INTRODUCTION
My cube on CubeCobra
Drafts, Matchups, and Commentary on Twitch
Around Fall 2019, I read Japahn's brilliant article on archetype shapes, and it completely changed how I understood cube design. At that point in my cube lifetime I had owned and played only a small peasant cube, mostly born of a love of uncommons from old drafts and EDH decks that I had laying around that didn't have a home. A few days of theorycrafting and browsing later, I drafted up a new cube list with archetypes I found exciting.
After an extensive amount of tweaking, online drafting, collecting feedback, and lurking on these forums, I have finally decided to come out of the shadows and share my thoughts on my cube!
DESIGN GOALS
My goal is to maintain a draft environment that does the following things well:
To that end, I have chosen to build the bulk of the cube around five pivot archetypes, each centered in one color with explicit support in three other colors. The archetypes are as follows:
Tokens
Lands
Spellslinger/Prowess
Graveyard Value
ETB Effects
There are also a few secondary archetypes of various shapes scattered around the cube. These tend to rely on a few key payoff cards that have incidental synergy with a high number of other cards in the cube, or are simply subsets of the pivot macro-archetypes listed above. These are:
Artifacts
Equipment
Enchantments/Auras
Loam/GraveLands
Discard/Madness
Saboteurs
Sacrifice
Stax
In addition to these specific archetypes, I try to make sure that the classical theaters of deck strategies are supported: aggro, midrange, control, etc. To that end, a given archetype could fall into a number of theaters.
For example, a tokens deck will likely skew more aggressive than a tokens deck. However, even within a tokens deck, the player will have to decide whether to build into a faster midrange beatdown deck that attempts to flood the board and swing big by t5 or t6 with Intangible Virtue and Goldnight Commander, or to build into a hard control deck that relies on drain and stax effects to slowly grind out the game with Blood Artist and Braids, Cabal Minion. Both are viable variants of tokens that have won draft pods before!
A given color pair can support not only a variety of theaters, but also a variety of strategies. can appear as Equipment, Tokens, Spellslinger, or even some strange artifacts-based control deck. This works because many of the archetypes have significant overlap - cards like Hordeling Outburst play well in both Tokens and Spellslinger. This is how I accomplish my first goal: supporting a wide range of viable decks.
The structure of the cube certainly influences the draft itself. There is an inherent tension between drafting synergy and drafting generic goodstuff that greases the wheels of your deck. Players need a certain density of effects to play in a given theater, regardless of their archetype. A control deck needs good blockers, sweepers, and point removal to stay alive into the late game. Oftentimes during the draft, a player will have to make a decision between drafting strong point removal such as Oblivion Ring or card draw like Deep Analysis or picking up a strong synergy piece such as Trade Routes to complement an earlier pick such as Meloku of the Clouded Mirror or Life from the Loam. This tension ensures that drafts remain interesting and challenging, the second goal of my design.
Finally, such variance means that there are a huge variety of archetypes and playstyles to try out. In fact, many archetypes have emerged over the course of several drafts that I had not intentionally baked into the cube. This keeps my players (and myself) excited to continue replaying the cube in order to try new variants, sticking together new packages, and discovering new niche archetypes.
I'll provide breakdowns of each archetype and further notes on the cube in the coming days. Keep an eye out!
In the meantime: I ALWAYS appreciate feedback, add and cut suggestions, and fresh takes!
My cube on CubeCobra
Drafts, Matchups, and Commentary on Twitch
Around Fall 2019, I read Japahn's brilliant article on archetype shapes, and it completely changed how I understood cube design. At that point in my cube lifetime I had owned and played only a small peasant cube, mostly born of a love of uncommons from old drafts and EDH decks that I had laying around that didn't have a home. A few days of theorycrafting and browsing later, I drafted up a new cube list with archetypes I found exciting.
After an extensive amount of tweaking, online drafting, collecting feedback, and lurking on these forums, I have finally decided to come out of the shadows and share my thoughts on my cube!
DESIGN GOALS
My goal is to maintain a draft environment that does the following things well:
- #1: Supports a wide range of viable decks
- #2: Creates interesting and challenging drafts
- #3: Makes for a highly replayable experience
To that end, I have chosen to build the bulk of the cube around five pivot archetypes, each centered in one color with explicit support in three other colors. The archetypes are as follows:
Tokens Lands Spellslinger/Prowess Graveyard Value ETB Effects There are also a few secondary archetypes of various shapes scattered around the cube. These tend to rely on a few key payoff cards that have incidental synergy with a high number of other cards in the cube, or are simply subsets of the pivot macro-archetypes listed above. These are:
Artifacts Equipment Enchantments/Auras Loam/GraveLands Discard/Madness Saboteurs Sacrifice StaxIn addition to these specific archetypes, I try to make sure that the classical theaters of deck strategies are supported: aggro, midrange, control, etc. To that end, a given archetype could fall into a number of theaters.
For example, a
tokens deck will likely skew more aggressive than a tokens deck. However, even within a tokens deck, the player will have to decide whether to build into a faster midrange beatdown deck that attempts to flood the board and swing big by t5 or t6 with Intangible Virtue and Goldnight Commander, or to build into a hard control deck that relies on drain and stax effects to slowly grind out the game with Blood Artist and Braids, Cabal Minion. Both are viable variants of tokens that have won draft pods before!A given color pair can support not only a variety of theaters, but also a variety of strategies.
can appear as Equipment, Tokens, Spellslinger, or even some strange artifacts-based control deck. This works because many of the archetypes have significant overlap - cards like Hordeling Outburst play well in both Tokens and Spellslinger. This is how I accomplish my first goal: supporting a wide range of viable decks.The structure of the cube certainly influences the draft itself. There is an inherent tension between drafting synergy and drafting generic goodstuff that greases the wheels of your deck. Players need a certain density of effects to play in a given theater, regardless of their archetype. A control deck needs good blockers, sweepers, and point removal to stay alive into the late game. Oftentimes during the draft, a player will have to make a decision between drafting strong point removal such as Oblivion Ring or card draw like Deep Analysis or picking up a strong synergy piece such as Trade Routes to complement an earlier pick such as Meloku of the Clouded Mirror or Life from the Loam. This tension ensures that drafts remain interesting and challenging, the second goal of my design.
Finally, such variance means that there are a huge variety of archetypes and playstyles to try out. In fact, many archetypes have emerged over the course of several drafts that I had not intentionally baked into the cube. This keeps my players (and myself) excited to continue replaying the cube in order to try new variants, sticking together new packages, and discovering new niche archetypes.
I'll provide breakdowns of each archetype and further notes on the cube in the coming days. Keep an eye out!
In the meantime: I ALWAYS appreciate feedback, add and cut suggestions, and fresh takes!
