To provide an archetypally diverse and highly interactive play experience in the presence of fully supported combo.
Fully supported dedicated combo decks like storm and reanimator have the highest ceiling of any archetype. In order to be able to compete, fair decks are given access to a high density of relevant interaction and some classic archetypes like creature-based aggro and midrange are no longer viable.
This cube is not your average vintage cube. Here, I’m going to go over some key design choices and notable differences between this cube and the typical “modo-esque” vintage cube.
Blue is the best color in this environment as it has access to both the best card selection as well as the most universal interaction. With this in mind, I have skewed the color balance towards blue so that more decks have access to cantrips and counterspells.
The average mana curve of this environment is quite low. Most decks curve out at 3 and have the bulk of their spells at 1 and 2 mana value. This combined with a higher cantrip density changes the general optimal land count from ~17 to ~15. One notable side effect of a lower average curve is that Force Spike et al. overperform.
The graveyard is a very active zone in this environment. Combo relies on the graveyard almost completely, and many other decks have high synergy with the graveyard through mechanics like delve, escape, and flashback. Because of this, cards that can effectively interact with the graveyard are significantly better than in more classic environments. Cards like Cling to Dust, and Soul-Guide Lantern are very powerful and worth picking highly.