MTG Salvation

I like your idea to get the Tribal cards in first. When you start building a cube in the usual fashion of including the "strongest" cards, it's hard to go back later and make cuts for "weaker" tribal support cards. As for the particulars, I would recommend having tribes that are primarily focused in one color but have overlaps with other colors. If the tribes are too separate by type and color, there won't be as much interaction in a draft because people will just settle into their chosen tribe and not have much reason to veer off.

Once you've added the number of tribal cards you want, add other commons that nearly match the power level of what's already included. Most tribal limited formats have weaker instant speed removal to let interactions between creatures come about more often, so depending on what creatures you include for the tribal component, you may need to be careful about what removal you include. It will take a good bit of testing to see where that balance lies, but seeking that balance from the beginning will help.

Hopefully that gives you some direction. I like your idea for your cube and I'm eager to see how it turns out.

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Quote from Al_Z_Heimer »

The Honor guards are simply a common Spellskite.

Oh my god I never thought of it that way.

Guys I am super blazed rn

Quote from mslano

boxian, I think both of those archetypes are supportable in a Pauper cube.

The UR Spells Archetype is certainly doable as there are already a higher number of powerful spells in these colors, so all it takes is the creatures that benefit from spells, which are all at least playable if not already cubable. There are creatures that benefit from casting spells: Kiln Fiend, Wee Dragonauts, Nivix Cyclops, Prescient Chimera, and creatures that benefit from having spells: Delver of Secrets, Goblin Electromancer, Archaeomancer, Izzet Chronarch, Anarchist, Scrivener.

Seconded. Don't forget Mnemic Wall either. It's a really solid shell, even without the Cyclops. It's pretty much the only reason why I keep Delver in nowadays.

About archetypes:

I was thinking about them earlier, does Pauper have the card support for a steal and sac themed archetype in RB via Act of Treason and Fling/Carrion Feeder, for example? I know we don't get Barrage of Expendables or Goblin Bombardment unfortunately, but something to kind of stand in for that might be all that archetype needs to be a strong aggro archetype with a kind of synergy flair. And for UR, can Spells Matter be a proper archetype yet? We have Kiln Fiend, Wee Dragonauts, Nivix Cyclops, Goblin Electromancer and play a high density of good spells in U and R - even without a spells matter theme. I think that will be something that I will try to test more, especially if I move from 360 cards to anything more (though maybe those should just be my 3 UR cards and see what happens).