THE HYPERCUBE INTRODUCTION

Lots of people have different first experiences of playing Magic. For my friends and I, it was opening a deckbuilders' toolkit, splitting the 5 colours between the 5 of us and playing a big, crazy free-for-all game on a literal kitchen table. As we learned the game, we progressed to each trying out different decks and strategies - yet still all in 4-6 player games where anything goes.

Eventually our playgroup grew and changed, and we got interested in more competitive formats (Pauper, Modern etc.) built around traditional duel games. But still we maintained our interest in multiplayer magic through the format of EDH.

That's what drove me to design the Hypercube. I want to combine the thrill of those early kitchen table days with the flashiness of the EDH format and the competitiveness of formats like Modern and Legacy. It's also a good way of getting the playgroup together, without the need for the tournament format that most cubes have.

The Hypercube supports 4-8 players building 40-card minimum decks and games are played as 20-life FFAs. No shared library, no shared life totals, no commanders, nada. Just a good old-fashioned kitchen table brawl.

Feel free to dive straight in, or read through the rest of this guide for an in-depth idea of how this cube works.

MULTIPLAYER MAGIC

If you've never played multiplayer Magic before, it can be easy to look at this cube and its mana curve and ask "what the hell is going on?" To put it bluntly, big FFA games play very differently to duels or even 2HG. If you've already played a FFA format like 4+ player EDH, feel free to skip this section as you will be familiar with how it works.

• Multiplayer games are generally slower. While you might struggle to get to 6 mana in a duel, 6 mana is considered the midgame in multiplayer. If duels are considered sprints, FFAs are considered marathons.
• You don't win by simply dealing 20 damage. You win by eliminating each other player.
• The last player standing aspect pushes players to play somewhat defensively. Attacking could leave you open to dogpiles. If duels are considered blitzkrieg, FFAs are considered trench warfare. Ways of breaking the deadlock (Winds of Abandon, Cyclonic Rift) or uninteractive finishers (Exsanguinate, Splinter Twin) will be vital tools to your success.
• Naturally, lots of permanents end up all over the battlefield. This makes board wipes (Hour of Revelation, Blasphemous Act) all the more valuable.
• On the other hand, targeted removal becomes less useful. After all, if I Swords to Plowshares your threat, I may have 1-for-1ed you but I'm down 1 across the rest of the table. What little targeted removal there is must be hyper-efficient and used only when absolutely necessary. The same applies to counterspells.
• The absolute best thing to do in the first few turns of the game, is either ramp or set up defenses. Period. If you spend the first few turns durdling, you will be unable to keep up with the competition.
• The only exception to this is if you are playing burn. Burn in multiplayer is high-risk, high-reward and relies on cards like Flame Rift, Fiery Confluence and Manabarbs; as opposed to cards like Lightning Bolt and Char.
• Luckily, in multiplayer games you get 1 free mulligan. You also draw on your 1st turn regardless of who the 1st player is. This means that non-games are way less likely as you will likely have the starting conditions you need to set your game plan in motion
• The consequence of longer games, is that a lot of early game creatures lose their lustre. If you're drawing anemic dorks on turn 6 (which games are likely to get to), while other players are powering out Mind's Dilation or Craterhoof Behemoth , you might end up losing. As a result, every low-cost creature in the cube either has to either massively accelerate your game plan or provide at least some form of topdeck potential.
• Even in the cutthroat environment of a power cube, politics always plays a role in FFA games. "Who do I attack if I can attack multiple players? Shall I counter this spell everyone?" You still need to plan to win. Aimlessly making friends will get you nowhere.
• All-in-all, don't be daunted. Multiplayer Magic is about enjoying the grindier aspects of the game; eeking out incremental value while trying to keep your head above the water, before blowing the world up in an exciting finish. While there is excitement in victory, you'll have most of your fun along the way.

CUBE PHILOSOPHY

I am not a professional game designer, nor do I strive to make the ultimate balanced format. I try merely to make a fun experience. Some cards are going to be better than others. With that in mind, I do have some design principles for this cube:

• Synergy matters. On-the-rails archetypes are eschewed in favour of themes. Often these themes will bleed into one another.
• This is a high-powered environment. It's exciting to play with the best cards ever printed. As a result, this card includes multiformat allstars such as Sol Ring, Fastbond and Mana Drain as well as cards that are god-tier in multiplayer yet lesser known in other format (Smothering Tithe, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Purphoros, God of the Forge).
• There is, however, a minute list of banned cards. You won't find Contract from Below here, for example. Cards like this are just so absurd, that they would make games pointless.
• As anyone who's played EDH knows, games in multiplayer can last quite a while. Luckily, when people are playing optimised 40-card decks, this speeds things up. However, it is still necessary to ban certain cards and strategies that make games overly long. For example: you won't find any Stax archetype here (Stasis, Winter Orb, Smokestack).
• Similarly, mass land destruction, while incredibly powerful in FFAs, is missing from this cube. Armageddon, Limited Resources, Decree of Annihilation and their kin just cause games to stall out. You currently can draft a Red-Green Wildfire theme, but this is because cards like this don't completely remove all lands, they just provide an advantage to anyone who's already ramped. But, other than that, no MLD.
• Sensei's Divining Top gets a special mention as a card that can literally double the length of games. I know I'm in the minority here, but I hate this card. It's out.
• The final category of cards that are excluded are un-cards. There are some that definitely have competitive applications (Booster Tutor, Summon the Pack) but they just seem a bit too wacky. Like any aspect of cube design, the playgroup and I may change our minds on this later, but for the meantime no un-cards.
• I have included Inzerva, Master of Insights as, apart from its sheer power level, there is no reason why this couldn't see print in black border.
• Cards that interrupt drafting (Cogwork Librarian) are excluded. This is just personal preference. The format is complex enough without them, and most of them are not playable in the games themselves.
• Companions are played without their errata. Companions are relatively new, and we want them to be competitive. If, after testing, they end up not being any fun they can easily be removed or changed to oracle rules.
• The fixing in this cube is moderate to high. 3-colour decks are supported. It is possible to play with more than this, but I've tried to discourage 5-colour goodstuff by limiting most fixing to guild pairs. I want people to be able to play their cards, but if playtesting finds people keep breaking the colour pie, I will reduce the amount of fixing further.
• The Hypercube will evolve over time, as new cards and archetypes are added and old ones are removed. Sometimes it will be because they are hated. Sometimes it will be because they are oppressive. Sometimes it will just be for a change.

Ultimately, I want to make sure all my players are having fun and the only way we can do this is by playing games, listening to feedback and tweaking the design.

HOW IT PLAYS

As mentioned in the preamble, games of the Hypercube are 4-8 player games. Each player has 20 life and there are no restrictions on which opponents can be attacked or which targets can be chosen. You duke it out, Battle Royale style until you are the Last One Standing or you've won the game by means of the text printed on a card. Matches consist of as many games as it takes for us to get bored or drunk or realise we have work in a few hours.

This is how we like to draft it:
4 Players // 6p x 8c
5 Players // 5p x 10c
6 Players // 4p x 12c
7 Players // 3p x 16c
8 Players // 3p x 16c

Experienced cube-stans may notice that this gives a few extra cards in your pool compared to normal drafts. Let's just say this a combination of leniency on the part of the cube organiser, as well as coming from a love of symmetry. It doesn't break games.

You can instead give each player a Sealed pool of 90 cards. The cube can support 4-6 players this way.

OTHER NOTES

When you draft Hanweir Battlements, you also get a copy of Hanweir Garrison for your card pool. HG is not a particularly good card in this format, but now you can fulfill all your Hanweir, the Writhing Township dreams if you really want to.

BEYOND HYPERCUBE

This cube can also be played with a Planechase deck for a more silly, high-RNG format. When playing with a Planechase supplement, each player adds a Fractured Powerstone to their card pool to use if they wish.

EPILOGUE

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If we're about to cube together, I hope this has made you excited to play. If you're a complete stranger on the internet, I hope this intrigues you to consider multiplayer Magic as interesting alternative format and a fresh basis for cube design.

Special thanks to MtG Salvation user Prid3 who helped form the basis of this cube's philosophy. And whose guides are fantastic for anyone getting their teeth sunk into multiplayer Magic (even if we do disagree on the odd card here and there).