Overview

Political Giant is designed for Free-For-All and Two-Headed Giant formats. This cube leans into the Monarch mechanic with plenty of ways to ensure a constant fight for the crown while providing meaningful tools for table politics.

Design Tenets

Encourage combat and interaction over turtling.

• monarch
• creature evasion, vigilance
• clocks that are not reliant on combat damage

Provide players the tools to remain engaged on every turn, not just their own.

• avoid tutor & shuffle effects
• density of instants, activated abilities and triggered abilities for interaction and politicking
• mechanics that involve all players

Empower players to stifle leads and avoid a single player snowballing to victory.

• no infinite combos or cards that likely end the game immediately
• incentives for attacking opponents
• meaningful answers to threats

Try to cultivate a theme of a kingdom at war while maintaining the tenets above.

• cuts and inclusions are based on a card's ability to support this theme while maintaining relevancy in both FFA & 2HG
• prefer kings & clerics over merfolk & dinosaurs, something akin to the settings of Conspiracy and The Elder Scrolls.

Themes

Each color is designed to support the tenets above and work effectively with or without any critical mass of the themes/synergies below. The goal of these themes is to avoid generic/homogenous decks of "multiplayer good stuff" while providing cards that are still relevant outside of of their archetypes. There are also plenty of cards outside of these themes that provide powerful synergies to those with some imagination.

Elves

Mono provides access to a traditional ramp strategy through Elves to quickly deploy large threats and scale up those same mana dorks in the late game. Caller of the Untamed and Emissary's Ploy provide an efficient means to gain access to other off-color tribal creatures like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Edric, Spymaster of Trest.
Splashing can extend those tribal synergies through Conspiracy and Pact of the Serpent and/or lean more heavily into token-based strategies through cards like Lathril, Blade of the Elves and Bastion of Remembrance.

Hardened Scales

In this cube, Hardened Scales compliments many of the strategies present in . From improving mana dorks like Gyre Sage and Marwyn, the Nurturer to scaling up power houses like Champion of Lamabholt and Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig, Hardened Scales can accellerate many based strategies.
Hardened Scales also layers nicely with cards throughout and . offers multiple vampires with +1/+1 counter abilities, most notably Drana, Liberator of Malakir, and layers nicely with a host of synergistic cards like Blade of the Bloodchief and Slaughter Specialist. has several powerhouses such as Gideon's Avenger and Cathars' Crusade that perform very well on their own and quickly get out of hand when doubled.

Knights

Whether the deck seeks to go wide with Hero of Bladehold and Silverwing Squadron or go big with Auriok Steelshaper, Danitha Capashen, Paragon and the numerous pieces of equipment, cards like Knight Exemplar and Kinsbaile Cavalier will help get it there.
Splasing provides access to, among other things, Conspiracy to extend knights-matter effects to other creatures. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose pairs well with other effects in like Blind Obedience and Kenrith, the Returned King while several strong knights also become available such as Knight of the Ebon Legion and Elenda, the Dusk Rose.

Spells

This archetype seeks to slow the table by burning and countering away important cards to keep opponents off of a critical mass of synergistic effects while building up its own.
grants the expected control alongside repeatable draw effects through cards like Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Coastal Piracy to keep your hand full. Isochron Scepter and Double Stroke provide additional cast triggers while Arcane Savant enables the deck to help power out a big spell like Expropriate or grant access to powerful effects in other colors like Casualties of War or Regna's Sanction.
provides a myriad of effects to turn spells into damage such as Firebrand Archer and Guttersnipe. These, paired with the burn spells available in , provide an engine to turn your control and removal into meaningful pressure across the table. Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Fiery Emancipation amplify this further, turning a single spell into 3-9+ damage off of a single Firebrand Archer or Thermo-Alchemist effect or more with Guttersnipe.
If the game goes long, Teleportal, Cryptic Command, Archetype of Imagination and others can allow the deck to alpha strike out of seemingly nowhere as life totals begin to dwindle.

Statecraft

Flavorful, unique, blue...what isn't there to love about Statecraft?! There is not a high density of control or stax effects in this cube by design, but Statecraft allows the deck maintain its life total and Monarch status with effective blockers. It can win through Court effects, e.g. Court of Cunning, or can build card advantage while maintaining its life total until Statecraft can be Repealed for an alpha strike through Keeper of Keys or Archetype of Imagination.
With the deck gains access to Blind Obedience, which is exceptional at applying pressure through non-combat damage while Brave the Sands allows doubles the efficiency of the deck's nearly indestructible blockers to maintain Monarch. Odric, Master Tactician provides another means for an alpha strike when the time is right, which is made easier as has the highest density of enchantment removal to remove Statecraft from the board if/when necessary.
is a great color to win through non-combat damage, which offsets Statecraft's drawback. Court of Ambition and Twilight Prophet play well to this plan while providing card advantage. Blood Artist, Blood Seeker and similar effects provide consistent noncombat pressure the table.

Tokens

Junk tokens seeks to do janky token things in any combination of . It can go big through effects like Cathars' Crusade and Mirari's Wake or play a more controlling game with Attrition and Twilight Prophet. It is also a great home for Throne of the God-Pharaoh.
makes makes each token much more impactful through Intangible Virtue and Brave the Sands. Reconnaissance allows all tokens to attack and save those that would be blocked/lost to keep the mass of creatures high while still applying pressure. Mentor of the Meek triggers on literally every creature token ETB to keep the hand as full as necessary.
provides best repeatable token generators. Ophiomancer and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder ensure you've no shortage of tokens while Ayara, First of Locthwain and Bastion of Remembrance effects turn those tokens into non-combat damage to the rest of the table.
While has a lower density of token generators than or it offers a combination of powerful one-shot effects like Deep Forest Hermit and Deranged Hermit alongside high-impact cards that care about those tokens such as Circle of Dreams Druid, Champion of Lambholt and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa.

Vampires

Some tribes in this deck seek to win through card or mana advantage; vampires seeks to win by outsizing all of its opponents through evasion and effects that provide +1/+1 counters like Blade of the Bloodchief, Cordial Vampire and Sengir, the Dark Baron. It has access to many evasive threats that reward dealing combat damage like Necropolis Regent and Falkenrath Marauders. Notably, the high density of humans in this cube make effects like Stromkirk Noble and Falkenrath Aristocrat relevant. Sanctum Seeker can be a house in this deck, especially when paired with Twilight Prophet to deal damage to the whole table in a very short period.

Voltron

There's no shortage of equipment to provide all sorts of effects from evasion to card advantage and everything in between. What makes and particularly well-suited for this archetype are the equipment & aura matters effects like Danitha Capashen, Paragon and Koll, the Forgemaster as well as some of the best equipment & auras in the cube like Embercleave and Unquestioned Authority. While accumulating a high density of these effects is going to be effective in any color, Odric, Lunarch Marshal grants the same keywords to your entire board while equip targets like Markov Blademaster, Grenzo's Ruffians and Wyleth, Soul of Steel are unmatched for this strategy.

Wizards

Wizards has the highest ceiling for card draw across all of the themes in this cube. This allows a wizard-based strategy to play a control plan of counters and targeted removal in a profitable way. It's often best to use the control elements at this deck's disposal to protect its growing mass of tribal synergy until some combination of Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Archmage Ameritus, Murmuring Mystic and Beguiler of Wills are online and then seek to close out the game through Lighthouse Chronologist, Throne of the God-Pharaoh, court effects, and/or an evasive board via Keeper of Keys, Archetype of Imagination, Smogsteed Rider or Vela the Night-Clad.