Hello all! After a couple weeks of planning, creating a tentative list, getting frustrated, then recreating the list, I was finally able to put together something I felt satisfied with. We just finished a small 4 man test draft with this first draft list (no pun intended), so I thought this would be a good time write down my thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind.
Without further ado: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/101976
Blinks 
Artifact Control Disruptive Aggression & Aristocrats Swarm Aggro Midrange Beats Going Wide Graveyard Value Evasion & Card Selection Artifacts & Spells Classic Aggro with Artifacts
Without further ado: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/101976
The Concept
The cube was conceived as a way to reward skillful drafting/deckbuilding and tight play. My playgroup had been cubing with the MTGO vintage cube list for a little over a year and we were getting tired of games being decided by the flashier bomb or who had their mox in their opener. This meant that the finishers in this cube needed to be a level below the power maxed top end of powered cubes. However, I believe that high power enablers were still OK. In theory, a card like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, while obviously strong, isn't going to win you the game on its own any time soon while something like Elspeth, Sun's Champion most likely would.
The Archetypes
Blinks This deck wants to abuse ETB triggers. It's pretty straight forward. There's plenty of great ETBs in every color, so this deck could really be in any color combination however the majority of the anchor cards are in white and blue.
Artifact Control The UB decks want to stabilize the game early while building up a plethora of artifacts to ramp into one of its handful of finishers. The artifact synergies spill over into both white and red.
Disruptive Aggression & Aristocrats The strategy for RB is to run you out of resources quickly while beating you down with aggressive creatures. It has a variety of hand disruption and threaten effects to pave way for its attackers.
Swarm Aggro RG excels at outpacing and overwhelming its opponents with its creatures. This could mean going wide with tokens or going big with a huge body or a pump spell. There's also a small landfall theme here that bleeds into white.
Midrange Beats This deck's aim is to curve out with high value creatures and spells. This color combination is probably the least defined out of all of them, however it also mingles very well with every other color.
Going Wide WB decks have a ton of token generation built in, allowing them to go wide very quickly. Similar to WU every color has tokens support so this could really be any combination of colors, but pairs especially well with red. WB also has a large amount of incidental lifegain which gives these decks lots of incremental advantages over the course of the game.
Graveyard Value The GB decks want to utilize their graveyard to its fullest potential. They aim to gain value from sacrificing their own permanents, discarding their own cards, and milling their own library.
Evasion & Card Selection GU decks can go under your nose with its evasive creatures to activate their own card advantage abilities. On top of that, there's a card selection theme, where stacking your deck correctly is incredibly important.
Artifacts & Spells UR is really split into two main archetypes. The first is a version of the artifacts deck that is more geared towards cheating out a big artifact finisher. This slots very easily into the UB artifacts deck. The second is the spells matters deck which has some overlap in white.
Classic Aggro with Artifacts RW players want to fill their deck with low to the ground creatures and a variety of burn spells. It's also possible to incorporate an artifacts matter theme into these RW decks.
Although I listed the archetypes in color pairs, I think they should be taken as guidelines rather than rules. The drafter should be rewarded for thinking outside the box instead of forcing an archetype. I should also note that there are a few build around cards spread throughout.
The Goal
The goal right now is to make the cube more cohesive. This means finding ways to connect each archetype to another in some way (I'm open to suggestions). This also means possibly cutting some of the narrower cards that really only benefit a single strategy. My playgroup has experimented with custom cards in the past so I might try some of that.
The Concerns
This cube is by no means perfectly balanced yet. There's a handful of cards I want to keep an eye on, but I would need to see them actually played first to make an educated decision. Outside of that, I'm worried that I'm trying to do too many things with the cube and I should make the strategies more focused.
Cards to watch out for:
Too strong:
Tinker (Seems OK without Battlesphere)
Too weak:
Laboratory Maniac (Needs more support)
Geralf's Messenger (BBB hard to cast)
Dark Deal (Not sure why this is here tbh)
Butcher of the Horde (Falkenrath Aristocrat but hard to cast)
Too Miserable:
Liliana of the Veil (Seems OK to me but people were complaining)
Braids, Cabal Minion (Read Liliana of the Veil)
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this wall of stuff. If you have any suggestions or constructive criticism I'm happy to hear it.
