Art by BromThis cube centers the graveyard the most powerful zone within a highly interactive and creative draft environment. Threats, Card advantage, Mana Advantage, and more are all most powerfully developed through cultivation of your Graveyard. Rather than lean into a smaller number of predetermined archetypes, this cube focuses on the overlapping synergies between strategies which make use of the graveyard as a common resource.
The most powerful cards in this cube are the ones which allow you to do fuel nonsense in and from the graveyard
Graveyard-Based ThreatsMost cards greatest value should come from the graveyard in some way.
Cards that provide free value from the graveyard:Fill your graveyard and be rewarded! These cards range from crucial engine pieces to incidental value, and are a core part of the environment.
Card VelocityMore cards moving into and out of the Graveyard! The more of your deck you see every game, the more of a plan you'll be able to build and execute.
Buildarounds!!These range from some of the more powerful cards in the cube to what are essentially "Dares" to drafters. Make something new and beautiful.
Graveyard interactionWe want to play Magic using the graveyard. We want to provide the tools to interact with opponents while providing the opportunity to play around and respond to that interaction. Cards like Rest in Peace obviously shut down games entirely, and even something like Scrabbling Claws proved to be too warping by just removing such a mass of cards over time, and by having an instant speed targeted option as well.
Powerful Manabases:5 color goodstuff has not had a strong presence in this cube-- 4 or 5 color piles still want to develop a specific gameplan and utilise the graveyard in specific ways. I want people to have the options to stretch intricate interactions across colors. If you're really cool, use the Bouncelands to force a discard on the draw and get that Bloodghast or whatever into your graveyard.
What you won't find:Recursion (Especially when cast from hand) should not be too powerful. The power should still come from the graveyard. Ranimation targets should not win the game without interacting with the graveyard in some way.
These cards are very strong-- too strong. They also get at the issue of singularly powerful cards monopolizing graveyard use. The goal is to have games use entire libraries without being the same every time. Having the wrong recursive threats leads to the same stories over and over again.
The graveyard is a limited resource. Delve spells work better as answers than threats.
If you're going to mill yourself out completely, then you'll need to work not to die. You won't find any effects that allow you to win just from having an empty deck. Ways to loop your deck exist, but not for free. (Seasons Past, Krosan Reclamation)