Spotlight Cube Series – Gwen Dekker's Dekkaru Cube
Magic Online's Spotlight Cube Series has been around for almost exactly two years, and it is a hungry beast. I'm always looking for cubes that might fit our needs, so when I heard about an upcoming event in Wisconsin called CubeCon that was going to feature a lot of different cubes over the course of a single weekend, I reached out to them for a partnership. "Let's run a few of these cubes on Magic Online," I proposed, "and we can help out with prize support at your in-person event as well."
Sadly, recent events have made the in-person event unfeasible for the foreseeable future. However, Magic Online never sleeps, and no pandemic is going to slow us down. So, while the in-person event may be postponed, we're still going to be running two of the CubeCon cubes. And who knows—if you like these cubes, maybe when the event can happen, you'll be inspired to take a trip and play a weekend of Cube with dozens of new friends.
But for now, here's what's happening; starting next Wednesday, we're going to be running two weeks of spotlighted cubes featuring CubeCon offerings. This coming week (May 13–20), we have Gwen Dekker's Dekkaru Cube, and next week (May 20–27) will be John Terrill's Cultic Cube.
Allison Steele
Digital Product Manager, Magic Online
Hello, I'm Gwen Dekker (@GwenDekker on Twitter). You may also know me as the founder and administrator for CubeCobra.com (@CubeCobra1 on Twitter), a website that helps you build and maintain your cube. I have been playing Magic since the release of Zendikar, and much of that time has been spent playing Cube. Part of why I think Cube is the best format is that it can be whatever format the designer wishes it to be. As a cube designer, my goals have always been to create an interesting Draft experience with varied but competitive gameplay. With that in mind, today I am sharing my Dekkaru Cube.
Dekkaru Cube
[Editor's note: The full Cube list can be found at the bottom of this article.]
One metric I always look for first when evaluating cubes is the "archetype focus." I like to think of this as a sliding scale. Some cubes will have very low archetype focus and might look like a pile of "good stuff." On the other end of the spectrum, you may have something like a tribal cube, where every card has been added with the explicit intention of belonging in a select number of strategies. With my cube, I've tried to find a balance where you don't necessarily need to draft a specific archetype to succeed, but there are a few "payoff" cards that heavily incentivize playing to a specific archetype.
Archetypes
In this cube, you can almost always default into a control, aggro, or midrange deck, but there are a number of archetypes you can opt into as well that I'd like to highlight.
Graveyard-Matters
This deck attempts to obtain value out of reusing creatures after they've died.
Wildfires
A Cube classic, this control deck uses
Flash
This deck aims to abuse the power of the flash mechanic to play the game on its own terms.
Spells-Matters
A deck we've all seen before, spells-matters looks to play a high density of spells and a couple payoff cards that can get value out of those spells.
Tokens
The tokens deck looks to pair anthems with the ability to make a large number of bodies to get the most value out of those anthems.
Aristocrats
Aristocrats decks pair sacrifice outlets with death triggers to build a powerful engine. This deck typically plays as a black-red aggro deck that uses cards like
Five-Color
Five-color isn't so much an archetype as it is the benefit that inherently comes from playing five colors. Golos,
Stax
This base-black deck uses cards like
Pod/Toolbox
Prime Speak Vannifar and
Devotion/Monocolor
Like five color, this isn't an archetype, but I wanted to specifically highlight the payoffs for playing a monocolor deck. There are a few devotion cards that obviously benefit from being in a single color, but there are also a few cards that I consider to be monocolor payoffs, such as
Self-Mill
This base-blue deck looks to win by milling your entire library and winning on the spot with
Wheel Combo
Utilizing one of the few combos in this cube, this deck aims to leverage the interaction of
Big Ramp
This base-green deck looks to ramp all the way up to eight mana, and even further. Cards such as
Green Stompy
Mana dorks aren't just for the ramp deck. Playing aggressively costed midrange threats a turn or two early can create an enormous amount of pressure. This deck looks to utilize the efficiency of green's midrange threats with the power of mana dorks. When drafting this deck, prioritize mana dorks, and efficient three- and four-mana threats.
Monocolor Aggro
Monocolor aggro decks are only specifically supported in red, white, and black. Blue has few turn-one plays, and green only has mana dorks to play on turn one. On the other hand, red, white, and black have a healthy amount of aggressively costed one- and two-mana creatures. Each color provides different strengths: red is best at pushing through damage, white has the most disruption, and black has the most resilience.
Blink
Blink is one of the weakest-supported archetypes. Instead of playing a dedicated blink deck, you could splash these cards into a deck with a healthy amount of enters-the-battlefield triggers for extra value.
Happy Cubing!
There are many more archetypes and variations to explore and try out. I'm very excited to share this cube with you, and I hope you have as much fun drafting and playing this cube as I have!
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