"A Vintage cube for playing with people you'd like to play with again."

Want to play with powerful cards in an environment that favors synergy and archetype overlap over linear strategies? You've come to the right place!

Contents

1. Archetypes
2. Notable differences from Traditional Vintage Cubes
3. Tips for Newer Cube Drafters

Archetypes

The cube strives to provide a high degree of cross-archetype synergy, so the lists below aren't exhaustive of either what can be done in particular color combinations or of the colors that might be relevant to one's deck plan. These lists are provided as a starting point for drafters and cube cloners.

Major Archetypes & Their Primary Colors

• Storm
• Aggro
• Spells-matter Tempo
• Go-wide/tokens
• Sacrifice-for-value (vs. aristocrats)
• Reanimation
• Graveyard matters
• Ramp & Big Creatures
• Landfall
• Land sacrifice & recursion
• Self-mill
• Artifacts
• 5-Color Niv-Mizzet Reborn/Multicolor Matters

Color Pairs' Primary Archetypes

• : tokens, artifacts, & control
• : tokens & sacrifice
• : aggro, with token & artifact sub-themes
• : tokens, landfall, beatdown with a go-wide bent
• : reanimation, control, storm
• : noncreature spells with an aggro/temp bent, artifacts, storm
• : jam some of the most powerful cards together and do big, broken things; also, tokens
• : reanimation, sacrifice, aggro backed by lots of removal
• : reanimation, sacrifice, lands
• : stompy beatdown, lands, tokens

Notable Differences from Traditional Vintage Cubes Partial cycles

The talismans and some land cycles are intentionally incomplete to leave space for cards that better fit the archetypes on which the color pairs focus. The , , and talismans are all out; those color pairs each get an extra land.

Complete land cycles: original duals, shocks, fetch lands, triomes

Less "Zero-Sum Fun"

Removed cards that tend to quickly make games one-sided and/or reduce interaction, e.g.:

• Only one Eldrazi with Annihilator
• Channel
• Hullbreacher, Narset, Parter of Veils, & Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• Kiki/Twin, Dark Depths, and Doomsday combos.
  • These combos have the disadvantages of both ending the game on the spot, with little opportunity for interaction, and being potential "traps" in the draft if all the pieces aren't opened.

Un-, Draft-Affecting, & Custom Cards Un-Set cards

When instructed to open a sealed booster pack, the player gets a pack from the cube, making those cards fairly powerful!

• Booster Tutor
• Claire D'Loon, Joy Sculptor
• Opening Ceremony

Draft-Affecting & Custom Cards

Custom cards are highlighted in purple in the list, since Cube Cobra doesn't support listing unofficial cards. These are mostly tweaks to existing cares to make them more playable in the cube environment. (E.g. making Cogwork Librarian and Lore Seeker into flexible lands so they're not dead picks late in a draft.)

Tips for Newer Cube Drafters

With so many powerful and unusual cards, drafting a Vintage cube can be a little overwhelming. Here are some tips to help orient you as you get familiar with the format:

• Cards that let you "cheat" are some of the most powerful. Most fall into 2 broad categories:
  • Getting more mana out than you put in, e.g. Black Lotus, the moxes (worth running even if they're off-color), Sol Ring, Mana Crypt
  • "Tutoring" to the battlefield, which lets you get an expensive/powerful card for much less mana than its casting cost. Examples: Tinker, Natural Order, Reanimate, Animate Dead
• Pick lands highly: you want to be able to cast your spells!
  • Fetch lands and fetchable lands (those with basic land types) that can enter untapped are generally the best
  • It's often a good idea to pick an on-color land card or a fetch land from a pack that doesn't have an otherwise very powerful card or card that's key to your strategy
• When in doubt, choose the cheaper card. There are plenty of powerful, expensive cards available.
• Aggressive decks are strong options for pressuring the big/"broken"/combo decks. Examples: mono-red, mono-white, RW, UR spells/tempo, RG go-big beatdown
• If something looks cool and fun, go for it--that's what cube's all about! 🙂

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There's more than what's highlighted above, but this should provide a starting point. I welcome feedback, so please send it my way. Happy cubing!

Thanks to LSV and Gabby Spartz for their Alt-Vintage Cube, which served as the original base for this cube and the inspiration for its name!