Howdy, gamers! With MagicCon: Minneapolis coming up this weekend close to home, I’m ecstatic to say I’ve been getting a lot of paper Cubes in with some visiting friends. For those who aren’t blessed with such a luxury, I’m happy to report that there is a digital Cube offering this week- the return of Carmen Handy’s Magic 30 Cube!
Magic 30 Cube is a celebration of the entire history of Magic, and features cards from every major Magic: The Gathering release. This is the Cube’s third run on Magic Online (MTGO) and features some minor updates. When it comes to the more frequently featured Cubes like Vintage Cube or the Arena Cubes we tend to see major shifts, but Magic 30 Cube is so specific and when it pops up the updates are mostly just to add some cards from every set printed since its last run.
I wrote an article touching on the updates made for the last run and going deeper on the my approach to drafting the Cube, and I believe that what I discussed in my first two articles on the Cube holds up well. Midrange and Control decks are where I aim to be in the average draft, and I’m pretty big on playing 18 lands more often than I would in the average Cube.
Here’s an example deck that I posted to Twitter during the last run that really highlights where I want to be in the environment:
The one note that I want to add to my previous articles is that Goblins is more playable than I’ve suggested, but lives in a weird space. A friend of mine reported to me that he’s been forcing Goblins and winning a lot- though he neglected to report that some number of drafts attempting to force Goblins resulted in decks where he wasn’t interested in playing the games at all. Muxus, Goblin Grandee and Goblin Lackey are two of the highest ceiling cards in the Cube, with Muxus being a fairly compelling card to first pick in a draft. Things fall off pretty sharply pretty quickly after that though…
I fired up a draft on Discord intent on hopefully forcing Goblins and while I was looking over my first pack he said Massacre Wurm was the best card to take for Goblins and his position started to make more sense to me. If you just take the most powerful cards in the pack and incidentally play some Goblins I suppose you could say that you’re playing a Goblins deck, but for the most part if I’m taking the Massacre Wurm I’m no longer all that interested in picking up Goblins cards unless the archetype is incredibly open.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the updates for this run of the Cube:
Out:
In:
Again, this is only a handful of changes, so nothing is going to be fundamentally different this week. It’s worth going over the new cards and the relative impact these changes will have on the Cube though.
Upgrades
Most of the cards being added are just demonstrably more powerful than what they’re replacing. More than anything, I’m grateful for Invasion of Tolvada for saving me from the agony of trying to read Spirit-Sister’s Call ever again. Hoarding Broodlord is technically more expensive than Rune-scarred Demon, but the convoke abilities definitely make the card a significant upgrade on balance, and I was already pretty into Rune-scarred Demon. The two Chandra cards being swapped are nothing alike, but what’s relevant here is that Chandra, Dressed to Kill is very specific and not very powerful while Chandra, Hope’s Beacon is much less specific and much more powerful. I expect to pick the card quite highly in the Cube, and would even be happy first picking it.
Both of the new battles are upgrades over the similar effects that they’re replacing, and I imaging that attacking down a battle will be a relevant way to gain some card advantage in this Cube where the games often go long. I’ve been quite impressed by battles as I’ve played with more and more of them, and I’m a fan of the ones selected for a midrange environment like this.
Downgrades
Borborygmos and Fblthp is neat, and worth playing if you’ve already figured out Temur mana, but isn’t a huge draw to move in on playing three colors. Maelstrom Wanderer was easier to bear on this front because splashing a third color on an eight drop is easier than a five, and it was just one of the most powerful cards in the Cube.
Honestly just drawing a card upon entering the battlefield and attacking is enough to make a lot of my Magic 30 Cube decks, and there’s additional upside here. It’s just not necessarily free to play a specific set of three colors. I could see first-picking Borborygmos out of some packs, though it will be much harder to justify splashing when it shows up late in a draft than Maelstrom Wanderer was.
Sidegrades
I think Archangel Elspeth is mostly just weaker than Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but in the average game you won’t really feel much different between the two cards. This is a pretty easy swap to make just to accommodate more cards for the current era. It probably looks odd to call Wrenn and Realmbreaker a sidegrade to Scurry Oak, but what I mean is that both cards are mostly fine while having some potential to be explosive in the right circumstance. I wouldn’t draft either card especially highly, and as such this swap won’t impact my green decks too terribly much. I would say this is a slight upgrade in the same way that the Elspeth swap is a slight downgrade though, as the conditions to utilize Wrenn and easier to meet than the ones to abuse Scurry Oak.
Magic 30 Cube is one of my favorite digital Cube offerings, and I’m looking forward to some late nights drafting the Cube this week. If you haven’t tried it before, definitely check it out. I’ll see you in the queues.
