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CUBE PHILOSOPHY
This cube is designed to feel like "Sorcery Limited turned up to 11." Every deck has access to powerful Uniques, premium removal, and exciting build-arounds while still rewarding the core Limited fundamentals of mana curve, threshold management, and efficient drafting.
My goal is not perfect balance between every strategy. My goal is for every draft to feel different while ensuring multiple archetypes are capable of winning.
I intend for this to be the most powerful singleton cube possible. But if specific cards emerge that are un-fun I will consider cutting them. I value a diverse draft experience and would prefer this cube grow to 540 cards once the card pool supports it, that might take a couple more sets to achieve.
GET STARTED
If you want to build my cube in paper, I recommend building my 360 Card Budget Cube first, bring it to your community and gauge the interest in playing cube before adding all the expensive uniques you'll find in this list. My Budget Cube is $300, this list is around $5k. If there are cards in this list you don't like or don't want to purchase, simply cut them from your cube without replacement. As long as your cube is at least 360 cards, enjoy drafting with up to 8 players. Cards that are not particularly worth purchasing include Erik's Curiosa, Avatar of Air, Avatar of Earth just to name the most expensive cards that aren't strictly necessary.
HOUSE RULES
QUICK TIPS:
STRATEGY GUIDE:
Cores and Mixes are great. There are many expensive bombs, getting them out before your opponent develops their board is an easy way to win. With the addition of cards from Gothic, the curve is much better and aggressive decks have come together more often. Premium removal is needed to stop the many bombs. Keep an eye out for an Avatar that fits with your gameplan. Some of the best cards in the cube are the Cores/, , , , .
PICK ORDER
Avatars
Artifact Ramp
Premium 2-4 Mana Minions
Threshold Fixing
Removal
Game-ending 5+ Mana stuff
I highly recommend heading to the Card Ladder on Draftsorcery.com. This is where we do all our online drafting. The Card Ladder is used to teach the bots how to draft cube. Every time a card is taken early in a pack, the card's score increases and when it's taken late in a pack its score decreases. Using this method you can roughly see the best and worst cards in cube.
Go to https://draftsorcery.com/card-ladder and select Cube.
COMBOS
+
+
+
+
+
+
ELEMENT RANKING (based on win rate)
Earth 55%
Water 55%
Fire 53%
Air 51%
ELEMENT PAIR RANKING (based on win rate)
Earth/Fire 59%
Earth/Air 54%
Fire/Water 53%
Earth/Water 52%
Fire/Air 48%
Water/Air 48%
ARCHETYPES
MIDRANGE
Everything is some form of midrange. Your average curve will be something like:
2 spell that costs 1
5 spells that cost 2
6 spells that cost 3
5 spells that cost 4
3 spells that cost 5
3 spells that cost 6+
The hardest part is getting the one and two mana spells so be sure to prioritize those. Only prioritize 5 and 6 mana cards that are either great removal or legitimate game enders.
AGGRO
Aggro is viable but much harder to assemble than the other archetypes. You need a critical mass of quality two- and three-mana minions, and if you miss on those you’ll often end up with an underpowered midrange deck. This is part of why I decided to shrink the cube back from 450 to 405. , , , are my picks for this archetype.
CONTROL
By control I really mean a midrange deck with a higher than average curve or a deck that has a larger than normal suite of premium removal. Ideally both. I think has a real shot at being a competitive control Avatar if you amass 10+ good magics to control the game with. is also uniquely suited for a long game.
WATER CONTROL
Mono-Water has emerged as a powerful control option. Flooding abilities include , , , but most powerful and reliable is . The ability to flood your opponents' sites is important for a few key cards, most importantly, . This has been extremely impressive as a repeatable removal spell. And you can force it to trigger using , , and other forced movement options. The powerful game delaying control options in Water pair extremely well with the powerful and difficult to deal with minions such as . is very good in this deck. Most of your opponents' decks are midrange with 6+ expensive minions, making 's tap ability busted, especially if you can use forced movement to bring their threats together.
RAMP
You can watch me draft Earth ramp in this video or this video
You want 5+ sources of ramp and 5+ expensive cards to cast. I don't think this deck necessarily needs to be Earth but there are some sources of ramp in Earth that help a lot and some of the best things to ramp into are in Earth so it's pretty likely that's where you want to be. , , and are the preferred Avatars. Sorcerer is the most difficult because you NEED many sources of Ramp for it to function.
SITES
There are 3 sites in every pack. I broke singleton for 2 of each of the dual- and double-element sites. You will also find the tri-element castle sites, , and . I still think the most powerful decks are the ones that stick to 2 elements with good threshold fixing. There are many triple and quadruple threshold cards that are very difficult to play if you're in 3 elements.
AVATARS (with win rates)
68%: See House Rule at the top. has been super fun and powerful. This is one of my favorite additions from Gothic. Often you want to become on turn 4 and then turn into or something else later on to get additional value. Generically great in any deck, except maybe aggressive decks that can't afford to take a turn off. Avatars to always include in your collection: , , , , ,
67%: Very difficult to draft. You want 10+ powerful Magics. Hoping we get a more generically powerful control Avatar in a future set.
38%: It's been somewhat underwhelming but is most suited for an aggressive deck with lots of Airborne minions. Likely you don't want to be just mono-Air. Suffers from Air being the worst element, and a support element.
: STILL HAS NOT BEEN DRAFTED
41%: Hard to draft but when it comes together and you get some equipment on this guy he really performs. Unfortunately over time I have ended up cutting some cards that were specifically there for Battlemage. I just couldn't justify cards like , and when they have no chance of seeing play outside this avatar and people still never drafted Battlemage when they were in.
50%: Flexible and powerful. is borderline oppressive. trivializes the death blow. is reasonable. I feel it's pretty close to but is fun and sometimes is better. Not a high pick.
50%: It hasn't proven to be very powerful or even played very often since the nerf. Similar to Dragonlord I think it's fine but not a high pick. + is still a pretty effective combo even if it doesn't work on opponent's sites anymore. Best with forced movement.
57%: S-Tier forever. Goodstuff.deck. A pack 1 Elementalist might just be the easiest route to drafting an amazing deck. You want to take the best card out of every pack and when there's not something A-Tier to pick, take a fixing site instead. This allows you to play Multi-Element cards other people can't play as well as the very powerful Colorless utility Sites like and .
67%: Mono-fire has been drafted plenty of times, this is a good option for that deck. I don't really like it outside of that. Its high win rate is mostly due to Mono Fire being very strong.
59%: This is my pet avatar. Always better than , mana acceleration is important in cube, it's busted with + . But it's still A-Tier, not S-Tier without the combo.
71%: The best Avatar and generically great in any deck. There are some combos with it, things that use your tokens well, , , pump effects, etc. is extremely powerful here since there is no limit to how many you can get from your collection in Limited.
64%: See house rule at the top. This is a generically very powerful Avatar. Stick to 2 elements and avoid the tri-sites. Big mana decks are very good. But really every deck would love to draw a spell every single turn. S-Tier.
36%: Has been underwhelming so far. It's hard to take a turn off in Cube when the curve can be unforgiving. But if you manage to play off curve and stabilize you're going to snowball into a late win. The curve is a big issue though. Savior is close to being cut, I don't recommend drafting it most of the time. It's borderline a trap.
35%: I hoped this would be generically good enough to replace most of the time but has so far been a low pick for the more experienced drafters so has ended up in the hands of a newbie which hurts its win rate a lot. I also cut some of the card draw combos which would theoretically be good for Seer. I would play it but wouldn't take it high.
46%: Has performed better with the lower curve since Gothic's release. Including some ramp spells seems strong so far. If you're up against a Sorcerer with 7+ mana you'd better be closing the game out fast. But Aggro decks with less mana can also take advantage of this powerful draw engine.
58%: A powerful control deck. See "Water Control" archetype above.
Minions:
The general advice I've heard is you want about 17 minions, 7 non-minions in your Spellbook. That's 70% minions. I applied this benchmark to the entire cube. Currently 67% of spells (non-site, non-avatar cards) are minions.
Stats for nerds:
62ish spells of each element
27 multicolor spells
13 sites of each element
20 multi-element sites
9 colorless sites
3.0 sites/pack
Average Mana Cost of Minions in Each Element:
Earth: 3.6
Fire: 3.6
Water: 3.9
Air: 3.7
Average Minion Cost: 3.74
NOTES TO SELF:
Combos currently cut:
+ +
+
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CHANGE___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LOG:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/19/2026
Primer updated.
This cube grew from its original 360 cards to 450 cards after the release of Gothic, but since I've cut it down to its current 405-card form! After experimenting with a 360 Card Budget Cube ($300), I saw what a smaller cube felt like. Particularly I liked how the curve felt. It turns out if you cut all the uniques, you end up with a lot less top end and you have much more access to 2-mana minions which felt nice. Due to that experience I decided to cut back from 450 to 405.
7/18/2026: I had more time to make some cuts. I got down to my goal of 405 cards. I reached my ending goal for sites which is 81 (enough for 9 players). I'll try not to fidget for a while.
- Corruptor Freak
- Sir Gawain
- Weightless Squire
- Returned King
- Thing in the Ice
- Yog-Sothoth
- Geyser
- Flanking Maneuver
- All Mortals Gone
- Dispel
- Disenchant
- Static Servant
- Molten Maar
- Silent Hills
- Pond
- Stinging Kelp
- Lookout
- Love Potion
- Archangel Samael
- Book Burners
- Smokestacks of Gnaak
- Flame Wave
- Overflow
- Degradation
- Unland Eel
- Power of Flight
7/17/2026: I added all the non-water courts.
- Updraft Ridge
- Poisoned Well
- Hillside Chapel
+ Mock Court
+ Mobbed Court
+ Court of Equity
I also cut these cards as part of the effort to shrink the cube. My current goal is 405 cards, now @ 431.
- Perilous Bridge
- Quagmire
- Bottomless Pit
- Angel Ascendant
7/9/2026: We drafted my 360 Card Budget Cube for the first time. You can watch the draft here. This was a really interesting experience and showed me how a 360 card cube compares to this 450 card cube. The most striking part was the curve I saw in everyone's decks. Usually you'll see 2ish 2-mana minions but during that draft the average was closer to 4! This is a substantial difference in making the cube experience more accessible to newer players and making it feel more akin to a traditional draft format. I have struggled with the decision of what to do. A 360 card cube will have a better minion curve but will also be less diverse and interesting to draft repeatedly. Since one of my stated goals is to create a diverse draft experience, I can't justify cutting down from 450 to 360. In the interest of testing things out, the following cards are cut without replacement.
These are mostly expensive minions that don't see much play, along with the kythera mechanism/13 treasurues/chaoswish combos which have only ever been traps, removal spells that only kill small minions, a couple narrow cards.
- Riddle Sphinx
- Stone Rain
- Wyvern
- Army of the Dead
- Ice Lance
- Flame of the First Ones
- 13 Treasures of Britain
- Kythera Mechanism
- Chaoswish
- Displace
- Murder of Crows
- Mortality
- Seasoned Sellsword
- Revered Revenant
- Mountain Giant
7/7/2026: I loved the rare Black Obelisk deck prior to Gothic but it's embarrassing compared to Landmass. The Rack has been called "almost an auto include" by some constructed players so it surely deserves its place in cube.
- Virgin in Prayer
- Black Obelisk
+ The Rack
+ Atlas Wanderers
6/17/2026:
REMOVED SECOND PLAYER SEER house rule. We still use it but doesn't need to be a house rule. Everyone knows it exists.
ADDED House Rule for Chaos Twister. Anyone who spends a few minutes practicing Chaos Twister can easily get above 80% or 90% hit rate. The Twist Button on TTS only has a 40% success rate. This brings it closer to reality as well as gives people who don't like playing Chaos Twister in person a way to play the card. But if someone wants to play Chaos Twister as intended I won't stop them.
I decreased the wordiness of some house rules but didn't change the rules themselves.
6/4/2026: I mostly wanted to remove Harbinger since I've found it to be a trap for newer players (win rate of 22%), but made additional tweaks. I've felt for a while I wanted slightly more answers to threats if possible. I was able to bring in a few more removal spells and cut some junky minions. There were a few holdovers that were supporting the previously removed reanimation and evil archetypes. I decided to remove Gnarled Wendigo not because it's bad but because the deck that uses it most effectively, Necromancer, is already the most winning avatar and doesn't need the support. Island Leviathan was a hard cut but Mono Water is the highest winning elemental archetype and doesn't need the Leviathan. No one else can use it. And Stinging Kelp is good against Necromancer, especially since Necromancer decks tend to be water decks themselves. I've had the 1 power lethal minions for a while but they have failed to be an important answer to large beefy minions.
+ Treetop Hideout
+ Lookout
- Dark Alley
- Den of Evil
+ Stinging Kelp
- Island Leviathan
+ Rustic Village
+ Simple Village
+ Quagmire
- Blessed Village
- Forgotten Tomb
- Shallow Grave
+ Thunderstorm
+ Stagecoach
- Plague Rat
- Order of the Pale Worm
+ Heretics of Seth
+ Frozen Horror
+ Ice Lance
- Porcupine Pufferfish
- Gnarled Wendigo
- Kiss of Judas
+ Flame Wave
+ Trial by Fire
- Pit Vipers
- Salt the Earth
+ Mover of Mountains
- Entombed
+ Draco Corvus
+ Queen Guinevere
+ Tombstone Wardens
- Pendragon Banner
- Seven-League Boots
- Harbinger
5/12/2026: Pairing down House Rules, not hard to find a replacement 4-drop. Maybe Flayer helps keep Necromancer in check a tiny bit.
+ Flayer
- Brother Knight
4/16/2026: Less than 25% of minions in the cube are evil so I removed a lot of the stuff that cares about that. Air has been underperforming so I tried to remove some of the weird/situational stuff and lean more into the airborne minions which have been pretty excellent.
+ Avatar of Earth
+ Stone Rain
+ Tufted Turtles
+ Fey Changeling
+ Betrayal
+ Book Burners
+ Burning Hands
+ Albespine Pikemen
+ Duel
+ Sky Baron
+ Weightless Squire
+ Vesper Swarm
+ Ball Lightning
+ Cast into Exile
+ Band of Thieves
+ Murder of Crows
- Persecutor
- Bind Evil
- Instigator Imp
- Aaj-kegon Ghost Crabs
- Warp Spasm
- Begone!
- Accusation
- Bitten
- Deliverance
- Grim Reaper
- Clairvoyant
- Kiss of Death
- Mephistopheles
- The Doom of Dilmun
- Carrionette
- Black Mass
Link to my archived cube list pre-gothic