480 Cards
90 Seeded Commanders
8 of: Command Tower and Commander's Sphere
610 Total
65-65-65-65-65-70-85 (WUBRG-Gold-C)
Supports up to 8 Players
Welcome to my Easy-To-Understand Commander Cube! This cube is meant to act as a way for Commander players with little-to-no cube experience to participate in cubing their favourite format. As such, there are very few rule changes, with only 2 notable changes being listed in Gameplay Rules. The idea is to keep the cube simple!
What To ExpectCards included in the cube aim to capture the essence of Commander, while keeping the drafting process and gameplay as simple as possible. For example, there are no tutoring cards, and Planeswalkers and two-faced cards are limited. On average, players will end up drafting consistent 3-colour decks where the theme is usually one of the 2-colour archetypes (eg. Bant Blink, Bant +1/+1 Counters, or Bant Enchantress).
The cube is intended to be interactive and more combat-focused. I constantly strive to keep the cube balanced, and to give each colour a unique identity, each with their pros and cons. For instance, every colour has access to card draw, ramp, and removal, but some colours perform in some aspects better than others.
Easy-To-Understand DesignIn general, I try to avoid overly complex mechanics for newbie drafters and in some cases, newbie Commander players. The idea is that the draft experience is smooth and drafting confusion is reduced, and so that newer players don't mistakenly assess good (and usually complex) cards as bad. I also wanted the gameplay to be relatively smooth. Some design choices are as follows:
Throughout this primer, text in boxes like this illustrate my thought process.
A Solely Singleton episode had Gavin Verhey on as a guest, and I appreciated his point about keeping the Commander rules consistent to reduce confusion. Originally, the rules were: 30 life with no Commander damage. While it was "simpler" than regular Commander rules, players coming from Commander might have a harder time to adjust, or might think it's not truly "Commander". Also, as the point of the cube is to be "Easy-To-Understand", I think using the same ruleset as Commander is appropriate! To make up for the increased life pool and addition of Commander damage, I've decided to incorporate more Voltron elements. Additionally, by reducing deck size, aggressive strategies and milling (not currently supported) become more viable whilst retaining the essence of Commander.
The only special rules that I thought would improve the experience was to give 1 & 2-colour Commanders the Partner mechanic, and to make decks 60 cards. The reasoning for the change in deck size is illustrated above. As for the Partner mechanic, you can get some pretty crazy combinations (also allows for 4-colour pairs). This change also gives rise to strategies that can't be seen normally in Commander and is a lot of fun! I believe it also makes the cube feel more unique and gives people more incentive to draft the cube.
Pack Breakdown Using Modified maok0's Method:
Pack of 20: 3 from each pile, then 3 randomly from any pile + 2 Commanders.
You have a few options if drafting with fewer players, here are some of my favourites:
My playgroup has a few cube novices so I wanted to keep the drafting process as simple as possible - I did not include any conspiracies. I also decided to seed Commanders rather than draft them beforehand for 2 reasons. Firstly, players won't feel like they're locked into a colour combination. Secondly, it reduces the number of packs that need to be drafted, further simplifying the process. These are also the same rules used in the official WoTC Commander Legends draft!
You can also optionally give each player a mana pack of Command Tower and Commander's Sphere to help with mana acceleration and colour-fixing.
- Blink + Foretell
- Graveyard + Artifact Shenanigans
- Treasures + Sacrifice
- Landfall Stompy
- Tokens + Enchantments
- Aristocrats
- Spellslinger + Artifacts
- Reanimator
- Artifacts (Equipment) + Tokens
- +1/+1 Counters (Proliferate)
To keep the essence of Commander alive in this cube, I included common Commander archetypes such as reanimator, spells matter, blink, enchantress, etc. I also wanted a more aggressive, combat-oriented cube, and decided to incorporate Monarch, limit the number of wrath effects, omit tutors, and offer little to no support for more degenerate styles of play (stax, mind control, etc.). Additionally, I recently reduced the number of Hexproof and Indestructible creatures to increase interactivity, and to give a little more value to cards with these keywords. I also thought it'd be fun to include some political cards!
Although each colour pair supports specific archetypes, that doesn't mean you won't find support for certain archetypes in other colour pairs. For example, you may find some proliferate synergies in , or reanimator strategies in
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18 cards x 3 packs per player = 54 cards
54 cards x 8 players (max) = 432 out of 480 cards (90.0%)
2 Commander x 3 packs per player = 6 Comm.
6 Comm. x 8 players (max) = 48 out of 90 Comm. (53.3%)
9 cards x 6 packs per player = 54 cards
54 cards x 4 players = 216 out of 480 cards (45.0%)
1 Commander x 6 packs per player = 6 Comm.
6 Comm. x 4 players = 24 out of 90 Comm. (26.7%)
9 cards x 12 packs per player = 108 cards
108 cards x 2 players = 216 out of 480 cards (45.0%)
1 Commander x 12 packs per player = 12 Comm.
12 Comm. x 2 players = 24 out of 90 Comm. (26.67%)
Thanks to Commander Legends, @Miryafa, Dolono, Brandon Sanderson, and @DirkJammer for providing a great reference point and for me to draw inspiration from - this includes the Cube components as well as the drafting style and rules. This project has been on the back-burner for many years and it's finally come to fruition. Additionally, thanks to @Maramas for the wonderful cube primer primer. It has certainly improved certain aspects of my own! Lastly, thanks to maok0 for the wonderful novel cube shuffling method.
Jund and Esper get some more appropriate replacements. With this change, Planeswalkers are also fully removed.