Justifications for Card Choices

I. What is The Awesome Cube

For some people, a cube is a collection of the most powerful cards in Magic history.  For others, it holds some sort of wacky combo or tribal interactions for the giggling amusement of the designer and play group.  Sometimes it's all about the drafting process, other times it's about getting to the gameplay. The Awesome Cube exists for one purpose.  That purpose is to provide the best limited experience possible. In my opinion, a great limited experience consists of cards that draft well together and accomplishes the following goals:

1 - I strive for interactive games and as few broken combos as possible.  Synergy is very important when designing a cube, but I am trying to limit the amount of times that games devolve into goldfishing where players are able to play without interacting with their opponent.

2 - In addition to interactivity, another mark of a successful limited environment is being replayable.  This is attained through variety (both in cards and strategies) as well as fun-factor.  Since this is cube, fun-factor should not be a problem.  If the biggest problem in your cube is that people aren't having fun with it...your cube needs a significant overhaul.

3 - Variety in play is promoted here by having a "large" cube (720 cards) and support for various strategies within colors and color combinations.  Having 720 cards in the total list allows each draft (even with 8 people) to be different enough so that players cannot know what cards are in their pod.  While this can be seen a drawback, as experienced drafters will have a more difficult time building the exact deck that they want, I believe that a large portion of the fun of drafting cube comes in the surprises contained within each pack...and that is distinctly lessened as the size of the cube decreases.

4 - The guild strategies are a heavy design component and the cards have been chosen in such a way as to promote a balanced metagame between all ten guilds and all five colors. Main color details and typical guild strategies are detailed below.

White - Aggro
           - Tokens
           - Control

Blue - Tempo
         - Control
         - Graveyard

Black - Graveyard
          - Sacrifice
          - Control

Red - Aggro
       - Tokens
       - Burn

Green - Ramp
           - Midrange

Azorius - Aggressive Tempo
              - Control

Boros - Aggro

Dimir - Graveyard Matters
           - Midrange/Control

Golgari - Graveyard Matters
             - Grindy Midrange

Gruul - Creature-based Midrange

Izzet - Spell-based Tempo
         - Control

Orzhov - Tokens
             - Midrange/Control

Rakdos - Sacrifice
             - Aggro/Midrange/Control

Selesnya - Go Wide
               - Midrange

Simic - Flash
          - Ramp
          - Midrange/Control


Maintaining a balance between aggressive decks and control decks is a key component of my cube and doing so has made me make some important card restrictions (which will be discussed in section II).  I really wanted drafters to be able to play any combination of colors and be able to be successful without having the format be strictly "fast" or "slow".  I believe this has been a success to this point. There has been a good mix of speeds and I have seen different color combinations and strategies do well. I do not feel that any combination or color is unplayable and I'm very proud of maintaining this balance.

II. Justifications for Exclusions

The following cards are not in the cube.  There are various reasons for their exclusions which will be explained now.  Note that some have never, and will never, be in my cube while others were pushed out for reasons that will also be explained.  The following cards...

Are Fast Mana Sources

Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Mox Pearl, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, Black Lotus, Ancient Tomb, Basalt Monolith, Chrome Mox

All of these cards allow control and mid-range decks to gain abnormal amounts of mana quickly.  While these cards can be put into aggro as well, they make control decks much, much better.  Aggro decks thrive by putting a lot of pressure on other decks as quickly as possible and hopefully killing the opponent before they stabilize and are able to cast their more expensive spells.  Aggro is much better in cube without the presence of these kinds of fast mana sources for control decks.

Suck the Fun Out of the Playgroup

Jace, Memory Adept, Mind Twist, Stasis, Winter Orb

These cards, while good, are noninteractive, difficult to answer permanents that attack on an axis that decks just can't do anything about. They aren't fun and in some instances slow the game down to a crawl, forcing the game to drag on as your opponent either figures out how to win the game or you concede just to move things along.

Sinkhole, Ankh of Mishra, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Rishadan Port

Land destruction is effective at punishing greedy mana bases and delaying control decks as they try to stabilize against aggro. It's also really not fun to play against as it creates a lot of "non games" where only one player gets to play magic. Some people enjoy that but it's not something I want to promote.

Supply Color Fixing Too Easily

Bounce Lands, Original Dual Lands, Land Tax

I like the idea of a player having to work even a little bit for their mana fixing.  This, in accordance with the obnoxious price tag on the original dual lands, leaves them on the outside looking in.  I don't like how much more the bounce lands help slower decks thrive.  I already have the signets and I feel that one of the two are sufficient.  Land Tax on the other hand...I really want green to be the primary color ramp and fixer in cube.  White can do enough other things and I dislike the color pie infringement.

Are Ridiculously Overpowered Cards

Mana Drain, Vedalken Shackles, Library of Alexandria, Bazaar of Baghdad, Maze of Ith, Balance, Crystal Shard, Ancestral Recall, Timetwister, Umezawa's Jitte, Wheel of Fortune, Time Walk

This group of cards produce too much advantage for their mana cost for a limited environment to be healthy. For many of these cards I have included more balanced versions that produce the same effect. These cards also make it more difficult to find a balance between colors and format speeds as many of the best cards are either blue or promote control decks.

If I missed any cards that you feel are auto-includes in most cubes, let me know and I will do my best to explain its absence.