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Peasant Cube Primer
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Introduction To Peasant Cube

Welcome to the world of peasant cube, a place where you get to look at packs full of the best cards from magic's limited formats and build nearly any kind of deck you can imagine.  Whether you want to beat down, ramp mana to expensive and powerful creatures, or play reactive control decks with absolutely no creatures, there is a deck for you here.  In peasant cube, as with many cube environments, you are rewarded more for drafting and building a deck with a plan than you are for taking the best card in every pack. In this series, I want to introduce you to some of the main archetypes in peasant cube (specifically those that I support in my cube), the roleplayers and key synergies in those decks, and what to look for while drafting.

Link to cube list: Draft All-Stars

In design of this cube, I have tried to hold myself to the following design principles and restrictions:

With that said, let’s look at the kinds of decks you can draft in peasant cube!

Table of Contents

For those of you looking to just jump to your favorite colors and archetypes, please follow the links in this section:

Three Color Lens

In recent draft formats, wizards has been providing drafters with insight to their intended draft archetypes with the design of what have come to be known as "signpost gold uncommons."  These tend to be a gold uncommon card in each of the ten two color pairs, called guilds, which indicate the strategy intended for that color pair.  Enigma drake in Amonkhet indicated that the UR decks wanted to care about instants and sorceries, while River Hoopoe in Hour of devastation provides a payoff for decks that can produce a large quantity of mana making UG decks want to ramp and get to the late game.  These also facilitate draft archetypes by their tendency to be one of the strongest cards in their respective color pair.

However, in cube, there are no shortage of powerful cards.  While some cards in the cube, like Rix-madi guildmage, might indicate a specific direction for the color pair during the draft, others, like terminate, will just fit into any deck playing those colors.  So how do you know what direction you should take your draft without these specific cards?  For this, as a design exercise I like to look at all ten 3 color combinations.  If you could take all 150 monocolored cards, all 18 multicolored cards, every artifact and every on color land, what would the best 3-color decks look like that are constructed from this pool of cards?  Then, taking those strategies, what would 2 color subsets of those decks look like?  I would argue that the gameplan of these decks would look different even with some potential overlap in the cards they include.

In this series, I would like to investigate the cube archetypes through the lens of these 3 color decks.  Unlike khans and shards, there are no specifically 3 color cards, but fixing is good enough that you should be able to feel confident playing 3 colors, or even 4-5 if one of your main colors is green.  However, each two color deck can be seen as a representation of their piece of each shard/clan.  In this way, any two color combination represents not one but 3 decks on a spectrum between the three shards and clans in which it resides.  Individual cards then feel like they can go in many different decks, and decks feel like they're never the same twice when you can draft with this in mind.

I like to use the UR spells archetype as an example.  Let's say that the Jeskai clan (WUR) is expressed through the lens of a spells based tempo deck.  You have prowess creatures in all three colors (seeker of the way, Jessian thief/delver, and swiftspear/kiln fiend), good interaction at instant speed, and generally good aggressive creatures to take advantage of the low curve.  When you think of UR's slice of this jeskai pie, you can think of a hyper aggressive deck that takes advantage of a high spell count to kill you quickly with kiln fiend and delver of secrets.  But UR is also a slice of the Grixis shard (UBR).  Those decks tend to want to be slow grinding control decks that win with large threats.  In this way, UR can look like a deck with a ton of counterspells, card draw and removal, with only a handful of cards that end the game late (enigma drake, guttersnipe, rise from the tides).  While these two expressions of UR are on either side of spectrum, depending on what pieces you see in a draft, you can find yourself at a different speed in this spectrum.  

However, this design lens isn't always perfect and is not particularly useful for analyzing UR's last clan: temur.  Temur tends to take advantage of the ramp and color fixing of green, and the grindiness of blue counterspells to get to the late game and cast huge expensive spells (fireball, rolling thunder, meteor blast, opportunity, vengeful rebirth).  As this strategy tends to rely on green, the RU versions of this deck tend to look closer to the grindy control versions of the grixis shard than they do a unique temur identity.

With this in mind, I would like to dive into the two color decks, look at the three ways in which these decks tend to express themselves, and what tools other decks have access to that help combat these strategies.

Azorius

White has historically had access to some of the most universal reactive cards, strong aggressive cards, powerful flying creatures, and efficient token makers.  Blue has been a color that excels at drawing cards, reacting threats and winning with evasive threats.  Together these colors make for strong tempo based aggressive strategies, as well as decks taking advantage of powerful synergies in the late game.

Jeskai (Tempo)

Pros: Tempo is king in Jeskai, forcing your opponent into a losing position while they still have a handful of cards and no time to deploy their threats.  UW based jeskai decks are going to utilize sticking powerful early game threats like delver of secrets and seeker of the way, protect them with counterspells and defensive spells (like feat of resistance and valorous stance) while efficiently removing opposing threats either through white removal (oblivion ring and journey to nowhere) or blue bounce spells (man-o'-war and vapor snag).  If you find yourself taking a slower route, you can fill your deck with more flying threats like flickerwisp and eldrazi skyspawner and support them with a surprise Thunderclap wyvern.

Key cards: Seeker of the way, Vapor Snag, Condescend.

Cons: Spell heavy tempo decks tend to fall prey to removal heavy decks.  If your opponent can land a large blocker that's hard to deal with (penumbra spider) while simultaneously removing one of your limited threats, you might have a hard time closing out a close game.  Post-board against these decks, you'll want to have access to defensive spells and counterspells, and potentially even save instant speed bounce spells to save your own threats from removal.

Esper (Flicker Midrange Value)

Pros: Esper is synonymous with value, and with some incredibly strong strategies, creatures with strong enters the battlefield effects, and powerful reactive cards you have the tools necessary to survive long enough where you can realize your genius.  White has access to strong instant speed removal (stasis snare, cast out) to complement blue's counterspells and card draw.  If they don't play something you need to counter, you can remove a creature instead, and if you don't need to remove a threat, you can always draw more cards, allowing you to hit your land drops and find more answers of your own.  Once you've survived to having access to 8-10 mana, you can find yourself locking your opponent out of the game by flickering your opponent's creatures with mistmeadow witch, flickering your own creatures with powerful enter the battlefield abilities, and burying your opponent in card advantage.

Key cards: Cast out, mistmeadow witch, dismiss

Cons: The deck can take a long time to set up a powerful late game engine, and a deck with powerful resilient threats can find the right time to resolve those spells and put you on the back foot.  Make sure that you have a plan for how to deal with powerful threats on turns 2, 3 and 4 that put a lot of pressure on your game plan.

Bant (Combo Token Aggro)

Pros: Bant has access to some of the best enterfield abilities in the cube, but alongside a great deal of token making, many of these abilities tend to buff a large army of small creatures.  A UW based bant deck might seek to flood the board with tokens and exploit strong synergies in the deck to overwhelm the opponent.  Cards like oketra's monument and kor skyfisher work together to feel almost like a combo deck.  Eldrazi skyspawner and Whirler Rogue can also flood the board with tokens.  Lets not forget about the king daddy token maker himself: cloudgoat ranger.  Resolving a meadowboon or a relief captain after curving out with token producers can only be made more awesome by then targeting those cards with momentary blink.

Key cards: Cloudgoat ranger, Oketra's Monument, Whirler rogue.

Cons: There are many strong answers to token based strategies.  Slice and dice, drown in sorrow, savage alliance.  Be mindful of these answers and make sure to hold back threats before you walk into one of these powerful board wipes.

Dimir

The Dimir Guild has access to some of the most powerful reactive spells ever printed alongside powerful card draw and large evasive threats.  Drag the game out and win with card advantage or land early evasive threats and beat down.  Choose your own adventure.

Grixis (Draw-go Control)

Pros:         Grixis is embodied by the card Torment of Hailfire.  While it is innocuous to ask the opponent one time to sacrifice a permanent, or lose 3 life, asking the opponent to do so 10 times quickly makes games unwinnable.  The grixis decks attack resources and fight on the axis of card advantage until the opponent is strangled out of the game.  One for one removal and counterspells control the pace of the game while resolving threats that attack the opponent's resources at more profitable rates, like blizzard specter, mind control and soul ransom, ultimately resolving large card draw spells like skeletal scrying and opportunity, and large threats that win the game quickly, like riverwheel aerialists or dinrova horror.

Key Cards: Soul Manipulation, Blizzard Spectre, Dinrova Horror

Cons: Many threats in the cube can not be answered cleanly by one for one answers.  Opponents resolving a hard to deal with enchantment, artifact, or flooding the board with small tokens can put pressure on the heavy control player on an axis the dimir deck cant handle.  During the draft, try to pick up sweepers to deal with tokens, and during games, make sure to hold back to not give your opponent the opportunity to cast spells you cant deal with.

Esper (Flicker, Tap-out Control)

Pros: While Esper decks also want to be in the driver's seat controlling the pace of the game, they tend to be more proactive and less inevitable.  Taking advantage of resolving large threats earlier than its grixis counterparts, they can protect these threats with reactive spells and put pressure on the opponent to respond to your resilient threats before you quickly end the game.

Key Cards: Shriekmaw, Crystal Shard, Mulldrifter

Cons: The Downside of forcing your opponent to have an answer is that sometimes they do.  Often post board these decks have the ability to speed up or slow down depending on how the matchup dictates.  Resolving an early Delver, Vampire Nighthawk, or Bellowing saddlebrute might put pressure on your opponent faster than the grindier midrange decks are prepared to handle while still allowing inevitability with other late-game plans.

Sultai (Graveyard Value)

Pros: Sultai decks take advantage of a key resource: the graveyard.  By strategically loading the graveyard early in the game, it can be utilized to play incredibly strong spells.  A loaded graveyard means easily casting treasure cruise, murderous cut, or gurmag angler.  A loaded graveyard means access to incidental value by milling a deep analysis or turning your Archaeomancer into a tutor.  Because these decks will be playing strong versatile threats anyway, reanimation spells like animate dead and victimize go up in value, although they tend to be lategame value plays rather than an explosive strategy.  Try to draft a good combination of cards that will fill your yard like golgari thug and merfolk looter, cards that interact with your graveyard, like reanimator or delve spells, and plenty of interaction for your opponents gameplan.

Key Cards: Merfolk Looter, Animate Dead, Skeletal Scrying

Cons: While no one can stop you from filling up your yard, these strategies tend to be slow and while ultimately explosive, are lacking in interaction until the later phases of the game.  While explosive reanimator strategies can happen, be prepared to handle a longer game and not die with a full yard.

Rakdos

Black mages’ proclaim greatness at any cost and that cost is paid in fire and blood.  Utilizing strong black cards that demand sacrifice (of life, creatures) and the speed of red to finish games before its life total matters allows Rakdos decks to put away games quickly or even against clogged board stalls.

Jund (Aristocrats / Sacrifice)

Pros: While the exploit mechanic from dragons of tarkir might have been incorrectly assigned to blue/black and the devour mechanic from Shards of Alara never quite “got there” in power level, here in peasant cube, Jund decks find new and unique ways of utilizing wasted bodies to their advantage.  Red has access to incredibly efficient token makers in Beetleback Chief and Mogg War Marshal, and both red and black have fantastic ways of consuming those bodies either to draw cards (Vampiric Rites), deal damage (Goblin Bombardment) or create large threats (carrion Feeder).  The self sacrifice deck has many ways to close out the game (my personal favorite being to sacrifice a full board with a blood artist and zulaport cutthroat in play) by consuming its creatures but what this deck needs is a good balance of both fodder for sacrifice effects and sacrifice effects themselves.

Key Cards: Beetleback Chief, Goblin Bombardment, Blood artist

Cons: While the deck can make many bodies, the deck is weak to answers for multiple tokens or generally small bodies like Savage Alliance, as well as targeted removal for the deck’s win conditions.  Sometimes depending on the matchup, the self sacrifice deck can be treated as a combo deck that waits for the perfect moment to expend its resources and go in for the kill.  Make sure to wait for the right time to strike.

Mardu (Hard to block Aggro)

Pros: While Jund wants to consume, Mardu wants to attack.  All those bodies can go a long way to making a deck that attacks on a different angle and that is nullifying blockers.  Sure some creatures might die in combat but that is a small price to pay for the rest of your army to damage your opponent.  Mardu decks want to make blocking miserable for your opponent with cards like Rix Maadi Guildmage, pyreheart wolf, goblin heelcutter, and war cadence, often finishing off the opponent with pump spells like dynacharge and Butcher’s Glee alongside burn spells like Brimstone Volley.  

Key Cards: Butcher’s Glee, Goblin Heelcutter, Rix Maadi Guildmage

Cons: Decks that gain a lot of life or can amass a large quantity of blockers can give these go-wide mardu decks quite a bit of trouble.  Make sure to have efficient removal for multiple threats in your sideboard, and try to avoid keeping slow hands against decks that want to gain more life than you can dish out.

Grixis (Aggro-Control)

Pros: The best burn spells and the best black removal make for some of the most comprehensive reactive removal packages in the cube.  Terminate, lightning bolt, Doom blade, murderous cut, Brimstone Volley, Savage Alliance, Tragic Slip.  This makes the core of the deck strong while allowing for quick attackers to get in unimpeded.  Removal and hasty threats; what more is there to say?

Key Cards: Lightning bolt, terminate, charging monstrosaur

Cons: Sometimes your opponents don't play creatures and they make your terminate look foolish for many turns while they develop their board.  Make sure that you have cheaper creature options to bring in against more controlling opponents.

Gruul

Not Gruul? Then Die.  If you want a proactive strategy that puts pressure on the opponent, is resilient to removal, and can end games in a hurry, then Gruul is right for you.  Red and green have historically had access to some of the most efficient aggressive creatures.  Red’s creatures with high power to toughness ratio pair well with green’s ability to give creatures trample while greens larger than curve creatures pair well with red’s ability to give them haste.  

As this is the first time we’ve reached a green color pair, it should be noted that green has a lot of access to mana fixing and it has an easier time than other colors splashing in 3-5 color decks.  The slower the green deck wants to be and the more mana ramp the green deck wants access to will often indicate how many colors you will want to end up playing.

Temur (5 color Ramp)

Pros: Go big or go home.  Of the three gruul included shards, Temur is the most likely to be heavy in all three colors.  Red provides green with access to powerful spells to dump its extra mana, such as fireball, rolling thunder, meteor blast, as well as vengeful rebirth to by back those expensive spells.  Blue’s card draw helps temur decks hit their land drops.  Gruul also helps ramping green strategies with Zhur-taa Druid, which ramps while keeping up the pressure, although he can be played just nicely alongside Voyaging Satyr, Kiora’s followers and some Karoo lands (which notably allow tapping for 2 mana, you do the math).  If you’re already thinking about splashing, then other expensive spells might look appetizing, but are ultimately interchangeable.  Sifter wurm, Enlisted wurm, River Hoopoe, Dinrova Horror are all excellent choices.  If you want to stick to two colors, having access to a lot of mana helps flip the werewolves from EMN block (Vildin Pack Outcast, shrill howler, and smoldering werewolf).  The possibilities are endless.  Be sure to take a screenshot when you inevitably get an 8-for-1 with meteor blast.

Key cards: Zhur-taa Druid, Fireball, Pelakka Wurm

Cons: Your deck will have to be a balance of powerful threats and ramp spells, which increases control decks ability to just have more removal spells in their deck than you have threats.  Ramping to a Sifter Wurm until it gets condescended.  Take note of counterspells and removal in early games.  Prioritizing more resilient threats (like Scaled Behemoth) can help you post board.

Naya (Midrange Beatdown)

Pros: Naya decks are kings of the beasts and kings of the midrange.  Having access to great removal and great threats can provide for a formidable proactive game plan.  Sticking an aura (like moldervine cloak) on an already hard-to-kill (wolfir avenger) or evasive (Shrill Howler) threat, and then giving that threat trample (Khenra Charioteer) or Haste (fires of Yavimaya) and then protecting it (vines of the vastwood) is a deadly combination.  Large creatures also pair well with greens excellent one-sided-fight spells (nature’s way and clear shot, I like to call them “hunt spells”) but red burn spells will also make for great removal options while you beat down and then hurled at your opponent's face in the lategame to deal those last few points of damage.

Key Cards: Fires of Yavimaya, Shrill Howler, Bloodbraid Elf

Cons: Be careful of getting blown out by instant speed bounce spells and removal.  Buffs that stick around (rancor, moldervine cloak, grafted wargear) are nice against decks prepared to interact.  Don't be afraid to resolve one threat and let it do the work, waiting for your opponent to have to react so you can resolve an even more powerful threat while their shields are down.

Jund (Overrun Tokens)

Pros: While black consumes, green grows.  All of those small bodies that red provides instead provide vessels for you to realize your true form.  Access to mana dorks (llanowar elves) allow you to develop your board full of tokens and small creatures that replace themselves (viridian Emissary, Elvish Visionary, Mogg war marshal).  Then when you’re ready, play anthems (gaea’s anthem, Neckbreaker, overrun) to complement your team and make sure you can keep swinging and finish off your opponent.  Try pairing Young Pyromancer with Sprout Swarm to grow a large army very quickly to finish off your opponent (maybe splashing a blood artist and a volcanic fallout to kill your enemy out of nowhere).

Key Cards: Llanowar elves, Breakneck Rider, Overrun

Cons: If your opponent can keep your board relatively low on creatures, either by bouncing tokens, removing mana dorks, it can be difficult for Overrun to read “win the game”.  Knowing when Overrun is your best card and when it is your achilles heel will be important to mastering the strategy.

Selesnya

White and green have excellent combination of efficient creatures, powerful answers, token producers and anthems allowing you to build a wide range of decks and tailor your gameplan to beat your opponent.  While there are plenty of powerful interactions in Selesnya, you often find yourself in this seat just because you pick up powerful white and green cards early and move in.  GW can play fair better than most decks so it often ends up looking to police the fun of other decks wanting to durdle and go off once they have 10 mana.

Bant (Enter The Battlefield Value)

Pros: Green’s creature suite has access to some of the most power enter the battlefield effects in the cube.  Cards like Acidic Slime, Sifter Wurm, Eternal Witness and Elvish Visionary give green decks access to many creatures whose value is paid up front.  White’s ability to reactively and proactively save and replay its creatures pairs well with this strength (although white has powerful spell-like creatures as well that are worth recasting when possible).  Unlike the blue based flicker decks, GW flicker decks tend to be more proactive, tapping out for larger threats, and ramping to get the mana to do so.

Similar green caveats apply: Don’t be afraid to splash for powerful creatures with abilities in other colors, or splash blue for more flickering effects.  Just remember to prioritize fixing when you can.

Key Cards: Flickerwisp, Vizier of Deferment, Acidic Slime

Cons:  With powerful ETB effects tends to come weaker bodies.  They can be easily outclassed by larger threats.  Often since this deck wants to be proactive, most removal will end up waiting in your sideboard, but make sure to bring in the right answers for threats that you can’t deal with in game 1.  Similarly, the creatures only have value when they hit the battlefield and can end up feeling overcosted when they get countered, and you fall behind on tempo.

Naya (Voltron)

Pros: Green has powerful auras to buff its creatures.  White has ways to protect them.  With this powerful game plan, it can be expected that you’ll be able to assemble a 6 power threat with some set of keywords attacking on turn 3.  Your voltron creatures will be ones that either are granted abilities to take advantage of the buffed stats (seeker of the way, Heir of the Wilds), have natural evasion (Aerial Responder, Shrill howler), or built in protection (Wolfir Avenger).  

While most voltron decks tend to revolve around putting auras on creatures with specifically hexproof, instead in this cube, to increase interaction, the buffs themselves are more resilient to removal: rancor, equipment like grafted wargear and behemoth sledge, or recurring moldervine cloak.

However, you are still rewarded by packing extra protection to keep on swinging.  Valorous stance nicely acts as both protection and removal, feat of resistance protects your creatures while simultaneously turning on cards that care about +1/+1 counters (which we’ll see in the next section), and vines of the vastwood is just one of the best protective spells ever printed.

Make sure to have a nice mixture of good aura wearing creatures, the buffs themselves, and ways to protect your threats.

Key Cards: Seeker of the way, Grafted Wargear, Wolfir Avenger

Cons: As is becoming a trend with creature based strategies, removal is very good in the cube and it's very easy for dedicated control decks to just have more removal than you have threats.  You’ll most likely not be wanting for playables in your side board, so be willing to side in more creatures in for your cards with more blowout potential, to transform into a more threat dense aggressive deck.

Abzan (+1/+1 Counter Combo)

Pros: White and green together have access to the highest density of anthems in the cube.  In no particular order: Gaea’s anthem, meadowboon, Ridgescale tusker, curse of predation, relief captain, juniper order ranger, overrun, goldnight commander, consul’s lieutenant… white and green have no shortage of options to pump their team.  Take advantage of this power by flooding the board full of tokens and cheap creatures, landing anthems, and winning by attacking with the monsters you’ve created.

As you might have noticed, many of these cards provide their anthems in the way of +1/+1 counters.  Fortunately, Khans of Tarkir’s Abzan tribe blessed us with lords for these strategies in Abzan Falconer and Abzan Battlepriest that can give you powerful additional ways to pay off the strategy.

Key Cards: Curse of Predation, Abzan Falconer, Ridgescale Tusker

Cons: Lots of tokens and lots of big expensive do-nothing enchantment based anthems can give your opponent the opportunity to gain a tempo advantage with removal and bounce effects that easily deal with large threats and tokens.  Curse of predation is a strong follow up to any two drop, but can feel like you took a turn off when they have answers for the creatures you want to attack with (or just have more large blockers to prevent you from gaining incremental advantage).

Orzhov

Black and white are unmatched in their ability to grind with their opponents, and match their spells pound for pound at every stage of the game.  They have access to universal answers to both creatures and other nonland permanents, creatures that generate multiple bodies to gum up the board, and plenty of incidental lifegain to pad their life total against decks looking to deal 20 as fast as possible.

Mardu (Token Aggro / Aristocrats)

Pros: The Orzhov token aggro list plays very similarly to Rados token variants, although white plays the role of red in these decks as the fodder producer.  White has many token producers, many of which can be produced in very large quantities (Lingering souls, Oketra’s Monument and Shrine of Loyal Legions).  However, white has to rely on black for sacrifice outlets in carrion feeder and bloodthrone vampire.  These also set up nice combos with blood artist.  Once you have a solid presence of tokens, Zealous Persecution is one of the stronger payoffs for being in a BW token strategy, playing multiple roles: it acts as a board wipe, it blows out nearly any combat involving your mass of tokens, and can win games against an unsuspecting opponent willing to make no blocks at a safe life total.

Key Cards: Accorder Paladin, Curse of Shallow Graves, Zealous Persecution

Cons: Usual caveats about combo decks and token decks go here: be mindful of board wipes for your tokens and don't overextend if you don't have to against black and red opponents, and be mindful to protect your combo pieces against control decks.

Esper (Tap out Control)

Pros: This control variant can really handle anything your opponent can throw at it given that they have the time to find the right answers.  Bile blight and drown in sorrow effectively handle most token strategies.  Oblivion Ring, cast out, mortify and faith’s fetters are great catch-alls.  Tidehollow sculler and entomber exarch have the power to pick apart an opponent's hand (note: casting momentary blink on tidehollow sculler with the ability on the stack will allow your permanently remove a spell from the opponent's hand and a second that they can get back with the usual clause).  While there is not a powerful finisher in orzhov’s multicolored section specifically, there are plenty to choose from in the top end of both black and white.  Tailor to your liking.

Key Cards: Cast out, Entomber Exarch, Tidehollow Sculler

Cons: While flexible and powerful, the deck can be very slow with many threats that you must tap out for.  This gives a lot of faster opponents the opportunity to get in underneath.  Make sure you have defensive speed in your creatures as well to hold off any aggression.

Abzan (Lifegain / Buffed Tokens)

Pros: The lifegain deck, while a very small sub theme, allows you to capitalize off of the incidental lifegain littered throughout the cube (including the KTK gain lands) with payoff cards that you should be able to take late in the draft.  Ajani’s pridemate and wall of limbs are great payoffs for this strategy and you’ll probably be one of the few people at the table who want them.  It should not be difficult to set up an engine where you are gaining 1 life 2-3 times per turn, either through triggers from suture priest, or from drana’s emissary.  Even if you don't draw the payoff card, the amount of life that you gain over the course of the game will allow you the time and flexibility to round out your deck in whatever way you like.  It is very common to find yourself in the midgame with a comfortable 30-40 life, so take advantage of this.  There are also plenty of cards that use your life total as a cost, and with all this extra life lying around, you’ll be the most likely to be able to take advantage of it.  Bellowing Saddlebrute, Thundering Tannadon, and Skeletal scrying all require hefty payment of life, but are well worth the cost, especially if you can afford it.

Key Cards: Suture Priest, Ajani’s Pridemate, Wall of limbs

Cons:  You can't gain life if you’re dead.  You also don't win the game for hitting some arbitrarily high life total.  Make sure you actually have a way to finish the game (although with plenty of flying spirit tokens, and other efficient threats, this shouldn’t be a large ask)

Golgari

Jund (Aristocrats)

Pros: While we’ve already seen green’s power to make tokens and small expendable creatures, in the Golgari section we see some additional payoffs for being in control of when and how your creatures die.  Korozda guildmage is a powerful tool that can turn every creature you have into a potential evasive threat, while also making your creatures resistant to removal.  Algae gharial is a nice payoff for making a lot of things that will ultimately die.  Land some huge threats and lots of tokens, start attacking, sacrifice those that would die, and make more bodies for to keep consuming for profit.

Key Cards: Rakshasa Gravecaller, Algae Gharial, Korozda Guildmage

Cons:  Unlike the rakdos version of this deck, it tends to be less explosive and more grindy.  You’ll need to be able to interact with your opponent more to be able to get to the later stages of the game where your plan can shine.

Abzan (The Rock)

Pros: This is the classic green black gameplan that is bound to exist in a format full of powerful and efficient green and black disruptive elements and creatures.  In Golgari, you’ll have access to some of the biggest threats on the board for their mana cost, and with access to blacks removal and hand disruption, nothing will stop you from closing out games.  Land your efficient threats and then efficiently destroy anything that could challenge you in the red zone.

Key Cards: Devotee of Strength, Putrefy, Destined // Lead

Cons:  If you fail to get good trampling threats, it might be easy to get stonewalled by the large amount of token makers in the cube.  Make sure to prioritize hate if tokens are going to slow down your game plan.

Sultai (Graveyard Value)

Pros: Green and black have a lot of tools to fill up their graveyard, between dredge cards and repeated sources like nyx weaver.  A full graveyard turns cards that interact with your graveyard into effective tutors.  Wander in death, baloth null, eternal witness, golgari thug, all of these cards allow for a very consistent and powerful game plan in addition to the powerful spells to which golgari already has access.

Key Cards: Eternal Witness, Golgari Thug, Baloth Null

Cons: While no cards in the cube can stop you from filling up your yard, you effectively do nothing until you are paid off for it.

Simic

Straight Blue Green (Flash!!! [aaahhhh, savior of the universe])

Pros: I’m going to take one section off here from the 3 color theme because this deck is too cool to avoid and it doesn’t fall under a 3 color theme.  This deck is blue green flash. Counterspells can provide clean answers to the many 2-for-1s in the cube by stopping them before they resolve.  Control decks love to have access to these catch-alls so they can handle the threats they otherwise might not be able to.  But no where to counterspells shine than in Blue Green Flash.  Blue and green have many ways to develop their board at instant speed.  Predator’s howl can put a lot of power on the board at instant speed, along with horizon chimera, wolfir avenger, pack guardian, and others.  This allows these decks to mitigate the downside of counterspells in normal limited environments.  You don't have to take the turn off to hold up your counterspell.  This makes dismiss find its best home here as one of the more expensive options for counterspells.  Meanwhile, plenty of bounce spells and green removal spells help round out the deck to make a solid strategy that can set the pace of the game and punish a pensive opponent.

Key Cards: Dismiss, Predator’s howl, Horizon Chimera

Cons:  Instant speed interaction from your opponent can be tricky to navigate.  You want to be able to follow the line “counter the spell if I can't handle it, play a creature at instant speed if they don't,” but when the opponent says draw-go, you have a hard choice.  Sometimes it's correct to continue to wait so you don't have to look foolished while you’re tapped out.

Izzet

The Izzet have gone to great lengths to try to convince us that their spells are the best spells.  I’m inclined to listen to the megalomaniacs. Blue red decks end up having access to many tools that allow them to ultimately be incredibly flexible during the draft.  While having powerful aggressive proactive gameplans, and slower controlling strategies, these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and you must navigate during the draft the speed of the deck that you’re going to have access drafting.

Jeskai (Spells: Kiln fiend blitz aggro)

Pros: Hit ‘em quick, get out fast.  The plan is simple: Stick a threat that is powered by playing multiple spells in one turn, like Kiln Fiend and Wee dragonauts, then line up a turn where you can give that creature evasion (like with Artful dodge), boost its power (dynacharge), remove blockers (vapor snag), and deal damage to your opponent (lightning bolt).  A lot of these cards cost 1 mana and that is not a coincidence.  I like my most aggressive blitz decks curves to end at 3 or 4 and run 14 or 15 lands if the draft will let me get away with it.  The speed of the deck will ultimately lie on a spectrum depending on what kinds of tools you saw in the draft, but if you have 20 blue and red spells that cost 2 or less, hold on cause you’re in for a ride.

Key Cards: Delver of Secrets, Kiln Fiend, Wee Dragonauts

Cons: Depending on the speed of the deck, it's very easy to run out of gas. Knowing which hands are going to give you the power to close out games will be important and you should not be afraid to mulligan aggressively.  If your opponent can interact well, it should be possible to slow the deck down post board depending on what is in your sideboard.

Grixis (Spells: Rise from the tides Control)

Pros: Stay alive until this horror show is past.  Unlike Esper control variants, UR spells decks have access to unique tools to make the act of control the game into your win condition.  While spells matters cards can make for hyper aggressive strategies, slower payoffs like rise from the tides and enigma drake let you power out a win in the late game, while Guttersnipe turns every counterspell into a step closer to victory.  With a lot of cheap interaction, these control decks can also close out games quickly in the late game.  Holding on to a few cheap spells like lightning bolt, into the roil, and electrolyze into the late game let you deal 6-10 damage at instant speed on your opponent's end step, while refilling your hand and letting you untap and do the same.

Key Cards: Guttersnipe, Rise from the tides, Enigma Drake

Cons: Since some spells matters cards can end up feeling like combo cards depending on the deck, they are important to protect and highly susceptible to interaction.  Also like with most control decks, you are still reliant on your answers lining up against your opponents threats.  Don't be afraid to sideboard out seemingly powerful spells if they don't line up well in the matchup.

Temur (Spells: Tokens)

Pros: While I’ve touched on ramp based temur decks, since we’re here in the izzet section, talking about spells, it is worth reiterating the payoff for splashing green in a spell deck and that is sprout swarm.  One of the most effective ways to create an unending supply of spells to trigger your guttersnipes and wee dragonauts is with sprout swarm, often having the potential to kill much faster than the otherwise slow inevitable one-card-combo.  There are a few other ways to generate an unending supply of spells for your combo.  Ghostly flicker and archaeomancer or eternal witness let you constantly get the ghostly flicker back to recast and re-trigger spell matters cards, and if you have both you can get back ghostly flicker as well as another spell!  Crystal shard also lets you loop spells in your graveyard with these cards if you don't find ghostly flicker in the draft.  Just make sure to take a screenshot or photo of that board state!

Key Cards: Young Pyromancer, Sprout Swarm, Guttersnipe

Boros

Our last and most aggressive color pair, Boros has access to great removal, great burn spells, efficient token makers and powerful creatures.  Either go all in on a focused strategy to go wide with small creatures and kill your opponent while they can't block them all, or consolidate in big creatures that outclass your opponent on the offensive.

Mardu (Go-Wide Aggro)

Pros: The last in our trifecta of Aggressive token strategies is Boros.  Without black around, Boros would really prefer if its tokens didn’t die so much. Fortunately Boros has plenty of making more tokens when they do die, tokens that fly, and ways to buff the whole team.  By combining two of the best token producers, there is more payoff for the aggressive anthems and cards that pay off for having lots of creatures in play, so you can even take them a little bit later than other decks.

Key Cards: Goblin Bushwhacker, Kolaghan forerunners, Sunhome Guildmage

Cons:  More So than ever be wary of sweepers in black and red.  You have the power to rebuild your board after a loss so make sure you don't run out of gas.

Naya (Midrange)

Pros: This variation of red white gets to go quite a bit bigger than our former go-wide token deck.  Charging monstrosaur, spitemare, serra angel, and sentinel of the eternal watch are great top ends for a curve of large bodied creatures backed up by fantastic removal and burn spells.

Key Cards: Lightning Helix, Spitemare, Serra Angel

Cons:  Consolidating your power into larger bodies can fair well against the decks with a larger number of smaller threats but folds to more 1 for 1 removal.  White has a lot of options to protect your larger threats if need be.

Jeskai (Tempo)

Pros: Tappers and removal make sure that your creatures always have the best attacks possible.  When you’re going to win the game in a few turns, tappers end up being as good or better than removal (as when they start playing larger threats you can choose to tap down those instead).  Either with big creatures or lots of small ones, take advantage of powerful spells to keep up the offensive.

Key Cards: Territorial Hammerskull, Ride Down, Gideon’s Lawkeeper

Cons:  If your plan is to assume that your opponents creatures are going to be bigger than yours and to remove them so you can attack, if you don't draw the right combination of aggressive creatures and removal, you can often be stuck being brickwalled yourself.  Similarly, counterspells and hexproof creatures can be difficult to handle.  Make sure you have a mixture of choices for evasion (such as flying) to make sure that one wall won't stop you entirely.

Close remarks

I hope this primer has helped you find some cool, powerful strategies that speak to you as a player.  If you are not new to peasant cube, perhaps this will open you up to more possibilities both for archetypes to support in your cube as well as finding different directions for decks even within the same color pairs.  I will leave you with a not exhaustive list of interesting 2 card combinations to be on the lookout for in the draft.  Here I’m being a little fast and loose with the term combo as none of the combos in the cube will go infinite in one turn.  Instead they can create loops that given enough mana can do some ridiculous things.  During the draft, snagging the other half of some of these combos can add that little edge to a deck, and allow for some very powerful synergies.

Happy Cubing!!

Notable two card combos (Not Exhaustive)