3x3: A Magic: the Gathering Multiplayer Cube
3 PACKS x 3 PLAYERS
Azorius Signet by gaaraofthehiddinsand
First things first: CLICK HERE FOR 3x3 ON CUBECOBRA AND DRAFT IT YOURSELF. Now then, some backstory…
Throughout the crises and general homebodiness of 2020, I’ve had the opportunity to both procure and play a lot of Magic: the Gathering. Tearing through booster boxes has helped my quaranteam - myself, my girlfriend, my roommate, and their respective cats - cobble together many a DIY Friday Night Magic event. The best part is that we get to be extremely generous with prize packs for these drafts and sealed events.
Inevitably, the deluge of new sets throughout the year piled up on me, and I started to grow to resent both the increasing power curve of my constructed EDH decks and the size of the unsorted pile of cards in the lid of a cardboard card storage box in my closet. Alas, I found myself craved the consistency of this year’s limited environments, while also always wanting more of the spice of an EDH deck. I figured the best way to get all of that would be cubing, but to make it really effective in practice I would need to consider that I would ever only have 3 players drafting this thing for the forseeable future.
3 Players x 3 Packs = 135 cards. This was going to be tight, but great art is made with great restrictions…
Design Trifecta
Death Baron, 2019 Convention Promo… mine is foil ;)
I came up with the following “design trifecta”; principles to follow that would help me from overextending myself while choosing cards for the cube.
No 5c Goodstuff unless it’s true 5c Goodstuff - I removed any signets from consideration off the bat, and limited the lands section to 3c oddballs, a couple Castles, and utility. In a previous 320 card multiplayer cube I had at least two 2c lands and a chunk of rocks, which more often than not led to goodstuff piles staring down goodstuff piles. The small size was a huge help reining my impulses in here, and breaking down the math on the color pie left me with only 10 2c nonland slots and 10 artifacts, which I needed to do more than just ramp. But tying the pie all together is an small 5c+Omnath suite which signal that if you do manage to cobble together the manabase, you’re allowed to do some amazing things.
Tribes should be special - BACK IN MY DAY, Slivers were cool because they were a tribe about the tribe in the purest sense. NOWADAYS, you have shapeshifters filling holes in tribal decks or even Commander slots… disgusting. To appease the cats however, I ensured the felines remained well represented in Selesnya. A couple of other enablers or payoffs (such as the Death Baron above) were included for tribes that were already casually present.
Make room for pet cards - my sweet, sixth edition Mountain Goat? Goblin Festival? The Tezzeret BoB Promo which I won from my roommate when WotS dropped so I need to include for PsYcHoLoGiCaL wArFaRe? All of these need a place in the cube.
It took me a couple of hours to strip down the list, which I did entirely without inputting online until after the fact. In hindsight, I wish I had pulled a land to even out the 5c+Omnath suite, but I think that’s more of a organizational nerve than a gameplay issue.
Deck Reports: FNM 11/13/2020
I immediately summoned the quaranteam to draft the cube last Friday, and that evening we shuffled up our cubeamajigs, inebriated and with Savage Mode II ominously thumping in the background. 3 hours later, we had drafted and finished a 3-player game with 40 card decks, starting at 30 health each; the starting player was allowed to draw on their first turn. Below are the three decks in the order they were eliminated, their sideboards, and my thoughts.
3rd Place: Me - Grixis Affinity ;(
While I got off to a hot start dropping the Jitte and the Clamp, I started to fall behind when I couldn’t decide whether to commit to activating the Locust God’s ability or removing the various threats on the board (more on those later). Ultimately, this is a game that I am just now realizing I should have won after I Googled the question on everyone’s mind Friday night, “do those insect tokens activate skullclamp?” and guess what, we guessed wrong and totally should have Googled it. No salt in the wound though, as I did get Tezzy to resolve and had way more fun than anybody should have reasonably allowed me to.
2nd Place: Roommate - JUNDIN’ IT OUT
I mercilessly did UB control things to his elves, and in revenge he took me out of the lead with 24 health to dead by Massacre Wurming a board full of Locusts, followed by a lethal swing. The Gitrog Monster and a fully leveled up Hexdrinker were serious board threats throughout the game, and like myself, the Jund player had no issues hitting all three colors. I was surprised not to see any white in here considering he grabbed both Monastery Mentor and Path to Exile, but obviously he had the last laugh on me.
1st Place: GF - Forbidden 4c Goodstuff
Unreal… unfortunately I only ever cracked one pack of Conspiracy 2 for a Pack Wars, which I won and got the other guy’s pack from, and now my collection’s wee “Draft Matters” selection is very weighted towards Green. My doting SO seemed to read into this immediately, and my roommate and I were forced to deal with a never-ending stream of Keruga Tokens. If you thought the original Companions were busted, try watching a 4cmc creature make copies of one. Omnomnomnath reared his pretty alt-frame head to give my gf a significant life lead after I’d been eliminated, and it was only a few short turns before she was able to overwhelm the big Jund boys my roommate was fielding.
Takeaways
I was very happy with 3x3’s first outing. Everyone appreciated the themes, which seemed to translate more clearly in the limited numbers. It was immensely satisfying to draft the entire cube - there were no feeling of disappointment from not seeing certain pet cards or recent additions.
I think my anti-goodstuff piles plan was a success. Even though we each stretched to 3c+, the decks each had a cogent plan that we all felt like we were able to put into action, and it came down to a couple of dramatic decisions by each of us that led to the final outcome - had my roommate not gone for lethal, my gf likely would not have been able to kill him in turn, because I would have had a huge turn myself. I might need to reconsider the Locust God and Skullclamp now that I understand their interaction better, but I tried to draft a pretty spikey archetype and was still kept in check by the other players. Guess I’ll just have to try the combo again and play it properly >:)
Thanks for reading this lil report. If you enjoyed, consider following me on the social channels in the header, and don’t forget to Draft 3x3 yourself!
