Art by Paolo Parente"Don't laugh. It works."
A 180 card pauper(-ish) cube for 2-4 players.
This cube began life as a clone of Ryan Overturf's Pauper Twobert, which he writes about extensively here, indexed against the Styborski Pauper Cube. It's practical because I wanted something I could put together in real life and start tuning as quickly as possible.
Over time I have mutated the cube towards what some folks call "proactive pauper." The best cards in pauper tend to provide card advantage on a mediocre body. Too many such cards and you risk games where both players churn through their decks, achieving little but stalling out the board.
To avoid this, I'm testing out three key design ideas:
Keeping Toughness LowMost creatures in the cube die to Lightning Bolt; many die to Firebolt. I'm biasing creatures inclusions towards bodies with power greater than toughness (and ideally greater than their mana value as well). This can still create board states where neither player wants to attack, but it at least avoid the situation where it's futile to even think about doing so because there are too many 1/3s and 2/4s.
2-For-1s Require WorkFor the moment, I'm including Inspiring Oveseer but I'd like to transition towards cards like Guildsworn Prowler - creatures that provide card advantage but only if you meet some condition. Ideally that condition would encourage attacking.
Bias Towards EvasionYes, a board can stall out in the air just as much as on the ground, but such stalls are often easily unraveled by a well timed removal spell. Menace and persistent sources of trample encourage attacks that might trade evenly on bodies but move the game closer to ending. Mechanics like ninjutsu and (to a lesser extent) delve encourage you to get in the red zone as a means of scoring short term advantage or generating resources.
Drafting
For 2 players, I prefer grid drafting 16 3x3s or Solomon drafting 8 packs of 10.
For 4 players, regular draft 5 Packs of 9. A minesweeper draft might also be good, but this is untested.
I hadn't considered the Jumpstart cards til I saw the Lucky Paper surveys. A few interesting options here.
Winter Eladrin > Gilded Scuttler
Eladrin plays better with the cube's ninjas, but I like the idea of an unblockable stunner more. Yes, it's a 1/3 which is against the cube's ethos, but it has a more significant chance of getting into the red zone than a vanilla 2/2.
Brave the Wilds > Go Forth
While it is possible to sac something for Brave, it's not that common. Go Forth plays into the new combat trick meta and also rewards splashing around. Admittedly, those are two themes that don't often coincide in the same deck.
Coiling Stalker > Slimy Piper
I like piper a lot as a go-wide pay-off. Indestructible only on attacks with a pretty strict condition is a reasonable deployment of that keyword. Coiling stalker was riding the sideboard too often, even if it is a card that I like on paper. Frankly that's how it played out in actual limited as well, if I remember correctly.