This is a copy of Caleb Gannon's Powered Synergy Cube (540 Card Powered Vintage Cube) for tappedout.net
I did not make this cube the original may be found here https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/synergy
This is a vintage cube designed with the intention of maximizing fun, interaction and value. The goal is to have highly synergistic and flexible options to allow the player to chase after a variety of exciting decks, while ensuring that most of the "value engines" are easy to interact with so that no matter the matchup it feels like both players have a chance.
I have some in-depth articles about this cube which you can find on my blog. You can find the overview, which has links to descriptions of the specific archetypes here..
While there are a few two card combos, the major focus was on creating value engines and 3+ card combos. This means aligning cards that play very well together but don't necessarily win, which I find more fun and lead to more interactive games as well as great comeback stories (staring down an opponent with Gitrog monster and molten vortex in play with life from the loam in their graveyard certainly isn't a great position to be in, but it is possible to beat and a lot more interesting/fun than a reanimated Iona. At least to me :).
To facilitate that, I have removed a lot of the includes that you might expect in a vintage cube. Most of these are planeswalkers (oko, t3feri, ashiok) which were obviously good, but didn't lead to fun or interactive gameplay to me. I also needed to create an incentive for the players to actually draft these synergies, so I have also removed a lot of the cards that are just independently capable of winning a game on their own. I make the distinction here between powerful enablers and win conditions; black lotus is an incredibly powerful enabler but it cannot win the game on its own. Oko is the opposite, you could win an entire game just by casting a single oko. I want players to have to craft their own engines to take them to victory rather than relying on casting as many broken cards as possible.
Some notes: There are quite a few cards in this cube that have different roles than you might expect out of a traditional vintage cube. Tinker is probably the most different. There are no "Oops I win" things to fetch up, its rather a really efficient tutor to find synergy pieces like KCI, aetherflux, sword of the meek or lotus bloom. It can also grab things like golos or birthing pod :) Think of it how you would crop rotation, instead of natural order.
Many of the archetypes are obvious, but I'll explain some of the more exotic builds here.
Second sunrise/Faith's reward: These cards are a lot better than they might seem. There are quite a few cheap artifacts floating around (chromatic star/sphere/lotus bloom/ black lotus etc), as well as cards like squandered resources, sylvan safekeeper and zuran orb to destroy your own lands as needed. You can even use Greater Gargadon or Thopter foundry as sac outlets if you really want to go deep. You can also loop second sunrise by playing dualcaster mage, eternal witness, or ardent elementalist. An easy card to start off a combo with is tinker, which can do something like sacrifice a mox, find a lotus bloom and start the combo loops. There are plenty more ways you can make these cards work, I'm just excited to see what creative combos you come up with.
With all the cheap artifacts, Glissa the traitor is an easy inclusion. One of my pet cards and criminally underrated, Glissa can really go deep with the likes of walking ballista, executioner's capsule, ratchet bomb, engineered explosives while also being really fun if you're lucky enough to have a black lotus.
Also, white is now the supporting color for artifact aggro. I love cards like arcbound ravager and cranial plating, so being able to draft a deck with them in it is really fun for me! Plus this replaced the standard mono white aggro that was criminally under-drafted in the standard vintage cube. Look for mishra's workshop or tolarian academy to really power up this deck! It also slots really nicely into the next archetype...
Krark-Clan Ironworks. This card is an incredibly strong engine when paired with cards like myr retriever, junk diver and scrap trawler. You can sacrifice them in order to generate infinite mana and if you have any other artifacts lying around probably draw your whole deck, do infinite damage with walking ballista or even mill your opponent out with a codex shredder.
Green: It's not ramp?! I was tired of drafting and seeing green be so one note, so green is now a combo-tastic color! With cards like aluren, earthcraft, intruder alarm, fastbond, glimpse of nature, and fecundity there are so many ways to "storm off" in green. Casting glimpse of nature with an aluren in play is a really exciting experience, especially once you hit a shrieking drake or whitemane lion. Elves are a natural supporting archetype for this. You can draft glimpse elves, beatdown elves or anything in between! (paradoxical outcome + aetherflux reservoir elves, phyrexian altar + fecundity elves, even second sunrise + blood artist carrion feeder elves, there are a ton of options).
There's even more though, green and white are the main supporting colors for all the persist combo loops. Combine a card to undo the persist like melira with safehold elite and altar of dementia and you can remove your opponent's whole library!
There are SO MANY MORE combos here than I've mentioned. The whole goal of this cube is to promote creativity in drafting and deckbuilding. If you discover or draft any combos that are particularly sweet, I'd love to hear about them!
