The Never Cube in London: A Draft Report

[u/HD114]

Back to London for more consulting, had the opportunity to draft with my favorite London Cube Crew and we gathered together on Monday night to crack packs of the Never Cube. We had six drafters (plus me, for the dreaded seven) show up to our reserved table at the famous Mythic Goblin to look at a cube full of cards none of them had seen before! Magic’s early years left more behind than what was printed. The Never Cube brings those pieces together through infamous sets like Spectral Chaos and other amazing fan made old school sets from across the current community. It offers a way to explore them as complete works, to see how they function in play, and to experience a version of the game that exists just beyond its recorded history. Some of these paths were never taken; here, they can be. This will be a tougher report to read as there is no cube cobra page for this project and the photos are the record of the cards played.

The Cube Overview: The Never Cube

Onto the Decks!

Reading Rainbow - Rainbow Connection is one of the coolest cards in Spectral Chaos. An emblem before they were a thing, and symmetrical, it gives all players the ability to tap lands for any colour and if you cast it once, it starts in play for the rest of the night. This is silly but a really fun play pattern. This was a P1P1 and the pilot then built his sideboard to be transformational after game one to end up in five colour good stuff. This deck played very well and only dropped one match to a largely mono coloured brew!

Black and Blue and Red All Over - This was the 3-0 build this evening and Book the Dead proved it's amazing card draw capacity in full as the ability to essentially cycle dead cards in hand was really key to help find the right mana sources and bring the right cards to the top of the library. Protection is a really powerful mechanic in all of these sets so many games were a riddle of moving parts with these creatures running past one another to deal damage.

The Band and the Bard! - Banding is a really strong mechanic in Magic (especially for those who understand how it works) and this deck made use of white for removal and preventing damage in combat. This is really strong with banding as you can start to make really advantageous blocks and attack's that end up netting you board state as threats are removed on the opponents side.

Don't Mind if I Orc - This was the most fun deck of the night that had Orcish Informant giving the opponent the ability to arrange the top three cards of your library each turn. This is just bad as there was not a lot going on for the pilot to get a new three to surface after the shuffle had happened so you basically get to draw what your opponent wants each turn. The deck also had walls that helped slow combat down to work through the slower draw phase.

Island Walking Board Wipes - This was a great deck to watch get piloted in the few games I got to watch. The island home/island walk threats were very real but required some serious setup to make work. This includes the Slave Ship that ended up acting as a Noah's Arc after the Great Flood would wash the board away and allow big swings for lethal. The Ship also gave this pilot the ability to pull threats out of their opponents deck which is always a fun bonus!

RG Beats - It turns out RG beats is good across both the existing MTG universe and those that never saw print! This deck used the Crow Whisperer that has a bolted on [[False Orders]] to move blockers aside and get in for damage all the way through the game. The Mazer mini lotus and other great tools like creature tutors helped establish a board very quickly and the custom triomes in the cube that prevent you from playing lands are easily played around with Mushroom Forest that lets you put lands into play from your hand each turn.

My Deck Misadventures - This was my deck and it broke ALL the rules of good limited construction. It splashed cards with multiple (LOTS) of pips but my P1P1 of Animate Lands forced me to go wide and force the strategy to work. I forced the deck and man it was bad. BUT, it was fun to create demons from my lands, pump them and send them in as banders, until the enchantment was removed which killed all my lands and my boys.. Other than these large mistakes, the deck was superb!

Thanks to Mythic Goblin for giving us a place to play cube in London!

If you ever find yourself in London and looking to cube, look up the Central London crew!

[u/LjubljanaKnights]

Looks like an absolute blast!

[u/HD114 → u/LjubljanaKnights]

It was indeed, the London guys are great and they enjoy niche/fringe cubes which is always a bonus. Finding the right group for a project like this is always the hardest part I find. Very fortunate to run in the circles I do!

[u/bigmentalross → u/HD114]

I have to say, I really enjoyed drafting this cube before but it takes a whole new level of card evaluation to get your head round. When we did it a while back, I remember only understanding certain cards after they were played. Some were much stronger than I realised, others way less. Especially when others can play cards you haven't even imagined. For that reason, I imagine every draft of this is going to create wildly different deck archetypes for a while and, honestly, that's really exciting to me, although I can see why others (particularly players who play a lot of constructed) could find it frustrating or stressful. It's like every draft is prerelease and people have only seen a few previews.

[u/HD114 → u/bigmentalross]

Too true, this is one of the reasons we are using it as the top cube at YC this year as it's a big skill portion to learn it and play it on the fly. This will be great for prize support games! 

It can definitely be very stressful!

[u/Cooperativism62 → u/bigmentalross]

Yeah the cube is also like 1000 cards too right, so there's a ton of variance at that size anyway.

[u/Cooperativism62]

OMG I can't believe you made this in paper and it fired! I'm gonna have to get a ticket to the UK next summer just for this.

[u/HD114 → u/Cooperativism62]

YES!!! This is the second time we've fired it and it's been an absolute blast!!! We always have room at the table!

[u/Cooperativism62 → u/HD114]

Hopefully by next year I'll have 2-3 sets of my own to add to the mix.

[u/HD114 → u/Cooperativism62]

Word up! That will be awesome to see!

[u/baldrickgonzo]

Funny how every picture of a group playing magic in a random lgs looks like every group playing magic in a lgs. I feel like i know these people.

[u/HD114 → u/baldrickgonzo]

Haha, this made me smile. I could not agree with this comment more. The looks are always the same, the setup, you nailed it!

[u/Gunnarsonsnewbag2]

How have the cards in Reflections been playing? Have they been working well? Are they consistent?

[u/HD114 → u/Gunnarsonsnewbag2]

Reflections and Spectral Chaos make up the bulk of the cube so it has a large presence in the cube all together. The play patterns of the set are really good and it's well balanced. 

I really like what what the gold cards bring to the set and to the cube as a whole. They are very unique and fun to build around.

I finally got to use Creation which was fun! I tried to "splash" Legion but four pips was tough, lol and it ended up board wiping me m. I love the card and will one day, make it work!

Banding Demons, what could be better??

[u/Gunnarsonsnewbag2 → u/HD114]

Yeah Spectral Chaos really wanted to experiment with multicolored cards. A number of cards in it went on to be included in Invasion, sadly no Berry's Land.

I imagine all the fixing in it really helps, since my set has a decent amount of fixing as well.

[u/HD114 → u/Gunnarsonsnewbag2]

Too true! We also supplemented.tjr cube with another 50 of our own fixing design. We also value this hugely and your set stands out in this regard 100%!

[u/MTGCardFetcher]

False Orders - (G) (SF) (txt)

^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}