Art by Jim MurrayIn a sentence, I wanted an environment where Rube Goldberg machines could exist alongside a traditional midrange, aggro, and control environment. I think instead I ended up somewhere between a pretty normal cube and a pile of pet cards.
I think most cubes try and balance around the presence of enablers. Something like "Tinker is just too strong" is probably a normal thing many cubers say.
On the other hand, I prefer to balance around payoffs. I started this cube with the idea that I really wanted Sneak Attack, Tinker, re-animator, welder/artifcats, aristocrats, and turbo-ramp/green cheaty as archetypes, and put in all the best enablers for those archetypes. Then I tried to balance the payoffs to avoid instant win type situations.
The end result is it's very difficult to draft a dedicated combo deck in this cube, but I'm okay with that. It's fun to be able to play a "fair" (heavy emphasis on quotations) game of Magic featuring cards like Sneak Attack and Tinker.
Aggro exists primarily in red, with white and black as supporting colors. Aggro decks tend to top out at 3-4cmc, and be fairly linear in their play creature, smash face play-style. Key cards are aggressive one drops like Firedrinker Satyr, Skymarcher Aspirant, or Sarcomancy. The two drop slot will often bring bodies with an advantage, like Accorder Paladin, Frogkin Kidnapper, or Robber of the Rich. The three drop slot is the bread and butter, featuring high value cards like Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Drana, Liberator of Malakir, or Goblin Rabblemaster. Generally, the deck will run only 1-2 4 drops, and want to have them be very powerful and fast to finish off games. See cards like Hero of Bladehold, Brutal Hordechief, or Hero of Oxid Ridge. To top it all off, you'll want to be able to deal with your opponent trying to prevent you from winning. This means packing some cheap, efficient removal, like Path to Exile, Doom Blade, or Lightning Bolt. A few artifacts like Ankh of Mishra or Bonesplitter can help you sneak in those last few points of damage.
Aggro is weak to decks that can gain life, play bigger creatures very quickly, or have time to play a board wipe and then stabilize. It's very strong against decks that take a few turns to get going, putting fast pressure on their life total.
Midrange exists across probably the entire cube. It's centered in green and black, although white, red, and even blue also have powerful options. A midrange deck plays a little bit of everything. You'll probably be playing 2-3 colors, so you'll want a bit of fixing, a bit of ramp, a bit of removal, and then the best value spells you can fit in. Cards like Biogenic Ooze, Hero of Bladehold, Custodi Lich, or Flametongue Kavu that generate a ton of value on their own are all stars of the archetype. Because a midrange deck can deploy some blockers early, it has a bit more freedom to play bigger, splashier, or more versatile removal spells like Vraska's Contempt, Staggershock, or Ravenous Chupacabra.
Midrange has a pretty even matchup against aggro and control, but often lacks a strong way to deal with decks that are trying to do something "unfair" like cheat in large creatures. Making sure to pick up a Nature's Chant or Reclamation Sage type effect can help in those matchups.
Blue is the controlliest color in this cube by far. In general, I run a high creature count across all my colors, but you'll find the most spells in blue, and even a great number of creatures have spell like effects stapled to them. Control decks aim to, well, control the game. Their bread and butter is card advantage, card selection, and removal. They can be a little slow to get off the ground, but once they stabilize, can be hard to fight through. Their are two main variants of the control deck. One wants to play at instant speed with draw like Opt and Impulse, and counterspells like Rewind and Miscalculation. They can often win with threats that also play at instant speed, such as Nimble Obstructionist or Vendilion Clique. '
Other control decks will play around permanents a little bit more, using planeswalkers such as Ob Nixilis Reignited and Teferi, Master of Time to lock down the board and generate card advantage. They can play with wraths such as Wrath of God or Martial Coup to keep their walkers safe, and just value their way to a win. Either way, control's gameplan is typically to start a bit slower, but then generate more resources than their opponent, and win with a combination of efficient threats and removal. Control can be weak to faster decks, and decks with very resilient threats like Thragtusk.
With red as almost a necessity, Goblin Welder and/or Daretti, Scrap Savant are the backbone of this deck. Play fun huge artifact monsters, put Sharuum the Hegemon and Phyrexian Triniform in the same deck. It's a great time! Dip into blue and black for additional support, or go rainbow with the wide availability of color fixing. The key cards are artifact mana ramp such as Coalition Relic, a way to quickly filter through cards, preferably putting some in the graveyard like Cathartic Reunion, big fat artifacts like Noxious Gearhulk, and the ability to put them into play quickly, either with ramp, or with effects like Tinker. This deck takes a bit to get going, and can sometimes lose to faster decks. It's also not super consistent, since it relies on a few key cards for it's strength to shine. But if you're lucky with your draws, it can be one of the strongest and hardest to deal with decks in the cube.
ReanimatorCentered firmly in blue and black for looting and card selection, reanimator aims to fill the graveyard with large threats, then bring them back with cards like Reanimate or Dread Return. It has a lot of overlap with other strategies like Welder artifacts, Sneak Attack, or ramp, since they all typically want to play big cards. All you need to make this deck work is a few big creatures, reanimator spells, and some discard outlets like Thought Courier or Faithless Looting. Otherwise, the rest of the deck can be midrange, control, ramp, you name it.
Sneak Attack/Natural OrderAnother cheaty archetype in green and red primarily. The goal is to play big fatties and get them out early. Green is helpful for early ramp into your cheat engines, as well as for casting stuff as a backup plan. Red has Sneak Attack, the star of the deck, and green has Birthing Pod, Natural Order, Eldritch Evolution, and other useful tools.
AristocratsBlack is the main color here, with green as probably it's main ally. The goal is to create recursion engines with cards like Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Fiend Artisan, then exploit them for value. Token generators like Dreadhorde Invasion or Hidden stockpile are superstars.
RampThis one is pretty self explanatory. Generate a ton of mana, cast big spells. Make sure you have a way to turn your ramp into big creatures or spells in the late game. Superstars for this are Fauna Shaman, Duskwatch Recruiter, or Rune-Scarred Demon.
RG HastePlay some haste anthems like Rhythm of the Wild or Arlinn Kord, and then attack with creatures like Kalonian Hydra to generate immense value very quickly. Takes a few turns to come online, but then just generates threat after threat.
There is a lot of freedom to build wild decks in this cube, since the overall payoff level tends to prevent super swingy games. As long as you load up on some removal, you should be free to try and force whatever you like (within reason). Good luck!