Fifteen Card Highlander
What if you opened a booster pack and there was a complete deck inside?
This cube supports the teeniest, tiniest format there is! Players will draft two packs of ten cards each, then construct a deck consisting of exactly fifteen cards (including lands, so budget space appropriately!). This cube eschews combo and instead focuses on the tension between tempo and value-how much speed are you willing to trade for more resources? Will you run out of cards before your opponent runs out of life, or will they die with a partially assembled value engine and a full grip?
The only additional rule to the format is that a player does not lose the game if they attempt to draw a card from an empty library-they simply don't draw a card instead.
Card Evaluation:
Think sideways. In a format where resources are scarce, what's powerful and what's not is flipped upside down. Brainstorm? Griselbrand? Chumps, I say! Instead, Ghostly Prison is much stronger when your opponent only has access to four mana. Make A Wish and pull back Gaea's Blessing to grind your opponent out with value. Force your opponent to make an impossible choice between casting their spells or dying to a four mana 6/6. Discover the true power of Tel-Jilad Stylus!
Archetypes:
Color | Archetype |
---|---|
Tempo: Play cheap spells and punish your opponent for trying to curve out. One spell a turn won't be enough. | |
Permission: Spells and permanents only exist because you allow them to. The board should be nice and clean, except for your stuff. | |
Aristocrats: If you throw enough bodies at a problem, and it goes away, was it ever really a problem? | |
Stompy: Your cards have this hidden keyword 'big' that means your opponent needs to spend more than one card to get rid of them. | |
Tokens: I wonder how it feels to trade a whole card for a token. Probably not great. | |
Equipment: Cheap threats become REAL problems with a Bonesplitter stuck to them. | |
Spellsplinger: Permanents are for small brain players. True genius is found when you cast an instant and get six triggers. | |
Recursive Value: Eventually, they will run out of removal for that 4/4 you keep recycling. | |
Counters: Your creatures will never stop growing. Ever. | |
Reanimator: Slam the biggest bombs. Then do it again after your opponent empties their hand trying to get rid of them. |
Mainboard Changelist+0, -0
- Swords to Plowshares
- Touch the Spirit Realm
- Wing It
- Split Up
- Floodpits Drowner
- Fear of Isolation
- Silent Hallcreeper
- Xerex Strobe-Knight
- Victimize
- Defiled Crypt // Cadaver Lab
- Valgavoth's Faithful
- Coiling Rebirth
- Withering Torment
- Radha's Firebrand
- Pyroclasm
- Insidious Fungus
- Gift of the Viper
- Twitching Doll
- Shrouded Shepherd
- Arabella, Abandoned Doll
- Mabel, Heir to Cragflame
- Undead Sprinter
- Wildfire Wickerfolk
- Join the Dance
- Dollhouse of Horrors
- Levitating Statue