Hello!
I've posted a bit about my Graveyard Cube in various comments (Particularly on Inscho's wonderful graveyard combo cube). However, it was recently selected as one of the featured cubes for CubeCon! With that in mind, I've been doing a lot more work on the environment, and thought it might be a good idea to start up a blog to discuss the work I'm doing.
Overview--
The Graveyard Cube is a synergy-driven environment that generally floats between 450-500 cards, where nearly every card references the graveyard in some way (or discarding, etc.) The goal here is to create a situation where usually "narrow" cards have greater application. You wouldn't catch me dead running Prized Amalgam or Lion's Eye Diamond in my "Traditional" unpowered cube-- While these cards can be very powerful, they require a very specific strategy to be effective. In the graveyard cube, these cards aren't just cubable, they're **Flexible!** and see play across a variety of archetypes.
In addition, whereas in another environment, Unburial Rites might be the "narrow card" added to a list, in this environment we get to get much weirder!
This synergyistic approach allows for the easy inclusion of archetype packages-- Since many of these graveyard-based strategies can make use of similar enablers, whole decks can appear in the cube with just a payoff or two. Right now, there's a variety of packages, which I'm excited to test and see how they perform. Each (ideally) only requires a couple cards that are specific to one deck.
Some of the packages currently in the cube, with 'parasitic' cards separated out, and a couple examples of cards that see play in those decks.
Enchantress-- Completely Untested, I'm not sure if this will work out...
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Cycling---- Hopefully, the one mana cyclers from Ikoria aren't stuck being parasitic to only this deck, but we'll see
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Game Objects--Gotta Love Academy Man
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Mallarkey--
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Reanimator--- Unlike in most cubes, only the targets are parasitic, as most of the reanimation spells can be used in a lot of places
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Séance Vibes-- I'm not running actual Séance yet, but I've considered it
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Hardcore Dredge-- Something like Golgari Grave-Troll has some decent flexibility, but there are definitely more dedicated strategies
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Spells!--- Arclight is a small dream
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There's lot's more packages! But this is an introduction to the design goals/philosophy. Two weeks ago, I would have put "Low curving" as an additional design goal, but I've been testing out upping the curve just a tad, and throwing some reanimator support in (For a long time, there were no creatures at 6+ mana except for Sun Titan).
Here's some recent draft decks
I've posted a bit about my Graveyard Cube in various comments (Particularly on Inscho's wonderful graveyard combo cube). However, it was recently selected as one of the featured cubes for CubeCon! With that in mind, I've been doing a lot more work on the environment, and thought it might be a good idea to start up a blog to discuss the work I'm doing.
Overview--
The Graveyard Cube is a synergy-driven environment that generally floats between 450-500 cards, where nearly every card references the graveyard in some way (or discarding, etc.) The goal here is to create a situation where usually "narrow" cards have greater application. You wouldn't catch me dead running Prized Amalgam or Lion's Eye Diamond in my "Traditional" unpowered cube-- While these cards can be very powerful, they require a very specific strategy to be effective. In the graveyard cube, these cards aren't just cubable, they're **Flexible!** and see play across a variety of archetypes.
In addition, whereas in another environment, Unburial Rites might be the "narrow card" added to a list, in this environment we get to get much weirder!
This synergyistic approach allows for the easy inclusion of archetype packages-- Since many of these graveyard-based strategies can make use of similar enablers, whole decks can appear in the cube with just a payoff or two. Right now, there's a variety of packages, which I'm excited to test and see how they perform. Each (ideally) only requires a couple cards that are specific to one deck.
Some of the packages currently in the cube, with 'parasitic' cards separated out, and a couple examples of cards that see play in those decks.
Enchantress-- Completely Untested, I'm not sure if this will work out...
----------Cycling---- Hopefully, the one mana cyclers from Ikoria aren't stuck being parasitic to only this deck, but we'll see
--------Game Objects--Gotta Love Academy Man
-----------Mallarkey--
-----Reanimator--- Unlike in most cubes, only the targets are parasitic, as most of the reanimation spells can be used in a lot of places
-------- Séance Vibes-- I'm not running actual Séance yet, but I've considered it
---------Hardcore Dredge-- Something like Golgari Grave-Troll has some decent flexibility, but there are definitely more dedicated strategies
-------Spells!--- Arclight is a small dream
----There's lot's more packages! But this is an introduction to the design goals/philosophy. Two weeks ago, I would have put "Low curving" as an additional design goal, but I've been testing out upping the curve just a tad, and throwing some reanimator support in (For a long time, there were no creatures at 6+ mana except for Sun Titan).
Here's some recent draft decks