Welcome to my French Vanilla cube! Or 150 character limit cube? Or...

This started as a purely French Vanilla cube, and that got away from me almost immediately. After a few revisions, I asked myself, "what do I really want from this?"

I started playing Magic when Portal came out. I bought that, Mirage, 5th Edition, and it was so exciting to open packs in the era of readable cards. No one had to explain to a young Magic player why Serra Angel was good, or why Nightmare was cool.

Like most who started in the 90's, I've taken multiple breaks from Magic, and so have my friends. Cube is a great re-entry format, but sagas, flip cards, and walkers can make evaluating 15 cards you've never seen before really stressful.

I wanted to make a cube for people who prefer a past era of card design. Problem is, everyone's Glory Days are a different, narrow band of time. I have one Nostalgia Cube, but the goal with this cube was to be more inclusive and beginner friendly.

With a (soft) character limit of 150, I've made a cube that I hope is friendly to any casual player. Whether new or returning, the goal is that every grip of 15 random cards can be read and processed comfortably by someone who has never seen them before.

So it's drawing heavily on Core Sets and Portal for inspiration, but also not afraid to include Greatest Hits like Vampire Nighthawk, Enlisted Wurm, and Monastery Swiftspear. Unlike the French Vanilla version, there ARE archetypes here and there are some (hopefully) sweet brews.

While the 150 character limit is not rigid, cards that break it must be both Iconic and Simple. So far, the only card way over is Chain Lightning, and I do want to keep the exceptions rare. For example, Balance is iconic, but not simple.

As for power level... my canary in the coal mine is Serra Angel. It's easy for the power level of a concept like this to creep up as you cut 15th picks and add in synergies, but if Serra Angel is ever unplayable, then it's time to re-calibrate.