Ink-Treader Cube LITE
Sideboard/Utility Card Pile
A miniature version of the Ink-Treader cube I initially assembled, this significantly shrunk list caters to a table of six or less drafters. Each pack is made up of 13 cards due to decreased color variance. This cube list also uses a Utility Card pile which is drafted one pick at a time after each booster pack.
Overview
Small 6-Player Cube
Utility Card Draft
Pack Size: 13
Color Imbalance Theme
Non-singleton
Like the four-colored Nephilim, the Inktreader Cube has a special relationship with the color Black--in that Black has a significantly smaller section in the list. Additionally, no basic swamps are supplied during deck-building, meaning to cast any Black spells, players must pick their black sources out of booster packs or out of the Utility Card pile.
The cube possesses heavy +1/+1 counter and enchantment themes, lending to a tempo-oriented "battle cruiser" format. There are also smaller themes across each of the Ink-Treader colored pairs. The list makes use of multiples of cards in order to enforce these themes as draft archetypes.
: Blink, Manifest, Fliers
: Enchantments, Tokens, +1/+1 Counters
: Lands, Fatties, Sacrifice
: Tempo, Proliferation, Fatties
: Spellsling, Blink, Artifact Tokens
: Artifact Tokens, Blink, Prowess
After each booster pack, players have the opportunity to draft one pick from the Utility Card pile. The pile is arranged the following way:
Concerns
How can I make Black more seductive?
How can I improve the Utility Card draft portion?
Are the color pairs deep enough?
Where can I strengthen/cut/introduce other themes?
Sideboard/Utility Card Pile
A miniature version of the Ink-Treader cube I initially assembled, this significantly shrunk list caters to a table of six or less drafters. Each pack is made up of 13 cards due to decreased color variance. This cube list also uses a Utility Card pile which is drafted one pick at a time after each booster pack.
Overview
Small 6-Player Cube
Utility Card Draft
Pack Size: 13
Color Imbalance Theme
Non-singleton
Like the four-colored Nephilim, the Inktreader Cube has a special relationship with the color Black--in that Black has a significantly smaller section in the list. Additionally, no basic swamps are supplied during deck-building, meaning to cast any Black spells, players must pick their black sources out of booster packs or out of the Utility Card pile.
The cube possesses heavy +1/+1 counter and enchantment themes, lending to a tempo-oriented "battle cruiser" format. There are also smaller themes across each of the Ink-Treader colored pairs. The list makes use of multiples of cards in order to enforce these themes as draft archetypes.
: Blink, Manifest, Fliers: Enchantments, Tokens, +1/+1 Counters: Lands, Fatties, Sacrifice: Tempo, Proliferation, Fatties: Spellsling, Blink, Artifact Tokens: Artifact Tokens, Blink, ProwessAfter each booster pack, players have the opportunity to draft one pick from the Utility Card pile. The pile is arranged the following way:
Concerns
How can I make Black more seductive?
How can I improve the Utility Card draft portion?
Are the color pairs deep enough?
Where can I strengthen/cut/introduce other themes?
The Why
The times my playgroup comes together for draft, we usually are only able to cobble together four or five players at a time. When this happens, the draft process can get awkward at times when whole chunks of a color go by undrafted. This cube attempts to remedy this by reducing the color variance per pack by shrinking a whole color all together.
Ink-Treader Cube
Named after the four-colored Nephilim in the Ravnica block, this cube puts a focus on drafting White, Blue, Red, and Green. Black is also present in this cube in a smaller amount. There is a condition attached to drafting it however, as no Basic Swamps will be provided at the end of the draft for deck building. This means that to draft black spells, you must also draft black sources. Additionally, as the black section is significantly smaller than the other colors, the packs shrink down from 15 to 13 to accommodate the reduced color variance in each pack. Aside from these points, drafting and deckbuilding rules remain the same.
This cube contains two major overarching themes in each color: Auras and +1/+1 counters. Hard removal has also been toned back with the average kill-spell sitting at 3 cmc. This lends to a "battle cruiser" format where board states have extra time to develop than some faster environments. Smaller themes present in the cube are prowess, blink, and morph. Evasive creatures also have a slight edge. A fourth of this cube (78~ cards) is made up of duplicates in order to push or support certain strategies. Cards run in doubles are as follows:
Additionally, each pair inside of the Ink-Treader colors run smaller unifying themes. Those guilds and their minor themes are as follows:
: Prowess, Awaken, Fliers
: Enchantments, +1/+1 Counters, Tokens
: +1/+1 Counters, Tokens, Fatties
: Landfall, Card Advantage Tempo
: Prowess, Colorless, Fliers
: Metalcraft Aggro, Tokens, +1/+1 Counters
My Goals
Maintain a lower-powered environment
Enforce black as splashable for higher quality disruption and bombs
Create a variance in despite shrinking down to four colors
The times my playgroup comes together for draft, we usually are only able to cobble together four or five players at a time. When this happens, the draft process can get awkward at times when whole chunks of a color go by undrafted. This cube attempts to remedy this by reducing the color variance per pack by shrinking a whole color all together.
Ink-Treader Cube
Named after the four-colored Nephilim in the Ravnica block, this cube puts a focus on drafting White, Blue, Red, and Green. Black is also present in this cube in a smaller amount. There is a condition attached to drafting it however, as no Basic Swamps will be provided at the end of the draft for deck building. This means that to draft black spells, you must also draft black sources. Additionally, as the black section is significantly smaller than the other colors, the packs shrink down from 15 to 13 to accommodate the reduced color variance in each pack. Aside from these points, drafting and deckbuilding rules remain the same.
This cube contains two major overarching themes in each color: Auras and +1/+1 counters. Hard removal has also been toned back with the average kill-spell sitting at 3 cmc. This lends to a "battle cruiser" format where board states have extra time to develop than some faster environments. Smaller themes present in the cube are prowess, blink, and morph. Evasive creatures also have a slight edge. A fourth of this cube (78~ cards) is made up of duplicates in order to push or support certain strategies. Cards run in doubles are as follows:
Additionally, each pair inside of the Ink-Treader colors run smaller unifying themes. Those guilds and their minor themes are as follows:
: Prowess, Awaken, Fliers: Enchantments, +1/+1 Counters, Tokens: +1/+1 Counters, Tokens, Fatties: Landfall, Card Advantage Tempo: Prowess, Colorless, Fliers: Metalcraft Aggro, Tokens, +1/+1 CountersMy Goals
Maintain a lower-powered environment
Enforce black as splashable for higher quality disruption and bombs
Create a variance in despite shrinking down to four colors
Ink-Treader Cube
Hey guys. It's your favorite lurker. Remember in the beginning of August when we rez'd all those tribal threads? Classic.
The singleton 360 cube I've been maintaining has been growing stale when played among the four or five of us in my playgroup, so I've been crunching themes the past week to come up with something to bring back some of that deck exploration feel even when the drafter turn out is as low as it has been.
Schematics
312 Cards (24 Packs of 13)
4~8 Players
Unpowered Synergy format
Themed: Color Imbalance (Draft your swamps!)
Additional Restrictions
+1/+1 Counters and Charge Counters only. (No planeswalkers or wither/infect)
Modern Frame (cuz i r lozzer)
Wallet limit (HOW IS THIS ALREADY FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS)
Introduction
The Ink-Treader Cube is an attempt to add richness to a draft among fewer people. Born of frustrations from seeing chunks of green wheel around in every pack, this cube's theme was developed with the hope that placing emphasis on four colors rather than five will remedy the problem of a whole color going unpicked in a small draft. I haven't seen much of this theme explored in other cubes, so a lot of it has been throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.
While the use of the term "Ink-Treader" implies the absence of black, the theme is the reverse: the empowerment of black through its scarcity. I've attempted to sculpt the cube in a way where decks are built by unifying synergies over value cards. I've also taken cues from the recent limited formats to use synergistic-over-efficient removal as a means to dial the power level of the cube back. These aspects in conjunction with one another is what form the backbone of the cube.
If you haven't clicked the cube link, here it is again. The main gimmick of this cube is its black section. The cards are of significantly higher power level than the rest of the cube. It's already pain enough to stare down one pack rat in limited, but there are a whopping two floating around in cube! Well, this horrifying image is remedied by each player's need to draft their own black sources. Because of this, black has become a risky commodity to attempt to splash, since really, each spell you draft requires two picks. As a result, the more black drafters at the table, the much less effective that color will be. I was this close (pinch motion with fingers) to naming it the Avacyn Restored Cube.
Fixing may not be as good as certain fetch-crazy cubes in the lab, but it's still present in a decent volume which allow decks to explore the multiple themes across all four ink-treader colors. I should probably talk about those themes.
: Prowess. This can be broken down further into metalcraft and spellsling strategies.
: Enchantments and lands. This is a little more cobbled-together. Focus on Auras and maybe four cares-about-land enchantments.
: Value beats? Get big and draw cards!
: Counters. Proliferation and general bigness over time.
Of course, there's a little of each theme across all four colors, which is why I'm having so much difficulty defining them. That's actually one of my biggest concerns.
Concerns
Is this cube too mish-mashy? With fewer colors, themes become a little more diluted. Do sharper themes make for a more fun environment?
Chafftastic? This cube breaks singleton, but where is that choice unnecessary?
Is the theme just plain wrong? When I pitched the idea of a blackless cube, it came off a little racist, but does the reduced black really help this environment?
Thank you for taking the time to read through this post and contributing a couple drafts to it. I'll link you again because I reaaaaally care what you think.
Decks to try drafting: Five-Color Pod, Izzet Colorless, Temur Proliferate, Sultai Pack Rat, Boros Metalcraft, Bant Auras. Having missed out on RTR, I get really excited thinking of the prospect of drafting double Pack Rat.
-Sincerely, that one lurker guy.
Hey guys. It's your favorite lurker. Remember in the beginning of August when we rez'd all those tribal threads? Classic.
The singleton 360 cube I've been maintaining has been growing stale when played among the four or five of us in my playgroup, so I've been crunching themes the past week to come up with something to bring back some of that deck exploration feel even when the drafter turn out is as low as it has been.
Schematics
312 Cards (24 Packs of 13)
4~8 Players
Unpowered Synergy format
Themed: Color Imbalance (Draft your swamps!)
Additional Restrictions
+1/+1 Counters and Charge Counters only. (No planeswalkers or wither/infect)
Modern Frame (cuz i r lozzer)
Wallet limit (HOW IS THIS ALREADY FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS)
Introduction
The Ink-Treader Cube is an attempt to add richness to a draft among fewer people. Born of frustrations from seeing chunks of green wheel around in every pack, this cube's theme was developed with the hope that placing emphasis on four colors rather than five will remedy the problem of a whole color going unpicked in a small draft. I haven't seen much of this theme explored in other cubes, so a lot of it has been throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.
While the use of the term "Ink-Treader" implies the absence of black, the theme is the reverse: the empowerment of black through its scarcity. I've attempted to sculpt the cube in a way where decks are built by unifying synergies over value cards. I've also taken cues from the recent limited formats to use synergistic-over-efficient removal as a means to dial the power level of the cube back. These aspects in conjunction with one another is what form the backbone of the cube.
If you haven't clicked the cube link, here it is again. The main gimmick of this cube is its black section. The cards are of significantly higher power level than the rest of the cube. It's already pain enough to stare down one pack rat in limited, but there are a whopping two floating around in cube! Well, this horrifying image is remedied by each player's need to draft their own black sources. Because of this, black has become a risky commodity to attempt to splash, since really, each spell you draft requires two picks. As a result, the more black drafters at the table, the much less effective that color will be. I was this close (pinch motion with fingers) to naming it the Avacyn Restored Cube.
Fixing may not be as good as certain fetch-crazy cubes in the lab, but it's still present in a decent volume which allow decks to explore the multiple themes across all four ink-treader colors. I should probably talk about those themes.
: Prowess. This can be broken down further into metalcraft and spellsling strategies.: Enchantments and lands. This is a little more cobbled-together. Focus on Auras and maybe four cares-about-land enchantments.: Value beats? Get big and draw cards!: Counters. Proliferation and general bigness over time.Of course, there's a little of each theme across all four colors, which is why I'm having so much difficulty defining them. That's actually one of my biggest concerns.
Concerns
Is this cube too mish-mashy? With fewer colors, themes become a little more diluted. Do sharper themes make for a more fun environment?
Chafftastic? This cube breaks singleton, but where is that choice unnecessary?
Is the theme just plain wrong? When I pitched the idea of a blackless cube, it came off a little racist, but does the reduced black really help this environment?
Thank you for taking the time to read through this post and contributing a couple drafts to it. I'll link you again because I reaaaaally care what you think.
Decks to try drafting: Five-Color Pod, Izzet Colorless, Temur Proliferate, Sultai Pack Rat, Boros Metalcraft, Bant Auras. Having missed out on RTR, I get really excited thinking of the prospect of drafting double Pack Rat.
-Sincerely, that one lurker guy.
