Art by Victor Adame MinguezThis cube was born as a way to use the various cards leftover from modern and standard decks that would not fit into any commander deck, as well as a retirement home for cards being removed from them.
It uses proxies extensively to form an actually draftable environent, especially where the manabases are concerned. I would like to acquire (almost) all cards on the list eventually, but for now slips of paper are doing the heavy lifting.
- Preface
1.1 Index - General Design Principles
- Color Identities
3.1. White
3.2. Blue
3.3. Black
3.4. Red
3.5. Green - Example Archetypes
4.1. Humans
4.2. Fliers
4.3. Equipments
4.4. Sacrifice Aggro
4.5. Aristocrats
4.6. +1/+1 Counters
4.7. Spell Matters
4.8. Blink
4.9. Monsters
4.10. Reanimator
4.11. Artifacts
4.12. Toolbox
4.13. Lands
4.14. Counter-Top - Combos
5.1. Infinite Combos
5.2. Honorable Mentions - TODO
I make no great claim to fairness nor inspired design principles or innovative approaches to Cube as a format; this is simply an amalgamation of the different cards and strategies I have enjoyed playing with (and against) from old Standards to Modern, to Brawl and Commander.
Rule 0: "Je ne sais quoi" trumps all metrics
At the end of the day the main guiding design principle for the cube is simply that I must like a card to add and/or keep it. I still try to balance the colors, and try to make sure all archetypes and strategies have a reasonable chanche to see play.
But for example, one of the latest cuts I had to do was to decide between Brago, King Eternal and Displacer Kitten. An despite the fact that the Kitten is objectively stronger, I just like Brago. I like the flavour, I like the aesthetic, and playing him makes me all tingly. SO Brago stayed and Kitten left.
I will also try to favour any real cards I own over proxied once when pushes come to shoves.
Rule 1: Consistent aesthetic
This is effectively a corollary of Rule 0, I just plain don't like Universes Beyond and Silver Borders. I don't like how they look, I don't like most of their flavor and they tend not to fit in the environment in my opinion.
Similarly, I actually try to limit the amount of old border cards in the cube. While for some cards it is unavoidable (and for some I actually prefer the old border) some of my players find it distastefull, and I do agree that it is preferable when all the cards in a pack have a similar aesthetic.
I am actively making exceptions (again, Rule 0) for specific cards that have iconic or otherwise interesting printings.
There are some (regrettable) exception where I've needed an effect that I could only find in a UB card (cough Beregond of the Guard cough) but even then I try to be mindful of Rule 2. Speaking of...
Rule 2: Gameplay complexity is fine, draft complexity is not
Our group is largely made up of long time (if not exceedingly enfranchised) players. Even with regards to the newer players we do have, I can reasonably expect them to have a grasp of the mechanics of the game if not familiarity with a certain strategy or a specifc card.
Still, given that we tend to play in a fairly casual way, any weird situation during the games can usually be reasoned out toghether without any issue; and we do try to make sure the newer players among us are kept up to speed with what is happening.
This is not necessarily true during the draft, where information is not public, and one has to stop other seven players to ask for advice or explanation on something rather than just their opponent.
So, this means:
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No mechanics that are not explained on the card itself. I despise cases where reading the card doesn't actually explain the card. This includes all the mechanics that rely on some external tracking like Venturing into the Dungeon or being Tempted by the Ring. Monarch is in a bit of weird spot here, as it only appears on Palace jailer and with no explanation, but I think it is simple and well known enough to get a pass by way of Rule 0. It is on thin ice tho.
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No weird/illegible editions of cards (see TODO in the end for some mea culpa). This is mostly covered under Rule 1, but it bears repeating.
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No draft matters cards. One of the reasons for Rule 2 are the time constraints we are usually in when drafting, and as much as I liked Conspiracy, that approach made sense only if the draft was its own minigame. Having a smattering of draft matters cards in singleton only breaks the flow of the pod and adds very little (in my opinion).
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No walls of text. There are some cards (at least for me) were reading them feels like swimming through molasses uphill; and my brain gets through half the card and then blah-blah-blahs all the rest, no matter how many time I play with or against them. Questing Beast is an obvious example, but there are several. Nissa, Resurgent Animist and Springheart Nantuko were in the list, but were removed partly for this reason, they just do too much all at once. Of the remaining cards I think Cemetery Illuminator is the worst offender, and I might drop it at some poit because of it.
This rule is also a big part of why I am writing this whole primer (other than unchecked ego and a self-fellating need to reread my own writing over and over for spelling mistakes), I want to make sure that players go into the draft knowing what are the supported archetypes and combos without having to ask during the draft itself.
Rule 3: Goldilock's Powerlevel
I don't love playing at a Vintage powerlevel (or even Legacy in some cases). So, I am aiming for a lower powerlevel (a few years ago I'd have called it something closer to a Modern level, but to be honest I have no idea where Modern is sitting nowadays).
There are exceptions (for example: Recurring Nightmare is a pet card of one of my players, who insisted it be kept in the list even if it is possibly a bit too good), but in general I am trying to keep the games from being too swingy and at the same time from finishing in an unsatisfying short time.
Wherever possible I am also trying to not use straightforward cards where a more interesting, albeit weaker, version exists (for example, I am using Damn and Toxic Deluge over Damnation). Admittedly this is partly because I have a lot of the weaker versions as opposed to the best in slot for the effect, but I like to pretend it is also an actual design decision when in polite company.
Finally I am being very parsimonious when using Modern Horizon cards. While some are just plain fun like Damn, Dragon's Rage Channeler or Winds of Abandon I find artificially pushed cards like Ocelot Pride, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah , Urza's Saga , Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer , Urza, Lord High Artificer , etc. not just too good in a lot of cases, but just uncouth and as such they all break Rule 0.
Rule 4: Singleton(ish)
I actively like the singleton restriction for cubes, I think having to find a second, third and fourth copy of an effect that you want to strengthen is fun.
That said, I am making an exception for fetchlands because with 720 cards I really want a second copy of them and there is no reasonable "next best version" of them.
White here is very creature centric; most of the utility spells in White come with a (generally Human) body attached.
It is therefore skewed torward creature-based aggro decks on the backs of Kytheon, Hero of Akros, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Luminarch Aspirant, etc.
It can also offer some high value single cards for midrange decks, wether they prefer value engines like Restoration Angel and Karmic Guide or simply best in slot like Archangel Avacyn and Brimaz, King of Oreskos.
Finally, White offers some interesting removal for both tempo decks (Skyclave Apparition, Unexpectedly Absent) and control decks (Council's Judgment, Terminus), as well as some juicy fineshers for reanimator, ramp and slower decks like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Parhelion II.
Humans: Thalia's Lieutenant , Champion of the Parish and Beregond of the Guard all reward you heavily for drafting Humans, which is not hard to do as they are by far the most populous tribe in the cube. More than half the creatures in White, and about as many in the other colors, are Humans.
Equipments: Stoneforge Mystic is the linchpin of any equipment decks, but secondary engines and payoffs also abound in White, from Relic Seeker, to Oswald Fiddlebender and Sram, Senior Edificer. White also offers some interesting colored equipments like Lion Sash for utility or Maul of the Skyclaves for, well, mauling.
Flicker: Ephemerate, Restoration Angel, Flickerwisp & co are the backbone of ETB based decks. While other colors offer a lot of the strong enter the battlefield effects, White does have the meat and potatoes of the archetype; and is no slouch when it comes to payoffs either with Angel of Invention and Palace Jailer hanging about.
Blue is what Blue does.
And while it does have some tools to offer aggro decks that want them, from aggressively costed creatures like Ledger Shredder, Vendillion Clique and Phantasmal Image for the more adventurous, to Daze to keep your opponents on their toes; where it shines is in offering everything a growing control mage needs.
This means a plethora of interactions (with by far the largest collection of instant speed cards in the Cube) available to both midrange and control decks, be they geared more to the tempo side of things with Remand, Memory Lapse and Venser, Shaper Savant, or to the draw-go style with Ancestral Vision, Mystic Confluence and Torrential Gearhulk.
Spell Matters: Delver of Secrets, Thing in the Ice and Metallurgic Summonings are good payoffs for spell matters decks, and even outside those Blue offers all the cantrips to keep your Balmor, Battlemage Captains and Monastery Mentors spinning. From Ponder to Brainstorm] to Treasure Cruise (what, it costs U and draws a card, that's a cantrip right there).
Artifacts: Master of Etherium, Thought Monitor and Tezzeret the Seeker are there to remind you that brown is a shade of blue. You can build artifact without islands, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice (and making Vedalken Shackles very sad).
Card Selection: Finally, Blue excels in a support role as the undisputed master of card advantage. From high impact cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Mystic Confluence and Cyclonic Rift to solid role players like Impulse and Fact or Fiction to combo pieces like [Perstermite]], Laboratory Maniac and Counterbalance; Blue has something to offer to any archetype in the cube in some capacity, even when not playing center stage.
Black does two things: it puts creatures in the graveyard, and it takes creatures out of the graveyard.
Maybe you want to do it by continuously smashing Gravecrawler, Relentless Dead and Geralf's Messenger into your opponent, while a Blood Artist and Marionette Master cackle in the back lines.
Or maybe you plan on ticking on a Liliana of the Veil every turn waiting for a good moment to use Living Death. Or maybe you're just going to go for an early Crypt Ghast into Sheoldred, Whispering One and let your opponent figure it out.
Death Triggers: Blood artist, The Meathook Massacre, Priest of Forgotten Gods and all their variation are effectively a deck in and of themselves, one which I feel needs little introduction. If you want to play some version of aristocrats or suicide aggro the other colors will help but your core (and your heart) will be black.
Reanimation: Recurring Nightmare is a monster of a card, but even outside the tip top there are several sinergistic and interesting ways to get creatures back, from Persist to Exhume to Whip of Erebos if you want to spice it up. Getting creatures in your bin is not too hard, with Stitcher's Supplier, Pack Rat and Mindwrack Demon lining up to help.
Removal: And if the creatures you want buried are not your own, no problem. Black comes with an answer to (almost) anything, from Thoughtseize to Ravenous Chupacabra, from Hero's Downfall to Doomfall and Languish, and that's before adding other colors into the mix. If you feel creatures and planeswalkers are unnecessary clutter on the board, draft black and sweep them into the bin.
If you wanna go fast, if you're here for a good time and not a long time, if the face plays taunt and you still go face, then Red is for you.
Ok, now that that is out of the way, there is more than one way to skin a goblin. Of course, if you want to play aggro, Red is going to be your best friend: from slaps in the face like Fiery Confluence, to creature based solutions like Searslicer Goblin and Goblin Rabblemaster to recurring damage dealers like Purphoros, God of the Forge and Sulfuric Vortex.
At the same time, midrange and even control decks might appreciate good value threats like Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Flametongue Kavu, Glorybringer and Inferno Titan. And really, everyone loves Lightning Bolt.
Go-wide Aggro: At its core, Red Aggro here is a go-wide deck. Searslicer Goblin, Goblin Rabblemaster, Legion Warboss, Hordeling Outburst and others combine with Goblin Bushwhacker, Hellrider and Cavalcade of Calamity to drown your opponent in a mass of greenish bodies.
Equipments and Artifacts: If that is not for you, Embercleave, Temur Battle Rage and Lizard Blades offer a taller approach to killing the guy on the other side of the table. Failing that, Professional Face-Breaker, Breya's Apprentice and of course Daretti, Scrap Savant and Combustible Gearhulk can provide good value to more "artificial" wincons.
Spell Matters: Finally, the most satisfying bolt for me is the one that goes to the face and deals about 10 damage in stacked triggers. Dragon's Rage Channeler, Young Pyromancer, Slickshot Show-Off and many more are all here for it. Whether you pair them with blue for a more highbrow tempo deck, or just go Monastery Swiftspear into Cori-Steel Cutter into triple 1 mana burn spells is up to you.
Green is all about permanents; from creatures to lands to counters, it gets on the board and sticks to it like stubborn moss.
Aggro decks based on +1/+1 Counters can do worse than start with Pelt Collector or Experiment One into Bristly Bill, Spine Sower into Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Green starts slower than Red, but nothing beats its staying power.
Midrange decks never dislike starting on an Elvish Mystic variant, into a quick value engine like Courser of Kruphix or a best in slot like Polukranos, World Eater and Verdurous Gearhulk. And that's assuming they are not doing something nasty with Veteran Explorer and Birthing Pod of course...
Greedy Control decks that will always take an early turn off to fix their mana with Farseeks and Cultivates, and playing draw-go can be a lot more interesting if you're holding up Collected Company and Chord of Calling alongside that counter in your hand.
Mana Ramp: Ramp is the quintessential Green strategy. From land based strategies using Rampant Growth in all its various incarnation over the years, to creature based ramp abusing cards like Joraga Treespeaker and Elvish Archdruid, to more combo-like approaches leveraging Veteran Explorer, Lotus Cobra or Life from the Loam.
Big Monsters: Of course then, the question becomes what are we ramping towards? Green offers some of the biggest and nastiest creatures in the cube, from Avenger of Zendikar and Terastodon to Hornet Queen and Decimator of the Provinces
Creature Tutoring: But being a green deck doesn't mean being without subtlety. While Blue has the lion's share of the card advantage, Green has a plethora of silver bullets and ways to tutor them up, from Birthing Pod to Green Sun's Zenith, a veritable playground for midrange decks.
The section before is to give a bit of an idea of what are the strengths and themes of each color, now let's go through a quick overview of which archetypes 2 and 3 color combinations can support (in case you need some inspiration going into the draft).
Of course, there is nothing wrong with playing mono-color (mono-red is, and will always be, a playable deck as long as I draw breath, and I've seen what mono-black and mono-green can do), or 4-5 color (there's a reason Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and Breya, Etherium Shaper are in after all).
But, the bread and butter of the decks are going to be 2 and 3 color, especially given how prevalent multi color is in the list, not just as payoff but as actual building blocks for a lot of archetypes.
Also, this is simply an overview of the synergistic archetypes, to be used as a draft primer for players who are new or not familiar with the cards in the cube. The powerlevel of the single cards is high enough that a pile of good cards in 2-3 colors should make a reasonably good midrange deck, especially if backed up by the combos indicated in their own section, and both general aggro and control care more about the role single cards play within the specific deck rather than in a generic high level strategy.
Still, being aware of what synergies are present is useful, if only to spot the particular cases where a card might be a lot better than usual in your deck.
Almost all the creatures in White are human, and the color carries most of the payoff for the tribe, from Champion of the Parish to Beregond of the Guard.
While a focused mono-white Human deck can work, the natural pairings are Red and Green.
Red offers reach in the form of burn, and a natural segue into using powerful equipments alongside your creatures.
Green offers a couple of secondary payoffs, like Mayor of Avabruck, and a lot of ancillary creature support, from Collected Company to Beastmaster Ascension.
Make sure to check the creature types as you draft, given how populous Humans are it is very likely you have a solid enough base in your Wx aggro deck to pick up a late Thalia's Lieutenant or Heronblade Elite.
Between Blue and White, you have about two-thirds of all flying creatures in the pool. There is not a lot of explicit payoff beyond Skycat Sovereign and Errant and Giada, but with a sword or two, a cheap flier like Warden of the Inner Sky, Hypnotic Sprite or Vendilion Clique, and some bounce you can kill just about anyone if they don't pay attention.
This archetype can also slot neatly into a more midrange deck, leveraging Errant and Giada alongside signets and high cost value threats like Archangel Avacyn, Dragonlord Ojutai and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Do note, too, that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir allows you to cast all creatures from the top of your deck with Errant and Giada.
Also, Edric, Spymaster of Trest and Tamiyo, Field Researcher are UW cards. Pinky swear.
Most of the support for equipments as a synergistic deck is in White and Red, with Stoneforge Mystic, Akiri, Line-Slinger and Kellan, the Fae-Blooded being the signpost cards for the archetype, but equiments being color-agnostic means you could play this archetype in any aggro deck, really.
For the equipments themselves, Umezawa's Jitte is of course an all star, Skullclamp paired with a Monastery Mentor can turn this into an interesting variation of an aristocrats, and of course all swords are playable.
A good number of equipments also sidestep the creature issue entirely and provide their own bodies, from Lion Sash to Cori-Steel Cutter to good old Batterskull.
Also, keep in mind that Sram, Senior Edificer also works with vehicles. There aren't that many in the cube, but the ones that are there tend to go in the same decks as equipments, so some overlap is definitely possible.
The goal here is to turn everything sideways and watch your opponent squirm as they decide wether to take the damage from blocking, or from letting it through.
Judith, the Scourge Diva is the all star here, but slower or more combo deck can benefit from Chainer, Nightmare Adept and Murderous Redcap, while Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin can turn this into a synergistic pinging tribal, exploiting Brutal Hordechief and Hellrider to buff itself before blockers.
A monoblack version is also viable, looking to exploit the zombie synergies of Gravecrawler, Cryptbreaker and Carrion Feeder when backed up with any number of Blood Artist effects, or cards like Ayara, First of Locthwain and Crypt Ghast that reward playing heavy into black.
As a general rule, to make aristocrats happy you need a sacrifice outlet, a payoff for the creature dying, and ideally some way to recur the creature (or to generate more very cheaply). Just like in real life.
For outlets, Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer are the classics, but keep an eye out for Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Braids, Arisen Nightmare, powering up more midrangy aristocratic strategies. Priest of Forgotten Gods is also interesting, as it doubles as a payoff but is not repeatable, while Goblin Bombardment on its own can turn this into a very scary aggro deck.
The payoffs range from several different Blood Artist effects to various draw engines like Midnight Reaper and Liliana, Dreadhorde General.
For recursion the same applies here as for the Sacrifice Aggro, in fact the two archetypes have a lot of overlap with each other. Which one you are depends more on whether you tend more toward aggro than midrange, or White rather than Red.
Keep an eye out also for repeatable reanimation like Recurring Nightmare, as well as cheap or repeatable token production like Bitterblossom or Lingering Souls
Both White and Green abound with incidental ways to place +1/+1 counters on their creatures, from Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit to Heliod, Sun-Crowned, from Bristly Bill, Spine Sower to Verdurous Gearhulk .
Black adds Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Anafenza, the Foremost to these, giving it a more midrange and combo spin when necessary.
In general this deck needs fairly little in terms of payoff, WGx aggro and midrange decks can rely on the power level of the single cards themselves just fine.
But if you are in these colors keep an eye out for a Conclave Mentor or Winding Constrictor going late, or see if that Metastatic Evangel can do something nasty in your list.
On the one hand, there are the more aggressive decks using Monastery Swiftspear, Slickshot Show-Off, Balmor, Battlemage Captain and Sprite Dragon to try and kill the opponent as quickly as possible.
On the other hand, you have the more controlling decks relying instead on Metallurgic Summonings and single threats like Delver of Secrets and Thing in the Ice backed by counterspells to whittle away at their opponent.
Both rely on the same core of cantrips, from Ponder to Gitaxian Probe, burn like Lightning Bolt and Burst Lightning, cheap card draw like Faithless Looting, Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time and tempo interaction like Remand and Cryptic Command.
If you're going aggro, keep an eye out for a late Temur Battle Rage, few decks really want it and it can murder people out of nowhere.
Otherwise, if you want something out of left field, Thousand-Year Storm needs a lot of setup, but can be a legitimate wincon when paired with good artifact mana.
There are a lot of good ETBs in the cube, and exploiting is never boring.
Brago, King Eternal is the signpost, but a lot of the pieces are in the single colors, from Restoration Angel to Deadeye Navigator to Ephemerate and all the others already mentioned, which makes the package very flexible.
From Green you can take some very nice top-end creatures with ETBs like Thragtusk, Hornet Queen and the very fun Acidic Slime (at least for one of the players), as well as the mana to cast them.
Blue is more subtle, but Mulldrifter and Coiling Oracle are always a pleasure, and both Aether Channeler and Venser, Shaper Savant don't mind entering two or three times, not to mention Torrential Gearhulk.
Black offers some off the cuff picks, like Siege Rhino and Gonti, Lord of Luxury, but excels at killing stuff on ETB, from the Ravenous Chupacabra to Massacre Wurm.
Finally do keep an eye out for planewalkers. Both Brago, King Eternal and Flickerwisp can reset them, and while a Superfriends midrange decks doesn't need them if you see one going late why not bring them in.
Faster than your average midrange, with more staying power than your average aggro.
This is less of a synergy and more of a general breakpoints in mana production, RG Monsters and Big-Red style decks want to reach past the mana value 3 as soon as possible and then stop there, while more dedicated ramp decks want to consistently be able to cast (and find) spells above 6.
Both Green and artifact mana allows early ramp into punchy 4/5-drops, from green monsters like Polukranos, World Eater to dragons like Thunderbreak Regent, or value engines like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter and Chandra, Torch of Defiance.
Alternatively, an early threat like Kari Zev, Skyship Raider becomes a lot scarier when supported by Halana and Alena, Partners, or when dropped by a Bloodbraid Elf or Shardless Agent following a turn one mana elf.
The mono-red version can rely on signets and other cheap artifact mana to stick a big 5 or 6 drop like Inferno Titan or Glorybringer, and then support it with cheap burn and maybe a cheeky Embercleave or Temur Battle Rage for a quick kill.
And of course, if you see The Great Henge, snap it. Any normally aggressive deck that manages to stick that in the early turns can immediately become an unstoppable value machine.
Truly, the one reason me and Alberto we all play black.
For reanimator, at its most basic, you need three things: creatures, ways to get them in the bin, and ways to get them out.
Black and Green together excel in all three, Grim Flayer, Grisly Salvage, Life from the Loam and Satyr Wayfinder will fill your graveyard, and Exhume, Persist, Recurring Nightmare and several others will be glad to empty it.
Blue offers some more subtle approach, Forbidden Alchemy, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Fact or Fiction can help get the specific cards you need out of library and into the bin, and of Gifts Ungiven is always the best option if you know how to use it; while on the reanimation side The Scarab God is a monster of an engine in an of itself.
As for the targets, their colors are less important than for the setup, especially if you are working off of a Green base that can afford some mana fixing. No one is gonna blame you for slapping an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and two plains into your deck and calling it a day.
Big dumb beaters like Terastodon and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger are always good, but do keep an eye on more value based options like Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or even Deadeye Navigator in certain decks.
Or you could just be reanimating your normal 3 and 4 drops for value. In lower power formats like this a solid midrange deck with a reanimator spin to simply recur its threats and utility creatures can go farther than a dedicated reanimator combo deck.
There are, essentially, three possible approaches to building an Artifact deck: Aggro, Ramp and Midrange/Control.
At their core they all rely on Blue and usually Red for the bulk of the cards, but they can pick and choose which other colors (if any) to add.
Artifact based aggro decks can lean heavily on Red, using Breya's Apprentice, Pia Nalaar and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, as well taking Master of Etherium and Sai, Master Thopterist from Blue, or finally using Etched Champion and/or equipments to break through board stalls.
Ramp decks plan on using manarocks like signets, Worn Powerstone, Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus to power out expensive threats like Myr Battlesphere, Metalwork Colossus or, why not, an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
Do keep an eye out for Tezzeret the Seeker if you're going this route, it can double your best manarock and at the same time allow you to have single answers like Vedalken Shackles or Lion Sash.
Midrange and Control decks revolving around artifacts work very similarly, relying on cheap manarocks, but eschewing the expensive payoffs (to a point), instead relying on the value accumulated by Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, Breya, Etherium Shaper or Master Transmuter.
How heavily you rely on artifacts is up to you, an Esper control deck could simply use a bunch of manarocks and use Tezzeret the Seeker as a toolbox as above (especially coupled with a Thopter Foundry).
On the other hand, an aggro deck could go all in on Etched Champion allowing them to pick up cards like Ethersworn Canonist and Lodestone Golem fairly late as most other players would not want them.
Almost all infinite combos in the Cube are creature based, and White and Green are first for both creatures and ways to tutor them. You can dip into Blue, Black or Red as needed, but a GW core is a must for any silver-bullet based midrange deck.
Red gives you access to Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and all the combos around him, infinite and not, from Restoration Angel and Zealous Conscripts to Thragtusk and Huntmaster of the Fells.
Blue has Prime Speaker Vannifar for even more tutoring, and a lot of ways to generate card avantage with creatures.
Black gives you access to all the Shriekmaw variations in the cube, a lot of staying power with reanimation and recursion, plus several Kitchen Finks combos.
Also, as a lot of Green and Black tutoring revolves around sacrificing creatures (take for example Birthing Pod, Eldritch Evolution and Fiend Artisan) make sure you pick up a Veteran Explorer if you see it pass by. It is symmetrical, of course, but no effect is ever truly symmetrical, is it?
Based in Green with Titania, Protector of Argoth, Ramunap Excavator, Life from the Loam and Oracle of Mul Daya and all the landfall trigger you can find, as well as well as that sweet sweet second cycle of fetchlands.
It takes from Red the the support of Wrenn and Six, Borborygmos Enraged and Faithless Looting or Winds of Change, while the White version is signposted by Knight of the Reliquary, with some other left field additions in the form of Scholar of New Horizons and its relatives, and is generally more geared toward a good stuff midrange deck.
Finally, Black offers free self-discard and milling (from Liliana of the Veil to Rankle, Master of Pranks to Mindwrack Demon and Grisly Salvage), as well as Lord Windgrace as a Jund build-around.
Do also keep an eye out for Deathrite Shaman. With two rounds of fetchlands it can be a genuine mana producer in its own right, but in a Lands shell it can and will be like a more efficient Grim Lavamancer when you're trying to whittle down your opponent's life total on a stalled board.
The general synergy here is between Counterbalance and spells that allow you to see and/or rearrange the top of your library. The same goes for miracle effects like Terminus and Entreat the Angels.
The most common (and strongest ones) ones are Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm, as well as Ponder and the other similar effects, but Errant and Giada, Cemetery Illuminator and Courser of Kruphix also allow you to not flip blind. The package as a whole is fairly flexible and can be slotted into most UWx control decks fairly easily.
Do also keep in mind how useful lands can be here, in addition to Academy Ruins and Mystic Sanctuary that allow you to get spells back to the top when needed, fetchlands can be used to manipulate the top very effectively if you already know what you are going to draw.
After going through the general synergies, now let's quickly go through the 2/3 cards combos in the cube, and how they work.
This is not really comprehensive as far as lists go, but it should cover most of the straightforward combos one can draft.
Or alternatively swap Viscera Seer for any other free sacrifice outlet.
This gives you at the very least infinite life, infinite death triggers and infinite ETB triggers.
Pair with a Blood Artist or similar for an instant kill.
Similar to the one above, this one uses the undying trigger from Mikaeus, the Unhallowed to nullify the persist one from either Murderous Redcap or Kitchen Finks.
As above this gives you infinite ETB and death triggers, and either infinite damage directly, or infinite life.
This is less efficient than either of the previous combos, and technically not infinte, but it can still kill people.
If you have Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and a couple of undying creatures to bounce the -1/-1 counters between, you can sacrifice one to give a -1/-1 counter to the other, removing the +1/+1 one from undying, and then do the same with the other. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed allows this to work with any two other (non-Human) creatures.
This does cost you 1 life for each sacrifice, and you have to draw a card, so it is not truly infinite, but it does allow you to stack a lot of death triggers. Assuming even one of the two creatures is, say, a Blood Artist, this should be enough to drain your opponent dead.
Giving lifelink to a Walking Ballista with Heliod, Sun-Crowned makes it so every ping puts a counter back on the Ballista, which lets you ping again. Rinse. Repeat. Infinite damage.
You can alternatively swap Carrion Feeder for any other free sacrifice outlet, but you'll need a second Zombie somewhere.
Sacrificing a Gravecrawler with Pitiless Plunderer on the field makes you a Treasure token. Assuming you have a second Zombie handy (which Carrion Feeder incidentally is) you can immediately spend the Treasure to recast Gravecrawler.
This gives you infinite ETBs, infinite death triggers and an arbitrarily large Carrion Feeder. It is also technically resilient to Containment Priest, which pretty much counters all the other combos before this one, so keep that in mind.
The namesake for the Twin archetype, creating a copy of either Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch or Zealous Conscripts allows you to untap the original creature, creating a new copy and so on.
This gives you infinite ETB triggers, and an arbitrary amount of hasty creatures. You can also substitute Splinter Twin for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Unlike Splinter Twin, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can also combo with any creature that flickers it, assuming it returns it untapped and immediately.
This does fold to Containment Priest, unlike the Twin combos above, but it can slot into any non-Blue decks and being entirely creature based it is very easy to tutor.
Last of the Kiki/Twin variations, this one relies on infinite extra combat steps to kill your opponent. You create a copy of Combat Celebrant, exert it as it attacks, which gives you a second combat phase and crucially untaps all your creatures. The token doesn't untap, but the original does, which means you can make a new copy and repeat.
Do note that Combat Celebrant doesn't give you a main phase between the combats, so make sure you do aything else you might need before the first attack.
Probably the most "combo-centric" combo until now, given that both cards are fairly low power on their own. But together they allow you to turn all your mana into as many 1/1 flying thopters and as much life, by sacrificing the Sword of the Meek and returning to the battlefield equipped to the thopter that was just created.
While not properly infinite it can still generate a LOT of value, and it is very tutorable in an artifact deck. You also only really need to cast the Thopter Foundry, as sacking any other artifact can bring the Sword of the Meek back from the graveyard. This makes it also fairly resilient, and in a color combination that is very good at protecting engines like this.
A slow but hilarious combo. With Academy Ruins you can put the Mindslaver back on top of your library after having sacrificed it, meaning that as long as you have 13 mana to spare, you can control your opponent during each of his turns for the rest of the game.
While it is a bit impractical, artifact decks can cheat it a bit, and you usually don't need to mindslaver someone for more that 3-4 turns before finding a way of having them kill themselves (either by leaving themselves open or by actively harming themselves).
These are interactions between 2 or more cards that are not proper combos, but it is still good to know, as they influence the value of the cards involved.
Despite being a land, Driad Arbor is green, which means you can use Green Sun's Zenith for X=0 and get nice little ramp spell.
This is admittedly a case of Reading the Card Explains the Card, but since I kept missing myself back when Palace Jailer came out: killing the Jailer doesn't free the inmates, only a regime change does.
Flavorful, and it does mean that you can sacrifice, reanimate and flicker the Palace Jailer to yout heart's content (and your opponent's frustration) without any of the prisoners coming back as long as you keep you hands on the crown. Truly, Brago, Eternal Monarch's best friend.
You can also sub Winds of Change in place of Windfall.
If you have Narset out, you'll be the only one getting a hand refill. Mean, but you were playing Narset, Parter of Veils in the first place. Fun was never an option.
Or any other artifact with an ETB for that matter. The Master Transmuter returns the artifact as part of the cost, so it can be used to effectively flicker an artifact by returning it to your hand and then putting it into pay with the same ability.
In fact, if you have Phyrexian Metamorph and any Twin enabler like Pestermite or Zealous Conscripts you can untap the Master Transmuter by flickering the Phyrexian Metamorph and cloning the enabler. Not infinite, but it does give you as many ETB triggers as you have Blue mana if you need them I guess.
There are a lot of tricks you can do with Gifts Ungiven. The main one is remembering that you don't need to find all 4 cards it mentions, which mean you can search up for example Unburial Rites and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and your opponent HAS to put them in your graveyard. Hilarity ensues.
Another approach is to search up a combination of flashback spells like Lingering Souls, threats and recursive tools like Eternal Witness, Life From the Loam and Snapcaster Mage that effectively means no matter what your opponent chooses you will end up with what you want in a place that you can retrieve it.
Also works with Sydri, Galvanic Genius and Vault of the Archangel in place of the equipment.
It is not an infinite combo (not unless Heliod, Sun-Crowned is watching from the wardrobe) but any of those cards can turn Walking Ballista into a machine gun. Fairly obvious, but I thought it worth pointing out.
Also, if you have some way of generating infinte mana (I can't think of any obvious ones here, but you could have a Pawn of Ulamog sitting around during one of the recursive infinite sacrifice/reanimate loops from before) Walking Ballista in general is a very good way of killing someone with it.
Or any other fetchland that can look for an Island since Mystic Sanctuary has a basic land type. I am as annoyed about it as you are, but it does make it a really good "free" recursive card to have in a Blue deck.
If you have fetchlands or even just a Farseek in your deck keep an eye out for it, it has effectively zero opportunity cost but it can swing a game by returning to the top a Cruel Ultimatum or Finale of Devastation that was previously countered, especially when used at instant speed.
TODO
Ideally I would like to have (almost) all the cards as real, eventually. I am actively buying the chaff, and trimming proxies where I can.
There are obviously expensive cards that are uh not looking so likely, but we'll jump from that bridge when we get to it.
In the meantime, several of the cards are in languages that are not the easiest to read. Some are there on purpose (even if it does break Rule 2) because I like them that way: I like my German Endpunkt and Chercheur de reliques and Chevalier de l'Orchidée blanche are 100% French.
But I also have several Chinese and Japanese cards (among which are some readers like Jace Beleren) and those will have to go eventually, once I have found replacements. For now I want to kinda finalize the list (and I am getting there) and then tag them properly so I can prioritize them for replacements.
Also I should probably give this novel of an overview a spelling pass at some point.
That's it for now. Bye.