Cube drafting, why it's great, and an event report

So, this Wednesday at Rabblemaster Games we came close to running out of stock, so our regular draft event was replaced with a cube draft. We had eight people turn out for the event, so here's a little report on what was drafted and what kind of decks people made up from the collection of high-powered uncommon and common cards in David Chapman's cube. It's one of the regular ones we break out here every now and then, filled with oceans of mana fixing (lifegain duals, signets, tri-lands and green land search) and heaps of support for popular archetypes including ramp, spells matter, tokens, blink, and reanimator, balls-to-the-wall aggro, control, tempo or anywhere in-between. It's also filled with some sweet altered-art cards that he's painted up himself; some of which are outstanding, others that are merely great.

But why do I enjoy cube drafting so much?

Cube drafting is great, firstly, because you don't keep the cards you drafted!

This might seem odd at first glance, since obtaining new cards is the usual reason to draft, but since you're now free from secondary market concerns, you can take the best card in the pack for your deck, without worrying about whether some foil rare is more worth your time picking. No "foil goyf at the pro tour" issues or any other silly picks - like taking the full-art foil basic over the bulk rare, as we've seen around here with Amonkhet & Hour of Devastation drafting. Simply choose the best card for your draft deck, place it in your pile, and you're done.

Second, cube drafting is great because the 'dregs' of the packs are full of playable cards.

They might not suit your archetype - but they are always good, and someone will usually want them as an option in their deck. If you're the only one drafting a given strategy, you'll find it very easy to "wheel" cards suitable for it.

Third, colour balance is a thing in the overall cube, but not necessarily in the individual packs. Because the entire cube is shuffled prior to drafting, packs can contain ten out of fifteen cards in one colour very easily. When cube drafting, you don't draft a colour - you draft a deck - and determine what deck is open by which archetype-specific cards are going around the table late. A late Kiln Fiend signals that "spells matter" is open - not red - while a late Path to Exile (a non-archetype-specific card) simply means that the drafters have no idea what they are doing! There's a lot more thinking involved, and players who have drafted the cube before, or any cube before, have a slight advantage over new players.

So here's the report on who drafted what. Seating arrangements began with David, moving left to Antoni, Isshan, Michael D, Nathan, Michael W, Glenn, and Liam.

Here's David's deck, leaning towards the aggressive after his first two picks of altered-art Guttersnipe and Seeker of the Way, with powerful and efficient removal like Lightning Bolt and Helix and Young Pyromancer to benefit from those spells. His creatures are even made by spells, like Dance of Devils, so they can work as combat tricks, and the altered-art Flametongue Kavu should put some work in for him too.

Antoni's deck - a classic reanimator, featuring Diabolic Servitude and Animate Dead, with Bane of Bala Ged and Pelakka Wurm to reanimate, Grisly Salvage to fill the bin up, and Pestilence for clearing out the weenies. All reanimator decks are vulnerable to drawing the wrong half of their deck, but I've drafted this deck in this cube before, and it's powerful enough to take it.

Isshan's deck - a disciplined red green aggro deck, with hard-hitting early drops like Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist and the Standard-legal duo of Ahn-Crop Crasher and Bloodrage Brawler. It also contains a few big Eldrazi, which are awkward draws early, but he doesn't have an Overrun or a similar throughput effect - those Eldrazi are the late game he is missing.

Michael D's deck - this one is value city; almost every card is a two-for-one or better, including Phyrexian Ingester - one of the cube's best cards if you can blink it, and he's got a few tools to do that -plus Baleful Strix, Cloudgoat Ranger and Modern staple Lingering Souls. Recoil can be devastating against a token-filled deck, and he's also got enough mana-fixing here to sink a large treasure-laden galleon from Ixalan. I'd anticipate a good result.

Nathan's deck - he's going wide here, with a couple of token generators, Goldnight Commander, Zealous Persecution, and plenty of reach with Falkenrath Noble, Goblin Bombardment and my personal favourite creature, altered-art Suture Priest. His removal suite includes Dismember, plus Mortify and Pillory of the Sleepless to deal with indestructible creatures. He should have no trouble clawing his way back from a low life total, and all that chip damage will soon add up.

Michael W's deck: blue/red "spells matter" with Kiln Fiend, Thermo-Alchemist and Goblin Electromancer, the archetype should be familiar to those who have drafted anything recently. Potentially weak if most of the spells aren't cantrips - and they aren't here - but there's a minor blink element involved with Crystal Shard and Mulldrifter, Avalanche Riders or Clone to make up any lost card advantage.

Glenn's deck - he's drafted my favourite archetype in this cube, blink, picking up Wispweaver Angel, Cloudblazer, Stonecloaker, Fiend Hunter, and a pair of golem splicers. Deadeye Harpooner is great in this archetype - simply flicker it with Wispweaver Angel and the revolt ability is triggered...kind of like your opponent!

Unfortunately three of the key cards for this archetype, Mulldrifter, Phyrexian Ingester and Crystal Shard, were taken early on in the draft by other players, so it's not the best version of the deck I've seen drafted from this cube in the past.

Liam's deck here - this is the only one I'm not quite sure about. It looks like his draft didn't quite come together - a ramp deck without many ramp targets - but the high power of spells like Control Magic, Overrun and Eternal Witness should be able to carry him through more than a couple of games, and Bellowing Tanglewurm may as well read "creatures you control are unblockable" in this format. Aetherize is also a nasty surprise - nobody ever sees it coming, and it's nearly always utterly devastating!

David had to do a runner as the night drew to a close, so I picked up his deck for the last round against Liam. He got all my Young Pyromancer tokens with Aetherize, which I didn't see coming (of course) and I only managed to take him down as far as one life, before he clawed back a victory and Arborback Stomped my face into the ground.

Devastated!

We all had a great time smashing through this cube last night; plenty of compliments were thrown David's way, both on the construction and the alters, and we hope to see a little more of the creator in-store once his wedding preparations are done with.

Thanks, Chappo, for the loan of your cube.

Top four finishers were Nathan, Michael D, Liam and Isshan, in that order.

Plenty of prizes and hefty helpings of store credit were awarded to these players.

We'll see all you cube-drafters next time down at Rabblemaster Games!