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.

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Travel Log & Events

These events will feature or have featured Bodleian Cube in the main event.

• Boston Cube Party 2025
• Vertex Philidelphia
• Cubecon 2024
• Boston Cube Party 2024
• California Cube Championships 2024

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Design Goals & Guidelines:

• 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.

• The aggro, midrange, control combat triangle is a core part of this cube. Combo decks are intentionally excluded.

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

• The narrowest cards in the cube should be among the most exciting cards 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.

• Bodleian Cube is Baltimore Singleton (There are duplicates of fixing lands). 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.

• There is no fast mana in the cube.

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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 4 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.

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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 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.

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Gameplay

The decks in the Bodleian Cube all compete 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. The well positioned decks in any given draft have a good idea of where they fall on both of these axes. There are many archetypes within the cube, but a “Spellslinger” deck is still going to fundamentally have a gameplan such as Midrange, Control, or Aggro. Decks which do not have a cohesive identity on these two axes will struggle.

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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. This cube is designed so that the question is not “am I in the aristocrats deck?” but rather, “Which type of aristocrats deck am I in?”.

Below are descriptions of many of the high level archetypes within the Bodleian Cube. You could also call them packages, synergies, or cards that can be built around depending on how you feel about the term archetype. There are far too many combinations to list all of them, but this list is intended ast starting point for anyone trying to learn about this cube’s design or draft it for the first time. 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 / is primarily in white and red and secondarily in black. For this purpose, an archetype will rarely come together in a deck that is not at least one of the primary colors. 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 Bodleian Cube is designed to reward drafters for synergy in their decks that goes beyond solid cards in one or more colors.

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Aggro /

Aggro decks define the speed of the Bodleian Cube. All other decks must have a plan for decks of this speed or will find themselves quickly overwhelmed. The mana base of Bodleian Cube tends to enable two color aggro decks more readily than monocolor ones. It is far more common to see two multicolor decks than it is to see a mono red and mono white deck. Aggro decks can lean into many other archetypes in the cube, or focus on raw speed to overwhelm the opponent. .

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Aristocrats /

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. Aristocrats decks can trade their creatures for direct damage, removal, life, cards, and more. The types of exchanges a deck is able to make often inform the speed and gameplan that it is going to take on.

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Crime

Yawgmoth, Blood Artist, Goblin Bombardment, and many other cards commit a crime every time a creature dies. This can loop Miner for 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.

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Artifacts /

Artifact decks make use of a variety of strategies which take advantage of their eponymous card type. Beating down the opponent with Karnstructs, recurring artifacts from the graveyard, getting value from sacrificing them, and generating large amounts of mana are all supported directions for these decks. The artifact decks in Bodleian Cube do tend to lean more towards strategies which can take advantage of artifact tokens, equipment, or the selection of self-sacrificing artifacts.

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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. There are powerful standalone options such as looping Cryptic Coat or dropping an Emblercleave mid combat, and mystic can also serve as a redundant copy of an equipment which is also a key archetype card for your deck.

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Control /

The control archetype is all about disrupting the opponents plan and winning with inevitability. In this cube, you are unlikely to stick to pure draw-go or tap-out style control. The best control decks here blend the two styles and know what cards are worth tapping out for. Winning the game quickly and having answers to recursive threats are other key considerations for building a successful Bodleian control deck.

There are occasionally non-blue control decks that pop up in this cube. It requires a really specific set of cards to offset the lack of counterspells and card advantage that blue provides, but it is cool to see that happen once and a while.

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Counters /

There is not a hardened scales deck in this cube, but there are plenty of 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 it unlocks access to some explosive lines of play in terms of both damage and mana advantage.

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Delirium

Decks which support delirium seek to accumulate many card types within the graveyard. This aligns with many other strategies in the cube, ranging from proactive beatdown decks to slower ramp decks that want to resolve Emrakul.

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Flicker /

The flicker archetype is all about gaining value by repeating ETB triggers with flicker effects. The speed and gameplan of these decks tends to hinge on the balance of disruptive vs value generating ETBs that a deck has to recur. Most of the flicker effects are single serving, and the only repeat flicker effects must engage in combat to be used. This is an intentional choice to keep these decks from sitting back and accruing value without decisions.

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Flicker Cheat / Sewers

There is an alternative version of the flicker deck which uses these effects to flicker creatures with prototype or impending to get the creature out for a large discount. Only a subset of the flicker effects hit enchantments, but a turn 3 Overlord as a creature is a devastating play.

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Lands /

The lands archetype is all about getting value from each land drop. The type of value ranges from damage through counters or tokens, card advantage, and additional mana generation. Regardless of the type of value, ways to find additional lands and get them into play will be useful to these decks. Double fetch lands further increase the potential of this style of deck in the cube through duplication of landfall triggers and putting lands into the graveyard where they can be brought back.

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Field of the Dead

Field of the Dead uses its namesake card as a value engine to overwhelm the opponent. This tends to come together as a ramp deck that can play multiple lands per turn and uses Field as a win condition, but can also play as a more controlling deck’s wincon. Tutors for lands as well as extra payoffs for those tutors both help the deck succeed.

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Legends

The legends archetype makes use of a handful of cards which reward the drafter for using legendary creatures. As there are a huge number of legendary creatures in Magic, these handful of cards can transform a variety of or decks and cross pollinate nicely into a variety of archetypes. Boros aggro is a very common place to find these cards, but even 5 color legend decks come together using these cards.

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Lurrus /

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. Bodleian cube is designed such that a Lurrus companion is a choice to build around, rather than a mostly free eighth card that can be tapped into regardless of when it is opened.

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Ninjas

The ninjas archetype wants 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. This often goes hand and hand with a tempo strategy, but they fit well into other strategies too.

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Ramp /

The ramp archetype uses mana acceleration to play large threats ahead of schedule. Mana dorks as well as muti-mana ramp spells are key to getting ahead enough of the typical mana curve to have high impact. While the actual ramp is centered firmly in green, there are a variety of high impact threats in all of the other colors as well.

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Reanimator /

Reanimator in Bodleian Cube is value engine, not a combo win condition. The cards are far more expensive than reanimate to cast, but also provide value beyond just the creature(s) they bring back. This lets drafts chase the dream of an occasional phyrexian fleshgorger reanimation in their decks while using the reanimation cards to support other aspects of their deck as well.

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Rock /

The Rock could be argued to be a variant of stompy, ramp, or reanimator decks, so it gets its own section here. These 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. These decks can range from lower curving midrange to a high curving deck that can both reanimate and ramp out the highest curving threats in the cube.

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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 Nexus of Fate. There are many cards in this cube which make use of the graveyard as a resource, and the self mill archetype is the best at fueling them.

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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.

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Spellslingers /

The spellslingers archetype plays lots of instants and sorceries as well as cards that care about casting them. They can play a faster flash style of tempo strategy or a slower grindy strategy comfortably. It is worth noting that a true “protect the queen” style of delver deck is unlikely to come together in a cube with such high value curve topping plays. Spellslinger decks also make significant use of the graveyard to recur spells and delve them away for value.

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Stompy /

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.

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Tempo /

As with aggro and control, there are tempo decks in the format that don’t lean into other archetypes. These tend to play more as a flash style of deck which resolves early threats then closes out the game while stopping the opponent from stopping them.

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Tokens

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. This deck is one of the most flexible when it comes to speed. Aggro decks love to go wide with tokens, and even ramp decks can make use of their potential to great effect.

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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.

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Turns /

Taking multiple turns at once is a very powerful strategy, and one of the more degenerate things a drafter can do in the cube. There are only a couple of turns spells in the cube, but there are many ways to copy them and get them back from the graveyard to build a deck around the strategy.

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Unearth

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. These can be used to support a variety of strategies, or simply to overwhelm the opponent with value from the returned threats. The Unearth deck is going to be more conscious than other graveyard decks of making sure there are a significant number of 3 drops to bring back with these cards.

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Winota /

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.

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