Building your format

Seven years ago I built my first peasant cube. I had just sold most of my expensive rares I never played with and thought it might be fun. Peasant cubes used to look similar to each other, a collection of all the best commons and uncommon Magic has to offer. No restrictions or other building guidelines. Peasant was the restriction. For me, the challenge was to prove you could still build a powerful cube without rares.

If you go on the mtgsalvation peasant cube forum now, you'll find a lot more variation. Cube owners pay more attention to the overall format of the cube. Modern frame peasant, cubes focused on archetypes, peasant+ cubes that add rares to fill holes (*cough* mana fixing *cough), cubes that cut the top end on the power level scale to get a more even power balance.

A good example is Leelue's Peasant Cube. Apart from adding rare lands, his cube does not have cards that are strictly better than others. This makes sure no single draft pick is solved. Control Magic will always be the pick over similar cards. But what if you take it out of the equation, would you pick Domestication, Binding Grasp or Mind Control?

Like how Wizards of the Coast has been focusing its draft formats more on identity and replayability, so have cube owners. It makes sense if you think about it. The draft formats that seem to come up most when players get asked about favorite draft formats are original Ravnica block, triple Innistrad and Rise of the Eldrazi. All formats with a strong identity, strong buildarounds, and highly replayable because of the plethora of different styles of decks you could draft.

But like with most 'top X best'-lists, personal preference is key. And this is where opinions start to differ wildly. Some people loved Kamigawa block, while others absolutely hated it. Lorwyn was annoyingly complicated, but it was also a delightful puzzle that cared about all kinds of different overlapping metrics. Heck, I enjoyed triple Zendikar and its fast aggro decks, but I know that's exactly the reason many people were fed up after a couple of drafts.

Identifying what you (or your playgroup) want out of a format is something I'd recommend to everyone building a cube. It can be anything like building around a powerful enabler, opening up bombs, midrange creature combat, piecing together interlocking combo pieces, flat power level, blazing aggro battles or durdling in all-gold battlecruiser Magic, etc.

There are so many cool Magic cards out there that it doesn't make sense for every peasant cube to look the same. If your favorite archetype is not viable in 'regular' cube formats, maybe you need to make up your own format where said archetype shines.