Art by Seb McKinnonWhat is this cube about? My goal for the BKC is to create a fair environment, where every deck creates fun and engaging games, with lots of fun synergies for experienced players, but also high accessibility for newer players.
The cube mimics classic kitchen table magic by abandoning one turn kills or strong combo gameplay in general, focusing on good old Aggro-Midrange-Control. Nonetheless, there are lots of synergistic pieces that can be exploited to their full potential when played alongside each other, making decks more than just its pieces of the puzzle.
- Cube Philosophy
- The Main Guild Archetypes
- The Sub-Archetypes and Single Card Build-arounds
- Lore Seeker
- Recommended Draft Format
Cube Philosphy
My general philosophy for designing this Cube was to give each Guild their own identity by assigning them a main archetype. I dislike the idea of just mashing together a pile of goodstuff and much rather like to play synergistic decks that are more than the sum of their pieces.
However, this type of Cube design can force colors down certain paths too heavily, making drafts repetitive and subsequently boring. Thus, all archetypes are sprinkled across more than just two colors, allowing for more creative decks and additionally there are several smaller archetypes and single card build-arounds that don’t necessarily appear in every draft, but make for a more diverse draft environment and help keeping up replayability value.
This leads to an easy entry point for beginners, as they typically can just force draft the main guild archetypes and will end with playable decks in most cases. At the same time, experienced players will see and feel the additional possibilities from having access to sub-archetypes as well.
The Main Guild Archetypes
Each guild supports one main archetype, but each archetype can also be played in at least one (usually two) other colors as well to give as much flexibility as possible to the drafter. These archetypes are:
Artifacts: Azorius decks use strong Artifacts to their advantage. There are tons of Artifact Creatures, Utility Artifacts, and Mana Rocks that allow you to amass a huge amount of Artifacts on the board. These can then be used to generate value to overwhelm your opponent.
Mill (aka Control, with a twist): Dimir decks play in classical slow control fashion, outlasting their opponents. While the Cube offers some big finishers for control decks there are some cards that allow you to send your opponent’s deck directly to the graveyard and either win by them milling their entire deck, or reanimating their own big creature as your wincondition.
Aristocrats: Rakdos decks aim to create tons of small tokens and then sacrifice them to their own advantage. They tend to be pretty aggressive and have several ways to convert bodies into direct damage.
Landfall: For Gruul decks lands are more than just a source of mana, they are a valuable resource to generate value, needed to overrun any opponent. The Cube offers several Landfall cards with vastly different effects, but also ways of transforming lands into burn damage. Additionally, these decks have access to great ramp tools, allowing you to play large heavy hitters way ahead of the curve.
Enchantress: Selesnya decks make use of Enchantments. The Cube is loaded with all forms of Enchantments, that are either Creatures, Removal, or value generators. Using these while having payoffs on the battlefield that generate tokens, buff the board, or draw cards, can lead to massive advantages.
Symmetrical Sacrifice (no worries, lands mostly stay in play): Orzhov decks also aim to sacrifice lots of cards, but not just their own. Abusing symmetrical effects to their advantage you can force your opponent to sacrifice their valuable permanents and return cards you sacrificed yourself.
Spellslinger: Izzet decks don’t play many creatures, but focus on Instant and Sorcery spells instead. The few creatures these decks run are used to maximize and increase any value generated by spells. By using burn spells these decks can finish off any opposing deck quite fast, or alternatively focus more on card draw and outlast them instead.
Self Mill/Recursion: Golgari decks don’t mill their opponents, but themselves as fast as possible. There are lots of cards that can gain anything back that was put into the graveyard, making it a second library.
Token Aggro: Boros is the most aggressive guild, and creates a huge army in no time. Use this early tempo to your advantage and overwhelm any opponent before they can stabilize and execute their own gameplan.
Proliferate: Simic decks fight for the board in spectacular fashion. Using +1/+1-counters you can pump up your army quickly and create creatures with hundreds of stat points that are undefeatable killers in any combat.
The Sub-Archetypes and Single Card Build-arounds
RDW: RDW (or: Red Deck Wins) is a classic among Aggro Players. As this Cube runs a lot of quality 1-Drops for red and a good bunch of burn spells this deck can easily get some wins against careless opponents. It’s probably the easiest one color deck to build in this Cube and comes at relatively low risk, as Izzet, Rakdos, and Boros all support Aggro gameplans, meaning you can easily switch to a two color deck if there aren’t enough red cards circling around.
5-Color-Goodstuff: Did I say there aren’t just random goodstuff decks with this Cube? Well, while not the primary focus there are some cards that either need 5C decks to function, or become way better the more colors they have access to. The decks heavily depend on the support cards that circulate, but should always be kept in mind.
Flicker/Blink: The main enablers for this archetype are located in blue and white, meaning it’s hard to go without either of these colors (even though it is possible). However, the archetype is not exclusive to Azorius, as there are a lot of ETB effects across all other colors.
There are some Single Card Buildarounds in the cube. While these work well with other existing cards they can heavily shift the way a deck drafts and plays.
Living Death: Allows for way more reckless self-mill in Sultai Recursion Decks. Also, instead of one big payoff these decks play way more creature-heavy.
Raid Bombardment: A RDW or Mardu Aggro-iteration that skyrockets the value of Tokens and small cheap creatures with 2 or less attack.
Rhythm of the Wild / Samut, Tyrant Smasher: Plays like a classic Fires Deck around Gruul with some ramp and hard hitting Midrange creatures.
Door to Nothingness: Get some fixing, high impact cards that are good on their own in all colors and artifact recursion as a safety net to play this iteration of Azorius Artifact Control.
Lore Seeker
Lore Seeker comes with some special packs: Mana rocks!, Iconic Staples, Modern Horizons, Charming Rainbow, and Command Zone!
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/buzzingpacks
Recommended Draft Format
| Players | Packs | Pack size | Cards per player | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | - | - | 45 | Tower Draft |
| 3 | 9 | 15 | 45 | After each pick burn 2 cards |
| 4 | 4 | 15 | 48 | Burn last 3 cards per pack |
| 5-8 | 3 | 15 | 45 | Standard Draft |
| 9-10 | 3 | 15 | 45 | 450-version of the cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/buzzing10p |