Cube Draft Reports - April 2026

Five Wednesdays in a month means plenty of cubing for me. But that still wasn’t enough, so I snuck up to San Francisco to fit a sixth cube in.

Speaking of lots of cubing, I’ll be at San Francisco Bay Cube Clash next weekend (as of when this article goes up)! If you’ll also be attending, come say hi! There’ll be three cubes from the South Bay in the main event, my A(n) Cube, Hella Cube, and Pacific University, all of which I have played many times and two of which I even played this month, so get excited!

Now, into the disclaimers:

• I purposely don’t look at cube lists before drafting. The mystery and surprise of it all and having to piece together the puzzle on the spot is one of the main draws of Magic for me, and some of that is spoiled by knowing the shape of what is there in advance. I only really go in knowing what the cube owner says in their pre-draft setup spiel, and any loose memories knocking around from previous drafts.
• These draft reports are first and foremost for me, but format and level of detail about certain aspects are something I’m interested in experimenting with. If you want to hear more about say, my thoughts during the draft or my feelings about XYZ, let me know and I will almost certainly take it into account, even if I don’t seem to actively do anything about it.
• Draft reports are written up when the draft and games are all concluded, for drafts and games that span multiple weeks/months.

Unstable Set Cube (April 1, 2026)

April Fools’ Day fell on a Wednesday cube night this year, which did not go unmissed by at least one of the cube night regulars. In fact, while we normally have a loose roughly 2-month long rotation of who brings the cube each week, this date was specifically requested about six months ago back in October of last year.^[1] My anticipation of silliness remained stubbornly high, despite best efforts to temper expectations over the coming months. We got a potential sneak preview in February, when the question was raised in the Discord of what we thought the best booster packs for Summon the Pack would be. Much in my tradition of not-reading-cube-lists-or-overviews, I dropped in my answer^[2] and refused to consider any implications and mostly forgot about it, until April Fool’s rolled around. I brought my own silly accoutrements to the cube night^[3] and we were presented with an Unstable Set Cube.

Before we set off, we got a little spiel on the various mechanics of Unstable, mostly contraptions and host and augment, as well as about the format, like that it was relatively slow. I was very fortunate to open Summon the Pack in pack 1, and immediately slammed it. Upon seeing it was when I vaguely remembered the Discord conversation about it, but mostly it was by far the most fun thing in the pack. I am not immune to joy of pack cracking. From there, the rest of my deck congealed around the idea of “make sure you can cast Summon the Pack”: a Dimir deck with a bunch of road bump creatures and to ensure I lived long enough, card draw so I could find Summon the Pack, and contraptions that gave me extra mana to ensure I could cast the eight-mana spell. The tech I’m proudest of is Split Screen, which I picked up thinking four looks to find Summon the Pack would serve me very well. During deckbuilding, I was rewarded with the extremely spicy packs the cube owner and brought along for Summon the Pack: the all-creature Legions, a Mystery Booster 2 pack, and a collector booster each of Modern Horizons II and March of the Machine.

One of the common themes in the spiel and in the draft was that fixing was, true to the set, extremely light: just the Secret Base for each of the factions. That did not stop my opponent from playing 5-color Jeskai for Urza, Academy Headmaster, and also did not stop my opponent from repeatedly and consistently accumulating the mana to cast it, though admittedly that might because our respectively ambitious game plans meant we spent around 6 turns of draw-go. However, Chipper Chopper proved its worth as a 3/3 flyer for 5 mana, continually chipping in until my opponent was at 5 life, and Split Screen proved exactly as helpful as I thought it would be during drafting, finding me Summon the Pack. I opted for Legions: I mainly just needed stats on board and not any particularly powerful effect, so all creatures seemed perfect. I just needed to dodge Phage the Untouchable, and managed to do so. Cinematically, my opponent managed to top deck Urza, Academy Headmaster and opted to tick it down; neither of knew the possibilities, but they assumed downticking had better odds than upticking of being a board wipe to reset the match. Instead, they got Warleader’s Helix which, while good, did not save them from my board state of underwhelming but many creatures.

With that, my main mission was accomplished in the first game, which was great, because in the next two games I got my face beat in by Humming-Octopus in the air and a 3/1 Garbage Elemental with Undying. In game 2 my opponent once again cast Urza, Academy Headmaster, though I was so near death it hardly mattered. The third game was a bit more of a competition: Split Screen continued to be excellent card selection, sort of like Abundance at home. Helpful enough, in fact, that my opponent opted to take it with Five-Finger Discount, and I had to get it back via Time Out. Eventually I saw Summon the Pack on top of one of my piles right before I died, and had Mer Man to draw it, but was just short of mana to do both. Tragically, I was at 10 mana, and had 2 Sap Suckers on my next sprocket^[4], but not another turn to get there before I perished.

My second match was against a Selesnya host-augment deck. In the first game, I mulliganed to six, keeping four lands, Gnome-Made Engine, and Spell Suck. I was extremely lucky to draw Summon the Pack, and then Steady-Handed Mook to let me assemble one of my Sap Suckers. I opted to place it on sprocket 2, allowing myself an extra turn to find the seventh land I need to combine with the Sap Sucker mana, and it paid off, as the extra turn was in fact when I drew my seventh land. I opted for Mystery Booster 2, and it had more than enough creatures to let me swing out for lethal.

The second game my opponent had assembled a bunch of flyers, and by casting and flickering Adorable Kitten had gained well over 15 life, sitting pretty at well over 25 while I was at 8 life and actively dying to a 3/3 flyer. However, I managed to once again use Split Screen to find Summon the Pack, and snapped off the Modern Horizons 3 pack: it was definitely the most powerful of the 4 packs I had, and this was the first time I needed the pack to help me survive, not just (over)kill. I opened the Tamiyo emblem first, and joked that that meant I was going to open Tamiyo to be my flyer. To my surprise, I did, in fact, open a foil Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student. As valuable as that was out-of-game, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student could only serve as a flyer chump blocker once. Instead, what proved much more valuable to the given board state was the Emrakul, the World Anew I also opened. With not enough flying power on board to block and absolutely nothing in Unstable to get through Emrakul, the World Anew’s protection clause, I won the game from there.

Cracking packs is a total blast; I feel very fortunate to have gotten the Summon the Pack to do so. And the whole night was a blast, suffused with an extra dose of silliness.

A(n) Cube (April 8, 2026)

This week was my cube! We were a group of seven, so I offered up both of my paper cubes and people opted for A(n) Cube, my cube where all cards have my name in it, so that’s what we went with.

My first pick was the absolute powerhouse of Quantum Riddler^[5], followed up by the Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer. I then saw Weight Advantage, which fit perfectly with my Quantum Riddler and was early enough that I felt comfortable committing to it. From there, I anchored my draft with a bunch of big toughness flyers like Merchant of Truth and Final-Word Phantom. I also picked up quite a bit of fixing, with 4 landscapes and 2 talismans, and a bunch of green basic land tutors, making me feel comfortable to go solidly 3 colors, a rarity for me in general but especially in A(n) Cube.

I took the bye the first round because we had 7 people, opting to watch other matches, and so my first match against an Izzet spells deck. In the first game I ramped into Marang River Regent, which bounced away all my opponent’s pressure, and they had no answer to my flyer and died soon thereafter. In the second game, I fell quite far behind on board, but topdecked Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath at just the right time. Cycling Krosan Tusker let me both get the second green mana I needed and put the fifth card into the graveyard for me to escape Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath immediately. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath drew me into another round of Marang River Regent bouncing, My opponent had both a Spiteful Banditry and Grim Lavamancer, but only seven mana, meaning they could clear one or the other but not both my 7-toughness Marang River Regent and 6-toughness Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, and the combination of the two handily gave me the match.

My second match was against a 4-color good stuff pile. In the first game I died Channeler Initiate suited up with Angelic Destiny before I could find any of my flyers. In game two, we built up quite a board stall, with the highlights being a 7/7 Elemental token from Dance of the Tumbleweeds with a flying counter from Avian Oddity on my side, and a Polukranos, Unchained with four +1/+1 counters remaining after it had won the fight against my Merchant of Truth^[6] suited up with Angelic Destiny for my opponent. I swung in with my Elemental; I had Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior in hand plus the ability to tick down Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer as emergency flying blockers, so I felt okay about my position chump-blockers-wise if my opponent declined to block. My opponent chose to block, concerned about a board wipe: if they took 7 damage down to 5 life, and I ticked down Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer to get a 4/4 flyer on an empty board, that would be especially dire. However, I had the perfect answer for the block: Wanderer’s Intervention damage removed Polukranos, Unchained’s remaining counters, letting me deal lethal damage and get rid of it, preserving my Elemental token but more importantly, clearing up the skies to win me the game. In the third game, I got to blink my Planar Disruptioned Veteran Beastrider with Salvation Swan, use Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer’s +1 ability to stop Thief of Sanity from blocking or threatening to steal my cards, and swing in for 7. My opponent attempted to Kellan’s Lightblades away my Salvation Swan, opting not to bargain away their Talisman and missing the onboard pump via Veteran Beastrider. They died soon thereafter, but not before using Soul Ransom to steal my Veteran Beastrider, and let me learn that a creature changing its controller gives it summoning sickness, even if its been on the battlefield. The more you know.

Weight Advantage is extremely strong and also extremely fun. You almost certainly want to see it early to build-around it, and probably want to be in blue to maximize it as I found looking at my cube afterwards. For Caelorna, Coral Tyrant, obviously,^[7] but also because blue just has by far the most creatures that benefit, so I was quite fortunate to have the confluence of both in this draft. I should probably tick it down a little, though.^[8]

Pacific University (April 15, 2026)

We had 10 people this cube night, so while the other 8 played Hella Cube, I and another person got Pacific University, a low-curving complexity-conscious cube, and took over half of a long table and set up a minesweeper draft. We mostly vibed the rules of minesweeper draft, and the ones we ended up with were thus. Pacific University is helpfully dividable into two modules of 180-cards: an ally-color half and an enemy-color half. We took one half, shuffled it up, and laid out a 10 x 9 card grid facedown, setting aside the other half of the half. We each got to pick a facedown card somewhere in the grid, privately look at it, and flip up the adjacent four cards, so we had eight cards revealed at the start. Then we just alternated drafting one of the face-up cards, flipping up any adjacent face-down cards as we went, until we both had 45-card pools. Then we built decks and played a standard best-of-3 match.

Pillars of Creation (Ally Colors)

The cube owner said if we were to play with just one half, they preferred it to be the ally color half because that had been played the longest ago, so the ally color half we did. The private card I got was Nurturing Pixie, so I decided to roll with the bounce theme and not the two adjacent Counterspells I flipped up. My opponent leaned into the Counterspells, so I was pretty sure we could end up not fighting over colors. We quickly discovered how bad revealing cards for the opponent could be, so at some point we were taking cards more so that they didn’t reveal anything new to the other. That led me down a partial enchantress theme, and I ended up in a combination Naya bounce/enchantress deck, while my opponent was on an Esper tempo/control deck.

In game one, I kept a hand of two Forests, two Plains, Advent of the Wurm, Bloodbraid Elf, and Voldaren Epicure. Despite not having a play until turn 4, I did cast Advent of the Wurm and it was a big threat, so it wasn’t a totally dire hand. I did find my red mana just after, and one good swing with Bloodbraid Elf plus the Sandstorm Salvager it found got my opponent low enough for Momo, Rambunctious Rascal to slowly finish the job as my opponent had no answers for the flying lemur. In game two, I had a sick play where I got Meltstrider’s Resolve off of my Bloodbraid Elf, and used it on my Brindle Shoat to pick off my opponent’s Blade Splicer. Next turn, I swung in with my still enchanted Brindle Shoat that had now been blessed by two +1/+1 counters thanks to Ranger Class. My opponent double-blocked with their two creatures: a 3/3 Golem from the now perished Blade Splicer, plus their play from the previous turn: the 4-mana 4/4 Curator of Mysteries. I had Abrade to kill the Golem, and my 3/5 Brindle Shoat and the 4/4 Curator of Mysteries bounced. I then played Kor Skyfisher, bouncing the Meltstrider’s Resolve. The Brindle Shoat perished from its new lack of toughness, and I recast Meltstrider’s Resolve on the resulting Boar to get rid of the Curator of Mysteries, clearing the board and letting me win from there.

Underworld Odyssey (Enemy Colors)

It was early enough in the night we decided to repeat the whole affair, this time with the enemy color half. I got Cathartic Pyre as my opening card, which was nice and flexible but didn’t give me a particular direction. What did give me a direction was when I picked up Adorned Pouncer, Angelfire Ignition, and Maul of the Skyclaves, for a sort of Boros aggro approach. However, it quickly became clear there were two main differences from the previous draft. One: the half of the half we had randomly gotten had basically no fixing compared to the last draft. Second: there was a dearth of Boros cards starting from around the middle of the draft. I remained hopeful, but picked up an assortment of the other colors to try and patch up holes. When we went to deckbuilding, I found I only had 17 Boros nonlands, and had to play black against my will to get to 23 nonlands against my opponent’s Sultai pile.

In the first game, I went all in on Jet, Rebel Leader. My opponent was also off to a slow start, so waiting for turn 4 for action wasn’t the worst. However, their turn 4 play of the 5/5 Deadbridge Goliath proved better than mine, especially when they Renewed Champion of Dusan to make it a 6/6 with trample. Another 6/6 for my opponent in Muldrotha the Gravetide sealed my tragic fate. In the second game, my opponent kept a hand of 2 Hedron Crabs but no third land, and tragically did not live the crab-mill dream before I ran them over. In game three, I had both my Stormbeacon’s Blade and Gimli’s Axe, but suiting them onto my Champion of the Flame sadly did not let me do better than trade with the Deadbridge Goliath, and trading was not going to be a game-winning play with the threat of Scavenge. This locked the board down long enough that my opponent got Muldrotha the Gravetide out once again, but this time with Eternal Witness. There was no way I was ever getting through that combination even if I did draw a creature for my equipment, given the plethora of bounce spells in their hand and graveyard, so I scooped it up there.

Minesweeper draft was so much fun, even if our ruleset was less than balanced. It also made me pick up the Minesweeper game Dragonsweeper for a short time again, so you know. That’s something.^[9]

Welcome to Value Town (April 22, 2026)

Next week we were playing Welcome to Value Town, which is exactly what the name says on the tin. We had 9 players for the draft, so in lieu of the Lore Seeker pack that normally comes with this cube, that pack returned back to the general cool pool, and some Cogwork Librarians were added to pad the cube out.

In the first pack, I felt a strong desire to play Ninjas because that sounded really fun that evening, so I took Biting-Palm Ninja as my pack 1 pick 1. Was that the best card in the pack? Absolutely not, but that’s irrelevant. From there I speculated on ending up somewhere in Grixis land, maybe with some sort of exile theme after I picked up Prosper, Tome-Bound. That plan pivoted when in the second pick of pack 2 I saw Obosh, the Preypiercer. Running through my picks so far, I had only four picks that didn’t work, so decide to commit. Companions are always incredible in this cube because you don’t need to pay the companion tax to put them in your hand here, plus I do love draft guidance. My commitment served me well, with a slight pivot to Mardu when blue dried up.

Also, right near the end of pack 1, the cube owner realized they didn’t bring basic lands, which they normally keep in a separate box to the bulk of the cube. They were pretty sure they knew where they were and that the lands were pretty close to where were cubing, so they left to grab them, entrusting the player to their left to draft their deck for them. I was two seats to the left, and also weaseled my way into this drafting by proxy situation. The cube owner was in some flavor of Gruul, and green was really open, so frankly not a lot of decisions were to be had, so I did about 5% of work while the other player did the work of carefully moving packs between two seats. Me and the other player to my left also just ended up showing each other our picks and packs during this process. We were both in flavors of Mardu it turned out, which, is objectively unideal but neither of us really did anything based on this information. However, as the draft played out, they ended up in mostly Orzhov, while I ended up in mostly Rakdos.

My first match was against an Azorius blink deck. My opponent mulliganed to 6 both games. In the first game, I ninjitsu’ed in Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion, one of the early holdovers from my initial Ninjas plan, and flipped their Echocasting Symposium. 6 life felt cheap to get a copy of it all of my turns for the rest of the game, so I cast it. Even making copies of my only nonlegendary creature of Grim Lavamancer, when I only had 1 red source and no cards in graveyard to make use of it, proved incredibly broken, and I won handily from there. The second game was much more swingy, Summon: Yojimbo exiled a bunch of my stuff, especially when it got Ephemerated, but Buster Sword made all my creatures a giant threat (multiple meanings intended), and let me whether the removal by turning any of my creatures into a huge threat, until I eventually ran my opponent out of removal and secured the victory.

My second match was against yet another Azorius blink deck. In the first game, I stole my opponent’s Parallax Wave with Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion, which quickly turned to my detriment when they flickered it back to their side of the battlefield with Flickerwisp. A flooding of lands while my opponent churned through their deck, like by drawing 5 cards off Season of Weaving, meant I was well and truly dead. In game two, my opponent once again got Parallax Wave out, but I went wider: Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Biting-Palm Ninja were must removes, meaning my Eyetwitch and Changeling Outcast could consistently chip in as my opponent was reluctant to spend fade counteres to remove them, and that chip damaged added up. By the time the Parallax Wave popped my opponent was incredibly low, and could just about deal with all the creatures I had on board, but getting my one castable lesson of Mascot Exhibition from Eyetwitch’s death was enough to seal up the game. In game 3, my opponent exiled my Kellan, Planar Trailblazer with Parting Gust, so I made use of the tapped Fish they gave me to suit it up with Buster Sword and swing with both it and my Bonecrusher Giant. My opponent opted to trade their Extraction Specialist into the Bonecrusher Giant, and I used the free cast off of Buster Sword to Pre-War Formalwear it back. The Eternal Wanderer let them make a double striking Samurai to double block with their Spyglass Siren and trade, but I brought Bonecrusher Giant back once again, this time with Overlord of the Balemurk, and this time I got to Stomp their one blocker to let me kill The Eternal Wanderer. From there, a combination of Overlord of the Balemurk, Tersa Lightshatter, and Lurrus of the Dream-Den proved way too much recursive value for my opponent’s single-target-only removal. Also, in every game of the match, my opponent very consistently cast Charming Prince on turn 2, and I very consistently Bonecrusher Giant Stomped it at the very first opportunity I had, which is very funny and very flavorful, I think.

Also, I didn’t realize Buster Sword also drew you a card until the very last time I dealt combat damage with it equipped, and I still though it was a busted card before then.

Stone Soup (April 25, 2026)

A surprise extra draft! I snuck up to San Francisco at the end of the month to do another Stone Soup draft. Let’s talk about my pool first, because uh frankly a lot less thought went into it then the one I brought to work.

My Stone Soup Pool

For my pool at work, I wanted to put in staples to make sure games ended, because most of the stone soup contributers were infrequent drafters and I was unsure of what the pools would look like. For the San Francisco stone soup, I knew it was generally a bunch of established cube players, and since we were all getting our cards back at the end, I figured people would bring some spice. That sounded like a perfect opportunity to bring some, uh, not good cards. Nothing bad enough to derail the draft, just enough to be disappointments in the packs.

One of my old commander decks was an Aurelia, the Law Above deck, where the whole concept was I wanted Aurelia to trigger, but I didn’t want to trigger it. So the deck was loaded with a bunch of goad-style combat manipulation effects to get others to attack, while my deck was loaded with a bunch of walls and such to discourage attacking me and make sure I didn’t need to worry so much about my own forced-combat effects. The deck was good at ending games quickly, always a plus, but I never got the trigger as much as I liked with tap activated abilities and such. However, it did mean I had a bunch of walls lying around in my collection, so I trotted them all out, plus any other card with defender in my collection. That pretty quickly filled out about half the pool.

From there, I also knew there was likely to be a higher caliber of fixing going around with more established cube players, which meant I felt free to fish out every single colorless utility land in my collection and shoving it into my pool. From there, I tried to fill out the rest of the pool to sort of play around with the idea of having a bunch of walls and buff up the colors that were lacking: some unblockable stuff like Whispersilk Cloak and Snowmelt Stag, Snarling Gorehound to maybe get some triggers off it, things like that. I also found the three copies of Slime Against Humanity in my collection, so tossed them in too, plus a Sever the Bloodline to deal with them.

I assembled the list in right about 25 minutes of scrolling through my collection, and I’m quite happy with how it turned out, given my goal was to bring a pile of lukewarm trash.

Draft and Games

We had 16 players in a giant draft, so nothing was ever going to wheel, so signaling through packs was pretty much out the window. Signaling out loud, on the other hand, is a time-honored cube draft tradition in my experience, so I knew the player to my left was in Rakdos, and the player two to my left was in mono-red. However, I had picked up a Swords to Plowshares pack 1 pick 1, a Bloodbraid Elf I wanted to play badly, meaning I committed to Naya hard by picking up Ghired, Conclave Exile at the end of pack 1. From there, I just took Naya cards; I built to more of a midrange-y kinda deck, but not with a whole lot of conscious thought behind it, just picking up cool Naya cards and vibing. It was a great time.

My first match was against a four-color no blue Legendary matters deck. In the first game, my Forgotten Ancient racked up a million counters and held down the fort against even my opponent’s Day of Destiny-buffed creatures. My opponent meanwhile, was looking to go around it, recurring Lena, Selfless Champion with Six to make a million Soldiers. I had transferred some counters to Bloodbraid Elf to hedge my bets, which worked out well when my opponent finally found Éowyn, Fearless Knight to exile Forgotten Ancient. I traded off all my creatures but my buff Bloodbraid Elf to just about hang on. Facing down a huge assault next turn, including about forty-ish Soldier tokens to go with the forty-ish power in legendary creatures, However, I topdecked Seize the Spoils, which drew me Rogue’s Passage, and let my Bloodbraid Elf sneak in for exactly lethal. In game 2 I got out Wrenn and Six turn 2, and it dominated the game. I repeatedly recurred Riveteer’s Outlook to ensure I hit all my land drops, and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove let me make some bonus mana with it^[10]. I also very crucially managed to Lava Coil Ratadrabik of Urborg and Firebolt Captain Sisay, stopping my opponent from getting anything going, to the point where they cast Together as One just to search for answers, as Wrenn and Six had too much loyalty for it to kill. I, meanwhile, once again found Forgotten Ancient, and that quickly finished off the game.^[11]

My second game was against a Bant deck, headlined by Arcane Savant revealing Improvisational Capstone. In game 1 Wrenn and Six once again grinded me a bunch of value, but I couldn’t do much against my opponent’s Wall of Omens and Sanctuary Wall, especially as I was flooding out: I ended up with six lands in hand and about eight in play, but my opponent had no pressure either. My oppoent, fully admitting it was a bad idea, cast Forced Fruition. I drew yet another land, somehow, but thankfully had a Firebolt in my graveyard to flashback and get the party going. Also very fortunately, in my first round of draws, I found Banishing Light for the Forced Fruition, so I didn’t immediately deck out. Instead, with four cards left in my library, I played Enduring Courage, and then followed it up with a now hasty Scourge of the Throne. With my opponent and I conveniently tied at 16 life, I got both a +1/+1 counter and an extra combat, and my opponent scooped. In game two, say it with me, Wrenn and Six got me a ton of value. Abrade picked off my opponent’s big Mechanozoa, and my opponent absolutely could not deal with Enduring Courage coming down, giving all my creatures a buff and haste and letting me knock my opponent down to single digit life total before they could respond. When they cast Fact or Fiction, I split the piles with Journey to Nowhere in one pile and two lands, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Rune Snag in the other, knowing the former was the only thing that answered Enduring Courage. They did, in fact, take the Journey to Nowhere, but by then my opponent was low enough I could burn them out with Firebolt, Lightning Helix, and a Wrenn and Six ping.

My third match was against a Rakdos good-stuff deck. In game one, I kept my hand entirely off the back of Stoneforge Mystic for early Colossal Dreadmask, so when Warmaker Gunship was able to shoot it thanks to Virus Beetle I was stuck on four lands and nothing to do with them, and died very quickly. In game 2, I topdecked an Arid Mesa early on to get the green mana I did’t have to cast Bloodbraid Elf and very nicely cascaded into Wrenn and Six. Wrenn and Six fixed all sorts of problems as it does, including my color problem, and Antiquities on the Loose sealed up the game while my opponent was stuck on lands. In game three I kept a hand of Bloodbraid Elf plus all the removal. I built out my board^[12] and got my opponent down to 6 life, but my opponent had Fiery Confluence to sweep everything up. My opponent went down to 5 life thanks to Sinkhole Surveyor, so I shot them in the face with Wrenn and Six to play to my out of Firebolt. However, I did not find it before my opponent copied Charging Monstrosaur with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and I died real bad.

Turns out Wrenn and Six is real good. Alert the presses.

Pacific University (April 29, 2026)

The month was rounded off with another round of Pacific University, this time with a fuller contigent of 6. I started off pack 1 pick 1’ing Sazh’s Chocobo. I knew this cube for many things but mostly for its bevy of Prismatic Vistas, so I took every one of them I saw to enable my bird and ended up in a four-color green landfall deck.

My first match was against an Izzet spells deck. The first game I had little to do and died to Bedlam Reveler; I did tap wrong at one point, leaving me without white mana to cast my Thraben Charm, which sucked. The misplays continued as in game two I combined Sandstorm Salvager and Rampaging Baloths to create an army of huge trample creatures. I could have swung with everything, but didn’t do the math and left my two Arbor Elfs behind. That meant my opponent could live on 1 while keeping their Hearthborn Battler. The next turn, the Hearthborn Battler trigger plus Lightning Bolt to the face and Temporal Trespass, plus another Hearthborn Battler on their next turn was enough to kill me, which was frankly incredibly sick.

In the second match against an Orzhov tokens deck, we both started great as I mulliganed to 6 and my opponent mulliganed to 5. My opponent was stuck on one land but did have a 1-drop to play each turn. Meanwhile, I got to 3 mana for Tireless Tracker and Tannuk, Memorial Ensign. My opponent found their second land but scooped after I found a Prismatic Vista for a ton of value. In game two, Reckless Charge and it being flashbacked meant I lost a lot of life real quick, to the point I kind of stabilized with Tannuk, Memorial Ensign but couldn’t crack my Prismatic Vistas to try and draw because I was so low on life, and eventually died to my opponent’s Sabotender. In game 3, I cuold not beat Stormbeacon Blade. The threat of it meant I had to keep taking chip damage from Doomed Traveler because I knew I didn’t have a way to deal with a flyer, especially not one dealing 4 damage each turn, and eventually died to Hellrider.

In match 3, I played a Grixis spells deck. In the first game, I had to Regrowth my Prismatic Vista to make my land drops, and died real bad to Kess, Dissident Mage and Balmor, Battlemage Captain in the air. I sideboarded to 43 cards when I didn’t want to make cuts, adding in Glorious Decay plus my two board wipes of Cleansing Nova and Time Wipe^[13]. In game 2, my opponent cast Wheel of Fortune while I was empty-handed, letting me find Cleansing Nova and clean up the board and play out an Arbor Elf. Next turn, Thraben Charm let me kill my opponent’s one creature, and then scavenging Deadbridge Goliath let my Arbor Elf become a 6/6 and swing in for exact lethal. In game three, a board wipe once again saved me, as Time Wipe let me clean up the board and even save and recast Tannuk, Memorial Ensign. My opponent had Kess, Dissident Mage as a follow-up, but I had just enough mana to cast Hydroid Krasis for X=4, plus a Meltstrider’s Resolve to kill Kess, Dissident Mage. I had to go down to 2 life to get the blue mana I needed for the Hydroid Krasis, so its lifegain put me a 4 life. My opponent showed me the Firebolt they top-decked, but only had five mana, so they couldn’t flashback it as well, and died.

Managing the colors I needed sucked. It wasn’t difficult persay, with all the Prismatic Vistas I had, but it was just mentally annoying. I continue to feel good about nearly always playing 2-color decks. Landfall, on the other hand, continues to rule.

Footnotes