RULES

• Any lands used must be acquired during the draft
• Drafted with three packs of 18 cards per person

DESIGN

• All cards have the '93/97 card frame
• All cards are black-bordered with the exception of the basic lands, which are white-bordered

Welcome to Corince. 133 years ago, a meteor brought Vermilion Oil to the world--a strange, brilliant-red metallic liquid with great power. With it, the inhabitants of Corince built grand cities buzzing with flying transportation, autonomous machines, and powerful arcane artifacts, ushering in a new era of prosperity and technology. It wasn't until 30 years ago that the dire side effects of Vermilion Oil were discovered. Over time, the oil was absorbed into the soil and water. It eroded the ecosystem, killed nearly all plantlife, poisoned the seas, and destroyed natural weather patterns. Not a drop of rain has fallen on Corince for five years. Without life's most precious resource, the once-great civilizations have crumbled to dust. In the wake of this environmental disaster came war and famine so dire that the population of Corince is now a tenth of what it was just a half decade before, and the end looms closely on the horizon.

Nomadic tribes struggle for survival under the merciless Corince sun, wandering from one broken landscape to the next. All but the most wary of these refugees fall victim to the heat, the sand wurms, the raiders, or to the wretched horrors created by the Vermilion plague. Hardships are plenty for these resilient survivors--but united, they may live to see another day.

Scattered among the ruins of Corince's cities, and half-buried in the sweeping desert sands, lie derelict power stones and abandoned automata. These artifacts were once the pride of Corince. Now they lie dormant, the power and skill to operate them lost in the recent armageddon. Those in control of the few remaining sources of water try to barricade themselves away from the nomads and the raiders, working desperately to maintain the last vestiges of knowledge and culture their world once produced. They pour over arcane texts in a race to reverse the effects of Vermilion Oil before all is lost.

Some half-mad denizens of Corince exiled from the remaining vestiges of civilization hoard what little Vermilion Oil can be found among the ruins. Direct exposure to the oil imbues tremendous power, but at a cost. Most are twisted into grotesque horrors, afflicted by the Vermilion plague. With its power, a spiteful and ambitious few seek to dominate this new world... or join the ranks of the undead that wander the endless cracked wastes.

Powerful wind storms ravage the surface of Corince--the blasting, scorching sands transform unprotected victims into piles of stripped white bones that dot the landscape. Raiders and bandits make their hideouts in the cave networks within the dusty mountains for shelter from the storms and sand wurms. These outlaw groups are led by opportunistic warlords who embrace the chaos that engulfs the world, taking what they can before Corince burns away.

The land is barren. Nearly all wildlife is extinct, and what remains is hostile and deadly, but small bands of druids live among them, following the migrations of the elephants and sand wurms. These hardened, stoic people use old magics from millennia past to restore fertility to the world, but thier numbers are few, and thier work often lost long before it bears fruit.

Now that you find yourself in this arid hell, you must decide how you will survive. Resources do not come easy, and those who do not plan and conserve quickly perish. Or will you--like so many of the bereft, the spiteful, the mad denizens of Corince before you--simply curse the cloudless sky, and watch the world burn?

(list and story adapted from the original Desert cube http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/10432 )