MTGO version of Creature Feature

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The Premise

Creature Feature is a 450 card cube with a single design constraint: Every card must have a creature type somewhere on the card.

The cube's goal, however, is to capture the feeling of my favorite archetype - Spells with Legs! While part of the fun is finding cards that qualify by the slimmest possible margins...

My greatest joy in magic is navigating complex play choices, so of course there's a nice density of modal cards and cards with multiple effects or different ways to play. Recent sets have been an absolute BOON to the cube in this way!

Creature Feature started as a 190-card 2-player cube (a "2ube" as I like to say). This was such an incredibly fun, complex, and unique environment, that I decided to expand the cube to accommodate a full pod of drafters. The original, however, still sees a great deal of play.

To playtest the OG version, use the Small Cube Draft (Custom Draft) option in the playtest tab, using 4 seats.

Themes and Archetypes

With this cube, I ascribe to a looser design for archetypes - I believe in having a handful of enablers and payoffs, with a solid amount of "glue" - cards that help bring the deck together in a generic way.

Cards like Mulldrifter, Murderous Rider, and Llanowar Elves are solid role-fillers in any deck playing in their color. Having a density of these cards allows a more thematic approach to archetypes and increases the variety of decks seen throughout multiple drafts.

I also don't believe in the one-per-guild view of archetypes. First, I try to view archetypes from the paradigm of having one main color with 1 or 2 supporting colors. Many of my archteypes straddle a shard or wedge, while being focused on 1 or 2 of those colors.

Second, I also tend to chase archtypes that are fun, even if it means that there are more than 1 in a given color set, or if a guild/shard/wedge ends up without a specific archetype. I'd rather support them assymetrically than force subpar archtypes into a given color(s).

All that being said, here are the themes and archetypes explicitly supported in Creature Feature

Mono-, Mono-, and Mono-

While any mono-color deck can be streamlined, there are explicit supports in place for White, Black, and Red. White is focused on persevering through life gain, and finishing off with fliers. Subtle Blink or Battleshaping (e.g., Odric, Master Tactician) can bolster this type of deck.

Black's goal is to eliminate the opposition through hard removal, dominate with powerful fliers, or just build out a board and end it all with Gary.

Red, as always, leans aggressively. While there is not support for a traditional 1-drop aggro deck, Red can get ahead early and then persevere with pingers, fliers, or on-card combat pumps.

Blink and Copies

Perhaps the most versatile theme are the two main ways to recur EtB triggers. In White we have solid support for instant- and sorcery-speed blink, and in blue we have multiple Clone effects. Either color can be used solo or with any combination of other colors, as long as you are excited to rebuy the EtB effects in your deck.

Lifegain

Lifegain isn't usually an archetype as much as it is a way to draw out the game long enough to outlast/outmaneuver your opponent. With grindy combat, and a lack of solid wrath effects, it can be solid to simply keep your life total afloat while you grind down your opponent's board. If you do, make sure to keep an eye out for a few of the cards that actually care about your life total (or use it as a resource) to supplement your theme

Mill ()

Unfortunately, I'm a degenerate and enjoy the Mill archetype. You can also blame Startled Awake since that was the only Sorcery+Creature in all of magic until the Adventure mechanic came along. Anyway, the archetype is somewhat lean, so you'll want to be able to support the deck with removal, and try to stick a recurring source of mill

Tokens/Go Wide

Tokens are good, but there are also a glut of cards that care (passionately) about how many creatures you control. Most of them are cheap enough to combine with a token-making strategy, so you can go wide and tall at the same time. Some even do both! Also, let's you meme off with Westvale Abbey

Stealin' Stuff

If you like to play other people's decks, this is the archetype for you. Why play good cards when you can just take what you like from your opponent. While this is by no means a viable strategy by itself, stealing your opponent's goodies can basically serve as your removal package while beating down with your own creatures.

Aristocrats (/)

Aristocrats is a surprisingly wide archetype here. Judith, the Scourge Diva is a house in an aggressively slanted deck, for sure, but you can also get tricky with Nightmare Shepherd. A more traditional, grindy 'crats deck might branch into White and/ or Green in order to make some token fodder

Graveyard/Reanimate

Before we go too far, wombocombo Reanimate is not a thing, here (sorry, T2 Griselbrand lovers). The reanimate options here are more midrange and favor grindier gameplay, where rebuying your creatures allows you to punish decks that only play their creatures once. Ravenous Chupacabra becomes a 3-for-1 if you play it, smash it into a creature, then reanimate it. That said, there are plenty of self-mill options and no shortage of big finishers to dig up. Just don't think that can be your only straetgy

Lands

Playing lands is pretty fun when you get to cast spells, but have you ever tried getting 4/4s at the same time? Like other themes, Landfall/Lands Matter can be part of a cohesive overall strategy to outvalue your opponent, or it can be a couple cards that will help you generate overwhelming board states or just finish off a stalled game.

5c, also known as Bad Judgment

I dunno what to tell you, here. If you P1P1 a Field, Golos, or Niv-Mizzet, you are going down a dangerous, dirty path. I love it. Oh, and draft your lands, dammit.

Tips and Disclaimers for Drafting
Favor all forms of removal - it's often untraditional

Sweepers are HARD to come by, but a few cards do an approximation. More importantly, 6+ cmc cards tend to be finishers that will break apart a board stall

Companions are mostly main-board-able; explicit support to use them as companions is not on my mind.