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• Introduction
• Limitations
• History
• Draft Modes
• Archetypes

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Welcome to the Cube of Hubris. This is a traditional unpowered cube using snow basics. It supports a variety of limited formats for 2 to 8 players, though is most often drafted played by groups of 2 to 5. Originally inspired by the MTGO Vintage Cube it packs a couple of powerful cards and supports flashy archetypes. Despite the broad powerband, most archetypes get drafted on a regular basis and seem to have a winning chance in my playgroup. I am comfortable with my environment at the moment and so are my friends.

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Several design limitations were set by me in the past, though they tend to change and are not set in stone.

• No double-faced cards. The represent an entry barrier for newer players and I do not want players to be compelled to take cards out of the sleeves.
• No face-down cards. To clarify: This means cards with Morph or Foretell. I love Morph in particular but there are only a few playable ones available. So newer players get screwed because they don't have the knowledge and seasoned players knew exactly that their opponent was having a Den Protector. Manifest-like cards are completely fine as they do not have this baggage.
• Planeswalkers are unique. In the game of Magic the player is a Planeswalker. Getting supported by other Planeswalkers is represented in the Planeswalker cards for me. Therefore every Planeswalker shall have only one of its iterations in the Cube.
• Planeswalkers are rare. I like planeswalkers but in order for them to continue to feel special in limited, the number of them is limited to two per colour.
• No draft matters cards. As I think the hardest part for less experienced Cube players is the drafting portion, I don't want to overcomplicate it, although I could see including some draft matters cards for special occasions.
• No silver border cards. For now, though some of them look mighty interesting.

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In the Beginning

In the late 2019 AD, a sacred time before the big plague of our life time, the idea sparked to design a cube. Originally called "Ultimate Cube" a selection of cards was stuffed in several sleeve boxes. Inspiration was taken from the MTGO Vintage Cube though practibility lead to a Cube mostly consisting of cards I owned. This lead to an unexplored mine field of gamebreaking cards like Upheaval and Mother of Runes in an innocent environment of Guildgates, Act of Treason and Triplicate Spirits.

The Era of Signets

Early gameplay was dominated by artifact ramp, blue card draw and counter magic. Signets were considered an epitome of Cube by me, but I do not regret the first major nerf to the powerlevel, to which the Signets fell victim.

Diffusing the Death Star

Consistent Updates and an increase in online sealed play in early 2020 lead to a major crisis in the cube environment. The format was solved fast and Simic proved to be the undisputed king of the hill. The signets left a vacuum, which was quickly filled by the dozen mana dorks in the format. Efficient card draw and cheap counter magic made the deck almost unbeatable. To this day I refer to UG Midrange as "cube.dec". Desperate attempts to balance the format by my friends and I focused on the exclusion of cantrips such as Ponder, counterspells as Mana Leak and card draw as Thirst for Knowledge, although we very well knew that we did not address the elephant in the room: The Death Star.
The Death Star were four back-breaking blue Cards, that warped the format: Upheaval, Tinker, Opposition and Mystic Confluence.
An epochal Update on April 28th 2020 allowed me to cycle out these haymakers and power down blue while also increasing the power level of the other sections.

Snow in Summer

In the summer of 2020 I expanded from 360 to 400 cards to allow more variety between drafts. I also ordered snow basics in anticipation of a bigger card pool accessible for me.

On the Horizon

One year later I decided "420 blaze it" and upsized to 420 cards. This upsize was legitimized due to the absurd playability of cards from Modern Horizons 2.

Bigger is Brother

With Brother's War came a lot of exciting cards to my cube. So many in fact that I decided to size up to 450. Artifact aggro shells are now better supported than before and Fast Lands have become the fourth "Guild" lands option.

Strength in numbers

In 2023 my good friend decided that we needed numerical data for our - at that point regular - drafts and programmed an insanely good statistics tool that showed which colours, archetypes and individual cards saw play and how they performed. This powerful new tool made it possible to eliminate problems in the environment much quicker and more accurately.

The Good Times

Ever since the Death Star has been defeated the Environment evokes a lot of fun for my friends. Updates became dynamic and aim to smoothen play experience. Many cards proved to be good but not dominating and most archetypes seem to be accessible.

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If you are interested in new ways to draft, the Cube Draft Format Primer by u/thesidestepkids might help you.
Following draft methods have been used in the past with my friends and worked reasonably well. You will see in many of these you see end up with more than 45 cards. This is deliberate as I want to encourage synergistic decks and less stress on playables.

2 Players:

• Winston Draft (with 100 or more cards instead of 90)
• Sealed (90 cards per player)

3 Players:

• Discard Draft (6 Packs with 11 cards per player, draft 5 and burn the rest of the pack - insane decks came out of this one)

4 Players:

• Burn Draft (6 Packs with 15 cards per player, additionally to one pick you also burn one of the cards)
• Adjusted Regular Draft (6 packs of 9 cards per player)

5 Players:

• Regular Draft
• Adjusted Regular Draft (5 packs of 10 cards per player)

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By no way are the possibilities of a Cube draft limited to the following deck archetypes. New ones emerge constantly and every Cube deck is unique by nature. The following archetype list shall give new players some starting point. Feel free to skip this section entirely and create something new!

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White Weenie

White Weenie is a fast mono white aggro deck. You want to include small aggressive creatures like Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Sometimes these have built-in disruption like Tithe Taker to hinder your opponent. Look out for efficient unconditional removal like Journey to Nowhere to elevate one of whites strenghts.

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Black Aggro

Black Aggro is slightly harder to build than other mono colour aggro decks but is capable of playing a longer game. Besides efficient recurring threats like Gutterbones you should draft hand disruption like Inquisition of Kozilek and dynamic spot removal such as Go for the Throat.

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Red Deck Wins

Red Deck Wins opts to be the fastest aggro deck of the bunch. Small early creatures as Falkenrath Pit Fighter paired with cheap removal that double functions as burn like Incinerate makes the deck lightning fast. With cards like Glorybringer it also packs very good high end.

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Green Ramp

The biggest strength of a mono green deck is it's ability to cheat on mana. Play a so called "Mana dork" like Noble Hierarch on turn 1 and play a three drop on turn 2. You know what's more frightening than a Terastodon? A Terastodon on turn 5. You don't have to get too fancy though. An early Deranged Hermit might make combat hell on earth for your opponent's aggro deck.

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Azorius Control

Azorius Control takes phenomenal white removal like Oblivion Ring and combines it with blue counterspells such as Mana Leak and card draw. Mass removal like Day of Judgement are used well in a creature-light deck like Azorius Control.

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Dimir Ninjas

Ninjas uses small evasive blue and black creatures like Spectral Sailor to circumvent the enemy defenses and ambush out one of the Ninja cards, for example Mist-Syndicate Naga. Removal or "Bounce" effects like Venser, Shaper Savant helps getting in multiple hits with your Ninjas.

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Rakdos Sacrifice

This red and black deck is all about the sacrifice mechanic. The formula of this deck is as follows: Use a sacrifice engine, for example Woe Strider, and sacrifice a fodder creature like Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin tokens. If you have a payoff such as Blood Artist then that means profits.

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Selesnya Enchantress

White-Green is all about Enchantments. Use Banishing Light to remove threats or Wild Growth to ramp, all while drawing cards off your Eidolon of Blossoms.

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The Rock

Green-Black tends to be a midrange deck that combines ramp like Sakura-Tribe Elder with powerful disruption, for example Damn. Keep your eyes peeled for ways to generate "two-for-ones" like Hymn to Tourach.

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Izzet Spells

Blue-Red uses their cheap instants and sorceries like Ponder or Abrade and takes advantage of a payoff like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer.

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Lands/Land Death

Utilizing Lands for effects like Tireless Tracker or destroying them with Wildfire are legit ways to build these decks. Land Recursion is often a key-part of these strategies, for example Crucible of Worlds.

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Reanimator/Welder

These Archetypes are all about cheating big Creatures out of your graveyard. You will need a discard outlet like Faithless Looting which brings your enormous creature into your graveyard before you use a reanimation effect like Animate Dead or Daretti, Scrap Savant to cheat it into play.

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Splinter Twin

These Combo decks use a creature, that untaps itself or other creatures like Zealous Conscripts and a "Multiple Clone" card as Kiki-Jiki Mirrorbreaker to create an infinite number of tokens with haste.

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Special thanks to Maramas of The Tabletop Cube who's Primer inspired and helped design my own overview.