Multivalent
Multivalent is a multicolor-driven Peasant cube. It's a showcase of all the great breadth of Magic gameplay, and a kind of proof-of-concept that this game doesn't require expensive rares to be fun. My goal is to include as many multicolor cards as possible without breaking the draft, plus find a home for certain pet cards and mechanics that I enjoy.
I find it really difficult to sum up this cube in a single post, because it's my oldest cube and has evolved a great deal over time. So I'll just make a brief list of the basic principles I use when I'm sculpting the environment with new cards.
-More Multicolor! Right now, about a quarter of the cube is multicolor, supplemented by several cards with hybrid costs and off-color kicker costs, etc. There are plentiful non-basic lands, and in most drafts I let everyone start with a free Evolving Wilds. My first booster pack was from Planeshift, after playing for years with nothing but a 5th-edition starter set. So, the first time I saw multicolor cards I really fell in love.
-Keep Bestow Good. Bestow is one of my favorite mechanics ever made. I love it, but unfortunately the card pool is quite limited and not particularly strong (although this has improved with Modern Horizons 3). So this mechanic is sort of the power-level canary in the coal mine. If Bestow cards are unable to hang with the rest of the environment, the environment needs work.
-"Multiplicity." This is a really vague idea, similar to the "two-ness" concept from Double Masters, but it guides a lot of my card inclusions. Basically, I favor cards that have something "multiple" about them, whether it's multiple colors, multiple costs, multiple modes, multiple card types, or multiple card faces. Probably the highest echelon of "multiplicity" are the triple-color hybrid split cards from Hat Ravnica, or the hybrid double-faced dual lands from Modern Horizons 3. But it doesn't have to be that crazy. Even something as simple as Cycling or Kicker counts towards this.
-Art, Flavor, Vibes. Cards will get included or cut from this cube for flavor and art reasons, too. This is so subjective I can't even really elaborate. Basically it's a gut feeling, and at the end of the day I'll refuse to include mechanically solid cards if the flavor is off.
And that's it! The cube's "archetypes" are gently anchored in certain color pairs, but the cube is designed in such a way that you should be able to splash whatever you want and make something functional and synergistic. Read more about that in the cube overview.
Current Wishlist:
-Enchantment creatures with off-color Bestow costs!
-Modern-frame reprint of Shivan Wurm!
-More cards that explicitly reward multicolor!
-More "modified," "domain," "delirium," and "saddle"!
-Modern-frame reprint of Krosan Restorer!
-Non-foil paper reprint of Brain Maggot with the judge promo art!
Multivalent is a multicolor-driven Peasant cube. It's a showcase of all the great breadth of Magic gameplay, and a kind of proof-of-concept that this game doesn't require expensive rares to be fun. My goal is to include as many multicolor cards as possible without breaking the draft, plus find a home for certain pet cards and mechanics that I enjoy.
I find it really difficult to sum up this cube in a single post, because it's my oldest cube and has evolved a great deal over time. So I'll just make a brief list of the basic principles I use when I'm sculpting the environment with new cards.
-More Multicolor! Right now, about a quarter of the cube is multicolor, supplemented by several cards with hybrid costs and off-color kicker costs, etc. There are plentiful non-basic lands, and in most drafts I let everyone start with a free Evolving Wilds. My first booster pack was from Planeshift, after playing for years with nothing but a 5th-edition starter set. So, the first time I saw multicolor cards I really fell in love.
-Keep Bestow Good. Bestow is one of my favorite mechanics ever made. I love it, but unfortunately the card pool is quite limited and not particularly strong (although this has improved with Modern Horizons 3). So this mechanic is sort of the power-level canary in the coal mine. If Bestow cards are unable to hang with the rest of the environment, the environment needs work.
-"Multiplicity." This is a really vague idea, similar to the "two-ness" concept from Double Masters, but it guides a lot of my card inclusions. Basically, I favor cards that have something "multiple" about them, whether it's multiple colors, multiple costs, multiple modes, multiple card types, or multiple card faces. Probably the highest echelon of "multiplicity" are the triple-color hybrid split cards from Hat Ravnica, or the hybrid double-faced dual lands from Modern Horizons 3. But it doesn't have to be that crazy. Even something as simple as Cycling or Kicker counts towards this.
-Art, Flavor, Vibes. Cards will get included or cut from this cube for flavor and art reasons, too. This is so subjective I can't even really elaborate. Basically it's a gut feeling, and at the end of the day I'll refuse to include mechanically solid cards if the flavor is off.
And that's it! The cube's "archetypes" are gently anchored in certain color pairs, but the cube is designed in such a way that you should be able to splash whatever you want and make something functional and synergistic. Read more about that in the cube overview.
Current Wishlist:
-Enchantment creatures with off-color Bestow costs!
-Modern-frame reprint of Shivan Wurm!
-More cards that explicitly reward multicolor!
-More "modified," "domain," "delirium," and "saddle"!
-Non-foil paper reprint of Brain Maggot with the judge promo art!
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