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Export to Arena
Print Decklist
| Avg. CMC 3.62 |
| Card Color Breakdown |
| Card Type Breakdown |
Main Deck - 556 cards, 504 distinct
Sideboard - 147 cards, 48 distinct
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Name |
Edition | $ | Type | Cost | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Rarity | Color | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Creature (14) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Akroma, Angel of Fury | $1.18 | Legendary Creature - Angel | |
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| 1 | Angel of Jubilation | $11.55 | Creature - Angel | |
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| 1 | Arcbound Ravager | $19.02 | Artifact Creature - Beast | |
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| 1 | Brine Elemental | $0.10 | Creature - Elemental | |
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| 1 | Exalted Angel | $2.64 | Creature - Angel | |
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| 1 | Hooded Hydra | $0.34 | Creature - Snake Hydra | |
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| 1 | It That Betrays | $6.05 | Creature - Eldrazi | |
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| 1 | Kuldotha Forgemaster | $8.46 | Artifact Creature - Construct | |
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| 1 | Lotus Cobra | $3.58 | Creature - Snake | |
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| 1 | Phyrexian Metamorph | $7.68 | Artifact Creature - Phyrexian Shapeshifter | |
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| 1 | Saffi Eriksdotter | $1.85 | Legendary Creature - Human Scout | |
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| 1 | Sand Strangler | $0.13 | Creature - Beast | |
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| 1 | Scarecrone | $2.00 | Artifact Creature - Scarecrow | |
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| 1 | Voidmage Prodigy | $2.06 | Creature - Human Wizard | |
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| Instant (5) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Faith's Reward | $1.38 | Instant | |
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| 1 | Force of Will | $68.48 | Instant | |
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| 1 | Path to Exile | $1.06 | Instant | |
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| 1 | Radiant's Judgment | $0.14 | Instant | |
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| 1 | Rebuild | $0.11 | Instant | |
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| Sorcery (6) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Cut // Ribbons | $0.48 | Sorcery // Sorcery | // |
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| 1 | Gitaxian Probe | $4.85 | Sorcery | |
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| 1 | Hour of Promise | $0.87 | Sorcery | |
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| 1 | Limits of Solidarity | $0.04 | Sorcery | |
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| 1 | Swirling Sandstorm | $0.24 | Sorcery | |
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| 1 | Unearth | $0.19 | Sorcery | |
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| Artifact (13) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Boompile | $0.45 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Caltrops | $2.49 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Cauldron of Souls | $3.48 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Deathrender | $4.59 | Artifact - Equipment | |
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| 1 | Meekstone | $7.63 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Nim Deathmantle | $3.81 | Artifact - Equipment | |
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| 1 | Noetic Scales | $5.69 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Norn's Annex | $0.65 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Phyrexian Altar | $37.72 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Staff of Domination | $2.60 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Summoning Station | $3.46 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Tangle Wire | $12.72 | Artifact | |
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| 1 | Throne of the God-Pharaoh | $4.50 | Legendary Artifact | |
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| Enchantment (2) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun | $3.72 | Legendary Enchantment // Legendary Land | |
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| 1 | Heartless Summoning | $3.80 | Enchantment | |
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| Planeswalker (4) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast | $13.38 | Legendary Planeswalker - Daretti | |
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| 1 | Garruk, Apex Predator | $4.15 | Legendary Planeswalker - Garruk | |
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| 1 | Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas | $3.48 | Legendary Planeswalker - Tezzeret | |
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| 1 | Venser, the Sojourner | $6.58 | Legendary Planeswalker - Venser | |
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| Land (103) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Brushland | $3.75 | Land | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Eldrazi Temple | $1.38 | Land | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Horizon Canopy | $4.38 | Land | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 100 | Wastes | $0.79 | Basic Land | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notes
The thought behind this one is actually super interesting. Restricted mana has been touched on before without much success, but I think I can curate a cube that explores the theme successfully. What I'm most interested in is drafting land! Packs would be 19 instead of 15, with that extra 4 slots being land. Then, the only basic available to people outside of the packs would be Wastes! Interesting, right? Basic land are actually mythic rare! if this is the case, then that means for a ten person cube, I need 120 land. My thought is also that we would play duplicates of certain colorless land to continue the draft theme. Here's my short list of those:
Terramorphic expanse
Evolving Wilds
Terminal Morraine
Myriad Landscape
Warped Landscape
Esper, Naya, Jund, Grixis and Bant Panorama
Ash Barrens
Archaeological Dig
Blasted Landscape
Desert
Blasted Landscape
Quicksand
Sunscorched Desert
Cradle of the Accursed
Dunes of the dead
Creature type themes in the cube: Horror, nightmare, barbarian, nomad, eldrazi, scorpion, snake, vampire, skeleton, construct, rogue, minion
Keyword themes: Devoid, deathtouch, lifelink, first strike, cycling, morph, phyrexian mana, 2/x split costs, fateful hour, morbid, revolt, sacrifice, madness, hellbent, some necromancy, bloodthirsty, desert
A feel of surviving in a tainted land, fitting in the pits, blood is life, cosmic horror
Ratio's:
450 total
200 creatures
30 Enchantments
100 Noncreature Art
61 Instants
61 Sorcery
X Planeswalkers
120 Land
I've got the wet clay in a rough overarching shape of what I want the sculpture to be. All of the sub themes have been researched and pulled, and I did a lot of free form architecture. The base is completely beautiful in the land balance. I might edit to try to get some powerful build around lands in the mix, like Westvale Abbey and Library of Alexandria, but the foundation is solid and beautiful. Before I sculpt though I have one more large pull of clay to add: the grandaddy artifact review of all artifacts of all time. I know it will be worth it, but it's going to be several thousand cards. After that though I'm confident I can curate the cube to my wasteland dream! A draft where you draft around the lands you pick, and that access to color mana is not guaranteed. A draft where most of your deck either cycles for 2, or morph's for three. Once I have that solid frame built, I can craft the subthemes and drafts archetypes in it. The artifacts play a crucial part, as it gives the cube access to interesting effects while remaining a colorless manabase. Enough diversity on the frame let's me push the color splashes in unique directions and define color identity more specifically.
I did it! The full artifact review! I can now sculpt my cube! I'm definitely pushing the site to the limit, but it's well worth it. My next endeavor is to do some analysis to make the frame and the do preliminary cuts. I'm excited to see a subtheme storm deck based off of permanents!
I got swept up in the creative process. It's beautiful. I really like the way I used deckbox to analyze. I developed a process by which I was able to keep the heart in, then add the flavor and the cute-ness. I chalk this up to the strategies I developed to kill my darlings. I also like the sub sets I made to make this more manageable. My Process started by doing a land base, so kind of like making a huge deck. Then I did my creature base, developing as much as I could through colorless means. I then did the artifacts with a focus on artifact based removal, then some fixing and ramp, then the "weapons of war" as the set was firming up to be based on colorless morph combat, which a great basis of set tension for color purposes. Basically, colored mana buys you into non creature combat focused effects for the most part, but you can develop colorless decks solely focused on creature combat. I then added build arounds. I went back and shifted the creature base to account for batterskull, mortarpod, and warden of the wall. I then moved forward to all spells. starting with a base of the "colorless" spells. Surprisingly, this was closer to half, which allows most decks to function without color, and the manabase to be more taxing. From here I rounded out effects and and balanced color weight. I ended up taking an approach where I went in WUBRG order, deciding per color if their next "pick" was instant, sorcery, or creature for green only. This balanced the type towards color polarities, which is desirable. Also, super fun!
Now comes the detail work. I can go back over artifacts to adjust how much removal/fixing/weapons of war are needed and add missing effects. Also part of this is analyzing archetypes actually available with the current list (as opposed to my projections) and then specifically altering to support viable archetypes, and trim red herrings. After this fuller consolidation, a final review of the land base to support the cube and archetypes is needed. What a blast. 100% would develop a cube this way again.
The cube overall is extremely efficient, as is befitting a wasteland. A natural sequence available to all archetypes is tapland on 1, cycling on 2, morph on 3, parity breaking effect on 4. Most turns will end with a maximization of mana. Taplands will have a greater cost than anticipated, and getting ahead on mana is virtual card advantage. This also cues that untapped mana going into the next turn cycle will absolutely represent some kind of instant speed effect, whether land, artifact, spell, or morph based. So although there's a reduction of Instants and Sorceries, there is not a reduction of stack based interaction. Further, there's an abundance of card advantage based effects in the cube, and a true depth and variety in the spread of removal, so games should have a fair amount of tension. Although a deck can pull ahead aggressively, decks can also counter, punish, and recover as effectively, and there should be few true shut out games. Parity breaking effects aren't truly available until turn 4, and what is available prior are more likely help you pull farther ahead on turn 4 or after. Interestingly, the counterspells with the least color weight and the broadest effect are mana based counters, which should play extremely well in the hyper efficient format.
There is a big guy vs. little guy tension in the cube. A lot things are about sizing, as the base is gray ogre. Some things pump butt to break parity, and a lot of removal is set at 2-3. 2/3 are the next layer of body, and x/1's are easily preyed upon. Then 3/3 's and 4/4's are the next level of predator, then all sort's of sized big guy's. There is also many subsets of cards that reward or punish you for having all little guys or all big guys.
Described below are the preliminary trends and archetypes I see:
The aggro deck lies in direct burn thru the inefficient red spells, lands, and artifacts paired with a busted go wide morph draft. Key to building the aggro deck are picking up cards that help widen the gap or prevent recovery, such as Tsabo's web, Goblin Bombardment, Magus of the moon, and parity breaking creature effects such as Jeering Instagator and Ruthless Invasion. Also keep an eye out for "each player" burn such as earthquake and claws of wirewood, which may help you close games. The most aggro start is T1 Keeper of the lens, T2 Ghostfire blade. This should be extremely difficult to break up, but also won't happen very often in the 10 person cube.
The control deck is based off of mana advantage and removal. Locus's are clutch to this archetype, and access to mana rocks and filtering. There are many artifacts that can be used to control statically, but these can all be "unlocked" by removal and should be treated more as a temporal effect than hard lock. Win con's come from over the top artifacts, alternate win cons, planeswalkers, and big creature sac outlets. This strategy resolves around picking up these more powerful singular cards and bomb removal.
Land control is likely green based land recursion and LD land with optional access to spell and permanent based LD. Secondary color of red or blue. Without a recurssive source to break the LD parity, it's about getting a decent body in play and closing the game. With that source, you can also just play go over the top spells that further stimie their ability to get in the game. Either way, the clock on this shouldn't really be able to get rolling until T4, as prior T4 it is impossible to break parity for either strategy. Breaking this requires picking up the 2 mana rocks and mono artifacts, as they can launch you into T4 faster. I'm actively trying to curve the potential for the early shut out version, as that is fairly toxic to the draft environment. Optimally this strategy is a ramp based strategy, using the huge annihilating Eldrazi and LD to close out a game from turn 6 on. This should still give deck the ability to present a clock, and hopefully interact. I don't want a more smallpox/armageddon style to be widely playable, if at all. Otherwise the LD cards are there for flavor, to keep utility lands in check, and offer strategic lines at a disadvantage to shut off opponents colors. If it's to strong I would likely cut some number of the tap/destroy lands with no activation cost to discourage the aggresive LD deck. Further, I've realized that land recursion is the key culprit to the toxic LD decks. Although crucible and ramunap excavator have a wide variety of applications in the cube, T3 one of these plus a wasteland is a game nobody wants to play. If I cut these from the cube, then the only way to reliably recur lands is life from the oam, which seems more fair as it can cost a life to play, will be hard to set up early, mills yourself and replaces your draw. It's a more fair version, although still allows for busted interaction. Although it hurts, I think removing those two from the cube makes LD a ramp only strategy, which is much more teneable, and requires specific deck drafting to execute well.
Graveyard recursion themed deck. Using a combination of the sac outlet and recursive elements to build card advantage without mana investment. It can emulate many of the other strategies, should be flexible in it's approach and allow mid range paced play. Has ability to cheat big guys into play early/instant speed. For this archetype, card that discard are the most desirable, as getting cards from hand to graveyard is not explicitly easy.
General Midrange. This will be focused on getting max value out of morph and combat, favoring the little guys matters card and creature parity breakers. It's big plays will be the "blink" effects that turn creatures face up. White will be pulled into this strategy more often than not. If paired with red, aggro and reach. If paired with blue, skies and counter spell back up. If paired with black, lends into to the sacrifice sub theme. If paired with green, LD control possible, and can blink Krosan creatures.
Combo. Find the pieces and see where it leads! Using all the elements here in, there many synergistic combos. Some are as simple as pinger + deathtouch, some are convoluted as Teshar + scrap trawler. There are likely several infinite combo's. Key here is selection and endgame. Cards like jar of eyeballs, search for Azcanta, and Ancient Stirrings should be picked first or highly, then further combo pieces sought, and then pick up cycling effects on the wheel. It can be easy to lose sight in the synergy based combo's that you don't want to just build a durdle machine. Picking up a walking Ballista, Essence Depleter, or some other way effectively and decisively win the game is absolutely necessary, as it is not guaranteed that the combo will stay intact for many turns with all the removal present. A few other combo's:
Suntitan + O Stone/Universal Solvent
Threaten effect + Sac outlet
Displacer + ETB like Meteor Golem
Pinger + Caltrops
Voltaic Servant/Vizier/Fatestitcher + Mana Vault/Mage-Ring/Staff of Dom
Attrition + Revel In Riches + Ophiomancer
Salvaging Station + cards (right?)
Crop rotation + Westvale Abbey (On your end step...)
Academy Ruins + O Stone
Breaker of Armies + Hedron Blade
Some of my favorite cards in the cube:
Desert Nomads: Gets a second life in the cube, so flavorful. Interestingly the only unblock able creature in the cube (outside of Key to the city), and is a 3 drop that can break parity.
Etched Montrosity: Another flavorful inclusion. It's the embodiment of the cube. Efficient but can be unlocked by access to colored mana. Also a bit of red herring. 5 for a 5/5 is actually quite good sizing wise in this cbe, but it should be pretty difficult to unlock. Hard mode is a combination of rocks and dual lands. Easy mode is joiner adept!
Rune of protection:artifacts- This card is easy to under value. It cycles so is never dead, and there are a million powerful sources of artifact damage in the cube. This is well worth the white investment. Similarly Angel of Jubilation is another card that is quite powerful but rewards your white devotion. Same for the fateful hour cards of thraben doomsayer and gather the townsfolk. Should be a nice subset of cards that rewards players in the weakest color option.
Deathrite Shaman: The first environment it's not busted in! He's certainly useful, but as powerful as he would seem due to barrier of color to activate and no early lands in yard. Needs to be slightly built around.
Austere Command and Profane Command: All 8 modes are useful in this cube, which i've never seen before.
Sunscour and Force of Will: The alternate mana cost makes them a potential colorless spell, and sun scour is flavorful. Interestingly, these cards will be both be undervalued and overvalued. Control players will be high on them, but those decks function more as colorless control, and will need to build around to utilize. Sunscour much of the time will be a 7 mana wrath, which is fine. Where they fit in best, and will be undervalued, is the midrange strategies. Using them as tempo plays and having access to color cards in your morph creatures is where it's at!
Ruthless Invasion: Dripping with flavor, and super powerful. There should be a decent mix in board states, but it easy to remove artifacts, and this should read "team is unblockable" a good amount of the time. Also, weirdly is alphabetical in type for skittering invasion. Flavor win?
Awakened Amalgam and Walker of the Wastes: These card will be comically large! Never before have these cards been labeled "must answer threats"!
Bosh, Barrage Tyrant, Brion Stoutarm, Dread Defiler, and Alladin's Ring: Giant's flinging creatures is how we close games in the wasteland, which just feels right. Perfect fit between many strategies. And the Ring is just all around awesome. With it being actually useable in this cube, it feels like you get an emblem saying "have laser eyes".
Oblivion Sower: This is THE most powerful card in the cube. It wins all combat, ramps you, denies your opponent their LAND, which is the whole crux of the format, potentially locking them out of colors in their deck. It also fits in every strategy, and is the perfect blink/reanimation target. You can even create a mill out with recurring it. Jeez.
Inspiring Stautuary, Infernal reckoning, herald of Kozilek, ceremonious rejection, heron blade et al: Colorless matters! These cards all do WAY more than first glance says.
Sunder: Just perfect. This is the armageddon I'm in the market for. And I really hope to pick up invocation version. That whole cycle of hours art is perfect for the cube.
Ancient Excavation, Sylvan Reclamatin, Grave Upheaval, Migratory Route, Treacherous Terrain: Found these by searching for basic land cycling. Each of these cards are like tailor made for the cube in their respective colors. It's exactly what those colors want late, and the colorless basic land cycling is clutch.
Channel: Busted? Assuredly. But go at your own risk! Should be pretty hard to auto win with it, but should lead to some interesting blowouts. GG isn't trivial ya know. Can't war to Channel into Ribbons! On it's surface it's "Pay 5-8 life: get something Awesome and a cycle on Turn 4".
Angelsong, Lull, Haze of Pollen: People never respect fog, and it seldom makes cubes. Many a game will end in "Swing with team...fog...untap, swing with team."
Starstorm, Metorite, and Meteor Golem: Wow, just wow.
Norn's Annex: Has this card ever been the good?
Sandstone Deadfall: This is the perfect piece of removal for tho cube in flavor and everything.
Talismans, cryptolith fragment, phyrexian lens: Another set of cards that have never been this good. All not just playable, but first pickable. There will be times people are sad that the fragment flips!
Tsabo's Webb: This card shuts off over a third of lands in the cube...
Arguel's Bloodfast: Holy shit is this card good in the sac deck!
Opposition: The second most broken. Requires a little more set up than oblivion sower, but can lead to total shut outs. This, Sunder, Capsize, Rescind, and mirage offer a blue LD route. Speaking of Lingering Mirage, what wonderful oddity! Will totally see play both for fixing and LD.
Garruk, Apex Predator: This is his true home!
Cloudpost: I love collect me draft cards! What an epiphany to put the locus series in here. It's like the whole cube was designed around it.
Library of Alexandria and Westvale Abbey: One of these is first pickable...it's the Abbey. The Abbey is great and well supported, but manageable. Library is power 9 level, but pretty Meh in a cube built with so many 2 for 1's. It's definitely playable, but it's mostly in here because I can and it fits. Can't wait for people to be confused.
Altar of Shadows and Predator Flagship: What perfect payoff's for the big mana control decks. Both offer recursive removal and a side functionality, both are perfect flavor wise for the big mana control player in the wasteland. An altar that is imbued with power from use in the shadows, or a warship dropping destruction across a landscape called Predator, like the ship in the star trek reboot.
It always surprises me that looking through a stack of cards can reveal cards I overlooked, even in such a deep review as this. My intitial review had me cut pathrazer of ulamog, soul collector, and neurok replica, all of which fit the cube better on further analysis. Also, I stumbled on Gruesome Slaughter, Ghostly flicker, and Elspeth Sun's Champion. Slaughter still isn't good by nature of what it is. I missed ghostly flicker, which is a welcome addition for the same reason cloudshift is. Elspeth, SUN's champion is flavorful for the white sun matters, is another payoff for being pushed into white, and is along the lines of "fight for the little guy". All three modes are great, and the ultimate is a fixed elesh norn. I win, but you at least have a chance to do something.
Terramorphic expanse
Evolving Wilds
Terminal Morraine
Myriad Landscape
Warped Landscape
Esper, Naya, Jund, Grixis and Bant Panorama
Ash Barrens
Archaeological Dig
Blasted Landscape
Desert
Blasted Landscape
Quicksand
Sunscorched Desert
Cradle of the Accursed
Dunes of the dead
Creature type themes in the cube: Horror, nightmare, barbarian, nomad, eldrazi, scorpion, snake, vampire, skeleton, construct, rogue, minion
Keyword themes: Devoid, deathtouch, lifelink, first strike, cycling, morph, phyrexian mana, 2/x split costs, fateful hour, morbid, revolt, sacrifice, madness, hellbent, some necromancy, bloodthirsty, desert
A feel of surviving in a tainted land, fitting in the pits, blood is life, cosmic horror
Ratio's:
450 total
200 creatures
30 Enchantments
100 Noncreature Art
61 Instants
61 Sorcery
X Planeswalkers
120 Land
I've got the wet clay in a rough overarching shape of what I want the sculpture to be. All of the sub themes have been researched and pulled, and I did a lot of free form architecture. The base is completely beautiful in the land balance. I might edit to try to get some powerful build around lands in the mix, like Westvale Abbey and Library of Alexandria, but the foundation is solid and beautiful. Before I sculpt though I have one more large pull of clay to add: the grandaddy artifact review of all artifacts of all time. I know it will be worth it, but it's going to be several thousand cards. After that though I'm confident I can curate the cube to my wasteland dream! A draft where you draft around the lands you pick, and that access to color mana is not guaranteed. A draft where most of your deck either cycles for 2, or morph's for three. Once I have that solid frame built, I can craft the subthemes and drafts archetypes in it. The artifacts play a crucial part, as it gives the cube access to interesting effects while remaining a colorless manabase. Enough diversity on the frame let's me push the color splashes in unique directions and define color identity more specifically.
I did it! The full artifact review! I can now sculpt my cube! I'm definitely pushing the site to the limit, but it's well worth it. My next endeavor is to do some analysis to make the frame and the do preliminary cuts. I'm excited to see a subtheme storm deck based off of permanents!
I got swept up in the creative process. It's beautiful. I really like the way I used deckbox to analyze. I developed a process by which I was able to keep the heart in, then add the flavor and the cute-ness. I chalk this up to the strategies I developed to kill my darlings. I also like the sub sets I made to make this more manageable. My Process started by doing a land base, so kind of like making a huge deck. Then I did my creature base, developing as much as I could through colorless means. I then did the artifacts with a focus on artifact based removal, then some fixing and ramp, then the "weapons of war" as the set was firming up to be based on colorless morph combat, which a great basis of set tension for color purposes. Basically, colored mana buys you into non creature combat focused effects for the most part, but you can develop colorless decks solely focused on creature combat. I then added build arounds. I went back and shifted the creature base to account for batterskull, mortarpod, and warden of the wall. I then moved forward to all spells. starting with a base of the "colorless" spells. Surprisingly, this was closer to half, which allows most decks to function without color, and the manabase to be more taxing. From here I rounded out effects and and balanced color weight. I ended up taking an approach where I went in WUBRG order, deciding per color if their next "pick" was instant, sorcery, or creature for green only. This balanced the type towards color polarities, which is desirable. Also, super fun!
Now comes the detail work. I can go back over artifacts to adjust how much removal/fixing/weapons of war are needed and add missing effects. Also part of this is analyzing archetypes actually available with the current list (as opposed to my projections) and then specifically altering to support viable archetypes, and trim red herrings. After this fuller consolidation, a final review of the land base to support the cube and archetypes is needed. What a blast. 100% would develop a cube this way again.
The cube overall is extremely efficient, as is befitting a wasteland. A natural sequence available to all archetypes is tapland on 1, cycling on 2, morph on 3, parity breaking effect on 4. Most turns will end with a maximization of mana. Taplands will have a greater cost than anticipated, and getting ahead on mana is virtual card advantage. This also cues that untapped mana going into the next turn cycle will absolutely represent some kind of instant speed effect, whether land, artifact, spell, or morph based. So although there's a reduction of Instants and Sorceries, there is not a reduction of stack based interaction. Further, there's an abundance of card advantage based effects in the cube, and a true depth and variety in the spread of removal, so games should have a fair amount of tension. Although a deck can pull ahead aggressively, decks can also counter, punish, and recover as effectively, and there should be few true shut out games. Parity breaking effects aren't truly available until turn 4, and what is available prior are more likely help you pull farther ahead on turn 4 or after. Interestingly, the counterspells with the least color weight and the broadest effect are mana based counters, which should play extremely well in the hyper efficient format.
There is a big guy vs. little guy tension in the cube. A lot things are about sizing, as the base is gray ogre. Some things pump butt to break parity, and a lot of removal is set at 2-3. 2/3 are the next layer of body, and x/1's are easily preyed upon. Then 3/3 's and 4/4's are the next level of predator, then all sort's of sized big guy's. There is also many subsets of cards that reward or punish you for having all little guys or all big guys.
Described below are the preliminary trends and archetypes I see:
The aggro deck lies in direct burn thru the inefficient red spells, lands, and artifacts paired with a busted go wide morph draft. Key to building the aggro deck are picking up cards that help widen the gap or prevent recovery, such as Tsabo's web, Goblin Bombardment, Magus of the moon, and parity breaking creature effects such as Jeering Instagator and Ruthless Invasion. Also keep an eye out for "each player" burn such as earthquake and claws of wirewood, which may help you close games. The most aggro start is T1 Keeper of the lens, T2 Ghostfire blade. This should be extremely difficult to break up, but also won't happen very often in the 10 person cube.
The control deck is based off of mana advantage and removal. Locus's are clutch to this archetype, and access to mana rocks and filtering. There are many artifacts that can be used to control statically, but these can all be "unlocked" by removal and should be treated more as a temporal effect than hard lock. Win con's come from over the top artifacts, alternate win cons, planeswalkers, and big creature sac outlets. This strategy resolves around picking up these more powerful singular cards and bomb removal.
Land control is likely green based land recursion and LD land with optional access to spell and permanent based LD. Secondary color of red or blue. Without a recurssive source to break the LD parity, it's about getting a decent body in play and closing the game. With that source, you can also just play go over the top spells that further stimie their ability to get in the game. Either way, the clock on this shouldn't really be able to get rolling until T4, as prior T4 it is impossible to break parity for either strategy. Breaking this requires picking up the 2 mana rocks and mono artifacts, as they can launch you into T4 faster. I'm actively trying to curve the potential for the early shut out version, as that is fairly toxic to the draft environment. Optimally this strategy is a ramp based strategy, using the huge annihilating Eldrazi and LD to close out a game from turn 6 on. This should still give deck the ability to present a clock, and hopefully interact. I don't want a more smallpox/armageddon style to be widely playable, if at all. Otherwise the LD cards are there for flavor, to keep utility lands in check, and offer strategic lines at a disadvantage to shut off opponents colors. If it's to strong I would likely cut some number of the tap/destroy lands with no activation cost to discourage the aggresive LD deck. Further, I've realized that land recursion is the key culprit to the toxic LD decks. Although crucible and ramunap excavator have a wide variety of applications in the cube, T3 one of these plus a wasteland is a game nobody wants to play. If I cut these from the cube, then the only way to reliably recur lands is life from the oam, which seems more fair as it can cost a life to play, will be hard to set up early, mills yourself and replaces your draw. It's a more fair version, although still allows for busted interaction. Although it hurts, I think removing those two from the cube makes LD a ramp only strategy, which is much more teneable, and requires specific deck drafting to execute well.
Graveyard recursion themed deck. Using a combination of the sac outlet and recursive elements to build card advantage without mana investment. It can emulate many of the other strategies, should be flexible in it's approach and allow mid range paced play. Has ability to cheat big guys into play early/instant speed. For this archetype, card that discard are the most desirable, as getting cards from hand to graveyard is not explicitly easy.
General Midrange. This will be focused on getting max value out of morph and combat, favoring the little guys matters card and creature parity breakers. It's big plays will be the "blink" effects that turn creatures face up. White will be pulled into this strategy more often than not. If paired with red, aggro and reach. If paired with blue, skies and counter spell back up. If paired with black, lends into to the sacrifice sub theme. If paired with green, LD control possible, and can blink Krosan creatures.
Combo. Find the pieces and see where it leads! Using all the elements here in, there many synergistic combos. Some are as simple as pinger + deathtouch, some are convoluted as Teshar + scrap trawler. There are likely several infinite combo's. Key here is selection and endgame. Cards like jar of eyeballs, search for Azcanta, and Ancient Stirrings should be picked first or highly, then further combo pieces sought, and then pick up cycling effects on the wheel. It can be easy to lose sight in the synergy based combo's that you don't want to just build a durdle machine. Picking up a walking Ballista, Essence Depleter, or some other way effectively and decisively win the game is absolutely necessary, as it is not guaranteed that the combo will stay intact for many turns with all the removal present. A few other combo's:
Suntitan + O Stone/Universal Solvent
Threaten effect + Sac outlet
Displacer + ETB like Meteor Golem
Pinger + Caltrops
Voltaic Servant/Vizier/Fatestitcher + Mana Vault/Mage-Ring/Staff of Dom
Attrition + Revel In Riches + Ophiomancer
Salvaging Station + cards (right?)
Crop rotation + Westvale Abbey (On your end step...)
Academy Ruins + O Stone
Breaker of Armies + Hedron Blade
Some of my favorite cards in the cube:
Desert Nomads: Gets a second life in the cube, so flavorful. Interestingly the only unblock able creature in the cube (outside of Key to the city), and is a 3 drop that can break parity.
Etched Montrosity: Another flavorful inclusion. It's the embodiment of the cube. Efficient but can be unlocked by access to colored mana. Also a bit of red herring. 5 for a 5/5 is actually quite good sizing wise in this cbe, but it should be pretty difficult to unlock. Hard mode is a combination of rocks and dual lands. Easy mode is joiner adept!
Rune of protection:artifacts- This card is easy to under value. It cycles so is never dead, and there are a million powerful sources of artifact damage in the cube. This is well worth the white investment. Similarly Angel of Jubilation is another card that is quite powerful but rewards your white devotion. Same for the fateful hour cards of thraben doomsayer and gather the townsfolk. Should be a nice subset of cards that rewards players in the weakest color option.
Deathrite Shaman: The first environment it's not busted in! He's certainly useful, but as powerful as he would seem due to barrier of color to activate and no early lands in yard. Needs to be slightly built around.
Austere Command and Profane Command: All 8 modes are useful in this cube, which i've never seen before.
Sunscour and Force of Will: The alternate mana cost makes them a potential colorless spell, and sun scour is flavorful. Interestingly, these cards will be both be undervalued and overvalued. Control players will be high on them, but those decks function more as colorless control, and will need to build around to utilize. Sunscour much of the time will be a 7 mana wrath, which is fine. Where they fit in best, and will be undervalued, is the midrange strategies. Using them as tempo plays and having access to color cards in your morph creatures is where it's at!
Ruthless Invasion: Dripping with flavor, and super powerful. There should be a decent mix in board states, but it easy to remove artifacts, and this should read "team is unblockable" a good amount of the time. Also, weirdly is alphabetical in type for skittering invasion. Flavor win?
Awakened Amalgam and Walker of the Wastes: These card will be comically large! Never before have these cards been labeled "must answer threats"!
Bosh, Barrage Tyrant, Brion Stoutarm, Dread Defiler, and Alladin's Ring: Giant's flinging creatures is how we close games in the wasteland, which just feels right. Perfect fit between many strategies. And the Ring is just all around awesome. With it being actually useable in this cube, it feels like you get an emblem saying "have laser eyes".
Oblivion Sower: This is THE most powerful card in the cube. It wins all combat, ramps you, denies your opponent their LAND, which is the whole crux of the format, potentially locking them out of colors in their deck. It also fits in every strategy, and is the perfect blink/reanimation target. You can even create a mill out with recurring it. Jeez.
Inspiring Stautuary, Infernal reckoning, herald of Kozilek, ceremonious rejection, heron blade et al: Colorless matters! These cards all do WAY more than first glance says.
Sunder: Just perfect. This is the armageddon I'm in the market for. And I really hope to pick up invocation version. That whole cycle of hours art is perfect for the cube.
Ancient Excavation, Sylvan Reclamatin, Grave Upheaval, Migratory Route, Treacherous Terrain: Found these by searching for basic land cycling. Each of these cards are like tailor made for the cube in their respective colors. It's exactly what those colors want late, and the colorless basic land cycling is clutch.
Channel: Busted? Assuredly. But go at your own risk! Should be pretty hard to auto win with it, but should lead to some interesting blowouts. GG isn't trivial ya know. Can't war to Channel into Ribbons! On it's surface it's "Pay 5-8 life: get something Awesome and a cycle on Turn 4".
Angelsong, Lull, Haze of Pollen: People never respect fog, and it seldom makes cubes. Many a game will end in "Swing with team...fog...untap, swing with team."
Starstorm, Metorite, and Meteor Golem: Wow, just wow.
Norn's Annex: Has this card ever been the good?
Sandstone Deadfall: This is the perfect piece of removal for tho cube in flavor and everything.
Talismans, cryptolith fragment, phyrexian lens: Another set of cards that have never been this good. All not just playable, but first pickable. There will be times people are sad that the fragment flips!
Tsabo's Webb: This card shuts off over a third of lands in the cube...
Arguel's Bloodfast: Holy shit is this card good in the sac deck!
Opposition: The second most broken. Requires a little more set up than oblivion sower, but can lead to total shut outs. This, Sunder, Capsize, Rescind, and mirage offer a blue LD route. Speaking of Lingering Mirage, what wonderful oddity! Will totally see play both for fixing and LD.
Garruk, Apex Predator: This is his true home!
Cloudpost: I love collect me draft cards! What an epiphany to put the locus series in here. It's like the whole cube was designed around it.
Library of Alexandria and Westvale Abbey: One of these is first pickable...it's the Abbey. The Abbey is great and well supported, but manageable. Library is power 9 level, but pretty Meh in a cube built with so many 2 for 1's. It's definitely playable, but it's mostly in here because I can and it fits. Can't wait for people to be confused.
Altar of Shadows and Predator Flagship: What perfect payoff's for the big mana control decks. Both offer recursive removal and a side functionality, both are perfect flavor wise for the big mana control player in the wasteland. An altar that is imbued with power from use in the shadows, or a warship dropping destruction across a landscape called Predator, like the ship in the star trek reboot.
It always surprises me that looking through a stack of cards can reveal cards I overlooked, even in such a deep review as this. My intitial review had me cut pathrazer of ulamog, soul collector, and neurok replica, all of which fit the cube better on further analysis. Also, I stumbled on Gruesome Slaughter, Ghostly flicker, and Elspeth Sun's Champion. Slaughter still isn't good by nature of what it is. I missed ghostly flicker, which is a welcome addition for the same reason cloudshift is. Elspeth, SUN's champion is flavorful for the white sun matters, is another payoff for being pushed into white, and is along the lines of "fight for the little guy". All three modes are great, and the ultimate is a fixed elesh norn. I win, but you at least have a chance to do something.
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Initial cube was awesoeme! It was really well received. Refreshing was the fact that every card had to be re-evaluated in the context of the cube. People did pick their colored mana sources hughly, and there was very interesting draft tension. People were pained to pass very good cards for islands. It was also interesting as some cards are better than colored mana, but it's never an easy decision. It was also cool that high color weight cards are much more likely to wheel, and those cards that were great for certain strategies got to the players who wanted them. People were amazed with last pick "1st pickables". Combat was very interesting, and LD was king. It comes as a barage. Jon successfully identified that LD + a really good threat is a great mixture. There are archetypes that force very quick games, but if those can be slowed, midrange battles are actually the most common. Locus lands were very good, but also very interesting, and not particularly over powered. Reality Smasher needs to be watched. No complete holes or misses, aside from Thran Dynamo. I was given suggestion by Jon of more castle effects, and more low drop walls. I'll look at the balance but likely already fine. Similar, Jon suggested more naturalize effects. I can certainly up the count, but don't want to make people's cards un tenable, just able to be answered in an acceptable timeframe. Jamison asked about a bunch of cards already in the cube, which felt great. Everyone loved the Red Herrings and Sleepers that the cube environment created. Awakened Amalgam being gas, and sundering titan being garbage, added a lot of interesting analysis into the cube. 3C is probably just way to difficult. 2C has be pretty good for people to warp their draft to play it. Planeswalker balance is good. The cantrip shatter, nature's claim, blessed alliance, collective brutality, tainted well, spreading seas, thirst of knowledge, hangarback walker, may all round out some small holes.
Just wanted to post some thoughts on inclusions cuts for 8/7/18. The dual color storage lands and mage-ring network should get in, less painted bluff, rupture spire likely too good, cathedral of war should get in, fast start cards of reaver drone and signal pest are worth considering, Reconsider force of will and sunscour, trail of mystery> Leyline of vitality, more grasping dunes/quicksand, errata desert nomads to "Protection from Deserts" instead of "can't be dealt damage by deserts", get a dragon's eye servant's in signed by Jon.