Art by Nils HammIntroduction
This is my modern-frame peasant cube, intended to be a reasonable entry-point for new players but promote discovery of synergies for existing players. I've attempted to limit the number of mechanics that appear, as well as exclude certain mechanics such as Regenerate, Protection, and double-faced cards. For aesthetic purposes, I've also decided to only utilise cards printed in the modern card frame, and exclude alternative or special frames.
Certain cards bypass power, complexity, or mechanical exclusion due to personal nostalgia, including Arcbound Crusher and Kulrath Knight.
Updates and Tinkering
- Added food & treasures; playing very well in sacrifice
- Blue-Green now ramp archetype; flexible, and very able to splash colors
- Added proliferate to boost GW
- Added Spider theme to Black-Green, including card with off color cost, Spider Spawning
- Broke the 10 Gain Land cycle to better support archetypes, added some bridges, campuses, and sacrifice lands from New Capenna
- Attempting to power-up RG; added Audacity, Lunar Frenzy
- Completed 10 card off-colour cost cycle; mix of adventures, flashback, and kicker
- Nerf to RB sacrifice; Bombardment gives way to successor Makeshift Munitions; Judith and Bastion of Remembrance cut
- Added more tools for BG self-mill in both enablers and payoffs
Two-Colour Archetypes and Themes
White-Blue Fliers
Classic evasive aggressive archetype. Goes wide with birds, which can have overlap with red-white strategy. Have removed Favourable Winds as found it very powerful and too difficult to interact with.
Blue-Black Control
Loose archetype, with powerful interaction and two-for-ones. Contains some helpful board-wipes, such as Inner demon. Can also combine blue's looting effects with black's reanimation spells for finishers.
Black-Red Sacrifice
Sacrifice cheap bodies and tokens for value. Can be slow to get going, but abundance of chump-blockers and incidental life-gain help buy time to get the engine going.
Red-Green Trample
Classic stompy archetype. Themes that tie together include 'power 4' enchantments, Furious Rise and Garruk's Uprising, overlapping with abundance of trample, which is quite relevant in this token-heavy cube. Crash Through can be very potent with Proud Wildbonder.
Green-White Go-Wide +1/+1 Counters
Very powerful archetype, with the Outlast lords from Tarkir taking creatures over the top fast. Abundance of incidental +1/+1 counters in the cube allows the deck to always find synergy.
White-Black Lifegain
Classic strategy; key being to stack consistent life-grain triggers. Overlaps with multiple themes, including sacrifice, go-wide, and control, which can allow for some diversity of BW builds. The casual classic Ajani's Pridemate, and its spiritual successors show up for board presence.
Blue-Red Spells
The blue-red drakes and multiple "power equal to instant and sorcery" tokens promote a deck loaded-up on spells. Archetype supported by cheap spells that make bodies, including Dragon Fodder and Hard Evidence, as well as blue cantrips.
Black-Green Reanimator
Self-milling graveyard strategy. Access to black's reanimation spells like Blood for Bones and Dread Return with green's big finishers like Pelakka Wurm. Greater Sandwurm can cycle itself into the graveyard, and Undead Gladiator is a fun value-engine and discard outlet.
Red-White Go-Wide
Make tokens and swing in for large amounts of damage with Bolt Hound and Goblin Bushwhacker.
Green-Blue Ramp
Turn mana into card advantage and powerful finishers, and take advantage of land drops with cards such like Druid Class.
Artifacts!
I wanted an artifact theme to call back to my early days with Darksteel, hence the inclusion of the arcbound creatures. This used to be the blue-white theme, but has now cards appearing in multiple colours. Look out for the card-draw combo of Esperzoa and Prophetic Prism.