Last week, I wrote about the design philosophy of my first cube and the lessons I learned from it. This week begins the exploration of how I decided on the cards to include in my latest version of Rally. The new list still had a requirement of no tokens (except treasure and powerstones) and only cheap cards that I didn’t mind playing without sleeves. But, there were a few mechanics in the first cubes that felt like they deserved a further exploration.

This list was intentionally designed to be more powerful than the previous list whilst trying to stay within the set of cards that rarely see play in other formats. The format was designed with affordability in mind, so I wanted to ensure that it would be fun with cards that could be picked it up for cheap.

Energy

This article will focus on the energy as an archetype. At time of writing, there’s ~120 energy cards available that can be played in my cube though I elected to include only 17% of them.

• Thriving Turtle
• Tune the Narrative
• Aether Meltdown
• Assaultron Dominator
• Conduit Goblin
• Die Young
• Eddytrail Hawk
• Hexgold Slith
• Servant of the Conduit
• Tempest Harvester
• Voltaic Brawler
• Aetherstream Leopard
• Aethertorch Renegade
• Cyclops Superconductor
• Electrozoa
• Lathnu Hellion

• Bristling Hydra
• Consul’s Shieldguard
• Glimmer of Genius
• Lightning Runner

My experience from the first version of the cube showed energy to be a powerful resource because of it’s ability to accrue over time. I had previously experimented with Lathnu Hellion which offered a fascinating decision point of when to use the energy vs when to let the hellion die so you’d have more energy the next time it came around. The above 20 cards represent my exploration of this theme: when to use energy vs when to allow the card to cycle through so it’s more powerful the next time it comes around (with the exception of Tune the Narrative, Aether Meltdown, and Glimmer of Genius because they don’t offer any means of spending the energy).

I elected to choose primarily low mana value creatures with energy abilities as they were more likely to die in combat to recycle and replay again later. I learned this lesson from the first cube after no one ever drafted Scrapper Champion.

Notable Exclusions

• Galvanic Discharge: I might be interested in trying this out in the future, but it seemed to powerful for my current version. A single mana invested once for something that can likely kill a creature every time it comes around seemed too good. I’ll likely try out Harnessed Lightning first to see if that’s a more appropriate power level.
• Greenbelt Rampager: it’s literally a 3/4 for one, too powerful for this version but would be a fun include for a higher powered version at some later date.
• Amped Raptor: the fact that any lands it sees remain exiled makes this one of the (potentially) spikiest plays possible in the format as you could theoretically self exile half your lands on turn three.
• Chthonian Nightmare: this goes infinite with any two 3-drop creatures. Too powerful.
• Glint-Sleeve Siphoner: Similar to Galvanic Discharge, this one is right on the fence for me as it could very easily be a two mana draw engine and that seems a touch too good for this power level.
• Roil Cartographer: On average, it draws you an extra 1.6 cards per turn? Too powerful.
• Unstable Amulet: I might add this in later if I invest more into the energy theme or an artifact sacrifice theme, but the fact that it likely only gets to be used once makes it underwhelming, which is a shame because it seems like an interesting strategy for self exiling cards with a risk factor.
• Dynavolt Tower: instants and sorceries are already more powerful in this format, a machine gun payoff card didn’t feel necessary.
• Razorfield Ripper: it starts off attacking as a 4/4 and grows bigger each time, and this assumes you have no other energy sources. Too powerful.
• Vault 112 Sadistic Simulation: truthfully, I want to include this card in my cube but I’m having trouble getting my hands on one. The fact that it can self exile several cards is powerful, but it requires waiting several turns which makes it less impactful.