Sudden Death Cube (1 life)

[ellogeyen]

Sudden Death Cube
54 cards / 2 players​

Ever found yourself between games on a cube night? Ever had to wait for the two last players of a Commander game to finish each other off? Ever been unable to draft a cube with only 20 minutes left on the clock? NO MORE! The concept of a Sudden Death Cube is something introduced to me on reddit a while ago, and I love the premise: play a fast, decision-rich cube draft in a fraction of time. But how does this work?

I've been having a conversation with Breadwinning on different aspects of the cube. They're the original author and probably the most experienced with the cube. The main reason I'm setting up this blog is to channel my own thoughts and experiences into small articles, as the Sudden Death environment lends itself to a lot of interesting dynamics.

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Gameplay Changes

• Grid draft 6 grids (all 54 cards)
• Build 15-card decks
• Each player starts the game at 1 life
• If you force a tie, you lose instead

Both player know which cards the other drafted, and with a max of 18 drafted cards you could even remember them. This perfect draft information is both relevant during deckbuilding and gameplay, where you're rewarded for anticipating and playing around your opponent's cards. Every decision is life-or-death, tempo is extremely relevant, and best of all: if your deck suck you'll be done in about 10 minutes!

Design Principles

• Gotcha Damage: No damage should come as a surprise during the first few turns. This includes direct damage spells and creatures with haste or flash.
• Mana Value: Games will generally last a few turns, which means that the average mana value should be very low. All colors need T1 interaction and be able to deal with early-game threats.
• Defensive Removal: If the starting player drops a 1/1 on the first turn, then the difference between them having a T2 Unsummon or Select for Inspection determines whether you've got a game worth playing. Removal should generally be effective defensively. A first-turn 0/3 should defend you to the second turn 90% of the time.
• Easy to Carry: No tokens, counters, or other outside resources (like dungeons or contraptions)

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Themes

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Lifegain buys you precious turns to stabilize, or allows you to pivot to being aggressive with less thought to personal consequences. The relative value it provdes has sparked many online discussions if cards like Navigator's Compass aren't overpowered (crazy!). It enables symmetrical damage and black suicide strategies as payoff. A card like Slagstorm is a genuine win condition, on top of being a nice boardwipe.

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Evasion is something to keep a close eye on. Winning out of nowhere is a bit of a letdown, especially during the early turns, so evasion needs to be communicated beforehand. The third turn is where evasion might be introduced as a surprise.

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Five mana is the cutoff point for "instant" win conditions. Most decks will contain 4-6 lands, so a fifth land should indicate that the end of the game is near. It's possible to cheat a little on your ramp speed of course. Five-mana-spells thus become archetypes unto themselves, although caution is advised: those mana costs leave you wide open for opponent's interaction.

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Mill is a very viable way to win with 15-card decks, as players do actually lose when they're unable to draw a card. Milling an opponent out directly, but also building a pillow fort to and make sure you're not being milled out first are both viable ways to go about it. The danger of milling makes card draw a lot worse, which is why a Sudden Death cube mainly uses card selection instead.

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Cards are a far less valuable resource, because of the short length of each game. This cube leans into that fact a little more by making discard a semi-dedicated theme. Being able to reuse the cards in your graveyard is awesome in general (especially with only 15 cards in your deck), and is an immediate payoff for cards with discard costs.

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Changelog

06-07-2022: Removed all necessity for tokens and counters from the cube.
07-03-2023: Modified the Design Principles and Themes of the cube.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This is such a cool idea for a Cube!

 

[LadyMapi]

I experimented with micro cubes for a little bit a few months ago, and one surprisingly interesting card for a tiny-deck format was

 

[ellogeyen]

Reshuffeling effects are indeaad amazing, and enable a deck archetype just by themselves. I've always been a sucker for these kinds of cards Right now, Feldon's Cane occupies the reshuffeling slot, but I've been looking for a replacement. I do think that the cube would only need one (maybe two) of these effects though. These are under consideration:

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• Wand of Vertebrae would replace Feldon's Cane directly, both retaining its colorlessness and mana value. I like that the Wand's reshuffeling effects is both more expensive and less effective than the Cane's; it makes the strategy a little more of an investment. On top of the, the self-mill option might make it viable in other decks as well.
• Turn the Earth also serves as lifegain, and is still useful when milled away as well. I like that it combats the mill deck without completely invalidating it. It also does so more elegantly than Gaea's Blessing. My main fear is for it being a "gotcha!" moment, similar to Blessed Respite, in that it suddenly makes you survive an upcoming attack with your creatures intact ready for the backswing. If Turn the Earth is indeed too effective, it could be replaced by Memory's Journey.
• Reito Sentinel is a creature, which I like (it's more interactible). It also does something a little different than shuffeling: putting cards on your library's bottom. This probably is a little weaker than shuffeling them in, but also takes less time to do. Bottoming cards can also be done by effects like Sanguine Sacrament; cards that bottom themselves. Like reshuffeling other cards, these self-shuffeling effects can be a archetype on their own. Beacon of Destruction does something similar and is already in the cube. Reito Sentinel has an milling ETB as well, which might make it too efficient. If so, Loaming Shaman serves a similar role.

 

[blacksmithy]

i like wand and turn for sure

 

[LadyMapi]

Turn The Earth/Memory's Journey/Serene Remembrance are probably the best picks if you want "I shuffle cards into my library" to be an archetype, and not just a colorless build-around.

On the topic of cards that bottom cards, I will admit to some fondness for



Especially since, you know, a 1/1 with flying is a valid threat in this style of cube...

 

[japahn]

Evasion is something to keep a close eye on. Winning out of nowhere is a bit of a letdown, especially during the early turns, so evasion needs to be communicated beforehand. The third turn is where evasion might be introduced as a surprise.​

Does this mean that on turns 1 and 2 you have to announce when you play a creature with evasion, like "play Aven Envoy, it has flying, pass"? But on turns 3+ you just say "play Aven Envoy, pass"?

 

[LadyMapi]

Does this mean that on turns 1 and 2 you have to announce when you play a creature with evasion, like "play Aven Envoy, it has flying, pass"? But on turns 3+ you just say "play Aven Envoy, pass"?

I'd imagine that that's referring to combat tricks.

In other words, no running You Come To A River or the like.

 

[LadyMapi]

Sorry to double-post, but I just found the perfect removal spell for this format.

 

[ellogeyen]

Turn The Earth/Memory's Journey/Serene Remembrance are probably the best picks if you want "I shuffle cards into my library" to be an archetype, and not just a colorless build-around.

On the topic of cards that bottom cards, I will admit to some fondness for



Especially since, you know, a 1/1 with flying is a valid threat in this style of cube...

Yeah, actually I was looking at this card before but dismissed it as being too powerful. But you need a target in a graveyard to actually get a T2 flier, so it might actually not be too bad!

I'd imagine that that's referring to combat tricks.

In other words, no running You Come To A River or the like.

Exactly!

Sorry to double-post, but I just found the perfect removal spell for this format.

I like that it kind of combats the strength of lifegain by making this removal spell worse. It's also more of a defensive spell, as it cannot remove creatures with power 0. I'll have to look if I can find some space for it, for that seems the biggest hurdle to overcome. At 54 cards it's a very tight package. I might up it to 72 (to also make it playable with 4 players)

 

[ellogeyen]

First update in a long time!

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I've been pondering this cube a lot, and even played it a few times. One of the major decisions I've made is to remove all tokens and counters from the cube (except for Sacred Cat), to make it easier to carry, set up, and is less fiddly. This hasn't changed the core of the cube too much, but is a limiting factor when searching for new cards. Another major decision has to do with the main topic of this post:

The First Turn Conundrum
The first player has a MAJOR advantage in this game mode. Playing a turn one creature already threatens to defeat the other player. Any form of interaction wins them the game, but even if it doesn't on turn 2, turn 3 is just as bad. I've mentioned this point in my first post, but only after a few playthroughs it has become clear that the first player wins 75% of the time.

The positive side is that, with a cube of only 54 cards, it's possible to design around this problem. It's possible to plan out most of the interaction between cards, especially when giving myself some heuristics to design with. For now, these are:

Any 0-power 1-drop is fine: as long as it can't raise its own power. Even creatures with evasion are fine, as long as they follow this rule.

Any 1-toughness 1-drop is fine: if all aggressive onedrops have one toughness, the cube's removal can be geared towards it. For a 1-life cube it doesn't matter (a lot) if a creature is a 1/1, 2/1 or 3/1.

A 0/3 should get you to turn 2: which is mostly a rule for the level of removal until turn 2. No 3 damage, no bouncing, no flickering, no bouncing, ect. These effects are reserved for turn three onwards.

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Right now, the cards above don't follow these heuristics. Both Duty-Bound Dead and Wasteland Viper have already warped games around them. Both will be cut in the next iteration. Fire Prophecy hasn't been too much of a problem yet, mainly due to its mana value. I'll just keep my eye on it for now. On top of these, there are a few 2 card combinations that could circumvent a first turn 0/3 (my favorite being Stern Constable and Rotting Rats). For now I've decided to keep these in the cube as a deck-building challenge/archetype.

Another design choice is adding cards that benifit the second player more than the first. Unfortunately, these are very difficult to find (so please let me know if you find any!). Some examples:

• Fourth Bridge Prowler is a lot better if there's already a creature on the battlefield.
• Innocent Blood is a lot better ifyou don't have a creature on the battlefield.
• Phyrexian Walker is the ultimate blocker!

I'm also contemplating adding Power Play to the cube for the next iteration: Since you're playing one opponent anyway, you're just replacing the 50/50 coin flip with a draft pick, which seems like a fine tradeoff (it only counts for the first game played).

If you have any thoughts about the format or my design musings I'd love to hear them!

 

[japahn]

I couldn't figure out searching, but doesn't Power Play make you play first every game, even if you won the previous? It's a lot better than a coin flip if that's the case, but I'm not sure this is correct.

Love the Phyrexian Walker inclusion!

 

[Chris Taylor]

You could rule that it only works in game 1, but "rules as written" that is how it works, yes.

 

[ellogeyen]

You could rule that it only works in game 1, but "rules as written" that is how it works, yes.

I wasn't actually aware this had official ruling, as it was only played in a multiplayer environment, without multiple sequential games where being the starting player was relevant. I'll rule that it only works in game 1.

Another design choice is adding cards that benifit the second player more than the first.

Going further on this comment of mine, I found this gem today:

Does anybody have any experience with this card?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

If you find that going first is an even bigger advantage than usual, you could borrow from Hearthstone and give the player going second a free Treasure token.

 

[ellogeyen]

If you find that going first is an even bigger advantage than usual, you could borrow from Hearthstone and give the player going second a free Treasure token.

Yeah that's definitely an option! If possible, I'd like to fix the issue without adding a new rule but that might not be feasible.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I mean, you already altered three fundamental rules of Magic with this cube, might as well try out a fourth XD

 

[ellogeyen]

I mean, you already altered three fundamental rules of Magic with this cube, might as well try out a fourth XD

This made me think because I have the exact opposite approach! I desperately want to reduce the fundamentally altering rules down to two. You’re probably right, but I’ll test it out with Power Play and Gemstone Caverns first.

 

[Hathaway]

You still happy with no bonus given to the second player?

I see that most of the mill and anti-mill cards have left the cube. Does this feel more balanced?

I'm really interested in this format. Most of my mtg lately is Forgetful Fish.

 

[ellogeyen]

You still happy with no bonus given to the second player?

I see that most of the mill and anti-mill cards have left the cube. Does this feel more balanced?

I'm really interested in this format. Most of my mtg lately is Forgetful Fish.

The main problem of anti-mill is that it quicky becomes anti-game. The only "anti-mill" card present right now is Mistveil Plains, which hasn't been a problem yet. (it's errata'd to come into play untapped)



I've tested Power Play since to discussion above. So you give up a pick in order to gain the first-player benifit. This work well, especially with the amount of small incidental lifegain in the cube right now. Gemstone Caverns actually makes the problem worse: the one who drafts it wins both on the play and on the draw.

Right now I'm testing out having a cube of 63 cards, which means drafting an uneven 7 grids. The player who drafter the least amount of grids will be starting player. I've only played this way once, but quite liked the result!

 

[Hathaway]

The main problem of anti-mill is that it quicky becomes anti-game. The only "anti-mill" card present right now is Mistveil Plains, which hasn't been a problem yet. (it's errata'd to come into play untapped.

Right now I'm testing out having a cube of 63 cards, which means drafting an uneven 7 grids. The player who drafter the least amount of grids will be starting player. I've only played this way once, but quite liked the result!

Do you have a list for the 63 cards? I do like your addition of the fetch lands that gain a life. Feels like a real cost to find a tapped land.

I think that my question about mill is from my desire to see it shine somewhere. I guess the control deck could just win first player and then play to not lose?

 

[ellogeyen]

Do you have a list for the 63 cards? I do like your addition of the fetch lands that gain a life. Feels like a real cost to find a tapped land.

I think that my question about mill is from my desire to see it shine somewhere. I guess the control deck could just win first player and then play to not lose?

I updated the cube list!

Mill shines here in the same way burn does: it's just very easy to do. Direct damage to the face is capped at 5 mana, so you just could assume the same for mill. Incremental mill is certainly possible: I used to run Drowned of Secrets and have been considering Cathartic Adept. Milling 3 cards should do the trick, and doing so incrementally is more fun!