Aggressive Creatures.

Selesnya (White/Green): 2 Power Matters Blessed Are the Meek | Everything added for this archetype has small power, but synergy cards create effects like card draw, unblockability, and more. Plays well with Small Creatures, Flying, Tricks.

Orzhov (White/Black): Angels & Clerics Book of Enoch | A mix of Creature tribal synergy, lifegain, and flying beatdowns. Plays well with Removal, Lifegain.

Izzet (Red/Blue): Proliferate ~ Rad & Poison Counters The Cold War | A spell-heavy strategy that nevertheless leans on creatures for card advantage and generating counters. The main counters - Rad and Poison - are non-traditional win conditions. Plays well with Removal, Card Draw, Energy Counters.

Golgari (Black/Green): Graveyard Recursion Darwinism | Just a bunch of stuff that keeps coming back. Some light two- and three-card combos that generate big advantage. Plays well with Zombies, Enchantments, Reanimation Stuff.

Boros (White/Red): Vehicles Mad Max | Pilot & Dwarf creature-type synergy, plus artifact and vehicle matters abilities. Generally designed to be aggressive, but capable of grindy plays. Plays well with Artifacts, Small Creatures, Tokens, Removal.

Simic (Green/Blue): Madness Lovecraft Horror | Discard cards for profit. High synergy with the abilities Madness, Flashback, and Unearth. Can get pretty aggressive, or generate long term card advantage. Plays well with Card Draw, Small Creatures, Reanimation Stuff.