Into the North: A Snow Desert Cube
(432 Card Cube)
Into the North: A Snow Desert Cube
Cube ID
Art by Richard SardinhaArt by Richard Sardinha
432 Card Desert Cube3 followers
Designed by Koopa
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Mana Pool$595.54

You are coming down from the mountain pass trail. You've been on the road for 3 days now and the only thing you've encountered so far is some wolves and one extremely angry bear. The wind has died down from yesterday but still the cold bites at your fingers and toes. As you finally reach the end of the pass, the road forks. To the west, a winding path that enters into a tangled thicket, of which you can only see a a few meters into but can sense there is much danger lurking amongst the wood. To the east, a sign that directs you further into a valley which will end at one of the holds of the northern territory. The sun is getting low, and you see a storm beginning to crest over the looming mountain in front of you. Do you take the west route, hopefully finding respite and shelter among the canopy? Or do you take the east route and hope to make it to the city gates before the storm... or something else catches up to you?

How will you survive as you traverse Into the North?


Into the North is a Snow themed Desert Cube. In February 2025 I had the chance to draft Out of the Deadlands, which was my first time drafting a Desert-style cube. I was instantly hooked how tight the draft was and how long and drawn out the games were. I went home that night and started brewing.

I have always had a soft spot for Snow and have always wanted to support Snow in a Cube environment but supporting Snow in cubes has always been tricky. Either you just give everyone Snow basics at the end which removes any tension of supporting Snow in the draft OR you make people draft Snow lands but this ends up making the Snow theme underpowered as you have to draft your mana while everyone else is just drafting strong cards. A Desert Cube was a perfect fit as the Cubes tend to be on a weaker average power level to support the natural tension of encouraging drafters to pick up lands.

I took inspiration from both Dragons of Winter's Night and Midwinter as well as other Snow cubes that I was able to track down. The design of the Cube is very much "vibes based". I want players to FEEL like they are traversing a new northern territory and that they are mapping out their route (drafting lands) as well as foraging resources (drafting spells). With that said, I want the environment to be fun so while I may lean towards aesthetics, if a card is not performing I have no problem cutting it while on the flip side I am not going to include a card that works extremely well in the environment if it is going to clash with the theme too aggressively.

The Cube is drafted in what is becoming a traditional Desert Cube draft which is 3 packs of 18 cards, with players having to draft all of the lands they want to play including basics. This cube does not have any non-Snow basics in the Cube but does have a large amount of on-color utility lands.

The "proxied" lands are a custom set of enemy colored, non-typed Snow lands to complete the Coldsnap cycle. The cube breaks Singleton one card of each color that cares about multiples of itself. Really, I just wanted Rune Snag but I figured I would try one in each color and see how it played.

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