Art by Scott KirschnerBuilt for the nano cube prompt posted over on RiptideLab.
https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/contest-72-card-nanocube.4004/
Contest Rules
72 cards hopefully makes the design challenge manageable, while making the cube playable for 2 players (grid drafting) or 4 players (2 packs of 9).
- Your cube has exactly 72 cards.
- Minimum deck size is reduced to 15.
2.1. (Optional) Players cannot lose by decking. - No custom rules allowed (seeding packs is fine).
- No custom cards allowed.
Use 2 packs of 9 cards each.
2 PlayersRather than grid drafting with 2 players, I'd be in favor of Housman drafting using 4 rounds and only 8 face up cards to fit the size limitation.
- Each player is dealt 5 hidden cards.
- Lay out 8 cards face up.
- Players take turns swapping 1 card from their 5-card hand with 1 in the face up zone, until each player has made 3 swaps.
- Each player adds their resulting 5 cards to their (hidden) pool; discard the remaining face up cards.
- Repeat for 4 total rounds, alternating who swaps first, until both players have a 20 card pool from which to build their decks.
- Players construct exactly 15 card decks. No more, no less.
- All basic land types are freely available.
- You do not lose if you would fail to draw a card. (I think ideally I'd like to have the player take 3 damage each time here, but we'll try it without that for now)
- Standard rules apply otherwise.
This list doesn't include a few notable MUD cards because I don't think I necessarily want to promote the play/draw imbalance they create, the payoffs are a bit too niche, or they just don't seem right for the environment. The cube also skews towards older cards.
- Chalice of the Void
- Sphere of Resistance
- Null Rod
- Trinisphere
- Metalworker
- Wasteland
- Black Lotus
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Goblin Welder (though this could be worthwhile)
- The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
- Urza's Saga
- Mystic Forge
- Wurmcoil Engine
I think the proactive strategy of attacking with a threat while drafting the best removal is the best strategy in this cube right now, and unfortunately some of the non-creature engines are a bit weak because of how quickly the board states advance. I'm not entirely sure the best way to correct for that, with the small number of picks you get it's difficult to pivot during the draft so you kind of have to commit hard based on what you open and expect to wheel. I think reducing the number of creatures might be a start, and cutting some of the more efficient singular creatures (like Precursor Golem) might be necessary too to ensure there's adequate counterplay.
Got to do a first draft of this cube and it went alright.
Broadly speaking I think the archetypes we saw represented would be 2x Low Curve Aggro, 1x Big Creatures, 1x Time Vault Control. I think we used 6 basics total amongst 4 decks, so that's a thing.
Seeing Time Vault vs Pithing Needle + Phyrexian Revoker + Sculpting Steel on Revoker was certainly interesting.
I think there was some inexperience with these types of cards, so it's possible some of those decks could've moved into other synergies - but I think it does mean that "dumping my efficient threat on t1/t2" was probably too common of a strategy.
I'm going to have to look a bit harder at whether it's possible to promote another archetype more, with decks this small it seems like it just winds up being situations where you build around a certain card. I also think a few more ways to sink your mana over multiple turns might be beneficial since you wind up with so much of it immediately. Something like a Chimeric Mass might be relevant instead of one of the bigger threats, and maybe some additional costed mono artifacts to give you something to do.
To start though this update trims to 72 based on some of the least relevant cards and adds a few more ways to try and build up your aggro board after the initial dump.