Bodleian Cube

Cube ID
Art by Anato FinnstarkArt by Anato Finnstark

360 Card Legacy+ Cube

253 followers
Designed by DeinonychusRSSQR Code

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Design Philosophy:

The Bodleian Cube showcases iconic and powerful cards with an emphasis on strategies that combine cards to be more than the sum of their parts. The power level is designed to allow these iconic cards to shine within and alongside archetypes which often suffocate in cubes designed to maximize individual card power. The strategies within the cube are set up to combine and cross pollinate to encourage emergent deckbuilding and present drafters with many possible directions throughout the draft. Each drafter begins with a Cogwork Librarian to enable them to speculate more effectively on many buildarounds within the cube.


Upcoming Events:

These events will feature Bodleian Cube in the main event this year.


Design Goals:

  • Cultivate an environment with exciting synergistic plays where card combinations are greater than the sum of their parts.

  • Maintain a high density of efficient threats and answers within the cube while omitting cards which are so powerful that they make synergy irrelevant.

  • Ensure that games are fun to lose as well as win. People lose in every game of Magic and there’s a notable difference between a fun and unfun loss.

  • Archetypes are not typically tied to one specific color or color pair. This encourages emergent decks and prevents on-rails drafting.

  • The weakest cards in the cube should be among the most powerful in the decks they’re desired by.

  • Generic removal spells are typically kept out of gold sections to encourage cross pollination of archetypes and discourage five color good stuff.

  • Cards with hexproof, shroud, and protection are minimized to enable more interactive gameplay.

  • Game state agnostically powerful blue instants are restricted to encourage blue decks to engage in combat.

  • There is main-deckable removal for planeswalkers, enchantments, and artifacts to ensure that these card types are still interactive. As a result, there is no cap on any specific card type.

  • Bodleian Cube is Baltimore Singleton (There are duplicates of fixing lands). As a result, there is great fixing in the cube to support all decks. Five color good stuff piles are kept in check by the speed of the fastest decks in the format.

  • Fast mana is not present in this cube.

  • There are no free spells in this cube.


Draft Rules:

  1. Every player starts with a copy of Cogwork Librarian as the draft begins.
  2. For 8 players, draft 3 packs of 15.
  3. For 4 players, draft 4 packs of 15, burn the last 5 cards in every pack.
  4. For <4 players, Housman Draft with 9 packs of 10.

These draft rules enable the highly synergistic decks to come together, even without the entire cube being drafted.


The Origin of the Name

This cube is named after the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. It shares two key similarities with this famous library.The Bodleian Library was among the first to popularize an elaborate registry of donors to showcase their generosity. In the Bodleian Cube, the winner of each draft signs a basic land, showcasing their skill to all drafters to come. In addition, a helpful Cogwork Librarian will find players what their deck needs during the draft.


Gameplay

The decks in the Bodleian Cube all complete on the tempo vs attrition axis and the proactive vs reactive axis. There are no combo decks in the cube and nearly all decks must play to the board in order to win.

These two axes can be used to describe the four macro archetypes of the Bodleian Cube. All of the decks are fundamentally using one of these four gameplans. There are many archetypes within the cubel, but a “Spells Matter” deck is still going to fundamentally have a gameplan such as Midrange, Aggro Control, or Contro. Decks which do not have a cohesive identity among these four macro archetypes tend to struggle in their games.

Tempo vs Attrition

Decks which fall on the tempo side of the axis are focused on winning before their opponent can stop them, while attrition slanted decks can play a longer game and win with inevitability.

Proactive vs Reactive

Proactive decks are focused on deploying threats to win the game and use answers to stop their opponent from stopping them. Reactive decks are focused on having answers to their opponent’s threats, and deploy a much smaller number of threats to win the game.

Aggro - Tempo & Proactive

Aggro decks win the game by deploying threats to reduce their opponent’s life to zero as quickly as possible. They are the speed ceiling of the format.

Midrange - Attrition & Proactive

Midrange decks are also focused on deploying their threats to defeat the opponent, but they sacrifice speed to get access to higher card quality at high mana values. This allows midrange decks to grind opponents out in a longer game.

Control - Attrition & Reactive

Control decks are focused on answering their opponent’s threats and winning the game once the opponent’s game plan has been stopped. They play mostly answers and ways to find more answers, their threats are of secondary importance.

Tempo - Tempo & Reactive

Tempo decks deploy a small number of threats and then use their large number of answers to keep the opponent on the backfoot for just long enough to win. These are the least common decks in the cube by far, but are incredibly flexible and powerful when they come together.


Archetypes

This is not a cube where each color pair has a given archetype. This design approach is often an oversimplification which can lead to on rails drafting and lack of emergent decks in the format. Instead, the Bodleian Cube focuses on having a diverse selection of archetypes that cross pollinate well with each other and encourage emergent deckbuilding. This rewards creative drafters and enables them to find unique decks that can change multiple times in a given draft based on the cards they choose to add.

Below are descriptions of many of the high level archetypes within the Bodleian Cube. There are far too many combinations to list all of them, but this list is a great starting point for anyone trying to draft the cube or learn about its design. Each archetype has colors listed next to it which are in the format of Primary Color(s) / Secondary Color(s). For example, an archetype listed as wr / b is primarily in white and red and secondarily in black. As a final note, this list is not going to cover the generic two color midrange decks that are achievable in all color pairs. One can absolutely combine the bread and butter cards in two color pairs to make a coherent deck, but these are not explicitly designed around. The Bodleian Cube is designed to reward drafters for synergy in their decks.


Aggro wr / bg

The aggro archetype use efficient, low cost threats to get the opponent's life total to zero as quickly as possible. This deck wins by killing the opponent before they can get their bigger threats into play and stabilize. The mana base of Bodleian Cube tends to enable two color aggro decks more readily than monocolor ones.


Red Deck Wins

Rx aggro decks are the fastest in the format due to their hasty threats and burn spells which can kill the opponent if they stabilize on board. These decks define the speed of the format.


White Weenie

Wx aggro decks lack the burn of their Red counterpart but make up for it with access to stronger removal and disruption. This clears the way for highly efficient creatures and planeswalkers to kill the opponent quickly.


Aristocrats wbr / g

The aristocrats archetype attacks opponents on a different axis by gaining value from its own creatures dying. By combining sacrifice outlets, sacrifice fodder, and sacrifice payoffs this deck can grind the opponent out or kill them outright.


Aggrocrats

This deck seeks to kill the opponent quickly and make all of their removal hurt to cast. If the opponent manages to stabilize on board, blast them out of the game with Bombardment or Blood Artist.


Attrition Aristocrats

The attrition version of aristocrats grinds the opponent out of the game with repeated token generators and blood artist effects to win with inevitability. This deck excels at winning in combat focused games and uses removal to slow the opponent down.


Crime

Yawgmoth, Blood Artist, Goblin Bombardment, and many other cards commit a crime every time a creature dies. This can loop Miner for b or make two Gisa tokens every single turn. When this engine comes together it wins the game quickly, and comes about as close to combo as one can get in this cube.


Artifacts wu / brg

The artifacts archetype is somewhat self explanatory. Build around the engines which care about artifacts and include artifacts and card that create them in your deck


Stoneforge

Stoneforge decks are powerful in Bodleian Cube, but play much more fairly than in cubes where Kaldra Compleat is an option. Do not let that trick you into thinking the card is not worth including in your deck. Looping Cryptic Coat or dropping a snap on equipment like Maul mid combat are powerful lines that win games.


Control uwb / r

The control archetype is all about disrupting the opponents plan and winning with inevitability.


Draw Go Control

This is the classic control build. Your opponent’s turn is just your turn in disguise.


Tapout Control

Control where you actually take your own turn. This variant of the deck plays a lot of planeswalkers and other spells that generate value by being on the board. You still need counterspells and removal, but you’re going to be more selective about what you hit with them.


Counterswrg / b

There is not a hardened scales deck in this cube, but there are plenty of good cards that put counters on creatures and several creatures that get significantly more powerful when extra counters are put on them. When both kinds of cards are added to a deck the player gains access to some explosive lines of play.


Soul Cauldron

Soul Cauldron is a card which changes a deck all on its own. The floor on the card is reasonable grave hate that can buff creatures. The ceiling is an army of Grists that create an insect every turn and take over the game. There are lots of great activated abilities to make use of with Cauldron, and your opponent’s cards ensure that every matchup provides unique lines to find.


Flicker w / ubrg

The flicker archetype is all about gaining value by repeating ETB triggers with flicker effects. This can be incidental value from one time flicker effects or an entire engine that flickers creatures every turn.


Flicker Tempo

The tempo version of flicker wants to play early threats and disrupt the opponent’s gameplan by blinking creatures to keep the opponent on the backfoot. Combine this with a lot of answers to win before the opponent’s plan can come together.


Flicker Attrition

The attrition based flicker deck uses removal to stop early threats then builds an engine to provide inevitability.


Graveyard ubrg / w

All the decks within this archetype use the graveyard for value. The pilot must decide whether to lean into cards that want to accumulate cards in the graveyard and cards that want to use up cards from the graveyard.


Delirium

Delirium decks seek to accumulate many card types within the graveyard. They can cover the entire range from proactive to reactive, but all of them need to be careful about how many cards they include which need to consume cards from the graveyard in order to function.


Rock

Rock decks use green’s mana acceleration to get premier threats out early. They use removal and recursion to grind the opponent out of the game.


Self Mill

Self mill decks specialize in filling up their graveyard very quickly. This can provide pure card advantage via threats like Uro, Options for engines like Six, and even can be used to win the game with Jace in the right circumstances.


Lands g / wubr

The lands matter archetype is all about getting additional value from playing lands. Fetch lands and ways to play lands from the graveyard are key to powering up the payoffs such as Tireless Tracker and Titania, Protector of Argoth.


Land Recursion

Ramp out your payoffs early then use crucible effects to repeatedly play lands from the graveyard to gain value.


Field of the Dead

Field of the Dead uses its namesake card as a value engine in games that go late. This tends to come together as a ramp deck that can play multiple lands per turn and uses Field as a win condition. Tutors for lands as well as extra payoffs for those tutors both help the deck succeed.


Legends wr

The legends deck rewards the drafter for using legendary creatures or permanants.These payoffs give a different texture to a wr aggro or midrange shell and are significant threats when built around.


Lurrus wb / urg

The Lurrus deck is dependent on an early Lurrus open, but is one of the strongest in the cube when it comes together. Recurring the best one and two drops gives the deck a shocking amount of inevitability without sacrificing the ability to win early against unsuspecting opponents.


Ninjas ub

Properly speaking, the ninjas deck is a tempo deck in UB colors that uses ninja cards as threats. This deck’s goal is to play creatures which are hard to block, then ninjutsu in one of the haymakers which can be protected with counterspells and spot removal while it generates advantage to win the game.


Ramp g / wubr

The ramp archetype uses mana acceleration to play large threats ahead of curve. Mana dorks as well as muti-mana ramp spells are key to getting ahead enough of the typical mana curve to have high impact.


Reanimator bw / urg

Dedicated cheat decks are not supported in the Bodleian Cube. There are several flavors of reanimator here, but they are all making value plays. There are no entomb + reanimate style combo decks

Tiny Reanimator

There are a number of cards across black and white that can return creatures or permanents with mana value 3 or less from the graveyard to the battlefield. Tiny Reanimator decks grind the opponent out with an army of these smaller creatures.


Value Reanimator

This is the version of this deck that brings back large creatures with cards like Virtue or Liliana and tends to come in the form of a Ramp/Rock deck, or a Control deck. Virtue in particular can be a one card, value reanimator engine.


Spells Matter ur / bw

The spells matter archetype plays lots of instants and sorceries as well as cards that care about casting them.


“Delver”

Delver is a tempo style spells matter deck. Your early threats care about casting spells, and your answers fuel these while keeping the opponent on the backfoot until you can win.


Attrition Spells Matter

Spells decks also lend themselves to grindy midrange and control decks. These tend to use higher curving payoffs and are more likely to splash white or black for access to more board clearing effects.


Stompy g / wurb

The stompy archetype is about using manadorks to cast midrange threats ahead of curve to take over the game. They differ from a traditional ramp deck in that they are more about playing three, four, and five drops faster than normal rather than the larger creatures ramp decks want to cast.


Tempo u / wbr

There are Ux tempo decks which don’t lean into any of the other archetypes in the format. These all aspire to play early threats and use answers to disrupt the opponent just long enough to win.


Tokens wrgb

The tokens archetype is the quintessential go-wide strategy in this cube. Overwhelm the opponent with too many attackers to block, or pump the entire board to go for the kill.


Tokens

Go wider than the opponent and take over the game with board pumping effects or other payoffs for multiple creatures


Drain Tokens

The drain based tokens deck leverages death triggers in black to force a no win situation by attacking with tokens to force damage through and kill the opponent.


Esika’s Chariot

Chariot is such a cool card that it is worth highlighting a couple unique tokens it can copy. Esika’s Chariot + Ob Nixilis, the Adversary feels like cheating the first time it happens, but the X value for the token is copied, resulting in an army of Mob Nixilis tokens. Vaultborn and Gruff Triplets are more straightforward, but explosive to pull off.


Winota wr / g

The Winota archetype centers all around the namesake card. She requires a deck that’s split between human and non-human creatures to overwhelm the opponent with a tide of humans from the deck. Prioritize larger humans and lower MV non-humans to maximize her potential.


Preface

No good cube update is complete without a second thoughts update to accompany it. Sometimes the urge to correct something strikes you once the update is made and I tend not to resist in that case.

Changes

Carnage Interpreter - A certain friend of mine named Alex W has been campaigning for me to add this card for a while. I shouldn’t limit the scope of that statement, he’s been campaigning everyone to add this card for a while. I thought it was cool on release, but was worried it might be too good. This is a good testing window for the card, so I’m willing to give it a shot. 4 clues makes for some very interesting decisions, and if the card manages to juice up artifacts decks then it is likely to stick around. My main concern for the card is that it incentivizes building a very low curving deck, which Magic already does innately at this power level. I want decks in Bodleian to be willing to go up the curve a bit compared to eternal formats, and if this card is too much of an incentive not to do that it may also not last. That all said, I think it could be an artifact card that’s a big draw into those synergies

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah -> Virtue of Loyalty - I recently witnessed the truly insane combination of Goblin Bombardment and Ajani. I always knew this was a possible line with this card, but seeing it in action really changed my perspective on it. I love aristocrats decks, and when they manage to just get there with a sac outlet to win a game I tend to find that to be exciting. Ajani + Bombardment removes a lot of that nuance. Ajani comes down, flips, and essentially doubles the damage that bombardment can immediately do to the opponent. It is easy to deal 8-12 damage with these two cards out of nowhere. Bodies are the limiting factor on the sacrifice engine’s ability to do massive damage, and Ajani makes that too easy. I think Ajani does a lot of cool things, and without the boros damage rider on the back I think it would stay in for a while longer. I cut Virtue because it was a powerful white card that helped the more proactive decks transition seamlessly into a later game strategy. I am looking to slightly decrease white’s power, and this was a good candidate for doing so. Given that Ajani is coming out, Virtue can come back in and white will still be more powered down than originally intended.

Brightglass Gearhulk - I am excited to test this card when Aetherdrift comes out, but think it’s a reasonable “cut” to simply test Carnage Interpreter and wait for this to come out.