A long time ago, when I was busy building up my collection of draft sims, I was extremely interested in the concept of set-specific, minor archetypes, such as Avacyn Restored's "loner." These were the kinds of archetypes that were way too insular or under-powered to ever make their way into a standard cube environment, but were still interesting and flavorful. With the advent of Jumpstart it seems like there are some great opportunities to craft unique and interesting "themes" for use in an ultra fast and casual cube variant.
I'm creating the following thread as a space to post Jumpstart cubes, decklists (themes), and even just lists of theme ideas folks have thought up for this format.
Below are a few sample themes I cooked up in my spare time. Warning, they are DUMB, but the format has definitely got my juices flowing for concepts that would be difficult to pull off in cube, or even in EDH. So far, I've been conforming to most of WotC's design principles for the jumpstart product: low-ish power level (1-3 rares max), theme trumps optimal card choices (mix of commons and uncommons), 8/5/7 creature/spell/land split, budget friendly, and with some effort made to help themes "mix" together. Like regular cube, I'm sure sky's the limit on how crazy you could make themes, unshackled by cost, rarity, or card availability constraints ("Mox Theme").
This is a great idea! It has a similar goal as a project I envisioned some years ago called Casual Cube Constructed (C to the third power), where I would design 40-card Highlander decks with a theme too niche to fit into my main cube. I had a ton of ideas but only managed to build two actual decks, which I then finetuned to be played against each other, ending up with basically Duel Decks (like the WotC product). Here are the lists, I encourage anyone to try them, the gameplay was excellent!
Thanks for the response! I could definitely envision your two dual decks scaled down to this format and plenty of your other ideas fleshed out. I see from your inclusion of turbo fog and nic fit that you were also thinking about how to do legacy/modern archetype and combo package themes. These could actually lead to some very interesting decks, as plenty of competitive constructed decks over the years have just been grafting one successful archetype on top of another, leading to a new deck; thopter sword + dark depths is the one that first came to mind for me.
I love that there's really no limit to the specificity of themes, including completely arbitrary artist packages or even people/objects featured in the artwork (I remember there was an old edh deck thread of "women looking to the left").
After working on a few samples, I think the main design constraint is really ramp and color fixing, and having to make sure that there aren't too many nonbos lurking in potential pairings. The windstorm I included in the Surrak deck would most likely be a dead card if the player also landed up with wizard's above the clouds or pegasus themes.
I'm creating the following thread as a space to post Jumpstart cubes, decklists (themes), and even just lists of theme ideas folks have thought up for this format.
Below are a few sample themes I cooked up in my spare time. Warning, they are DUMB, but the format has definitely got my juices flowing for concepts that would be difficult to pull off in cube, or even in EDH. So far, I've been conforming to most of WotC's design principles for the jumpstart product: low-ish power level (1-3 rares max), theme trumps optimal card choices (mix of commons and uncommons), 8/5/7 creature/spell/land split, budget friendly, and with some effort made to help themes "mix" together. Like regular cube, I'm sure sky's the limit on how crazy you could make themes, unshackled by cost, rarity, or card availability constraints ("Mox Theme").
Surrak Punch!
1 Ainok Survivalist
1 Alpine Grizzly
1 Conifer Strider
1 Den Protector
1 Manglehorn
1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Whisperer of the Wilds
1 Epic Confrontation
1 Savage Punch
1 Seek the Horizon
1 Windstorm
1 Moss Diamond
1 Thriving Grove
6 Forest
Nightmares
1 Banehound
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Hunted Nightmare
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Nightmare
1 Paragon of Open Graves
1 Plague Mare
1 Wormfang Drake
1 Aspect of Lamprey
1 Asphyxiate
1 Breathstealer's Crypt
1 Terror
1 Drake-Skull Cameo
1 Thriving Isle
4 Swamp
2 Island
Loners
1 Bloodflow Connoisseur
1 Demonlord of Ashmouth
1 Invisible Stalker
1 Lone Revenant
1 Marrow Bats
1 Skeletal Changeling
1 Undead Executioner
1 Bone Splinters
1 Deadly Wanderings
1 Demonic Rising
1 Homicidal Seclusion
1 Undying Evil
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Thriving Moor
5 Swamp
1 Island
Dakkon Blackblade
1 Dakkon Blackblade
1 Danitha Capashen, Paragon
1 Kor Duelist
1 Kor Outfitter
1 Renowned Weaponsmith
1 Taj-Nar Swordsmith
1 Weaponcraft Enthusiast
1 Blackblade Reforged
1 Brawler's Plate
1 Mine Excavation
1 Open the Armory
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Traveler's Amulet
1 Buried Ruin
1 Thriving Heath
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Swamp
Rebecca Guay
1 Asmira, Holy Avenger
1 Auramancer
1 Barbtooth Wurm
1 Elvish Piper
1 Lynx
1 Norwood Riders
1 Serra Angel
1 Wood Elves
1 Yavimaya Dryad
1 Moment's Peace
1 Path to Exile
1 Planeswalker's Favor
1 Words of Worship
Lands
1 Thriving Grove
1 Thriving Heath
3 Forest
2 Plains
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Temur Energy: https://deckstats.net/decks/1121/926989-casual-cube-constructed-temur-/en
Esper Dragons: https://deckstats.net/decks/1121/925647-casual-cube-constructed-esper-/en
I wrote other ideas for decks like these down, and I'm sure some or all of them could also work in a Jumpstart setting:
Turboland
Enchantress
Eldrazi
Ninjas
Goblins
Soul Sisters
Threshold
Delirium
Devotion (any color really)
Morphs
Nic Fit Rector
Death's Shadow
Domain
Taking Turns
Turbofog
Mardu Warriors
Bant Spirits
...
The possibilities are endless!
I love that there's really no limit to the specificity of themes, including completely arbitrary artist packages or even people/objects featured in the artwork (I remember there was an old edh deck thread of "women looking to the left").
After working on a few samples, I think the main design constraint is really ramp and color fixing, and having to make sure that there aren't too many nonbos lurking in potential pairings. The windstorm I included in the Surrak deck would most likely be a dead card if the player also landed up with wizard's above the clouds or pegasus themes.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."