Demonic Tutor

Magic: the Gathering in the UK

 

Over the next few weeks I'll be putting together the final Cube List that will be used for the Cube Masters Series. As this is a MAMMOTH task, I'd ask as many of you to contribute to the process as possible to help get the Cube as balanced possible for the event!

 

I'll be posting each section of the Cube here individually, so we can work on them separately.  Please add all your balance discussions to these individual sections.

 

A note on the 'Philosophy Of The Cube'.

 

Balancing the 360-card Cube

When I first started building this Cube, my goal was to include '360 of the most powerful cards in Magic' only. However, as many of you who might have Winstoned with me will have realised, this Cube Philosophy immensely cripples the archetypes available to drafters, as most of the 'most powerful cards' sit at the mid to high ends of the mana curve. Games end up being who can cast the most broken sequences of bombs first, and aggro strategies are completely dominated by these high-powered cards.

The original build of this Cube featured a large amount of colourless manafixing (in the form of Ravnica Signets and green mana fixing spells). This made it easy for decks to fix their colours and ramp into their bombs, whilst making it almost impossible to play a successful aggro strategy, as mana was just ramping too fast for creatures to compete.  This also dramatically lowered the power level of Green as a colour, as a huge majority of its slots were dedicated to colour fixing rather than to what Green does best - creatures!

The build you're about to see challenges the traditional idea of what should be in a 360 card Cube. Artifact mana fixing has been replaced by more utility artifacts that can be used by all archetypes. The same philosophy applies to the lands - niche (but insanely powerful) lands that only benefit single archetypes are replaced by efficient and solid colour fixing.

Thus, the philosophy of this Cube has evolved from POWER to BALANCE.

Keep this in mind when considering the Cube sections that we'll be discussing over the next few weeks. Essentially we're building an ultimate limited 'set' that forces balance across all archetypes.

The Reserve List

For the Cube Masters Series, players will compete in 8-man Sealed Deck Qualifiers, each receiving 60 random cards for construction. Thus, the Cube will be increased from 360 cards to 480 cards. These extra 120 cards will make up the Reserve List.

Once the final Cube has been confirmed, the Reserve List will then be constructed.

 

UPDATED 22 FEBRUARY


THE CUBE


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45 lands too right?
Indeed - edited.

Thom Richardson said:
45 lands too right?
Just a small note - not sure if your cube has foreign cards in, but for scrubs like me it can be awkward when opening a pack with an interesting Japanese card in it and having no idea what is does.
If you have a issue with a card - just ask. I think there will be judge like people around during the event so it shouldn't be a problem.
UPDATED 22 FEBRUARY
Are colour hosers too weird to be in cube? I'm thinking the strong ones such as in Tempest or even the later M11 ones.

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