Guide is being reworked right now. (The current one covers the basics just fine though.)
ErratasALL basic lands are Snow subtype to enable Skred and Arcum's Astrolabe.
ALL NON-basic lands are Gate subtype to enable Basilisk Gate.
Rough heuristicsPick Monarch, the Initiative and any cards that read obviously broken high.
Fixing comes at the cost of lands entering tapped, so don't get too cute and stick to one or two colors (splashing a third in Blue decks is fine).
The format is low to the ground, aggressive and interactive, so most decks want a low land count of 15 instead of the usual 17 (different reasons explained below).
Supported Macro-Archetypes: Aggro, Midrange and Control
My recommendation: Mono-White Aggro is OK, but not great.
Supported Macro-Archetypes: Tempo and Control
My recommendation: Don't do Mono-Blue.
Supported Macro-Archetypes: Aggro, Tempo, Midrange and Control
My recommendation: Mono-Black Saggrofice is a bit slower than Mono-Red, but has more staying power and is still disgustingly fast. Mono-Black Control is the greatest grindfest you ever participated in.
Supported Macro-Archetypes: Aggro, Tempo, Midrange and Control
My recommendation: Mono-Red Aggro is the cube's best, lightning-fast Aggro deck. You can even pivot into true Burn.
Supported Macro-Archetypes: Ramp (Combo), Midrange and Control
My recommendation: Mono-Green Ramp is great, but aim to curve out at 4 and 5 rather than 6 and 7, so you can overload opponents by going turn 1 Mana dork into turn 2 3-drop, turn 3 4-drop and turn 4 5-drop.
Aggressive 1 and 2 CMC creatures (e.g. "the best RED 2-drop in cube") to support two color Aggro.
Cantripping artifacts and artifact lands for synergy decks.
My recommendation: Classic Blue-centric Control with Flicker or Initiative/Monarch late game.
My recommendation: Classic Blue-centric Control with 5/5 beaters or Initiative/Monarch late game.
My recommendation: Black-centric saggrofice splashing for Red's damage payoffs.
My recommendation: Green-centric Ponza and/or big beaters.
My recommendation: Chain cantripping ETB creatures into each other and curve out with or turbo out Initiative/Monarch.
My recommendation: Chain cantripping ETB creatures into each other and curve out with Initiative/Monarch or drain.
My recommendation: Turbo Initiative/Monarch Midrange.
My recommendation: Blue-centric Turbo fog with Flicker loops.
My recommendation: Tempo and spells matter, but you need to read the draft to find out whether you're supposed to be Blue- or Red-centric.
My recommendation: Cantripping artifacts and value engines.
About the format in more detailWhile designing I tried to create an environment, which is equally engaging to novices and veterans. I think I succeeded since the mechanics themselves (maybe except the Initiative) are rather simple and accessible for beginners, while the synergies and different rates reward an invested drafter at the same time for their vast knowledge of the game.
This cube consists of around 48% creatures, 22% instants and 12% lands. Most cubes consist of 50% creatures and the rest equally split between the other card types. By raising the instant count I made the whole gameplay more interactive.
Aggro is supported in White, Black and Red. Mono-Red is the most explosive version and has the best reach because of Red's burn spells. Red likes to curve out at 3 and play like 3-5 3-drops and the rest 1- and 2-drops. White and Black like to go a little bigger and also have the necessary staying power to do so. White has literally stapled "draw a card" on each of its 3-drops and Black grows its threats with sacrifice synergies. Red and Black overlap into a great sacrifice theme, White with each of the other two into a great artifact synergy pile and both themes can be combined, if you want to.
Midrange is supported in each color except Blue, but the best Midrange decks are based Green, so you can go turn 1 Mana dork into turn 2 3-drop and so on. Green gives you the explosive element to keep up with Aggro and go to fast for control. Black and White offer some recursion and removal, but especially Monarch and the Initiative. Red doesn't feature any of the above, but removal for the best rate, that can even close out games and a bunch of absurd rate high end creatures. Blue is just bad at playing Midrange, so let Blue be the Control (and Tempo) color.
Tempo is rooted in Blue, since Tempo needs cheap countermagic and great filtering and is best paired with Red, since they both share spells matter and Red has burn to keep games short. White, Black or Green can be used to fill up your Blue Tempo deck, but I'd guess you're just doing it the hard way.
Control is rooted in two main colors, Blue and Black, and I wouldn't advise you to deviate from these. The biggest differences are Blue has countermagic and card selection, while Black has removal and raw card advantage. White, Black and Red offer Blue its needed removal and are all about equally good at providing it. Black is in that sense complete, that it actually doesn't need any second color as partner, but also doesn't mind diversifying its removal suite by teaming up with these three. Green offers a unique Turbo fog theme, which has some overlap in White and by utilizing Campfire or Mystic Sanctuary you can stall your opponents out until they draw themselves dead.
Each color except for Red has one CMC countermagic. By this I mean Blue obviously has "real" countermagic, White gets Protection, Flicker and even a true counterspell, Black Flicker through the graveyard and Green Hexproof. Red like all the others gets a colorless "counterspell". So beware when trying to interact with your opponents creatures, they might get you really good, while you're trying to mess with them. Removal, countermagic and discard always costs just one or two Mana and is cheaper than threats.
You don't have any planeswalkers as "one card value engines" to close out games and either have to build them yourself (Mnemonic Wall + Ghostly Flicker) or use the emblem mechanics (Initiative or Monarch) to get similar value. All these mechanics can feel swingy and sometimes straight up broken, but are neccessary for games to end quickly so the format doesn't devolve into stupid Midrange board stalls. Just try to maintain a board presence at any time to potentially contest the emblems and play your interaction wisely to break up value loops as soon as they're assembled.
I alluded to it in the heuristics:
This format is low to the ground (the average CMC is very low), aggressive and interactive. Combine this with the fact that ANY fixing will come at the cost of a land entering the battlefield tapped either directly or indirectly. You're not free to play as many colors as you want, since you'll either be permanently color screwed or behind on board.
Aggro decks try circumventing this by being monocolored when possible or just splashing a second color while being strongly rooted in a main color. The colorless 1- and 2-drops try to help you be less color screwed, so try packing them over slow tapped fixing. Normal draft decks run 17 lands and you try splitting them 10 (main color) to 7 (second/splash color), which leaves you with a probability of roughly 90% seeing a land which produces your main color on turn 1 and a probability of roughly 90% seeing a land which produces your second color on turn 3. A dual counts as one for both splits so your 17 lands could split 10 to 8 or 11 to 7 instead or you could go down to 16 lands and still be at 10 to 7. If you're running less lands this stretches your mana even further.
This is the point I'm trying to make here:
Aggro decks reasonably don't want more than 15 lands with their low curves so they don't flood too much in the late game, but this makes their mana really inconsistent, when they're in more than one color. I'd still advise you to go down to 15 lands and try to play no tapped fixing to keep your explosiveness.
Green Midrange decks also want to trim lands, since they want to ramp and for each 2-3 Mana dorks you can go down 1 land. So often enough you'll end up with 15 lands as well.
Control decks also go down on lands, since they'd rather sculpt their draws by cantripping. Similar to Mana dorks for 2-3 cantrips you go down 1 land.
Worst 1 CMC Unblockable threat leaves, third "When dies make another dude" slots in.
Instead of slotting Stab in, we're slotting Disfigure out and bring Pilfer as a 2 CMC Thoughtseize.
Helpful Hunter doesn't need additional pieces to generate stable value insted of Aviary Mechanic.