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Chaos Cube: Take One

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Hello folks! I hope your day is going well!

I need your help!

I have been working on a project for a few years now and I need some help to finish things off.

Today I want to look at the current state of my ongoing Chaos Cube Creation Project, and the issues I am currently experiencing, and then ask for some help with the Cube, because I am unsure of the direction and result.

What is a Chaos Cube?

Great question!

The original idea behind this Chaos Cube was to run lower powered cards that emphasized fun and craziness:

Liar's Pendulum
Illicit Auction

Mages' Contest
Polymorph
Warp World

This was intended to be the perfect home for cards like Illicit Auction, Mages' Contest, and Liar's Pendulum. These cards are fun, and often have results that no one was expecting! And that was the goal. Emphasize the fun! Polymorph and Warp World, come on down!

You get the idea. Fun cards that were lower in power and high on fun and craziness!

This was the Cube as initially. But my Cube went astray somewhere.

After Battlebond was released, I had the cards to lock down my coin-flipping mechanic as well as cards from Unstable to give me a solid die-rolling theme as well. So, I began to add in Izzet coin flipping and Simic die-rolling effects with some "leaners" in other colors in case you wanted to splash them.

Because the difference between big, giant effects as above and an actual, proper Cube that plays well is the draft. And the key to any draft is finding something, somewhere, to draft around. What's your draft strategy in the first deck? What archetypes make sense to target? If I am drafting Rakdos, why would I want Illicit Auction over Mages' Contest?

So, I began to move toward having your typical Cube with its 10 draft archetypes for each color combination, not unlike a normal draft. Well my obvious two strategies for creating my Cube were coins and dice, but after that... what would work?

I needed to discover unknown effects elsewhere to find my inspiration.

I began my search by looking for hidden and crazy cards and effects that can be drafted around:

  • Izzet - Coins
  • Simic - Dice
  • Rakdos -
  • Gruul -
  • Orzhov -
  • Boros -
  • Selesnya -
  • Azorius -
  • Dimir -
  • And then, as I tossed in a card that was Chaos typified I saw a 11th theme emerge:

    Urza, Academy Headmaster

    I want to be able to cast Urza, Academy Headmaster. I didn't just want to waste him or make him a joke that couldn't get played. I am comfortable with some Five Color enabling stuff.

    Now, given that, what else is hidden, secret, and unexpected? What's crazy?

    Miracle was the first thing that came to my mind. You never know what the top of the deck will have, and if you draw it, it's a total surprise! Miracle! And like the coins/dice, you can add in some effects to help guide your miracle in the right colors. What colors make sense for Miracle? The problem is that we have just 12 cards with miracle. The Black and Green aren't getting run out there for a theme, although I would be willing to add in some good leaners. I feel like Azorius makes the most sense as I can have all six miracle cards in these colors in my Cube without too much trouble, but that's only six cards. Is it worth having an archetype with only six cards in that color combo being useful? I'm not sure. But I can make it more of a "top of the deck" with cards like Sinbad and such along with deck-enablers such as Soothsaying to lock it in. So that works. That's my 3rd color combo archetype.

    What else works? Morph and manifest work very well here. I could just create a strong morph theme. Mono-Blue has all of the best support stuff out there, like Ixidor, Reality Sculptor, Weaver of Lies, and Ixidron. I could toss in some Green enablers and make Simic my morph drafting deck, but it's already dice-rolling. Is there anything else I could pull for my colors? Could I move die rolling support to Black and Green? There are some cards in Black, but Blue has better support with stuff like Wall of Fortune. What about ub for dice? Again, Green has amazing support such as Willing Test Subject, among others:

    Willing Test Subject
    Wall of Fortune

    Ground Pounder
    Clam-I-Am
    Chicken a la King
    Chittering Doom
    Time Out
    Socketed Sprocketer

    It's hard to imagine a die-rolling theme that doesn't include these dorks. Those Green folks include two people that can let you roll dice over and over again, which is amazing for your engine. Black just has a few cards:

    Squirrel-Powered Scheme
    Snickering Squirrel
    Sly Spy

    Now, I was already running the last two as bleeding effects in my Black as well as solid bodies on their own. I could toss in the Scheme and make Golgari my die rolling and then remove some lesser support like the Sprocketer and Time Out from my slate of Blue cards. But for this theme, you have to run Blue, as you can see all of the good Blue cards you have available.

    But what about my morph? Could I move from Simic to Dimir? I think I can do that. Let's lock it in - Dimir is my morph color. I can add in Black morphs like Bane of the Living and such to my Blue morph matters and again, I'll have some "leaners" in other colors like Exalted Angel to make it work.

    But then what?

    I can't think of any more Chaotic-ish mechanics for things like Rakdos, Boros, Selesnya, Orzhov, Gruul and Golgari.

    If I were in a multiplayer Cube, then I guess I could do Orzhov voting from the Conspiracy sets. But that's not where you'd want to be for here.

    Here's a good example:

    Boros

    How is Red and White chaotic? Normally the draftable cards are heavily aggro. I could do wr vehicles or equipment. Maybe Rift/Slide? Does cycling feel "chaotic"? Not to me. I could push Theros Block auras or something, but again, that isn't unknown or random.

    Maybe bolster? You don't know which dorks are getting loaded up when you draft or add it to your deck, but you will when you cast the bolster card or effect.

    Exert?

    How about bloodthirst for Gruul on a similar note? Would that work?

    Could Selesnya be Convoke? You don't know the casting cost of the card when you do the same?

    But that feels tenuous and weak. Die rolling? Coin flipping. Miracling? Morphing? Those feel right to me.

    Vanishing or Fading? That seems like it would work. Suspend? Perhaps...

    Is madness "chaotic" in flavor? I'm mad about chaos!

    Meld does feels like a real gamble, but there aren't enough meld cards to make a mechanic. I guess could do transform as well. Maybe Gruul Werewolves?

    Soulbond sucks, so I guess it's chaotic to try and make it work?

    Storm is a gamble that can pay off and that feels a little better to me. I like Storm. Let's put a pin in it and come back to it later.

    Could I do Rakdos hellbent? That seems solid in a vacuum, but there are only a handful of hellbent cards. Most of them suck. Great! You have no cards in your hand! Here's a +1/+1 bonus to your dork... Not great. But I think I could make it work, and hellbent actually feels gambling and unpredictable and random to me.

    Let's lock that in because I think I can add in some cards that play well with it. I was already looking at Cursed Scroll, as an example, of a chaotic card that would play better in Hellbent. I could also toss in Null Brooch, Ensnaring Bridge, or Bottomless Pit.

    So that would work but I still need too many archetypes that have diminishing connects to my core concept. Would a player of my "Chaos" Cube really understand the chaos of bloodthirst, storm, hellbent and convoke? Do those make sense? I'm not sure.

    Am I missing something obvious?

    Hmmmmmm...

    One thing I might want to do is relax with the archetypes. Instead of ten tight archetypes with Five Color layered over top, I could do some bigger archetypes that can be drafted in multiple colors. My Cube is so Chaotic that it breaks the borders of what a Cube should be! That seems to sell itself.

    And I could certainly lock in Morph and Manifest, Coins/Dice, maybe miracles, hellbent with some heavy support, storm, and things that best seem like gambles and surprises. Then have the five-color stuff over top of those 5 major archetypes and then allow the strong mana enabling of the larger colors to tie the Cube together.

    Then I could add in support in other colors, or stronger options. More coin flipping! More die rolling! More Morph/Manifest! More Hellbent-y fun times! More Storm! More Miracles and Deck Manipulation! And all layered under my Five-Color Mana Making Stuff. Take those themes and make everything have them, and then just move on!

    Now I don't have to worry about the basic core colors and archetypes and trying to shoehorn in a non-Chaotic color (White) into my deck. Now I don't have the same number of White cards dedicated to their archetypes as Red or Blue. And I can add in things like "Reveal cards from your library" effects into other colors and play into Miracles and Top of Library stuff elsewhere.

    Does this work though? It is strong enough to run?

    What I want to do it to get your thoughts, because I am not sold on any of these core concepts.

    1. Crazy Chaos Cube with crazy cards that aren't great but are fun!
    2. Chaos Cube with tight 10 archetypes that include the ones mentioned above.
    3. The looser Cube with the fewer archetypes that move across all colors.

    Let's take a look at my initial build.

    Here I am at my coffee table, working on the build. After I get your help and finalize the Cube's concepts and create it, I'll give it to you here and deep dive into some creative decisions that I made as well as the other cards in here. I'll also upload it onto CubeTutor.com so you can draft it and build decks around it.

    Which makes sense to you? I must be missing something. What does your Chaos Cube look like?

    Abe

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