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Modern Border Pauper Cube (450)

By rt29

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Draft this Cube Open pack Create Sealed Copy

Description

This is my pauper cube, originally based off of Adam Styborski's version but tweaked mostly to satisfy my crippling personal OCD against mixing card frames.

Since so many old cards have been reprinted in recent years, I’ve found that cutting old frame cards doesn’t mechanically hinder cube design very much anymore. Ideally, every card in the cube will one day have the same card frame (the latest one introduced in M15), but for now it's mostly M15 with a handful of 8ED-frame cards in the mix. (Fingers crossed that WoTC doesn’t change the frame yet again…)

Card frame examples: old frame | 8ED frame | M15 frame

Aesthetics aside, I've been tuning the cube consistently since 2013 and have been pretty satisfied with how it plays mechanically.

Design Goals

  1. Booster Draft-like: drafting this cube should feel like a standard set booster draft (as opposed to more high-powered cubes, which are a completely different experience IMO)
  2. Replayable: support a variety of viable archetypes
  3. Iconic: incorporate notable and/or popular cards when possible throughout Magic’s history (cards that were powerful in the draft formats where they were originally printed, cards that have seen play in constructed formats, etc.)
  4. Aesthetically Consistent: maintain a consistent visual aesthetic across cards (unless they sufficiently advance the other aforementioned goals)

Design Constraints

  • 450 cards
  • singleton with no exceptions (except basic lands)
  • commons only (pauper constructed eligible, including banned cards)
  • modern card frame (M15 frame preferred, some 8ED frame cards as well)
  • no double sided cards (too cumbersome to draft)
  • no silver bordered cards (I'm open to changing my mind on this though)

Card Printing Preferences

  • no foils
  • no special versions/frames (e.g. promos, full art, mystical archive, etc.)
  • printings with the common (black) expansion symbol preferred
  • printings with original art preferred (except when they suck, in my completely arbitrary opinion)
  • printings with watermarks avoided

W/U Blink

U/B Madness

B/R Sacrifice

G/W +1/+1 Counters

W/B Extort/Bleed

U/R Spells Matter

B/G Self Mill

R/W Tokens

G/x 2-5c Ramp

TODO

High Draft Picks by Color

This is just my personal opinion of some of the best cards in the cube.

General Observations

  • The most aggressive decks in this cube are faster than those of most booster draft formats, so it is important to have a plan against those types of decks.
  • In terms of mana curve, good 2-drops are more scarce than 3 and 4-drops, so they are higher picks than they might otherwise seem.

Removal

  • Black and white have a few unconditional removal spells (which should be high draft picks), but in general there is a lot of removal that is conditional or inefficient but can be 'unlocked' by paying a deck-building cost (i.e. building toward one of the archetypes).
  • Red can pretty efficiently deal with creatures of toughness 3 or less, but beyond that it's options are limited/conditional. It generally needs to rely on combat tricks to push through, or pay a higher cost for removal.
  • Blue has plenty of bounce and 'frost' effects (tapping down creatures) but nothing that deals with threats forever. This causes it to be more tempo-oriented than a grindy control color.
  • Green doesn't have great removal, though it does have a handful of 'fight' spells.

Multiplayer Considerations

TODO

Simple but Deep

Synergy Over Power

No Useless Cards

Colorless (65)

Land (31)

Artifact (19)

Creature (14)

Instant (1)

Gold (48)

Creature (31)

Instant (11)

Enchantment (3)

Sorcery (3)

White (69)

Creature (42)

Instant (14)

Enchantment (8)

Sorcery (4)

Artifact (1)

Blue (68)

Creature (37)

Instant (23)

Sorcery (6)

Enchantment (1)

Artifact (1)

Black (66)

Creature (43)

Instant (11)

Sorcery (9)

Enchantment (3)

Red (67)

Creature (33)

Instant (15)

Sorcery (13)

Enchantment (6)

Green (67)

Creature (42)

Instant (9)

Enchantment (7)

Sorcery (9)

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Cards 450
Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 years

Top Draft Picks

1.0 Seeds of Strength
2.0 Twin-Silk Spider
3.0 Drift of Phantasms
3.83 Rukh Egg
4.08 Ondu Giant
4.16 Counterspell
4.18 Ghost Ship
4.22 Llanowar Visionary
4.26 Lightning Bolt
4.29 Irontread Crusher
4.31 Unmake
4.31 Wingsteed Rider
4.37 Doom Blade
4.5 Mulldrifter
4.5 Thrashing Mossdog
4.59 Seraph of Dawn
4.69 Triplicate Spirits
4.73 Dark Withering
4.74 Battle Screech
4.78 Mist Raven
4.8 Thought Courier
4.81 Brainstorm
4.81 Pacifism
4.82 Stab Wound
4.83 Skyshroud Claim