This 2-part article aims to discuss a handful of these lesser-known cards to help cube designers become informed about the existence and use of these buried treasures to use in their cubes.

Preface

Looking over the cards in my cube with some friends and people who haven’t seen my cube, a card piques the interest of nearly everyone looking at the card with interest. “Is that a real card?” “I had no idea that card existed.” The card was Keldon Champion, a somewhat obscure card in the vein of cards like Ball Lightning and Hellspark Elemental. It was fun to see people become enamored with the card since they had never seen the card before. Later that day, when a friend drafted Keldon Champion, he thought that it was a really good card and it was a good feeling to be able to not only share the experience of the card, but that the champ worked well in his deck.

Magic’s a game with a vast amount of history that spans nearly two decades. Some of the cards are going to be lesser-known or even unknown to many and this 2-part article aims to discuss a handful of these lesser-known cards to help cube designers become informed about the existence and use of these buried treasures to use in their cubes. This article will discuss some cards in white, blue and black and the next article will cover some cards in red, green and the miscellaneous sections that encompass lands, artifacts and multicolor cards. Ready to get started?

White

Miraculous Recovery – White has recently been getting the lion’s share of (playable) reanimation spells, with cards like Marshal’s Anthem, Reveillark and Sun Titan, but one of the more overlooked white reanimation cards in cubes is an obscure card from Visions, Miraculous Recovery. White doesn’t have cards that dump cards in the graveyard as easily as Entomb and Oona’s Prowler, but decks using Miraculous Recovery are usually able to get targets in the grave rather easily by just playing magic. Cards like Karmic Guide and Reveillark have never been short for targets as creatures as one of the certainties of cube drafting is that creatures will die pretty often. Makeshift Mannequin, a marquee reanimation spell, is of the few that can be played at instant speed. It’s been used in decks like 5-Color-Control as a means of creating surprise blockers and reusing creatures with “enter the battlefield” triggers, recycling creatures like Mulldrifter and Cloudthresher to draw 2 cards or clear the skies at instant speed (and if the opponent can’t target them, the caster gets a “free” creature!) Miraculous Recovery does this as well, making the returned creature stronger with a +1/+1 counter. There aren’t many effects that target Mannequinned creatures without costing a card (Gelectrode, planeswalkers and things like that aside) so the lack of a mannequin counter isn’t as good as one may think, but it’s still good that the returned creature doesn’t die to a Vines of Vastwood.

Catastrophe – This is the card that I’m surprised isn’t an auto-include in every cube that can allow its inclusion. Someone asked me why Catastrophe is so good and I replied “If you’re behind, it makes sure you don’t lose and if you’re ahead, it makes sure you win.” This obviously isn’t a 100% true statement, as a well-placed topdeck can change the tides of battle to the opponent’s favor. But, for the most part, this adage rings true. While it’s more expensive than either Wrath of God and Armageddon, its flexibility is worth its weight in gold. Armageddons can be sketchy to run in control decks because it goes against one of the goals of control decks – getting to a high amount of mana to cast expensive threats that win the game. Catastrophe not only gives decks like these a Wrath effect, but the “final nail in the coffin” by destroying all lands when something like a Sphinx of Jwar Isle is on the battlefield. It’s useful as a curve-topper in aggro-control and midrange decks as well, which seek to win through quick creatures and sealing victory with an Armageddon after you cast a threat like a Chameleon Colossus or a Thornling.

Scepter of Dominance – cards like Icy Manipulator and Ring of Gix are great in cubes because of their flexibility. Sometimes, they act as a Pacifism with a 1 mana upkeep that can attach itself onto other permanents at no cost (ala Prison Term), neutralizing an early Call of the Herd token and then moving onto neutralizing a dragon later in the game. Other times it can force players into overextending, making mass-removal effects more deadly, punishing threat-light control decks by neutralizing them, or tapping crucial mana sources on their upkeep ala Rishadan Port. Scepter of Dominance does all of these things, at the speed of Ring of Gix but without the echo cost. Its mana cost makes it harder to cast and use than the older artifact versions, but its main uses and flexibility remain intact. In decks like white-based aggro decks, the cheaper mana cost is key and being able to tap opposing threats and lands help neutralize threats and help to stop them from being cast.

Soltari Champion – 3 mana unblockable 2/2s (let’s be honest, you’re not going to block with this guy) aren’t that big of a deal on their own, as white has the Soltari brothers Monk, Priest and Trooper at 2 mana, all of which offer 2 attacking power. Soltari Champion, however, combines the usefulness of anthem effects with being a respectable attacker. A problem with equipment and global pump is that without creatures to enhance, they effectively do nothing until you get another creature. As mentioned prior, a 2/2 unblockable creature for 3 mana isn’t the biggest threat in the world, but it’s a respectable threat, much like Pianna, Nomad Captain, who is essentially an attacking 3/3 for 1WW. These creatures make your attacking aggro hordes stronger, but Soltari Champion has an added edge in that it isn’t typically subjected to creature combat, as it slips through defenders (as well as an easier casting cost,) which is relevant if there’s an opposing dragon or titan on the other side of the field.

Cloudgoat Ranger – Originally, when I saw Cloudgoat Ranger starting to pop into cube lists, I thought that it wasn’t a good card. Sure, it was an all-star in Lorwyn draft and kithkin decks with tons of other kithkin to support it, so how could it be good in cube, where there aren’t nearly as many kithkin for support? As it turns out, I was quite wrong. Cloudgoat Ranger’s strength doesn’t lie in the fact that it gets help from other kithkin but due to the fact that it provides 6 power of creatures for 5 mana. While the Ranger’s ability to use tokens isn’t as strong and is more disruptable than something like Siege-Gang Commander’s, the ability to become a 5/3 flying attacker happens a lot more than one would think and is a nice way to trade with an attacking dragon, while leaving you with 3 1/1s. Cloudgoat Ranger, like Siege-Gang Commander, is equally at home in aggro decks and control decks, the former for its ability to make a lot of power for relatively cheap (and through a single card) and the latter for its ability to act as an army of chump blockers.

Blue

Thieving Magpie – The bird that could is a card that doesn’t really get as much respect in cube lists as it should or a card that’s borderline for cubes. Constant sources of card advantage like Phyrexian Arena and Jace Beleren are heralded for their ability to give its caster more cards to win the game. Thieving Magpie provides this as well by being an evasive creature. While it, like pretty much every creature in the game, is vulnerable to removal and therefore is easier to disrupt, blue’s myriad of countermagic usually ensures that your card advantage machine stays alive. If you don’t mind playing Portal 3 Kingdoms cards, there’s the oft-forgotten Lu Xun, Scholar General, but if you plan on running Lu Xun, you should run Thieving Magpie as well, because even if Magpie’s worse than Lu Xun, Magpie’s still a great blue creature.

Miscalculation – Mana Leak, the amazing counterspell returning in M11, has been a cube staple since the format began, as it essentially is a counterspell for 1U. Unfortunately, while Mana Leak has been in pretty much every cube, Miscalculation’s much less common in cubes. Miscalculation retains much of the same functionality of Mana Leak: punishing players for tapping out (or nearly tapping out) for spells and stopping early spells (since they’re harder to neutralize for control decks) effectively acting as a 1U counterspell. Of course, neither Mana Leak nor Miscalculation help much against a Swords to Plowshares when the opponent has plenty of mana available, but Miscalculation’s cycling helps with that. Miscalculation’s cycling, at its worst, can help its caster dig for needed spells or mana sources. It can also be used to help dig for “hard” counters like Cryptic Command and Mana Drain, as well as other spells that you may need, which is the game-winning play. Maybe you just need a Decree of Pain to clear the board. Maybe you need a burn spell to deal 3 lethal points of damage. Maybe you need to find your Sphinx of Jwar Isle to fly over ground forces and win the game. Miscalculation’s cycling helps with these situations by helping to find these cards.

Willbender – Ben Bleiweiss noted the saying that if Willbender unmorphs, you win the game. Bleiweiss noted that it’s not far from the truth and in cube, that’s pretty true as well. Willbendering a Mind Twist to its caster or making it so that you draw 3 cards from an Ancestral Recall is just insane, but Willbender has many other uses, all of which are typically gamechanging. If the opponent knows that you have a Willbender in your deck, suddenly the morph must be dealt with before casting targeted spells of any type, acting as a 1U on-board counterspell, whether the morph is actually Willbender or not. He can’t stop Wraths or Geddons, but he stops many other things, turning 1-for-1s into 2-for-0s. Flametongue Kavu my guy? Nah, he’ll kill himself. Mindslaver me? Take control of your own turn. His ½ body is hardly amazing either, but it’s something that can carry equipment or chump-block if need be.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner – Some of the best finishers in cube are that way because they have shroud as a way to defend themselves from spot removal. Spot removal tends to help to get rid of troublesome creatures and shroud gets around that. Kira occasionally pops up in decks to success, like Mike Flores noted in 2009’s Extended format and Alex Bertoncini used in his 2nd place Legacy Merfolk deck in the St. Louis 10 Legacy Event. So what makes it so useful? Kira not only gives itself a rather odd form of shroud, but gives it to all of your creatures. As mentioned earlier, there aren’t many cards that can break Kira’s shield without costing its caster a card, making spot removal less effective. However, there’s a more subtle effect with Kira. It’s absolutely amazing with counterspells, which I’ll illustrate with a story. I was playing a UG tempo-based deck and my opponent was playing a BU control deck. I had a Kira out, protecting some creatures and he needed my Kira to die. At the end of my turn, he cast Gifts Ungiven – finding a Slaughter Pact, a Snuff Out and a couple of other insignificant spells. Since I had countermagic in hand, I let him keep the spot removal. He cast Slaughter Pact to break the shield and attempted a Snuff Out, which I countered with a Plaxmanta. Kira allows plays like this which allow counterspells to be even more effective than they are, which is quite impressive since counterspells are extremely good anyway. Such as…

Desertion – Much like how cards like Smash to Smitherens and Keldon Champion encompass red’s traits well by combining two of the color’s themes efficiently, Desertion does the same with blue, as blue loves to counter things and steal things. Desertion can’t steal creatures on the battlefield, but it can steal ones that are cast. Similarly to Draining Whelk, this gives you a threat in addition to neutralizing an opponent’s threat, but typically, getting the creature is better than its respective worth in +1/+1 counters – creatures like Tarmogoyf are obviously “worth more” than 2 mana, but most of the creatures in cube are exceptionally efficient for their mana cost. Although Desertion doesn’t get much benefit from countering things like planeswalkers, the reduced mana cost from Draining Whelk, as well as the ability to get the better end of the deal on countering creatures (and artifacts – stealing a Mindslaver is insane as well) more than makes up for the Whelk’s universal +1/+1 counter ability.

Black

Duress – Too many times I’ve seen Duress not included in cubes, because of a perceived lack of targets. This can’t be further from the truth as Duress is able to nab a Rolling Thunder, Capsize or Opaline Bracers in common cubes and planeswalkers, Wrath effects and power 9 from powered cubes. Duress is disruption at its cheapest and has been used in many formats for its ability to get rid of annoying cards and in cubes, Duress’ disruptive capabilities remain intact and amazing.

Graveborn Muse – Phyrexian Arena has rightfully earned its place in cube lists as an efficient card draw engine, allowing you to trade life for cards, ranging in decks from suicide black aggro decks to black-based control decks. Graveborn Muse adds an extra mana to its cost to become a 3/3. A 4 mana 3/3 isn’t the biggest threat in the world (and, unlike Phyrexian Arena, can be bolted) but the cards drawn supplement the threat provided by Graveborn Muse and support rest of your board position and hand. In other words, while the Muse itself as a 4 mana 3/3 isn’t striking fear into the hearts of men, its meager body is bolstered by the card advantage that it creates. Its ability to interact with other zombies is somewhat useful as well, as there are a few good zombies for cubes, such as Carnophage, Sarcomancy, Wretched Anurid, Blind Creeper, Stillmoon Cavalier, Undead Gladiator and Grave Titan (through the zombies it creates through its trigger) – not counting zombies in other colors like Putrid Leech, Tidehollow Sculler and Thraximundar.

Yawgmoth’s Will – Yawgmoth’s Will is a card that I’ve frequently seen misevaluated in cube due to incorrectly transferring context. Yawgmoth’s Will claim to fame as of late is to enable lethal storm counts by recycling cheap cards and rituals from the grave, letting the caster win with a lethal Tendrils of Agony. Thus, Yawgmoth’s Will gets misevaluated when designers and drafters think that the card is bad because plays like this are not possible in the cube. While this statement has truth – you can’t kill someone with a lethal storm spell in cube, there are still many uses for Yawg Win. By essentially giving everything (including lands) flashback, Yawgmoth’s Will can help its caster to go from a losing board state to a favorable one, recycling fetchlands, tutors, planeswalkers and other cards to create a tidal wave of card advantage. Even a Yawgmoth’s Will that merely returns a manland, Vampiric Tutor and an Edict can result in a win by the created card advantage. While one may think “But if I just bring back a Terror, it’s a 5 mana terror and that’s bad”, Yawgmoth’s Will is analogous to an X-spell because while it CAN be used early in the game, its optimal use is later in the game when you can “flashback” more cards. There are times that the suboptimal play of a “5 mana Terror” may be the correct one, it’s similar to using a Banefire to kill a Dark Confidant. It’s neither a very flashy play nor the intended of Banefire when included, it can be the right play and a good use of the card for that time. Yawgmoth’s Will is similar in terms of scalability.

Braids, Cabal Minion – Braids is a card that is probably familiar to many, as she is one of the more evil generals in EDH history, earning herself a ban on being a general. Much like another banned EDH general, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (who will be discussed later) – her ability to be used as a general isn’t the reason why she’s the best black 4 drop in the cube (yep, really.) Braids is a disruption machine and, much like other disruptive powerhouses like Smokestack and Tangle Wire, your opponent is affected by the symmetrical effect first. Much like the aforementioned artifacts, she can absolutely demolish control decks which rely on high casting cost threats, as Braids will force the control player will to sacrifice lands when there’s nothing else to sacrifice. The deck with Braids, however, either doesn’t care about losing lands because it has a low curve, has plenty of cheap creatures to sacrifice or has cards like Squee, Goblin Nabob, Bloodghast, creatures with echo and token generators to feed to Braids, by exploiting her symmetrical nature. She can easily steal a game that the caster had no business winning by keeping the opponent out of Phase 2 and 3 and thus, is an extremely good cube card.

Yawgmoth’s Bargain – Gaming magazine Inquest said that Necropotence was the worst card in Ice Age when the card came out. Many people thought similarly. After all, not only do you skip your draw, but you have to pay life to draw cards, how horrible! This was, of course, before the infamous “Black Summer” of 1996, when Necropotence decks ravaged the Standard (Type 2) metagame. One of the “monkey touching the monolith” moments in a magic player’s development is when the player realizes that life is a resource to be utilized and Necropotence was an engine that fueled life into cards (and winning.) Yawgmoth’s Bargain does just that in cube. Cubes don’t have the massive Drain Lifes that powered Necropotence decks have, as lifegain in cube cubes in small chunks, from Vampire Nighthawk and Sorin Markov and creatures equipped with lifelink-bestowing equipment. Its strength comes from refilling its caster’s hand again and again at the cost of a resource that the caster didn’t care about in the first place. You’ve probably seen first-hand how amazing a card like Wheel of Fortune due to its ability to turn an empty hand into a full one. Imagine being able to do this again, once that hand is out of cards. And again. Therefore, it’s better utilized in aggro decks that can go through the drawn cards quickly. Many decks that will find excellent use out of Bargain serve as enchantment removal to remove the bargain such as Warpriest of Thune, Kor Skyfisher, Indrik Stomphowler, and in those decks, it’s even better.

Conclusion

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this look at some of the more obscure and lesser-known cards in the cube format. Part of the fun of cube design is discovering excellent new cards that you and those who play your cube have never seen before or may have only heard about in writing. I’ve personally used these cards to great success, using these cards to tweak the strengths and weaknesses of each of the cube’s various sections. These cards, as well as the cards that I’ll cover in the next article, will help to give you additional tools to make your cube a balanced, powerful and fun environment to draft, which essentially, is what cube drafting is all about.

Cheers and happy cubing!

- Usman Jamil

Removal of the Signets / Karoos - Still in place! I can safely say I’m much happier with my cube now that these are gone. I don’t miss them and I feel they better define what Green is/does and keeps midrange/control in check (ie Aggro decks still have a chance!)

Lessen Shards Influence – Not missed a bit. Cards that are difficult to cast are hard to enjoy.

Redefine Black – Seems to have worked! B/R Aggro has shown up many times since the last update, and B/U Control now has a few more ways to win the game. This is nice.

The cube for this update has grown another 35 Cards for a total of 602 Cards in the cube. NOTE: This list was updated on 7/21/10 to replace Propaganda with Spreading Seas, Ondu Giant switched with Terastodon and Beastbreaker of Bala Ged with Avenger of Zendikar.

Ready to see my goals for my next update along with Rise of the Eldrazi additions? Let’s go!

ROE Update Goals

#1 – Continue Existing Themes

Essentially I’m happy where the colors are at this point. While I feel that there is definitely room for improvement in a variety of small areas (the amount of 1-drops in White, just to think out loud), I’m very happy with the mix of decks and strategies that have emerged in recent drafts. No color, sans Blue, seems completely overpowered. With that said…

#2 – Lessen Blue Control

This is mainly done through a few methods: Stronger mana denial (ie Land Destruction), better Discard, and better aggro. Aggro being pretty good in Green and Red, the colors I wanted to punish Blue the most, and I pushed quite a bit in regards to Land Destruction (Choking Sands, Dust Bowl), and discard (Inquisition of Kozilek, Persecute).

#3 – More Green Fixing, More Colorless Options

For this one I wanted to make sure Green was the color of ramp and fixing, so in go cards like Ondu Giant and Growth Spasm. As for the Colorless options, All is Dust was an obvious (and powerful choice). Trip Noose is very close to Puppet Strings, a card we’ve had success with, and I like giving Mono Red or Mono Black a way to deal with something that has protection from it (Kor Firewalker etc). Even Mono Blue can get some love out of that card. Juggernaut, a monster that hasn’t been in the cube for some time but is due to return.

White

Drops:
None

Adds:
Gideon Jura
Student of Warfare
Transcendent Master
Wall of Omens
Miraculous Recovery

Beyond the four Rise of the Eldrazi powerhouses, Miraculous Recovery enters the cube after much fanfare from other cube enthusiasts. This Zombify bigger, better and at Instant speed(!) is a whooping in a lot of decks and gives white some reach. I like it. The rest seem pretty self-explanatory. Gideon Jura is crazy good, Student of Warfare gives a must-deal-with threat that you can sit back and force them to deal with, Transcendant Master is WAY better in non-constructed formats than constructed, and Wall of Omens is Wall of Blossoms in White. Obvious color shift is obvious.

Blue

Drops:
Old Man of the Sea

Adds:
Deprive
Enclave Cryptologist
Lighthouse Chronologist
Mnemonic Wall
Sea Gate Oracle
Spreading Seas

This update mainly pertains to the Old Man of the Sea not getting there (it’s no Vedalken Shackles), and every single entry from Rise of the Eldrazi made it! The ability to re-use lands like Halimar Depths is No Joke, and even the innocent-looking Lighthouse Chronologist is a threat that must be stopped in a Blue-based control deck. Sea Gate Oracle was a card that looked really iffy when I pre-ordered it, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t even better than expected. Enclave Cryptologist is a one-drop Merfolk Looter, and all that that implies (ie It’s Good). Mnemonic Wall is somewhat annoying for aggro decks, but hey, it’s a 5-drop. Not quite Izzet Chronarch, but also doesn’t require Blue -and- Red mana (and doesn’t return two, yadda yadda)

Lastly I’m not 100% hating on blue as Propaganda shows up, the Ghostly Prison in the ‘wrong’ color, and it gives Blue control decks a way to slow down the onslaught.

Black

Drops:
None

Adds:

Red

Drops:
None

Adds:

Kargan Dragonlord
Lord of Shatterskull Pass
Staggershock
Tuktuk the Explorer
Reckless Charge 

This one sees plenty of Rise of the Eldrazi goodies, like Kargan Dragonlord who wins games by himself (and did so versus me just last week), the awesome Staggershock, and solid beater Lord of Shatterskull Pass along with innocent-looking Tuktuk the Explorer. I’ve had a lot of fun equipping Grafted Wargear onto Tuktuk, I suggest you try it out. Nice 8/7 Legendary Token for three mana, eh?

Reckless Charge is here to give R/x aggro a little boost. It’s a nice trick and fits right in.

Green

Drops:
Omnath, Locus of Mana
Hidden Gibbons

Adds:

Joraga Treespeaker
Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
Awakening Zone
Mire Boa
Vengevine
Growth Spasm
Ondu Giant

ROE Cards that didn’t work: Boar Umbra, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Momentous Fall

For this update we had some real clever additions from Rise I didn’t see coming: First, Joraga Treespeaker (just call her the Lorax – she speaks for the trees!) is awesome! The “Green Sol Ring” as some have dubbed her is worth the time to include. Beastbreaker of Bala Ged was another solid addition, providing beats that must be answered or they will trample you over. Awakening Zone has proven surprisingly powerful, kicking ass as a way to chump block every turn while also powering out expensive spells, while Growth Spasm and Ondu Giant give more ramping and fixing for Green. Lastly Mire Boa gives Green another regenerator -and- a way to hate on Black, while Vengevine…well, is ridiculous, even in cube.

As for the cards that didn’t work out, I would never have guessed Momentous Fall would be bad but…it’s bad. Very bad. If you’re sacrificing a creature with enough power/toughness to make it worth it, then you probably should’ve just kept beating face with it. Boar Umbra originally had Trample on it in R&D. I wish it had stayed there. Lastly Kazandu Tuskcaller is just too slow and fragile. Nice limited bomb in a slow format. Not the cube.

Colorless / Artifact

Drops:

Etched Oracle

Adds:

All is Dust
Pithing Needle
Trip Noose
Smokestack
Juggernaut
Bottle Gnomes

Let’s get this out of the way: Since the loss of Karoos, Signets, and Vivid Lands, I’ve never seen anyone either play or cash-in Etched Oracle. Out!

All of the additions I feel are solid. All is Dust and Pithing Needle solve a lot of problems for decks that have issues with various card types (for example, Red can’t do anything about Survival of the Fittest and Recurring Nightmare without All is Dust or Pithing Needle). Smokestack returns for another round of cube beatings, as I’ve warmed up to that card playing Stax in Legacy. Juggernaut is a card for colors like White and Blue who need a beatstick, Trip Noose is another Puppet Strings / Icy Manipulator-esque card to help control decks slow down fast aggro starts, and Bottle Gnomes is back from a hiatus to show us the meaning of “Slow down, burn deck!”

Multi

Drops:

Shambling Remains

Adds:

Sarkhan the Mad

While B/R Aggro is powerful with Shambling Remains, it’s a hell of a lot more powerful with Sarkhan the Mad. Nuff said.

Lands

Drops:

Dread Statuary

Adds:

Rishadan Port
Dust Bowl
Evolving Wilds
Vesuva
Grand Coliseum
Academy Ruins

For this update I feel like I have a lot of solid lands to play with going forward. Evolving Wilds is functionally Terramorphic Expanse, but this is not a negative, in my opinion. Giving slower mana fixing (ie doesn’t enter untapped) is fine and necessary. Vesuva is a wonderful card that solves many Legendary Land problems (this is basically the Library of Alexandra problem), the same thing that Dust Bowl is here to remedy as well. Grand Coliseum is a card I’m trying out as a ‘fixed’ City of Brass, and Rishadan Port is always welcome in the aggro deck.

Conclusion

So that’s the cube update for Rise of the Eldrazi! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have playtesting these changes week in and week out. Join me in a few months when we see how those M11 Cube Additions hold up.

- Evan

M11 Preorders:

White
Sun Titan
War Priest of Thune

Blue
Aether Adept
Jace’s Ingenuity
Preordain

Black
Dark Tutelage
Liliana’s Specter
Grave Titan

Red
Ember Hauler
Fling
Inferno Titan
Manic Vandal

Green
Cultivate
Fauna Shaman
Mitotic Slime
Obstinate Baloth
Primeval Titan
Sylvan Ranger

Artifacts
Brittle Effigy
Crystal Ball
Sword of Vengeance

Picture of the foils! (note: Sun Titan was the Prerelease foil and is not pictured)

Find out how you can contribute to CubeDrafting.com and get a free month’s subscription to StarCityGames.com Premium just for doing so!

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to seeing your cube articles soon!

On his website about the format, Tom LaPille said this about cube drafting: “Go make a cube, or at least convince someone else to. That cube will enhance your life and the lives of everyone else it touches.” This may be the most true statement about the format by far, as it has been the most fun that I’ve ever had playing Magic: The Gathering. Many articles and webpages like this very site, Cubedrafting.com, Tom LaPille’s site and cube list, various articles on StarCityGames.com and a few articles on MTGsalvation and TCGplayer have been created to enlighten the world about the greatest Magic: The Gathering format that has never been sanctioned: cube drafting.

When people think of cube drafting, they think of cards such as Black Lotus, Balance, Future Sight, Mind Twist, Flametongue Kavu, Tarmogoyf and Desolation Angel and if I had to wager, I’d say about 200 cards or so (most of which are covered in MTGSalvation’s “Official Cube Power Rankings” thread compiled by MTGSalvation forum member Silent Edge) can be considered the primary tier of what should be in a cube. But what about the others? What shouldn’t be in a cube?

This article will help with this oft-neglected aspect of cube design, by helping you discover what should and shouldn’t be in the “2nd tier” of cube cards. Cards like Sorrow’s Path and Dwarven Song are obviously suboptimal cards? Most of the suboptimal cards in peoples’ cubes however, aren’t that obvious. These “2nd tier” cards will comprise the bulk of the colors’ cards and kinds of decks that the colors can create and will ultimately determine how your cube plays and performs as a set.

After all, the goal of cube design isn’t to simply throw a bunch of good cards into a box, shuffle them up and draft them. Your goal as a cube designer to build an extremely powerful, unique, fun and well-balanced Magic: The Gathering set to booster draft, which happens to feature the most powerful cards of all time.

I’ll be referencing my own cube list as well as a commons cube list that my friend, makenfunny, created.

I’ll start with a story from when I drafted with the aforementioned commons cube. His cube had only been drafted about 5 times by me and some other people, so we decided to draft it at a 24-hour restaurant to give my friend some more data.

At some point my wg aggro build got paired against a blue control deck. I couldn’t deal enough damage in “Phase 1” and eventually got Capsize locked out of the game.

Capsize my dude EOT? Again? Sooo fun.

Bored and sitting there with a cup of coffee and with a handful of now useless cards, I pondered how aggro decks performed in his cube and remembered that they’ve not performed well, as control decks like Grixis Control typically ended up doing much better than aggro decks.

This caused me to turn to my friend and ask him “Has anyone ever drafted aggro in this cube and won?” (in terms of a winning record, not just a single game.) I don’t remember his response, but he didn’t disagree with my rather long-worded claim that aggro was weak in his cube. This conversation, along with some good design on his part, has helped aggro become a much better and healthily draftable archetype leading to a more balanced cube “metagame” and a much more fun environment (and in my opinion, become the best commons cube that I’ve seen.)

While aggro can be drafted in cubes that don’t explicitly support it and can win all of their matches, it is much more the exception than the rule. Let’s look at the Magic 2010 limited environment to underscore this point. Despite the inclusion of a few quality common aggro cards in M10 like Nessian Courser, Stormfront Pegasus and Trumpet Blast, aggro strategies are unlikely to succeed in M10 limited for several reasons:

* Firstly, although aggressive creatures and cards exist in the format, there are not nearly enough to provide the archetype with its required critical mass of support.

* Secondly, there are also several common creatures like Horned Turtle and Griffin Sentinel which can stymie the efforts of an aggressive start, giving midrange and aggressive decks time to stabilize and win in Phases 2 and 3.

* Thirdly, there aren’t enough disruptive cards like Molten Rain to punish midrange and control decks, making them lose tempo and preventing them from getting into Phases 2 and 3 of the game that their decks are tailored to thrive in.

* Finally, it is difficult for aggro decks to be able to “seal the deal” and win the game. Reach is hard to come by for M10 decks because there are no common pieces of equipment in M10 and what reach is available is in small amounts through cards like Lava Axe and Lightning Bolt (the latter of which will be picked very early).

Aggro decks rely on consistency, redundancy and efficient use of their mana on each turn to achieve their goal of winning the game as soon as possible. The main crux of this article is to say that while many of the above components are used in cubes, they aren’t used enough and fail to provide the necessary support through the required redundancy.

The first step is to provide aggro decks with a critical mass of cheap and efficient creatures, so that the aggro drafter can consistently deal damage quickly to win.

2-powered 1 drops have been an essential element of aggro decks since Magic’s beginnings, as they are one of the most cost-efficient sources of damage in the game. While cubes that do not support aggro include some of these powerhouse creatures, like Isamaru, Hound of Konda, these cubes do not provide them with enough support through other powerful aggro cards, therefore denying them the required consistency and redundancy to help them succeed.

Unfortunately, many cube designers perceive aggressive creatures like Jackal Pup to be weak for 2 reasons: Firstly, these cards don’t fit into control decks that care about a strong Phases 2 and 3, because drawing a one drop creature on turn 6+ is just useless or at least suboptimal for those decks. (Aggro decks, on the other hand, want to draw as many of those in the early game to keep on the pressure, even if they lose significance as the game progresses.) Secondly, these cube designers do not use these cards because they typically overstate the drawbacks on these cards.

Let’s discuss the first reason by distinguishing the difference between universally playable cards, aggro cards and control cards.

Most cube cards are universally playable in the sense that they can be used in almost any deck of the appropriate color and sometimes are splashed. These are cards like Flametongue Kavu and Magma Jet, cards that are equally at home in aggressive decks and control decks. Due to their flexibility and power, these cards should comprise a majority of a cube’s contents.

Control cards and aggro cards are cards that are mainly played in their corresponding archetypes. Aggro cards include cards like Grafted Wargear and Savannah Lions, whereas control cards include cards like Akroma’s Vengeance and Eternal Dragon. To show how their distinction and use in detail, let’s examine two decks with regards to Goblin Guide, an aggro card in Shards of Alara/M10/Zendikar-era Standard.

The first is the Blue-Red-White control deck that Luis Scott-Vargas used to win the Los Angeles Star City Games 5K event in January, 2010.

Deck
Spells [27]
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Path To Exile
4 Spreading Seas
4 Flashfreeze
2 Jace Beleren
2 Double Negative
2 Divination
3 Ajani Vengeant
2 Earthquake
2 Mind Spring
Creatures [7]
4 Wall Of Denial
3 Sphinx Of Jwar Isle
Lands [26]
4 Island
2 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Sejiri Refuge
Sideboard [15]
4 Baneslayer Angel
3 Luminarch Ascension
2 Mind Control
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Cancel
2 Essence Scatter
2 Negate

Let’s say that someone got a foil Goblin Guide and decided to change LSV’s deck by taking out a card to put in the Goblin Guide (for the sake of argument, we’ll assume that metagames are a non-factor, since cards like Spreading Seas preyed on a format where blue wasn’t played much.) You’d say that no matter what card is removed, using Goblin Guide in LSV’s deck is a bad idea. Why?

Goblin Guide doesn’t fit the themes of LSV’s deck. LSV’s deck uses creatures with shroud, spot and mass removal, mana denial, countermagic and card advantage to win a long game. Goblin Guide clashes with these themes because it adds nothing to any of these themes and clashes with the deck, like putting a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a slice of pizza. Therefore, Goblin Guide is a bad card in this particular deck.

The next deck is a Boros Bushwhacker deck, played by Fabian Lucero to a 1st place finish at the Open Summer 2010 Cash event in Chile:

Deck
Creatures [26]
4 Elite Vanguard
3 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Plated Geopede
3 Ranger of Eos
4 Steppe Lynx
Instant [11]
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
Land [23]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
5 Mountain
5 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
Sideboard: [15]
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Celestial Purge
4 Unstable Footing
3 Slave of Bolas

4 Goblin Guides are played in Lucero’s deck successfully, because it doesn’t clash with the deck’s themes, it supplement them, namely the theme of dealing damage to an opponent with lots of cheap and efficient creatures (as Lucero’s deck not only runs Goblin Guide, but also Steppe Lynx, Elite Vanguard, Plated Geopede, Goblin Bushwhacker and Kor Skyfisher to provide Goblin Guide support).

Looking at both of these decks, we can conclude that just because LSV’s rwu control deck can’t use Goblin Guide effectively, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad card, it’s just not the right card for LSV’s deck. It’s a phenomenal card in Lucero’s rw Boros Bushwhacker deck due to the support that Lucero’s deck provides for the goblin. No matter how efficient a creature like Goblin Guide is, it can’t kill the opponent by itself, barring an extremely bad hand kept by the opponent. Similarly, Lucero’s rw Boros Bushwhacker deck is unable to use Luminarch Ascension effectively because it doesn’t supplement the aggressive themes of Lucero’s deck of killing an opponent ASAP, even if the angels created by the quest are cheap.

Although it may seem self-evident that aggro cards often aren’t very good in control decks and vice versa, the point is that restrictive cards that only fit into aggro or control strategies aren’t necessarily bad, but that they require support through other cards.

Therefore, a cube with Isamaru, Hound of Konda as its only white 1 drop will have a “weaker” Isamaru than a cube that has Isamaru, Student of Warfare, Elite Vanguard, Savannah Lions and Steppe Lynx due to the lack of support. The sole inclusion of Isamaru in a cube doesn’t mean that the cube in question is conducive for white aggro (although it’s a good start) as it lacks the critical mass of support for Isamaru.

Many strong cards have an added drawback (a common one is somehow dealing damage to its owner) to compensate for having a undercosted effect or above average power/toughness. Many cube designers do not use these cards because they typically overstate the significance of the drawbacks on these cards (for example, thinking that Wild Dogs is a bad card because it may defect to an opponent and that Jackal Pup is bad because it damages its controller). This can’t be further from the truth! While creatures like these obviously have drawbacks, their drawbacks in aggro decks are usually not enough to make the cards unworthy of being deemed powerful cards.

Drawback? What Drawback?

For example, in the case of Jackal Pup, for the most part, the only time that you will take damage from a Jackal Pup is when it dies from either a burn spell or combat damage. Taking 2 damage from trading with a Venser, Shaper Savant is an insignificant drawback, especially since the Pup has dealt 4-6 damage to a player on its own. Similarly, cards like Wild Dogs ask the caster to be at a higher life total than an opponent, which a good aggro deck should be doing anyway (and while the opponent can cast a lightning bolt on the dogs’ caster, this scenario is not common and is a scenario that I haven’t personally seen happen).

The overstating the significance of drawbacks is similar to when new cards are revealed and people look for the absolute worst scenario for a card, dismissing a card. Some people dismissed Path to Exile at first because it let your opponent put a land into play and could potentially help an opponent out of land/manascrew. As time has proven, Path to Exile‘s drawback and scenarios when it could result in its caster being blown out proved to be nowhere near as much as people had feared and Path to Exile was given more respect and is rightfully ubiquitous in white decks.

Of course, not all 2/X creatures for 1 mana are worth using, as creatures like Accursed Centaur and Scythe Tiger are creatures with extremely significant and prohibitive drawbacks. After all, I’m not advocating using inferior aggressive cards over good control cards. I’m advocating the opposite.

“What about the other creatures?” After all, 1 drop creatures aren’t the only creatures that aggressive decks use, since that’d make for an abysmal curve. Aggro decks (cube aggro decks being no exception) also rely on efficient aggressive creatures that are 3 mana or less, like Keldon Marauders or Soltari Champion to form the backbone of their creature base, so that they can deal a lot of combat damage to an opponent quickly. We can enable aggro decks to thrive by providing a critical mass of creatures in this mana range.

Each aggro color needs to devote about 1/5th of its total slots to aggressive one and two drop creatures. In other words, if you have 60 cards in each color, and want to support aggro in black, white, red and green (blue, for the most part, doesn’t support aggro well due to the fact that its 1 drop creatures as well as its 2 drop creatures are, for the most part, not very efficient attackers), 12 of the creatures in those colors need to be cost 1 or 2 mana, focusing more on creatures like Bloodghast, than cheap universally playable ones like Knight of Meadowgrain, Mother of Runes and Sakura-Tribe Elder because they’re still very good in aggro decks. Using this critical mass helps aggressive decks achieve their needed support through redundancy to win through creature combat.

For an example of how this applies in a color section, look at Tom LaPille’s white creature section in his posted cube list as of 2007. Tom included many white efficient 2 drop creatures, like Soltari Priest, as well as the best white 1 drop creatures available (Steppe Lynx, Student of Warfare and Elite Vanguard did not exist when he last edited his public cube list) to ensure that aggressive strategies in his cube were viable through providing white aggro decks with the necessary critical mass of early creatures to build their decks.

Further, look at the sample RW cube decklist that Tom LaPille posted on his site as a showcasing of what a cube deck looks like.
Deck

1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
1 Mother of Runes
1 Savannah Lions
1 Jackal Pup
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Grim Lavamancer

1 Silver Knight
1 White Knight
1 Soltari Monk
1 Soltari Priest
1 Whipcorder
1 Goblin Legionnaire

1 Paladin en-Vec

1 Calciderm

1 Firebolt
1 Rift Bolt

1 Incinerate
1 Sudden Shock
1 Lightning Helix
1 Volcanic Hammer
1 Magma Jet
1 Demonfire
1 Fireball
1 Ravages of War
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Plateau
1 Sacred Foundry
1 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Mountain
7 Plains

Note the 6 1-drops and the 6 2-drops in the deck. If Tom didn’t provide a critical mass for early creatures like he and I use in our cubes, decks like these wouldn’t be possible and the draftability of good aggro decks would suffer.

I’ll sum up the critical mass of cheap and efficient creatures discussion using a up with a recent discussion: I was asked a few weeks ago why I’m running a bad card like Jackal Pup if I’m already using the superior Goblin Guide in my cube. The reasons are because Jackal Pup being a cheap and efficient creature with an overstated drawback and that Jackal Pup helps me provide aggro decks with support through a critical mass of cheap efficient creatures. These reasons are why Jackal Pup‘s in my cube and always will be and that a cube that doesn’t use Jackal Pup represents incorrect design.

Disruption

Much like how many cubes will only run creatures like Isamaru, Hound of Konda for aggro creatures, these same cubes will similarly only include cards like Avalanche Riders, Strip Mine, Wasteland and Rishadan Port for mana denial cards as a means of gaining tempo and hosing non-basic lands.

For example, casting a turn 3 Molten Rain without applying any kind of pressure would be much less effective tempo-gaining play than casting a turn 3 Molten Rain with a Wild Dogs and a Tarmogoyf on your side of the battlefield, since not only are you holding back your opponent’s mana development and keeping the opponent in “Phase 1” longer, but you’re also capitalizing on the gained tempo with your creatures. This isn’t a fringe strategy either, the plan of using land denial to gain tempo and to hose non-basic lands has been used in various ways: in sideboards of decks like Boros Bushwhacker by using Goblin Ruinblaster, in Extended Zoo decks such as these that use Molten Rain to deal damage and gain tempo and in Vintage Aggro MUD and Aggro Stax decks use Smokestack and Tangle Wire.

The main thing about disruptive cards like these is that these are cards that make people want to draft aggro. When someone opens cube a pack, for example, they look for the best card or at least something to build around: Recurring Nightmare makes a player want to draft a black reanimation deck or a deck that abuses “enter the battlefield” triggers on creatures, whereas Isamaru, as good as it is, doesn’t make someone necessarily want to draft a white aggro deck.

Disruptive cards like Armageddon, Nether Void, Plow Under and Winter Orb are the kinds of cards that make people want to draft aggro decks, as can be seen by LaPille’s sample rw deck and the white-centered aggro archetype discussions on this site, but as I’ve discussed, cards like these should not be the sole representatives of disruption.

Other means of disruption include discard spells and gaining tempo by destroying artifact based mana accelerants like Moxen, Signets and Sol Ring (although tt is, however, harder to rely on this strategy with regards to tempo since not every deck is going to have a Mox or a Signet, especially if the cube is unpowered). For the most part, these are generally included in pretty decent amounts in many cubes, but I think more need to be used through cards like Duress (which still has plenty of juicy discard targets in a cube and is definitely worthy of inclusion in a cube even if the cube has Thoughtseize.) Creatures with disruptive abilities which that trigger when they enter the battlefield (Viridian Shaman, Kor Sanctifiers, Shriekmaw) tend to stronger due to their inherent card advantage generally be easier inclusions in decks than their spell counterparts, but their non-creature counterparts are definitely cubeworthy as well.

There is the argument that cards like these are “unfun” cards to play against, but I personally don’t agree with this argument for several reasons. Cards like these aren’t “unfun” because they encourage a more balanced cube “metagame” where control isn’t overbearingly powerful as the only game in town and disruptive cards like these are as important to aggro decks as cards like Wrath of God are important to midrange and control decks. Besides, one could argue that it equally isn’t “fun” to have your board wrathed, and it isn’t “fun” to be unable to beat a control player because they’ve stabilized behind a Capsize and counterspell wall. The concept of “fun” is very subjective and not including cards solely based on what someone may perceive as fun or unfun is detrimental to the overall health and balance of a cube.

Is Wrath more fun to play against than Armageddon?

Reach

When I was discussing the use of aggro cards in a cube with a friend, he said that Wild Dogs wasn’t good because of the aforementioned “it can switch sides” argument and also because it can’t kill something like an Elvish Warrior (or, for a more relevant cube example, a Kor Skyfisher or a Knight of Meadowgrain / Black Knight.) On its own, Wild Dogs can’t kill one of these creatures. However, if you look at the above rw decks (and pretend for the sake of argument that Wild Dogs somehow became a red or white creature,) you’ll find that neither of these decks would be shut down by a White Knight, after all, if that was the case, the White Knight and Black Knight tag-team would have forced Boros Bushwhacker and pretty much every Standard aggressive deck out of the format. Why would a deck like Lucero’s or LaPille’s rw cube deck be not scared of a Knight? Reach.

When many people think of reach in aggro decks, they tend to think of direct damage. While this certainly is a component, it does not encompass all of what reach is.

Reach is also used either to increase the significance of your creatures,and while Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow are extremely strong cards that are auto-includes in cubes that can run them, much like with land denial and with aggro creatures, a common mistake is eschewing the other quality reach cards, like Bonesplitter, Glorious Anthem and Grafted Wargear. While cards like these are not as windmill-slammingly awesome as cards like the Mirrodin Swords, Umezawa’s Jitte and Skullclamp, they’re excellent cards whose inclusions shouldn’t be overlooked in cube, because much like the “1st Tier” equipment, they increase the damage potential of creatures. A turn 2 knight followed by a turn 4 or 5 Grafted Wargear is scary enough, but a turn 3 Wargear is even scarier and can end games quickly.

With regards to the direct damage aspect of reach, another common mistake in cube design is that red typically doesn’t have enough direct damage in its arsenal. MTGSalvation forum member and cube enthusiast wtwlf123 proposed the idea that in red, half of the red section’s cards should be able to deal damage to an opponent without attacking. This enables aggressive decks to finish off an opponent who has stabilized with removal for your creatures or who has controls bigger creatures like Yosei, the Morning Star and Kokusho, the Evening Star. In many aggro decks, your aggressive creatures will deal damage in the early stages of the game to “soften up” an opponent through dealing early damage, using direct damage to finish an opponent off (although direct damage tends to also really good at destroying creatures.) Much like how it’s difficult for aggressive decks to thrive without proper support, it’s difficult for red aggressive decks to thrive without a good chunk of its arsenal being able to dome an opponent for his or her last few remaining points of life. This allows red to play into one of its major strengths and in cube, like in all Magic: The Gathering formats, each color should play into its major strengths.

Repeatable burn is an especially excellent tool for red aggro decks to win. Much like Jackal Pup, cards like Sulfuric Vortex and Stormbind are sometimes deemed bad cards due to their drawbacks, which also cannot be further from the truth. While cards like Sulfuric Vortex and Stormbind can have their drawbacks be detrimental towards you, their drawbacks (causing you damage, making you discard cards) are typically overstated because, for the most part, they won’t matter as they’ll be finishing the job that aggro creatures in an aggro deck started as being at 6 life against an active Vortex or Stormbind is quite scary.

Again, looking at the sample RW cube deck that Tom LaPille made and the Boros Bushwhacker deck, you’ll see that both use a significant amount of red direct damage spells to not only clear a path for their attacking aggro hordes, but to also finish off a weakened opponent. Without a significant portion of red spells being able to deal damage to an opponent, decks like these would be weaker. In my cube’s 55-card red section, 28 of the cards can deal damage to an opponent without attacking. Increasing the amount of red burn to the amount that I presently have has helped aggro decks in my cube finish off weakened opponents.

Aside from burn and the 1/5 cheap creature ratio, you’re probably wondering how much support is needed to make sure that aggressive strategies are a healthily viable archetype. Unfortunately, it’s hard to quantify these concepts and a lot of this really depends on the individual contents of the cube, its size and even the people who draft it. One method that I’ve found to be a good method of evaluation is just observing how aggro decks perform. In other words, it doesn’t matter as much if people can draft aggro decks if aggro decks can’t consistently win because as mentioned at the beginning of the article, aggro can win in cubes that do not provide it without support, it just won’t happen very often and only if the right pieces fall into place.

Mana curves and too many expensive cards.

Another common mistake in cube design that usually leads to the predominance of midrange and control strategies and the failure of aggro strategies is including too many expensive cards. One of the best ways to “trim the fat” of a cube is to monitor a cube’s curve and average mana cost per color.

Many cubes tend to have too many cards in the middle to higher mana range because these cards seem more impressive and because much like gold cards, they are overwhelmingly fun, but that doesn’t mean that they should be represented as heavily in your cube. Dragons are fun, but making the entire color red comprised of 75% dragons and 25% fireball effects would make red an absolutely unplayable color.

The mana curve process involves not only placing cards according to their mana cost, but according to their actual mana cost to accurately reflect their true mana cost by including cards at the casting costs where they’re mostly cast. For example, I have Force of Will as a 0 mana blue spell because it’s almost always cast by pitching a blue card and paying 1 life, when I used to use Spitebellows, it was included as a 1rr spell instead of a 5r creature, because it was almost always evoked and Rude Awakening is included as a 6gg spell, since it’s almost always played with the entwine cost. Don’t think that you should include everything at a lower mana cost, as this is only cheating the system, as the purpose of doing using a mana curve of the first place. The whole point of using a converted mana cost average system is to help you identify how your mana curve truly plays out and to identify strengths and weaknesses in each color, as well as your entire cube.

While cards with lower mana costs aren’t necessarily aggro cards (and conversely, cards with higher mana costs aren’t necessarily control cards) – the concept of having a good mana curve in a cube is good to follow, as not having enough low casting cost cards, or at least aggro-friendly cards, does not allow aggressive decks to thrive.

A good rule to follow is that each color in a cube should have a casting cost average (ignoring X spells and any color-aligned lands) as close to 3 as possible, with colors such as blue skewing higher (to about 3.3-3.5) and colors such as red skewing lower (to about 2.7-2.9.) Again, each color should play to its strengths and many of blue’s more powerful cards cost a lot of mana, so its average mana cost should be higher than other colors’.

Don’t freak out, though, if you put Bogardan Hellkite into your red section and red’s average converted casting cost goes up, because average converted casting cost shouldn’t be used for the sole metric regarding your cube’s mana curve and balance of archetypes, but it’s a good general barometer in that, for example, your average conveted mana cost for blue is 3.65, you should look into cutting some expensive cards.

This step makes you more critically analyze the merits of the cards in the section as getting your average converted casting cost to as close to 3 as possible enacts a certain degree of discipline for your cube by making you ask questions like these “Is this card REALLY worth 6 mana? Is it as good as the other options at the same mana cost?” This process makes you give cards a much more critical look, not so much regarding whether a card is good (because very few cards that will ever enter a cube will be bad cards) but rather regarding whether the card does enough for its casting cost. This imposed discipline also makes sure that you do not use too many control cards as using an average converted mana costs mimics natural curves in decks. Like I said earlier, using too many cards with high mana costs won’t do well, and a cube with a mana curve like that won’t allow for aggro decks to be able to be a healthily draftable archetype.

This is the very reason is why I’m advocating examining your mana curve – to see if cards do enough when compared to other options at the same mana cost. Sorting cards by their mana costs help to make comparisons like these and realize that some cards may not be as powerful as other options in the same casting cost even if at first glance, the card seems powerful, because it very well may be just a man behind a curtain.

This doesn’t mean that a cube shouldn’t use powerful high-casting cost cards, but the problem is not only having an unhealthy mana curve due to many putting in too many expensive cards but also using suboptimal control cards at the cost of excluding powerful aggressive cards, for example, using Ryusei, the Falling Star over Jackal Pup.

Do I do enough for 6 mana in cube? ...not really.

You’re probably thinking “Ok, this guy’s been going on and on about Jackal Pup, which is good and all, but there’s no way that it’s better than Ryusei. Wasn’t it a first pick in Kamigawa draft?” There are a few problems with this.

In a cube with 55 red slots like mine does, Ryusei, the Falling Star should never make the cut. It’s true that in something like Kamigawa-era draft, Ryusei was a very high pick as it was not only a 5/5 flier for 6 mana, but being a mass removal effect (albeit, an inconsistent one.) Yet, I’m not running it nor will I ever run it in my cube. Why? The key is understanding context.

Unless a dragon (generic term for a 6 mana 5/5 flier) has a significant drawback, it will always be played in limited due to its large size relative to other creatures in the format and evasion. Similarly with Wrath effects, unless a wrath effect is prohibitively costed, it will be extremely good because there are hardly any Wrath effects in the format. However, cube cards do not have this inherent premium to them and for 6 mana, creatures like Hellkite Charger, Rorix Bladewing and Crater Hellion do more for 6 mana than Ryusei (this doesn’t even include non-creature 6 mana red cards like Wildfire and Burning of Xinye.)

The most important reason to organize your cube by cube by mana costs is to help you easily compare cards with similar casting costs and forcing you to more critically evaluate the worth of cards in your cube. Even the act of putting the cards into their respective casting cost sections can help determine if anything is inefficient for its mana cost compared to already existing options at the cost or if there are too many cards at a specific casting cost for a color.

When I placed my white creatures in a row, these were the 3-drop creatues that I was running.

It slices, dices, and resets Planeswalkers!

Flickerwisp
Pianna, Nomad Captain
Soltari Champion
Spectral Procession
Mirror Entity

After looking critically at them, I thought that Flickerwisp stuck out as the weakest out of these available options and thus removed it. Was I saying that Flickerwisp was a bad card? Of course not! It’s a 3/1 flier for 3 with a myriad of uses (resetting planeswalkers, Tangle Wire and Smokestack, killing token creatures, temporarily removing blockers and making lands like Azorius Chancery force an “extra bounce” when the land comes back into play and even making julienne fries!) Still, I felt that it was the weakest out of the options that I had for white 3 drop creatures and thus it got cut. Sorting out your cube by casting costs helps moments of insight like these happen more often.

As discussed earlier, my friend has made his commons cube more friendly for aggro decks and has helped them become a much more healthily draftable archetype that can, most importantly, consistently win games from doing many of the steps that I’ve referred to in this article. Interestingly enough, it’s had more far reaching aspects than one would initially think; it even changed how some cards functioned, which has special significance with regards to mana curve. Someone who drafted his commons cube in its early days said “I pay for everything <in this cube> at full value, I never evoke or pay for anything without kicker.” It struck me as odd… but after having a moment of clarity, the statement made sense.

Because aggressive strategies were losing ones, not only did you have to get as much of the card advantage out of cards like Ingot Chewer as games would often end up in slow card advantage wars. Contrast this with how Ingot Chewer is almost always evoked in Vintage, due to the fact there is a much higher premium to use mana efficiently and that games are generally quick (as well as cards like Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Tangle Wire and Smokestack taxing mana.) Since my friend has taken steps towards making aggro more viable, Ingot Chewer was no longer just cast as a 4R creature, but more as a R spell due to the way his cube changed.

If you have Microsoft Excel, I’ve created a spreadsheet that does the math for converted mana costs (with hybrid cards included) and even has some graphs if you’re more visual. If you don’t have Excel, I’d highly suggest downloading OpenOffice (because if anything, it’s a great free program) and using the spreadsheet for your own cube, after all, I’ve done all of the hard work! Deckstats.net is also a wonderful site for doing the numbers crunch with your cube to notice patterns and statistics. It even lets you input “true” mana costs for cards, for example you can enter Spectral Procession as a WWW card.

Conclusion

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this article about the more theoretical aspects of cube drafting. If you’re a cube designer, I hope that this article has gotten you to take a deeper look into the cards in your cube and has challenged some assumptions you may have had about the format. If you’re just a person who likes to cube draft, I hope that this article gave you a nice “behind the scenes” look into what makes up the format you enjoy and maybe pique your interest in designing your own cube. I’ve had a lot of fun designing my cube and am extremely proud of my list and how it has been designed, and being able to share the joy that I’ve felt in designing my cube makes all of the time that I’ve spent designing and maintaining my cube worth it. Creating a balanced environment in all facets (an environment where neither aggro nor control is too strong) is difficult and ultimately, most of your work in cube design will be in creating and maintaining a balanced drafting environment that’s fun to draft and which happens to feature the best cards of all time.

Cheers and happy cubing!

- Usman Jamil

Special thanks to Usman for sending this in! – Evan

This update is HUGE in a variety of ways — one, we have a huge sea change in the manafixing portion of the cube. Two, we have a huge change in the multicolor section. While many cards were cut and many were added, the cube is now 567 Cards, shrinking 13 Cards from the Zendikar update.

My focus this go around:

Lessen the “Midrange” Decks – Karoos (Selesnya Sanctuary etc) and Signets (Boros Signet etc) do two things: One, they make control and “midrange” decks much stronger, and two they make Green weaker. So with that said, and for the first time ever since I’ve began playing the Cube Draft format, I have removed all Karoos and Signets! This change was not without full playtesting over many playtesting sessions, and it also led to the return of all of the Eventide filter lands (Mystic Gate etc).

Lessen the Shards Influence – With the removal of Karoos and Signets gone, the manafixing required to pull of many of the Shards inclusions — Esper Charm, Lavalanche, etc, was much more difficult. At the end of the day, I decided that I wanted a more two-color focused cube (and/or mono-color focused) than one that was 3+ color focused, as many of the decks were in my previous configuration.

Redefine Black – I have wanted Black to have another identity apart from “the other half of U/x Control” for awhile now — and I’ve found the angle I’m looking for: Shadow creatures! Dauthi Slayer and their ilk are more than enough to bring the beats in a way that is difficult to deal with and requires that decks focus on ways of dealing with them. White also got its share of Shadow beats (Soltari Emissary etc) and as such is even more aggressive than before, something I want White to represent and really wanted to provide to Black for an aggressive and difficult to deal with angle Black can use.

Ready for more? Let’s go!

White

Drops: None

Adds:
Kor Firewalker
Loam Lion
Marshal’s Anthem
Soltari Emissary
Kor Sanctifiers

In this pure addition update, Kor Firewalker is another Silver Knight with which to punish Red decks. While Mother of Runes is another powerful option, Kor Firewalker is like the Auriok Champion I’ve wanted for awhile. Loam Lion is, of course, the white Kird Ape and that’s pretty much all there is to say about that. Marshal’s Anthem is fantastic late and another Honor of the Pure for the White Weenie deck. Soltari Emissary is another in the Soltari clan like Soltari Priest and Soltari Monk, another two-drop to make white dangerous.

Lastly, Kor Sanctifiers is another versatile and powerful answer to artifacts (Mindslaver) and enchantments (Recurring Nightmare), while also getting in there for two. I like having well-rounded and versatile answers to everything, and that is one of White’s strengths.

Cards that almost made the cut: Journey to Nowhere, Temporal Isolation, and Scepter of Dominance

Blue

Drops:
Repeal

Adds:
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Old Man of the Sea
Ancestral Vision
Repulse
Calcite Snapper
Dismiss

For Blue, I really, really wanted to add as many creatures as possible. Unfortunately that came down to Old Man of the Sea and Calcite Snapper from Worldwake. Repeal was cut because most of the time it was just bouncing a creature, and what does that with value (for a whole lot cheaper?) Repulse! Ancestral Vision is just too good to ignore — what’s one more Ancestral Recall? — and should fit into any blue deck. Jace, the Mind Sculptor really needs no introduction (or justification) at this point. Dismiss, meanwhile, is just awesome and a Counterspell with value. It was almost Dismal Failure.

Cards that almost made the cut: Dismal Failure, Opportunity, Daze

Black

Drops:
Faerie Macabre
Cemetery Reaper
Grim Tutor

Adds:
Abyssal Persecutor
Dauthi Horror
Dauthi Slayer
Vampire Lacerator
Sarcomancy
Carnophage
Dauthi Marauder
Animate Dead

The beats have arrived! Yes, there is a whole suite of beaters here, replacing the underwhelming Faerie Macabre and Cemetary Reaper while speeding up the slow-rolling Grim Tutor.

We start with Worldwake powerhouse Abyssal Persecutor. He’s huge and ready to lay down some beats. But building an aggro curve was important to me. We start with one-drops Sarcomancy, Carnophage and Vampire Lacerator. We continue with Dauthi Horror, Dauthi Slayer, and Dauthi Marauder. We continue by giving Reanimator another tool with Animate Dead. I’m happy that the aggro injection that gives Black the punch it needs to have another angle and doesn’t just get regulated to control strategies all the time.

Cards that almost made the cut: Nezumi Cutthroat, Hand of Cruelty, Blind Creeper

Red

Drops:
Gorilla Shaman
Viashino Heretic
Impending Disaster

Adds:
Comet Storm
Dragonmaster Outcast
Skirk Marauder
Stigma Lasher
Sulfuric Vortex
Hell’s Thunder
Searing Blaze
Smash to Smithereens

So with Red I learned a few things:

1) Gorilla Shaman just wasn’t getting there. Each time he’d either do nothing or get killed or not deal enough damage to make him worth it. Essentially, something like Smash to Smithereens did what he did, at Instant speed and a lot cheaper, and still dealt the damage the red deck needs to win.

2) Viashino Heretic was a liiiiitle slow. Too slow. Cut!

3) Impending Disaster sucks. To everyone who told me so: You were right!

As for the additions, for Worldwake Comet Storm fits right in there for a ton of damage out of nowhere. Skirk Marauder is another powerful and versatile damage dealer, Stigma Lasher returns after leaving for a time to ensure no silly lifegain is going to ruin your day (something cards like Kor Firewalker do frighteningly well), while Sulfuric Vortex gives you the inevitability the Red deck needs that Impending Disaster couldn’t.

The other Worldwake Mythic, Dragonmaster Outcast is both powerful and easy to sneak under Counterspells early, while the final Worldwake addition, Searing Blaze, is just awesome sauce. Kill something AND deal the controller damage? Too sweet. Finally, Hell’s Thunder, the other half of Hellspark Elemental, gives the red deck the long game it needs to win.

Cards that almost made the cut: Jeska, Warrior Adept, Ravenous Baboons, Zo-Zu, the Punisher

Green

Drops:
Timbermare

Adds:
Search for Tomorrow
Vines of Vastwood
Bestial Menace
Mold Shambler
Wolfbriar Elemental
Omnath, Locus of Mana

Lots of goodies in this one! Worldwake was quite good to Magic, and while I couldn’t fit in Terastodon, I got a few of my favorites, including Bestial Menace, Wolfbriar Elemental and Omnath, Locus of Mana. All of them fill different roles but ultimately allow green to bring the beats and/or recover from mass removal (Wrath of God etc).

Search for Tomorrow is in here to push the fact that green is the manafixing color. No more can you rely on Karoos and Signets to get you there — instead, use Search for Tomorrow, Krosan Tusker and others. Vines of Vastwood has proven itself a powerful and useful option to foil removal spells and/or provide the last few points of damage, while Mold Shambler gives green an answer to Planeswalkers, something that, apart from beats, they really lack.

As for the cuts, I kept Timbermare in here probably a lot longer than I should have. It wasn’t getting it done for awhile, and we finally took it out to pasture. I was gentle, I promise.

Colorless

Drops:
Selesnya Signet
Dimir Signet
Boros Signet
Golgari Signet
Izzet Signet
Gruul Signet
Orzhov Signet
Simic Signet
Azorius Signet
Rakdos Signet

Adds:
Everflowing Chalice
Tangle Wire
Basilisk Collar
Lodestone Golem
Lightning Greaves

Yes, the Signets are gone, long live the Signets. While I appreciated the Signets, and enjoyed them immensely throughout the years, when Tom Lapille mentioned that they made green worse, I began to pay attention. When I noticed how powerful they made midrange and control strategies, along with Karoos, I decided to test the cube without them. And you know what? Choosing colors was much more interesting! All of a sudden committing to a color actually meant something! How exciting!

So I’m really happy dropping them. That said, Everflowing Chalice was a no-brainer for me, while Lodestone Golem may surprise some, it’s ability to punish control decks is not to be underestimated. Basilisk Collar is fantastic, as many know now, and Tangle Wire returns to the cube after a long absence and is definitely welcomed back. It’s ability to punish control decks is something aggro decks appreciate, and Lightning Greaves is another that returns to much fanfare.

As you probably noticed, this section was renamed to “Colorless” in anticipation of Rise of the Eldrazi’s addition. I wonder what those could be…?

Cards that almost made the cut: Ankh of Mishra, Worn Powerstone, Thran Dynamo

Multicolor

Adds:
None

Drops:
Maelstrom Archangel
Maelstrom Nexus
Cruel Ultimatum
Esper Charm
Sharuum the Hegemon
Hellkite Overlord
Lavalanche
Slave of Bolas
Realm Razer
Uril, the Miststalker
Bant Charm
Empyrial Archangel

Yes, the Great Shards Shedding has occurred. For many months, almost a year now, I’ve really been enthralled with Shards of Alara and the power wrapped in tri-color mana costs. But the things it did to the cube has begun to wear on me — suddenly massive manafixing was needed for every deck, and many of these cards were pass-outs time and time again, as only those in specific Shards could use that Shard’s most powerful cards. No longer!

While some of the cuts were pretty easy, ie the 5-Color cards like Maelstrom Nexus, since they were played so infrequently, other cuts were difficult. I really wanted Slave of Bolas in here, I felt that Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker was simply a more exciting card that rewarded dedicated Grixis control decks. Hellkite Overlord was almost chosen over Broodmate Dragon, but ultimately, Broodmate Dragon would go in the same reanimator decks Hellkite Overlord would be in.

I don’t really like losing Sharuum the Hegemon, but I feel like Sphinx of the Steel Wind is better in pretty much every way.

Ultimately, I’m really happy with the shedding of unnecessary cards, and feel like the cube did nothing but benefit it. I’m happier being a more two-color oriented cube than one that is 3+.

Lands

Drops:
Azorius Chancery
Boros Garrison
Dimir Aqueduct
Golgari Rot Farm
Gruul Turf
Izzet Boilerworks
Orzhov Basilica
Rakdos Carnarium
Selesnya Sanctuary
Simic Growth Chamber

Adds:
Cascade Bluffs
Fetid Heath
Fire-Lit Thicket
Flooded Grove
Graven Cairns
Mystic Gate
Rugged Prairie
Sunken Ruins
Twilight Mire
Wooded Bastion
Tectonic Edge
Halimar Depths
Gaea’s Cradle
Terramorphic Expanse
Dread Statuary

For this update, again, a huge sea change. In five years I had never played cube draft without Ravnica Karoos. And I admit, I was skeptical at first. But as I’ve played the cube many, many times without Karoos, I can’t say I miss them. I can’t say their absence makes control better (it doesn’t). Essentially, control decks were getting too good and the removing Karoos was a way to lessen their dominance in a very sly way. Again, thanks to the foresight of Tom Lapille, I’m having more meaningful cube matches and that’s always a positive.

So with that said, the addition of Shadowmoor / Eventide filter lands is another nod to two-color decks, and after a few drafts it became obvious they were needed to be re-added. The fixing, even in aggro builds, was necessary. As for the Worldwake additions, Tectonic Edge is another Wasteland of course, and gives decks another answer to cards like Library of Alexandria that can win games by itself. Halimar Depths is a powerful and welcome card in U/x control (or even mono blue control!), while Terramorphic Expanse is a quick and easy fixer and Dread Statuary brings the beats in any aggro deck. Lastly, Gaea’s Cradle is a card that simply has incredible potential no matter how you slice it. What the cube players do with it is up to them. What we’ve seen so far is tricks with Deranged Hermit and others.

Conclusion

So there we go! Worldwake additions are officially in there, some colors have a dramatic shift in tone (Black), and I’m really happy with the removal of Karoos and Signets. I don’t miss them at all, and if you’re following my template, I promise you won’t miss them either.

Note – I left in the Shards lands (Crumbling Sanctuary etc) because they fix two different two-color builds and have proven themselves as powerful fixers for a variety of decks. 5-Color Green to R/G Aggro, they fit like a charm.

What changes will Rise of the Eldrazi bring? I’m testing my own now, and you can look at my foil pre-orders as a hint as to the direction I’m headed. I’m looking forward to your reactions to these changes, what you added from Worldwake, and what you’re looking for from Rise of the Eldrazi!

- Evan

After the jump is my list of cards I’ve actually pre-ordered on StarCityGames.com in foil form. You can look at the foils from Rise of the Eldrazi here.

Colorless
All Is Dust

White
Gideon Jura
Student of Warfare
Transcendent Master
Wall of Omens

Blue
Deprive
Enclave Cryptologist
Lighthouse Chronologist
Mnemonic Wall
Sea Gate Oracle

Black
Consuming Vapors
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Guul Draz Assassin

Red
Kargan Dragonlord
Lord of Shatterskull Pass
Staggershock
Tuktuk the Explorer

Green
Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
Boar Umbra
Kazandu Tuskcaller
Momentous Fall
Vengevine

Multicolor / Artifact / Land
Sarkhan the Mad
Dreamstone Hedron
Evolving Wilds

What are your pre-ordering choices looking like?

I have a confession to make- I’m a magic player without a playgroup. I’ve recently moved across the country, and my magic-playing community consists of myself and my boyfriend. The good news is that the cube is a great format for two. Here are my tips for designing and playing the cube with less than 8 people, and my observations of how a smaller group changes the format.

Stick to Limited

Nearly all of the cards in the cube should be playable in every deck of their color. In other words, your cube shouldn’t be made up of combo pieces or cards that rely strongly on finding the cards that go with them. For example, would you play Entomb in a deck without reanimation? Of course not. But not every black deck will be a dedicated Reanimator deck. Likewise, would you want Darksteel Colossus if you didn’t have Tinker? There is a reason that the Colossus is a late pick even in M10 limited.  If you include too many cards like this, there will be more dead cards and the overall power level of your decks will decrease- and that’s not the point of the cube! This piece of advice is relevant for any cube, but it really becomes necessary if you intend to draft with two or four people. Since you see fewer cards – we draft with 100 for two people – you have less of a chance of seeing combo pieces with their other halves. A good rule of thumb is that every card should have been good (or great!) in its limited format. Furthermore, it’s worthwhile to limit cards that require a very strong commitment to one color, since virtually all decks in small-group drafts will be at least two colors. Some cards are worth the commitment- Sacred Mesa and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir come to mind- but too many cards like that make decks hard to build.

Emphasize Utility Effects

It goes without saying that some pretty broken things can happen in the cube. Turn 2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind? Turn 1 Library of Alexandria? Sometimes, that is going to be game over, but it doesn’t have to be. The solution is to make sure utility effects like creature and artifact removal are plentiful, and LD is present especially in green and red, since those decks can otherwise have trouble fighting control. It’s a good idea to articulate what a deck of a certain color should always have and then include that effect at a high level. For example, I want nearly every white and black deck to have efficient spot removal, and every green deck to have some sort of ramp or land fetch. The downside is that some spots in your cube are going to be devoted to less-than-sexy effects like Naturalize or Scrabbling Claws. However, those effects are absolutely vital to fighting otherwise game-ending cards like Recurring Nightmare or Jitte. Our cube used to run Apocalypse Hydra as a big, must-answer monster. Recently, we replaced it with Vithian Renegades. Is that a strict increase in power level? No. But it makes it more likely that red/green decks will have a way to deal with problem cards like Icy Manipulator or Forcefield.

Watch the Curve

The last few times a new set has been spoiled, there has been a really cool white creature at the high end. We thought about both Iona, Shield of Emeria and Admonition Angel for the cube. However, the reality is that our cube doesn’t lack for high-end white finishers. Until there is a white creature strong enough to replace something that is already there, it’s unlikely that a creature that costs 5 or more is going into white. It’s valuable to know what the average cost in each color is to help you make informed decisions about what can go in and what can’t. When we calculated the average CMC in black, we found it was surprising low and that we were able to add another big monster. Likewise, it’s important to keep in mind what each color lacks. For example, I’m constantly on the lookout for good early red creatures for the cube, since we’ve struggled to find ones that feel strong.

The Game Determines the Archetypes

There is a delicate balance in the cube- the choice between playing to each color’s strengths, and including unique effects that stretch the bounds of what that color is allowed to do. In the cube, it’s important to do both. However, you’ll find that if you just choose the best cards, you will naturally accomplish both goals. For example, just by including excellent cards, your cube will support white weenie, reanimator, and both control and aggro-control in blue- that’s just the reality of what Wizards has printed for those colors. You’ll also want to include the strong out-of-color effects, like Harmonize, Magma Jet, and Damnation.

However, there is a difference between supporting an archetype and enabling decks that look exactly like constructed decks. The cube is still a limited format, and the chances that you will have a white weenie deck of entirely one- and two-drops and Crusade effects are slim. Forcing that possibility means doing so at the expense of white control archetypes, which are also intrinsically really strong. The cube produces incredibly powerful decks, but that is not the same as producing exact copies of constructed decks. This is especially true in two –player drafts, where all decks tend to be slightly midrange because of the smaller cardpool. Don’t try too hard to do so, and you’ll end up with more variety and more interesting decks and games.

When you can support more than one archetype with one card, do so! Cards that fit into control and aggro archetypes are gold. One of the prime examples of this is Vendilion Clique. Some other examples I’m fond of are Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile, Pestermite, Swans of Bryn Argoll, and Aether Vial.

If you’re in the position of playing the cube with a small group, take advantage of the benefits this offers. When we draft, we usually play to best of five (the official games) and then as many more as we like. When we used to play with more people, it was sometimes frustrating to have a disproportionate number of mulligans or lack of lands knock you out of a match without ever really getting to play your deck. With just two people, that virtually never happens, and we usually play enough games to experience all the strange interactions and powerful effects the cube offers.

How to Play

We’ve developed a pretty good system of drafting with two people, so I thought I would share it here. First, our cube is divided into nine sections- five colors, artifacts, multicolor, hybrid, and land. We take ten cards from each section at random, and then add an additional ten cards selected randomly from any pile. This means that we have a bit more variety in terms of which colors are supported in a given draft. After these cards have been shuffled thoroughly, we do a “Let’s Make a Deal” draft. We put one card each in three piles, face down, then one person looks at the first pile. They can either take that card or add one from the stack of remaining cards to the pile and look at the second pile. If after the third pile, they haven’t taken a pile, they take one card off the top of the stack. Then it’s the other person’s turn to repeat the process. In this way, you simulate the normal draft process of seeing some but not all the cards the other person takes, and retain the ability to hate-draft, which is pretty crucial in the cube.

Recently, we’ve decided that it is advantageous to go second while drafting. You have the potential when you go second to see more cards, and have an idea of what the other person is not drafting. I’m not completely sure on that point, though. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for reading!

- Thea Steele
http://crib-swap.blogspot.com/

Special thanks to Thea Steele for sending this in! – Evan

Be on the lookout for some Worldwake updates I’m trying out as well!

Enjoy!

Blue Creatures:

Blue Spells:

White Creatures:

White Spells:

Red Creatures:

Red Spells:

Black creatures:

Black spells:

Green creatures:

Green spells:

Lands:

Lands pt2:

Artifacts pt1:

Part 2:

Multicolor part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Phew! That was a lot more work that expected Hope you enjoyed it!

Either way, last go-around I updated the cube with M10 additions. This time we’re adding five cards per color bringing the total cube size to 580 cards. Woo! I’m happy with a growth rate of 25 cards for this update, but don’t expect it to jump that high next time.

Here were my goals for this update:

- Add only the strongest Landfall cards. This included cards like Emeria Angel and Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. While there are plenty of powerful and surprisingly good Landfall cards (Plated Geopede is the first that comes to mind), I only wanted those that both excelled as creatures and as Landfall-triggering monsters.

- Don’t stop looking for ‘consensus’ cards. This is where the inclusions of Lignify and Vendetta came from. These are simply two examples of fantastic and powerful cards that are worth having in the cube. Every good monster needs an answer, and Lignify is a surprisingly powerful one, while Vendetta is like the backwards Swords to Plowshares, and I’m definitely okay with that.

- Continue the tradition of a ‘Sneak Peek’ from the new set. With the M10 update I threw in the five new Zendikar fetchlands, as I was 100% certain they were going in. This time I’m doing the same with Worldwake, including the five rare duals/manlands as they replace the M10 duals from the last update. While the M10 duals certainly have their upsides, they can’t both fix mana and go upside your opponent’s head, and that’s something I cherish (the latter more than the former).

So with that, let’s get started!

White

Adds:
Emeria Angel
Conquerer’s Pledge
Day of Judgment
Iona, Shield of Emeria
Steppe Lynx

For me the big question mark about these inclusions was whether or not to include World Queller. This is a creature with all sorts of upside and a very interesting and versatile answer to all sorts of stuff.

However, IDTE (It Dies To Everything), it’s incredibly slow, and a 4/4 for five mana that doesn’t fly or have evasion or do anything else neato besides the sac effect is tough to warrant. Also, U/W control, the deck I most saw this using, should have very little trouble with creatures (it’s either killing all of them or controlling them), Enchantments (it has Disenchant), Planeswalkers (bounce spells, counterspells, Take Possession et al), and anything else. So with that I’d rather include the Landfall’in Steppe Lynx.

Steppe Lynx is probably the most controversial simply because it is ‘just’ an 0/1 Landfall guy, and I didn’t include its counterpart Plated Geopede. It also is probably going to be replaced by Loam Lion, but that’s for next time. Regardless, Steppe Lynx is a welcome and proven addition to any Zoo or White Weenie arsenal. With the cube now featuring ten fetchlands when it previously only held five, suddenly getting him to trigger many times is not an issue, and should be a regular occurrence.

Iona, Shield of Emeria is simply a Reanimator target (or a U/W control finisher), Emeria Angel is just killer any way you slice it, Day of Judgment gives U/W Yet Another Wrath, and Conquerer’s Pledge is a card I feel will get some love by the B/W Aggro Discard or G/W Aggro builds, both capable of dropping Conquerer’s Pledge and ending the game soon after (Armageddon, anyone?)

Blue

Adds:
Serendib Efreet
Rite of Replication
Sphinx of Lost Truths
Sphinx of Jwar Isle
Into the Roil
Mark of Eviction

Drops:
Djinn of Wishes

Ah, poor Djinn of Wishes, it just wasn’t meant to be. Oh well, we still have Serendib Efreet (via From the Vault: Exiled no less) backing him up. Blue needed some cheap fatness anyway, and he fits the bill. I’m also looking hard at Serendib Djinn for the next update, as he’s pretty freakin huge for a measly four mana.

Moving on we have a pair of Zendikar Sphinxes, Sphinx of Lost Truths and Sphinx of Jwar Isle (Jwar-Jwar around these parts). Both of these Sphinxes are incredibly efficient at what they do: The first one draws you infi cards or powers up Reanimator (or both); the second just wins games while dodging all of your removal. Pretty simple stuff, but it gets there.

Rite of Replication is a favorite of mine, and getting to nine mana in the cube isn’t really that tough, particularly if you’re playing a U/W or U/B control deck. Kicking this thing should almost guarantee Game Over, but in the cube, things are never that simple.

Lastly we have Into the Roil and Mark of Eviction, two of my favs. Now Into the Roil could’ve been a thousand different variations on Essence Scatter (and almost was), but in the end I decided a unique utility/bounce spell (particularly one that goes great with Isochron Scepter) should get the nod. Mark of Eviction is a fav of mine from back in the Ravnica days, and after I saw some of its power show up again at Worlds in Rome last year, I decided it was time to move it back into the big leagues. Just the absolutle sickness with any enters-the-battlefield ability, but is versatile enough to take care of a pesky creature for a turn, sure to be countered on the way back in.

Black

Adds
Sorin Markov
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
Vampire Nighthawk
Bloodghast
Vendetta

As for Zendikar, I think the three biggies speak for themselves: Sorin Markov is absurd, Ob Nixilis, the Fallen is completely busted after two triggers, and Vampire Nighthawk is so good it feels like cheating (but hey, it’s the cube! It should feel unfair at times!). Bloodghast is a card that I feel will have all sorts of uses, from B/W Aggro Discard to U/B Control. He may not work out, but I’m going to see what he can do. I’m sure there’s oodles of combos and interactions I’m not thinking about (Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare etc are coming to mind), and I think he’s worth it.

As mentioned in the introduction, Vendetta is kinda the Bizarro-Swords to Plowshares, and as such definitely deserves inclusion. There are infinite fatties and weenies that will die at the hands of this card, and I hope it shines as brightly as it does in other cubes.

Red

Adds:
Burst Lightning
Goblin Guide
Goblin Ruinblaster
Obsidian Fireheart
Hellkite Charger

Here is where Red got a little lopsided: Instead of sticking steadfast to the Spells/Creatures split, I went three creatures deep with Red cards. For me, there are too many good ones to cut for more burn spells. I love Hellkite Charger with a passion, as that guy is incredibly scary and usually ends the game in a turn or two. Obsidian Fireheart is just a complete badass, and setting any lands on fire usually kills your opponent soon after. Goblin Ruinblaster is another Avalanche Riders most of the time (except for 2RR of course), and that’s never a bad thing. Goblin Guide is a mainstay now in aggressive decks in both Standard and Extended, and that’s more than enough ammo to get it rocking G/R and Mono Red aggro decks in the cube.

Lastly, Burst Lightning is one of the best burn spells printed in years. Versatility to the max. I also love the Isochron Scepter interaction (but I’d rather have Magma Jet on it, thanks).

Green

Adds:
Lotus Cobra
Rampaging Baloths
Scute Mob
Wickerbough Elder
Lignify

So for Green we have two Landfall powerhouses: the explosive Lotus Cobra, and Rampaging Baloths. Now many people are familiar with both of these, so I won’t state the obvious. All I’ll say is that thanks to ten fetchlands I’m happy that these are in here and I expect some serious blowouts to come. The cube is already packing Harrow and Explosive Vegetation, so don’t be surprised if dumb things start happening soon

Scute Mob is a great card in that it requires an answer soon. Sure there’s Dragonmaster Outcast from Worldwake that is a bit better (and it’s looking like a pretty solid inclusion for next time), but there is little stopping a Scute Mob once a round or two of counters have been added. RAWR!

Wickerbough Elder is a novelty, in that it’s fat that can deal with answers. Sort of a twist on Indrik Stomphowler, but better because it can actually stop your opponent from playing powerful artifacts and enchantments until they deal with him, or it can mirror the Stomphowler exactly by simply paying for the Elder and then using his ability. Another versatile threat and answer, my favorite kind.

Lastly for Green we have the most controversial choice, Lignify. Now to this I say the same thing to those who doubt using Bull Ceradon instead of Brion Stoutarm — Play with it and tell me it doesn’t work. I’ve played with Lignify and I can tell you that card is a lifesaver. It hoses everything from Nezumi Graverobber to Akroma, Angel of Wrath, and that is good times right there. The “no abilities” clause is very important, particularly with triggered abilities such as Reveillark roaming the skies and shutting off Meloku the Clouded Mirror is pretty good too. All-in-all one of my new favorite green cards.

Artifacts

Adds:
Eldrazi Monument

Drops:
Guardian Idol

I wish I could say Guardian Idol was a staple card in a variety of decks and people were happy to windmill slam him, but he isn’t and he won’t be missed. Yet Another Mana Producer Guy, even if he can’t be Wrath’d away, just isn’t very exciting.

Eldrazi Monument, on the other hand, as we’ve see in the Standard Eldrazi Green deck, can be both explosive and game-ending. It gives an Overrun-like effect to colors that don’t normally have it or can’t normally cast it (R/G Aggro comes to mind). I love the power in this card, and I get all giggly thinking about it and Bitterblossom or Sacred Mesa.

Multicolor

Adds:
Nath of the Gilt Leaf
Doran, the Siege Tower

Drops:
Lord of Extinction
Teneb, the Harvester

So we switch out a couple of looks-awesome for a few actually-awesomes. Okay, Doran, the Siege Tower isn’t an auto pick or anything, but I believe it is far more playable now with ten fetchlands and a lot of fixing, and I haven’t seen anyone maindeck Teneb, the Harvester in many months, let alone cast him. So I think it’s time for a change.

Lord of Extinction looks so good. Unfortunately, he’s no Tarmogoyf and never will be. By the time he hits the board and is actually swinging, on Turn 6, your opponent has infinite chump blockers or infinite ways of stopping him (Maze of Ith etc) or both. Nath of the Gilt Leaf, on the other hand, begins affecting the board without swinging on the first upkeep you have him, and the discard is random, and it gives you a dude to boot! All of that and a respectable 4/4 body to boot. I’m sold.

Lands

Adds:
Celestial Colonnade
Creeping Tar Pit
Lavaclaw Reaches
Raging Ravine
Stirring Wildwood

Drops:
Rootbound Crag
Glacial Fortress
Sunpetal Grove
Drowned Catacomb
Dragonskull Summit

So this section is pretty easy to describe: One, I wanted a little taste of what was coming in Worldwake for the cube. Secondly, I like my dual lands to bash face if need be. I saw enough of these M10 duals enter the battlefield tapped to know they’re still very playable that way, and why not get a dude out of it to boot in the long game? All of the lands turn into creatures that fit the friendly color archetype, and all of them should look very enticing to cube drafters everywhere. I’m excited to see more of these in play.

Conclusion

So there you have it! With such a strong set, Zendikar added plenty of goodies to the cube, not the least of which include the five new fetchlands I threw in last update. However, we got a Planeswalker, some awesome Landfall creatures, and thanks to Worldwake a host of powerful and exciting dual lands to bash with.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my decisions in this update, and feel free to share your thoughts below in the comments or in the forums.

- Evan