Art by Jason A. Engle
This is a fork of Myagic's and irrelevant's Big Spender Micro Cube. While the cube was inspired by the original design there have been a couple notable changes to help the cube focus on 1v1 game play. These changes are highlighted below but are also included in the rules section further down.
Changes from Big Spender- Many card changes in the list
- Hand size is now 5
- If drafting with 4 players, note your remaining treasure after draft. You will play two matches of 1v1 Magic. Treasure does not reset within a round of Bo3, however, your treasure pool resets to what it was post draft when you switch opponents for your 2nd match.
- Cards that generate/affect treasure have been added. Treasure is considered in play but can only be targeted by the treasure's owner.
- This is not a standard draft.
- You should draft this with 2 or 4 players.
- Each player starts the draft with 50 treasure represented by coins (in USD that's 1 quarter, 1 dime, 2 nickels, 5 pennies) in play.
- Players draft 9 packs of 9 laid out in a 3x3 (9 card) grid.
- Determine who picks first at random (flip a coin).
- Players alternate taking cards from the grid and must pay (discard) coins equal to the card's mana value in order to take it and add it to their pool.
- Players may choose to pass their pick. If no one else wants to buy any cards then the pack is discarded and replaced with a new pack. The player to the left then first picks that pack. We use a coin as 1st player token to remember who most recently picked first.
- If you are drafting with 4 players, note how many treasures (coins) you have left. Your treasure count will reset to this noted total when you switch opponents.
- You must play all of the cards you draft.
- You can't add basic lands.
- There is no deck limit.
- You will play 1v1 rounds as a best of 3 (Bo3) game of Magic.
- If playing with 4, winners of Round 1 will play each other in Round 2 and losers can vibe in the loser bracket.
- Your treasure pool does not reset between rounds of each Bo3 match so spend it carefully.
- Important 4 player note: Treasure does not reset between games of Bo3, however, it does reset to your post draft pool total that you wrote down going into Match 2 against your 2nd opponent.
- Randomly determine first player.
- Shuffle all of the cards you drafted.
- Begin the round of Bo3 with the number of treasures you noted following draft.
- Starting hand size is 5.
- London mulligan rules apply.
- You don't pay for spells you cast.
- Activated abilities must be paid for using a combination of treasure and mana producing cards (e.g. rocks, dorks, and questionable lands) included in the cube.
This is desert cube pushed to it's limit. Players should feel challenged to make the most out of the mana they have. 50 sounds like a lot of treasures, until you realize that cards are just innately less efficient here. A big mechanical feature here are the level-up cards. Innately, that means that removal must be very difficult to resolve.
This should feel very interaction driven to protect the few creatures you have. Games are also innately shorter since you start with the treasures you didn't spend. This should lead to interesting turn 1s.
Instead of drafting lands, players pay for rocks and dorks. A lot of pressure should be through effects like removal, focused counterspells, theft, and combat tricks.