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The Cut-Rate Commander Cube [Esper]
(262 Card Cube)
The Cut-Rate Commander Cube [Esper]
Cube ID
Art by Edgar Sánchez HidalgoArt by Edgar Sánchez Hidalgo
262 Card Multiplayer Commander Peasant Budget Cube19 followersDesigned by IrreleverentRSSQR CodeView in Cube Map
Owned
$93
Buy
$71
The Esper Peasant M15-Frame Threebert Dungeon Commander Cube

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The Cut-Rate Commander Cube

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Quick, Frantic, and Convenient

Over the years of playing with my beloved main commander cube I've come to realize that it's just not great for a lot of use cases. It's massive, slow to shuffle, draft, and play, way too expensive for me to be comfortable playing it with randoms, and doesn't work nearly as well with only 2 or 3 people. Trying to find an alternative for the many cases where it didn't fit lead to the creation of this cube.

The Cut-Rate Commander Cube is designed to be compact, and create games that are similarly compact. 20 life, the initiative being forced into the game early, smaller decks, and fewer players foster a frenetic energy where killing players feels achievable and games rarely last longer than 30 minutes. Only drafting 36 cards, tiny (6-card) packs, simpler cards, having a more streamlined mechanic for commander delivery, and a smaller number of colors to work with all create a draft experience that feels smooth and brisk. If you're used to 60 card commander drafts (or 100 card commander games) and slow battlecruisery games, this cube feels like a delightfully fresh experience.

Seize the Initiative

The most complicated element of this cube is a few changes it makes to inject the Initiative into the game. The first is simple: If you hit a player and the initiative isn't in the game yet, you gain the initiative. This makes early board presence and aggression essential as it lets you take that value for yourself, and perhaps more importantly it stops your opponents from getting too far in the dungeons too easily. On that note...

Something had to be done to change the way dungeons are handled, which is the biggest complexity hurdle of this cube. I couldn't have players entering the Undercity immediately because... Well "Trap!" (target player loses 5 life) is a kind of messed up effect with only 3 players, at 20 life, consistently on turn 4. Add in that venture and initiative don't quite play nicely RAW, and something needed to change. So the first time you'd enter a dungeon you choose one of the dungeons introduced in AFR, and once you've finished that dungeon you "level up" and unlock the ability to enter the Undercity in addition to the AFR dungeons. (as well as upgrading any dungeon-based commander/s you might be using)

In practice this added a fun sub-game of planning your route through the dungeons, and created more variety in how dungeons unfold as the game progresses, rather than giving you enough time to fall into familiar loops. You're unlikely to ever repeat the same dungeon in the same game because the Undercity is such a large upgrade over the alternatives, and games rarely last long after players start triggering traps. It creates a really strong sense for how the game is progressing as players inch ever closer to the highly lethal rooms deeper in the Undercity.

Mix and Match

Every mono-colored commander has either partner or a background mechanic, and they're homeruled to be entirely interchangeable. This gives players a lot of room for creativity when choosing commanders and building decks, but most of all it makes pivoting in draft feel easy, especially with only 3 colors available. Additionally, as the draft progresses and you feel more confident in your commander choices, you're presented with opportunities to reroll commanders you're not using, refining your selection down as flexibility becomes less important.


Quick Rules:

  • You may have any two monocolored legendary permanents as your commanders, or any one multicolored legendary permanent as your commander.
  • When combat damage is dealt to a player, if no player has the initiative, the active player takes the initiative.
  • The first time you would enter the dungeon each game, enter any dungeon but the undercity. Any other time you would enter a dungeon you may enter any dungeon. (But you should probably enter the undercity)
  • 40 card minimum deck size, (not including commander/s) 20 starting life, and commander damage is not used. All other rules of the commander format are to be followed as normal.
  • The player who goes first does not draw a card during their first draw step. The player who goes third ventures into the dungeon after resolving mulligans.
Draft Structure:
  • The cube is drafted either in 3 packs of 12 (4-6 players) cards or 6 packs of 6 cards (3 players).
  • 6 Commanders are dealt to each player directly into their pool before the first pack.
  • Before each pack if 3 packs are being drafted, or before each even numbered pack if 6 packs are drafted, each player shuffles any number of commanders in their pool (that number can be 0) into the undrafted commanders. Once each player has done so, each player is dealt a new commander for each one they removed from their pool. You will always have exactly 6 commanders.

Filter for legal cards:

ci:wub r<r border:black game:paper -is:extra -is:dfc -stamp:acorn -stamp:triangle frame:M15

Dear god wizards stop making sets that make me think so hard about this cube. I'm happy this set has so many pirates. I'm sad none of the ones I want to play are black.

For whatever reason Oaken Siren and Promising Vein aren't on Cubecobra yet so I'll have to add them later.

Pitiless plunderer gets to come back. It's very durdly but now that it's back close to the price range of this cube and properly formatted it's allowed to be here.

I wanna make room for helping hand but idfk what I'd cut. I'm not cutting recommission for it.

Sad to see the servitors go, but when decks containing 5 copies of servitor still don't feel amazing it's just not gonna get there.

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