Introduction

After flying back from Pro Tour Thunder Junction in Seattle, the next tournament on my calendar was MottiCon, the Finnish version of CubeCon. The basic structure of the event was 3 Drafts with 3 Rounds each in the Swiss portion, with each Draft consisting of 8 different pods drafting 8 different Cubes. After the Swiss rounds there was also a top 8 Draft for playoffs.

This was easily the most fun tournament I’ve played in a long time, and it brought the local community together for an immensely enjoyable experience. Cube drafting is one of my favorite formats, and it was really cool to be able to play it in a competitive setting again.

Hopefully this article will give inspiration and motivation for people to arrange similar events in other parts of the world too!

Organization of the Event

Before the event, 13 Cubes were selected by the organizers, and their lists and descriptions were published to the participants. The players could then submit preferences for which Cubes they wanted to play through an app.

The selected Cubes were very different from each other – a couple of them were powered Vintage Cubes, some resembled normal Limited formats, and some had a clear theme such as artifacts or cards from the Universes Beyond expansions. If you have read my previous articles it probably comes as no surprise that my personal favorite was a Mono Blue Cube!

Once the players had submitted their preferences, an algorithm found a combination of Cubes and draft pods where as many participants as possible would be drafting Cubes that they liked as much as possible. It worked very well at least for me, since I got to play the exact three Cubes I had marked as my top three preferences.

Since the players were playing with cards that they didn’t own themselves, some extra steps had to be taken in the drafting process. In addition to the organizers having to generate the boosters, after each draft the players had to take a screenshot of the cards they had picked and then submit those pictures to the app, which also took care of pairings, result submissions and standings.

Then, after the end of the last match of each draft, each pair of players had to sort their cards and verify each other’s card pools that they matched the picture taken right after the draft to make sure that all cards were returned back to the owners of the Cubes.

Draft 1 – Mono Blue Cube

In the first draft of the tournament, I found my way into the Mono Blue Cube pod, which was maybe the toughest pod in the entire tournament. Most of the players were Pro Tour grinders, including PT Top 8 competitor Max Sjöblom and former Platinum Pro Donald Smith, who recently moved to Finland.

When the pods were published I saw there was one name whom I didn’t recognize, but even that one turned out to be my teammate from Pro Tour 25th Anniversary – he had just gotten married and changed his last name since I had last seen him.

While the idea of a Mono Blue Cube might sound at first like you would end up playing mirror matches all day, it supports a variety of different archetypes and synergy packages that lead to decks with very distinct identities.

First of all, there are artifacts as well, so you can draft aggro decks with 《Arcbound Ravager》 and 《Traxos, Scourge of Kroog》, or a combo deck with 《Tolarian Academy》. The blue cards themselves also enable aggressive takes like Merfolk, more midrangey ones with 《Murktide Regent》 and 《Kitesail Larcenist》, controlling ones with 《Oblivion Stone》 and 《Jace, the Mind Sculptor》, or combo builds with 《High Tide》, 《Thassa’s Oracle》 or 《Hullbreacher》 just to name a few.

I’ve drafted it a couple of times now and enjoyed both the drafting and the game play a lot. The mono-colored structure of the Cube results in players having lots of playables so you tend to have interesting options for tuning your deck during sideboarding. If you’re interested in building and playing unusual Cubes, I definitely recommend giving this one a closer look. Full card list is available here.

I started off my draft with a 《Hullbreacher》 and followed it up with 《Timetwister》, 《Narset, Parter of Veils》 and 《Day’s Undoing》.

The players on my right seemed to prioritize counterspells very highly so I didn’t get many of those, but instead ended up with even more combo pieces – a 《Thespian’s Stage》 and a 《Dark Depths》, a 《Paradigm Shift》 and a 《Thought Lash》 to go along with a 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》, and an 《Aminatou’s Augury》 to copy with an 《Arcane Savant》.

At some point I also found a 《Geier Reach Sanitarium》 to lock people out with 《Hullbreacher》 and 《Narset, Parter of Veils》.

To round out the deck I prioritized cheap cards like 《Dismember》 and 《Mana Vault》 as highly as I could, and then got some late pick bounce spells that my deck could utilize better than others. In addition to buying precious time for the combos, they naturally worked very well with the draw sevens too.

Deck List

In the first round I got paired against Donald, who drafted a streamlined aggressive deck with both pressure and disruption – not exactly the best matchup for a combo deck. I also had to take a few mulligans in the match which didn’t help either, and thus lost quickly.

In round 2 I lost a game to Max who started off with a turn 1 《Lodestone Golem》 into turn 2 《Traxos, Scourge of Kroog》 on the play, but I had fast combo starts in the other two games and Max didn’t have enough disruption to stop me, especially since 《Sapphire Medallion》 negated the effect of his 《Thorn of Amethyst》.

In the third round my opponent thought that he could afford to tap out for a turn, because I probably wouldn’t be able to kill them in one turn……right? Well, technically, he was right: I didn’t kill them during that turn. I just cast an 《Arcane Savant》 copying 《Aminatou’s Augury》, which swung the game decisively in my favor.

Record: 2-1

Draft 2 – “Juha’s Cube”

This Cube didn’t have a fancy, unique theme like the previous one, but was instead focused on creating a normal limited game play experience with fun, fan-favorite cards from over the years – something similar to the Master’s sets. It has been built with different rarities in mind, so that each pack has the good old ratio of 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 10 commons and 1 land. You can find the card list here.

I started off the draft with an 《Ogre-Head Helm》, a 《Murmuring Mystic》 and a 《Frolicking Familiar》, aiming for an aggressively slanted Blue-Red Tempo deck. However, those types of cards didn’t seem to be flowing so I had to find another lane.

For a long time I had trouble reading what was open and coming up with a plan, and the only thing I noticed was that dual lands and fetches were going around kind of late. I kept picking them up and eventually went for a Multicolor Control deck so that I could use all the cards from different colors.

After the draft, I thought the deck was a bit of a mess, but at least it was the kind of mess that I like! One of the problems was that I would take a lot of damage from my lands, but didn’t have any life gain to balance it out, which is always an issue for control decks. And since the power level of the Cube was relatively flat, my reward for being in multiple colors wasn’t even that high compared to the average deck in the pod. I had also wasted a lot of early picks in the draft because it took so long to find a direction.

In particular, even in my main colors I had multiple cards like 《Alluring Suitor》 that I couldn’t play since I started off the draft trying to be aggressive, but ended up in control instead.

Deck List

After winning round 4 against a Red Aggro deck, I got paired against former national champion Jani Lindroos in round 5 with Black-White Tokens. His deck was clearly better than mine and a bad matchup strategically too.

My spot removal spells lined up poorly against his threats and I had no way to get rid of his 《Hidden Stockpile》, so it was an uphill battle from start to finish. I did snag one game where he stumbled severely in the beginning, but even that one was a struggle. A mulligan to five made the deciding game a short affair and I lost the match.

In the last round of day 1, I got paired against a player who drafted a couple of seats to my right, and he had a nice Blue-Red Tempo deck – the one that I had wanted to go for too. However, this time my removal lined up well and I was able to grind him out with a 《Midnight Clock》.

My deck was extremely slow though, and it was quite telling that even after popping the 《Midnight Clock》 it still took me a lot of turns to actually close out the games. While this Cube produced nice decks with nice cards, I also felt exhausted after the three rounds were over – I played as quickly as I possibly could and still had trouble finishing the rounds on time.

Record: 4-2

Draft 3 – Vintage Cube

For the third draft, we got to play Max Sjöblom’s Vintage Cube, which was very similar to the classic Vintage Cube on Magic Online. Personally, I like Max’s version a bit better, as he has replaced some of the weak and boring cards with more interesting ones, but these are of course matters of taste. Based on the standings of the event I knew that I needed a clean 3-0 from this draft to make the top 8.

To make my job harder, this was another stacked pod with many of the better local players in it. I started off the draft with an 《Atraxa, Grand Unifier》, and followed it up with some blue cards, but the color dried up rather quickly as it often does in Vintage Cube. After searching for a direction for a handful of picks, it became very obvious that the most open color was green, so I went for it.

While I didn’t open any pieces of power, I got a very solid Ramp deck, where the green cards could let me compete on speed with the more abstractly powerful decks. Importantly, I also had a 《Force of Will》 and a 《Mana Drain》 for interaction against decks trying to do more powerful things than mine.

Deck List

I don’t usually like maindecking 《Batterskull》 in these decks, but I suspected that the players I most wanted to beat in the pod were on fair aggro and midrange decks – they were seated right next to me, so I could figure out their archetypes by the cards they passed to me and the cards I passed to them.

I probably should’ve also maindecked the 《Atraxa, Grand Unifier》, even if it is quite hard to actually cast in this deck. It’s too powerful not to play, could be tutored up with 《Green Sun’s Zenith》, and would also just be another blue card in a deck that didn’t have quite enough of them to consistently support the 《Force of Will》.

In the first round, I beat up a White-Red Aggro deck with a Mox. A 《Force of Will》 on a mid-combat 《Solitude》 resulted in a favorable exchange for me, after which I could stabilize and take over the game with my slower but more powerful cards.

Round 2, I was paired against a Temur deck with a 《Time Walk》 that was trying to do unfair things. After the opponent’s deck malfunctioned in game 1, I tried my best to throw away game 2. I somehow forgot about the 《Leovold, Emissary of Trest》 in my deck, and didn’t cast a 《Green Sun’s Zenith》 for 3 after my opponent had landed a 《Sylvan Library》. Then he found a 《Sail into the West》 and gave us both new hands. That play would’ve been quite a bit less effective if I had the Sultai lord in play.

Fortunately, I drew enough counterspells from the draw 7 to stop him from doing anything too crazy, and if I recall correctly I also managed to copy an 《Etali, Primal Conqueror》 with 《Phantasmal Image》.

For the third and final round of the draft, I was paired against a Red-Black Midrange deck, which also didn’t have any pieces of power in it. My cards lined up well against his, including an early 《Leovold, Emissary of Trest》 which reduced the effectiveness of his 《Hymn to Tourach》 by a significant amount. That bought enough time for 《Augur of Autumn》 and 《Primeval Titan》 to generate lots of value.

In game 2, a 《Reanimate》 for his 《Troll of Khazad-dûm》 put a great deal of pressure on him and he was unable to recover.

This left me with a total record of 7-2, exactly what I needed to top 8!

Top 8 Draft – Vintage Cube

The top 8 draft was also Max’s Vintage Cube, and the pod was full of great players, showcasing the skill intensive nature of Cube drafting.

This time I started off with a 《Gut, True Soul Zealot》 and followed it up with 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》, 《Strip Mine》 and 《Seasoned Pyromancer》. Red didn’t feel quite open enough to go for Mono-Red, so I tried to find a complementary second color, dabbling around a bit in white, blue and black each. However, none of those were really flowing, and worst of all, I didn’t see any fixing for any of the splashes.

Eventually I had to make a choice and ended up selecting white as my second color, primarily based on the power of 《Seasoned Dungeoneer》. I have to admit that I didn’t exactly remember what the Initiative ability did during the draft – and honestly, still don’t even after playing with the card – but I knew that the card was basically broken on raw power level.

I also picked up a 《Flooded Strand》 quite highly but unfortunately didn’t get any dual lands to fetch with it. I ended up with only a 《Mana Confluence》 for fixing, resulting in a somewhat shaky mana base. I again didn’t get any power cards and felt a bit short on playables, so I wasn’t too optimistic about my chances.

However, I wasn’t passing anything great either, so I was hoping that the other players would also have medium decks, as often happens in high-level pod drafts.

Deck List

In the quarterfinals, I faced Leo Lahonen of the former Hareruya Hopes, who also had a white and red aggro deck, although his was much more focused on white and less on red. He also had a light green splash for 《Undermountain Adventurer》.

After splitting the first two games, we had a tight fight for who gets to keep the Initiative in game 3, but after drawing both the 《Seasoned Dungeoneer》 and 《Caves of Chaos Adventurer》 I managed to come out on top.

In the semifinals, my opponent was Joonas Eloranta, who played a couple of Pro Tours last year as a member of Team Handshake and has a Players Tour top 4 from the online era. He had drafted a Grixis combo deck with 《Underworld Breach》 + 《Lion’s Eye Diamond》 + 《Brain Freeze》, and 《Flash》 + 《Worldspine Wurm》. After the first game I wasn’t exactly sure what his deck was trying to do, as I had a good aggressive start and won quite quickly.

In the second game, I had a good curve out and he seemed to be running out of gas, so things were looking good. However, on the last turn he surprised me with an 《Underworld Breach》, cast 《Brain Freeze》 on himself to find the missing piece, 《Lion’s Eye Diamond》, and promptly used the trio to mill me out.

In game 3, he put three 5/5s into play in the middle of the combat with 《Flash》 + 《Worldspine Wurm》, but traded one of them for my 《Caves of Chaos Adventurer》. I suspect this was a mistake, although an understandable one. I don’t think I would’ve been able to kill him on the following turn even if he doesn’t block, nor would I have been able to stop all the damage from the trampling 5/5s if he attacked with all of them twice. But after the 《Caves of Chaos Adventurer》 traded for one of the tokens, I got enough breathing room to play out my hand and eventually grind through the 5/5s, while his hand was depleted of resources.

My finals opponent was Teemu Halonen, who top 4’d his first GP back in 2017. All I knew about his deck was that I had heard on the background how his previous opponent had lost to 《Through the Breach》. After mulliganing an unplayable hand I found a much better one, but was faced with a tough choice of which card to put back.

The options are 《Pyrokinesis》 and 《Lotus Petal》, and based on the 《Through the Breach》 comment I overheard, I gambled on his deck being some sort of a slower combo-style deck, and put back the 《Pyrokinesis》. The additional speed provided by 《Lotus Petal》 could be really valuable if I topdeck a 4 drop, for example.

However, I get severely punished for this as his deck turns out to be another Black-Red Midrange pile, and I get buried by a 《Laelia, the Blade Reforged》. The 《Lotus Petal》 ended up doing nothing, while the 《Pyrokinesis》 would’ve equalized the game by dealing with the 《Laelia, the Blade Reforged》. Oops.

In game 2, he doesn’t seem to have removal, so I go all-in on a basket named 《Seasoned Dungeoneer》, which attacks through for the last points of damage uncontested.

In game 3, he has a 《Plague Engineer》 to stop my 《Gut, True Soul Zealot》, and then a 《Rotting Regisaur》 with 《Inti, Seneschal of the Sun》. I’m unable to deal with the massive trampling dinosaur, and my attempts to race it are not successful either. Thus, I have to settle for a second place finish in the tournament.

Conclusion

As I already said earlier, this was one of the most fun and memorable tournaments I’ve played in recent memory, and I hope events like this become more popular in the future. Cube drafting is popular among both competitive and casual gamers, and gives a chance for a wide range of community members to come together for something we all enjoy.

CubeCon also gives creative Cube builders a chance to showcase their works, and provides the players with an opportunity to draft unusual decks in unusual formats. For example, I really enjoyed the variety of drafting four completely different decks in three very different cube environments, and I wasn’t even drafting some of the more adventurous Cubes out there!

Due to lack of time to prepare, I prioritized drafting Cubes where I knew at least most of the cards beforehand, but assuming that the event comes back next year, I plan on selecting some exotic ones too in my preferences. Who knows, maybe I’ll even dare to dip my toes in the Universes Beyond Cube?

If you’re interested in designing and playing unique Cubes, stay tuned this summer for more content on the subject! I’ve got something in the works you might like…

Matti Kuisma (X)