Introduction
$\hspace{1em}$What do you mean by Mono Red?
$\hspace{1em}$Medium Power Level
$\hspace{1em}$Draft Format
Proven Archetypes
$\hspace{1em}$Blitz
$\hspace{1em}$Midrange
$\hspace{1em}$Ramp
$\hspace{1em}$Prowess Aggro
$\hspace{1em}$Prowess Control
$\hspace{1em}$Spells Combo
$\hspace{1em}$Spells Control
$\hspace{1em}$Stuffy Doll Combo
Design Goals
$\hspace{1em}$Skill-testing (but not punishing) drafts
$\hspace{1em}$Fun Games
$\hspace{1em}$Fast Games
$\hspace{1em}$Explore Magic through a new lens
Key Design Decisions
$\hspace{1em}$Legacy+ Cardpool
$\hspace{1em}$The Hall of Fame
$\hspace{1em}$No 2-mana rocks
$\hspace{1em}$Limited Sweepers
$\hspace{1em}$Minimal Land Destruction
Rough Edges and Gotchas
$\hspace{1em}$"Attacking Only" Combat Tricks
Hidetsugu's Second Rite

Introduction

What started as a joke in 2018 has grown to be one of my playgroup's favorite cubes. It is Mono Red and medium power level.

What do you mean by Mono Red?

Mountain is the only basic available; every card is useable in a deck that only generates and . This includes

• Red Cards, Artifacts, and Lands
• Hybrid cards
• Phyrexian cards
• Wingdings cards

There are no special gameplay rules. Other colors of mana may be produced and used as usual if desired.

Medium Power Level

The fastest aggro decks goldfish on turn 5 (average hand) or turn 4 (strong hand), but are very easy to interact with as they use creatures for much of their damage. Dedicated combo decks rarely goldfish before turn 6, particularly because they have to play removal to respect the otherwise faster aggro decks.

Draft Format

1. Deal 3 packs of 17 cards to each player. Set aside the remaining 12 cards face down. We'll call these the Special Cards.
2. Draft the packs as usual passing left, right, left.
3. When a pack has two cards left in it, those two cards are "burned" (discarded face down in the center of the table).
4. Once all packs have been drafted, each player should have a pool of 45.
5. If any player drafted the basic Mountain, reveal the 12 Special Cards set aside at the beginning. Starting with the player who drafted the mountain and moving in the same direction as the pack in which the Mountain was drafted, each player drafts one of the Special Cards and adds it to their pool. If no one drafted the mountain, the Special Cards are not used.

Simplified Draft Format
For conventions or other events where the above is impractical, you can use this simplified draft format:

1. Deal 3 packs of 17 to each player.
2. Draft packs as usual passing left, right, left.

Proven Archetypes

This section describes some archetypes that have commonly succeeded in drafts. It is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive; in a Cube of 400+ cards where every card is playable by every deck (no color restrictions) there is enormous room for innovation of new archetypes and variations within archetypes.

Each archetype lists some "Optional Synergies". These are elements that can appear in an archetype, but which are not required for decks of that archetype to succeed. As with the archetypes themselves, the synergies listed are neither prescriptive nor exhaustive; a synergy not being listed next to a deck doesn't mean it won't work, just that I haven't seen it happen in enough drafts to call it out as an obvious option.

Blitz

Play cheap creatures, combat tricks, and burn to deal 20 damage before your opponent can find their footing. The most successful blitz decks tend to have low enough curves that they get away with 14-15 lands.

Optional Synergy: Goblins synergy can make sense if most of your 1-2 drops happen to be Goblins. Late-pick Lords and Goblins specific cards can make good Blitz deck even better by allowing you to take more contested cards early.

Midrange

Midrange is about playing interaction and persistent threats on turns 2 through 6 and closing out the game before ramp decks go over you. The strongest Midrange decks have large sideboards with both specific answers (e.g. sweepers for Blitz, 6-drops for mirrors, 2-drops for races against less interactive combo decks) and the ability to change their curve (e.g. swapping 6s for 2s) in response to their opponent's strategy.

Optional Synergy: Dragons can emerge naturally as many of the best 4-5 mana threats are dragons. In these cases cards like Kolaghan Warmonger and Orb of Dragonkind start to look pretty good (especially if you can wheel them).

Ramp

Use mana rocks to consistently play 8+ mana threats well before turn 8. These decks tend to live or die by their interaction; they need to have enough cheap removal to survive against Blitz and usually at least one high-damage sweeper to regain tempo from quicker Midrange decks.

Optional Synergies: Powerstones and {C} Spells fit naturally into decks trying to go over Midrange via mana rocks, but they are not a fundamental part of the strategy nor do they fit in every Ramp deck. E.g. if your payoffs are mostly non-artifacts, Powerstones probably aren't going to be very good.

Prowess Aggro

Use Prowess and "whenever you cast a non-creature spell" triggers to quickly kill your opponent. Cheap interaction to clear the way for prowess creatures is key, as are combat tricks to keep them alive while forcing through damage.

Optional Synergies: Free (alternate cost) Spells shine in aggressive prowess decks as they can be used for tempo and to unexpectedly negate damage-based removal on prowess creatures. Damage Increasers, while already good cards in most decks, can be particularly terrifying in decks full of repeatable pingers.

Prowess Control

A slower version of Prowess, still focused on the synergy but less all-in on a quick kill. These versions of the deck can play as control, using prowess creatures to keep up with decks with overall lower cmc -- or as combo-control, staying alive long enough to craft an explosive kill later in the game. These versions tend to be heavier on card selection and removal and lighter on creatures and combat tricks.

Optional Synergies: None observed.

Spells Combo

Also known as "One big turn combo" these sorts of decks try to have a single, explosive turn (usually around turn 6) that wins the game (either directly or by putting them so far ahead on board that it is inevitable). Spell doubling, spells with additional costs, and rituals are essentially required for these decks to function, as most explosive turns usually involve copying one or more spells that produce mana (either directly or through treasures).

Note: Trying to force a Spells Combo deck is one of the easiest ways to trainwreck (i.e. draft an unequivocally bad deck) in this cube. The pool of cards that make sense in this kind of deck is smaller than any other deck, and missing even a single key card can turn a promising draft sour.

It's very cool when it works, but drafters should probably be prepared to pivot if needed.

Common Synergies: None observed. (Spell Doubling and either Rituals or Treasure are essentially required for this archetype to go off.)

Spells Control

Play a mix of early interaction, sweepers, and card selection to survive. Payoff comes in the form of enchantments that reward playing more instants and sorceries or less commonly in repeatable spell doubling effects used for value. May plays as few as 0 creatures, particularly since its non-creature win conditions are essentially un-removable.

Common Synergies: Repeatable Spell Doubling makes it much easier to kill high-toughness threats and lets you functionally go up on cards in wars of attrition. Rituals and/or Treasure can play a role by letting you slam an expensive enchantment a turn or two early.

Stuffy Doll Combo

This "archetype" emerged organically in early versions of the cube. High-damage Sweepers and Cards that do damage when they are damaged are just good cards in a format where virtually all removal is damage based. The fact that they play particularly well together is just a bonus.

Depending on how many Stuffy Doll effects and high-damage spells you draft, this can be a fun synergy in a Midrange or Big Mana deck, or a gameplan unto itself.

Common Synergies: None observed

Design Goals Skill-testing (but not punishing) drafts

The format should reward players for drafting well (reading signals, staying open, eating their vegetables, etc) without punishing players who draft a bit more casually. Experienced drafters should still have higher aggregate win rates than less experienced ones, but not so much higher that it feels like you can predict the outcome of any individual draft.

Casual drafters should end up with solid decks, even if they don't end up drafting the strongest deck for their seat.

• With 45 on-color picks, you'll never be short playables or fixing.
• The cube supports multiple broad archetypes (e.g. Blitz, Midrange, Ramp) that are not particularly difficult to play or draft, but can still keep up with the more intricate strategies (e.g. Spells Combo)

Experienced drafters should get an edge by finding what is open in their seat.

• Expert drafters can get away with taking more generically strong cards (e.g. cheap removal) while wheeling narrower cards they're confident others won't take.

Fun Games

Games should be strategically interesting (fun for the Spike in all of us) and enable moonshoots (fun for the Timmy and Johnny in all of us).

1. Strategic Depth
   Games are more strategically interesting when there is a high density of important decisions. The cube should embrace this; it should be hard (but not impossible!) to "have your cake and eat it too" strategically speaking. Card advantage and tempo should largely be at odds. In most cases, holding up removal should come at the cost of developing your board.

2. Moonshoots (aka "Wouldn't it be sweet if?")
   Pulling off a new combo, creating a novel gamestate, or just landing a sweet haymaker can make going 1-2 feel great. The cube should tempt players with cool things and reward them for chasing the dream. Casting Bonus Round with Twinning Staff in play? Incredible. Maybe not reliable enough to be a 3-0 gameplan on its own, but absolutely worth doing once.

Fast Games

Just like stories, the best games end before they get boring. In Magic terms, this means that games should end as soon as players' decisions are unlikely to affect the outcome of the game. Once a control deck has stabilized against their aggro opponent (and the aggro player has little to do but hope to top deck burn), the game should end in short order.

In other words the cube should bias strongly towards proactivity; if you're in control of the game, you should also be actively threatening your opponent's life total.

Explore Magic through a new lens

Discovering cards that overperform in the unique format of Mono Red is a delight. In most cubes, cards like Chandra's Defeat or Mutagenic Growth would not be first-pickable, but here they absolutely are. (If you don't see why Mutagenic Growth is so good, consider what kind of removal your opponents are likely to be playing...)

Forcing players to re-evaluate cards in the context of the cube makes the draft more interesting and somewhat levels the playing field between players with different levels of constructed experience; players can't just rely on "how good is this card in Legacy?" to understand how strong it is in the cube.

Key Design Decisions Legacy+ Cardpool

The Legacy ban list correlates well with the intended power level of cards in the cube (no Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or Sol Ring, thank you) but there are a few exceptions:

• Select combo-oriented cards that are significantly less abusable here than in constructed.
• A small number of silver-bordered and/or playtest cards that do not create rules questions or disrupt otherwise normal games of Magic (e.g. Lazier Goblin).

Decision: The Legacy ban list is a good guideline, but not a hard and fast rule. Only playtesting can determine what is or is not appropriate for the format.

The Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame memorializes cards that were deemed too powerful, format-warping, or otherwise oppressive to remain in the cube (like a ban list for constructed formats). It is a celebration of cards that have proved their worth beyond question and which have now moved aside to make room for others in the spotlight.

• You can see the Hall of Fame in the maybeboard of this cube.
• Cards Banned in Legacy can generally be assumed to be in the Hall of Fame unless they are currently in the cube.
• In rare cases, cards have gone directly to the Hall of Fame upon printing.

Decision: Cards deemed too powerful or disruptive for the format ascend to the Hall of Fame.

No 2-mana rocks

For many years the cube included every cheap mana rock available. Eventually, the dominant strategy became essentially "Take mana rocks, removal, and 4-6 drops." The tempo and functional card advantage conferred by getting to play 4s, 5s, and 6s rather than 3s, 4s, and 5s let Midrange decks consistently beat both Blitz and Ramp decks, causing an overall reduction in viable strategies. It also made the draft less interesting as players felt obligated to first pick cheap mana rocks.

Decision: All unconditional cheap mana rocks were removed. Fellwar Stone was added to the Hall of Fame as a representative for this class of card.

Limited Sweepers

Too many cheap sweepers can render low-to-the-ground aggro strategies non-viable, particularly since 2 damage sweepers are functionally one-sided.

Decision: There are no 2-mana sweepers and the lone 3-mana sweeper damages players as well. Pyroclasm represents this in the Hall of Fame.

Minimal Land Destruction

Early versions of the cube had a large mana denial theme, going so far as to include classics like Avalanche Riders. These strategies proved slow and not particularly fun to pilot or play against.

Decision: The only land destruction in the cube is Wildfire. It gets a pass because it tends to end the game when it resolves (no one is forced to play an un-fun game, they just start shuffling up for next round). Peak Eruption represents Land Destruction in the Hall of Fame.

Rough Edges and Gotchas "Attacking-only Combat" Tricks

Some of red's most powerful combat tricks can only target attacking creatures. In a format where combat tricks can functionally counter damage-based removal, this has some non-obvious implications.

If player A plays removal on Player B's creature, Player B may be able to save the creature, but only if it's currently attacking. In practice this means that instant speed removal should usually be played before attackers are delcared.

Hidetsugu's Second Rite

If you kill someone with Hidetsugu's Second Rite you can sign the card. Two people have done so thus far.