Art by Terese NielsenCube is the perfect format because it combines constructing, drafting, deckbuilding and playing into a social gathering that’s never the same thing twice. For many of us, our cubes are our love letters to Magic and the freeform of the format allows us to more easily express what we love about the game. So let me tell you what I love about Magic.
Currently I am updating the cube to include more classic cards from Magic and my early days. I want to support old buildarounds like Seismic Assault, Survival of the Fittest and Saproling Burst in a modern and somewhat fair environment. I want glue cards like Wild Mongrel, Hermit Druid, Fling and Call of the Herd to be powerful enablers that can stand up to newer designs. Lastly, I want to be able to play old power outliers like Sneak Attack and Demonic Tutor while maintaining a fair environment.
“What am I supposed to first pick?” is a common refrain and it’s music to my ears. I want the drafters to ask themselves “Who am I today: Johnny, Spike or Tammy?” Not every deck has to be 3-0 material or even 2-1 as long as the player had fun that night. So you can go ahead and take high power level cards like some of the aforementioned classics or Omnath, Locus of Creation and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis which require commitment to be truly great or go off the beaten path and take Lotus Vale and untappers, Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab mill with Worldsoul’s Rage effects, or Illuminator Virtuoso with Scale Up.
I love when the table excitedly shares what happened during the draft and asks “What’s the build here? Do you think its worth trying to make Seismic Assault work with Inti, Seneschal of the Sun and Rielle, the Everwise in this build?”. I want players to have more than enough cards to make meaningful deckbuilding decisions. The cube has lots of fixing and small buildarounds where players should ask themselves if it's worth trying to squeeze some value out of an available synergy.
I am a competitor at heart and I want matches to be decided by player skill in drafting, deckbuilding and gameplay. I love having a variety of big and small games where going over the top with Apex Devastator and Lotus Vale is as viable as playing hellbent with Liliana of the Veil. I love fair magic where a Wrath of God and Fact or Fiction provide game breaking card advantage. I keep a lower count of high value, low requirement cards, especially those that will indefinitely snowball in favor of more synergies or aggressive strategies. Lastly, I endeavor to keep game complexity at a manageable state by limiting the overall number of complex mechanics.
Sample Drafts:
Big Spells
Jund Birthing Pod
Heroic Captain Ripley
Selesnya Heroic Counters
Sephara Convoke
Splicer Pod
Esper Ninja Flash
Rakdos Madness
Vengevine
Rakdos Goblin Sacrifice
Lotus Omnath
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/1invsxe/why_you_should_build_another_cube_draft_report/
Everyone should feel the relief that comes over you when constraints that stretched your previous design disappear. With a couple of successful playtests of my Foundations Cube (https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/FundamentalFoundations), I set my sights on overhauling my main cube (https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/ggcube). Having the Foundations Cube allowed me to let go and embrace complexity, combos and “mean” cards.
So much of my recent experience has been echoed in Lucky Paper Radio’s recent episodes. As mentioned by Andy, we get tied down with too many objectives when we try to fit so many ideals and ideas into a single cube and we can end up with a better product when we can separate those concerns. In addition as recently discussed, within my group I’m a known vintage cube hater for many of the same reasons stated by Anthony and Andy. But there is something to be learned from the beloved vintage cube. We love old school build-arounds that test deck building and drafting skills, the open-ended feeling during the draft and the resulting crazy decks. So I moved forward with the goal of cramming in more classic pre-modern cards into a modern cube.
Thus began my search for pre-modern, non-power cards I could afford in paper that are powerful and fun in a modern context. So I proceeded to add mean white cards (Balance, Cataclysm, Armageddon), stormy blue cards (Stroke of Genius, High Tide, Gifts Ungiven), powerful black cards (Recurring Nightmare, Necropotence, Buried Alive), green buildarounds (Oath of Druids, Natural Order, and Rofellos) and artifacts I hadn’t touched in ages (Memory Jar, Smokestack, Lotus Petal and Lotus Bloom). Then I ripped out more than a third of the cards in my cube to give drafters some of that excitement that you find in a vintage cube.
Last night, I sat out the draft and spectated the games which was a blast and gave me much more insight into the new cube. Overall, based on the decks and games, I am thrilled with the results and can’t wait to figure out how to get my hands on Phyrexian Dreadnought, Wheel of Fortune and Cabal Therapy to squeeze them in next. Here are my two favorite moments from the night:
Doom Foretold / Armageddon: Demonic Pact gets full value before getting sacrificed to Doom Foretold. Winning a game by playing Doom Foretold into Armageddon. Not reading opponent’s Slogurk before casting Armageddon, giving Slogurk +5/+5 but somehow overcoming this mistake but then losing to runner-runner fetch lands that pump Slogurk for perfect lethal.
Oath of Druids / Nexus of Fate vs Mill Deck: My brain hurt watching this game trying to figure out how each deck could win. I had never seen an Ancestral Vision come off suspend and then target the opponent for fear of decking. I had never seen someone refuse an Oath trigger to discard Nexus of Fate to make sure it’s in their library for protection. The final game came down to a Stroke of Genius targeting the opponent but falling 1 card short.
Decklists
Trophy Selesnya Lands: After I cut Michael’s beloved Risen Reef and Omnath, he decided to not let that deter him from drafting a lands deck. Michael had an insane amount of hard fought, story worthy games. Titania made enough elementals to chew through Ghalta and Myr Battlesphere. And best of all, a sideboarded Eladamri’s Call into Containment Priest shutdown a game winning Natural Order.
Runner Up Proft’s Prowess: Micah is the resident fun police and low curve enjoyer and found his way into a sick Izzet deck with 3 zero mana spells. Micah made some hard deck building decisions, having to decide between an even lower curve with white or insane churn using blue and it seems like he made the right decision because Proft’s Eidetic Memory looked outstanding especially when he Finale of Promise into Thought Scour and Faithless Looting and buried his opponent in value and damage.
RakSac: There’s nothing like a good Act of Treason (Kari Zev’s Expertise in this case) and Ken used it to great effect on the number of huge fatties in the cube. Voldaren Thrillseeker continues to make its case as the best fair Fling effect and Fiend Artisan, which I’ve been pushing for a long time, truly got it’s time to shine in this deck as a fat goyf and an important combo piece tutor.
Esper Control: Sebastian doesn’t really think in terms of archetypes so he was right at home with this esper control deck that splashes a Warleader’s Call and Grim Lavamancer. It was remarked that Sebastian’s deck is unbeatable when he plays Bitterblossom on 2.
Necro Survival: Frank is packing a ton of old school power with Natural Order, Buried Alive, Survival of the Fittest and Necropotence. What was really amazing is every game I watched there was some enormous threat on Frank’s side but somehow the match wasn’t necessarily over. Even when Frank had an Apex Altisaur and a metamorphed copy, his opponent was digging for outs and maybe could have escaped with a win with some better luck (or play but Gifts Ungiven is a complicated card).
Esper Geddon: Half land destruction, half esper pixie, all Khang. There wasn’t a world I imagined where an esper deck would be packing Armageddon but here we are. I really couldn’t look away from this beautiful disaster that at times looked like a powerful strategy and other times a confusing mess but I love Khang all the more for putting it together. Gerrard’s Verdict was a feared card and Doom Foretold and Demonic Pact looked very good against the opposition.
5 Color NOG (Nexus Oath Gifts): Looking at this deck hurts my brain. The number of lines I saw Ben work through on his way to determining a good but not perfect decision was very high and made us joke that u/ragehs from our playgroup would drive this list to a 3-0. This was easily the spiciest deck and I loved watching every game.
Coward Crab: Frank wheeled a Ruin Crab after not wheeling a Hedron Crab and prophetically called out an unknown coward. This deck had such promise and came so close in so many games and even truly popped off but ultimately fell short (perhaps 1 Ruin Crab short). I laughed so hard in all these games though as the player either played Teferi’s Tutelage into Memory Jar or looked at me with a tear in his eye as Terravore was stranded in his hand while 8 cards are milled but somehow no lands have hit the yard.