The Heritage Cube (Cube: Legacy)

[Onderzeeboot]

I now officially have a second new main cube!

Link
Visual spoiler
Table view
Draft

Quick Stats:
402 cards (and growing, goal is 450)
"Unpowered"
"Peasant"
Legacy style (permanent upgrades change the cards)
Custom Cards (changes to existing cards)

Cube: Legacy
Inspired by a post on the CubeCobra Discord channel by omnizchech (you can view their cube here), I designed a cube that's made to be changed. In a nutshell, it started out as a Peasant cube, but cards get permanently upgraded through "Mod" cards. There's three ways to get these Mod cards.

1. After the draft portion, there's an additional snake draft where each player picks up two Mod cards (meaning the players pick cards in pick order, then pick a second card in reversed order, i.e. 8th and 9th pick are made by the same player, as are 1st and 16th pick). I put a number of Mod cards in this draft equal to the number of players +2, so the last pick still has a choice.
2. During the draft, there are "Quest" cards in the middle of the table, with an objective and a hint at the reward. When a Quest objective is met by any player, play is halted, and the reward is revealed, which might involve additional Mod cards.
3. When a player wins the draft, they get to work with me to design a Champion card, which allows them to rename and alter a card in their card pool in creative a way that ignores the standard Mods.

A deeper look at Mod cards
As I said, Mods are permanent, and a single card may be modded up to two times. That means one player can modify a card in one draft, and then another player can modify the same card a second time in another draft. Or a player could use both of their mods on the same card and just make it a lot stronger in one fell swoop! There are even super strong "double mods" that count as two mods on their own!

Mod cards have a few distinguishing features that let players know what cards that Mod can apply to, and what it does.

• Type line: The type line dictates what card the Mod applies to, including color and card type. If a Mod has a color requirement, the modified card must have at least one of those colors in its color identity, or it must have a colorless color identity. (There's a corner rule that uses the Basic supertype of Mod cards, in case the last player can't apply the remaining mods to any their cards.)
• Border color: The border color helps to quickly identify which Mods have a color requirement. The colors always match the typeline.
• Rules text: The main part of the Mod card, that describes what rules text gets added to the Mod modifies a card. These additions are written in normal text. Some mods will stipulate additional limitations, change something about the card other than adding rules text or abilities, or give an example to clarify. These are put in italics.
• P/T box: Mods that alter the power and toughness of a creature indicate the change in the P/T box.

Let's look at some examples.

Spoiler

As we can see, the Lifelink Mod card can be applied to any creature that has at least white or black in its casting cost (or that has a colorless casting cost!), and it simply grants the lifelink ability. The Shields Up! Mod card is similar, but can be applied to any creature, regardless of color, and instead of adding a keyword, it increases the toughness of the modified creature by +1. Conversely, the Once More with Feeling Mod can only be applied to instant and sorcery cards. Like Shields Up!, it doesn't care about the color of the card you want to modify. It is a Double Mod, though, so it can be applied only to unmodded cards, and cards modified by Once More with Feeling can not be altered any further. It also increases the casting costs of the modified card. Note that a card that changes the cost of a card, changes all casting costs, so a card with flashback, for example, has both its casting cost and its flashback cost changed, but other costs, like actived abilities, are not changed! Mods that reduce costs, on the other hand, reduce all costs.

Proxying modded Cards
To visually distinguish modded cards, I print proxies (between sessions) with a few subtle changes.

• There are one (if modded once) or two (if modded twice) stars in front of the name.
• The rarity is ugpraded to rare (if modded once) or mythic (if modded twice).
• The art is flipped horizontally.

Let's look at a card that was changed by both the Lifelink and the Shields Up! Mod cards to show how this looks.

Spoiler

Since the original obviously adds all of Kor Aeronaut's keywords to the target creature when it is kicked, the executive decision was made to also add lifelink to the abilities the kicker ability grants Since the Kor Aeronaut was modified by two Mods it has two stars in front of its name, and a mythic set symbol. Like all modified cards, its artwork is flipped compared to the original. Of course it takes a bit of work to actually make proxies of all the card changed after the draft portion, so during the draft we just use paper slips or mini post-it notes.

Quest cards
During the draft, there are a number of Quest cards in the middle of the table. Each of these cards has an objective, a challenge for the players. Play is halted for all players as soon as one of the players meets the objective, at which point the quest reward is announced. Once completed, the quest is done and removed from the table, it can't be completed again. Let's look at two examples that were completed in the second draft.

Spoiler

First, a simple one. The Pipped Again quest required any one of the players to get two permanents into play with two or more identical mana symbols in each of the mana costs, but they had to be different mana symbols between the two cards. I completed the quest by having an Eternal Witness and a Kitchen Finks on the battlefield. While the (other) players didn't know exactly what upgrade their bouncelands would get, this quest shows that you can do a simple reward with (near) immediate impact without too much fuss.



Of course, it's also fun to sometimes cause a lot of fuss on purpose in the middle of a game. Meet Build Your Own Helix, which led to some very good cards. After casting two multicolor spells in the same turn, all players got to draft one Mod that basically required them to create a multicolor spell out of one of their instants and sorceries, by adding the effect of a selection of one mana spell effects to a card that wasn't that color.

In conclusion
Running a cube like this is an absolute blast. I got two drafts in before I created this thread, and it is exactly the right amount of whack. So much so that in time it pretty much has become my main cube. Some ridiculous cards will get created, but those mistakes will only add to the excitement. And even though you can't predict what Mods will be available, it still feels like you're in charge because you get to choose what card the boost gets applied to (well, usually). It takes a lot of time to build a Legacy Cube, but I can highly recommend it!

 

[japahn]

Really cool idea! Deathtouch Icatian Javelineers are just mean.

I love a lot of things here: the quests seem really fun to complete! Also the mods being tied to colors stops the crazy color bleeds I saw in a similar cube.

When do you draft the quests? Or are they global? Do you know what the quests are before you draft the deck? At what point are the rewards revealed?

I imagine after a number of drafts, complexity creep settles in, since cards can only get more complex. You also get power creep and a shift towards midrange. Might want to create some mods geared towards aggro to deal with that.

I also miss a card retirement system, which is a core part of legacy games.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Really cool idea! Deathtouch Icatian Javelineers are just mean.

I did forget to add the cost to the activation as well, as I decided cost affecting mods affect all cost, but didn't update this particular pack. Updated the example above for full clarity

I love a lot of things here: the quests seem really fun to complete! Also the mods being tied to colors stops the crazy color bleeds I saw in a similar cube.

When do you draft the quests? Or are they global? Do you know what the quests are before you draft the deck? At what point are the rewards revealed?

Quests are global, and I made it so the reward also affects everyone. When there's a reward that requires a mini draft, the person triggering the reward does automatically get first pick though. For the first draft I kept the quests secret before the draft, but I kept the same quests up (or at least the ones that weren't completed in the first draft) so everybody knew what to aim for. This led one of the players to try and draft a five color deck, and he actually won with it

I imagine after a number of drafts, complexity creep settles in, since cards can only get more complex. You also get power creep and a shift towards midrange. Might want to create some mods geared towards aggro to deal with that.

Cards are certainly going to be more complex, though I made sure to include a lot of very basic mods. Stuff that only adds an evergreen keyword, or power slash toughness. I don't know that it automatically leads to a shift towards midrange though

I also miss a card retirement system, which is a core part of legacy games.

So far I haven't put a card retirement system in place, since these were only the first two drafts, but I am already aware that I will be needing one. I mean...



These are beautifully epic, but probably not healthy in the long run, and Snuff Out isn't even fully upgraded yet! You bet I'm considering my options. Right now I'm thinking about including quest rewards that let you nerf cards or remove them from the cube. But yeah, I'll have to think of something!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This is so cool Onderz! Can we get a list of mods you've created?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This is so cool Onderz! Can we get a list of mods you've created?

Sure! I'll upload them... later. I am diving right back into bed. Ugh... That Dutch tradition where people can buy their own fireworks is really annoying when your neighbors are setting off extremely loud firecrackers about every 30 minutes til nearly 3 o'clock. Always nice to start the year with sleep deprivation!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This is so cool Onderz! Can we get a list of mods you've created?

Okay, I uploaded the core mods. Unfortunately, you can't draft those on CubeCobra. Snake draft is not supported, and it doesn't fill the boosters correctly anyway (you get all duplicates, somehow, regardless of configuration, as if the code can't tell the cards apart). However, you can now view the core mods on CC!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Okay, I uploaded the core mods. Unfortunately, you can't draft those on CubeCobra. Snake draft is not supported, and it doesn't fill the boosters correctly anyway (you get all duplicates, somehow, regardless of configuration, as if the code can't tell the cards apart). However, you can now view the core mods on CC!

Cool! Thank you!

Sure! I'll upload them... later. I am diving right back into bed. Ugh... That Dutch tradition where people can buy their own fireworks is really annoying when your neighbors are setting off extremely loud firecrackers about every 30 minutes til nearly 3 o'clock. Always nice to start the year with sleep deprivation!

Crazy Dutch people lol.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, time to write up a tournament report, since I've run my first two drafts with this beauty! We decided to time the rounds this time around. Last time we drafted my (other) cube, we had a lot of matches going way over time, but we just played them out. It was a lot of fun, but we also ran out of time for a second time, and especially with the legacy concept, I wanted to run two drafts. There's a lot of writing to do, so I'm going to have to split this up over multiple posts (and days), but here's draft 1 in a nutshell.

Seats
1 Martijn (Golgari self-mill)
2 Enne (Dimir splash "Fireball")
3 Siebe (Esper value weenies)
4 Jeroen (Jeskai tempo)
5 Jannes (Simic ramp)
6 Wim (Gruul)
7 Wouter (Orzhov)
8 Gijsbert (Esper or four color?)

Modded Cards
Martijn: Spider Spawning gains convoke at +1 mana; Ovalchase Daredevil gains Fabricate 2 and gets -2/-1.
Enne: Fireball gains jump-start at +1 mana; Snuff Out gains cipher at +3 mana.
Siebe: Man-o'-War gains flying; Kabuto Moth gains vigilance.
Jeroen: Frenzied Goblin gains battle cry and gains "Whenever Frenzied Goblin attacks, the next spell you cast costs less to cast.
Jannes: Cloudfin Raptor gains "Whenever Cloudfin Raptor deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card."; Spitebellows becomes a colorless artifact with casting cost and evoke cost
Wim: Hissing Iguanar gets +0/+1; Scab-Clan Giant gets +1/+0.
Wouter: Kor Aeronauts gets +0/+1; Dismember gains rebound at +2 mana.
Gijsbert: Momentary Blink gains cascade at +1 mana; Syr Konrad, the Grim gains "When Syr Konrad, the Grim enters the battlefield, discard a card" at -1 mana.

In one of my matches against Siebe, I completed Typical Fetch Quest!



I forget who triggered the An End to the Flood quest, but it happened in the second round as well.



Edit (02-2025): The mechanic played a bit poorer than expected, so in a recent update, I changed the ability to:

Scheme (Before you shuffle your deck to start the game, exile this card from your deck. At the beginning of your first main phase, put this into your hand, then put a card from your hand on the bottom of your library.)

This led to some interesting cards.

Martijn: Satyr Wayfinder
Enne: Tempest Owl
Siebe: Flickerwisp
Jeroen: Snapback
Jannes: Experiment One
Wim: Mother Bear
Wouter: Kor Sanctifiers
Gijsbert: Sin Collector

Rounds
Round 1
Martijn vs. Jannes 0-2
Siebe vs. Wouter 1-1
Enne vs. Wim 2-0
Jeroen vs. Gijsbert 2-0

Round 2
Jannes vs. Wouter 2-1
Enne vs. Jeroen 0-2
Martijn vs. Siebe 1-0 (scoop, Siebe had to leave to buy a car)
Wim vs. Gijsbert 0-2

Round 3
Jannes vs. Jeroen 0-2
Gijsbert vs. Enne 1-2
Wouter vs. Wim 2-1
Martijn vs. Siebe 1-0 (I took the bye, but Siebe showed up halfway through the round, so we got to finish our match from round 2!)

Final Standings
1. Jeroen (9 points; WWW)
2. Jannes (6 points; WWL)
3. Enne (6 points; WLW)
4. Wouter (4 points; DLW)
5. Gijsbert (3 points; LWL)
6. Martijn (3 points; LW-)
7. Siebe (1 point; DL-)
8. Wim (0 points; LLL)

Congratulations to Jeroen for taking the first draft down (with a clean sweep even)! As a reward he got to apply the Victor's Spoils mod to one of the cards in his card pool. Electrolyze, henceforth you shall be known as "Izzet Really?"



Join me tomorrow, as I will hopefully have some time to upload a few decklists!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

First up, Jeroen's Jeskai deck. Jeroen went undefeated, not even dropping a game in his three matches.

1. Jeroen (Seat 4, WWW - Jeskai Tempo)

Jeroen's best openings were when he had Frenzied Goblin in hand. He decided he wanted to use both his modds on this previously innocious one drop to turn it into a worthy mythic



Next up is our number 2 of this draft, Jannes. Jannes drafted a solid Simic deck with lots of ramp and card advantage. I stumbled a bit in my games against him, and was severely punished for it, always feeling one (or two (or three)) steps behind.

2. Jannes (Seat 5, WWL - Simic Value)

I didn't take a picture of their mana base.

Jannes spent one of his mods on Cloudfin Raptor, making it a flying Vedalken Heretic. His other mod was wisely spent on a great removal option for Simic decks: Spitebellows! Yep, he turned it into an artifact! Four mana to destroy (practically) any creature is a pretty solid deal in those colors!



The last deck I have for you is Enne's beautiful Grixis pile. Just about Grixis that is, with exactly one red spell.

3. Enne (Seat 2, WLW - Ninja Fireball)

Enne managed to boost two of his removal spells in very significant ways. Of course there's the aforementioned Fireball, but his deck was very well positioned to take maximum advantage of the new Snuff Out! :eek:



And that's a wrap for the first draft. Stay tuned for the filthiest of upgrades when I get to tell you about the second draft!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, time for the second tournament! I thought it was awesome that we had time for a second go on the same day! I immediately got to see some of the interactions between drafts in action, great learning moment, but more on that later

Seats
1 Jeroen (Grixis tempo)
2 Jannes (Golgari self-mill/ramp)
3 Enne (Mono Red Aggro-Control!)
4 Gijsbert (Dimir Control)
5 Wouter (5-Color Good Stuff)
6 Martijn (Orzhov Aggro)
7 Siebe (Dimir Ninjas)
8 Wim (Rakdos)

Modded Cards
Gijsbert (p1; p16): Top-Deck Mode (Dismember gets cascade, remember it already had rebound); Mindless Rage (Moriok Replica gains "When ~ enters the battlefield, discard a card", has its casting cost reduced to , and its activation cost to ).
Wim (p2; p15): Deathtouch (Oval-Chase Daredevil gains deathtouch, remember it already was changed into 2/1 with fabricate 2); Endless Reflections (Murderous Cut gains cipher at +3 mana).
Enne (p3; p14): First Strike (Goblin Wardriver gains first strike); Toughen Up! (Consulate Skygate).
Martijn (p4; p13): Cheap Knock-Off (Audacious Thief gets -1/-0 and costs 1 less); Toughen Up! (Audacious Thief also gets +0/+1).
Siebe (p5; p12): Déja-Vu (Snapback gains jump-start at +1 mana for both its casting cost and its alternate casting cost); Stand Aside! (Recoil gains "Detain target creature").
Jannes (p6; p11): Flash (Siege Wurm gains flash); All Out of Bubble Gum (Experiment One gets +1/+1 and gains trample at +1 mana to both its casting cost cost and it's activated ability).
Jeroen (p7; p10): Explore (Doomed Dissenter gets -1/-0 and gains "When ~ enters the battlefield, it explores"; Rebound (Izzet Really? gains rebound at +2 mana).
Wouter (p8; p9): Power Up! (Faerie Seer gets +1/+0); Power Up! (Faerie Seer gets an additional +1/+0).

Wouter convinces Enne, who was getting slaughtered, to suffer a while longer and not scoop, and completes both the Go for Gold and the Free Real Estate quests in a single game!



The Go for Gold pack contains 10 cards that add one of the basic keywords found in the core mods to a card outside of those colors. Lifelink, for example, is a core mod that can be applied to white or black cards. Conversely, the Lifelink+ card from this quest pack can not be applied to white or black cards, but adds a black/white hybrid mana to the casting cost of the modded card (and +1/+1 and lifelink, obviously). Wouter actually snaps up the Lifelink to make his already 5/5 Scab-Clan Giant a little bit more ridiculous.

Wouter: Scab-Clan Giant gets +1/+1 and gains lifelink, and its casting cost increases by (it already got +1/+0 with an earlier mod).
Siebe: Advanced Stitchwing gets +1/+1 and gains vigilance, and its casting cost and activated ability cost increase by .
Wim: Mogg War Marshal gets +1/+1 and gains flying, and its casting cost and echo cost increase by .
Jannes: Siege Wurm gets +1/+1 and gains menace, and its casting cost increases by {b/w} (it already got flash with an earlier mod).
Enne: Adanto Vanguard gets +1/+1 and gains haste, and its casting cost and activated ability cost increase by .
Gijsbert: Gurmag Angler gets +1/+1 and gains flash, and its casting cost increases by .
Jeroen: Wicked Akuba gets +1/+1 and gains prowess, and its casting cost and activated ability cost increase by .
Martijn: Icatian Javelineers gets +1/+1 and gains deathtouch, and its casting cost and activated ability cost increase by .

Some weird things happened here. I was eyeing deathtouch, but rolled super low, so I was a bit bummed, but no one snagged it up! Until Jeroen, that is. I asked, pretty please, if he would leave it alone as well, which he was kind enough to do There wasn't much else he felt would improve his deck though, so instead of making a card better, he decided to screw up Wicked Akuba. Wim followed a similar strategy. Reasoning his curve was already where he wanted it to be, he just put flying on a sideboard card... with echo I think Wicked Akuba, even though its activated ability now costs 2 mana, might actually be better now, though. As a 3/3 with prowess, it's much more likely to actually connect, and it's now a blue/red card as well, so it can pick up a few additional mods. I swear I will crush Jeroen with our new Wicked Akuba overlord sometime in the future! Likewise, while Mogg War Marshal is now a much worse early drop, it actually is a bit better in the mid to late game, when you can afford to pay the echo. It's not necessarily the prettiest card, but a 2/2 flyer that makes two bodies is still nothing to sneeze at. Anyway, some of the cards definitely got sweet upgrades. Initially I had designed the mods to add one of both colors to the casting cost, but my players quickly convinced me to make it hybrid mana instead. I loved that they cared enough to argue for that, and it's a good change!

On to the other quest!



So, that happened It also happened while two matches were already finished, and the third match was between games, so we... erm... might have some really good early drops in the cube now XD

1 Jeroen: Cloudfin Raptor is now back to its original casting cost of (still with the "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card" line!)
2 Jannes: Leaf Gilder now costs !
3 Enne: Darksteel Sentinel now costs a sweet !
4 Gijsbert: Corridor Monitor now costs (Gijsbert completely forgot about the effect at the start of his next game and mused that he could have chosen a better target )
5 Wouter: Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage now costs !
6 Martijn: Shrine of Loyal Legions now costs to cast and to activate! :eek:
7 Siebe: Think Twice now costs to cast and to flashback!
8 Wim: Hissing Iguanar now costs to cast (and already had +0/+1 from an earlier mod, not a bad two drop!)

Rounds
Round 1
Jeroen vs. Wouter 0-1
Enne vs. Siebe 1-1
Jannes vs. Martijn 0-2
Gijsbert vs. Wim 1-0

I got my revenge against Jannes! My deck was firing on all cylinders in both games, and I added so much pressure to the board so quickly that Jannes wasn't able to keep up. He has some really nasty threats, but they take a bit longer to come online than mine do, and my combat tricks turn good blocks into disastrous ones. Very satisfying to see that a quick aggro deck can work this well in this cube!

At the start of the first tournament we decided to set a round timer of 50 minutes, to make sure we could get two drafts in, and it really paid off here, as three of the four matches went to time! Maybe something to watch, but no one seemed to mind.

Round 2
Wouter vs. Enne 2-0
Martijn vs. Gijsbert 1-2
Jeroen vs. Siebe 2-0
Jannes vs. Wim 1-1

Enne got paired up against Wouter, Siebe paired down against Jeroen. I got to play Gijsbert. In the first game he barely got a foot in the door and I mauled him in short order. In the second game I saw 11 of my 16 lands in the top 20 cards, against a deck with a bunch of card advantage. It never was a game, really. In the third game my draws were again too awkward, and I got buried under card advantage as my deck refused to curve out. Bit of a sad loss, as I definitely felt I had a chance here after the first game. His deck was very good though, and he created the most broken card in the entire cube (hint, it costs 4 mana and 4 life for effectively a 4 for 1).

Round 3
Gijsbert vs. Wouter 1-2
Enne vs. Martijn 0-2
Jeroen vs. Wim 2-0
Siebe vs. Jannes 0-1

I made a mistake in the pairing, because I forgot Enne got paired up. I should have played Jeroen at this point for third place. Oh well, the upside is that I have four decklists for you when I get around to posting those, since both of us won our final match! The match against Enne was very interesting. Syr Konrad, the Grim did work in both games. In the first game Enne built a small army of 1 toughness dorks thanks, in part, to Young Pyromancer. "All" I could do was drop a Shrine of Loyal Legions on turn one, and tick that up for a few turns, while I was staring at double white castings costs with only a single white source of mana in play. The big turnaround came when I was able to cast Syr Konrad on turn five with a single white mana up. Enne tried to Act of Aggression it, but I had the Emerge Unscathed ready to wreck that play, add two extra counters to the Shrine because of rebound, and get in for 5 damage on the next turn. With a bunch of pressure building on my side of the board, Enne decided to force the issue and attack with everything. I gladly sacrificed the Shrine to make eight Myr tokens and block everything. When the dust settled, Enne had lost 10 life to Syr Konrad triggers, but he was able to aim Goblin Arsonist and Touch of the Void to deal with the good knight. Alas, I had some black mana floating to activate it a few times and bin a few creatures.

The second game was much more of a chess game, as Pyrehemia made deploying the right threats a difficult puzzle to navigate. Eventually I landed Syr Konrad again, which was finally a bigger threat than Enne could muster, than but he nicely played around that by activating Pyrohemia in my end step and deploy another creature on his turn. Not before the knight again dealt some damage with his activated ability though. In the end I was able to get Enne to 1 damage, which neutralized Pyrohemia, and meant I could finally start deploying my lower toughness threats. In the end I was able to just eke out the win when Enne tapped out and I got Syndic of Tithes trigger in for the final point. Thrilling match, great play by Enne, sweet interactions. Loved it!

Final Standings
1. Wouter (9 points; WWW)
2. Gijsbert (6 points; WWL)
3. Martijn (6 points; WLW)
4. Jeroen (6 points; LWW)
5. Jannes (4 points; LDW)
6. Enne (1 point; DLL)
7. Siebe (1 point; DLL)
8. Wim (1 points; LDL)

Congratulations to Wouter for taking the second draft down! Wouter got to apply the Victor's Spoils mod to one of the cards in his card pool as well. Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage shall henceforth be known as "Djanello, Freed Historian", a reference to a D&D character of his that got captured in one of my campaigns years and years ago. Very cool!



Join me tomorrow, as I will hopefully have some time to upload the decklists from the second draft!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Alright! Time to put up some decklists in my lunch break! First up, the winning 5-color deck.

1. Wouter (Seat 5, WWW - 5-Color Ramp)

Wow. Wouter managed to pick up 7 of the 10 fetches and a bunch of ramp, and just went ham with the multicolor goodness. He ran a few very good mods, and had a nice collection of card advantage/card quality improving spells as well. There's not a lot of removal in the deck, but it looks like he didn't face any decks capable of pressuring him. Also, new Scab-Clan Giant is a tremendous way to regain lost footing. Oof! The upgraded Terramorphic Expanses were great for Wouter, as they now tap for colorless, and thus not only fix your mana, but also allow you to play them as untapped mana sources in the late game to cast your 7 mana spells on time.

Spoiler

Next up is our number 2 of this draft, Gijsbert. He drafted a sweet UBw control deck, that I unfortunately (for me ) fell victim to in the semis.

2. Gijsbert (Seat 4, WWL - Esper Control)

Let's just show it (again), shall we?

This means I need to change something, because goodness gracious, 4 mana and 4 life for a 4 for 1 is broken! Heck, at six mana it's still absurd! Obviously I took a risk including Dismember, but, well, my players ran away with the card It's okay though, a retiring system is core to the concept of legacy style games, as japahn pointed out, so we'll fix the situation yet The other two customs in Gijsbert's deck look like great additions to the cube for the long term!

Spoiler

I love the new Moriok Replica. Once again Gijsbert snapped up the mod that makes everything cheaper at the cost of discarding a card, and as with Syr Konrad, the Grim, it just fits beautifully with the card. Lovely change! Gurmag Angler too is a nice change, it even stays in delve colors!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Next up is my own deck, a spicy Orzhov aggro deck.

3. Martijn (Seat 6, WLW - Orzhov Aggro)

It's been a while since I ran 16 lands in limited. This deck was capable of very fast starts, building a lot of pressure in the early turns, and navigating combat profitably thanks to a bunch of tricks. Syr Konrad was the perfect 4 drop for this deck! The real secret though was Audacious Thief, which I turned into a fantastic two-drop using both of my mods. Attacking with it (almost) never seemed a problem with all of my combat tricks, and it drew me a bunch of cards over the course of the tournament. Lastly (but first in the pics), I picked up the Flickerwisp that Siebe modded in the first rond, meaning I always had a nice evasive beater in my hand. It synergized well with my deck, not because I had a lot of blink targets (though I had some juicy ones), but because it removes a blocker on turn 3 while adding a threat to the board. Very valuable that.

Spoiler

One more decklist to go, and then I'll go into the lessons learned and planned changes before the next draft. Lunch break's over though, so that'll have to wait until later!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It looks like I forgot to take a picture of Jeroen's deck That's unfortunate, really. He managed to draft his own Izzet Really? and improve it even further!

Not a bad deal for five mana, a steal at four! People are building their own Prophetic Bolts here

All in all I think the day resulted in only three problem cards.

The Faerie is only a 3/1, so people should be able to deal with it, but it's obviously way over the line as far as stats go. In the future, I think I should enforce more limits when people are using the +1/+0 card. I'm going to add a line that the mod can not increase the power of a card past its cmc+1.
Snuff Out presents another problem. Turns out 3 mana removal spells with cipher make for a pretty non-interactive game. It's less bad on Murderous Cut (somehow the black removal spells were popular targets for the mods) because that costs too much initially to double dip on early in the game. Step one is to remove Cipher from the core mod pool. In hindsight it's too repetitive of a mechanic (duh, I know). I'll have to mull on a good replacement, WotC themselves have been struggling to think of fitting keywords for the color pair, so it's no surprise to me that it's a matter of trial and error to find the right one for my cube.
Lastly, Dismember is just straight up broken. The card is waaaaay over the top. It's of course an uncommon that's inherently very powerful, but the problem is exacerbated by the fact that cascade and rebound can be put on the same card. Both are fun mechanics to stick on a card, so I don't want to get rid of them, but I will increase their "mod cost" to 2, i.e. both mods count as two mods when applied to a card. They still count as one pick during the mod draft though.

I'm going to nominate these three cards for the Hall of Fame, and will ask my players if they agree moving them there. If so I will look for replacements!

In addition, the japahns expectation that this cube will be trending toward midrange need attention, if justified. I ran two +1/+0 and two +0/+1 mods, but it might be better to emphasize power over toughness. Introducing more mods that cost two mod slots on a card also provides a bit of design space. It allows me to introduce somewhat more powerful options, which I can also use to increase the power of early game cards.

PS If anybody can think of better reminder text than "Takes up both mod slots", you're welcome to chime in

Last but not least, the Concealed mod came up a few times and was consistently ignored. Cycling wasn't popular either, with nobody even giving it a glance. I believe it's better if I cut both of these for other options, something I am going to think on.

The biggest takeaway of all, though, is that this was an incredibly fun format to both draft and play. It just feels very fun to tinker with your cards, change them up (even in the middle of the game, at times), and see the cards evolve over the course of two drafts. The cube itself looks healthy to me, so far. Multiple of the archetypes I put in were picked up and worked well (or well enough, at least). I ordered a few additional commons and uncommons, so I might tinker around with the unmodded contents of the cube a bit. It'll take a while before I can fire another draft, but these two drafts provided enough food for thought and enough inspiration to keep me busy in the meantime, and they certainly inspired me to not wait too long until the next draft!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Great Post! I think people wanted to make the black removal repeatable because one can never have too much removal!

It looks like all of the custom images got removed from CubeCobra...

I'm surprised no one has put embalm onto anything yet.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Great Post! I think people wanted to make the black removal repeatable because one can never have too much removal!

It looks like all of the custom images got removed from CubeCobra...

I'm surprised no one has put embalm onto anything yet.

Only 18/40 mods are available in any given draft, embalm simply didn’t show up. I’m pretty sure it would have been picked otherwise

Are the images still gone? Because I can see them just fine? I did reupload all of the images as jpegs rather than pngs and changed the img url in CubeCobra to the new images, to save bandwidth and make them load faster. Don’t see how that should matter though on the technical side of things?

Do the images in my previous post in this thread show up? Because those point to the same imgur files.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Only 18/40 mods are available in any given draft, embalm simply didn’t show up. I’m pretty sure it would have been picked otherwise

Are the images still gone? Because I can see them just fine? I did reupload all of the images as jpegs rather than pngs and changed the img url in CubeCobra to the new images, to save bandwidth and make them load faster. Don’t see how that should matter though on the technical side of things?

Do the images in my previous post in this thread show up? Because those point to the same imgur files.

Good to hear about Embalm .

The images are back now, I'm not sure what the issue was before!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

The images are back now, I'm not sure what the issue was before!

They did update CubeCobra to a new version yesterday, and they changed something in the images, so maybe you were just there at an unlucky time?

I asked my players, and so far the consensus seems to be: "keep the broken stuff in, more broken stuff will happen, and we can always remove cards when we get tired of them." I feel like they get the format

 

[InfinityBlack14]

This is a great idea and a wonderful read. May I suggest one?

Add two phyrexian colorless to a spell = whenever an activated ability of this card would produce mana, it produces an additional colorless mana.

I hope to read more updates!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This is a great idea and a wonderful read. May I suggest one?

Add two phyrexian colorless to a spell = whenever an activated ability of this card would produce mana, it produces an additional colorless mana.

I hope to read more updates!

I think that ability unfortunately is too narrow to put in, there's exactly eight cards that this could go on. In theory all the cards get drafted in an 8-man, which guarantees someone can put this on something, but I'ld rather present my players with a more challenging choice of which card to enhance.

I'm actually running another draft next weekend, so there should be an update somewhat soon-ish (i.e., when I have time to upload the results). There are going to be a few new mods (pretty much done) and quests (I still have to figure those out)!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Alright! This cube got drafted for the third time earlier today! Time for some results!

Seats
1. Danny (URb Spells)
2. Daan (WB Hand Aggro)
3. Enne (BG Midrange)
4. Wouter (5C Good Stuff)
5. Martijn ("Mono" Red Aggro-Control)
6. Wim (UG Acidic Slimes)

New Set!
Before we started drafting the mods, it was time to update the cube! I let every player choose one of ten preselected (un)commons from Theros: Beyond Death I picked up on the prerelease. A bit random, but a good way to introduce new cards into the cube, I thought.

1. Martijn: Underworld Rage-Hound replaces Retreat to Valakut.
2. Danny: Naiad of the Hidden Coves replaces Treasure Mage.
3. Wim: Warbriar's Blessing replaces Rootwalla.
4. Wouter: Daybreak Chimera replaces Sergeant-at-Arms.
5. Daan: Thirst for Meaning replaces Fortune's Favor (after I informed Daan that cards with the Victor's Spoils ability are immune to being swapped out, I mean, come on, that was someone's reward for winning! ).
6. Enne: Voracious Typhon replaces Tukatongue Thallid.

The players liked this way of introducing new cards, so I will be doing so going forward. I'm guessing I need to have a few more options when we're with more drafters, and artifacts felt a bit left out (I had two cards of each color), but that's all a matter of tweaking. I'll definititely be revisiting this method for future sets!

Modded Cards (in order of picks)
1. Wouter: Oketra's Attendant gains first strike.
2. Daan: Tormented Soul gets +1/+0.
3. Wim: Shapers of Nature gets -1/-0 at -1 to all costs.
4. Danny: Think Twice gains "manifest the top card of your library" at +1 to all costs (back up to it's normal cost after getting -1 to all costs in a previous draft)
5. Enne: Vault Skirge gains extort.
6. Martijn: Kuldotha Flamefiend gains improvise at +1 cost.
7. Martijn: Syr Carah, the Bold gains menace.
8. Enne: Reaver Drone gains infiltrate (it can't be blocked as long as you control another attacking creature without infiltrate).
9. Danny: Rise from the Tides gains "detain up to one creature".
10. Wim: Pulse of Murasa gains rebound at +2 to all costs.
11. Daan: Corpse Knight gets -2/-1 and gains fabricate 2.
12. Wouter: Savage Twister gains convoke at +1 cost.
Undrafted: On the Lookout (-1/-0 and explores for creature) and Dromoka's Blessing (bolster 1 for instant/sorcery).

Quests
Two quests (out of three) got completed today.
First to complete a quest was Danny, when he got all of his three Vivid land in play during the first round of play. Turns out that was a pretty fitting way to trigger the reward

The second to complete a quest was Wim, when he gathered a mass of creatures.

The reward was a bit more tenuously linked to the quest this time, but a better mana base is a better mana base, right? One of the players asked me if the quests were random, and the answer is actually no! While there are other quests, one of my first priorities was to create a good mana base in this Peasant cube. Expect more wacky effects in the future
The third quest did not get completed. Maybe next time? Yep, it definitely feels like it's only a matter of time for this one!

Rounds
Round 1
Danny vs. Wouter 2-0
Daan vs. Martijn 1-1
Enne vs. Wim 0-1

Round 2
Danny vs. Wim 2-0
Daan vs. Wouter 0-2
Martijn vs. Enne 0-2

Round 3
Danny vs. Enne 2-0
Wouter vs. Martijn 0-2
Wim vs. Daan 0-2

Final Standings
1. Danny (9 points; WWW)
2. Daan (4 points; DLW)
2. Martijn (4 points; DLW)
4. Wim (3 points; WLL)
5. Enne (3 points; LWL)
5. Wouter (3 points; LWL)

Congratulations to Danny for not just rising to the occasion, but getting more points than double that of the number two spots. Somehow everyone more or less kept each other in check, except for Danny, who didn't drop a single game.

I took pictures of Danny's, Daan's and my own decks, and will upload lists later this week. For now, sleep tight everyone

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I promised you decklists, and decklists you will get!

1. Danny (Seat 1, WWW - Grixis Spells)

Danny managed a clean sweep with this deck, choosing to mod Think Twice and Rise from the Tides. Open the spoiler to enjoy all of the modded cards in this deck

Spoiler

I unfortunately haven't played Danny, so I've got no idea how his deck performed, but he told me Think Twice is OP OP now. When Dismember was modded last time, I worried it was too good, but the players seem to wholly embrace this aspect of the cube, so I won't think twice about keeping this new gem in the cube The detain on Rise from the Tides was great as well according to Danny. Because the tokens enter the battlefield tapped, it's actually great to be able to keep their largest creature at bay for a turn while you wait for your army of zombies to come online.

Oh, he also made one of the "meanest" plays this weekend, putting In Bolas's Clutches on an opponent's Shrine of Loyal Legions and cashing it in later for eight tokens. Heck yes

Congratulations Danny, great run, well deserved win!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Next up is Daan's BW Hand deck. Employing a lot of weenies and discard spells, he managed to grind me down in game two to force a draw in the first round. He then lost in two games to Wouter in the second round, before dispatching Enne in as much games in the final round to secure the (shared) number spot.

My camera skills while taking a picture of Daan's deck sucked. Somehow all of them ended up cropped or blurry. Fortunately I was able to (just) make out most of his deck, unfortunately this does not include his mana base.

2. Daan (Seat 2, DLW - BW Hand)

Daan chose to mod Tormented Soul and Corpse Knight. Open the spoiler to enjoy all of the modded cards in this deck

Spoiler

As I mentioned, I went up against Daan in the first round. Everything looked sunny for me after I was able to pretty easily block his board with a first striker and some removal, but the tables turned completely in the second game. He made me discard 4 cards over the course of the first few turns, and while I managed to stabilize, I was at a precarious life total. In one of the earlier turns I opted to take a hit from Okiba-Gang Shinobi with Pyrohemia in play to discourage Daan from playing more threats, but he had Forsake the Worldly instead to force the activation post combat. I think that 3 damage actually was the difference, in the end, between me potentially winning the second game and losing it. Well played sir.

Of course the tactical first round draw meant we were the only two players to dodge Danny's winning deck, and look who ended up in a shared 2nd place!

Thanks for playing Daan, and thanks for the awesome upgrades to Tormented Soul and, especially, Corpse Knight. That card is so cool now!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Last but not least (I mean, I got 2nd place, didn't I ) is my own deck. After drawing against Daan, I lost against Enne in two games (yes, the guy Daan beat in his third round), then won 2-0 against Wouter (yes, the guy Daan lost to in his second round)! I thought it was pretty funny we kept each other in check, then had polar opposite experiences against Enne and Wouter.

2. Martijn (Seat 5, DLW - Muddy Red Control)

Probably the most ambitious splash today (though Wouter ran a true 5-color deck), running Garna, Remember the Fallen and Izzet Really? (the modded Electrolyze), but the mana worked out pretty nicely with just enough fixing to comfortably cast these three cards (all of them are late game jewels anyway). Meanwhile, I still had menacing levels of red to make that Wardriver drop on turn 2 and threaten heaps of damage with Pyrohemia. It definitely took me a while to built the best version of this base red/artifact deck, but the reward in the third game was super sweet. Where Enne outgrinded me with his BG deck, when I faced Wouter it was my turn to outvalue the heck out of my opponent. This archetype is super fun to play, and pretty unique, so I had a lot of fun putting it into action.

For my mods I chose to improve Syr Carah, the Bold (though that menace should have really gone onto Underworld Rage-Hound in hindsight) and Kuldotha Flamefiend. Both aren't that special, though attacking with Carah to proc the ability is now easier, but I had 6th and 7th pick, and an almost monocolored deck, so my pickings were a bit slim. Click on the spoiler tag to view all of the customs in my deck!

Spoiler

I enjoyed myself thoroughly (again), and am already looking forward to the next time we'll draft this beautiful, beautiful piece of nonsense

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I played two 4 player Rochester drafts yesterday with this old beauty, and I may have created one of the most heinous cards in the cube...



Then again, this is exactly what this cube is about! Turning commons and uncommons into broken shit!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

We did a podcast episode about Heritage!

Cube Engineers Episode 6: Heritage Cubes: Cube as a Legacy Board Game with Onderzeeboot

In this episode, I journey to the Netherlands to meet with the legendary Cube designer @Onderzeeboot and discuss one of the coolest Cubes around: Heritage! Heritage: a Sticker Cube combines classic Magic gameplay with elements from Legacy board games like Risk: Legacy and Gloomhaven. Learn all about how Heritage was designed, and how to build your own Legacy Cubes at home!