At the beginning of your first main phase, choose one or more —

• Sell Contraband — Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life.

• Buy Information — Draw a card. You lose 2 life.

• Hire a Mercenary — Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life. (It has every creature type.)

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You must draft all your lands.

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The goal of this cube is to combine the high-risk, "press your luck" vibe of the death's shadow cube in a thematic desert cube. Both players create a Black Market Connections emblem at end of the first turn. So if you are on the draw, you get the first trigger.

There are many angles to play off of the emblem, including:

• Taking advantage of the changeling ability
• Using treasures to support an artifact theme
• Using card draw triggers to gain a further advantage
• Gaining life to get more activations
• Using a low life total to turn on certain effects
• Punish your opponent for being too greedy

The only tokens in this cube are the ones that Black Market Connections creates.

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Shoutout to @luckylooter (Bones) for the concept, and for having a beautiful brain.

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