Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Design Philosophy
3. Draft Variations
   a. Commander Draft
   b. 2-player Modified Winston Draft
4. Archetypes

Overview

The D&D Commander Cube combines the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (AFR), Forgotten Realms Commander (AFC), and Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB) sets to offer a commander draft experience.

Design Philosophy Goal

Cards were included in the cube to provide enough picks for each color archetype and not influenced by meeting a particular quota for each set. A few 3-color commanders outside of the three D&D sets were included.

Card Counts

For consistency and archetype balance, the cube was designed so that with 8 players, all the uncommons and commons will be in the draft pool, 24 out of 25 lands will be in the draft pool, and the majority of rares/mythics and commander/backgrounds will be in the draft pool.

Rarity Ratio

The rarity ratio is at 2/1/1/1 for Common/Uncommon/Rare/Mythic.

The exception to this rule is Baleful Beholder and Ghastly Death Tyrant, in which there is only one copy of each because they are nearly identical and can stand in as each others' copies.

A note on multiplayer

The cube is designed to be playable for 1v1 as well as multiplayer. For this reason, cards with abilities like "myriad" and "goad" were excluded, and the power levels of cards that targeted each opponent were considered with the 1v1 experience in mind.

For a 1v1 game, players may decide to start at 30 life instead of 40 life. Also, a recommended Rule 0 is to use the three Forgotten Realms dungeons (Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and Tomb of Annihilation) instead of the Undercity for Initiative. The reasoning is that Undercity is too strong for 1v1.

Draft Variations Commander Draft Number of draft packs

Three 21-card packs per player

Draft Pack Slots

• Rare: 1x mythic/rare
• Commander: 2x Legendary Commander of any rarity
• Background: 1x Legendary Background of any rarity
• Uncommon: 4x uncommon
• Common: 12x common
• Land: 1x of any rarity

Drafting Steps

1. Collect draft pack of 21 cards
2. Pick 2 cards
3. Pass to the right
4. Repeat steps 2&3 until all cards are picked. The last batch will have 3 cards
5. Repeat from step 1 until all draft packs are gone but pass in the opposite direction

2-player Modified Winston Draft Slot Order (and Number of Cards)

1. Rare (1)
2. Commander (2)
3. Background (1)
4. Uncommon (4)
5. Common (12)
6. Land (1)

Drafting Steps

1. Grab the entire card pool for the current slot (see Slot Order).
2. Put the top three cards from the card pool face down next to it as three new small piles of one card each.
3. The first player looks at the first small pile. They may choose to draft that pile or not.
4. If they draft it, they replace that pile with a new face-down card from the card pool.
5. If they don't draft it, they put it back, add a new card from the card pool face down, and move on to the next pile.
6. Repeat steps 4&5 with the remaining two piles.
7. If they looked at all three piles and haven't drafted a card, they draft a random card from the top of the card pool.
8. Continue until each player has selected the number of cards listed next to the slot name (e.g. For the "Common" slot, each player drafts until all players have at least 12 commons).
9. Move on to the next slot and repeat steps 1-8.
10. Repeat the draft for all slots until each slot has been drafted three times. After the draft is over, each player should have a minimum of 63 cards (3 rares, 6 commanders, 3 backgrounds, and so on) to make a 60 card deck.

Archetypes Gaosuwind's D&D Commander Cube Archetypes

Flicker -
Tokens/Lifegain -
Party/Lifegain/Leave the Battlefield Matters -
Equipment -
Evasion/Initiative -
Adventures/Roll a d20 -
Dragons/Ramp -
Treasure/Sacrifice -
Graveyard/Morbid -
Dragons/Pack Tactics -

The original set archetypes Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (AFR) Archetypes

Dungeons/Control-
Lifegain-
Dungeons-
Equipment -
Evasion/Control -
Roll a d20 -
Ramp/Value -
Treasure-
Morbid -
Pack tactics -

Subthemes

Dragons
Goblins
ETB

Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB) Archetypes

Flicker -
Tokens-
Leaves the Battlefield Matters -
Attack Matters/Myriad -
Initiative -
Adventures -
Dragons -
Treasure/Sacrifice -
Graveyard -
Dragons Power -

Subthemes

Gates
Party

Notes Borrowed from Party Time Commander Precon:

Archpriest of Iona
Rumor Gatherer
Irregular Cohort
Seasoned Dungeoneer
Valiant Changeling
Folk Hero
Changeling Outcast
Malakir Blood-Priest
Nighthawk Scavenger
Burakos, Party Leader
Solemn Doomguide
Butcher of Malakir
Thwart the Grave
Nalia de'Arnise
Multiclass Baldric
Myriad Landscape
10x Swamp
10x Plains
Shapeshifter/(Blue) Shapeshifter Token

Borrowed from Exit From Exile Commander Precon:

Embereth Shieldbreaker
Bonecrusher Giant
Passionate Archaeologist
Beanstalk Giant
Tlincalli Hunter
Cultivate
Sarevok's Tome
11x Mountain
12x Forest
Wolf/Insect Token