Cube list: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/40806826-30cd-4ab7-bdec-ccb816b97e4e
Often I see a weak card I find cool and ask myself in what kind of draft environment would this thing be considered playable?
I already made a Retail Horizons cube including a lot of those cards, but there are those who aren't powerful enough even for that cube, cards such as Serra Disciple, Veil of Assimilation, Nightwhorl Hermit, Hurl into History, Ninja of the New Moon, Final Parting, Direct Current, Rhox Pummler, Crash the Ramparts intrigue me is a way, and I decided to make a very low power environment so these guys can shine.
For them to shine, the power level needs to be even lower than the average retail limited [without relying on utterly unplayable card that infest the average booster pack such asInvoke the Divine], yet it has to have exciting and frequent decisions, and players would have to feel good about playing the weak cards. An easy way of making individually weak cards become powerful are linear mechanics, but those would make the format stale. Another important thing to avoid for me was to give each color pair one archetype and call it a day, causing every draft of that color pair looking the same(Rakdos drafted deck all being sacrifice-based for example), making the draft stale again. I tried to take the Capenna approach, spreading the themes across at least 3 colors, hoping any 2-color combination of them being viable, creating an intangled web of themes. Another risk of having understatted creatures is causing board stalls and slugfests, so I had to make sure every deck has some way to actually finish the game and keep players on the toes.
With these challenges, I started building the colors and color combinations, looking for cross-color themes that work well in draft. What is each color's general role in the average draft environment? What does each color usually do? White has good cheap creatures, Blue has some control themes and evasion, Black has removal and value, Red has cheap burn and aggression, and green has big bois and value. The set Dominaria United (something I took a lot of inspiration from) managed to beautifully combine the essence of each color and combining them to create the signpost uncommon gold cards. I didn't do the same with my gold cards, but applied the same principle when deciding which theme would fit which colors.
With that being said: Abzan colors got counters theme, Jeskai colors got Artifact synergies[Which is unfortunately very linear, but its cool and aggro so I'll allow it], Esper colors got control and late game value, Sultai has graveyard thing(mostly golgari), Temur colors got domain and converge. There are also other themes such as Flying, Mill, Burn, Life gain, Delirium, and the usual Izzet Spells theme. I put enough duals to allow consistent 2 color+splash or 3 color decks to be viable alongside the usual 2 color decks.
To spice things up, I put in some buildarounds (Griffin Aerie, Hardened Scales) and put some tutors for the drafters who try to build around them.
There are things I would like to improve about this cube in the future. Black as a color lacks identity, I would like to find a cool Black thing to put in cube (except for sacrifice theme), there are also color combinations for which I couldn't find a good cross color theme. Izzet and Red in general are too heavy on spell synergy. There's much more to improve about this cube, but I think it's a good starting point, and I like most of the cards. I'm sure there will be some low power rares and mythics I can fit into the cube in the future, but as is, I'm happy with the list.
May Some day my dear Infeccious Horror find her home.
Often I see a weak card I find cool and ask myself in what kind of draft environment would this thing be considered playable?
I already made a Retail Horizons cube including a lot of those cards, but there are those who aren't powerful enough even for that cube, cards such as Serra Disciple, Veil of Assimilation, Nightwhorl Hermit, Hurl into History, Ninja of the New Moon, Final Parting, Direct Current, Rhox Pummler, Crash the Ramparts intrigue me is a way, and I decided to make a very low power environment so these guys can shine.
For them to shine, the power level needs to be even lower than the average retail limited [without relying on utterly unplayable card that infest the average booster pack such asInvoke the Divine], yet it has to have exciting and frequent decisions, and players would have to feel good about playing the weak cards. An easy way of making individually weak cards become powerful are linear mechanics, but those would make the format stale. Another important thing to avoid for me was to give each color pair one archetype and call it a day, causing every draft of that color pair looking the same(Rakdos drafted deck all being sacrifice-based for example), making the draft stale again. I tried to take the Capenna approach, spreading the themes across at least 3 colors, hoping any 2-color combination of them being viable, creating an intangled web of themes. Another risk of having understatted creatures is causing board stalls and slugfests, so I had to make sure every deck has some way to actually finish the game and keep players on the toes.
With these challenges, I started building the colors and color combinations, looking for cross-color themes that work well in draft. What is each color's general role in the average draft environment? What does each color usually do? White has good cheap creatures, Blue has some control themes and evasion, Black has removal and value, Red has cheap burn and aggression, and green has big bois and value. The set Dominaria United (something I took a lot of inspiration from) managed to beautifully combine the essence of each color and combining them to create the signpost uncommon gold cards. I didn't do the same with my gold cards, but applied the same principle when deciding which theme would fit which colors.
With that being said: Abzan colors got counters theme, Jeskai colors got Artifact synergies[Which is unfortunately very linear, but its cool and aggro so I'll allow it], Esper colors got control and late game value, Sultai has graveyard thing(mostly golgari), Temur colors got domain and converge. There are also other themes such as Flying, Mill, Burn, Life gain, Delirium, and the usual Izzet Spells theme. I put enough duals to allow consistent 2 color+splash or 3 color decks to be viable alongside the usual 2 color decks.
To spice things up, I put in some buildarounds (Griffin Aerie, Hardened Scales) and put some tutors for the drafters who try to build around them.
There are things I would like to improve about this cube in the future. Black as a color lacks identity, I would like to find a cool Black thing to put in cube (except for sacrifice theme), there are also color combinations for which I couldn't find a good cross color theme. Izzet and Red in general are too heavy on spell synergy. There's much more to improve about this cube, but I think it's a good starting point, and I like most of the cards. I'm sure there will be some low power rares and mythics I can fit into the cube in the future, but as is, I'm happy with the list.
May Some day my dear Infeccious Horror find her home.
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