The Cube is a custom singleton limited format for Magic the Gathering. In other words, someone takes single copies of whichever Magic cards strike their fancy, crafting them into a set for drafting, sealed, etc. See here for Evan Erwin's take and here for the MTGS forum's introduction to cubing.
The Cube was invented by Spikes who had played Magic since beginning, so their original idea of what would be fun to draft was "all of the best Magic cards ever". Moxes. Necropotence. Time Walk. Etc. And most Cubes are still done this way -- although obviously not everyone includes the Power 9. As you know, I'm not terribly Spike-y, and our play-group is mostly new-ish players, so a traditional Cube wasn't something I was interested in.
So what does this Cube look like?
360 cards, modern card face, Ravnica-themed. (See here and here and here for information about Ravnica.)
20 cards associated with each of the ten guilds, eight gold or hybrid and twelve mono-color. An additional 100 mono-colored cards, chosen so that across the guild-associated cards and the additions, there's an equal number for each color. 30 artifacts. 30 non-basic lands.
Overall, the Cube pulls from two themes from the original Ravnica block: multicolor and tokens/counters. (The links are illustrative; neither of those cards are in the Cube. Yet.) While being Ravnica-themed, the cards come throughout the universe of modern-faced cards, which leads to our first preview card:
It's probably a sideboard card, but between the token-heavy Selesnya and Orzhov and the +1/+1 counter heavy Simic and Gruul, there just might be enough tokens and counters around to main-deck it.
I don't want to ruin your sense of exploration, but I think it's a good idea for you to have a sense of what each guild is up to in this cube. To that end, over the course of this week, I'll be doing a series of previews. First up:
Guild Preview: The Cult of Rakdos
A group of thrill-seeking sado-masochists following their demon-lord Rakdos, the black/red Cult was known in the original Ravnica for its ability word Hellbent: "If you have no cards in hand, [effect]". This encouraged a fast-and-loose approach to the game that represented the Cult well. While Hellbent is not the primary theme of the Rakdos in this Cube, that spirit lives on in their guild-colored legend:
A 6/6 flier for 6 that costs you your hand but might cost them their board, Grixis's Malfegor feels right at home amongst the Rakdos -- although given the flavor text, Rakdos himself might objection to the new demon in town.
So if the Cube's Rakdos aren't primarily trying to empty their hand, what they trying to do?
Empty yours:
An infamous creature from the early days of Magic (when Dark Ritual made it a potential turn one play), Hyponotic Specter and its friends in this Cube's Rakdos are out to make that flavor text come to life as they strip your hand and your dreams.
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