Buy & Battle
(512 Card Cube)
Buy & Battle
Art by Jeff MiracolaArt by Jeff Miracola
512 Card Vintage Cube11 followers
Designed by eerieisland
Owned
$121
Buy
$1,630
Purchase
Mana Pool$1485.39
Buy & Battle offers a bold new spin on Magic, combining explosive gameplay with a draft phase that's as impactful as the games themselves.

It’s inspired by Autobattlers like Hearthstone Battlegrounds. You’ll like it if you enjoy evolving metas and strategic drafting—free from the frustrations of mana screw or games that drag on.

Quick Overview

Unlike a typical draft, this format involves drafting a few cards, playing a game, and then returning to the draft. At the end of the tournament, the person with the most points wins. Here's how it all works:
Draft: Each round starts with a 2-player Rochester draft against your opponent. To pick a card, you'll need to pay for it with Treasure. You can increase your income as the tournament progresses.
Game Rule Changes: Build a 10-card deck, start each game with 10 life, and draw 3 cards to begin.
Omniscience Emblem: During the match, all players have the Omniscience emblem in play. You may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs. 0: Add ☀️ 💧 💀 🔥 🌳. Activate this ability only once per turn.
Match Format: Matches are best-of-one.
Scoring: Winners earn points that increase with each round—3 points for the first round, 4 for the second, 5 for the third, and so on.
Round Rotation: After each game, rotate seating to face your next opponent.
Tournament Length: Play a set number of rounds—6 rounds for 2 or 4 players, and 7 rounds for 8 players. This should take 1-2 hours.

What Makes Buy & Battle Different?
  • Custom Rules for a New Experience: Draft with a twist—every pick costs money, but once you’ve "bought" a card, it’s free to cast for the entire tournament.
  • Explosive Gameplay: Skip the slow early turns. Every game is full of big plays and meaningful decisions.
  • Dynamic Metagame: Everything is drafted face-up, creating real-time strategy and table talk as players counter each other’s evolving strategy.

Here's a video I made about the design philosophy for Buy & Battle.


Player Aid

I recommend printing out one of these per player along with the Omniscience emblem.
Player Aid


Detailed Rules

Randomly determine seating for Round 1. Players start at 2 Income and 1 Influence. Begin with the Draft phase. It’s a 2 man Rochester draft against your opponent for the round. Turn up 8 cards from the cube. This means in a 8 person tournament, there will be 4 pairs of people drafting and playing against one another.

Use a random method to determine who gets 1st pick. The person who gets 2nd pick will go 1st in the game. In subsequent rounds, if one person has lower points then they may choose.

🃏Draft

On your turn, you may visit the Store or the Village.

The Store
  1. Get Treasure = to your Income. Get Picks = to your Influence
  2. Take Actions.
    Buy: Use Treasure to buy cards. The cost is the card’s mana cost. Use a pick for each card. (Ex. Jill starts her turn with 5 income and 2 picks. She may pick a 3 cost card and a 2 cost card. Or just one 5 cost card.)
    Sell: You may sell any card you previously purchased before this turn for 1 Treasure. That card is discarded.
  3. Any remaining picks and treasure are sacrificed, and it’s the next player’s turn.
The Village

You may visit 1 location in the village.
🏛️ Bank: Take any card from the store and turn it facedown in your Income slot. +1 Income. More treasure on your turn allows you to buy more expensive cards.
🍺 Tavern: Take any card from the store and turn it facedown in your Influence slot. +1 Influence. More picks on your turn allows to to take more cards as long as you can afford them all. You still only have your treasure for the turn to pay for all your picks.
🗡️Back Alley: You may take the cheapest card from the store and add it to your deck. If there is more than 1 card with the lowest cost, you may choose which one you want. You may never take more than 1 card in the Back Alley, even if you have increased influence.
Once you visit a single location, the turn passes to your opponent. After each turn, refresh the store back up to 8 cards.
Go back and forth until each person gets 4 turns.

👷‍♀️ Build

The players make 10 card minimum decks. You may use any number of Memnites (any 1/1s with no abilities will suffice) from the Memnite station. Memnites can not be sold.

🗡️ Battle

Games are played just like a normal Bo1 game of magic, but with the following rule modifications:

  • Each player has an emblem in play that reads “You may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs. 0: Add ☀️ 💧 💀 🔥 🌳 to your mana pool. Activate this ability only once per turn.”
  • Starting life = 10
  • Starting hand size is 3
  • You do not lose for drawing a card when your library is empty.
  • If at anytime both players pass their turn without taking a game action, the game is a draw.
  • The player with the worst record chooses to play or draw. If it is a tie, determine randomly.
  • Each player who doesn’t win gets a random card from the cube.

Get ready to draft, buy, and battle—this is Magic like you’ve never played before!


Similar Cubes

I'm inspired by the following cubes. Check them out for similar draft experiences:
Magic: The Battling
Degenerate Micro-Cube

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Maybeboard Changelist+1, -0
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