Art by Joe Slucher- Identity: Micro Cube with low-resource games
- Drafting: Two packs of twelve
- Deck size: Fifteen cards
- Land count: 4-6
- Speed: Curves are low, decks care about combat. Some games go long.
- Fixing: ~11% of the cube is fixing lands, mostly Temples and Check Lands. Nonbasic lands are vulnerable to land destruction.
- Ideal number of colors: Maindeck 1-2 primary colors. Splashing for sideboard cards happens.
Micro Cube Rule Modifications
- Draft 2 packs of 12 cards.
- Decks must be exactly 15 cards, including lands. No more, no less.
- You can't lose the game by drawing from an empty library (Rule 704.5b is not in effect).
- Expect to play 5-6 lands in your fifteen card deck.
- Expect to see most of your deck every game.
- Expect to make significant sideboard changes every match.
- Recursion in this format is limited. No Academy Ruins or Tomb Trawler.
- Many drafted lands function as utility. Expect to play basics if you want colored sources that come in untapped.
- Nonbasic lands come at a risk! This cube contains a number of ways to interact with lands.
My goal is to create an opportunity for players to think about their resources as finite during both deckbuilding and games.
15 card decks simplify the matchup and enable players to think about how one deck lines up against another. Players should think about whether they can win if their opponent has deployed all of their resources, whether they want the game to go short or long, and which threats they must answer.
I'm also inspired by the concept of zugzwang - situations where where one player is compelled to act because they have no more outs to draw to.
Sideboards are nearly as large as the deck itself, so players should consider both silver bullet answers and transformational sideboard plans.
I also drew some inspiration from Sam Black's writing on small games and big games. This cube tends to result in small games by nature of the limited deck size, but there are decks with the ability to push the game states towards big games.
Card decisionsA novel format with rule changes comes with some built in complexity. One way to reduce complexity is to include familiar cards to reduce the reading load.
Roughly half of the cards in this cube are "classic" cards that most drafters should already be familiar with.
The others are either chosen for good gameplay or to emphasize the difference between 15- and 40-card formats. Many of these cards are significantly recontextualized by the size of the deck, either by trading off speed for value, allowing players to rebuy cards in unique ways, or by cutting off an opponent's resources.
Thank you purxiz for Fifteen, which inspired this cube.
