Welcome to Shamim's Cube! Do you miss the golden era of Modern? Do you want to play involved aggressive decks that aren't linear? Are you a fan of Jund-style gameplay where it's all about incremental advantage and a lot of back and forth interaction? Do you enjoy intricate games with nuanced decision-making? You've come to the right place!

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Design Philosophy

My goal is to create an immersive draft environment with synergistic payoffs. I want both players to be engaged throughout the game fighting to gain incremental advantages all throughout. I want there to be more decisions when it comes to sequencing and playing spells rather than having generically powerful haymakers across the curve. I believe that this kind of design leads to more engaging gameplay in the long run than a typical power-maxed build where non-games can emerge as early as T3 or T4 depending on how things have snowballed. That is not to say that classically powerful cards are not present, just that they have been heavily curated on a card-by-card basis towards promoting better gameplay. Some cards break singleton here and there; this is by design to enable specific archetypes and interactions in the the cube. By allowing players to explore these synergies and give them the chance to make nuanced decisions during draft I'm hoping to craft a memorable game experience.

I prefer to keep archetype specific cards few and far between, often times allocated to gold slots. Drafting on wheels is some of the more uninspired gameplay within limited draft formats and I try to minimize that tendency whenever possible. As a cube designer I find it far more engaging during the draft to have multiple cards that might be 6/10 or 7/10 across multiple archetypes than one where it is a clear 10/10 and stone unplayable elsewhere.

Don't worry, you can still draft hyper specific archetypes like Reanimator decks going in on bringing back a big body ahead of schedule or a Tinker package to cheat out an expensive artifact from a cheap bauble, but they just won't be as overwhelming as you might be accustomed to in a typical Vintage environment. Think more value-oriented to get far ahead rather than a must-answer threat that will lock up the game. If you can find the opening to make these cards most effective you can definitely reap the rewards, but just powering them out ahead of schedule likely won't be enough to win the game.

These kind of choices may lead to perceived homogeneity in the draft process, but it's a tradeoff I'm making to promote better gameplay and more diverse deckbuilding options. What I really want is for my drafters to discover things within the draft process that makes gameplay more fun and memorable. Powerful cards are great, but you know what's even more fun?

Feeling like YOU built this unique deck through your draft decisions maximizing the little synergies sprinkled throughout.

To that end, I'd like for any given draft pool in my cube to allow a player to explore and create their own deck rather than feeling obligated to pick an archetype. I want there to be many possible avenues at any given seat for experienced Magic players. And as a result I've seen many unique decks in the decade plus I've been curating this environment.

There is more fixing than in your typical cube and this is to ensure that drafters don't run into issues color-wise when constructing their decks. On average you'll see the majority of decks going into two colors and lightly splashing a third with the options available through double fetches and two fetchable dual lands per color (alongside a 3rd mixed lands cycle). That's not to say that midrange piles should be the go-to option for everyone. In fact, I'd argue that the tighter archetypes usually shine in a classic 8-man pod, but like most cubes with abundant fixing midrange soup is available as a fallback option. The same goes for classic archetypes like Control, Aggro or Midrange. They all exist in some form for those who are going in blind to this environment and can be utilized as a fallback. The more experienced the drafter, however, the more depth there is to explore with tight archetypal design focused around two-color pairings that will often win out against unfocused piles.

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Here's a brief look at some of the supported archetypes and themes currently available:

With all that said, this is merely a preview of some of the different kinds of decks available. There is a ton of cross-pollination between archetypes and I've had drafters surprise me time and time again with the creative decks that they've come up with. From blink-oriented Artifact decks to Manlands.dec, there are so many possibilities to explore. My cube is built to promote a ton of exploration during the draft process so if you find a synergy worth exploring you might be able to go deep enough to stumble upon a whole unexplored archetype.

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I have a handful of draft enhancements in my cube to improve the drafting process and promote the gameplay I want for my players. This includes breaking singleton on fetches, a Duplicate Voucher System for build-arounds and archetype defining cards, Squadron picks to provide additional fixing with tri-color cards, and a Utility Land Draft to add versatility to mana bases.

All main cube cards that feature in one of these systems are marked with the appropriate sticker on the bottom left corner based on the legend above. Any additional cards that enter the cube session from outside the game (ULD Lands, Voucher Duplicates, etc.) are marked with a sticker in the bottom right corner.

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Non-Singletons

• Double Fetchlands - Better access to fixing, opens up card interactions
• Three Duplicate Voucher Cards - Explained below!

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Duplicate Voucher System

I've implemented a Duplicate Voucher System for cards that I'd like to see more often in a draft without placing a second copy into the cube. The idea is to enable more chances to see an archetype defining card/build-around without running into the problem of dead slots in a draft.

For example, if a Birthing Ritual comes around too late in Pack 2 for someone to settle into the archetype then it's essentially a dead card for the rest of that round and will likely end up 14th or 15th pick. You can't really maindeck it unless you've been drafting with it in mind. A 2nd copy appearing even later in the draft is worse. To fix that problem I came up with a voucher system to minimize the number of dead cards and create more interest in that card slot.

How does it work?

If you draft the original card AND draft a voucher card, you can trade in the voucher post-draft for a 2nd copy of that card. This can only be done once per card; no double-dipping with multiple vouchers on a card. For example if you drafted Collected Company and a voucher card, you would receive a 2nd copy of Collected Company when you turn in the voucher. Drafted a 2nd voucher? Doesn't get you a 3rd copy of Coco; you'd need another voucher-eligible draft pick to cash in. Vouchers work one-to-one with any of the listed cards on the voucher provided that you have the actual card in your draft pool.

With this method I can introduce more potential opportunities for a drafter to grab a 2nd copy of a card AND reduce the number of dead slots for cards that might be too narrow or show up too late to build around. Best of all? Demand for a voucher card is flexible and adaptable within a given draft pool. This is especially relevant as my cube is 420 so you'll always miss seeing a minimum of 60 cards.

If you're going for a aggressive deck, then a voucher card can be very flexible with the potential of being a 2nd copy of Champion of the Parish, Bloodsoaked Champion, or Gravecrawler. In this scenario you might just want to pick up that voucher early with the hope of grabbing one of these later in the draft. On the opposite end cards like Birthing Ritual or Collected Company have very particular builds in mind with deck construction that might require earlier commitment, so for those you'd want to draft the actual card early and focus on the build while hoping for a duplicate voucher to come your way. Finally you have support cards for archetypes with the likes of Searslicer Goblin for tokens or go-wide R/x decks and Urborg Lhurgoyf for graveyard-centric decks where the 2nd copy just brings greater consistency to the overall gameplan.

This variance in demand creates differing incentives for drafters and that has led to a more engaging draft process. With 3 vouchers and 8 possible options, the chances are very high that these won't be wheeling as the 15th card very often. They are at a premium; take advantage of it!

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Squadron Lands

Three-color cards explore interesting niches in design, even moreso with the advent of Commander-centric design in recent years, but casting them consistently can be a hassle in most draft environments. If only you had the right fixing to get the job done. Wait, what am I saying? This is cube. We can make this happen easily through squadroning:

How does it work?

When you draft specific cards marked with a blue sticker in the bottom left corner (any of the 4 above) you will receive an additional land post-draft. It's basically a two-for-one pick that is currently limited to 3-color cards. Post-draft any drafter that shows me a copy of a drafted squadron card will receive the associated land (Triomes!) for use. There is no obligation to play the two cards in your final deck, but it's an extra incentive.

On CubeCobra you may add these cards from the basic land box when constructing your deck; just imagine that that Siege Rhino you drafted came with a copy of Indatha Triome or Kess, Dissident Mage with a Xander's Lounge.

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Utility Land Draft

Ever wanted to play with some narrow lands but couldn't find the space for them in your main cube? Too niche or cute for inclusion? We all know that the best part of any cube draft is the drafting portion, so why not try out the Utility Land Draft! Originally conceived by Jason Waddell over at Riptide Labs years ago, I've ported over my own version of this system.

How does it work?

After the main draft I sometimes run a mini draft to allow drafters to pick utility lands that they might not have been willing to use a premium pick on during the main draft. We roll to decide which drafter goes first, then continue in a snake-draft format for 3 rounds (1-8, 8-1, 1-8) allowing players to pick out lands to supplement their specific decks.

I've got 32 options for my current utility land set-up and these range from lands with specific activation costs like Gavony Township and Academy Ruins to give some extra options to decks like Midrange and Artifacts, cycling lands like the Barren Moor cycle to exploit synergies with the likes of The Gitrog Monster, the Castle cycle from Throne of Eldraine, or even just lands with cool interactions with specific cards like Cavern of Souls in a Humans deck or Phyrexian Tower in a sac-oriented R/B deck. It's all about giving drafters more choices and promoting an even more engaging gameplay experience by emulating a Constructed manabase that they might not get from other cube drafts.

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If you'd like to learn more about my cube or design philosophy in detail, I have a cube blog over at Riptide Lab that I've maintained since I first built my cube in 2014. It's where I have posted any major updates, thoughts on new inclusions, and design musings and decisions that come to mind.

Stop by the forums and say hello sometime, there's a lot of great discussion and ideas on the regular. Lab Maniacs welcome all cube designers with open arms!

Cube Blog on Riptide Lab

Articles/Primers
B/W Human Aggro
The Duplicate Voucher System
U/R Artifacts