Art by Andrew MarThe Arena cardpool is deceptively powerful. A unique mix of new power - Modern Horizons 3, Uro, pitch Elementals, etc., and classic cube staples - Reanimate, Birds of Paradise, Thoughtseize, Counterspell…
So when designing an Arena-legal cube, there’s a pretty wide band of power level to consider. It’s certainly possible to go for max power - Channel, Sneak Attack, Show and Tell, Natural Order, Mana Drain, etc. But I’m more inclined towards fairer strategies, and while it would be exciting to push the limits, in my opinion the Arena cardpool is best suited towards fair Magic.
Luckily, the fair Magic this cardpool provides is awesome! I've worked to curate an experience that's a nice balance of power and synergy, providing interesting drafts and exciting gameplay, and spanning the entire spectrum of fair magic from aggro to midrange to control.
No Alchemy here! I started this project with the intent to maintain it in paper.
One of the reasons the public cubes like Vintage Cube and The Arena Cube are so popular and replayable is that they’re so open ended. What do you want to draft? You’re blue-white, but are you blue-white tempo? Blue-white control?
My cube is designed to provide a similar open-ended experience. Rather than seed the color pairs with specific archetypes, this cube presents you with powerful cards and asks you to find something to do with them. My hope is that you draft a deck you felt like you built yourself, and one that you’re excited to play!
To exemplify this, a tip for drafting the cube - focus more on your macro-archetype and micro-synergies than navigating into a certain color pair. Say you’re “in red-green”. Maybe you’re a base-red aggro deck, pairing cheap creatures like Heartfire Hero and Emberheart Challenger with green cards that target like Primal Might or Hunter's Talent. Or maybe you’re stompy, using green’s mana dorks like Llanowar Elves to play assertive threats like Glorybringer ahead of schedule. Or maybe you’re a green ramp deck, skipping up the curve to things like Vaultborn Tyrant, and you’re just playing red for some cheap interaction. I love this concept of variety, both in cube and normal limited magic, and prioritized it when I was constructing this project.
One of the hallmarks of a great limited format is fun, powerful, and interesting build-arounds.
There’s a pretty wide spectrum of build-arounds here, from subtle to deck-warping. A card like Heartfire Hero is on the subtle side - it’s below rate, but pretty easy to push it over the limit if you’re paying attention (and you’d be surprised at how many things incidentally target!). On the other side of the spectrum, a card like Monument to Endurance is blank cardboard unless you’re discarding, but the reward of being able to churn through your deck or burn your opponent out is really impressive!
There are also a fair few toolbox packages. For example, Micromancer might look a little underwhelming, but it can grab Ephemerate to loop itself; it can also grab a whole slew of great 1-mana interaction pieces, or a couple of ways to cheat the 1-mana restriction like Valgavoth's Onslaught.
There are a lot of synergies in this cube, both overt and hidden, and they’re a blast to discover during the draft. A deeper dive on the synergies, build-arounds, and packages in this cube is included further down in the overview.
I'll now transition from a broad overview into going more in depth about the specifics of the cube. If it's your first time drafting this cube, I would recommend at least skimming the build-arounds section for things to watch out for!
Why 450 cards?
360 is more accommodating towards cubes that want to push people into certain lanes. The goal of open-ended drafts necessitates a larger cardpool for variety’s sake. 540 makes sense here, but I like a slightly smaller number of 450 for a couple reasons. One is that you more reliably see certain build-around payoffs, like Monument to Endurance or Ketramose, the New Dawn. The other is that while the Arena cardpool is large and powerful, it’s a touch lacking in depth - the last 10 or so green cards I’d have to add to get the cube to 540 aren’t really making the cube more fun!
Manabase
The cube has two copies of each fetchland, two copies of each shockland, and one copy of each triome and surveil land. I resisted the double-fetch manabase for a while; it’s admittedly still an experiment. The concern is that it pushes people towards formless, synergyless midrange slop.
The upside, however, is that more reliably having access to fetchlands allows cards that synergize with fetchlands to be more consistently good. I see the fetchland manabase as a synergistic boost, and turns cards like Deathrite Shaman, Brainstorm, Omnath, Locus of Creation, or Reckless Pyrosurfer into really interesting synergy payoffs. I like the idea of fetchlands as synergy cards, in addition to the powerful fixing lands they already are.
This is a list of most of the cards and strategies in the cube that require some extra work; this might be helpful if it's your first time drafting the cube!
The Sac Deck: Sacrifice is often seeded into black-red, but going along with the open-ended ethos here, sacrifice is centered in black, with two of the most important cards being Priest of Forgotten Gods and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. White is a common pairing, since white provides so many cards that make multiple disposable bodies, such as Sanguine Evangelist, and you can still splash Goblin Bombardment. Red cards like Mayhem Devil or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King are recent additions, and synergize with (or punish!) the additional fetchlands.
High-Investment Build-Arounds
Cards that require a large draft or deckbuilding investment.
- Lurrus of the Dream-Den - a modern cube staple.
- Field of the Dead - another modern classic; make sure to pick up Golos, Tireless Pilgrim or Primeval Titan.
- Kishla Skimmer + Ketramose, the New Dawn - two sweet new additions. Other than Delve cards and more obvious exile cards like Relic of Progenitus, keep an eye out for Molt Tender and Armored Scrapgorger.
- Monument to Endurance - I've put a lot of work into making this viable. Consider it a red card, with Marauding Mako and Ivora, Insatiable Heir; most likely alongside blue for looters like Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel .
- Mizzix's Mastery + Torrential Gearhulk - ideally casting Magma Opus, or if you can loot, Sublime Epiphany or Jeskai Revelation.
- Caretaker's Talent - plenty of tokens in white!
- Dreadhorde Arcanist - one of my favorite cards of all time. I've tried to make this work in every color pair, even red-green!
- Chthonian Nightmare - best in the sac deck, but I think almost every creature-based black deck can use it well. Pick up an Accursed Marauder.
- Nadu, Winged Wisdom - not fully powered, but you still have Springheart Nantuko and Scythecat Cub.
High-Synergy Cards
Cards that might be fine on their own, or require a little bit of set up.
- Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber - pay attention to the typeline! Some surprising Demons like Rot-Curse Rakshasa or Scourge of the Skyclaves.
- Abhorrent Oculus - requires some setup to cast, or you can just Unearth it.
- Proft's Eidetic Memory - a personal favorite. No wheels, but it pairs with powerful card draw spells like Brainstorm that you were already hoping to cast.
- Claim // Fame - deceptively powerful. Buffs your Dreadhorde Arcanist, pumps your Heartfire Hero, a really sweet aggressive black card.
- Heartfire Hero - I've referenced this little guy a million times already, it and Emberheart Challenger have a lot of hidden synergy, from Bristly Bill, Spine Sower to The Royal Scions.
- Slickshot Show-Off - wanted to reference Show-Off as a reward for being in a spells-heavy aggro deck, which is definitely here!
- Innkeeper's Talent - decent rate on its own, but green has a lot of counters guys like Scythecat Cub and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
Toolboxes
I love cards like these for cube! Take them early and they shift your priorities ever so slightly in the draft.
- Ranger-Captain of Eos + Brightglass Gearhulk - plenty of ones! And some cheater cards like Goldvein Hydra.
- Micromancer - again, plenty of ones (remember how much I said I love Dreadhorde Arcanist?). BFFs with Ephemerate, plus some more cheater cards like Final Showdown, Three Steps Ahead, and Valgavoth's Onslaught.
- Stoneforge Mystic - nothing broken here, but some really solid equipment like Sword of Fire and Ice, and good creature equipment like Blade of the Oni or Cryptic Coat.
- Analyze the Pollen + Traverse the Ulvenwald - not in the same vein as the other Toolbox cards, but wanted to shout these out as they're deceptively desirable. Analyze triggers Ketramose, the New Dawn. They can both be found off Micromancer or flashed back with Dreadhorde Arcanist. And they're great for finding Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
The Twobert Module
You might notice some cards tagged as "Twobert". Twobert is cube concept developed by Ryan Overturf, for a 180-card cube designed to be drafted by 2-4 players. He has a lot of literature on this concept, how to design and draft a Twobert, and I would recommend checking it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14lc3P1VPE
I realized designing a Twobert within this cube was a useful thing to have around for 2-4 player drafts. You can view the Twobert module by typing "tag:twobert" into the Filter.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
Sam Pratt
Bluesky - @sampratt.bsky.social
Discord - samp6
I am also the host of a podcast devoted to normal limited magic, called Rough Drafts. You can find it in all the normal podcast places - https://linktr.ee/roughdrafts