Multicolor Duel Cube

Cube ID
Art by Dan FrazierArt by Dan Frazier

545 Card Unpowered Legacy Cube

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Designed by ErceusRSSQR Code

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Nonpowered, singleton, 2 players (grid draft), multicolored cube.

I almost only use this cube with the grid draft method, I didn't seriously test this cube in any other ways. Proportions of the mechanics are set to work with this draft method (in any case this is a work in progress).

Design phylosophy

Goals

  • The main goals of this cube are: to be reliable, to provide usual MtG gameplay and to generate varied and fair situations for countless game sessions.
  • Another goal is to include most kinds of different cards and mechanics. Like in the Time Spiral block where mechanics of all MtG history where mashed together. Each different mechanic ought to be relevant in the format, not just a cabinet of curiosities.
  • Complex board states are desired here: one should be rewarded for it's guile and intellect. Hence this cube isn't aimed toward beginners.
  • Lastly, players must feel clever by matching all sorts of colors, mechanics and cards. One should be able to experiment and not be punish too harshly.

Design principles and guidelines

Power level

  • Goodstuff isn't worth inclusion: all cards must contribute to mechanical themes and be right signpost to help player draft.
  • No weaker version of the same card: cards in this cube should be premium quality. Beyond that, each individual card should bring something of it's own and not be simple shadow of a better card.
  • Responses of medium quality but many recursions or paritybreaks: best efficient removals aren't used in this cube to allow the board to develop. In this setup, a player should prioritize his ressources to bring dawn a nasty synergy and couldn't respond to every single threat simply by using removals or counterspell. In return, most responses have built in recursion or break parity (lots of "two for one" cards) so you can use more slots in your deck to a constructive strategy (instead of an only reactive one) and still have enough responses should a big threat arise. It should still be possible to make a hard control deck but it would be more riskier than usual.

Proportions

Ordered proportions

Key aspects of MtG's gameplay are monitored to ensure a balance between what each color should be good at. Idealy, each color should take each position at least once.

  • Noncreature spells: u>w>r>b>g
  • One drops (playable on first turn): w>g>b>r>u
  • Supremacy tag (>=5/4 or >=4/5, less than 10% of creatures): g>b>u>r>w
Absolute proportions
  • Color fixing lands: 0,666 for 9 cards

Mechanics distribution between colors

  • Global mechanics should be abundant and well distributed between colors to allow parasitic mechanics to work with all kind of splash.
  • On the contrary, parasitic mechanics should be tied to only some colors.
  • The ordinary MtG color pie shouldn't be broke by trying to force a mechanic in a particular color combination.

3-colored, 2-colored, monocolored and artifact cards

This is a multicolor cube structured around "mechanical themes": each color triad (bant, esper...) should provide distinctive feels and gameplays.

  • 3-colored cards are less abundant but each should signal and enforce loudly an aspect of it's triad mechanical themes.
  • 2-colored cards and hybrid cards are plentiful and are the heart of triad's mechanical themes. There are overlapping between triads as each 2-color card is playable in three color triad. Though theses cards could be a specialized as long as what they're doing is usefull for every triad it could be associated with.
  • Each monocolored card doesn't contribute to the gameplay of each of the six color triads it could played in. They're the most abundant cards and may be the less powerfull cards, statistically speaking.
  • Colorless artifacts are selected to help certain mechanical themes more than others and may provide some easier mechanical crossover.

Mechanical themes

!!! [in construction, writing stuff takes time... thinking them takes forever] !!!

As each of the ten color triads ought to be playable and feel distinctive, my way to achieve that goal is to assign mechanical themes to each color combinations. The cube list use tags to inform about these mechanical themes.

NB : The list bellow is an account of the most common mechanics in each colors in the current cube. It should evolve to be a prescriptive design to guide decisions when choosing if a card would work in the environment.

Mechanical themes accessible to each colors

These mechanics are accessible to every color combinations with enough cards in the cube to be able to pick some of them in an average draft. Some color combinations are specialized in one of these mechanical themes but they need to be well distributed to allow other mmechanics to work (Tap/Untap, ETB/LTB, Token, Counters) or enforce a fair gameplay (CA, Removal, Supremacy).

  • wubrg : Tap/Untap, ETB/LTB, Token, CA, Counters, Graveyard, Selfrecursion, Removal, Landdisruption, Supremacy

Mechanical contributions of color combinations

  • Aggressive: w - r - g - (rg) - gw - rw
  • Collective: w - (r) - g - gw - wb - rw
  • Token: w - u - b - r - g - rg - gw - bg - brg - rgw
  • T_populate: w - r - g - gw

(deprecated)

  • w : L_reward
  • u : CDtP*
  • b : L_pay, C_-1/-1
  • g : Mana

Diad's specific mechanical themes (deprecated)

  • ub : Appropriate
  • br : DirectDmg
  • rg : LandTraffic
  • gw : Collective
  • wb : Collective
  • bg : LandTraffic (lands as fodder)
  • gu : LandTraffic
  • ur : T/U_untapontrigger
  • rw : Collective (monoR doesn't have enough Collective cards yet)

Triad's mechanical themes (deprecated)

  • gwu : T/U_untaptarget, Protection
  • brg : Death, G_ressource
  • rgw : Collective
  • rgw : Aggressive, T_populate
  • wbg : Life
  • urw : Blink/Twin, Prowess
  • bgu : C_proliferation

Esper

  • wub : Evasion
    • wu :
    • ub : Appropriate
    • bw :

Naya

  • rgw : Collective
    • rg :
    • gw : Collective
    • rw : Collective

Grixis colors concentrate the most creature removals (R_creature tags) and card advantage (CA) wich lead to an oppressive grinding playstyle (mostly control or midrange). The most obvious goal here is to grind your opponent's stuff and roasting him little by little until maybe he gets a big break that you should appropriate right away...

  • ubr : [Oppressive grinding]: R_creature, CA
    • ub : Appropriate
    • br : DirectDmg
    • ur : Gravfiller

Mardu colors concentrate Sweeper and Graveyard tags wich allow a scorched earth style : you destroy everything while recurring your threats. Meanwhile Boros, Orzhov and Rakdos colors each concentrate an effect usefull for an aggressive style. This color combination want to win fast and will brun everything to the ground if it doesn't !

  • rwb - [Scorched earth]: Sweeper, Graveyard
    • rw : Aggressive
    • wb :
    • br : DirectDmg
    • ww-b, wr-w or wg-w : Collective

Temur

  • gur : Landtraffic

  • Non-assigned : Combattrick, Ev_give

House rules

Theses rules aren't mandatory and the cube should be playable without them. The goal is to improve balance, integration and consistency of all game mechanics (and make certain mechanics like "partner with" work the way they're intended).

Buddy cards

Cards with the "Buddy" tag may be picked with a predetermined card kept in a small separate binder for rapid access.

  • To pick the "buddy card", you simply replace a card in the line or row you want to pick.
  • This is used for "Partner with" cards and other instances where a specificity of a card need multiple versions to be picked together.
  • A lot of almost arbitrary pairing could be invented but I think this house rule must refrain to be invasive. Plus, during draft, searching and identifying cards everytime a card is revealed could become tedious !

Tested for Pir, imaginative Rascal and Toothy, Imaginary Friend: doesn't pose any problem so far: both are just fine cards with an ok synergy but they doen't do much without a counters friendly shell that remain to be built by the player.

Modified cards

(high impact | new from 2020/12, need further testing)
Cards with the "Modified" tag are modified versions wich may improve it's power level and/or change subtly it's rules to create synergy with other mechanics.

  • Modified cards have a different name but reminicent of their orginal names to be distinct but yet recognizable.
  • A proxy card in paper is added in the sleeve over the original card to make the draft clear and allow to compare both versions and eventually discard the modificiation.
  • The aim is to change the minimum: adding an activating cost, keyword, change a timing or a type of target can be done with one word. Casting costs and power/toughness shouldn't be changed as they ciment the identity of a card thus making a new card if one of these atribute would be modified.

NB: new printed cards are compared to the nonmodified cards to decide if they are worth inclusion (if not, no new printed card may never match the pertinence of specifically adjusted cards).

Impulse a card

(no impact | just a condensed wording)
"Impulsive draw" is a slang for exiling the top card of your library and being able to play it until end of turn (or any other timing restriction). This rule aim to keyword every card with this kind of mechanics.

  • "impulse" a card means "exile it, you may play that card until end of turn".
  • Cards are modified to read "impulsive draw" as an impulse ability. Exemple: "Exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card." would read as "Impulse the top card of your library." (to my knowledge, it's the most recent wording of this ability).
  • Cards that let you play the exiled cards without paying their mana cost aren't modified as it's another kind of ability rulewise and flavorwise.
  • This condensed wording is used in the houserule bellow.

Rewards for drawing/discarding consistency

(small impact | to be tested)
Some cards reward you whenever you draw or discard a card. This houserule aim to unify some of these rewards to be: "Whenever you draw or impulse a card" instead of "Whenever you draw a card"...

  • "Impulse" is a condensed wording that read: "Exile [...]. Until end of turn, you may play that card." (see above).
  • Scry and surveil do not give a true card advantage and aren't concerned.
  • Putting a card in hand from the top of a library should count as drawing for the analog reasons as impulsive draw. WotC is inconsistent with this mechanics: why Thrasios, Trison Hero would draw a card whereas Parcel Beast doesn't ? Card with this kind of ability may be modified accordingly.

Continuous artifacts mechanic

(small impact | to be tested)
Up to Sixth Edition, a tapped artifact would lose all of its abilities. These rule caused a lot of inconsistencies but was integrant of what it means to be tapped while distinguishing artifact from enchantment and providing a way to disable them whitout destruction effect.

  • Artifacts with the tag "Continuous" are modified the same way Winter orb was after Sixth Edition to stop their effect when they're tapped (as a state bases action): "As long as ~ is untapped [...]." is added to concerned card texts.
  • Equipements are now detached when they become tapped (this is a state based action).
  • Artifact creatures and artifacts with activated abilities that require tapping don't need to be continuous artifacts as their gameplay already involve tapping. It is both a mechanical and an esthetical matter: tapping is an inherent property of artifacts, creatures and lands (by opposition to instant, sorcery, enchantments and planeswalkers) but also a core mechanic of the game that should be consistently used.
  • Wich artifact is made continuous should be decided on a card by card basis:

Candidates to the "continuous" modification

Companions

(moderated impact | to be tested)
Companion was a mechanic balanced for draft environnement before it was errated. In this cube they should be played more as first intended by following the reminder text printed on actual cards while adding a little tweaks over it: "(If this card is your chosen companion, you may cast it once from outside the game)" + "(Each chosen companion reduce your starting hand size by one, your maximum hand size remain the same).

  • Companion break two rules of MtG: players with companions start the game with one more card [A] and a less random game plan [B]. Both aren't really compensated by the built in drawback of the cards.
  • [A] Free card advantage is often gamebreadking as facing a player with a companion when mulliganing is setting you off of two cards instead of just one. The added rule reducing you starting hand size fix that indue card advantage.
  • [B] Meanwhile, the drawback of a deckbuilding restriction is an interresting mechanic in a limited environment because it may drastically change the way your drafting and make your card pool dubious in term of card quality and synergy. Meanwhile, your gameplan become slightly more predictible wich seems a fair trade when the first advantage of the mechanic has been corrected.
  • What I dislike with the WotC errata is that it cripple the mechanic by making all companions only playable in a deck where you can spare 3 on an early turn or pay an absurd amount of mana in one later turn: aggressive and fast decks are discouraged to play companions and the more expensive ones are near unplayables.

Powerlevel-wise, Lurrus of the Dream-Den is the more concerning companion as more than 20% of the cube can be recurred with it's ability. 20% of 162 equal an average of 32 cards in a grid draft: probably half of them would be off color (the real average number is difficult to estimate) but Lurrus of the Dream-Den should be playable as companion very often when it appear in a draft. However, what make the card oppressive isn't as much the companion mechanic as the 3/2 lifelinking body, the unlimited reccursion and the built-in aggressive mana curve. My houserule doesn't change any of it and maybe Lurrus of the Dream-Den will appear to be too oppressive. But I don't think the whole companion mechanic should suffer from a single unbalanced card.

Bag of Devouring is a nonbo with Bloodghast, need a d10 to be used properly (it work fine with halving a d20 but that's not aesthetically pleasing). Drawing card for doomed creatures is fine but it encourage a attentist gameplay.