Over the years there have been some great writeups on this site that have helped me improve as a cube designer. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information, so I thought I could do a recap of the concepts that helped me the most, hopefully as a tool for other designers and as the beginning of a wider conversation about cube design. What I’d love is for others to add their nuggets of wisdom to make a centralized, collective resource.
I’ll try my best to credit the right people, if I mess up, please let me know!
Advanced considerations for a synergy cube.
I’ll be breaking this down into various topics. The lines between subjects are sometimes blurry so there might be some redundancy and definitely some gaps. Keep in mind that I am taking for granted that this is information geared towards synergy cubes no matter the power level. Speaking of which…
Power level
In the context of a synergy cube, I would consider it a failure as a designer if my synergy decks couldn’t hang with the good stuff decks. How do we make sure our archetypes are at the right power level?
- Most powerful cards: Your synergy cards are at the top of your power band (more on this later). You first pick an exciting build around and draft a deck around it.
-> ->
- Good cards with hooks (video): If you have a critical mass of generically good cards with synergy potential, you open the door to being naturally led into an archetype. Take this start for example:
-> ->
With a start like that, you have several ways to go. Blink? Tokens? Artifacts? Maybe a mix of all!
These two approaches can cohabit inside the same environment and the cards available to each archetype will probably guide you towards one or the other. On this topic, landofmordor posted an article on Lucky Paper Radio and makes the important observation that the higher your power level, the less card options you have at your disposal. Which means less nobs to tune as a cube designer.
While it’s important to consider the top echelons of power, you cannot neglect the bottom ones. Inscho makes a good point here:
Payoff Traps
(https://desolatelighthouse.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/azami-lady-of-scrolls-one-card-a-day/ japahn)
I’d also like to discuss a post made by japahn a while back since it touches on power level. There are traps to avoid when selecting your payoffs and japahn nicely sums it up with examples if you want to check it out.
1. The payoff is good in any deck, and only slightly better in the archetype.
2. The payoff only rewards a small subset of the cards intended for the archetype.
3. The payoff’s reward is not useful for the archetype.
4. The payoff is not strong enough to justify drafting the archetype.
5. The payoff is not strong enough even in a deck of the archetype.
The concepts of power level (strong or weak) as well as applicability (broad or narrow) surface in this discussion. Narrow and weak seems like the absolute worse combination as no one will want the cards, not even the people drafting the right deck!
There are some areas that I struggle with in this theory though. Let’s look at some artifact payoffs.
In my mind, these are rewards, not reasons for being in the artifact deck. As such, I would say they fail point #4 (strong enough to pull you into the archetype). Arguably, they also fail #2 (reward a small subset of the archetype) as not all artifact decks flood the board, care about the graveyard or grindy value. And yet, I frequently see them in cubes (my own included), and I think they have their place in small quantities.
I’ve heard the reward/reason terminology when discussing gold cards as well. Some designers only swear by cards that are pulls (reason) into a guild and some are ok with cards that reward you for finding the open lane. It’s the same idea, but I would be wary of multicolored archetypes payoffs that are rewards as that makes them doubly narrow!
Slot efficiency
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/slot-efficiency.3750/#post-126698 Erik Twice)
Cube slots are finite and there are often way more cards you want to include than possible. Erik makes a case for choosing high impact payoffs, that fit the archetypes game plan and warns:
A card can be good, but it might not be right for your cube goals. I think the idea is to be deliberate in your choices while building your cube. Know why you are adding a card and try and check if it falls above or below your power level compared to your archetype defining cards.
I’d like to expand the concept to other aspects of a cube as well. Removal and fixing can absolutely be used to increase slot efficiency.
Banishing Light is a basic removal spell. It removes a thing for 3 mana, but other than being an enchantment for Constellation, it doesn’t further any synergistic goals. Instead, you could look at these alternatives:
You lose the elegance and simplicity of the original, but you gain relevant keywords for your archetypes. This is crucial in my experience because of how tight space can be in synergistic decks. With your payoffs, enablers, and glue cards it’s sometimes hard to squeeze in interaction. But if your interaction happens to be part of the deck’s engine, then you are really firing on all cylinders.
I think it’s important that your synergy interaction also be playable in good stuff decks too. That way, all your decks are functional, but you’ve turned a nob to give certain archetypes a boost compared to a more generic deck, further incentivizing players to go for the decks you designed for.
Big games vs small games (https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/mordors-cube-the-ship-of-theseus.3180/page-3#post-116425 landofmordor)
Speaking of interaction, Sam Black introduced us to the concept of big games vs small games. Big games tend to have more resources, while small games have less to work with. Landofmordor does a fantastic job of illustrating how to favor the type of gameplay that you want.
For our purposes, synergy-based cubes tend to naturally want bigger games to allow players to gather a critical mass of resources to assemble an engine. This means that you should be very careful with the density and type of removal you chose to include. Too much and your archetypes never take off, too little and then your players will feel a lack of agency in interacting with their opponent. Playtesting and getting player feedback is the best way to find the right balance for the gameplay you want.
This doesn’t exclude some archetypes from wanting small games. Safra, inscho and myself are all pursuing some elements of mana denial in our cubes, naturally hostile to big games. This can be a fun dynamic, but a difficult one to balance. If your tempo or mana denial decks have too much interaction or their threats are too powerful, your engine-based decks have no chance. I wrote a post explaining my strategy to balance both types of games inside a single cube, check it out here if that is of interest to you.
Archetype shapes
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetype-shapes.2022/ and https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetype-shapes.2022/#post-82823 japahn)
When designing an archetype, you must choose how broad you want it to be. This can range from a single color, a guild pair or across all 5 colors. Japahn does a breakdown of the pros and cons of each shape and how to effectively incorporate them into cubes.
My personal preference concerning archetypes are broad themes spanning as many colors as possible, with each bringing their unique spin on a theme. This allows for creativity, overlap and replayability. Dbs makes a case for broad archetypes here.
Regardless of how you decide to design your archetypes, some things are universal:
- The importance of cross archetype support (glue cards). They help your drafters combine or navigate between themes. They keep the draft dynamic as your evaluation of certain cards can change depending on what you have in your pool.
- Mana fixing is a tool you can use to navigate your drafters into the types of archetypes you’ve designed. Abundant fixing with broad themes will naturally lead people to splash for the best cards of that archetype regardless of its color. On opposite end of the spectrum, limited fixing with pair archetypes will force your drafters to stay in their lane.
Glue cards
One of the keys to successfully building a dynamic draft experience for your drafters is the presence of relevant glue cards. These are generically playable cards that tie your themes together and allow you to transition from one archetype to another or even better, combine them.
It’s a Human, it has an ETB, it makes a Golem artifact token, it has 3 or less power and mana value, … Fill your cube with enough of these (at whatever power level is right) and you build a web of potential synergies for your archetypes. If you want a list of glue cards favored in this forum, check out this thread.
While not exactly glue cards (though they can be), dbs suggests running “do nothing cards” that cycle or make a bit of mana and have relevant card types or count as a spell being cast. These cards are often critical in supporting some archetypes, especially those that care about spell velocity.
This is just a colorless cantrip right? Technically yes. It fixes your mana and gives colors without cheap card selection ways to smooth their draws. But it also works with Goblin Engineer to create a small engine. You can sacrifice it to Deadly Dispute, turning a drawback into an advantage. And so on.
Power band
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/spell-velocity-themes.3479/#post-110842 Grillo_Parlante)
Grillo point’s out the difference between a synergy cube (decks not cards) and a power max cube (cards not decks):
If your format is bomb oriented, then the decks become about finding the best shell for that card since it will end the game. Synergy decks on the other hand, have a tighter power band with cards that struggle to win on their own. This constraint forces you to build an engine that is greater than the sum of its parts.
There are some interesting cards that are power outliers (bombs even sometimes), but don’t necessarily win the game the way Opposition does. Imagine this at higher power levels:
This suggests an UG go wide theme (with artifacts) similar to Grillo’s example and these cards do it in a decks not cards way. Enter Urza, Lord High Artificer, a bomb that can win games. It fits perfectly into our UG theme, except it would push the deck more towards cards not deck. So maybe the concept is a bit more muddled than it appears at first glance. The takeaway is to be conscious of your power outliers to make sure your synergy decks aren’t negated by one card win conditions.
I still think there is value in having power outliers in your cube. They make for exciting moments in both draft and gameplay and give your deck a direction.
Parasitism
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/thread...alls-of-parasitic-archetypes.3249/#post-96661 Onderzeeboot, with Lady Lynn providing a 7th point)
You generally want the cards that compose your themes to have some amount of overlap so that your players’ experience is dynamic and stays interesting throughout the draft portion. Onderzeeboot uses Storm as an example and lays out some advice to reduce and minimize parasitism by increasing the cross-appeal of the cards needed for the archetype to function:
- are more versatile
- have a better place on the mana curve
- build bridges
- affect the board
- are self-contained payoffs
- are less demanding payoffs with a higher fail state
- require less colored mana to be cast
Agency
(Part 1: http://cubecobra.com/content/article/6090e6e2a92ae8104cffc78f
Part 2: http://cubecobra.com/content/article/609dcaf8028ce9104b067ac3 japahn)
Japahn wrote a couple of articles on CubeCobra about Agency. He wrote about the concept, individual cards, player dimensions and finishes with recommendations.
It’s a good read, even if the prospect of combing through your cube with all the recommendations is a little daunting. I’ll just add that since the articles were written, the concept of big games and small games has emerged which could be a more detailed way to view japahn’s “Run an appropriate amount of removal” point.
Overdesign
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/embrace-the-chaos-cube-occasionals.3134/ japahn)
This post advocates for letting your drafters express their creativity through your cube, rather than you imposing your vision on them. This can be done by increasing variance in your cube while maintaining your macro and micro archetypes balanced.
They then list a series of ways to combat this overdesign:
- Broad themes
- Increasing cube size
- Supporting micro archetypes
- Implementing cube occasionals
Design philosophies
I'll finish on some examples of how some designers proceed. This too can be fleshed out if you have links!
Inscho, Mad Prophet, Banana25.
I am sorry if I left out a comment of yours that you think should be here. Some cool posts I wasn't able to fit in.
Bosses vs leaders (Taamas)
How to port constructed decks to a cube environment (TrainmasterGT)
Chasing the “Artifact Deck” (dbs)
There are a lot more topics relevant to cube design, but this is what stood out to me for now. I haven't talked about complexity, archetype speed and a lot of other topics so please add your own information to make this a more comprehensive ressource!
I’ll try my best to credit the right people, if I mess up, please let me know!
Advanced considerations for a synergy cube.
I’ll be breaking this down into various topics. The lines between subjects are sometimes blurry so there might be some redundancy and definitely some gaps. Keep in mind that I am taking for granted that this is information geared towards synergy cubes no matter the power level. Speaking of which…
Power level
In the context of a synergy cube, I would consider it a failure as a designer if my synergy decks couldn’t hang with the good stuff decks. How do we make sure our archetypes are at the right power level?
- Most powerful cards: Your synergy cards are at the top of your power band (more on this later). You first pick an exciting build around and draft a deck around it.
-> -> - Good cards with hooks (video): If you have a critical mass of generically good cards with synergy potential, you open the door to being naturally led into an archetype. Take this start for example:
-> -> With a start like that, you have several ways to go. Blink? Tokens? Artifacts? Maybe a mix of all!
These two approaches can cohabit inside the same environment and the cards available to each archetype will probably guide you towards one or the other. On this topic, landofmordor posted an article on Lucky Paper Radio and makes the important observation that the higher your power level, the less card options you have at your disposal. Which means less nobs to tune as a cube designer.
While it’s important to consider the top echelons of power, you cannot neglect the bottom ones. Inscho makes a good point here:
Payoff Traps
(https://desolatelighthouse.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/azami-lady-of-scrolls-one-card-a-day/ japahn)
I’d also like to discuss a post made by japahn a while back since it touches on power level. There are traps to avoid when selecting your payoffs and japahn nicely sums it up with examples if you want to check it out.
1. The payoff is good in any deck, and only slightly better in the archetype.
2. The payoff only rewards a small subset of the cards intended for the archetype.
3. The payoff’s reward is not useful for the archetype.
4. The payoff is not strong enough to justify drafting the archetype.
5. The payoff is not strong enough even in a deck of the archetype.
The concepts of power level (strong or weak) as well as applicability (broad or narrow) surface in this discussion. Narrow and weak seems like the absolute worse combination as no one will want the cards, not even the people drafting the right deck!
There are some areas that I struggle with in this theory though. Let’s look at some artifact payoffs.
In my mind, these are rewards, not reasons for being in the artifact deck. As such, I would say they fail point #4 (strong enough to pull you into the archetype). Arguably, they also fail #2 (reward a small subset of the archetype) as not all artifact decks flood the board, care about the graveyard or grindy value. And yet, I frequently see them in cubes (my own included), and I think they have their place in small quantities.
I’ve heard the reward/reason terminology when discussing gold cards as well. Some designers only swear by cards that are pulls (reason) into a guild and some are ok with cards that reward you for finding the open lane. It’s the same idea, but I would be wary of multicolored archetypes payoffs that are rewards as that makes them doubly narrow!
Slot efficiency
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/slot-efficiency.3750/#post-126698 Erik Twice)
Cube slots are finite and there are often way more cards you want to include than possible. Erik makes a case for choosing high impact payoffs, that fit the archetypes game plan and warns:
A card can be good, but it might not be right for your cube goals. I think the idea is to be deliberate in your choices while building your cube. Know why you are adding a card and try and check if it falls above or below your power level compared to your archetype defining cards.
I’d like to expand the concept to other aspects of a cube as well. Removal and fixing can absolutely be used to increase slot efficiency.
Banishing Light is a basic removal spell. It removes a thing for 3 mana, but other than being an enchantment for Constellation, it doesn’t further any synergistic goals. Instead, you could look at these alternatives:
You lose the elegance and simplicity of the original, but you gain relevant keywords for your archetypes. This is crucial in my experience because of how tight space can be in synergistic decks. With your payoffs, enablers, and glue cards it’s sometimes hard to squeeze in interaction. But if your interaction happens to be part of the deck’s engine, then you are really firing on all cylinders.
I think it’s important that your synergy interaction also be playable in good stuff decks too. That way, all your decks are functional, but you’ve turned a nob to give certain archetypes a boost compared to a more generic deck, further incentivizing players to go for the decks you designed for.
Big games vs small games (https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/mordors-cube-the-ship-of-theseus.3180/page-3#post-116425 landofmordor)
Speaking of interaction, Sam Black introduced us to the concept of big games vs small games. Big games tend to have more resources, while small games have less to work with. Landofmordor does a fantastic job of illustrating how to favor the type of gameplay that you want.
For our purposes, synergy-based cubes tend to naturally want bigger games to allow players to gather a critical mass of resources to assemble an engine. This means that you should be very careful with the density and type of removal you chose to include. Too much and your archetypes never take off, too little and then your players will feel a lack of agency in interacting with their opponent. Playtesting and getting player feedback is the best way to find the right balance for the gameplay you want.
This doesn’t exclude some archetypes from wanting small games. Safra, inscho and myself are all pursuing some elements of mana denial in our cubes, naturally hostile to big games. This can be a fun dynamic, but a difficult one to balance. If your tempo or mana denial decks have too much interaction or their threats are too powerful, your engine-based decks have no chance. I wrote a post explaining my strategy to balance both types of games inside a single cube, check it out here if that is of interest to you.
Archetype shapes
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetype-shapes.2022/ and https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/archetype-shapes.2022/#post-82823 japahn)
When designing an archetype, you must choose how broad you want it to be. This can range from a single color, a guild pair or across all 5 colors. Japahn does a breakdown of the pros and cons of each shape and how to effectively incorporate them into cubes.
My personal preference concerning archetypes are broad themes spanning as many colors as possible, with each bringing their unique spin on a theme. This allows for creativity, overlap and replayability. Dbs makes a case for broad archetypes here.
Regardless of how you decide to design your archetypes, some things are universal:
- The importance of cross archetype support (glue cards). They help your drafters combine or navigate between themes. They keep the draft dynamic as your evaluation of certain cards can change depending on what you have in your pool.
- Mana fixing is a tool you can use to navigate your drafters into the types of archetypes you’ve designed. Abundant fixing with broad themes will naturally lead people to splash for the best cards of that archetype regardless of its color. On opposite end of the spectrum, limited fixing with pair archetypes will force your drafters to stay in their lane.
Glue cards
One of the keys to successfully building a dynamic draft experience for your drafters is the presence of relevant glue cards. These are generically playable cards that tie your themes together and allow you to transition from one archetype to another or even better, combine them.
It’s a Human, it has an ETB, it makes a Golem artifact token, it has 3 or less power and mana value, … Fill your cube with enough of these (at whatever power level is right) and you build a web of potential synergies for your archetypes. If you want a list of glue cards favored in this forum, check out this thread.
While not exactly glue cards (though they can be), dbs suggests running “do nothing cards” that cycle or make a bit of mana and have relevant card types or count as a spell being cast. These cards are often critical in supporting some archetypes, especially those that care about spell velocity.
This is just a colorless cantrip right? Technically yes. It fixes your mana and gives colors without cheap card selection ways to smooth their draws. But it also works with Goblin Engineer to create a small engine. You can sacrifice it to Deadly Dispute, turning a drawback into an advantage. And so on.
Power band
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/spell-velocity-themes.3479/#post-110842 Grillo_Parlante)
Grillo point’s out the difference between a synergy cube (decks not cards) and a power max cube (cards not decks):
If your format is bomb oriented, then the decks become about finding the best shell for that card since it will end the game. Synergy decks on the other hand, have a tighter power band with cards that struggle to win on their own. This constraint forces you to build an engine that is greater than the sum of its parts.
There are some interesting cards that are power outliers (bombs even sometimes), but don’t necessarily win the game the way Opposition does. Imagine this at higher power levels:
This suggests an UG go wide theme (with artifacts) similar to Grillo’s example and these cards do it in a decks not cards way. Enter Urza, Lord High Artificer, a bomb that can win games. It fits perfectly into our UG theme, except it would push the deck more towards cards not deck. So maybe the concept is a bit more muddled than it appears at first glance. The takeaway is to be conscious of your power outliers to make sure your synergy decks aren’t negated by one card win conditions.
I still think there is value in having power outliers in your cube. They make for exciting moments in both draft and gameplay and give your deck a direction.
Parasitism
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/thread...alls-of-parasitic-archetypes.3249/#post-96661 Onderzeeboot, with Lady Lynn providing a 7th point)
You generally want the cards that compose your themes to have some amount of overlap so that your players’ experience is dynamic and stays interesting throughout the draft portion. Onderzeeboot uses Storm as an example and lays out some advice to reduce and minimize parasitism by increasing the cross-appeal of the cards needed for the archetype to function:
- are more versatile
- have a better place on the mana curve
- build bridges
- affect the board
- are self-contained payoffs
- are less demanding payoffs with a higher fail state
- require less colored mana to be cast
Agency
(Part 1: http://cubecobra.com/content/article/6090e6e2a92ae8104cffc78f
Part 2: http://cubecobra.com/content/article/609dcaf8028ce9104b067ac3 japahn)
Japahn wrote a couple of articles on CubeCobra about Agency. He wrote about the concept, individual cards, player dimensions and finishes with recommendations.
It’s a good read, even if the prospect of combing through your cube with all the recommendations is a little daunting. I’ll just add that since the articles were written, the concept of big games and small games has emerged which could be a more detailed way to view japahn’s “Run an appropriate amount of removal” point.
Overdesign
(https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/embrace-the-chaos-cube-occasionals.3134/ japahn)
This post advocates for letting your drafters express their creativity through your cube, rather than you imposing your vision on them. This can be done by increasing variance in your cube while maintaining your macro and micro archetypes balanced.
They then list a series of ways to combat this overdesign:
- Broad themes
- Increasing cube size
- Supporting micro archetypes
- Implementing cube occasionals
Design philosophies
I'll finish on some examples of how some designers proceed. This too can be fleshed out if you have links!
Inscho, Mad Prophet, Banana25.
I am sorry if I left out a comment of yours that you think should be here. Some cool posts I wasn't able to fit in.
Bosses vs leaders (Taamas)
How to port constructed decks to a cube environment (TrainmasterGT)
Chasing the “Artifact Deck” (dbs)
There are a lot more topics relevant to cube design, but this is what stood out to me for now. I haven't talked about complexity, archetype speed and a lot of other topics so please add your own information to make this a more comprehensive ressource!
