Welcome to my Cube!

Please skip to the section that most represents you and your experience with magic and cube!

What is Cube?

Cube is a community-driven magic format in which cube designers will pick out a curated set of cards from all throughout magic's history, including supplemental sets such as Un-sets, Conspiracy sets, and sometimes even their own custom-created cards. With the cube all put together, a playgroup will draft their own decks from it, just as they would from a retail set like Strixhaven, and play a mini-tournament using the decks they created. What makes cube a great format is that every experience will be different: you will see different cards, you will build a different deck, you will play against different people with different decks, and you may even start to branch out into other cubes or perhaps design your own at some point.

What is Vintage Cube?

Now that you know what a cube is, you may be wondering what this cube is all about. A Vintage Cube is typically one that aims to maximize the power level of its decks by specifically choosing the and game-breaking cards ever created like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall as well as more modern favorites such as Oko, Thief of Crowns and Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes. Building deck with the most powerful cards ever leads to some crazy and exciting games where anything can happen, an experience you don't get anywhere else in magic unless you're one of the few active vintage players where these cards actually legal.

Many vintage cubes, like this one, are or started as clones of the MTGO Vintage Cube. The MTGO cube has been running for many years and allows players from all over the world to experience the cube format online. With all the data its curators have gathered over the years, it's a great starting point if you're looking to build your own cube. For me, that was in 2016 when I decided to get into the cube format. Since then, I've made many changes to my list to support the strategies I like and cut out some of the random cards I don't like. At this point I rarely have to make new updates, so I can pull this out whenever and expect to have a great time playing.

What do I do if I've never drafted before?

Most cubes will be drafted with 3 packs of 15 cards, the same as drafting a regular set. Everyone will start by opening one pack, taking one card from it, and passing the rest to the person on their left. Continue until there are no cards left then repeat for the second and third packs, each time alternating between passing left and right (left for 1st pack, right for 2nd, left for 3rd). Each player should end up with 45 cards that they picked, then it's time to build your 40-card deck. You have access to any number of basic lands that you wish and, importantly, you will want to end up with about 23 nonland cards and 17 lands (any lands you picked during the draft would be counted as part of that 17). This ratio is tried-and-true over the history of drafting and is a great starting metric to ensure you draw what you need in-game.

When drafting, knowing which cards to pick is a skill that takes plenty of research and practice. For your first couple picks, you will generally want to take the most powerful cards you see so that you can start to build your deck around them. With draft boosters from regular sets, this will usually be the rare or a very strong uncommon. In Cube, there usually isn't a standard for how many of each rarity you will find in a pack. Because of this, you need to know a little more about the cube to know what the powerful cards are (I'll cover this in the next section).

Once you've gotten a solid start (or maybe not if you didn't open any powerful cards), you'll want to take cards that fit with the cards you've picked so far. In some settings, this is as easy as taking cards of the same colors to build your deck. However, it usually isn't that simple: you wouldn't want a Wrath of God in your deck that is otherwise composed of little white creatures. Because of this, it can be helpful to learn more about what strategies are most supported in the cube so you can gear your draft picks toward a cohesive deck. Of course, when you have more experience under your belt feel free to experiment with new possibilities, that's what cube is all about.

So how do I draft this cube?

You know what a cube is, you know how to draft, but you're probably here because you're going to be drafting this cube soon (hopefully in-person with me!) so let's get into the kind of details you can actually put to use.

This cube is 540 cards, which I believe is the best number to be able to support multiple strategies in each combination of colors. It also provides a good amount of variance since a pod of 8 people will draft 8 * 45 = 360 cards, leaving another 180 undrafted cards to make it feel different next time. I believe it's important for every draft to feel new and interesting, even for players who often draft the same strategies.

As this cube's designer, I like to make sure there are plenty of viable strategies to build decks around. However, I avoid strict archetypes like "White/Green +1/+1 counters" or "blue/red spells" that lock drafters into a path they can't deviate from (This is known as drafting "on rails": when it feels like your picks are being made for you). So the themes I will outline below are more general macroarchetypes to keep in mind when drafting.

I've listed two themes per color combination that can mostly be labeled as "fast" and "slow". In vintage cube, there is ample opportunity to draft fast aggressive or combo decks that will win quickly if left unchecked. The other category are the checks: slower decks that seek to disrupt their opponents and grind out an advantage.

: Creature-based aggro with disruptive elements
: Planeswalker control with board-wipes, removal, and resilient planeswalkers.

: Tempo/Control with cheap disruptive creatures and counter magic.
: Control with draw spells, counter magic, and big finishers.

: Tempo/Control with cheap, recursive creatures and plenty of removal.
: Reanimator with discard effects and big finishers.

: Aggro/Burn with fast, aggressive creatures and burn spells.
: Big Red with planeswalkers, removal, and dragons.

: Big Ramp with mana elves into big finishers.
: Midrange with lots of planeswalkers.

: Artifact ramp with Eldrazi finishers

These are the general themes for each color and can definitely be drafted as mono-color decks. However, usually you will want to mix and match them to shore up each color's weaknesses and make use of some of the powerful multicolor spells.

: Aggro/Tempo, disruptive creatures backed by countermagic.
: Midrange/Control, planeswalkers, removal, countermagic, and resilient finishers.

: Tempo, disruptive creatures with countermagic.
: Reanimator, more discard, protection, and big finishers.

: Aggro, aggressive creatures, removal, and discard.
: Midrange, planeswalkers, removal, bigger threats.

: Midrange, planeswalkers and burn.
: Ramp, big green creatures, big red creatures.

: Aggro, disruptive creatures.
: Midrange, planeswalkers and ramp.

: Aggro/Tempo, disruptive creatures, discard, removal, and resource denial.
: Midrange/Control, planeswalkers and removal.

: Midrange, planeswalkers and removal.
: Reanimator/Ramp, big finishers with either mana elves or reanimation.

: Aggro/Tempo, cheap creatures with countermagic and card advantage.
: Ramp, mana elves and big finishers.

: Aggro/Tempo, aggressive creatures with countermagic or the twin combo.
: Control, with countermagic and burn spells.

: Aggro with fast and disruptive creatures and burn spells.
: Control with planeswalkers and land destruction.

Obviously, these are a general set of guidelines to help you understand some of the directions you can take your draft. If you know you have a favorite color combination you can orient your picks towards one of these strategies. Or if you have a favorite playstyle, look up what color combination supports it best.

It's good to know what themes a cube supports so that you know a little bit about what you're drafting toward and what the intended purpose of any specific card in the cube is, but make sure you go into each draft with an open mind. You may open your first pack and be confronted with the best possible card to have for a deck you've never played or drafted for. A good drafter will be able to capitalize on that kind of advantage. To help you guys become better drafters, here is a tier list that I'll use to rank what I think are the top cards in this cube you want to be on the look out for.

These are the cream of the crop, cards that will significantly enhance your deck just by having them in there and don't require much in terms of cost. Never pass these on these cards (unless you happen to open multiple of them, in which case this is the order I would take them in).

They may not be the best of the best, but these cards will cause significant impact on any game you get to cast them in. Pick these and build around them. I didn't push these in any particular order because of how different they are in use; they are great for different reasons.

You could probably consider these as part of tier 1 as well, but I decided to separate them out for being not quite as game-warping as the previous section. These cards are still very strong cards you will definitely want to have in your deck.

Every deck needs lands. If you're trying to play a deck uses more than one or two colors, you need good lands that can add multiple colors of cards in your decks. Lands that fix colors, especially the colors of your deck, are always going to be good picks as they essentially don't use up a slot in your deck. With that said, these are lands you would be happy to pick over most other cards in the cube because they help you fix for more powerful color combinations

Finally, these are some ultra-powerful cards that don't get placed higher because they are more narrow in use and will require you to also pick specific cards to make them good.

If you're looking for even more information on what cards to take, you may want to just dive into the list, sorted by elo to see what the community thinks!

If you're looking for even more help or just want to ask a question or share some thoughts, feel free to send me a note and I should respond soon.

Thanks for reading!