With this cube season, I considered just forcing Boros 15 drafts in a row and see if I lost more than 6-7 matches. Instead I decided to not force anything, just save all my decks and their records. First 5 so far:

Boros 3-0
Nothing to comment on, worked out fine



Boros 2-1
Lost the finals which was annoying, as I liked my deck



UW Control 3-0
If I don't draft Boros, chances are I'm drafting UW. This deck was pretty great



UR Wildfire 3-0
This draft was kind of a disaster, although I'm thinking the end result probably isn't complete garbage. It kinda looked like it for 2½ packs though. Not something I draft very often.



UW Control 3-0
This deck seemed to come together just fine, until I realized I have exactly 2 win conditions. I figured I had three during drafting ("when you cast Upheaval you always win"), but you kinda need a Blade Splicer or something to follow up with. I boarded in Brain Freeze in the finals (he was playing Skullclamp) against a friend of mine, just to have another way of winning, and amusingly enough I won by milling 18 cards in both games 2 and 3. All 9 games were a lot of effort with this deck.



Increasing my supply of phantom tickets, 1/3 per match! Limited rating is 1926, close to my all-time high I think.

The thing I really like about this cube is how much signalling and recognizing what is under-drafted really seems to matter. If you notice any particular archetype open early you can take it and usually end up with a totally absurd deck that rides to an easy 3-0. If you are fighting for your archetype you can still win, but your deck will be lacking some power and key cards and you can expect to fight for every win.

I'd be curious as to what people think the most underrated cards in the cube are. There are some very strong cards that understandably go late anyway, and should (like Orcish Lumberjack) but other cards (like Sylvan Library) I see sailing around the table when it seems like they have no business doing so.

Necropotence is another one that just gets totally ignored... it takes a little bit of work but as long as your deck is ready for it, you basically win when you cast it, and no one else wants it. I'd dare say that if you're taking black cards in cube, you should basically be drafting assuming you're getting and using the Necropotence, the difference in power level is huge.

I think a lot of the underrated cards in the cube are that way because they're old enough that most players never really experienced them the first time around, so they don't understand how bonkers they are.

Sometimes I even see Bonesplitter going 10-12th pick and my first thought is always "Ummm.... this shouldn't be here."

This is pretty close to the exact opposite of my approach fwiw. A lot of archetypes are just not worth drafting ever if you play to win, since even the god version of it will be either inconsistent as hell or easily outhated (by stuff like, you know, miscalculation).

^+1

I've been really tilted watching popular streamers draft Cube as they always end up with 4 colour monstrosities with greedy manabases and take 'good' cards that they should know won't make the final cut. Those decks would be wrecked by a half-decent UW Control deck (or aggro, or reanimator, or anything with a focused plan really)

I dunno.... I've had pretty solid success with some pretty weird archetypes/color combinations as long as I'm getting the goods passed to me. I'd happily play b/w planeswalkers or u/g ramp or u/r control or some other janky strategy than fight for the goods when a color isn't open.

Last three decks I played that I went 3-0 with:



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Deckbuilding flaws aside and glaring gaps in defense aside, these decks win despite being pretty janky and missing a lot of key cards for their colors by just knowing what they're trying to do and staying focused. I find a of guys durdling around with stuff that doesn't fit their deck (casting elite vangaurd in u/w control or trying to cram wurmcoil engine into mono red burn) and just losing as a result, despite trying to force a tier 1 archetype.

Sure, I can't hate on those decks. Card advantage, disruption, consistency, sign me up. The UR control deck in particular looks sweet.

Dismiss in the sb is probably the actual worst thing I've seen in 12600 posts ITT though, holy jesus. It's like the best card in the deck.

Dismiss is good for sure, but it ended up in the sideboard mostly because four mana counterspells can be pretty clunky, the deck certainly wasn't lacking countermagic, and had very real issues with threats once they resolved.

I'm still looking at the list and wondering what I would take out - it'd have to be one of the 5 mana win conditions I think. Capsize is also a bit of a yawn, but felt really necessary for the stuff that just kills me if it resolves.

I might cut like 20 of those cards before I cut Dismiss. Almost literally anything is going to be worse than Dismiss, including every piece of countermagic except maybe Cryptic Command and possibly Miscalculation.

As for the worst card in the deck, I'd cut Vesuvan Shapeshifter, but there's plenty of cards you could get rid of which I wouldn't miss too much (Rolling Earthquake, Pact of Negation, Capsize, etc).

Just found drafts.in for free cube goodness via MWS.

There goes ever spending money on MTGO lol

Give it a month. You'll be back.

Opened my account to see I have 16 cube tickets.

This system is seriously annoying.

I pretty much use MTGO solely for cube, as I'm mainly a legacy/vintage player with physical cards.

If anyone IS ever up for wanting to cube, hit me up in pm! Should have an in house draft sometime.

I'll miss the cube drafts when they're gone. When I first saw them I thought I wouldn't be bothering to play them, but they really are a blast. I like that you can draft some elaborate control deck or storm combo if you want -



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Or you can just accelerate into big monsters and run the game over while they durdle around.

Went to an easy 3-0 with that deck, but given that I got that Vedalken Shackles as an 11th pick in pack 2, I'm guessing my pod wasn't stacked with pros.

Only really notable things about that deck are that I probably should have been playing Earthquake over Rancor for more reach, and that I never thought I would ever in the history of cube drafting take a Grim Monolith and leave it in the sideboard, but given the curve and the acceleration I already have, It just didn't really fit.

Oh, and just in case there might be one guy out there that still hasn't noticed, Domri Rade is bananas.

Ha, I've also been having a ton of success just jamming RG beats in nearly every draft. Partly because I personally prefer it to something like Boros or Mono-Red (I enjoy green and fat creatures), but I think it offers the same "crush the do-nothing decks" potential while having a bit more versatility and resilience. Just curving out with threats seems insanely good in the cube.

One of my favorite cards in the archetype has become Ogre Battledriver. I basically drafted this deck to see how disgusting I could make it, and ended up with some pretty filthy draws (though the curve is a tad higher than usual).

I really dislike GR aggro. Green doesn't really provide anything. I have been extremely successful with monoR, thanks for tip. Think I'm 17-2 in matches with it, only losing to few white decks.

Yeah, I have no idea if RG itself is actually good or if it's just the general premise of curving out with threats, which Mono R and Boros might do better (but less fun imo).

Green actually provides quite a bit. The main thing it provides is acceleration - elves/birds of paradise in the one drop is serious business, even Boreal Druid is fine. Whenever I go from playing a deck with mana elves to one without, I immediately think "why is my deck so....slow?" Also on that note, I heard someone call Joraga Treespeaker "a lot closer to Sol Ring than people realize" and I think that's fair.

The other main thing it provides is efficiently costed large guys to turn sideways. It's easy to underestimate dumb green fatties, but unless your opponent has multiple pieces of spot removal, it's often the case that one guy can get the job done.

As a third bit of help, green provides a few pieces of "man, this card is ****ing good" like Sylvan Library, Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, Primal Command, Plow Under, etc. that you can often get way later than you really should because people avoid green.

Ogre Battledriver is indeed really strong. Fires of Yavimaya was a real thing back in the day, and Battledriver makes that look like kid stuff. It also has the benefit of (it seems) getting very little respect - I'm always surprised when my opponents seem willing to let Ogre Battledriver or Urabrask the Hidden just sit on the battlefield, then they act like I totally luckboxed them when they get run over by a hasty Blastoderm or Tarmogoyf or whatever dumb fatty is on hand. Even something as forgettable as Keldon Marauders can knock a guy back to Yu-Gi-Oh when you slap +2/+0 and haste on it.

Red/Green is all about curve and efficiency, which are two things that are obv. really important to winning games that for some reason people really demphasize in cube because they've got cool toys to play with and would rather do that than get down to the nuts and bolts of winning games.

The first time you go:

Turn 1: Elf.
Turn 2: Domri Rade

against a midrange or control deck, it's like the magic and wonder of getting your first blowjob.

Thing is you don't need acceleration in aggressive deck. I also never see the 1-cost mana guys, people pick them super highly. My aggressive red decks generally look like this:

16 lands

All ok 1-drops (have had 3-6)
All ok 2-drops (have had 2-5)
some very good 3-drops (have played pretty much only Sulfuric Vortex, Hell's Thunder, Ball Lightning, Zozu the Punisher.)
some very good 4-drops (Blistering Firecat, Keldon Champion, Giant Solifuge, Hellrider, new Cnandra)
0-2 amazing 5-drop (Thunderblush, Thundermaw Hellkite, I wouldn't play any other)

7-12 burn spells.
0-2 equipment (only ones I'd maindeck are Jitte, Clamp, Bonesplitter.)

Deck is super consistent because there is never color issues. I have actually won games where I have had empty board t4 and opponent at 18 because the decks just have so much reach. Fun thing is Tin Street Hooligan has always been auto include even though I don't have any green sources.

Btw I'm not trying to say GR is bad, I just think if you want to be aggressive it is better to be MonoR. GR is more of a midrange deck (I hate seeing Goblin Guide and Mold Shambler in same deck.)

I'd definitely agree with that. No doubt mono red is the best aggro deck in the format - a lot of decks, even otherwise very good ones, just can't beat the guy who snap picks every red burn spell that comes along. All the burn is super efficient, from Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning up to Char and Flame Javelin, mono red burn is bananas in cube.

(Side thought, it blows my mind that Fireblast often goes so late. I guess it's one of those "you had to be there" moments to really get why the card is stupid good, if I'm strongly in mono red burn/sligh it might be pickable over just about anything else.)

That said, I'll be honest, I don't really want Goblin Guide OR Mold Shambler in my RG decks - Goblin Guide is just terrible in a deck without piles of burn/reach, and Mold Shambler is nowhere near the power level of what I want to be doing with six mana. Sometimes I might board one in if they have a must-kill card like Vedalken Shackles, but six mana bombs are a dime a dozen in cube, I want an Inferno Titan or a Thundermaw Hellkite for that kind of mana, not a Hill Giant.

I'd probably classify RG beats as more midrange as well I guess, you basically want all your threats to be big and scary.... goblins need not apply.

On the subject of mana elves and not seeing them, I'll be blunt: If I end up in RG and don't have a pile of mana elves, chances are the draft went very wrong and I am about to lose.

I think the real trick to drafting monoR is wheeling all the stuff no one else wants, for example Fireblast. Basically first pick burns, wheel the ball lightnings.

Yeah, burn spells are really good. Especially since people still hurt themselves a little with lands.

Yup. In fact, I'd probably go out on a limb and say mono-red burn is the deck I'm most likely to have at the end that makes me go "Well, I guess I 3-0 this."

The interesting thing though is that the deck thrives on critical mass and consistency, so having someone else nearby taking your stuff hurts more than if someone was fighting you for say, u/w control.

Like, you're playing u/w control, so you are going to want at least 2-3 counterspells, 2-3 solid finishers, maybe 2-3 sweepers, some card advantage... what specifically you end up getting doesn't really matter.

Compare that to mono red, where you would want pretty close to every burn spell and cheap 1-2 drop creature you can get your hands on. There's never a point where you say "Well, I have a few burn spells already, I guess I can pass this lightning bolt and take something else."

Yeah, I probably should not have played Guide in the deck I posted and maybe not Mold Shambler. In that draft I was kind of torn between being hyper-aggro and midrange and the remnants of both kind of ended up in my deck. The best games were obv when I had the elf on turn one and could accel into the huge creatures.

Another great thing about Battledriver is that I like to have a lot of mana dorks in those decks and he turns them from dead draws into surprisingly reasonable threats when topdecked.

Ah, that special time when you have the only creature on board and your opponent topdecks treachery to steal your guy....

...and then promptly equips it with his Sword of Fire and Ice.

wp sir.