Cube Cobra Overview: Peasant's Broken Jukebox

Peasant's Broken Jukebox

(542 Card Peasant Vintage Cube)

(542 Card Cube)

Overview List History Playtest Analysis Blog

Peasant's Broken Jukebox

Cube ID

pbj

Art by Johannes Voss

542 Card Peasant Vintage Cube5 followers

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Owned

$3,665

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$7,037

Purchase

Mana Pool$1226.45

Welcome to PBJ a.k.a. Peasant’s Broken Jukebox

Card criteria

More Unique
More Interesting
More Degenerate

Call me 大山 Big Mountain. PBJ is my pet project that I began working on in 2016. It started out as Ben's 360 Peasant cube from Cube Tutor and I slowly changed up the list with cards I found cool. I wanted to represent everything interesting and innovative Magic has to offer.

Eventually, I landed on the philosophy of "strictly better", taking inspiration from the MTGO Vintage cube. With Un-cards, conspiracies, and playtest cards you can find unique Vintage-power gameplay offered nowhere else!

I hope to create something unique, powerful, and exciting for my friends and me and showcase 25+ years of Magic history. Welcome to PBJ a degenerate peasant cube.

Contents

Overview
Special Rules
Archetypes
Achievements
Basic Lands Gallery

Overview

My philosophy for this Cube for a long time was to add universally good cards. This meant the cube didn't have strongly defined archetypes so decks trended to be very value-based. Flicker decks ran all over the place and aggro decks were outclassed. Since then, Wizards has been pushing the power level of commons and uncommon which I am stoked about. As you will see I use any means to up this Cube's power :D But this also meant there were a lot more cards to add. My cube's size grew and grew again, and finally, after many long nights, I got the Cube to stay at 540.

I took on the philosophy that each card should offer something unique (unless they were really really good of course). This allowed me to continue showcasing as much Magic as possible and to provide people a lot of room to explore, be creative, and discover synergies on their own. With powerful and unique cards I want people to feel smart and create rare and memorable moments.

I did not shy away from enlisting the help of Silver-bordered, Playtest, and Alchemy cards. I have access to them, so why not use’em.

~~I don’t have a definitive ban list but some notable cards I have not yet included in the Cube are: Lotus Petal | Sol Ring | Mental Misstep | Ancient Tomb | Library of Alexandria~~

Sol Ring has been added to the Cube!

Recently I have made the decision to run rare lands for mana-fixing. Even though there are some powerful uncommon fixing, I think this will help out the weaker archetypes more such as more value-based and mid-rangy decks that are splashing a third or even fourth colors. I'm keeping the fixing simple, I don't want dual lands with additional effects like Celestial Colonnade. I even think the Surveil and Horizon lands offer too much.

Special Rules

With some special rules, I hope to spice up the draft more, support a few more archetypes, and up the power level a bit more.

Grinders

a.k.a. burning cards. Named after Cogwork Grinder, I wanted to find a way to include some cards with unique mechanics that would not be possible in a singleton format. I did not want to add extra copies of the same card as that meant I have to cut more other cards :( But at the same time, I wanted to ensure you are guaranteed to play with multiples of the cards if you draft it. With Grinding you still have to make choices during the draft. These cards are pretty powerful, it gets even crazier when combined with Conspiracy cards.

Grind 3 --- Draft ~ face up. As you draft a card, you may remove it from the draft face up.
You can remove up to 3 cards with ~ .

During the deckbuilding phase, add X copies of ~ to your draft pool, where X is the number of cards you removed from the draft with ~ that share exact colors.

(May need to nerf to 2 copies max.)

Bundles

Some cards are bundled together; meaning they are drafted together using only one pick. These highly synergistic cards can stand on their own but are expected to be played together, and I wanted to guarantee that. Bundling them also brings up the power level and lets me cur more cards :D

When you draft ~ , add [ card ] to your draft pool.

Lessons Learned

Grind --- Draft ~ face up. As you draft a card, you may remove it from the draft face up.
When you remove a card with ~ , draft a Lesson card from the Lesson pool that shares exact colors with the removed card.

Lesson Pool: 2 of each Common Lesson, 1 of each Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic Lesson.

Climate Change

All Basic lands are Basic Snow Lands.

I say this is a special rule because I didn’t want to have all my Basics to be Snow Basics. Where else Am I going to put all the cool Basic full arts?

Archetypes

The archetypes in this Cube are what you would usually expect. There are no be-all-end-all strategies. Control, midrange, aggro, and combo decks can all thrive. With tons of interaction, there are a variety of strategies for you to discover and put together.

- Tempo, Blink, Control

- Control, Reanimator, Tempo, Mill

- Aggro, Aristocrats, Control

- Midrange, +1/+1 Coutners Combo, Ramp

- +1/+1 Counters, Persist Combo, Historic, Tokens

- Aristocrats, Control, Reanimator, Tokens

- Spellslinging, Control, Tempo

- Midrange, Reanimator, Self Mill, Magecraft Combo

- Aggro, Equiment, Control

- Midrange, Ramp

- Shrines, Domain

Achievements

No longer possible:

Win with commander damage
Pay the Ransom

Things to try

Channel + Fireball
Wary Zone Guard + Strip Mine
Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies
Ivy Lane Denizen + Scurry Oak
Rosie Cotton of South Lane + Basking Broodscale
[ ]

Basic Lands Gallery

Basics are the most visually diverse cards. From the full arts to actually borderless, basic lands have had rich and innovative treatments. Instead of having identical basics, I wanted to use this opportunity to continue showcasing the art and visual design of Magic. From promos to panoramas and easter eggs to ”otherworldly” cardboard.

Un-believable

Pokemon Energies

Fuller Art

Double Masters

Bolas' Sunset

Bolas' Feast

Snowy

Pokémon Stadium

Home Town

Guild Territory

Jace is Lost

Ruins

Lands with Lore

White Bordered

Zendikar

Woodcut Prints

Spooky

Etched

Jumpstart theme lands

Promos

Things people have done

Drafts
3/23/2024
6/2/2024
12/29/2024

Fixing & Utility Land Optional Rules

I probably played PBJ more times without these. Often playing with newer players, I did not feel the need to bring in the extra nuance and complexity.

There is also a big user experience concern. As much as I love playing with these extra rules, I did not want to compromise the smooth drafting experience. Requiring additional setup and table space is not ideal. I am walking a fine line where mechanics begin to impede play experience.

Duel Land Checklist Cards

Instead of drafting two-color mana fixing lands, you would draft cards that represents a two-color pair. When you draft that card, you trade it in for any fixing in that two-color pair. Currently, I have 3 checklist cards for each color pair.

Each color pair currently has 6 to 10 options:

I want to keep the options open and let players find more synergies. Maybe you want to fetch a Rimewood Falls with your Bad River. Insert <look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power> meme.

Utility Land Snake Draft

You will notice that my list also did not have room for color-specific utility lands. There are still interesting synergies and raw power to be provided so there can be a separate pool of utility lands to draft from. The list is here.

After players finish drafting Pack One, starting with a random player and continuing clockwise, each player picks one card from the open pool of utility lands.

Repeat this process after Pack Two but snaking back with the last player that picked.

Right now pick order is determined at random, but perhaps people can bid for first pick by jettisoning cards in your draft pool.

peasant peasant cube power vintage

Cube Updated – Automatic Post

A4xx1 posted to Peasant's Broken Jukebox - 17 hours ago

adding some cards I've been meaning to try for a while and some new jumpstart cards

Cutting more cards that don't see play and are a bit too niche. Removing a few more redundant combo pieces.

tribute mage: artifacts is not big enough yet and it was mainly added for thopter sword and that does not need more help.

might add butch back when I want to try ninijas again

Green fight spells are just weaker here, removing 1/4, and I think green can rely on a second color for the best creature removal

rip acidic slime an OG from day one, but I think I just want more power on a drop

biggish red changes, making discard matters a bit more relevant
bundling Channel and Fireball, both cards are pretty weak by themselves

slowly adding more fixing, 5 more was thinking about the new Verges but I want try out the mystery booster playtest trilands. Most of them seem pretty dece.

Hydroelectric specimen is a cool good flexible card but kind of doesn't go into any real strategies, feels a bit tooooo generic and niche.

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