I’ve finalized the cube list for CubeCon and wanted to get some thoughts down about the process. First, I want to check back in with the goals of the cube as described, and how that’s motivated changes:

1. Capture the gameplay feeling of this era (big question: what does this even mean?)
2. Healthy balance between accessiblity to players who have never seen the cards and rewarding format knowledge
3. Decks line up in a way representing the archetype diversity of the format

• After some reflection, I think a big element of the gameplay feeling that I wanted to capture was the scrappy feeling of the decks, and I think that’s reflected well in the card selection and gameplay. However, some additional duplicates have really rounded out a lot of places, and I hope I’ve found a good balance point between the two.
• I do think the accessiblity has improved a bit version to version - the more complex decks aren’t getting drafted a ton, but more of the interesting interactions are showing up in play. I had an opponent Chord of Calling for Blazing Archon (ow) and have seen a few different takes on the Korlash deck. I’ll get more into it later, but I’m working to make the combo/synergy routes more apparent to players.
• Archetype diversity has been my biggest concern thus far, and I’m hoping I’ve addressed it sufficiently with my last update before CubeCon. Control has consistently overperformed, and in the last draft we had 3 UBx drafters, with only one really ending up squeezed out for lack of options. Value is certainly part of the play patterns of this format, but it should mainly involve playing to the board in rather than just playing control until your big threat can end the game. In response, I’m shrinking the number of very good mono-color effects in UB and tamping down on control-centric 2 for 1s. This should help some with this particular issue, but I think a lot of the answer to this problem will be making the “correct” decks in other archetypes easier to find and build.

Aggro was very powerful at the time in spite of using a large number of very understatted creatures (especially relative to today). The successful aggro decks at US Nats 2007 (my benchmark event for this cube) are either using Greater Gargadon to cash out their little guys into meaningful pressure or ramping out large pump spells onto hexproof creatures to evade interaction. I’ve doubled down on Gargadon and Keldon Marauders to help these decks succeed and to make the deck more apparent, and am including Fallen Ideal as more of a signpost than a card I expect to see played every draft. Combo has been basically nonpresent, and I’m not sure how much of that comes down to knowledge vs opportunity vs actual power. Chord and the single copies of combo creatures present some chokepoints, and if any of them end up unplayed, the associated decks are more or less dead. I’ve added Loaming Shaman to try and shore this up already, and in the final update duplicated Saffi, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and Wall of Roots. Dragonstorm has disappointed, generally not coming together while multiple players have tried to play cards like Seething Song and Lotus Bloom in decks that aren’t well suited. I want to revisit this at some point in the future because of how iconic the storm decks are, but walking the tightrope between trap archetype and overpowered spell combo deck is a bit too scary to try and solve for CubeCon. I’m aiming to ramp up a Magnivore spells archetype to fill this void a little and encourage some more competition over the blue resources with the UB value pile - this is what I’m most nervous about with the current list, but hopefully it works out!

Playtesting and refining has definitely given me a greater awareness of the discursive nature of cube. I’m trying to share my experience of a format and the things I find cool about it through a cube list, and the players (who if I’m lucky might have skimmed the writeup) are seeing packs and making their own evaluations based on a completely different set of heuristics - all I can do is try and maximize the odds that they connect with some of what I’m putting out there. On a related note, I enjoyed chatting with Joe (creator of the Saga Cube) and reading his document discussing various families of design for cubes modelled after constucted formats. By these standards this cube would be a “Nostalgia Cube”, and a lot of this description rings true. I’m aiming to evoke the feeling of the format over creating games accurately reflecting it, and hearing that most cubes of this ilk trend towards a wider period explains why some areas feel difficult to fill out. You want a monored 3 drop? Here’s 20% of the options, hope that helps.

Selfishly, I’m really looking forward to getting the results and feedback from the CubeCon. Some of the weirder cards (Wee Dragonauts, self-LD support in Flagstones, Fallen Ideal) seem like they could be really cool, but only if they connect and make decks sometimes. I’m planning on doing a wrap-up update sometime this year, and then will be moving on to a cube inspired by fighting games. Of course, I’m also hoping to spend more time on non-Magic pursuits like music and the Jankgiver (supporting a beloved Netrunner format called Janksgiving), so we’ll see if I can jam that all in somewhere.