Cube Draft Reports - March 2026

Lots of cube this month, including the thrilling conclusion of the two long-running cube drafts, so let’s hop straight into it! First, 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.

Pacific University (March 4, 2026)

Before we get to some of the long-running things, March started with a classic Wednesday night cube draft, featuring an old cube with a new name: Pacific University, formerly known as West Coast Cube. The cube is complexity-conscious, though it manifests in a less restrictive manner than its previous iterations as the less sicko players the cube owner plays it with have grown in skill and “graduated” to university. Some things about the cube haven’t changed: it is extremely low-curving and packed with fixing, including a glut of Prismatic Vistas, but the cube owner has stated a design goal of mixing and matching across deliberately undersupported archetypes to create a unique deck each time. We were a pod of 5, so we did 5 packs of 10: the cube owner likes the guarantee that every pack wheels, and was fine with the extra cards in the card pool.

I saw Ivora, Insatiable Heir pack 1 and felt compelled to take it, even it meant passing up my darling Esper Extractor (a reskinned universes-within Al Bhed Salvagers). It paid off, given I wheeled the latter. Unusually for me, I didn’t really decide on colors or themes in the first few packs, and just picked up pieces I thought could be interesting, like Merry, Esquire of Rohan for an equipment/legendaries package and Twilight Diviner for some leaves-graveyard synergies. True to the promise of the cube spiel, a bunch of different archetypes and synergies felt supported, but not enough to make a full deck out of. I went on in this uncommitted fashion for a good while. It was around the start of pack 4 that I realized three things:

1. Most of my cards were some flavor of Mardu, so that was probably the color combination I should go with, and
2. I had seen absolutely zero Prismatic Vistas throughout the draft, when normally in drafting this cube I expect to see at least 1 or 2 in every pack rotation, and because of that:
3. My fixing was god awful.

I suspected the player to my right was taking all the fixing extremely heavily, so I pretty much had only pack 5, with passing to the right, to try and shore up my manabase. I did, somewhat, especially thanks to the Prismatic Vista I opened in my pack 5, but my mana was still slightly dire. I probably could have played Boros as an aggressive strategy, but that would have meant playing a lot of my cards as essentially vanilla, and I didn’t want to. The pockets of synergies I had seemed super fun and I wanted to try them out, and try out the creator’s promise of that deck structure, even if my mana was shaky on supporting the three colors to facilitate that.

My first match was against an incredibly coherent Rakdos artifact sacrifice deck. I got absolutely destroyed both games; I got slightly flooded both games but it barely mattered. My opponent had Goblin Engineer turn 2 both games to tutor out whatever they wanted. In the first game it was Nettlecyst, which with Weapons Manufacturing and more than enough ways to sacrifice and recur their stuff meant they had me dead on both combat damage and direct damage axes; the Arcbound Ravager was unnecessary overkill on all of those fronts. In the second they entombed Triarch Praetorian, and cycling it in and out of the graveyard with Goblin Engineer got them massive card advantage, plus massive board presence with Imotekh the Stormlord. The latter meant I couldn’t exile anything from my opponent’s graveyard even if I wanted to, because it would just mean more two more 2/2s. In conclusion: I died very spectacularly both games.

The second match was against a Boros aggro deck with a strong tokens bent. I mulliganed to 5 in both games^[1] in the match: once due to the lack of colors in my terrible mana base, but the other three times were from just all being 1-landers, despite my 17-land deck. Magic: the Gathering truly just happens to you, sometimes. In the first game I did keep a 1-lander as well after mulligans, but I only fell one turn behind on land drops. All things considered, finding my second land on turn 3 felt about as good as I could ask for. I felt reasonably in the game too: I had some board presence plus Lava Coil to get rid of my opponent’s Rampaging Ferocidon. But that meant I had nothing for my opponent’s Celestial Archon, which was too big to kill with Firebolt and too in-the-air to kill with my creatures, not to mention the first strike, and I died quickly thereafter. The second game I held on pretty decently with a combination of Wriggling Grub and Umbral Collar Zealot. The combination of the two let me chump block for days and dig deeper into my library, especially when I Recommissioned the former. But flyers once again proved to be a problem, as I couldn’t deal with Lingering Souls tokens, especially when they got buffed by Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. Both games, though, the one getting the kill on my opponent’s side on their KDA record was actually Hellrider, who made me so extra unnecessarily dead.

My third match was against a Dimir control deck. Given we were both in the losing-record match, my opponent very kindly let me mulligan to 7 after yet two more 1-land hands. I was on the beat down the first game, with Umbral Collar Zealot proving its power as a 2-mana 3/2 creature to get in a lot of solid chip damage. Then Reckless Charge on a 4-power Stonecoil Serpent netted me a ton of damage, putting my opponent to 2 life with me empty-handed. They managed to pick off the Stonecoil Serpent, but the threat of flashbacking Reckless Charge made any creature I topdecked a lethal threat. My top-deck of Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo meant they had to counter it instead of using one of their removal spells, lest the Ward kill them, but that meant they were lacking enough counterspells to deal with the Firebolt I topdecked after. In game 2, I once again went aggro with Bonesplitter and Merry, Esquire of Rohan. Plus, I had resiliency via my two Recommissions reviving my Esper Extractor and Umbral Collar Zealot with a buff. My opponent ended up at 3 life, 1 life short of me flashbacking Firebolt to kill them, while they stabilized with Harvester of Misery, then stole my buffed Umbral Collar Zealot with Hypnotic Siren, and those two had me dead before I had time to rebuild or recover. With it getting quite late, we called the match there instead of playing game 3.

Literally only punished once for my awful manabase, all the rest of my mana woes were from good old Magic: the Gathering. Thus, I have resolved to not learn anything.

Stone Soup (January 12, 2026 - March 9, 2026)

One of the long-running cube things I’ve been vaguely teasing in these draft reports since the start: a Stone Soup draft! This one was at work, with the draft and games played out over a series of lunchtimes in the ensuing weeks. Let’s start with a brief aside as to what I brought as my pool.

My Stone Soup Pool

I had only one and hard fast rule for the Stone Soup pool I brought: I had to own all the cards already, and they needed to be somewhere in my unused stash of cards, not in one of my cubes or anything.^[2] I am extremely meticulous about maintaining a catalogue of my cards, and what’s the point of all that work if not to take advantage for something like this?

I knew I wasn’t super interested in a cohesive or strongly themed pool: I both don’t have the cards for that and that’s not really the style of magic I like. I enjoy have to string together cards and dig to find synergies the cards, so I wanted my pool to reflect that. I was loosely concerned with even color balance at first, but gave up at some point.^[3] I suspected the fixing would be relatively light, so instead of adding a bunch to my pool to try and shore it up, I figured it would be an opportunity to highlight all the terrible fixing lands I have and people might actually have to play them.^[4] From there, I just scrolled through the list of my collection and picked cards that sparked joy. They all fell into at least one of four categories, usually more:

• cards/effects I think are sick, especially in limited formats: The flashiest are my selection of Mystery Booster 2 playtest cards from my lone Mystery Booster 2 draft: Your Wish is My Command, Lutri, Pauper Otter, and Heart of a Duelist. Leyline Axe is just sick. But there are also cards representative of effects I like: I really adore the Water Wings style cards of temporarily changing a creature’s base power and toughness, even if I think it is often not good. Similarly, I adore threaten effects, hence Involuntary Employment.
• cards that require some synergy that I think other players theoretically could have put in their pools: The Mystery Booster 2 playtest cards are big culprits here again, with Your Wish is My Command and Lutri, Pauper Otter, but also things like Symmetry Matrix, Empty the Warrens^[5], and Raid Bombardment. I tried to put some support in for those effects in my pool, but didn’t try too hard; I thought it’d be cooler if those sorts of effects happened to be supported by the pools other people brought, and it was fine if they weren’t. That also explains why there is Basilisk Gate with only two other guildgates: those were the only gates I happened to already own, and I thought it not un-likely that someone else would bring guildgates for fixing.
• glue cards - Just cards to make a limited environment I wanted to play: cheap creatures, removal, board wipes. I did want games to end.
• cards I have a personal affinity to: This is a lot of cards in this pool. To run down some until I get bored of typing: Nadir Kraken is an all-star in my first ever commander deck, the Obscura precon that I still have unsleeved and adore. Blood Artist is probably my favorite style of card; I will always play aristocrats if it is or isn’t a thing. Golden Demise has Ascend, a mechanic I remember fondly from when I got back into Magic with Arena. Brash Taunter, Hornet Nest, Tail Swipe, and Bushwhack are all remnants from the first commander deck I ever built, a Neyith of the Dire Hunt deck. Blanchwood Armor I recall seeing in my first ever exposure to Magic (watching someone play Duels of the Planeswalkers and then picking it up myself). Sheoldred’s Edict is a tribute to the first “expensive” card I opened: a foil Sheoldred the Apocalypse from random promos given out at my local game store, followed by opening a regular Sheoldred the Apocalypse the next week. I still have the former, and sold the latter to finance building that first commander deck.

Draft and Games

Now, to the draft! With 5 players, we went for 5 packs of 9. I was pretty right in my assessment that fixing would be light. I was not, however, anticipating one player’s pool being the skeleton of an Izzet spellslinger deck packed with drakes and phoenixes.^[6] There was also some definitely powerful cards floating around, going by my pack 1 pick 1 of Emperor of Bones. I leaned heavily on drafting fundamentals: fixing and removal. I also tended towards cheap creatures as going by what I saw, it seemed likely I could get underneath decks by going quickly as they struggled to get their mana online and were choked up with 4 and 5 drops that I could pick off. Plus, the creatures seemed overall high enough quality to get there, especially the Inti, Seneschal of the Sun I nabbed in the middle of the draft. I ended up in Mardu because, uh, I’m me, but also because the all Izzet pool skewed colors such that every other drafter but me ended up in blue, so staying out of blue was an easy way to wheel some good cards. My deck came together pretty easily, and my curve was so heavily 2-drops I opted for 16 lands.

My first game was against a deck that had leaned all the way into the Izzet spellslinger/drakes pool. Because of the staggered way we were playing games across different lunchtimes, I knew this player had already played 2 matches and won them both relatively handily, with the biggest card to watch out for being Shark Typhoon. I was hopeful my deck could outrace them before we got to that point. In the first game my manabase came back to bite me, as I ended up choked on black mana so had no real pressure without my Gifted Aetherborn, as my small creatures couldn’t break through the Enigma Drake. I sacrificed my board to get Rottenmouth Viper in play as an actual threat, but it was bounced by a hard-cast Whiplash Trap. Then Saheeli, Sublime Artificer came down for my opponent: the Servos from my opponent casting a couple cantrips were manageable, but Saheeli, Sublime Artificer ticking down to transform them into copies of the now 4-power Enigma Drake was very much not manageable, and I died. The second game I mulliganed to 6, but had a new plan: Luminarch Ascension on turn 2. I was hoping to put my opponent into an unwinnable position by forcing them to either swing into me and leave my board open to attack them or let me get counters and be forced to deal with an army of Angels, but my opponent had enough burn spells to point at my face to circumvent that issue and keep me at just 2 ascension counters. A well-timed Into the Fire swept up my board and my pressure, including the Dreadhorde Invasion that had been slowly killing me right before the army token would’ve gotten lifelink on it^[7]. I then didn’t draw any removal, and the same Enigma Drake and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer combination that put an end to me the previous game killed me again.

My second match was against a Jeskai deck with a similarly spellslinger bent. My first game I kept a sketchy hand^[8] with no black mana, though I did have Warden of the Inner Sky and Charming Prince for pressure. The latter also let me dig through my deck a little, and it paid off as I found Prophetic Prism for filtering and then a Swamp. Always rewarded. Those two let me get out Emperor of Bones to lock down my opponent’s graveyard to keep Arclight Phoenixs from resurrecting and help ward off any flashback shenanigans. I couldn’t quite remember if I had seen a Snapcaster Mage going around in the packs, but wouldn’t be surprised and was wary of it anyways. I actually also used Emperor of Bones to steal their Arclight Phoenix, and had it pick off their Ral, Izzet Viceroy. All the graveyard exile from Emperor of Bones did not help against against Crackling Drake, but with the pump from Bearer of Glory I was able to go wide enough around it to kill my opponent. In the second game, my opponent cast Sorcerous Sight on me turn 1, while I cast Thoughtseize on them turn 1, so we both knew exactly what was going on in each other’s hands. Gifted Aetherborn held down the fort, gaining me a bunch of life swing while I was able to pick off my opponent’s Crackling Drakes, the first with Diabolic Edict, and the second with Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. My opponent was happy to block as I declined her trigger, as I needed every card in my hand: the Lightning Helix to pick off the second Crackling Drake after combat, the Plains I needed to cast the Lightning Helix, and the Rottenmouth Viper to present a must-remove threat to lock up the game. All of the cards did exactly what I had hoped for them to do.

My third match was against a 4-color, base Orzhov tempo deck. The first game I had to start by mulliganing my no-land hand; the second hand I saw had 5 lands, but a Diabolic Edict to remove the first threat and a Seize Opportunity to see more cards, so I unwisely kept it. I proceeded to see 11 of my 16 lands that game, including exiling two off of Seize Opportunity, which was pretty brutal. The most relevant part of that game besides my opponent thoroughly beating me up was the Thoughtseize I got to cast and remember, oh, yeah my opponent has Balance in their deck, so I need to remember to not overcommit. The second game was a back-and-forth slugfest. The crucial turn involved me adapting Emperor of Bones to reanimate Gifted Aetherborn; those plus my Cartel Aristocrat let me swing in for 8 plus gain just a touch of life back, enough such that I just about survived my opponent swinging out the next turn and then realizing they were dead on board on my crackback. In the third game my opening hand was stacked, as I got to play Novice Inspector and Gifted Aetherborn, though not the Dark Confidant my opponent taxed with Elite Spellbinder. However, Giant Killer tapped down any potential lifegain from Gifted Aetherborn, and my hand did have one glaring weakness: a lack of red mana. That meant I was unable to cast my Intervention to kill my opponent’s Blood Artist before they overloaded Damn with four creatures on my board and three creatures on theirs. That 14 point life swing put me to 2 life, as we were both low on cards. Thankfully, one of mine was the Doom Blade I had been hanging onto^[9], which removed my opponent’s Brimaz, King of Oreskos follow-up. The other was Luminarch Ascension, and with us both topdecking I was pretty confident in my odds in racking up counters. I did have the Dark Confidant exiled as a potential creature to cast, but I was more scared of dying to it so decided to play the odds without it instead. I did eventually draw the Mountain to cast an expensive Intervention on my opponent’s Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Just in time too: my opponent top decked Avalanche Riders, so I needed that life gain to make sure I didn’t die on the spot from haste. I had Golden Demise to pick it off, though only at sorcery speed. My opponent then cast Balance to get us both properly topdecking, but by then I had enough counters on Luminarch Ascension to create a bunch of Angels to carry me to victory.

My last match was against a 3-color midrange deck that was notably heavy on planeswalkers, including an Oko, Thief of Crowns. My first game my hand was lacking white mana, so my only castable cards were Diabolic Edict and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. On the other hand, I was able to cast Inti, Seneschal of the Sun turn 2, so it felt worth keeping, especially as my opponent mulliganed to 5. Inti, Seneschal of the Sun paid off especially handsomely, as I flipped Emperor of Bones on my first discard. Inti, Seneschal of the Sun turns out to be a great way to cheat the adapt limitations on Emperor of Bones; I didn’t get to attack with any of the creatures I brought back, but it let me do a pseudo-warp impression on the white cards I couldn’t cast anyways to get their enters triggers until I eventually found my Mystic Monastery to actually cast them. My opponent on the other hand was very much struggling with colors in their landbase^[10], and when I flipped a Charming Prince off Inti, Seneschal of the Sun and used it to flicker and keep the Novice Inspector I had resurrected with Emperor of Bones, my opponent had had more than enough and scooped. The second game my opponent mulliganed to 6. Stormfist Crusader let us both draw cards but also very effectively beat face with menace, especially when I got Inti, Seneschal of the Sun to put a counter on it. My opponent killed Inti, Seneschal of the Sun immediately thereafter and played Oko, Thief of Crowns, but my buffed Stormfist Crusader combined with Lightning Helix was enough to get rid of the planewalker. Then, Emperor of Bones let me get back Inti, Seneschal of the Sun for a huge alpha strike, and then Lightning Strike let me finish the job and not have to deal with my opponent’s wall of Empty the Warrens chump blockers.

Good soup.

Forgotten Monument (March 11, 2026)

The unique cubing experiences continued with Forgotten Monument! There had been significant changes to the cube since the last time I played it, both in cards and in structure: whereas before there was no deckbuilding, as you were given a certain number of lands to add to your draft pool and went from there, this time we had cards to spare, though less than a traditional cube: with a full pod of 8, we were at 4 packs of 9, However, the core concepts of the cube remained: the only lands you get are Forgotten Monument, you start with one in play, and there are no creatures.

I had built a deck with what could generously be called half a win condition last time, and didn’t want to do that again.^[11] Instead, I built a deck with one win condition for sure, and like, maybe 20% of another one. A win condition package quickly presented itself in the draft, as I grabbed Tendrils of Agony, Yawgmoth’s Will, and a Dimir Machinations to tutor for the latter. I didn’t see too many cheap cantrips though, so I figured I might need some help lowering my opponent’s life total first rather than leaning full storm combo, so picked up some burn like Boros Charm and Chain Lightning. They would be good fairer Yawgmoth’s Will targets too, which I would be able to get more consistenly than Tendrils of Agony, especially when I got Gaea’s Will for a pseudo second copy. I then needed to figure out how I was going to live casting all these spells. Squandered Resources proved perfect, and I found a little life-gain via lands-sacrifice package via Reaping the Rewards and Renounce, all of which paired beautifully with my Splendid Reclamation. I rounded out my deck with all the card selection I could nab, and had myself what seemed like still not a good deck, but a deck that could actually put together a win, so. Improvement.

The first match was a storm mirror, but my opponent was much more committed to the storm line than I was, with Brain Freeze, Underworld Breach, and a bunch of cheap cantrips that I didn’t get in the draft. I won the die roll and chose to be on the draw, as I’ve found I prefer in this cube, and my opening hand had everything I ever hoped for: Tendrils of Agony, Dimir Machinations, Squandered Resources, and a Treasure Map to accumulate mana and dig for cheap spells. The pieces beautifully laid off for me, I stormed my opponent out on turn 6. In the second game, I once again had both Tendrils of Agony plus Yawgmoth’s Will within the first few turns, but my mana and useful spells came a bit slower but still steadily thanks to Collector’s Vault. However, having both of those pieeces in hand left me very exposed to Nightmare Void being repeatedly dredged to pick apart my hand. I had Trade Routes to try and find something to do when I ended up empty-handed, and successfully converted 6 mana and 3 lands into 3 more lands as I died to Sentinel Tower. The third game I struggled to draw my fifth land, but once again had found Tendrils of Agony plus Yawgmoth’s Will before then. However, by the time I did it was my opponent’s turn to storm off: they cast Brain Freeze on me with a storm count of 2, and I milled all the lands I couldn’t seem to draw and more. I sadly did not draw the Splendid Reclamation that could have let me pop off if I could somehow find Squandered Resources too, and on the next turn my opponent cast Underworld Breach and Brain Freezed away the rest of my deck.

My second match was against a hard self-discard deck. My opponent spun wheels a lot, but eventually assembled quite a threatening engine in between Artist’s Talent and Feast of Sanity that I had almost no enchantment removal for^[12] and then later a Monument to Endurance. They also countered my main plans of Gaea’s Will and Yawgmoth’s Will. But the thing my opponent was lacking was lifegain, and by the time they had assembled all the pieces of their engine we were both at 3 life, and I had Visions of Beyond plus Tendrils of Agony for the win. In the second game, my Squandered Resources got countered, but Treasure Map and Collector’s Vault slowly accumulated me a ton of mana and let me dig for Tendrils of Agony, while I had Dimir Machinations for Yawgmoth’s Will. My opponent used Brainbite to get rid of my Tendrils of Agony, but again my opponent was low enough that Corroding Dragonstorm plus Hopeless Nightmare plus Boros Charm was enough to kill; my opponent only had one counterspell, so they could counter any one of them, but couldn’t live me recurring them with the Yawgmoth’s Will after.

The third match was against a burn/big spells deck. Chef’s Kiss stole and copied my Flick a Coin which was such a brutal swing in life, card advantage, and mana I basically couldn’t recover. That was especially true when my opponent played Sanguine Bond, and then had Heroes’ Reunion and Tainted Sigil to dome me for 14 in a single turn. The second game I once again had Tendrils of Agony and Yawgmoth’s Will and Squandered Resources in my opening hand, but struggled to find lands. Meanwhile, my opponent used Galvanic Iteration to copy Blightning, forcing me to discard everyhing but my Tendrils of Agony and Yawgmoth’s Will. However, Collector’s Vault and Treasure Map let me once again accumulate mana via Treasure instead, while I just about hung on against my opponent’s Weather the Storm for life gain and Maelstorm Nexus for coolness. When I was at 2 life, I knew I had to try popping off. My Yawgmoth’s Will got Memory Lapsed, but I could draw it again off Collector’s Vault, and had just enough mana by sacrificing all my lands to cast Yawgmoth’s Will again, Prismari Command for some extra damage plus a Treasure to cast Ponder before finally Tendrils of Agony. This left me one storm count short of my opponent at 14 life, and they eventually accumulated enough stuff to kill me as I had no lands. Worth it, though.

I’m always reluctant to play storm on cube nights in cube that support it because my unfamiliarity means I don’t have good guidelines on what makes a coherent storm deck the same way I do for a creature-based deck. I think I’ve figured out the secret though: simply always have your payoffs. I literally always had Tendrils of Agony and Yawgmoth’s Will in the first two or three turns; it was astonishing. Not game-winning in my hands, clearly, but gratifying nonetheless.

Bryan’s Good Clean Magic (Dec 21, 2025 - March 29, 2026)

At the end of December last year, I signed up to do a rotisserie draft of Bryan’s Good Clean Magic with 9 other players. The draft lasted just about a month into the end of January, and it was only at the end of March that we arranged to play the full round-robin gauntlet of matches. But let’s start with the rotisserie draft.

I had never done a rotisserie draft before, but I did know I was picking ninth out of the ten people, so figured I’d let other people’s choices drive my decisions. When my turn came up, there was one clear pattern: no one had taken any red cards. Thus, I decided to grab Lightning Bolt with my first pick, and when it snaked back to me in short order, Chain Lightning. From there, I firmly staked my claim in mono-red aggro burn. It worked out very well: I was not at all interested in going super hard on planning in the draft. In the rotisserie draft chat there was a lot of smack talk about stealing picks, a huge early run on fetchlands, and agonizing decisions. I simply divorced myself from all of that: I made a list of cards I thought I wanted by scrolling through the cube list exactly once, and just pulled from my list every time it was my turn. It was calm, peaceful, and exactly what I wanted from a holiday draft. Could I have drafted a better deck? Oh yeah. I almost certainly could have leaned Boros aggro, as there was a notable dearth of people interested in cheap white creatures throughout. I also could have hate-picked more, if I could be bothered to pay attention to what other people were grabbing. But I assembled a functional deck that I knew I would enjoy playing, for the exact amount of effort and lack of stress I wanted, which was perfect. When we all gathered at the cube owner’s place for the draft, our pools were very kindly laid out for us when we arrived, and I made short work of cuts. I ended up on 16 lands, scared of going down any further. It was also a beautiful, warm sunny day^[13], so we dragged the tables to the park across the street to play our matches.

My first match was against an Azorius control deck. I ran them over both games with the pro-gamer move of “kill them before they draw any of their wraths”. In the second game, their Imposing Sovereign proved unbelievably annoying for my haste creatures, but still not enough to stop my tidal wave of aggro.

My second match was against a four-color spellslinger deck packed with 1 and 2 mana spells. In the first game, I mulliganed to 6 and kept 4 lands and 2 creatures; I ended up getting my Grafted Wargear countered via Force Spike, and my Char pointed at Electrostatic Infantry countered, and the Electrostatic Infantry grew massive enough I couldn’t deal with it and died. The second game my hand was ultra-aggressive. Monastery Swiftspear plus Bonesplitter, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Skewer the Critics got my opponent dead in record time. In the third game I got flooded a little bit, which was especially bad given I got three for one’d via Electrolyze, but the extra mana paid off by letting me eternalize the Earthshaker Khenra my opponent didn’t eat with Deathrite Shaman. The 4/4 held down the fort until we did a huge trade in combat, leaving us both near topdecks, but my opponent with an Ethereal Forager. We stared at each other, both drawing lands for a few turns, as Ethereal Forager got me lower and lower, but eventually I hit a string of burn spells while my opponent continued to mostly whiff. They eventually drew Electrostatic Infantry to secure lethal on board on the next turn with us both at 4 life, but I top-decked Char for the win. My opponent definitely could have killed me with the exiled Collective Brutality under Ethereal Forager, but they also had about 3 exile methods going on so it got a little lost in the shuffle.

My third match was against a Rakdos token aggro deck. The first game my opponent had so much removal, powered by their early Skullclamp^[14], and I ran out of gas while my opponent had a full grip. In the second game, a combination of Reckless Pyrosurfer plus Hordeling Outburst totaled up to a 10 damage swing and my opponent dead on turn 4. The third game, I was stuck on three lands, which was especially dire given my opponent had Tangle Wire, so I couldn’t even cast anything. Despite losing lots of card ground via Skullclamp again, the game ended up close: I ended up at three life, and was two damage short of killing my opponent outright, and also couldn’t clear their board of creatures to try and stablize because my removal spell was Char, and to pick off their other creature with Grim Lavamancer I would have needed to tap my Fiery Islet. Instead, I perished.

My fourth match was against a Naya domain zoo deck. In the first game, thanks to the power of Light Up the Stage and my Fiery Islet plus Sunbaked Canyon, I had seen 11 of my 16 lands by turn 4. I promptly died, and finally went down from 16 lands to 15 during sideboards. Meanwhile, during sideboards, my opponent sided in about 10 lifegain spells. I was a little stuck on lands, as recompense for finally going down to 15, and had to spend my burn on removal, while my opponent ended at like 28 life.

My fifth match was against a Golgari lands deck. I ran over my opponent both games. In the first I kept a five land hand but drew Reckless Pyrosurfer into Robber of the Rich, both of whom were hasty damage that overwhelmed my opponent. In the second, Bomat Courier into Monastery Swiftspear plus Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning had my opponent very dead while I was flush with cards.

My sixth match was against an Orzhov tempo tokens deck. In the first game I two-for-one’d my self to get rid of Brimaz, King of Oreskos as I felt I didn’t really have a way to beat it otherwise, and that feeling was confirm when it was Unearthed and I, in fact, could not beat it. The second game I had the Reckless Pyrosurfer plus Hordeling Outburst combination again, and followed it up with Rampaging Ferocidon when I calculated my opponent had gummed up the board a bit too much to get the kill with Hellrider. My opponent was still very low, but an overloaded Damn wiped the board clean, and after my Hellrider got picked off I drew creatures rather than burn and my opponent stabilized. Sedgemoor Witch in particular grew the board to the point I couldn’t deal with.

My seventh match was against a Jund Sneak Attack deck. The first game, I did, in fact, get Sneak Attacked turn 4 by a Myr Battlesphere and promptly died. The second and third games I won the same way: with enough tokens that Hellrider proved a lethal swing. The first time, my opponent lacked double-red for Fiery Confluence, and the second time, my opponent cast Fiery Confluence to wipe out my board, but the tokens from exiling Seasoned Pyromancer after proved enough support for Hellrider.

My eighth match was against a Dimir control deck. The first game, I put up a decent fight but ran out of gas and eventually perished to Torrential Gearhulk. The second game I mulliganed to 5, but put together enough damage with my hand that I managed to kill my opponent by topdecking Char and Magma Jet. In the third game we both churned through our decks. I had my opponent at 8 life, and had a choice to either use my Char to try and kill off their Torrential Gearhulk which would almost certainly block my Reckless Pyrosurfer for the other 2 points of damage, or send the Char face and, with my remaining 1/1 token, get my opponent down to 3 life. I figured I wouldn’t win the long game so opted for the latter. I had a couple of turns while I got beat down with Torrential Gearhulk, and a topdecked Magma Jet bought me another turn so I wasn’t dead on board to Thief of Sanity and let me dig just that much further into my deck, but I failed to draw one of my remaining answers of Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt and died.

My ninth and final match was against a Recurring Nightmare Survival of the Fittest deck. In the first game my opponent mulliganed to five, but Spellskite was a huge problem, styming all of my aggression. My opponent eventually found Warden of the First Tree, and the lifegain proved insurmountable for my deck. In the second game, my opponent put together the Recurring Nightmare Survival of the Fittest, and I got Sulfuric Vortex down one turn too late to prevent the initial lifegain from Thragtusk, but at least I could stop future recursions. However, the Hornet Queen repeatedly coming back proved problematic. We beat each other down until we were both at 5 life, but I didn’t topdeck one of my potential outs like Chain Lightning, Hellrider, Skewer the Critics, or Goblin Bombardment. Alas.

A beautiful day, a bunch of cool people, and about 10 hours of cube. What more could you ask for?

Footnotes