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Table of Contents:

1. Cheat Sheet
2. Vibe Check (Come here if you're new to cube!)
3. House Rules
4. Archetype Breakdowns
5. Known Combos

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1. Cheat Sheet

Power: nah
Free counterspells: forget about it!
Fast Man: A few elves, some mana rocks. Nothing too crazy here.
Mana fixing: 10 shock lands, 10 fetch lands, 10 other two color lands (either temples or pain lands), 5 triomes, 5 vivid lands.
Green has some multi-color fixing.
General Archetypes: (for a more in-depth breakdown with cards to look for to build each archetype see section 4 below).
Aggro: White weenie is king here with less support for Mono-red
Midrange: counters, aristocrats and stax, tokens shenanigans, x flicker value nonsense.
Control: Most of the usual suspects are here. Controlling cards in and even are available. Have fun!
Ramp: Aforementioned elves and big bois. (No Craterhoof here, sry)
Combo: The main combo deck to look for involves assembling a creature with persist, a card that adds +1/+1 counters, and a sac outlet. For more combos check out section 5.

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2. What's the vibe?

Are you new to drafting cube? Have you heard of the BREAD method? Alright, now forget EVERYTHING you thought you knew about BREAD!
Get it out of your head!
Empty your mind! ....
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good?
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okay.

Cube is all about playing with great cards and building sweet decks, so many of these cards will look like bombs. Deciding what to take out of a pack can be daunting. A good rule of thumb is to catch the vibe and draft a deck you like. Wanna play control? Draft some sweepers , card draw , and removal. Aggro your jam? Peep those one-drops 👀 and try to stay in one color if you can for best results. Feelin' frisky and want to build a crazy combo deck? You can do that too! Don't leave home without some can-trips to find those important combo pieces.

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3. House rules

1. This is casual and magic is hard. Takesies-backsies are chill... within reason.
2. Some cards don't have reminder text on them so during the draft don't hesitate to ask how something works.
3. 🍺 scrys are in effect. For the straight-edge homies, stay hydrated 💧 and scry.
4. When drafting with 6-8 people, each person gets 3 packs of 15 cards. Less than 6 we do 5 packs of 9 cards. If you come across Lore Seeker add one of the unopened cube packs and add it to the draft. The Earl is in here because I couldn't resist. Oh, and conqueror's foothold is played pre-flipped as a land. Not a mistake!
5. Try not to be salty , but sometimes it happens I get it. Just move on and have a good time. Remember, we're cubing! What could be better?!

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4. Archetype Breakdowns

In this section I'm going to try to break down common decks you can build in the yahoo cube. I'll try to answer these important questions:

1. What cards should I prioritize in the draft?
2. How do I play the deck?
3. How do I make it ... spicy?

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1. Prioritize cheap creatures that get on the board early and cheap removal that keeps the board clear. You want a mana curve that tops out at 4 mana, sometimes 5 for a really impactful creature like Glorybringer or Angel of Invention. You could try to force aggro by picking every 1-mana white creature you see. Try to stay in one color with maybe a light splash of a second color.
2. You want to win the game before your opponent can stabilize. What good are all the cards in their hand if they're already dead by turn 4. Get out early and curve out (using all your mana on each of the first 3 turns is usually a very good indicator that the aggro deck is doing well). Get Thalia or Ferocidon out to disrupt your opponent's removal and life-gain.
3. Spice it up: If you are good about picking up dual-lands in the draft you can dip into other colors. is a great option. But aggressive , , and decks are certainly viable. Look out for the synergies with humans and +1/+1 counters to really pop-off!

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1. You want to take the 1 and 2 mana ramp creatures first. If you have your pick between a Llanowar Elves and Earl of Squirrel, it's probably right to take the Elves. A powerful 6 mana creature is no good if you can't cast it!
2. Ramp is all about playing threats earlier than when you should be able to. A turn-3 Thragtusk is pretty dang tough to beat. Ramp decks win be either sticking early 5-6 mana threats or going huge with a really big dude.
3. Spice it up: Green gives you easy access to multiple colors. Look for powerful payoffs. There's nothing quite like activating Golos... ahhh...

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1. This is the deck that might make your friends hate you. If you take Braids or Rankle look to build around them with cards that make multiple tokens, or creatures that can come back from the graveyard repeatably. These decks can skew more aggressive in or more grindy and controlling in . For the version look for aggressive creatures that make tokens you can sacrifice and ways to deal damage to your opponent. In look for good removal and sweepers.
2. plays out a lot like an aggro deck but with potentially explosive finishes with cutthroat and bombardment. generates repeated value with stockpile to grind your opponents out.
3. Spice it up: Go full Mardu three colors and try to utilize Alesha. Token producers in and sacrifice synergies in make this a potent three-color deck. Just make sure your mana is good and draft those lands! Be on the lookout for Murderous Redcap as 1: it's just a good card, and 2: it gives you outs to win with some persist sacrifice combo action.

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1. Drafting the enablers is more important than the payoffs (those will be easier to pick up). The best enablers are Soulherder, Deadeye Navigator, and Yorion. Once you get the enablers, drafting lands is going to be important so you can splash that sweet etb creature you find later in the draft.
2. This is a control deck looking to get to the late game and take over with a TON of card advantage. Make sure to pack removal and early blockers to stay alive in the aggro matchups.
3. Spice it up: Draft a 60-card Yorion companion deck. If you do this you can't spend too many picks on lands or you might not make enough playables for a deck.

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1. A good sign that this deck is open in the draft is if you see a late Hardened Scales, Conclave Mentor, or Fight Rigging, as these cards really make the deck tick.
2. This deck comes in a few different flavors. and are the primary colors for this archetype and a streamlined deck can be pretty aggressive curving [out|1af03fc3-5eb6-404e-96d9-e291a1e11ec3]] on early turns. Counter synergies exist across and more controlling versions of this archetype can play multiple colors and leverage late game card advantage cards like these. Rishkar is even more important in these types of decks to ramp you to the late game sooner.
3. Spice it up: Simic Manipulator if you can pull it off please! So sweet! Or dip into blink synergies with a card like Meadowboon or spell synergies with Flux Channeler. This archetype can be quite diverse.

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1. Like many of these midrange archetypes, this is all about drafting a balance of setup and payoff cards. Fill your graveyard with cards like Buried Alive, Ransack the Lab, and Winding Way. Then do the Spider Spawning thing, or bring back some dudes with Bond of Revival (surprise haste even!).
2. Don't think of this as a hyper fast reanimator deck. You won't find any 1 and 2 mana graveyard tutors and reanimate spells. This is more about graveyard value and 5 mana reanimate spells. Play for the long game here.
3. Spice it up: Dip into or for some more discard options to get your guys in the bin (hint: you don't actually need blue mana to play the Skyturtle).

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1. Pretty similar to the graveyard deck. Draft your bread and butter cards first can-trips and interaction are a must. Then pick up a payoff like Alchemist or Pyromancer. You will probably be the only deck that wants these cards so you can pick them up late but the can-trips and removal will be good in many decks. If you aren't seeing the payoffs the deck might not be open, and without the payoffs it can fall apart pretty quickly.
2. In classic style you're going to probably win in one big turn where you cast multiple spells and make a bunch of tokens and deal a bunch of damage. Consider holding your can-trips for that big turn (but not at the cost of doing nothing in the early game).
3. Spice it up: Splash for Wilderness Reclamation and always have instants to play on your opponent's turn. Or splash to have fun with Kess.

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1. Magic can be a weird game and this combo is built around an interaction between -1/-1 counters and +1/+1 counters. It turns out that they cannot exist on the same creature at the same time. They cancel each other out. That means that when a creature with Persist dies and comes back with a -1/-1 counter, if you then put a +1/+1 counter on it, the counters will cancel out and you can do it all over again! Okay let's break this one down further. There are 4 creatures in the cube with persist: Putrid Goblin, Puppeteer Clique, Murderous Redcap, and Lesser Masticore. 4 cards that put +1/+1 counters on creatures when they enter: Rhythm of the Wild, Unicorn, Bloodspore, and Biomancer. 7 repeatable free sacrifice outlets: Altar, The Aristocrats, Goblin Bombardment, Torturer, Connoisseur, and Viscera Seer. A lot of these are very good cards in the sacrifice deck so if someone else is drafting that deck you may have a hard time putting this combo together. If you take an early Murderous Redcap and no one cuts the other important cards it's very fun when it comes together!
2. I hope you drafted some removal. This will take a few turns to set up the combo so don't die! Get your mana good in the early turns (this deck is often 3+ colors as you can see from the combo pieces). Try not to play into counterspells either as a well-timed counter can totally disrupt your plans.
3. Spice it up: What this isn't spicy enough for you?!

5. Combos & "Build-around-me's"