Art by Jason ChanThis write-up is intended for my friends who may not be calibrated for such an extremely powerful draft environment as this. It assumes familiarity with retail draft and how to build manabases, curve, etc for a limited deck. I'll note where this environment breaks or distorts those concepts.
What is this thing?This version of Johnny Cube is a combo-heavy environment including the Power 9, a la the MTGO Vintage Cube, with a few wrinkles to suit my personal taste. The gameplay is expected to be degenerate with plenty of unfair strategies to choose from. Embrace the variance and do sweet stuff!
Sections Cube Overview Format Speed
The Power 9 are some of the most powerful cards ever printed. Consequently, a Powered Cube produces extremely fast gameplay. Turn 2 kills are rare but possible. Red Aggro will kill on Turn 4-5 if it doesn't face resistance. Tempo will dominate most games, rather than incremental advantage and grinding out a board position.
- Having early disruption (turn 1 or 2) is key to staying alive
- It's normal to utilize card disadvantage to get a big tempo advantage, such as Black Lotus. This means disrupting such a play is an even bigger tempo swing
- Casting your spells on time is essential. Building a solid manabase is hugely important
Because this cube has 360 cards, every card will be opened in each draft. This means every Mox and Black Lotus will be played in a deck, speeding up the format considerably
VarianceIt's a swingy format and is more fun if you know going in that you can get comboed out of nowhere, or have your entire hand Mind Twisted. There are some strategies to combat variance:
- Mulligan aggressively if needed. If your opponent is on Mono Red Aggro, you can't keep a hand that doesn't interact before turn 5
- Draft lands highly and build a solid manabase to avoid color screw!
- Card draw and card selection helps you make up for a mulligan and accelerates you through your library into your good spells
Baneslayer is a bad card in Vintage Cube. I mean, it's still Baneslayer Angel, but every creature is equally capable of killing your opponent and it doesn't matter so much which one you use. The format still has ridiculous bombs, but they may be different than your instincts tell you.
Furthermore, to be successful, you really need to draft a cohesive deck, rather than just good cards. This format is kind of half-way between Limited and Constructed. In a way, you're trying to draft a Constructed deck. A Reanimator deck needs a certain density of targets, enablers and reanimation effects. A combo deck needs mana acceleration and card draw.
Draft Principles:
- Almost always take Power. It's probably worth splashing Ancestral Recall or Time Walk in your mono white aggro deck
- Without a strong early direction, take cheap and flexible cards, i.e. mana acceleration, Fetches/Duals/Shock lands, cheap interaction
- Keep a look out for key archetype pieces and pick up lynchpins for your deck when they show up
This is my subjective power ranking for the most powerful cards in the cube
S Tier - You Always Take TheseYou'll notice that most of these generate mana ahead of curve, and in particular, on the turn that you play the card. Generating obscene amounts of mana is generally going to win most games. What you do with that mana is arbitrary, almost anything is good enough. Tier 1 - Solid First Picks
- Other Fetch Lands or Shock Lands
Roleplayers and effects which have enough redundancy in the cube that you do not need to spend a high pick on them
Examples:
- Artifacts / Mono Brown
- Tinker
- Mono Green
- Big Mana
- Storm
- Doomsday
- Kiki-Twin Combo
- Reanimator
- Mono Red Aggro
- Mono White
- Blue Control
- Sneak Attack
- Lands
- Stax
- Midrange
- Power
- Time Walk
- Brain in a Jar
- Dream Halls
- Wheels
- Persist Combo
- Walking Ballista - Heliod
- Citadel - Top
- Goblin Welder
- Mindslaver
- Mind Twist
- Shelldock Isle
- Oath of Druids