~ PHREEZE'S WHITELESS HALLOWEEN CUBE ~

Darkness falls across the land,
The Midnight Hour is close at hand,
Creatures crawl in search of blood,
to terrorize y'all's neighborhood...

Hello, fellow cubers!
Did you hear that noise? The creaking of wooden doors, the chill of autumn air, that big skeleton shivering in your closet? Well, it can only mean one thing... Halloween!

I know it's a little early for the season at the time this cube is first posted, but that's intentional - I hope to have the first form of the cube hammered out and ready to go for when October rolls around, because I know my friends will enjoy it. But also? Because cubing with a theme is a lot of fun, and Halloween is quite an interesting challenge! But it's not the only one, and I'll get into that in a little bit.

All you have to know going in is that this 720 card cube is made with Halloween in mind, and should be an enjoyable eerie experience no matter when it's played.

~ the rules ~

So there are a couple of rules and restrictions I tried to adhere to extremely closely when designing the cube. The first, and most obvious, is that every card has to be on theme for the Halloween season. What that means can sometimes be pretty broad, but I judge a card as 'Halloween-y' if it follows at least one of a few criteria.

Does it have a printing with a Halloween-esque art?
(skeletons, ghosts, pumpkins, autumn leaves)
Does the card have a spooky name? (all hallows eve, grizzly fate, tragic slip, nightmare)
Does the card suitably represent a horror trope? (thunder storms, iconic monsters, haunted mansions, etc.)
Does the card suitably represent a trick-or-treater*? (a child, or a costume)
*note: yes, I'm aware you could turn anything into a costume, but that kind of approach ruins the spirit of the cube. What do people dress up as? They wear masks, dress up as pirates or as ninjas; but, for instance, nobody is dressing up as a Sprouting Thrinax, so just saying that it could be a costume is not really hitting the criteria here.

Secondly, this cube is totally whiteless. No white to be found anywhere! This is a little controversial, but even though white does have a lot of spooky cards (spirits, the haunt mechanic, some really choice orzhov stuff, etc.) and while I do like all that stuff, white as a color really embodies hope and solidarity. But in this horror movie, the teen couple doesn't live to the end of the night. It's a bad moon rising, and all of your human survivalist tribal has to take a back seat to the ghosts and ghouls of the rest of the color pie. Will that always be the case? Maybe not. But as of right now, white is gone! Muahahaha!

So, how do you determine what cards work? Why did you choose which cards for the cube?
I originally wanted to have an analysis in the overview for each card, what they do in the cube and how their flavor is 'Halloween' enough to be justified, and I could maybe do that for a smaller cube, but not a 720 card one. If you're curious about why the cards were deemed spooky enough, here's a link to a google doc to the whole card list with justification and light strategic breakdown: https://docs.Google.Com/document/d/1rwimnco8d4dcnkyi29u6eayrvni-oxpuprrsiv1bzeo/edit?Usp=sharing

~ simple overview ~

Without diving into each card, here are the themes present in the set, and some of the clearest signpost cards for those strategies:

Black

• reanimator (reanimate, animate dead, necromancy)
• zombies (zombie master, soulless one, unbreathing horde)
• removal (murder, tragic slip, dismember)
• vampires (cordial vampire, captivating vampire, blood tribute)
• draw (midnight reaper, dark confidant, phyrexian arena)
• boardwipe (mutilate, grave pact, season of the witch)
• goodstuff (nightmare, bad moon, treacherous urge)

Blue

• control (bone to ash, cursecatcher, dungeon geists)
• zombies (stitcher geralf, undead alchemist, rooftop storm)
• mill (dreamborn muse, dreadwaters, traumatize)
• spirits (supreme phantom, sire of the storm, diviner spirit)
• draw (secrets of the dead, arcanis, the omnipotent, river kelpie)
• mad science (arcane laboratory, quasiduplicate, docent of perfection)
• removal (turn into a pumpkin, eye of nowhere, just the wind)
• goodstuff (thing in the ice, sakashima, the impostor, invisible stalker)

Green

• ramp (harrow, lair delve, kodama's reach)
• failed experiments/+1+1 counters (experiment one, predator ooze, vinelasher kudzu)
• swamp monsters/big stompy (woodfall primus, ancient ooze, soul of the harvest)
• spirits (strangleroot geist, permeating mass, briarknit kami)
• removal (acidic slime, prey upon, rabid bite)
• dredge (splinterfright, vengevine, boneyard wurm)
• werewolves (mayor of avabruck, lambholt elder, sage of ancient lore)
• goodstuff (gutter grime, bower passage, grave bramble)

Red

• discard (cavalier of flame, shocker, firefright mage)
• vampires (rakish heir, stromkirk occultist, havengul vampire)
• zombies (honor the god pharoah, grim initiate, neheb, dreadhorde champion)
• mad science (lightning bolt, risk factor, thermo-alchemist)
• aggro (scourge wolf, ball lightning, manic vandal)
• werewolves (geier reach bandit, breakneck rider, mondronen shaman)
• devils (tibalt, rakish instigator, hellrider, vexing devil)
• goodstuff (etali, primal storm, burn at the stake, bloodhall ooze)