Overview

The primary goal of this Cube is to combine the themes and mechanics of the Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction expansion sets into one coherent and flavorful draft environment inspired by pulp noir and hardboiled detective stories. Detectives () from Ravnica represent the "cops" and Outlaws () from Thunder Junction represent the "robbers", with representing innocent citizens and those caught in the middle. Cards from additional sets have been added to flesh out draft archetypes where necessary. The name is taken from the popular childhood game.

Restrictions

Attempts have been made to keep as many card selections as possible from Ravnica, Thunder Junction, and New Capenna cards to preserve the (mostly) urban "law and order" theme. Some additional design principles include: no Planeswalkers, no Mythic Rares, and minimize complexity where possible. The Disguise/Cloak and Saddle mechanics were intentionally excluded to prevent the mechanical focus from becoming too broad.

Power Level

This should be viewed as a sort of custom Set Cube. In order to make more retail Limited cards relevant, the power level should be kept to around that of a retail draft, or perhaps a little higher.

Gameplay

Gameplay should be interactive, with aggressive and tempo strategies competing against grindy midrange and control decks. An attempt was made to make the replacement-level 3-drop creature a 3/2 to encourage combat. Clue tokens are prevalent in the environment in an attempt to provide late-game mana sinks and smooth draws. Being a 180-card Cube, this will usually be drafted by 2 players. Preferred draft format is TBD.

Major Themes/Archetypes

: Bant colors--primarily in the Azorius and Simic pairings--include the Detective creature type as well as the associated mechanics Investigate and Collect Evidence. represents a tempo strategy focused on the Detective creature type, while should support more of a Clue tokens focused midrange deck with additional support from the Innistrad and Modern Horizons 2 sets.

: Grixis colors are generally borrowed from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, specifically Dimir and Rakdos pairings. is meant to be the purest control archetype, taking advantage of removal and Outlaw-themed cards to enable Crimes. cares more about the Outlaw creature types themselves and should play more aggressively. Thunder Junction Desert duals were included to help enable Crimes.

: The last of the three creature type pillars is Gruul and Selesnya Citizens, borrowed from Streets of New Capenna. takes advantage of various Treasure enablers and payoffs to support aggressive creature-based strategies and includes plenty of rewards for controlling Citizen creatures.

: The Orzhov pairing is taken mostly from Thunder Junction and revolves around sacrificing Mercenary and Citizen tokens for different benefits. should be able to play a grindy midrange or control game.

: The Izzet archetype is intended to take advantage of all the Clue and Treasure tokens and sacrifice them for additional effects. could be more tempo or more controlling, but either way it will likely be converting Clues and Treasures into Thopter tokens to win. Of note, a few Thopter enablers from Kaladesh and Aether Revolt have been included to support this archetype.

: Boros is as Boros does. By combining Citizen and Mercenary tokens with all the small creatures in the Cube, should be aggressively attacking with small creatures.

: Finally, the Golgari pairing aims to combine all the sacrificing and Surveil triggers to fill up the graveyard and use it for value. decks will likely tend toward a midrange strategy.