Art by Matt StewartA powered cube, meant for building powerful cube decks. Multiple Archetypes for all 2 color combinations, and mono color. Ongoing
effort to balance and keep things fresh.
Original cube taken from here:https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/450_powered
Pretty sure (I'm guessing) that cube was at least partly influenced by this amazing post:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/573818-a-comprehensive-list-of-cube-archetypes
This archetype makes use of cards that get better the more artifacts there are in your deck. It uses mana rocks to power out expensive artifacts ahead of schedule and creates card advantage through its artifact-based planeswalkers and recursion elements.
Main Color(s): Blue
Secondary Color(s): Black, Red
Anchor Cards: Tinker, Sundering Titan, Myr Battlesphere
A very broad archetype that abuses the many powerful creatures with enters-the-battlefield (ETB) effects that have been printed over the years. Named for the card Momentary Blink, it aims to re-use those ETB effects by either temporarily exiling the creature in question or by bouncing and replaying it.
Main Color(s): White, Blue
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Restoration Angel, Flickerwisp
Black can be a difficult color to find a clear identity for in Cube. The most commonly supported archetypes in the color (Pox/Stax and Reanimator) have some unique issues (a heavy reliance on BB- and BBB-costing spells, and a need to include a relatively high number of relatively narrow cards, respectively), which may make them not to everyone’s taste. Dedicated support for a Discard archetype may be an option for Cube designers in that situation. Black has an abundance of playable discard spells (the very best of which are almost certainly in your list already), as well as various cards that punish the opponent further for discarding or get bonuses based on the opponent’s hand size. If you want to go really deep, you could even try to emulate the old Megrim combo decks with cards like Underworld Dreams, Fate Unraveler, Memory Jar, Wheel of Fortune, Incendiary Command, Chandra Ablaze and Windfall.
Main Color(s): Black
Secondary Color(s): Blue, Red
Anchor Cards: Liliana of the Veil, Hymn to Tourach, Hypnotic Specter, Mind Twist
Elf Tribal. Elves can beatdown and generate obscene amounts of mana early in the game, fueling gigantic creatures or large X-spells.
Main Color(s): Green
Secondary Color(s): Blue, Red
Anchor Cards: Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Joraga Treespeaker, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Elvish Mystic, Fauna Shaman, Reclamation Sage, Deranged Hermit, Bloodbraid Elf, Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Less a true archetype and more a set of loosely connected cards, each of which can be used to put some large monster onto the table (permanently or temporarily) without paying its mana cost. Some cheating methods will even allow you to get a noncreature permanent onto the battlefield.
Main Color(s): Blue, Green
Secondary Color(s): Black, Red
Anchor Cards: Tinker, Sneak Attack, Natural Order, Woodfall Primus
Goblin Tribal aggro.
Main Color(s): Red
Secondary Color(s): Black, White
Anchor Cards: Goblin Guide, Goblin Rabblemaster, Siege-Gang Commander
This archetype focuses on moving lands between the library, the battlefield and the graveyard, and more specifically, on the powerful interaction of Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds with Strip Mine, Wasteland, fetchlands, and other utility lands. It’s often possible to get two or more landfall triggers a turn. It’s also the best deck possible for breaking the symmetry of mass land destruction (Armageddon, Wildfire).
Main Color(s): Green
Secondary Color(s): White, Red
Anchor Cards: Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds, Strip Mine, Wasteland, Horizon Canopy, Lotus Cobra, Primeval Titan, Mishra’s Factory, Mutavault, Mox Diamond, Armageddon, Ravages of War, Land Tax, Wrenn and Six
This archetype uses symmetrical discard and sacrifice effects to keep the game in the low-resource stage for an extended time. It is named for Smokestack and Pox, two cards that, just like other archetype staples like Liliana of the Veil, Braids, Cabal Minion and Smallpox, can be taken advantage of by playing recursive creatures and token generators. While the archetype is centered in Black due to the large number of Black mana symbols in the casting costs of its key cards, a White or Red splash can be helpful for more token generation and sacrifice outlets.
Main Color(s): Black
Secondary Color(s): White, Red
Anchor Cards: Liliana of the Veil, Gravecrawler, Bloodsoaked Champion, Bloodghast, Ophiomancer, Bitterblossom
Reanimator decks need three things: a big creature, a way to get it into the graveyard, and a reanimation spell. The archetype is conveniently centered in Black, the color with the best and most abundant tutor effects. Looting effects act as discard outlets while digging for missing pieces, and Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman tutor for fatties and bin them as well.
Main Color(s): Black
Secondary Color(s): Blue, Red, Green
Anchor Cards: Recurring Nightmare, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Enclave Cryptologist, Looter il-Kor, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Pack Rat, Liliana of the Veil
The name derives from the Rec(urring Nightmare)/Sur(vival of the Fittest)-fueled deck of Tempest-era Standard, as well as from the addition of Birthing Pod, that works as a hybrid between the two aforementioned cards. The only true toolbox deck in the format, Rec/Sur/Pod aims to find, use and re-use creatures with ETB abilities, death triggers or recursion, of which Black and Green have no shortage in most lists. Other colors can contribute to the value chain as well, with cards like Restoration Angel, Glen Elendra Archmage, Flametongue Kavu and Sneak Attack.
Main Color(s): Black, Green
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Recurring Nightmare, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod, Volrath’s Stronghold
The Blue-Red Spells Matter archetype makes use of a small, but steadily growing subset of cards that care about instants and sorceries being cast. The cards are pretty unassuming on their own, but they work so well with what the color pair wants to be doing anyway (countering and burning stuff while looting and/or drawing extra cards) that the resulting decks can be quite fearsome. The archetype is also open-ended enough to receive useful input from the other colors.
Main Color(s): Blue, Red
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Young Pyromancer, Forbid, Faithless Looting
A Green archetype aiming to cast huge monsters way ahead of schedule
Main Color(s): Green
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Primeval Titan, Natural Order
Taking advantage of tokens can be done in many ways: Anthem-effects and pseudo-Anthem effects, putting multiple permanents into play as sacrifice fodder, getting multiple triggers out of cards, locking the opponent out with Opposition, or getting creatures into play without actually using Creature spells.
Main Color(s): White, Red
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Lingering Souls, [[Sorin, Lord of Innistrad], Deranged Hermit, Goblin Rabblemaster
This archetype uses creatures that like being enhanced by Equipment, Auras and pump spells to create hard-hitting and difficult to interact with threats. Creature abilities to look out for are Hexproof, Double Strike and any form of evasion.
Main Color(s): White, Green
Secondary Color(s): All five
Anchor Cards: Mirran Crusader, True-Name Nemesis, Thrun, the Last Troll, Bonesplitter, Sword of Fire and Ice, Umezawa’s Jitte, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Geist of Saint Traft, Rancor
Named for the Urza’s Saga card that was (for all intents and purposes) functionally reprinted in a Portal set (Burning of Xinye), this archetype aims to build a board position where it can cast its namesake card and leave the opponent with (ideally) zero permanents while keeping a big threat and a few mana sources itself. This is achieved by playing mana acceleration, preferably via Rampant Growth-effects or Artifact mana, creatures with a toughness of at least five, and/or Planeswalkers.
Main Color(s): Red
Secondary Color(s): All five (but mainly Green)
Anchor Cards: Thundermaw Hellkite, Inferno Titan, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kalonian Hydra, Primeval Titan, Coalition Relic, Solemn Simulacrum
Zombie Tribal
Main Color(s): Black
Secondary Color(s): Blue, Green
Anchor Cards: Gravecrawler, Sarcomancy, Diregraf Ghoul, Grave Titan