#mtgcns

Things I’m happy with:

3 of each common appears to be the right number for redundancy without enabling the decks that I don’t want to see with 5+ of the same card

2 of each uncommon gives enough that each archetype should have one floating around in the pool and possibly two

There were enough cards in the Dimir colors to build two similar decks without one being ridiculously overpowered

No mythics actually felt right so I’m actually just going to leave them out for now

Dream Fracture was a huge blowout

Favored Winds is a huge beating with the right support

Stronghold Discipline was surprisingly effective against my Azorius flyers/tokens deck

Academy Researchers was amazing in the Dimir deck

The Will of the Council cards were always fun to resolve even if they went against what you wanted

Things I’m not happy with:

Reya Dawnbringer came down far too late to be relevant which is not what I want to see out of rares

Stifle and Misdirection were both disappointing because of the number cards with a reduced

Magus of the Mirror is too slow to be interesting

Exploration sat in the sideboard because you have to be deep in blue for it to be relevant due to not having the card flow

Reflecting Pool doesn’t fix mana the way I would like for a rare

I'm pretty sure a lot of the reprint rares I'm just going to swap out. It seems like a lot of them were selected for making reprints more available rather than them being particularly relevant.  I want the rares to be things that break stalemates to avoid massive board stalls and can push things to a conclusion.

Reprint rares:

(Out) Reya Dawnbringer - too expensive and too slow, would be best as a reanimation target

(In) Rout - a good sweeper is what I want to see as a rare

(Out) Misdirection - not enough single target things to make it worth playing

(Out) Stifle - multiplayer is not conducive to the tempo plays Stifle is best with

(In) Ill-Gotten Gains - was very cool when it was played; lots of power but politically charged

(Out) Magus of the Mirror - really needs to be usable any time, the upkeep restriction makes it incredibly hard to use

(In) Heartless Hidetsugu - does a great job of putting people on a clock and can be very relevant for multiple archetypes

(On the fence) Sulfuric Vortex - not sure about this one yet, need to see someone play it effectively as several of the red decks are slower

(Out) Exploration - only good with a ton of blue cards to keep the lands flowing, would rather just have a more universally effective card

(In) Terastodon - great at dealing with the artifacts and enchantments that enable a lot of shenanigans and has plenty of political implications

(In) Wolfbriar Elemental - great bomb that can break the game open late or catch you up

(In) Basandra, Battle Seraph - very solid stall breaker and large evasive body

(In) Decimate - 4 for 1s are exactly the kind of removal needed most of the time

(In) Dimir Doppleganger - plays exceptionally well in the Dimir deck as a ever-changing threat depending on what they’ve played so far

(On the fence) Edric, Spymaster of Trest - the Simic deck really isn’t trying to go wide and it’s not a great political deck, but he might still make the cut depending on what I decide to do with the archetype

(In) Spiritmonger - Golgari desperately needs big beater to finish out the game after all the attrition and Spiritmonger is a nice balanced way to handle it

(On the fence) Altar of Dementia - In theory it’s cool because it’s a free sac outlet, but really none of the archetypes have a good way to take advantage of it

(On the fence) Deathrender - A moderate power and toughness boost with the potential for shenanigans

I pulled everything I had available and sleeved up the cube today.  That got me everything but the mythics, which I’m still debating how many to include.  I realized when I was looking at the stacks of cards that 4 of each common is just too many.  I know from experience that sometimes you open 6 Lizard Warrior and it’s just silly when you get the Hidden Agendas to back it up, but I’d like the games to be a little less lopsided anyway.  Plus, it means it’s more likely people will avoid going all in on the strategy as much, which I view as a plus.

Right now, I’m leaning toward shard color mythics that plays well for any of the two color pairs, but that draws you into a splash to make draft more interesting. Marchesa is right around where I want things to be - very powerful if you can land it, but difficult to cast and not an automatic first pick.  These would replace Pernicious Deed, Mirari’s Wake, and Dack Fayden, while Coersive Portal would stick around as an extra random mythic.

My current considerations:

Bant: Jenara, Asura of War (concerned she might be too much of a bomb but we’ll have to see)

Esper: Sydri, Galvanic Genius (there are enough constructs and recursion that she might enable a deck all on her own)

Jund: Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper (feeds the death train that all Jund decks deal with)

Grixis: Marchesa, the Black Rose (good as a finisher for Dimir, or a way to keep the gas going for Rakdos or Izzet)

Naya: Gahiji, Honored One (great political card that boosts tokens too) 

I’m also thinking about adding a single tri-color uncommon per color combo just to see if it’s enough to make people want to play 3 colors.  The issue is I don’t have a ton of support for true 3 color play in Conspiracy by default, so this would require some more enablers.  I’m not necessarily against the idea but I haven’t thought it through completely yet.

Current considerations for tri-color uncommons (not much to choose from for wedges but I like the creatures better than the charms in general right now):

Bant: Flurry of Wings (makes tokens that also fly, which covers all the bases)

Esper: Etherwrought Page (feeds reanimator, gives free life, or provides a slow bleed)

Grixis: Elder Mastery (keeps your small creatures alive through sweepers and turns them into big threats, also feeds opponent reanimator for Dimir)

Jund: Sprouting Thrinax (dies for stuff in Rakdos and Golgari, massive speedbump for Gruul)

Naya: Fiery Justice (a potential 5 for 1 is good for any of Selesnya, Naya, or Gruul)

Abzan: Armament Corps (token pumper for Selesnya, huge threat for Orzhov and Golgari)

Jeskai: Warden of the Eye (Blue is by far the most spell heavy color and Boros needs a way to recur removal long enough to stay relevant)

Sultai: Sultai Soothsayer (great blocker that also fills the graveyard for future shenanigans)

Mardu: Mardu Roughrider (difficult to block finisher for all three)

Now that I've beaten the archetypes to death and identified some of the fringe playable ones, it's time to figure out what I don't feel is worth keeping in the set for my cube version.  If something isn't pulling its weight (being crucial to one deck or appealing to at least 2 decks) it's coming out!

In collector number order (cause that's how I roll):

Muzzio, Visionary Architect There are not enough artifacts in the set or a real artifact deck to support him.  I could theoretically add more artifacts to make it a fringe deck, but I'd really rather get something cool and good in multiplayer in here instead.  Looking at a list of cards makes it seem like there might be, but most of those are seeded and competing with conspiracies so you can't really get there with a deck.

Verdict: Out

Scourge of the Throne This guy is generically good and I want to keep him in.  Pretty much every red archetype wants him as a high end bomb so he stays.

Verdict: In

Dack Fayden Dack is surprisingly great in here.  He's definitely solid in the Izzet deck because of the repeat card advantage, and there's enough powerful artifacts that you might want to steal that the -2 is also relevant.  His ultimate also doesn't automatically win the game for you, which I like. I don't know if he's an auto include, since he'd have to be splashed by anyone else, but the looting or making an opponent loot is so good it's usually worth it.

Verdict: On the fence

Marchesa, the Black Rose I mentioned her in the fringe archetypes post, but she's really playable in any two color deck that can afford the splash.  She's probably best in the Izzet or Rakdos deck, but the Dimir deck can totally run her and I'm just going to make it more doable with the updates.

Verdict: In

Coercive Portal Coercive Portal is a fun card for multiplayer in general and specifically for the Will of the Council Orzhov deck.  Definitely a keeper as it'll still be appealing in either mode to multiple types of decks.

Verdict: In

Pristine Angel This is the only mythic I didn't get in 5 boxes of Conspiracy, and I'm not really upset about it.  Back in the day I bet she was really scary, but it's not back in the day any more.  I want to say we can do better but I'm torn because most of the options are so broken that they'd completely destroy the game, but Pristine Angel is so blah.  I don't want to put in a bunch of planeswalkers as they can be overly oppressive but that's a significant quantity of the white mythics.

Verdict: On the fence

Phage the Untouchable Phage makes me sad.  She's a neat card, but she's so bad without a way to make her unblockable.  She also costs waaaay too much.  She's actively bad in Dimir and Rakdos because she can't be reanimated, she's only okay in Orzhov, and she's too expensive in Golgari. There's more interesting cards.

Verdict: Out

Hydra Omnivore This is another home run like Scourge of the Throne.  If you can cast green spells you want this guy.

Verdict: In

Mirari's Wake Wake is a great card and I really like it.  It's great at running away with the game if you're ahead, but I'm not sure if it's worth the slot in the cube as the power level seems a little silly.

Verdict: On the fence

Pernicious Deed Deed is another card that has a long history of winning multiplayer games.  I'm a big fan of Deed in general - especially so here because it's a sweeper in a multiplayer format.  At the same time, I'm not sure I want to include enough multicolor mythics to color balance this with Marchesa.

Verdict: On the fence

Looking at the mythics really makes me consider how many of them I want to keep.  If I'm going to include them at all I'd really like for it to be color balanced, which means I'd want to add 5 more beyond what's here.  My symmetry-loving self says that's the right answer.  I also like the idea of the mono-color mythics being the iconic for the tribe.

There's several archetypes that occasionally come up as options.  Rather than beat them all to death like I did the main ten color pairs, I'm just going to list them with a brief description and some of the important cards, as most of them are based on getting a particular rare or uncommon and shaping the draft around it.

Archetype 1: 5 color Worldknit

This deck, while obvious, is also the easiest to explain.  If you see a Worldknit early, you can easily just draft the best card each pick as long as it fits your curve.  We have yet to see a Worldknit before pack 2 in my group, and we've been drafting with 4 packs for testing purposes and because we enjoyed it much more than only 3 with 4 players.

Most important card(s): Worldknit

Archetype 2: Grixis Dethrone

Very similar to the Izzet dethrone deck, but with more removal.  Usually happens when someone opens Marchesa and wants to live the dream.  The main reason to push it is black removal makes it much easier to open up the way for your attackers.

Most important cards(s): Marchesa, the Black Rose; solid black removal

Archetype 3: Kindred Commons + Conspiracies

Every color has at least one or two vanilla or french vanilla creatures that won't be picked highly that are borderline playable.  The idea here is to draft all the conspiracies and figure out which color is open so you can grab 3-4 of a particular common, name it with your conspiracies, and get undercosted creatures to stomp face with or play multiple spells with the same name for a similar effect.

Most important card(s): Secret Summoning and Muzzio's Preparations for creatures, Double Stroke and Iterative Analysis for non creatures.

Archetype 4: Flamekin Pants (R/x Auras)

This deck is all about getting 1 or 2 Flaring Flame-kin and trying to turn them into a giant unbeatable monster.  I've drafted this once before after starting in Izzet and not seeing the dethrone cards coming around.  It's quite fun to play but the best auras are G/W.  This archetype is much more luck based than some of the others as it requires several uncommons to be really good, but it's great when you can pull it off.