Current List
What started off as a clone of WtWlf123's list over five years ago has morphed into a very fun, very-high-powered environment that doesn't feel completely oppressive or repetitive. It never drafts the same way twice. The games are varied and quite intense. Most classic archetypes are supported here with the notable absence of Storm and Splinter-Twin. There are possible Persist shenanigans but no intentional insta-win/infinite stuff (at least none that I have discovered). As to the name, first time we drafted it, one of our guys said he felt I had built the "Dream Cube" for our playgroup to draft..the name just stuck. PGS = Pondwater Gaming Society, what we call ourselves. Pondwater is our nickname for slow (or otherwise "challenged") gameplay, lol.
Control & Aggro is (I hope) well-supported in all colors but Green, I did a pretty major overhaul on a year or so ago. Our first couple of drafts, most of the green players just *hated* it. Tried to add a lot more mid-rangey & standalone guys and Flash and they all tell me this was a huge improvement. It plays "Aggro/Control" roles best of all. People tend to snap up green now and that makes me very happy. As is appropriate for a Vintage environment, each color has some unfair or "Cheaty" archetype it can do, usually with some high profile 1-card combo if the person is lucky enough to draft it. Given all the other high-octane nonsense going on here, these rarely turn into slam-dunks like they are in most constructed settings, but if you're lucky enough to get one in your pack, bully for you--it may be a nice orthogonal win-con. #SweetBrags
White:
Weenies/Go-Wide/Tokens/Equipment
Skies
Control/Tempo
Balance (Cheaty)
Blue:
Control/Tempo
Instants/Sorceries matter
Artifacts Matter
Show & Tell/Tinker (Cheaty)
Black:
Mono Black Aggro/Recursive Beaters
Reanimator/Recurring Nightmare (Cheaty)
Control/Tempo
Stax/Aristocrats
Red:
Weenies/Go-Wide/Tokens
Burn
Artifacts Matter
Control/Tempo
Sneak Attack/Feldon (Cheaty)
Green:
Ramp/Aggro/Tokens
"Unga-Bunga"/Flash (This is pretty much the "Control" archetype for Green--Flash creatures do double duty as removal spells in a lot of games.)
Go-Wide/Tokens
Survival/Eureka/Natural Selection (Cheaty)
My guild sections are quite a bit less focused than they used to be but they are deep and feature cards you'd want to play in those colors nearly every time. I just like to pick very sign-posty cards without necessarily forcing people into specific guild archetypes. Shards/Wedges are the usual suspects.
HOW WE DRAFT: For any number of players, build up 3x 15-card boosters, cards selected at random. We draft 5-5-5 fashion.
We then do a separate draft for non-basics. Separate box with all the non-basics. Each person grabs 6x nonbasics and we draft it 2-2-2. Then, we do that AGAIN. 6 more non-basics...2-2-2. Adding the second round has been a total game-changer and our games go SO MUCH better now I predict we will just continue.
All basic lands are considered Snow Lands. (house rule)
Every time we draft this cube we have a really really fun time. Games are balanced. Some are grindy; some are swingy. Every one has stuff to do and surprisingly few "blowouts". Real games. Colorfixing is fabulous so we have far fewer non-games there, too. I think it's quite fun but I am quite happy to share it here with some real cubers. I also hope you may discover ways to make it PLAY better. I add some new cards from literally every new set they put out so it's constantly changing. We don't draft it enough to build really good metrics or testing regimen so I really do appreciate anything you guys see fit to try out.. Feedback is super-appreciated and I hope you have even half as much fun with it as we do.
Thanks for reading.
What started off as a clone of WtWlf123's list over five years ago has morphed into a very fun, very-high-powered environment that doesn't feel completely oppressive or repetitive. It never drafts the same way twice. The games are varied and quite intense. Most classic archetypes are supported here with the notable absence of Storm and Splinter-Twin. There are possible Persist shenanigans but no intentional insta-win/infinite stuff (at least none that I have discovered). As to the name, first time we drafted it, one of our guys said he felt I had built the "Dream Cube" for our playgroup to draft..the name just stuck. PGS = Pondwater Gaming Society, what we call ourselves. Pondwater is our nickname for slow (or otherwise "challenged") gameplay, lol.
Control & Aggro is (I hope) well-supported in all colors but Green, I did a pretty major overhaul on a year or so ago. Our first couple of drafts, most of the green players just *hated* it. Tried to add a lot more mid-rangey & standalone guys and Flash and they all tell me this was a huge improvement. It plays "Aggro/Control" roles best of all. People tend to snap up green now and that makes me very happy. As is appropriate for a Vintage environment, each color has some unfair or "Cheaty" archetype it can do, usually with some high profile 1-card combo if the person is lucky enough to draft it. Given all the other high-octane nonsense going on here, these rarely turn into slam-dunks like they are in most constructed settings, but if you're lucky enough to get one in your pack, bully for you--it may be a nice orthogonal win-con. #SweetBrags
White:
Weenies/Go-Wide/Tokens/Equipment
Skies
Control/Tempo
Balance (Cheaty)
Blue:
Control/Tempo
Instants/Sorceries matter
Artifacts Matter
Show & Tell/Tinker (Cheaty)
Black:
Mono Black Aggro/Recursive Beaters
Reanimator/Recurring Nightmare (Cheaty)
Control/Tempo
Stax/Aristocrats
Red:
Weenies/Go-Wide/Tokens
Burn
Artifacts Matter
Control/Tempo
Sneak Attack/Feldon (Cheaty)
Green:
Ramp/Aggro/Tokens
"Unga-Bunga"/Flash (This is pretty much the "Control" archetype for Green--Flash creatures do double duty as removal spells in a lot of games.)
Go-Wide/Tokens
Survival/Eureka/Natural Selection (Cheaty)
My guild sections are quite a bit less focused than they used to be but they are deep and feature cards you'd want to play in those colors nearly every time. I just like to pick very sign-posty cards without necessarily forcing people into specific guild archetypes. Shards/Wedges are the usual suspects.
HOW WE DRAFT: For any number of players, build up 3x 15-card boosters, cards selected at random. We draft 5-5-5 fashion.
We then do a separate draft for non-basics. Separate box with all the non-basics. Each person grabs 6x nonbasics and we draft it 2-2-2. Then, we do that AGAIN. 6 more non-basics...2-2-2. Adding the second round has been a total game-changer and our games go SO MUCH better now I predict we will just continue.
All basic lands are considered Snow Lands. (house rule)
Every time we draft this cube we have a really really fun time. Games are balanced. Some are grindy; some are swingy. Every one has stuff to do and surprisingly few "blowouts". Real games. Colorfixing is fabulous so we have far fewer non-games there, too. I think it's quite fun but I am quite happy to share it here with some real cubers. I also hope you may discover ways to make it PLAY better. I add some new cards from literally every new set they put out so it's constantly changing. We don't draft it enough to build really good metrics or testing regimen so I really do appreciate anything you guys see fit to try out.. Feedback is super-appreciated and I hope you have even half as much fun with it as we do.
Thanks for reading.
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