Year 2025 Update (Added Kai Budde's invitational card, Voidmage Prodigy, some morph in each color, and reduced manafixing)

Designed to drafted head-to-head via an even, fourteen-to-eighteen 3x3 grids. Read more on 1-versus-1 grid drafting with four colors from Jason Waddell's article on the format: http://www.channelfireball.com/home/grid-tenchester-and-cutting-a-color-from-the-cube/

(I haven't drafted this "Twobert-style", but will try it in paper at some point. Details from Ryan Overturf's article: https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/the-proper-way-to-do-two-player-cube-drafts/)

(One color, green, is not included to increase the probability of relevant cards for each player in any one 3x3 grid. Zero-to-fifty-four cards, in multiples of eighteen, are to be randomly removed before each draft; more cards removed will increase the drafting difficulty (but generally make deck building easier). Testing has primarily occurred with 16 grids - thirty-six cards randomly removed prior to drafting.)

This card population aims to evoke nostalgia of the mid-2000s Extended format with lower-velocity threats and splashy spells or card interactions. There are no planeswalkers, the power/toughness of creatures less than mana value '4' are low and creature type does not impact gameplay. There are multiples (2-to-4) of integral interaction and format-glue cards to reinforce the archetypes supported and name-a-card-name inclusions, like Meddling Mage!

A high density of card advantage (mostly as 2-for-1s) in all colors propels many games into the mid-to-late turns, but there is plenty of disruptive countermagic, discard and land destruction that may end a game before one player has a chance to develop their plan: just draft again if one deck cannot offer modest resistance to the other (and congratulate the player that brought the pain)!

There are 4 primary color pairs each supporting two main stylistic approaches:

• Equipment and/or Token Aggro-to-Midrange
• Stoneblade and/or Blink Tempo-to-Control
• Forbiddian Tempo-to-Control and/or Artifact Reanimator
• Welder Midrange and/or Burning Aggro-to-Midrange

and supplement the above strategies, creating 3-to-4-color decks may play similarly to Mardu Pyromancer / Esper Dump Truck / Next-Level Blue or simply splashing a card or two into the above archetypes.

Did I mention that eight Magic Invitational Winners' cards are included? 0_0