Picking the Cards for the Pg (Pretty Good) Cube

Howdy, gamers! I’ve written about quite a lot of Cubes these last couple of years, and through my writing, regular readers have no doubt gained an idea for the sorts of things that I value in Cube design. That said, all of the Cubes that I’ve written on have had very specific aesthetics, and most of them have been of the Twobert variety, which can’t support a full eight-player draft.

It occurred to me a while back that I’ve never maintained an “ordinary” Cube, for lack of a better word, something sized for a full draft table that is easy enough to pick up and play if you’re familiar with Magic broadly. I’ve seen countless Cubes since I started engaging with the hobby, but lately the ones that can be described simply as “a Cube that belongs to a person” have caught my eye the most. So I set out to design an “Overturfian Cube”.

The PG Cube

The list of cards that I would like to Cube with but don’t currently have a home for is long, so the first order of business was to narrow my list of potential inclusions somehow. In the world of “good cards” Cubes, this mostly means determining the approximate power level. I think powered Cubes are a bit overdone at this point, and scaling back only slightly leaves too many cards like Gaea’s Cradle and Grim Monolith that really limit the range of cards that you can meaningfully include in the Cube. I do have an appreciation for a lot of cards that are on the strong side, though, so I set my sights on “a bit less powerful than Legacy Cube”.

At some point, I had the thought that the ideal reaction to a given card in the Cube was for the opponent to raise their eyebrows and give you a, “That’s pretty good.” I was also thinking about the scale of power levels, and if we say Vintage Cube is rated R and Legacy Cube is PG-13, then the next rung down is PG, and I’ve been referring to this project as The PG Cube ever since. If that’s all you need to know, then feel free to jump over to my list on Cube Cobra, though I have plenty more to say!

Twobert Evolution

A lot of the bones from the Cube were borrowed directly from the original Twobert and then just trying to flesh out areas that it was natural for the Cube to grow into. I knew from the start that I didn’t want any heavy combo support, but that I did want to facilitate some flashy plays and allow for the occasional deterministic win. As I ironed out the power level, I found myself making cuts in every direction: things that were too strong, things that were too weak, things that didn’t have a home, and things that needed to go to help something else find a home. The environment played really well starting from the first draft, and I’m incredibly happy with where it sits today.

A lot of the list will be cards that you’re very used to seeing in Cube draft, and I don’t want to waste your time telling you that Preordain is strong. Instead, I’ll break the Cube down by color in terms of the technical vision behind the design of that color and highlight my favorite cards featured here that you maybe don’t see much in other environments. I’ll also touch on some notable omissions, some cards that perform differently here from what you might be used to seeing, and some cards that I’m keeping an eye on as possible cuts. Let’s dig in!