Introduction
Hi all, welcome to the 2015 Optimal Multiplayer Cube! For newcomers, the Optimal Multiplayer Cube is an attempt to find the best cards to put in a 360-card multiplayer cube. This list of 360 cards has existed in various forms for many years now for 1-vs-1 play, but a multiplayer-based one did not exist, so we set about trying to fix it. As in previous years, we did this by voting on the best cards in a multiplayer setting for each of the cube sections. As per usual, we are in furious agreement on some cards being top-tier for multiplayer (such as Blatant Thievery, Exsanguinate and Insurrection), but finding the best 360 is an altogether different prospect, so a vote is needed. We carried out the 2015 vote between September and December, and you can see the results here. We'll take these results and piece together an optimal cube list. This is now the fourth year we've done this - if you want to catch up on previous efforts, you can see the 2012, 2013 and 2014 optimal cubes, and you can draft the 2013 and 2014 cubes on CubeTutor (with links either in my signature, or in the articles themselves).
A Cube, You Say?
Unless you've been under a rock, or are fairly new to Magic: the Gathering, you probably know what a Cube is by now. For those who are yet to explore the fun that is Cube, the MTGS Cube Forum's Great Cube Resource Thread is a great place to start. It'll hopefully help you catch the cube drafting bug and make you want to build your own. For our results, we need to set some boundaries as to what our optimal cube is going to look like. A 360-card cube is the bare minimum for eight-player drafting, so this is a good baseline. For each of the sections, we'll use the sizes specified by Tom Fowler in his excellent Hip To Be Square series - 50 of each of the five colours, 50 gold, 30 artifact, 30 nonbasic land. We also need to account for taste. There are all sorts of wonderful variant cubes floating about already, and you will likely want to account for your own (and your playgroup's) personal tastes when constructing your own. So we're going to suggest 80% of the cards for each cube section, and then suggest a couple of viable archetypes that could be added in the remaining space. Finally, some of the cards that have come out on top are heinously expensive, and are obviously only going to be available to those who truly want to power their cubes. Multiplayer guys are inevitably playing at their own kitchen tables, and not operating on a top-tier tourney player's funds, so we'll also look at the more budget options available.
The Card Pool
These power rankings began in September 2015, after the release of Magic Origins. This is the cut-off point for these rankings. The 2015 rankings do not include new cards printed in Battle for Zendikar, Commander 2015 or onwards.
The Results Format
For each cube section, we'll reveal the cards that were voted into the top 80% of each section (that means the top 40 cards for each of the sections that carry 50, and the top 24 for each of the sections that carry 30). We'll look at them according to casting cost, as well as creature vs. non-creature - those who've built a cube before know that it's important to get this balance right. We'll then list cards that just missed the cut, and potential budget alternatives to some of the money cards that appear in that list. Finally, we'll look at the options we have for filling that final 20% - the archetypes that fit well with the cube we've wound up with. Where a price for a card is listed, it is refers to the cheapest printing available according to PucaTrade's PucaPoints system as of the time of publishing.
This year, you will also see me referring to the Best Multiplayer Cards Available list when swapping cards out for alternatives - this is a list of all cards from the last four years' worth of Power Rankings votes, ordered by popularity (you can see the thread itself for more details on the stats behind it, or lack thereof!). In essence, this gives us a way of finding the best multiplayer card in a particular slot when we're seeking a replacement card.
So It's Multiplayer.... What Changes?
What makes the optimal multiplayer list different to the optimal 1-on-1 list already floating about the MTGS Cube Forum, or the list of most-run cards on CubeTutor? Two things. Firstly, the optimal 1-on-1 list contains many cards that shine in duels, but are downright unplayable in multiplayer settings. In particular, traditional aggro strategies go out the window in multiplayer - they simply run out of steam against multiple opponents. A case in point is Goblin Guide - it is ranked as one of the top ten red cards in a traditional cube, but is pretty much useless in a multiplayer arena. It is still yet to garner a single vote in the multiplayer power rankings in four years of voting. Secondly, you are usually afforded more time and space in a multiplayer setting, so the average casting cost of the cards in the cube can afford to be higher than they are traditionally. This gives us the room we need to fit in expensive multiplayer staples like Insurrection and Blatant Thievery.
Let's Go!
So now, you can sit back, relax and enjoy (while I try and find the time to feverishly hammer out the results)!
Please feel free to add your comments in this thread - feedback is always appreciated!
White
The white vote was completed on September 7th 2015.
The Top 40
The white section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for white. This year, we had only 38 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add two more down the bottom. In order, these 38 were:
Our creature-to-spell balance is actually really good for once! We're at 18 creatures and 20 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in two budget white creatures that are on our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list - Stonehewer Giant and Mother of Runes.
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
As per usual, white is carrying a lot of reset cards. Thankfully, we've only got seven this year (which is much less than years past), but we probably want to get down to three, as we have in previous optimal cubes.
Our creatures are also a bit top-heavy, with lots at CC5+, and not many down low.
The curve is currently at 7-7-4-8-6-8. There is a bit of a gap at CC3 that would be nice to fill out.
Fixing the Holes
Let's remove a couple of resets and a couple of bigger creatures, and try to round out the edges as we go.
Fixing the Reset Cards
We're currently sitting at seven reset cards, and we want to get down to three. The bottom four in our vote were Armageddon / Ravages of War, Catastrophe, Cataclysm and Day of Judgment (which leaves us with ***, Balance and Austere Command... a good mix, and one we've carried in years past). We want to add four non-creature, non-reset cards, and we want to try and add a 3CC card or two while we're at it. Let's see if there's anything in our Best Available list that wasn't in this year... and we find just two white spells that aren't in the list - Replenish and Humility. Well, they're both worthy, at least.
Fixing the Creature Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 7-7-6-7-6-7, which isn't curved so much as almost dead flat. Our creature curve is currently 2-4-2-3-5-4. If we can drop a 5CC and 6CC+ creature for a 3CC and 4CC one, that's going to look pretty good.
Stonehewer Giant was the last creature in, so we'll just drop him again. The bottom of our four top finishers was Yosei, so he can be the other one overboard.
So, now for the additions. Back into the Best Available list, we find we have to head into the cards that didn't make the list's cutoff. Digging into the stats, we find the highest rankings belong to Hero of Bladehold and Knight Exemplar. The Exemplar, however, hasn't got any other Knights to play with (besides Bladehold and Mirror Entity). Heading just a couple of slots further down the list yields us Mirran Crusader, who is a bomb at this CC (and a Knight, as irony would have it). Nice!
-1 Stonehewer Giant
-1 Yosei, the Morning Star
+1 Hero of Bladehold
+1 Mirran Crusader
Blue
The blue vote was completed on September 14th 2015.
The Top 40
The blue section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for blue. This year, we had only 23 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 17 more down the bottom. In order, these 23 were:
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 17. This is blue, so we want to have roughly a 60/40 split in favour of spells. This means 24 spells and 16 creatures, and we're currently at 8 creatures / 15 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best nine spells and eight creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
Dropping Accumulated Knowledge
This has now stuck the curve at 3-9-9-8-6-5, which is much better. Let's just drop Accumulated Knowledge for the next best draw spell in the list, and we're good. That would be Prosperity, which can be added without stuffing the curve up.
-1 Accumulated Knowledge
+1 Prosperity
Gilded Drake has thoughtfully fallen off this list in the last twelve months (it's currently sitting at about $19.70), so it stays. In years past, we have swapped Mana Drain straight up for Counterspell and Ancestral Recall straight up for Visions of Beyond - they're both perfectly fair swaps still. We'll never get an extra turn for two mana outside of Time Walk, but Standstill ranks highly, and is one of the next CC2 cards in our Best Available list - it's not going to hand us an extra turn, but it is going to buy us time. However, there is simply nothing comparable at the same CC for Snapcaster, Timetwister and Show and Tell, so it's probably better to just find the next best card available in each of these cases. This brings us the following swaps:
-1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Ancestral Recall
-1 Time Walk
-1 Mana Drain
-1 Timetwister
-1 Show and Tell
+1 Lighthouse Chronologist
+1 Visions of Beyond
+1 Standstill
+1 Counterspell
+1 Trade Secrets
+1 Forbid
Black
The black vote was completed on September 21st 2015.
The Top 40
The black section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for blue. This year, we had only 20 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 20 more down the bottom. In order, these 20 were:
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 20. We need 20 spells and 20 creatures, and we're currently at 8 creatures / 12 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best eight spells and twelve creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
Dropping the Tribal Elements
This has now stuck the curve at 3-7-8-10-7-5, which is much better. However, we had Death Baron before, and we've now just added Noxious Ghoul and Malakir Bloodwitch. These are all cards that are very dependent on having a lot of their fellow tribe members floating about to work well, so we'd best check out exactly how many zombies and vampires we currently have before we commit to them.
Checking this sees us currently running just two other zombies (Gray Merchant and Fleshbag), and just three other vampires (Blood Artist, Vampire Nighthawk and Bloodghast) - not enough to support any of these guys. Picking the next creatures in the list at the same CC gives us the following changes:
-1 Death Baron
-1 Noxious Ghoul
-1 Malakir Bloodwitch
+1 Stinkweed Imp
+1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
+1 Thrashing Wumpus
Red
The red vote was completed on September 28th 2015.
The Top 40
The red section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for red. This year, we had only 15 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 25 more down the bottom. In order, these 15 were:
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 25. We need 20 spells and 20 creatures, and we're currently at 4 creatures / 11 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best nine spells and sixteen creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
Dropping the Finishers
This has now stuck the curve at 5-5-9-6-6-9, which is much better. However, out of those nine at CC6+, six of them are creatures, which is a few too many. Let's drop the bottom three. We then want to spread our swaps out over the curve. If we add two CC4s and one CC5, that brings the curve to a very pretty 5-5-9-8-7-6. Delving back into the list gives us the following:
-1 Utvara Hellkite
-1 Hostility
-1 Hateflayer
+1 Lavaborn Muse
+1 Aladdin
+1 Malignus
We're starting to dredge our rankings a bit, but this is red we're talking about, I suppose!
I'm not going to pretend that anyone will actually draft Aladdin - he's too old, too fragile and too niche. I have Purphoros sitting on the non-creature side. If I classify him as a creature, as some do, let's see what the next non-creature spell at CC4 is...
-1 Aladdin
+1 Chain Reaction
Infinitely better!
Green
The green vote was completed on October 7th 2015.
The Top 40
The green section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for green. This year, we had only 26 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 14 more down the bottom. In order, these 26 were:
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 14. Given we are in green, and we are aiming for a 60/40 split between creatures and spells here (in order to balance out against blue, which is the opposite), we need 16 spells and 24 creatures. We find ourselves currently at 13 creatures / 13 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best three spells and eleven creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
Fixing the Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 7-6-4-9-8-6, which is much better. However, we've still got a dip in the curve at CC3. Unfortunately, the creatures at this CC are a pretty sick and sorry bunch, so we'll have to fix this by playing with spells instead. Dropping a CC4 spell and a CC5 spell for two at CC3 will give us a curve of 7-6-6-8-7-6. Close to flat, but better than it was. Delving back into the list gives us the following:
-1 Natural Order
-1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
+1 Beast Within
+1 Enchantress's Presence
Nice cards! We might have to play with enchantments later on to make Enchantress's Presence worthwhile, but it's already got seven other enchantments to play with in green, so it's good enough.
Gold
The gold vote was completed on November 2nd 2015.
The Top 40
The gold section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for gold. We split the rankings up amongst guilds this year, and the aim with our 50 gold cards is to break this down further into five cards for each allied guild, four for each enemy guild, and five cards with three or more colours. In order to reach our Top 40, let's take the top four cards from each allied guild, and the top three from each enemy guild, along with the top five with three or more colours.
This gives us the following:
All of this puts our curve at 1-5-9-9-8-8. That's actually really good for gold, which traditionally carries a much higher curve than single colours. Our creature to spell ratio is 24-16, but that's OK, as we normally make up for that in the colourless section. There are just a couple of light tinkers that we need to make:
Mentioning Dragonlord Kolaghan in a singleton format usually inspires chuckles.
Gruul is full of beaters, and not carrying anything smaller.
Fixing the Holes
This should be pretty quick...
Swapping Out Dragonlord Kolaghan
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find the next best Rakdos card.... and wow, it's our old friend Kaervek, who barely rated a mention this year, but streeted the competition in the three years previous. Given our curve and creature/spell ratio are OK, that's an easy straight swap:
-1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
+1 Kaervek the Merciless
Lowering Gruul's Curve
Gruul is running the two Xenagoses (Xenagi? I dunno...) and two CC6 beaters in Broodmother and Ruric Thar. Let's at least pretend to care about the curve here, and drop Ruric Thar (who was the lower ranked of the two finishers). Delving back into the list gives us Huntmaster of the Fells further down the curve, which is good enough:
-1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
Colourless
The colourless vote was completed on October 19th 2015.
The Top 24
The colourless section in a 360-card cube is 30 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 24 cards in our power rankings for colourless. In order, these were:
This doesn't look too bad for a colourless section, but there are still a few things to play with:
Our curve is 11-2-4-1-0-6. While it's natural to have a big figure in the CC0-1 slot here (given all the mana rocks), the fact we have so many, along with the almost complete lack of CC4-5 cards, is not good for our curve.
We normally try and go for six creatures, six equipment, six mana rocks and six others here, but we have heaps of mana rocks and hardly any equipment.
Our creatures are also really top-heavy - five of our six are CC6 or above.
Fixing the Holes
Let's remove a couple of resets and a couple of bigger creatures, and try to round out the edges as we go.
Dropping Some Mana Rocks
Ideally we'd like to get to six of everything, but when seven of your mana rocks are Sol Ring, Black Lotus and the five Moxen... well... let's just drop two and see where it gets us! The bottom two mana rocks are Mana Crypt and Mana Vault. Let's drop them and try to add some equipment in the CC4-5 range.
Looking at equipment in that range, we have both Batterskull and Grafted Exoskeleton just outside the Top 24 in this year's rankings, and they're perfect. Done.
-1 Mana Crypt
-1 Mana Vault
+1 Batterskull
+1 Grafted Exoskeleton
Fixing the Creature Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 9-2-4-2-1-6. It's not perfect yet, but we've got a finisher or two to drop. If we throw two finishers overboard, and replace them with a CC2 creature and a CC5 creature, we get our curve to an almost-palatable 9-3-4-2-2-4. That's probably as good as it gets, while fielding all that jewelry.
The bottom two finishers were Blightsteel Colossus and Artisan of Kozilek, so we'll drop those two. We didn't have any other colourless creatures receive votes this year, though, so we'll have to dig back into the Best Available list to find a decent CC2 and CC5 creature to add. Doing so yields us Spellskite and Psychosis Crawler, both of whom are perfectly acceptable.
-1 Blightsteel Colossus
-1 Artisan of Kozilek
+1 Spellskite
+1 Psychosis Crawler
Non-Basic Land
The land vote was completed on November 10th 2015.
The Top 24
The non-basic land section in a 360-card cube is 30 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 24 cards in our power rankings for non-basics. In order, these were:
In order to break the tie with the fetches, we'll drop them and add the card that finished at #25 - Cabal Coffers.
We also have a problem adding a single Cloudpost to a cube - it becomes a really terrible colourless land when used in isolation. So we'll swap that for the card that finished at #26 - Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
Nice that we're only swapping 12 of the land out this year. Two years ago, it was the whole set of 24! Let's delve back into the Best Available list and find the next twelve to swap in that are under budget. Technically, Windswept Heath will qualify for this list, but it's the only fetch of the ten that does, so we'll only use cycles that are completely under our $20 threshold.
-10 Alpha Duals
-1 Tolarian Academy
-1 Gaea's Cradle
+10 Ravnica Bouncelands
+1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
+1 Kessig Wolf Run
Optimal Multiplayer Cube 2015
Righto, we've done the hard work and put the top 80% of the cube in. It's now time to fill the last section in with our archetypes. As mentioned, we're doing this a little differently this year, adding an archetype per two-colour guild. We have 72 cards left to add, but six of these are land and six are colourless (which aren't normally too guild-related). So for the remaining 60, let's hand six to each guild. For each guild, we'll add one gold card, three of the first guild colour and two of the second. Let's go!
Archetypes
It's important to note here that the archetypes being added here are by no means the best possible to add. That will always be subjective and meta-dependent. What you should be considering when adding archetypes to your cube is whether it forms a cohesive strategy, whether every element is draftable, and, most importantly, whether it is fun.
This is usually where the cube designer adds the pet cards and strategies that their meta loves. As an example, my own personal cube has an Enchantress archetype onboard - not because it's the most effective strategy, even in a Limited environment (because it isn't - I won't waste any more pixels on why openly inviting people to two-for-one your creatures is a bad idea), but because the guys I play with adore it (and yes, it has won games out of my cube)! This is what keeps people coming back to an environment like Cube - not because they can draft what they know are the best cards available, but because of the stonkingly fun time they can have doing so. In that regard, it makes sense to have a bit of fun with the last 20% of your cube!
This time around, I'm going to try and add a strong archetype for each of the ten guilds. Some are known commodities, some are hard work. Let's see what we end up with.
Azorius - Artifacts
White and blue are both quite artifact-centric when they want to be, and, importantly, blue never got a chance to add Tezzeret the Seeker earlier on. He loves Moxen, and wants to help!
So we know we want Tezzeret. We also need to add three white cards, one blue card and an Azorius card to help out.
+1 Tezzeret the Seeker(One of the centrepieces - tutors and ramps fast mana)
+1 Dispeller's Capsule(Good removal, capable of some excellent recursion)
+1 Fountain Watch(Annoying control card for artifact and enchantment decks)
+1 Scourglass(The all-artifact reset)
+1 Muzzio, Visionary Architect(Free artifacts! What could possibly go wrong?)
+1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator(Recursion)
Dimir - Mill
This is one of the obvious ones - we've already got Consuming Aberration in the list, so the rest is fairly elementary from here. We're adding three blue, two black and one Dimir card here.
+1 Stitcher Geralf(Mills everyone and hands you a fat creature in the process)
+1 Increasing Confusion(Excellent finisher mill card)
+1 Talent of the Telepath(A targeted mill card that can hose certain decks in the process)
+1 Sewer Nemesis(Aberration-lite)
+1 Undercity Informer(Excellent cheap miller and sac outlet)
+1 Phenax, God of Deception(If Aberration doesn't finish people, this usually does)
Rakdos - Discard
Rakdos is pretty hard to fill - it doesn't quite know what it wants to achieve as a guild in Multiplayer just yet. But we can at least make a fist of a decent discard setup - we already have Lavaborn Muse, Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, Waste Not and Syphon Mind in. This calls for three black, two red, one Rakdos.
+1 Bottomless Pit(The ultimate in annoying continual forced discard)
+1 Liliana's Caress(Requisite damage-on-discard permanent. Will hose discard outlets too)
+1 Sadistic Hypnotist(Discard-causing sac outlet. Nasty with Waste Not)
+1 Hellfire Mongrel(Another rack effect)
+1 Burning Inquiry(Cheap discard spell that wrecks strategies)
+1 Sire of Insanity(This is where he likes to party!)
Selesnya - Enchantments
This guild stood a good chance of doing tokens pretty well too, but enchantments are fun too! Enchantress's Presence is already in. We should be able to add three green, two white and one Selesnya pretty easily.
+1 Eidolon of Blossoms(Enchantress effect #2)
+1 Ancestral Mask(Turns any old creature into a surprise finisher)
+1 Asceticism(Another strong enchantment that plays well with this theme)
+1 Sigil of the Empty Throne(A win-con for this archetype)
+1 Soul Snare(Great rattlesnake removal card that triggers Enchantress)
+1 Sterling Grove(Enchantment tutor, protection)
Orzhov - Lifegain / Bleed
We've already got some excellent lifegain and group bleed play going on in this guild, thanks to Vizkopa Guildmage, Blood Artist, Bloodchief Ascension and a host of other cards. Let's build on that with some extortion.
+1 Blind Obedience(Excellent extort enchantment)
+1 Rhox Faithmender(Utterly ridiculous next to Vizkopa Guildmage)
+1 Soul Warden(Was somehow missing from our initial list)
+1 Palace Siege(Bleeder and/or recursion)
+1 Pontiff of Blight(Throws extortion around across the board)
+1 Debt to the Deathless(A second Exsanguinate to finish things off)
Izzet - Spells Matter
This archetype is fairly well established, and we've been fortunate enough to have a few of the centrepieces miss the initial 80%. This is going to be one of the easier ones to fill out...
+1 Talrand, Sky Summoner(Spams the board and creates value)
+1 Archaeomancer(Recursion, creates combos with Evacuation / Cyclonic Rift)
+1 Mystical Tutor(Fetches the best spell available)
+1 Guttersnipe(Win condition for this archetype)
+1 Young Pyromancer(Another creator of value)
+1 Melek, Izzet Paragon(Another guy to help chew through the spells with)
Golgari - Group Creature Sacrifice
Another one that is fairly easily chosen - Golgari is already rocking Deathreap Ritual, Grave Pact, Innocent Blood, Fleshbag Marauder and Pox. It wants to be all about making people sacrifice creatures and then profiting on it. We're chasing three black, two green and one Golgari card here.
+1 Dictate of Erebos(Grave Pact #2)
+1 Sheoldred, Whispering One (Complete house in this archetype)
+1 Dread Return(Reanimation spell that can also trigger Grave Pact)
+1 Gamekeeper (Excellent creature to throw overboard to sac outlets)
+1 Mitotic Slime (Another guy who produces value when sacrificed. Bonkers with Doubling Season, too)
+1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord(And here's our sac outlet of choice. Potential to win the game)
Boros - Damage Redirection
We already have most of the pieces of the classical Repercussion archetype in the cube (including Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction and Boros Reckoner), so let's build on that.
+1 Mogg Maniac(The little Reckoner)
+1 Arcbond(Surprise finisher spell, essentially forks Acts, Reactions and Earthquakes for three mana)
+1 Coalhauler Swine(Another guy that likes being damaged)
+1 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary(A dude that plays through our strategies)
+1 Solitary Confinement(Prevents damage from our own red things, works well with Enchantress and Reanimator too)
+1 Spitemare(Another pseudo-Reckoner)
Simic - Bounce and Blink
Simic is all about Prophet of Kruphix and Deadeye Navigator right now. We want things with awesome enter-the-battlefield effects that we can flash in at opportune times and then abuse with Deadeye. We've already been handed Eternal Witness, Mystic Snake, Mulldrifter and a few others. Let's see what else we can dig up...
+1 Elvish Harbinger(Surprisingly good creature tutor and mana-fixer that likes being blinked)
+1 Hornet Queen(Spams the board with deathtouching tokens)
+1 Reclamation Sage(Artifact/enchantment removal that works well with blink and the Harbinger)
+1 Whirler Rogue(Spams tokens, produces unblockability, good with artifacts too)
+1 Draining Whelk (A second Mystic Snake)
+1 Prime Speaker Zegana(Quickly ridiculous when bounced repeatedly)
Colourless
Almost there. We need to add six colourless cards that play nicely with the archetypes above. Let's go with the following:
+1 Mana Vault (A card we dropped early that is tailor-made for artifact decks)
+1 Myr Battlesphere(Lovely with tokens, Goblin Welder, Mimic Vat etc. etc.)
+1 Sculpting Steel(Works with just about everything else)
+1 Trading Post(Wonderful utility)
+1 Loxodon Warhammer (The Noobstick loves working with our Boros and Orzhov cards)
+1 Mirari (Another spell forker for Izzet and Boros)
Non-Basic Land
And finally, we need six non-basic lands that want to join in the fun.
+1 Rogue's Passage(Too good to leave out)
+1 Bojuka Bog(Ditto)
+1 Glacial Chasm(Wants to go to work with Boros)
+1 High Market(Sac outlet for Golgari, life gain for Orzhov)
+1 Academy Ruins(Artifact recursion for Azorius)
+1 Terramorphic Expanse(Always useful)
Budget Version
Okay, we have our optimal cube for 2015. But look at it... it's full of Power Nine, dual lands... if you're just starting out with cube building, this is hardly the cube you're going to build off the bat.
As we've gone through the construction of the optimal cube, we've had budget suggestions the whole way through, as those starting out with cube construction will definitely have a budget of some kind (because we're all playing at kitchen tables as it is). The $20 price limit on any single card cuts out a lot of the unfeasible stuff that the average person is never going to be able to sleeve up in real life, but it also gives a big enough range that someone starting out will be able to see the money cards that they should be aiming to pick up if they haven't already.
The Changes
Here are the suggested changes from earlier:
Legacy-Legal Version
So we have an optimal cube, as well as a budget version - it's time for a Legacy-legal version. Why do we do this? As well as being the most accepted Banned/Restricted list for kitchen tables, a Legacy-legal version of the optimal cube ends up quite close to what a cube designer would consider the best feasible thing they can construct (in that they're not going to be shelling out thousands of dollars to power their cube, but it remains carrying some of the most powerful cards ever printed, and has a lot of the unfair stuff identified and removed).
This version will keep cards that are a couple of hundred dollars in value, but will inevitably drop all of the Power Nine and cards rightfully banned for their brokenness.
Removing the Banned Cards
The current Legacy Banned List can be seen here. Thankfully, our budget version already identified replacements for quite a few of these, so we'll make our budget swaps where possible. Where we need something else, we'll discuss it.
White
White loses a single card in Balance. Let's head back into the construction of our white section, and replace it with the last white reset we dropped (because we sure dropped a few!)... that would be Armageddon (or Ravages of War, if that's how you roll).
-1 Balance / +1 Armageddon
Green
As per last year, green loses Survival of the Fittest and Fastbond. Last year, we swapped Fastbond for Sylvan Library, which is a more than fine trade. We had to swap Survival out in the Budget Version, but we swapped it for Oath of Druids, which is also on the Legacy Banned List. To top things off, we swapped it for Birthing Pod last year, but that's already in our 360 this year, so we're going to have to get creative. One of the final cards we dropped when constructing green this year was Natural Order... not exactly budget, but it'll do just fine here.
-1 Survival of the Fittest / +1 Natural Order
-1 Fastbond / +1 Sylvan Library
Gold
There are currenlty no gold cards on the Legacy ban list, so we're pretty safe here.
Colourless
This is where all the broken Power 9 members and mana stones go overboard. As per the Budget Version, we lose Black Lotus and the five Moxen. The Legacy Banned List also decrees that we give basically our entire 0-1CC section the flick, losing Mana Vault, Skullclamp and Sol Ring.
We know about the budget swaps we made, and they remain legal and easy:
-1 Black Lotus / +1 Lotus Petal
-5 Moxen / +5 Allied Signets
Last year, we had to swap Sol Ring and Skullclamp out, and we did the following, which remains perfectly fine:
-1 Sol Ring / + 1 Mox Diamond
-1 Skullclamp / +1 Basilisk Collar
That leaves only Mana Vault. Let's swap it out for its slightly-less-broken and 100%-more-legal little brother:
-1 Mana Vault / +1 Basalt Monolith
Non-Basic Land
Only the Academy to drop here, and we already handled that earlier in the Budget Version.
-1 Tolarian Academy / +1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Conclusion
Well, that's it. Thanks to all who voted in the power rankings to aid in the construction of this year's cubes, as well as for your continued interest in my annual mad folly.
If you're just starting out building a Multiplayer-centric cube, by all means use this as a guide, and don't stop if you're missing half of the cards - replace them with whatever is lying around and draft like no tomorrow. Your group will enjoy it regardless! From there, the continual upgrading of your cube is one of life's simple pleasures (but perhaps not your wallet's)!
What's Changed
Thanks to CubeTutor's fan-diddly-tastic cube comparison page, it's easy to have a look at what has changed since last year. Rather than going into it in gory detail here, it's easier to just link to the pages.
* - Chosen as part of an archetype in the final phase of cube construction. Or, in other words, you didn't vote for them, I just stuck them in later because I felt like it.
What It Costs To Build
Thankfully for me, CubeTutor has added a pricing feature in the last twelve months. Running that across our three cubes gives us the following:
Optimal Cube - $71,753.09
Legacy-Legal Cube - $1,790.77
Budget Cube - $1,341.73
The Optimal Cube's price is assuming Alpha copies of the Power Nine and dual lands, so it is through the roof appropriately!
As you can see, we basically cull $450 off the cost of construction simply by swapping out anything over $20 a copy in the Budget Cube. Don't let the price of the Budget Cube keep you away from building your own - this only proves how easy it is to build a cube on a budget, culling a quarter of the price off it without even trying. I have even seen the beginnings of attempts at Multiplayer Pauper in the last twelve months, and it should theoretically be possible (97 of the 360 cards in the Budget Cube are Pauper-legal, so it's more than a quarter of the way there already).
Even my own cube started out as roughly 50% coming from a Lorwyn common/uncommon playset I had bought (and the cube was very, very tribal for the first year or two as a result!), so don't be frightened off building your own by price or card availability - this is an optimal cube (and even mine is not optimal!), and is only a guide to aim for long-term. Until then, sleeve up what you have, and go have more fun than you could possibly imagine.
Ready, Set, Draft!
Anyway, that's enough facts and stats. I'm not silly. I know what you want. You want to hurry up and draft the suckers! Ask and you shall receive - here are the links to all three cubes on CubeTutor. Enjoy drafting them, feel free to give me any feedback, and, as always, please support Ben, the CubeTutor admin!
Contents
Introduction
Hi all, welcome to the 2015 Optimal Multiplayer Cube! For newcomers, the Optimal Multiplayer Cube is an attempt to find the best cards to put in a 360-card multiplayer cube. This list of 360 cards has existed in various forms for many years now for 1-vs-1 play, but a multiplayer-based one did not exist, so we set about trying to fix it. As in previous years, we did this by voting on the best cards in a multiplayer setting for each of the cube sections. As per usual, we are in furious agreement on some cards being top-tier for multiplayer (such as Blatant Thievery, Exsanguinate and Insurrection), but finding the best 360 is an altogether different prospect, so a vote is needed. We carried out the 2015 vote between September and December, and you can see the results here. We'll take these results and piece together an optimal cube list. This is now the fourth year we've done this - if you want to catch up on previous efforts, you can see the 2012, 2013 and 2014 optimal cubes, and you can draft the 2013 and 2014 cubes on CubeTutor (with links either in my signature, or in the articles themselves).
A Cube, You Say?
Unless you've been under a rock, or are fairly new to Magic: the Gathering, you probably know what a Cube is by now. For those who are yet to explore the fun that is Cube, the MTGS Cube Forum's Great Cube Resource Thread is a great place to start. It'll hopefully help you catch the cube drafting bug and make you want to build your own. For our results, we need to set some boundaries as to what our optimal cube is going to look like. A 360-card cube is the bare minimum for eight-player drafting, so this is a good baseline. For each of the sections, we'll use the sizes specified by Tom Fowler in his excellent Hip To Be Square series - 50 of each of the five colours, 50 gold, 30 artifact, 30 nonbasic land. We also need to account for taste. There are all sorts of wonderful variant cubes floating about already, and you will likely want to account for your own (and your playgroup's) personal tastes when constructing your own. So we're going to suggest 80% of the cards for each cube section, and then suggest a couple of viable archetypes that could be added in the remaining space. Finally, some of the cards that have come out on top are heinously expensive, and are obviously only going to be available to those who truly want to power their cubes. Multiplayer guys are inevitably playing at their own kitchen tables, and not operating on a top-tier tourney player's funds, so we'll also look at the more budget options available.
The Card Pool
These power rankings began in September 2015, after the release of Magic Origins. This is the cut-off point for these rankings. The 2015 rankings do not include new cards printed in Battle for Zendikar, Commander 2015 or onwards.
The Results Format
For each cube section, we'll reveal the cards that were voted into the top 80% of each section (that means the top 40 cards for each of the sections that carry 50, and the top 24 for each of the sections that carry 30). We'll look at them according to casting cost, as well as creature vs. non-creature - those who've built a cube before know that it's important to get this balance right. We'll then list cards that just missed the cut, and potential budget alternatives to some of the money cards that appear in that list. Finally, we'll look at the options we have for filling that final 20% - the archetypes that fit well with the cube we've wound up with. Where a price for a card is listed, it is refers to the cheapest printing available according to PucaTrade's PucaPoints system as of the time of publishing.
This year, you will also see me referring to the Best Multiplayer Cards Available list when swapping cards out for alternatives - this is a list of all cards from the last four years' worth of Power Rankings votes, ordered by popularity (you can see the thread itself for more details on the stats behind it, or lack thereof!). In essence, this gives us a way of finding the best multiplayer card in a particular slot when we're seeking a replacement card.
So It's Multiplayer.... What Changes?
What makes the optimal multiplayer list different to the optimal 1-on-1 list already floating about the MTGS Cube Forum, or the list of most-run cards on CubeTutor? Two things. Firstly, the optimal 1-on-1 list contains many cards that shine in duels, but are downright unplayable in multiplayer settings. In particular, traditional aggro strategies go out the window in multiplayer - they simply run out of steam against multiple opponents. A case in point is Goblin Guide - it is ranked as one of the top ten red cards in a traditional cube, but is pretty much useless in a multiplayer arena. It is still yet to garner a single vote in the multiplayer power rankings in four years of voting. Secondly, you are usually afforded more time and space in a multiplayer setting, so the average casting cost of the cards in the cube can afford to be higher than they are traditionally. This gives us the room we need to fit in expensive multiplayer staples like Insurrection and Blatant Thievery.
Let's Go!
So now, you can sit back, relax and enjoy (while I try and find the time to feverishly hammer out the results)!
Please feel free to add your comments in this thread - feedback is always appreciated!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The white vote was completed on September 7th 2015.
The Top 40
The white section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for white. This year, we had only 38 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add two more down the bottom. In order, these 38 were:
The Curve
Creatures
1 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Auriok Champion
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Mirror Entity
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Jazal Goldmane
4 Wall of Reverence
5 Reveillark
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Karmic Guide
5 Sunscorch Regent
6 Yosei, the Morning Star
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Land Tax
1 Limited Resources
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
2 Balance
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Honor of the Pure
3 Aura of Silence
4 Wrath of God
4 Ravages of War
4 Cataclysm
4 Moat
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
6 Austere Command
6 Catastrophe
6 Terminus
6 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Our creature-to-spell balance is actually really good for once! We're at 18 creatures and 20 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in two budget white creatures that are on our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list - Stonehewer Giant and Mother of Runes.
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
Fixing the Holes
Let's remove a couple of resets and a couple of bigger creatures, and try to round out the edges as we go.
Fixing the Reset Cards
We're currently sitting at seven reset cards, and we want to get down to three. The bottom four in our vote were Armageddon / Ravages of War, Catastrophe, Cataclysm and Day of Judgment (which leaves us with ***, Balance and Austere Command... a good mix, and one we've carried in years past). We want to add four non-creature, non-reset cards, and we want to try and add a 3CC card or two while we're at it. Let's see if there's anything in our Best Available list that wasn't in this year... and we find just two white spells that aren't in the list - Replenish and Humility. Well, they're both worthy, at least.
So let's head back into the data and see what was just off that list... the next two white spells that just missed the list are Entreat the Angels and Ghostly Prison. Perfect! Quality spells, and they're both CC3!
-1 Armageddon / Ravages of War
-1 Catastrophe
-1 Cataclysm
-1 Day of Judgment
+1 Replenish
+1 Humility
+1 Entreat the Angels
+1 Ghostly Prison
Fixing the Creature Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 7-7-6-7-6-7, which isn't curved so much as almost dead flat. Our creature curve is currently 2-4-2-3-5-4. If we can drop a 5CC and 6CC+ creature for a 3CC and 4CC one, that's going to look pretty good.
Stonehewer Giant was the last creature in, so we'll just drop him again. The bottom of our four top finishers was Yosei, so he can be the other one overboard.
So, now for the additions. Back into the Best Available list, we find we have to head into the cards that didn't make the list's cutoff. Digging into the stats, we find the highest rankings belong to Hero of Bladehold and Knight Exemplar. The Exemplar, however, hasn't got any other Knights to play with (besides Bladehold and Mirror Entity). Heading just a couple of slots further down the list yields us Mirran Crusader, who is a bomb at this CC (and a Knight, as irony would have it). Nice!
-1 Stonehewer Giant
-1 Yosei, the Morning Star
+1 Hero of Bladehold
+1 Mirran Crusader
Creatures
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Mother of Runes
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Auriok Champion
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Academy Rector
4 Jazal Goldmane
4 Wall of Reverence
4 Hero of Bladehold
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Karmic Guide
5 Sunscorch Regent
6 Sun Titan
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Land Tax
1 Limited Resources
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
2 Balance
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Honor of the Pure
3 Aura of Silence
3 Entreat the Angels
3 Ghostly Prison
4 Wrath of God
4 Moat
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Replenish
4 Humility
6 Austere Command
6 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Budget Constraints
A couple of different things are over our $20 budget considerations. Obviously, Moat is one of them.
- Stoneforge Mystic ($23.04)
- Auriok Champion ($27.66)
- Avacyn, Angel of Hope ($25.49)
- Moat ($333.27)
Stoneforge Mystic and Moat have been in our list in the past, and we've replaced them with Puresteel Paladin and Lightmine Field. The Paladin is fine, but there are definitely better options than the Field - we're already playing Ghostly Prison in our 40, so let's throw something similar in in an effort to mimic the complete lack of attacking. Norn's Annex wants a gig.Auriok Champion is easily replaced - somehow, this is the first year we don't have Soul Warden in the votes. Ironic, given this is the first year the Champion has cracked $20.
Finally, Avacyn usually winds up on this list as well, and we traditionally replace her with the next beater that fell off our list. We dropped Yosei a little further back, and he's fine.
-1 Stoneforge Mystic
-1 Auriok Champion
-1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
-1 Moat
+1 Puresteel Paladin
+1 Soul Warden
+1 Yosei, the Morning Star
+1 Norn's Annex
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The blue vote was completed on September 14th 2015.
The Top 40
The blue section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for blue. This year, we had only 23 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 17 more down the bottom. In order, these 23 were:
The Curve
Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
6 Deadeye Navigator
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Spells
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
2 Time Walk
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Mana Drain
2 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Rhystic Study
4 Rite of Replication
4 Whelming Wave
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Illusionist's Gambit
7 Blatant Thievery
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 17. This is blue, so we want to have roughly a 60/40 split in favour of spells. This means 24 spells and 16 creatures, and we're currently at 8 creatures / 15 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best nine spells and eight creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
Fixing the Holes
Let's start dropping CC6+ cards for some CC5 ones and see where we get.
Fixing the Curve
Ideally, we probably want to be dropping five curve-toppers for five CC5 cards. We've coincidentally just added five to top ourselves up to 40 cards - Inkwell Leviathan, Aetherling, Deep-Sea Kraken, Time Spiral and Omniscience.
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find three creatures and two spells at CC5. That gives us the following swaps:
-1 Inkwell Leviathan
-1 Aetherling
-1 Deep-Sea Kraken
-1 Time Spiral
-1 Omniscience
+1 Djinn of Wishes
+1 Mulldrifter
+1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
+1 Future Sight
+1 Dream Halls
Dropping Accumulated Knowledge
This has now stuck the curve at 3-9-9-8-6-5, which is much better. Let's just drop Accumulated Knowledge for the next best draw spell in the list, and we're good. That would be Prosperity, which can be added without stuffing the curve up.
-1 Accumulated Knowledge
+1 Prosperity
Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Aura Thief
4 Master Transmuter
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
5 Djinn of Wishes
5 Mulldrifter
5 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
6 Deadeye Navigator
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Spells
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
1 Prosperity
2 Time Walk
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Mana Drain
2 Stasis
3 Rhystic Study
3 Timetwister
3 Propaganda
3 Capsize
3 Show and Tell
3 Windfall
4 Rite of Replication
4 Whelming Wave
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Illusionist's Gambit
5 Future Sight
5 Dream Halls
6 Recurring Insight
7 Blatant Thievery
Budget Constraints
Obviously, blue is the colour of budget constraints.
Gilded Drake has thoughtfully fallen off this list in the last twelve months (it's currently sitting at about $19.70), so it stays. In years past, we have swapped Mana Drain straight up for Counterspell and Ancestral Recall straight up for Visions of Beyond - they're both perfectly fair swaps still. We'll never get an extra turn for two mana outside of Time Walk, but Standstill ranks highly, and is one of the next CC2 cards in our Best Available list - it's not going to hand us an extra turn, but it is going to buy us time. However, there is simply nothing comparable at the same CC for Snapcaster, Timetwister and Show and Tell, so it's probably better to just find the next best card available in each of these cases. This brings us the following swaps:
-1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Ancestral Recall
-1 Time Walk
-1 Mana Drain
-1 Timetwister
-1 Show and Tell
+1 Lighthouse Chronologist
+1 Visions of Beyond
+1 Standstill
+1 Counterspell
+1 Trade Secrets
+1 Forbid
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The black vote was completed on September 21st 2015.
The Top 40
The black section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for blue. This year, we had only 20 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 20 more down the bottom. In order, these 20 were:
The Curve
Creatures
2 Blood Artist
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
7 Sepulchral Primordial
8 Griselbrand
Spells
1 Bloodchief Ascension
2 Exsanguinate
2 Waste Not
2 Demonic Tutor
3 Necropotence
3 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Damnation
4 Syphon Mind
4 Grave Pact
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 20. We need 20 spells and 20 creatures, and we're currently at 8 creatures / 12 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best eight spells and twelve creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
Fixing the Holes
Let's start dropping CC6+ cards for some CC5 ones and see where we get.
Fixing the Curve
Ideally, we probably want to be dropping five curve-toppers for five CC5 cards. We've coincidentally just added four to top ourselves up to 40 cards - Sheoldred, Grave Titan, Dread and Avatar of Woe. Out of our initial 20, Bad Mike was the last one onboard, so he is our fifth victim.
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find five creatures at CC5. That gives us the following swaps:
-1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
-1 Grave Titan
-1 Dread
-1 Avatar of Woe
-1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
+1 Shriekmaw
+1 Bloodgift Demon
+1 Malakir Bloodwitch
+1 Noxious Ghoul
+1 Puppeteer Clique
Dropping the Tribal Elements
This has now stuck the curve at 3-7-8-10-7-5, which is much better. However, we had Death Baron before, and we've now just added Noxious Ghoul and Malakir Bloodwitch. These are all cards that are very dependent on having a lot of their fellow tribe members floating about to work well, so we'd best check out exactly how many zombies and vampires we currently have before we commit to them.
Checking this sees us currently running just two other zombies (Gray Merchant and Fleshbag), and just three other vampires (Blood Artist, Vampire Nighthawk and Bloodghast) - not enough to support any of these guys. Picking the next creatures in the list at the same CC gives us the following changes:
-1 Death Baron
-1 Noxious Ghoul
-1 Malakir Bloodwitch
+1 Stinkweed Imp
+1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
+1 Thrashing Wumpus
Creatures
2 Blood Artist
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Bloodghast
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Stinkweed Imp
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Mortivore
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Shriekmaw
5 Bloodgift Demon
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
5 Thrashing Wumpus
6 Massacre Wurm
7 Sepulchral Primordial
8 Griselbrand
Spells
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Innocent Blood
2 Exsanguinate
2 Waste Not
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Oversold Cemetery
3 Necropotence
3 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Pox
4 Damnation
4 Syphon Mind
4 Grave Pact
4 Pestilence
4 No Mercy
4 Mutilate
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Budget Constraints
Thankfully, there aren't too many black things that trouble us budget-wise:
Yawgmoth's Will has remained just off this list in the last twelve months... just (it's currently sitting at about $19.60), so it stays.
Normally, we swap Damnation with Mutilate, but that's already in this year. Let's just go for the next best thing available at each CC. This brings us the following swaps:
-1 Phyrexian Obliterator
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-1 Damnation
+1 Nighthowler
+1 Phyrexian Reclamation
+1 Barter in Blood
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The red vote was completed on September 28th 2015.
The Top 40
The red section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for red. This year, we had only 15 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 25 more down the bottom. In order, these 15 were:
The Curve
Creatures
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Taurean Mauler
Spells
1 Earthquake
1 Rolling Earthquake
2 Impact Tremors
2 Comet Storm
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Blood Moon
6 Wildfire
8 Insurrection
9 Blasphemous Act
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 25. We need 20 spells and 20 creatures, and we're currently at 4 creatures / 11 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best nine spells and sixteen creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
All of this addition puts our curve at 5-3-14-4-6-8.
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
Fixing the Holes
Let's start dropping CC3 cards for others at different casting costs and see where we get.
Fixing the Curve
Ideally, we probably want to be dropping five CC3 cards. We've just added a whole pile, so we'll drop the bottom five of those. That would be Squee, Viashino Heretic, War Elemental, Magus of the Moon and Guttersnipe (all of which rank lower than Mana Flare, the lowest of the red spells we added at this CC).
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find five creatures at a CC other than 3. That gives us the following swaps:
-1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
-1 Viashino Heretic
-1 War Elemental
-1 Magus of the Moon
-1 Guttersnipe
+1 Ashling the Pilgrim
+1 Fanatic of Mogis
+1 Utvara Hellkite
+1 Krenko, Mob Boss
+1 Bazaar Trader
Dropping the Finishers
This has now stuck the curve at 5-5-9-6-6-9, which is much better. However, out of those nine at CC6+, six of them are creatures, which is a few too many. Let's drop the bottom three. We then want to spread our swaps out over the curve. If we add two CC4s and one CC5, that brings the curve to a very pretty 5-5-9-8-7-6. Delving back into the list gives us the following:
-1 Utvara Hellkite
-1 Hostility
-1 Hateflayer
+1 Lavaborn Muse
+1 Aladdin
+1 Malignus
We're starting to dredge our rankings a bit, but this is red we're talking about, I suppose!
I'm not going to pretend that anyone will actually draft Aladdin - he's too old, too fragile and too niche. I have Purphoros sitting on the non-creature side. If I classify him as a creature, as some do, let's see what the next non-creature spell at CC4 is...
-1 Aladdin
+1 Chain Reaction
Infinitely better!
Creatures
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Goblin Welder
2 Ashling the Pilgrim
2 Bazaar Trader
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Taurean Mauler
3 Chandra's Spitfire
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Lavaborn Muse
5 Urabrask the Hidden
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Thundermaw Hellkite
5 Scourge of Geier Reach
5 Malignus
7 Molten Primordial
7 Balefire Dragon
Spells
1 Earthquake
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Banefire
2 Impact Tremors
2 Comet Storm
2 Price of Progress
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Blood Moon
3 Acidic Soil
3 Mana Flare
3 Repercussion
4 Furnace of Rath
4 Chain Reaction
5 Mass Mutiny
5 Reforge the Soul
6 Wildfire
8 Insurrection
9 Blasphemous Act
Budget Constraints
Only a couple of red cards trouble us on the money front:
Wheel of Fortune traditionally gets swapped out for Molten Psyche, which is fine enough, but there's certainly nothing to replace Blood Moon with. Let's just go for the next best thing available at CC3. This brings us the following swaps:
-1 Wheel of Fortune
-1 Blood Moon
+1 Molten Psyche
+1 Flamebreak
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The green vote was completed on October 7th 2015.
The Top 40
The green section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for green. This year, we had only 26 cards receive votes, so we will stick with these, and add 14 more down the bottom. In order, these 26 were:
The Curve
Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Eternal Witness
3 Managorger Hydra
5 Thragtusk
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Titania, Protector of Argoth
6 Bane of Progress
7 Sylvan Primordial
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Spells
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Fastbond
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Life from the Loam
4 Birthing Pod
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Natural Order
5 Garruk, Primal Hunter
6 Lurking Predators
7 Tooth and Nail
Okay, first things first - let's add the next 14. Given we are in green, and we are aiming for a 60/40 split between creatures and spells here (in order to balance out against blue, which is the opposite), we need 16 spells and 24 creatures. We find ourselves currently at 13 creatures / 13 spells. So, to round out the 40, let's throw in the best three spells and eleven creatures off our Best Multiplayer Cards Available list that aren't in yet. This adds the following:
All of this addition puts our curve at 5-6-3-7-8-11.
There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:
Fixing the Holes
Let's start dropping CC6+ cards for others at different casting costs and see where we get.
Dropping the Finishers
Ideally, we probably want to be dropping five CC6+ cards. We've conveniently just added five, so they can all go overboard. That would be Hydra Omnivore, Avenger of Zendikar, Vigor, Verdant Force and Terastodon.
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find five creatures below CC6. That gives us the following swaps:
-1 Hydra Omnivore
-1 Avenger of Zendikar
-1 Vigor
-1 Verdant Force
-1 Terastodon
+1 Birds of Paradise
+1 Spike Weaver
+1 Elvish Piper
+1 Veteran Explorer
+1 Predator Ooze
Fixing the Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 7-6-4-9-8-6, which is much better. However, we've still got a dip in the curve at CC3. Unfortunately, the creatures at this CC are a pretty sick and sorry bunch, so we'll have to fix this by playing with spells instead. Dropping a CC4 spell and a CC5 spell for two at CC3 will give us a curve of 7-6-6-8-7-6. Close to flat, but better than it was. Delving back into the list gives us the following:
-1 Natural Order
-1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
+1 Beast Within
+1 Enchantress's Presence
Nice cards! We might have to play with enchantments later on to make Enchantress's Presence worthwhile, but it's already got seven other enchantments to play with in green, so it's good enough.
Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Priest of Titania
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Managorger Hydra
3 Predator Ooze
4 Forgotten Ancient
4 Spike Weaver
4 Elvish Piper
5 Thragtusk
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Titania, Protector of Argoth
5 Genesis
5 Acidic Slime
5 Silklash Spider
6 Bane of Progress
7 Sylvan Primordial
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Spells
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Fastbond
1 Rancor
1 Burgeoning
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Life from the Loam
3 Beast Within
3 Enchantress's Presence
4 Birthing Pod
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Greater Good
6 Lurking Predators
7 Tooth and Nail
Budget Constraints
Only a couple of green cards trouble us on the money front:
At least these two are replaced fairly easily. Survival has a somewhat more random (but just as much fun) equivalent at the same CC in Oath of Druids. And Doubling Season has a powered-down version at the same CC in Primal Vigor.
This brings us the following swaps:
-1 Survival of the Fittest
-1 Doubling Season
+1 Oath of Druids
+1 Primal Vigor
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The gold vote was completed on November 2nd 2015.
The Top 40
The gold section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for gold. We split the rankings up amongst guilds this year, and the aim with our 50 gold cards is to break this down further into five cards for each allied guild, four for each enemy guild, and five cards with three or more colours. In order to reach our Top 40, let's take the top four cards from each allied guild, and the top three from each enemy guild, along with the top five with three or more colours.
This gives us the following:
Azorius
Dimir
Rakdos
Gruul
Selesnya
Orzhov
Izzet
Golgari
Boros
Simic
3+ Colour
The Curve
Creatures
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
2 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Nin, the Pain Artist
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Mystic Snake
4 Siege Rhino
5 Consuming Aberration
5 Havengul Lich
5 Dominus of Fealty
5 Prophet of Kruphix
5 The Mimeoplasm
6 Dragon Broodmother
6 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
8 Ashen Rider
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Spells
2 Glittering Wish
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Detention Sphere
3 Aura Shards
3 Dack Fayden
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Crackling Doom
4 Mirrorweave
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Deathreap Ritual
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Assemble the Legion
7 Debtors' Knell
All of this puts our curve at 1-5-9-9-8-8. That's actually really good for gold, which traditionally carries a much higher curve than single colours. Our creature to spell ratio is 24-16, but that's OK, as we normally make up for that in the colourless section. There are just a couple of light tinkers that we need to make:
Fixing the Holes
This should be pretty quick...
Swapping Out Dragonlord Kolaghan
Let's delve back into the Best available list and find the next best Rakdos card.... and wow, it's our old friend Kaervek, who barely rated a mention this year, but streeted the competition in the three years previous. Given our curve and creature/spell ratio are OK, that's an easy straight swap:
-1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
+1 Kaervek the Merciless
Lowering Gruul's Curve
Gruul is running the two Xenagoses (Xenagi? I dunno...) and two CC6 beaters in Broodmother and Ruric Thar. Let's at least pretend to care about the curve here, and drop Ruric Thar (who was the lower ranked of the two finishers). Delving back into the list gives us Huntmaster of the Fells further down the curve, which is good enough:
-1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
Creatures
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
2 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Nin, the Pain Artist
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Mystic Snake
4 Siege Rhino
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
5 Consuming Aberration
5 Havengul Lich
5 Dominus of Fealty
5 Prophet of Kruphix
5 The Mimeoplasm
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
7 Kaervek the Merciless
8 Ashen Rider
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Spells
2 Glittering Wish
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Detention Sphere
3 Aura Shards
3 Dack Fayden
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Crackling Doom
4 Mirrorweave
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Deathreap Ritual
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Assemble the Legion
7 Debtors' Knell
Budget Constraints
Gold has only a single problem child when it comes to budget
As per years past, Dack is easily swapped with his fellow Izzet planeswalker:
-1 Dack Fayden
+1 Ral Zarek
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The colourless vote was completed on October 19th 2015.
The Top 24
The colourless section in a 360-card cube is 30 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 24 cards in our power rankings for colourless. In order, these were:
The Curve
Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
6 Wurmcoil Engine
8 Sundering Titan
9 Artisan of Kozilek
12 Blightsteel Colossus
15 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
2 Winter Orb
3 Mimic Vat
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
7 All is Dust
This doesn't look too bad for a colourless section, but there are still a few things to play with:
Fixing the Holes
Let's remove a couple of resets and a couple of bigger creatures, and try to round out the edges as we go.
Dropping Some Mana Rocks
Ideally we'd like to get to six of everything, but when seven of your mana rocks are Sol Ring, Black Lotus and the five Moxen... well... let's just drop two and see where it gets us! The bottom two mana rocks are Mana Crypt and Mana Vault. Let's drop them and try to add some equipment in the CC4-5 range.
Looking at equipment in that range, we have both Batterskull and Grafted Exoskeleton just outside the Top 24 in this year's rankings, and they're perfect. Done.
-1 Mana Crypt
-1 Mana Vault
+1 Batterskull
+1 Grafted Exoskeleton
Fixing the Creature Curve
This has now stuck the curve at 9-2-4-2-1-6. It's not perfect yet, but we've got a finisher or two to drop. If we throw two finishers overboard, and replace them with a CC2 creature and a CC5 creature, we get our curve to an almost-palatable 9-3-4-2-2-4. That's probably as good as it gets, while fielding all that jewelry.
The bottom two finishers were Blightsteel Colossus and Artisan of Kozilek, so we'll drop those two. We didn't have any other colourless creatures receive votes this year, though, so we'll have to dig back into the Best Available list to find a decent CC2 and CC5 creature to add. Doing so yields us Spellskite and Psychosis Crawler, both of whom are perfectly acceptable.
-1 Blightsteel Colossus
-1 Artisan of Kozilek
+1 Spellskite
+1 Psychosis Crawler
Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
2 Spellskite
6 Wurmcoil Engine
8 Sundering Titan
15 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Winter Orb
3 Mimic Vat
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Grafted Exoskeleton
5 Batterskull
7 All is Dust
Budget Constraints
And now we come to the part where we traditionally take half of our colourless section, throw it out and start again!
Only ten this year! We're improving! We traditionally drop the Lotus and Moxen for Lotus Petal and the allied Signets here, and that's about as good as we'll ever get, so we'll stick with it. Jitte usually gets dropped for Lightning Greaves, which remains perfectly fine as well.
Emmy can be swapped for one of the two finishers we just dropped above. Artisan of Kozilek is the only one of those two below the $20 mark, so our decision is easy there.
That leaves Spellskite (which has risen over our $20 threshold in the past year), and Ensnaring Bridge (which we swapped for a mana rock last year, but don't need to this year). While it tinkers with the curve a little bit, we're somehow missing Solemn Simulacrum from our list so far - a card that is ranked ahead of half the creatures we've already voted in this year, and budget to boot. Similarly, we are missing Expedition Map, which, while nothing like the Bridge, remains highly-ranked and very budget. Good enough.
-1 Spellskite
-1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
-1 Black Lotus
-1 Mox Emerald
-1 Mox Jet
-1 Mox Pearl
-1 Mox Ruby
-1 Mox Sapphire
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-1 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Solemn Simulacrum
+1 Artisan of Kozilek
+1 Lotus Petal
+1 Azorius Signet
+1 Dimir Signet
+1 Gruul Signet
+1 Rakdos Signet
+1 Selesnya Signet
+1 Lightning Greaves
+1 Expedition Map
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The land vote was completed on November 10th 2015.
The Top 24
The non-basic land section in a 360-card cube is 30 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 24 cards in our power rankings for non-basics. In order, these were:
In order to break the tie with the fetches, we'll drop them and add the card that finished at #25 - Cabal Coffers.
We also have a problem adding a single Cloudpost to a cube - it becomes a really terrible colourless land when used in isolation. So we'll swap that for the card that finished at #26 - Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
The Final 24
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Budget Constraints
This year, we only have to throw half of this out! Good show!
Nice that we're only swapping 12 of the land out this year. Two years ago, it was the whole set of 24! Let's delve back into the Best Available list and find the next twelve to swap in that are under budget. Technically, Windswept Heath will qualify for this list, but it's the only fetch of the ten that does, so we'll only use cycles that are completely under our $20 threshold.
-10 Alpha Duals
-1 Tolarian Academy
-1 Gaea's Cradle
+10 Ravnica Bouncelands
+1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
+1 Kessig Wolf Run
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Righto, we've done the hard work and put the top 80% of the cube in. It's now time to fill the last section in with our archetypes. As mentioned, we're doing this a little differently this year, adding an archetype per two-colour guild. We have 72 cards left to add, but six of these are land and six are colourless (which aren't normally too guild-related). So for the remaining 60, let's hand six to each guild. For each guild, we'll add one gold card, three of the first guild colour and two of the second. Let's go!
Archetypes
It's important to note here that the archetypes being added here are by no means the best possible to add. That will always be subjective and meta-dependent. What you should be considering when adding archetypes to your cube is whether it forms a cohesive strategy, whether every element is draftable, and, most importantly, whether it is fun.
This is usually where the cube designer adds the pet cards and strategies that their meta loves. As an example, my own personal cube has an Enchantress archetype onboard - not because it's the most effective strategy, even in a Limited environment (because it isn't - I won't waste any more pixels on why openly inviting people to two-for-one your creatures is a bad idea), but because the guys I play with adore it (and yes, it has won games out of my cube)! This is what keeps people coming back to an environment like Cube - not because they can draft what they know are the best cards available, but because of the stonkingly fun time they can have doing so. In that regard, it makes sense to have a bit of fun with the last 20% of your cube!
This time around, I'm going to try and add a strong archetype for each of the ten guilds. Some are known commodities, some are hard work. Let's see what we end up with.
Azorius - Artifacts
White and blue are both quite artifact-centric when they want to be, and, importantly, blue never got a chance to add Tezzeret the Seeker earlier on. He loves Moxen, and wants to help!
So we know we want Tezzeret. We also need to add three white cards, one blue card and an Azorius card to help out.
+1 Tezzeret the Seeker (One of the centrepieces - tutors and ramps fast mana)
+1 Dispeller's Capsule (Good removal, capable of some excellent recursion)
+1 Fountain Watch (Annoying control card for artifact and enchantment decks)
+1 Scourglass (The all-artifact reset)
+1 Muzzio, Visionary Architect (Free artifacts! What could possibly go wrong?)
+1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator (Recursion)
Dimir - Mill
This is one of the obvious ones - we've already got Consuming Aberration in the list, so the rest is fairly elementary from here. We're adding three blue, two black and one Dimir card here.
+1 Stitcher Geralf (Mills everyone and hands you a fat creature in the process)
+1 Increasing Confusion (Excellent finisher mill card)
+1 Talent of the Telepath (A targeted mill card that can hose certain decks in the process)
+1 Sewer Nemesis (Aberration-lite)
+1 Undercity Informer (Excellent cheap miller and sac outlet)
+1 Phenax, God of Deception (If Aberration doesn't finish people, this usually does)
Rakdos - Discard
Rakdos is pretty hard to fill - it doesn't quite know what it wants to achieve as a guild in Multiplayer just yet. But we can at least make a fist of a decent discard setup - we already have Lavaborn Muse, Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, Waste Not and Syphon Mind in. This calls for three black, two red, one Rakdos.
+1 Bottomless Pit (The ultimate in annoying continual forced discard)
+1 Liliana's Caress (Requisite damage-on-discard permanent. Will hose discard outlets too)
+1 Sadistic Hypnotist (Discard-causing sac outlet. Nasty with Waste Not)
+1 Hellfire Mongrel (Another rack effect)
+1 Burning Inquiry (Cheap discard spell that wrecks strategies)
+1 Sire of Insanity (This is where he likes to party!)
Gruul - Tokens
Gruul already has Dragon Broodmother and Xenagos the Reveler, along with Doubling Season in green and Impact Tremors and Purphoros in red, so let's go to town. We want to add three red, two green and one Gruul here.
+1 Outpost Siege (A second Impact Tremors, or extra card advantage)
+1 Siege-Gang Commander (An excellent token generator, good in combo with Krenko)
+1 Flameshadow Conjuring (Moooore tokens!)
+1 Parallel Lives (Double the fun)
+1 Awakening Zone (Utterly ridiculous next to all these other cards)
+1 Dragonlair Spider (Another big guy for Gruul, but an absolute token spammer)
Selesnya - Enchantments
This guild stood a good chance of doing tokens pretty well too, but enchantments are fun too! Enchantress's Presence is already in. We should be able to add three green, two white and one Selesnya pretty easily.
+1 Eidolon of Blossoms (Enchantress effect #2)
+1 Ancestral Mask (Turns any old creature into a surprise finisher)
+1 Asceticism (Another strong enchantment that plays well with this theme)
+1 Sigil of the Empty Throne (A win-con for this archetype)
+1 Soul Snare (Great rattlesnake removal card that triggers Enchantress)
+1 Sterling Grove (Enchantment tutor, protection)
Orzhov - Lifegain / Bleed
We've already got some excellent lifegain and group bleed play going on in this guild, thanks to Vizkopa Guildmage, Blood Artist, Bloodchief Ascension and a host of other cards. Let's build on that with some extortion.
+1 Blind Obedience (Excellent extort enchantment)
+1 Rhox Faithmender (Utterly ridiculous next to Vizkopa Guildmage)
+1 Soul Warden (Was somehow missing from our initial list)
+1 Palace Siege (Bleeder and/or recursion)
+1 Pontiff of Blight (Throws extortion around across the board)
+1 Debt to the Deathless (A second Exsanguinate to finish things off)
Izzet - Spells Matter
This archetype is fairly well established, and we've been fortunate enough to have a few of the centrepieces miss the initial 80%. This is going to be one of the easier ones to fill out...
+1 Talrand, Sky Summoner (Spams the board and creates value)
+1 Archaeomancer (Recursion, creates combos with Evacuation / Cyclonic Rift)
+1 Mystical Tutor (Fetches the best spell available)
+1 Guttersnipe (Win condition for this archetype)
+1 Young Pyromancer (Another creator of value)
+1 Melek, Izzet Paragon (Another guy to help chew through the spells with)
Golgari - Group Creature Sacrifice
Another one that is fairly easily chosen - Golgari is already rocking Deathreap Ritual, Grave Pact, Innocent Blood, Fleshbag Marauder and Pox. It wants to be all about making people sacrifice creatures and then profiting on it. We're chasing three black, two green and one Golgari card here.
+1 Dictate of Erebos (Grave Pact #2)
+1 Sheoldred, Whispering One (Complete house in this archetype)
+1 Dread Return (Reanimation spell that can also trigger Grave Pact)
+1 Gamekeeper (Excellent creature to throw overboard to sac outlets)
+1 Mitotic Slime (Another guy who produces value when sacrificed. Bonkers with Doubling Season, too)
+1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord (And here's our sac outlet of choice. Potential to win the game)
Boros - Damage Redirection
We already have most of the pieces of the classical Repercussion archetype in the cube (including Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction and Boros Reckoner), so let's build on that.
+1 Mogg Maniac (The little Reckoner)
+1 Arcbond (Surprise finisher spell, essentially forks Acts, Reactions and Earthquakes for three mana)
+1 Coalhauler Swine (Another guy that likes being damaged)
+1 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary (A dude that plays through our strategies)
+1 Solitary Confinement (Prevents damage from our own red things, works well with Enchantress and Reanimator too)
+1 Spitemare (Another pseudo-Reckoner)
Simic - Bounce and Blink
Simic is all about Prophet of Kruphix and Deadeye Navigator right now. We want things with awesome enter-the-battlefield effects that we can flash in at opportune times and then abuse with Deadeye. We've already been handed Eternal Witness, Mystic Snake, Mulldrifter and a few others. Let's see what else we can dig up...
+1 Elvish Harbinger (Surprisingly good creature tutor and mana-fixer that likes being blinked)
+1 Hornet Queen (Spams the board with deathtouching tokens)
+1 Reclamation Sage (Artifact/enchantment removal that works well with blink and the Harbinger)
+1 Whirler Rogue (Spams tokens, produces unblockability, good with artifacts too)
+1 Draining Whelk (A second Mystic Snake)
+1 Prime Speaker Zegana (Quickly ridiculous when bounced repeatedly)
Colourless
Almost there. We need to add six colourless cards that play nicely with the archetypes above. Let's go with the following:
+1 Mana Vault (A card we dropped early that is tailor-made for artifact decks)
+1 Myr Battlesphere (Lovely with tokens, Goblin Welder, Mimic Vat etc. etc.)
+1 Sculpting Steel (Works with just about everything else)
+1 Trading Post (Wonderful utility)
+1 Loxodon Warhammer (The Noobstick loves working with our Boros and Orzhov cards)
+1 Mirari (Another spell forker for Izzet and Boros)
Non-Basic Land
And finally, we need six non-basic lands that want to join in the fun.
+1 Rogue's Passage (Too good to leave out)
+1 Bojuka Bog (Ditto)
+1 Glacial Chasm (Wants to go to work with Boros)
+1 High Market (Sac outlet for Golgari, life gain for Orzhov)
+1 Academy Ruins (Artifact recursion for Azorius)
+1 Terramorphic Expanse (Always useful)
We Have Our Cube!
White Creatures
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Mother of Runes
1 Soul Warden
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Auriok Champion
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Mirror Entity
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Jazal Goldmane
4 Wall of Reverence
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Rhox Faithmender
4 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
5 Reveillark
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Karmic Guide
5 Sunscorch Regent
5 Fountain Watch
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
White Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Land Tax
1 Limited Resources
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Soul Snare
2 Balance
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Honor of the Pure
2 Blind Obedience
3 Aura of Silence
3 Entreat the Angels
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Wrath of God
4 Moat
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Replenish
4 Humility
5 Scourglass
5 Sigil of the Empty Throne
6 Austere Command
6 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Blue Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Aura Thief
4 Master Transmuter
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
4 Talrand, Sky Summoner
4 Archaeomancer
4 Whirler Rogue
5 Mulldrifter
5 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
5 Stitcher Geralf
6 Consecrated Sphinx
6 Deadeye Navigator
6 Draining Whelk
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Blue Spells
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
1 Prosperity
1 Increasing Confusion
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Time Walk
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Mana Drain
2 Stasis
3 Rhystic Study
3 Timetwister
3 Propaganda
3 Capsize
3 Show and Tell
3 Windfall
4 Rite of Replication
4 Whelming Wave
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Illusionist's Gambit
4 Talent of the Telepath
5 Future Sight
5 Dream Halls
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
6 Recurring Insight
7 Blatant Thievery
Black Creatures
2 Blood Artist
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Bloodghast
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Stinkweed Imp
3 Undercity Informer
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Mortivore
4 Sewer Nemesis
5 Shriekmaw
5 Bloodgift Demon
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
5 Thrashing Wumpus
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Pontiff of Blight
7 Sepulchral Primordial
7 Sheoldred, Whispering One
8 Griselbrand
Black Spells
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Innocent Blood
2 Exsanguinate
2 Waste Not
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Oversold Cemetery
2 Liliana's Caress
3 Necropotence
3 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Pox
3 Bottomless Pit
4 Damnation
4 Syphon Mind
4 Grave Pact
4 Pestilence
4 No Mercy
4 Mutilate
4 Dread Return
5 Palace Siege
5 Dictate of Erebos
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Red Creatures
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Goblin Welder
2 Ashling the Pilgrim
2 Bazaar Trader
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Mogg Maniac
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Taurean Mauler
3 Chandra's Spitfire
3 Hellfire Mongrel
3 Guttersnipe
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Lavaborn Muse
5 Urabrask the Hidden
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Thundermaw Hellkite
5 Scourge of Geier Reach
5 Malignus
5 Siege-Gang Commander
6 Coalhauler Swine
7 Molten Primordial
7 Balefire Dragon
Red Spells
1 Earthquake
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Banefire
1 Burning Inquiry
2 Impact Tremors
2 Comet Storm
2 Price of Progress
3 Wheel of Fortune
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Blood Moon
3 Acidic Soil
3 Mana Flare
3 Repercussion
3 Arcbond
4 Furnace of Rath
4 Chain Reaction
4 Outpost Siege
4 Flameshadow Conjuring
5 Mass Mutiny
5 Reforge the Soul
6 Wildfire
8 Insurrection
9 Blasphemous Act
Green Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Priest of Titania
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Managorger Hydra
3 Predator Ooze
3 Elvish Harbinger
3 Reclamation Sage
4 Forgotten Ancient
4 Spike Weaver
4 Elvish Piper
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Gamekeeper
5 Thragtusk
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Titania, Protector of Argoth
5 Genesis
5 Acidic Slime
5 Silklash Spider
5 Mitotic Slime
6 Bane of Progress
7 Sylvan Primordial
7 Hornet Queen
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Green Spells
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Fastbond
1 Rancor
1 Burgeoning
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Life from the Loam
3 Beast Within
3 Enchantress's Presence
3 Awakening Zone
3 Ancestral Mask
4 Birthing Pod
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Greater Good
4 Parallel Lives
5 Asceticism
6 Lurking Predators
7 Tooth and Nail
Gold Creatures
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
2 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Nin, the Pain Artist
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
4 Olivia Voldaren
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Mystic Snake
4 Siege Rhino
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Spitemare
5 Havengul Lich
5 Dominus of Fealty
5 Prophet of Kruphix
5 The Mimeoplasm
5 Phenax, God of Deception
6 Dragon Broodmother
6 Sire of Insanity
6 Dragonlair Spider
6 Melek, Izzet Paragon
6 Prime Speaker Zegana
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
7 Kaervek the Merciless
8 Ashen Rider
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Gold Spells
2 Glittering Wish
2 Sterling Grove
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Detention Sphere
3 Aura Shards
3 Dack Fayden
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Crackling Doom
4 Mirrorweave
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Deathreap Ritual
4 Debt to the Deathless
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Assemble the Legion
7 Debtors' Knell
Colourless Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
2 Spellskite
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Myr Battlesphere
8 Sundering Titan
15 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Colourless Spells
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Vault
2 Winter Orb
3 Mimic Vat
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sculpting Steel
3 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Grafted Exoskeleton
4 Trading Post
5 Batterskull
5 Mirari
7 All is Dust
Non-Basic Land
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Bojuka Bog
1 High Market
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Academy Ruins
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Okay, we have our optimal cube for 2015. But look at it... it's full of Power Nine, dual lands... if you're just starting out with cube building, this is hardly the cube you're going to build off the bat.
As we've gone through the construction of the optimal cube, we've had budget suggestions the whole way through, as those starting out with cube construction will definitely have a budget of some kind (because we're all playing at kitchen tables as it is). The $20 price limit on any single card cuts out a lot of the unfeasible stuff that the average person is never going to be able to sleeve up in real life, but it also gives a big enough range that someone starting out will be able to see the money cards that they should be aiming to pick up if they haven't already.
The Changes
Here are the suggested changes from earlier:
White
-1 Stoneforge Mystic / +1 Puresteel Paladin
-1 Auriok Champion / +1 Soul's Attendant (We had Soul Warden here earlier, but we've added that in the Archetypes already... so Soul Sisters is go!)
-1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope / +1 Yosei, the Morning Star
-1 Moat / +1 Norn's Annex
Blue
-1 Snapcaster Mage / +1 Lighthouse Chronologist
-1 Ancestral Recall / +1 Visions of Beyond
-1 Time Walk / +1 Standstill
-1 Mana Drain / +1 Counterspell
-1 Timetwister / +1 Trade Secrets
-1 Show and Tell / +1 Forbid
Black
-1 Phyrexian Obliterator / +1 Nighthowler
-1 Vampiric Tutor / +1 Phyrexian Reclamation
-1 Damnation / +1 Barter in Blood
Red
-1 Wheel of Fortune / +1 Molten Psyche
-1 Blood Moon / +1 Flamebreak
Green
-1 Survival of the Fittest / +1 Oath of Druids
-1 Doubling Season / +1 Primal Vigor
Gold
-1 Dack Fayden / +1 Ral Zarek
Colourless
-1 Black Lotus / +1 Lotus Petal
-5 Moxen / +5 Allied Signets
-1 Spellskite / +1 Solemn Simulacrum
-1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn / +1 Artisan of Kozilek
-1 Umezawa's Jitte / +1 Lightning Greaves
-1 Ensnaring Bridge / +1 Expedition Map
Non-Basic Land
-10 Revised Duals / +10 Ravnica Bouncelands
-1 Tolarian Academy / +1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
-1 Gaea's Cradle / +1 Kessig Wolf Run
We've also managed to avoid adding any $20+ cards in our archetypes this year, so the above are the only changes we need to pass on.
The Budget Cube
White Creatures
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Mother of Runes
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
2 Puresteel Paladin
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Mirror Entity
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Jazal Goldmane
4 Wall of Reverence
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Rhox Faithmender
4 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
5 Reveillark
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Karmic Guide
5 Sunscorch Regent
5 Fountain Watch
6 Yosei, the Morning Star
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
White Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Land Tax
1 Limited Resources
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Soul Snare
2 Balance
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Honor of the Pure
2 Blind Obedience
3 Aura of Silence
3 Entreat the Angels
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Wrath of God
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Replenish
4 Humility
5 Scourglass
5 Sigil of the Empty Throne
5 Norn's Annex
6 Austere Command
6 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Blue Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Lighthouse Chronologist
2 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Aura Thief
4 Master Transmuter
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
4 Talrand, Sky Summoner
4 Archaeomancer
4 Whirler Rogue
5 Mulldrifter
5 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
5 Stitcher Geralf
6 Consecrated Sphinx
6 Deadeye Navigator
6 Draining Whelk
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Blue Spells
1 Visions of Beyond
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
1 Prosperity
1 Increasing Confusion
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Standstill
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Counterspell
2 Stasis
3 Rhystic Study
3 Trade Secrets
3 Propaganda
3 Capsize
3 Forbid
3 Windfall
4 Rite of Replication
4 Whelming Wave
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Illusionist's Gambit
4 Talent of the Telepath
5 Future Sight
5 Dream Halls
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
6 Recurring Insight
7 Blatant Thievery
Black Creatures
2 Blood Artist
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Bloodghast
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Stinkweed Imp
3 Undercity Informer
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Nighthowler
4 Mortivore
4 Sewer Nemesis
5 Shriekmaw
5 Bloodgift Demon
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
5 Thrashing Wumpus
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Pontiff of Blight
7 Sepulchral Primordial
7 Sheoldred, Whispering One
8 Griselbrand
Black Spells
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Innocent Blood
2 Exsanguinate
2 Waste Not
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Oversold Cemetery
2 Liliana's Caress
3 Necropotence
3 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Pox
3 Bottomless Pit
4 Barter in Blood
4 Syphon Mind
4 Grave Pact
4 Pestilence
4 No Mercy
4 Mutilate
4 Dread Return
5 Palace Siege
5 Dictate of Erebos
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Red Creatures
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Goblin Welder
2 Ashling the Pilgrim
2 Bazaar Trader
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Mogg Maniac
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Taurean Mauler
3 Chandra's Spitfire
3 Hellfire Mongrel
3 Guttersnipe
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Lavaborn Muse
5 Urabrask the Hidden
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Thundermaw Hellkite
5 Scourge of Geier Reach
5 Malignus
5 Siege-Gang Commander
6 Coalhauler Swine
7 Molten Primordial
7 Balefire Dragon
Red Spells
1 Earthquake
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Banefire
1 Burning Inquiry
2 Impact Tremors
2 Comet Storm
2 Price of Progress
3 Molten Psyche
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Flamebreak
3 Acidic Soil
3 Mana Flare
3 Repercussion
3 Arcbond
4 Furnace of Rath
4 Chain Reaction
4 Outpost Siege
4 Flameshadow Conjuring
5 Mass Mutiny
5 Reforge the Soul
6 Wildfire
8 Insurrection
9 Blasphemous Act
Green Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Priest of Titania
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Managorger Hydra
3 Predator Ooze
3 Elvish Harbinger
3 Reclamation Sage
4 Forgotten Ancient
4 Spike Weaver
4 Elvish Piper
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Gamekeeper
5 Thragtusk
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Titania, Protector of Argoth
5 Genesis
5 Acidic Slime
5 Silklash Spider
5 Mitotic Slime
6 Bane of Progress
7 Sylvan Primordial
7 Hornet Queen
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Green Spells
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Fastbond
1 Rancor
1 Burgeoning
2 Oath of Druids
2 Life from the Loam
3 Beast Within
3 Enchantress's Presence
3 Awakening Zone
3 Ancestral Mask
4 Birthing Pod
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Greater Good
4 Parallel Lives
5 Asceticism
6 Lurking Predators
7 Tooth and Nail
Gold Creatures
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
2 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Nin, the Pain Artist
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
4 Olivia Voldaren
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Mystic Snake
4 Siege Rhino
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Spitemare
5 Havengul Lich
5 Dominus of Fealty
5 Prophet of Kruphix
5 The Mimeoplasm
5 Phenax, God of Deception
6 Dragon Broodmother
6 Sire of Insanity
6 Dragonlair Spider
6 Melek, Izzet Paragon
6 Prime Speaker Zegana
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
7 Kaervek the Merciless
8 Ashen Rider
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Gold Spells
2 Glittering Wish
2 Sterling Grove
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Detention Sphere
3 Aura Shards
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Crackling Doom
4 Mirrorweave
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Deathreap Ritual
4 Debt to the Deathless
4 Ral Zarek
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Assemble the Legion
7 Debtors' Knell
Colourless Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
4 Solemn Simulacrum
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Myr Battlesphere
8 Sundering Titan
9 Artisan of Kozilek
Colourless Spells
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Expedition Map
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Winter Orb
2 Azorius Signet
2 Dimir Signet
2 Gruul Signet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Selesnya Signet
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sculpting Steel
3 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Grafted Exoskeleton
4 Trading Post
5 Mirari
7 All is Dust
Non-Basic Land
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Boros Garrison
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Gruul Turf
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Bojuka Bog
1 High Market
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Academy Ruins
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
So we have an optimal cube, as well as a budget version - it's time for a Legacy-legal version. Why do we do this? As well as being the most accepted Banned/Restricted list for kitchen tables, a Legacy-legal version of the optimal cube ends up quite close to what a cube designer would consider the best feasible thing they can construct (in that they're not going to be shelling out thousands of dollars to power their cube, but it remains carrying some of the most powerful cards ever printed, and has a lot of the unfair stuff identified and removed).
This version will keep cards that are a couple of hundred dollars in value, but will inevitably drop all of the Power Nine and cards rightfully banned for their brokenness.
Removing the Banned Cards
The current Legacy Banned List can be seen here. Thankfully, our budget version already identified replacements for quite a few of these, so we'll make our budget swaps where possible. Where we need something else, we'll discuss it.
White
White loses a single card in Balance. Let's head back into the construction of our white section, and replace it with the last white reset we dropped (because we sure dropped a few!)... that would be Armageddon (or Ravages of War, if that's how you roll).
-1 Balance / +1 Armageddon
Blue
Blue loses its Power Nine members in Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and Timetwister, along with Mana Drain, Mystical Tutor, Tinker and Windfall. Thankfully, we nailed four of these seven in the Budget Version:
-1 Ancestral Recall / +1 Visions of Beyond
-1 Time Walk / +1 Standstill
-1 Mana Drain / +1 Counterspell
-1 Timetwister / +1 Trade Secrets
We've replaced Tinker in the past with Fabricate, and that's an easy swap. The other two are a bit trickier.
We're not going to find a straight one-mana tutor to replace Mystical Tutor, that's for sure. And we're certainly not going to find a second Windfall. We didn't drop any of this stuff early on in our cube construction either, so let's just head back into the hard data of the Best Multiplayer Cards list, and find another 1CC and 3CC spell that we haven't used yet. That hands us High Tide and Back to Basics, respectively, which are both perfectly fine.
-1 Tinker / +1 Fabricate
-1 Mystical Tutor / +1 High Tide
-1 Windfall / +1 Back to Basics
Black
Black loses five cards in Demonic Tutor, Necropotence, Vampiric Tutor, Yawgmoth's Bargain and Yawgmoth's Will. We've already had to come up with a budget replacement for Vampiric Tutor, and we had to swap the other four out under similar circumstances last year. Let's go with what we know.
-1 Vampiric Tutor / +1 Phyrexian Reclamation
-1 Demonic Tutor / +1 Beseech the Queen
-1 Necropotence / +1 Underworld Connections
-1 Yawgmoth's Bargain / +1 Liliana Vess
-1 Yawgmoth's Will / +1 Twilight's Call
Red
Red loses a single card in Wheel of Fortune, and it's one we've already had to replace in the Budget Version to boot.
-1 Wheel of Fortune / +1 Molten Psyche
Green
As per last year, green loses Survival of the Fittest and Fastbond. Last year, we swapped Fastbond for Sylvan Library, which is a more than fine trade. We had to swap Survival out in the Budget Version, but we swapped it for Oath of Druids, which is also on the Legacy Banned List. To top things off, we swapped it for Birthing Pod last year, but that's already in our 360 this year, so we're going to have to get creative. One of the final cards we dropped when constructing green this year was Natural Order... not exactly budget, but it'll do just fine here.
-1 Survival of the Fittest / +1 Natural Order
-1 Fastbond / +1 Sylvan Library
Gold
There are currenlty no gold cards on the Legacy ban list, so we're pretty safe here.
Colourless
This is where all the broken Power 9 members and mana stones go overboard. As per the Budget Version, we lose Black Lotus and the five Moxen. The Legacy Banned List also decrees that we give basically our entire 0-1CC section the flick, losing Mana Vault, Skullclamp and Sol Ring.
We know about the budget swaps we made, and they remain legal and easy:
-1 Black Lotus / +1 Lotus Petal
-5 Moxen / +5 Allied Signets
Last year, we had to swap Sol Ring and Skullclamp out, and we did the following, which remains perfectly fine:
-1 Sol Ring / + 1 Mox Diamond
-1 Skullclamp / +1 Basilisk Collar
That leaves only Mana Vault. Let's swap it out for its slightly-less-broken and 100%-more-legal little brother:
-1 Mana Vault / +1 Basalt Monolith
Non-Basic Land
Only the Academy to drop here, and we already handled that earlier in the Budget Version.
-1 Tolarian Academy / +1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
The Legacy-Legal Cube
White Creatures
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Mother of Runes
1 Soul Warden
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Auriok Champion
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Mirror Entity
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Jazal Goldmane
4 Wall of Reverence
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Rhox Faithmender
4 Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
5 Reveillark
5 Archangel of Thune
5 Karmic Guide
5 Sunscorch Regent
5 Fountain Watch
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
8 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
White Spells
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Land Tax
1 Limited Resources
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Soul Snare
2 Luminarch Ascension
2 Honor of the Pure
2 Blind Obedience
3 Aura of Silence
3 Entreat the Angels
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Wrath of God
4 Moat
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Replenish
4 Humility
4 Armageddon
5 Scourglass
5 Sigil of the Empty Throne
6 Austere Command
6 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Blue Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Sea Gate Oracle
3 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Aura Thief
4 Master Transmuter
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
4 Talrand, Sky Summoner
4 Archaeomancer
4 Whirler Rogue
5 Mulldrifter
5 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
5 Stitcher Geralf
6 Consecrated Sphinx
6 Deadeye Navigator
6 Draining Whelk
10 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Blue Spells
1 Visions of Beyond
1 Mystic Remora
1 Ponder
1 Prosperity
1 Increasing Confusion
1 High Tide
2 Standstill
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Counterspell
2 Stasis
3 Rhystic Study
3 Trade Secrets
3 Propaganda
3 Capsize
3 Show and Tell
3 Back to Basics
4 Rite of Replication
4 Whelming Wave
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Illusionist's Gambit
4 Talent of the Telepath
5 Future Sight
5 Dream Halls
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
6 Recurring Insight
7 Blatant Thievery
Black Creatures
2 Blood Artist
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Bloodghast
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Stinkweed Imp
3 Undercity Informer
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Mortivore
4 Sewer Nemesis
5 Shriekmaw
5 Bloodgift Demon
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
5 Thrashing Wumpus
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Pontiff of Blight
7 Sepulchral Primordial
7 Sheoldred, Whispering One
8 Griselbrand
Black Spells
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Innocent Blood
2 Exsanguinate
2 Waste Not
2 Oversold Cemetery
2 Liliana's Caress
3 Recurring Nightmare
3 Underworld Connections
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Pox
3 Bottomless Pit
4 Syphon Mind
4 Grave Pact
4 Pestilence
4 No Mercy
4 Mutilate
4 Dread Return
5 Living Death
5 Palace Siege
5 Dictate of Erebos
5 Liliana Vess
6 Twilight's Call
Red Creatures
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Goblin Welder
2 Ashling the Pilgrim
2 Bazaar Trader
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Mogg Maniac
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Taurean Mauler
3 Chandra's Spitfire
3 Hellfire Mongrel
3 Guttersnipe
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Lavaborn Muse
5 Urabrask the Hidden
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Thundermaw Hellkite
5 Scourge of Geier Reach
5 Malignus
5 Siege-Gang Commander
6 Coalhauler Swine
7 Molten Primordial
7 Balefire Dragon
Red Spells
1 Earthquake
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Banefire
1 Burning Inquiry
2 Impact Tremors
2 Comet Storm
2 Price of Progress
3 Molten Psyche
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Blood Moon
3 Acidic Soil
3 Mana Flare
3 Repercussion
3 Arcbond
4 Furnace of Rath
4 Chain Reaction
4 Outpost Siege
4 Flameshadow Conjuring
5 Mass Mutiny
5 Reforge the Soul
6 Wildfire
8 Insurrection
9 Blasphemous Act
Green Creatures
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Priest of Titania
2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
3 Eternal Witness
3 Managorger Hydra
3 Predator Ooze
3 Elvish Harbinger
3 Reclamation Sage
4 Forgotten Ancient
4 Spike Weaver
4 Elvish Piper
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Gamekeeper
5 Thragtusk
5 Seedborn Muse
5 Titania, Protector of Argoth
5 Genesis
5 Acidic Slime
5 Silklash Spider
5 Mitotic Slime
6 Bane of Progress
7 Sylvan Primordial
7 Hornet Queen
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
Green Spells
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Rancor
1 Burgeoning
2 Sylvan Library
2 Life from the Loam
3 Genesis Wave
3 Beast Within
3 Enchantress's Presence
3 Awakening Zone
3 Ancestral Mask
4 Defense of the Heart
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Greater Good
4 Parallel Lives
4 Natural Order
5 Asceticism
6 Lurking Predators
7 Tooth and Nail
Gold Creatures
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
2 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
2 Nin, the Pain Artist
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
4 Olivia Voldaren
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Mystic Snake
4 Siege Rhino
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Spitemare
5 Havengul Lich
5 Dominus of Fealty
5 Prophet of Kruphix
5 The Mimeoplasm
5 Phenax, God of Deception
6 Dragon Broodmother
6 Sire of Insanity
6 Dragonlair Spider
6 Melek, Izzet Paragon
6 Prime Speaker Zegana
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
7 Kaervek the Merciless
8 Ashen Rider
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Gold Spells
2 Glittering Wish
2 Sterling Grove
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Detention Sphere
3 Aura Shards
3 Dack Fayden
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Crackling Doom
4 Mirrorweave
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Deathreap Ritual
4 Debt to the Deathless
5 Mirari's Wake
5 Assemble the Legion
7 Debtors' Knell
Colourless Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
2 Spellskite
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Myr Battlesphere
8 Sundering Titan
15 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Colourless Spells
1 Mox Diamond
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Lotus Petal
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Winter Orb
2 Azorius Signet
2 Dimir Signet
2 Gruul Signet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Selesnya Signet
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sculpting Steel
3 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Basalt Monolith
4 Grafted Exoskeleton
4 Trading Post
5 Batterskull
5 Mirari
7 All is Dust
Non-Basic Land
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Bojuka Bog
1 High Market
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Academy Ruins
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Well, that's it. Thanks to all who voted in the power rankings to aid in the construction of this year's cubes, as well as for your continued interest in my annual mad folly.
If you're just starting out building a Multiplayer-centric cube, by all means use this as a guide, and don't stop if you're missing half of the cards - replace them with whatever is lying around and draft like no tomorrow. Your group will enjoy it regardless! From there, the continual upgrading of your cube is one of life's simple pleasures (but perhaps not your wallet's)!
What's Changed
Thanks to CubeTutor's fan-diddly-tastic cube comparison page, it's easy to have a look at what has changed since last year. Rather than going into it in gory detail here, it's easier to just link to the pages.
What's New
Cards that are newly-printed in 2015 that made it into the optimal cube are the following:
- Soulfire Grand Master
- Jazal Goldmane
- Sunscorch Regent
- Whirler Rogue *
- Stitcher Geralf *
- Talent of the Telepath *
- Palace Siege *
- Feldon of the Third Path
- Arcbond *
- Impact Tremors
- Flameshadow Conjuring *
- Outpost Siege *
- Managorger Hydra
- Temur Sabertooth
- Titania, Protector of Argoth
- Crackling Doom
- Siege Rhino
- Hangarback Walker
* - Chosen as part of an archetype in the final phase of cube construction. Or, in other words, you didn't vote for them, I just stuck them in later because I felt like it.What It Costs To Build
Thankfully for me, CubeTutor has added a pricing feature in the last twelve months. Running that across our three cubes gives us the following:
- Optimal Cube - $71,753.09
- Legacy-Legal Cube - $1,790.77
- Budget Cube - $1,341.73
The Optimal Cube's price is assuming Alpha copies of the Power Nine and dual lands, so it is through the roof appropriately!As you can see, we basically cull $450 off the cost of construction simply by swapping out anything over $20 a copy in the Budget Cube. Don't let the price of the Budget Cube keep you away from building your own - this only proves how easy it is to build a cube on a budget, culling a quarter of the price off it without even trying. I have even seen the beginnings of attempts at Multiplayer Pauper in the last twelve months, and it should theoretically be possible (97 of the 360 cards in the Budget Cube are Pauper-legal, so it's more than a quarter of the way there already).
Even my own cube started out as roughly 50% coming from a Lorwyn common/uncommon playset I had bought (and the cube was very, very tribal for the first year or two as a result!), so don't be frightened off building your own by price or card availability - this is an optimal cube (and even mine is not optimal!), and is only a guide to aim for long-term. Until then, sleeve up what you have, and go have more fun than you could possibly imagine.
Ready, Set, Draft!
Anyway, that's enough facts and stats. I'm not silly. I know what you want. You want to hurry up and draft the suckers! Ask and you shall receive - here are the links to all three cubes on CubeTutor. Enjoy drafting them, feel free to give me any feedback, and, as always, please support Ben, the CubeTutor admin!
Until the next mad folly!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor