It's that time of the year once again. The weather is getting colder, the snow is coming down, families are gathering together, and - perhaps most importantly - there's Moxen in our draft packs. Yes, that's right folks, Vintage Cube is back on the menu once again on Magic Online! Get ready to open up some boosters and draft some of the game's most powerful cards of all time!

Today, I'd like to take you through a couple of the major archetypes and cool new things you can get up to with this latest iteration of the Vintage Cube! Whether you're new or old, there's no shortage of things to do to the point that it can at times feel a little daunting. Given that, I want to walk you through some of the possible options for you as you draft. There's a ton to talk about, so let's jump right into it!

The Major Archetypes

Artifact Synergy

Perhaps one of the best things that Vintage Cube is known for is the artifacts package. Naturally, a big reason for this is the Power Nine themselves, six of which are powerful artifacts that speed up your games tremendously. Those six pieces of power aren't the only way that you can ramp yourself up, though. Cards like Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith, the Talismans, and so on all help in this strategy, enabling you to churn out major threats while minimizing the requirements of focusing on specific colors.

Tinker

This style of deck can work in several ways, from artifact control to ramping out big threats such as Kappa Cannoneer. Perhaps the most well known way to benefit from an artifact heavy strategy, though, is Tinker. This card enables some of the most powerful plays in the Cube. Simply sacrifice an artifact and now you can go find a major threat such as Myr Battlesphere, Triplicate Titan, or everyone's favorite Blightsteel Colossus. With the right deck, it's even possible to get a turn one kill this way if you can somehow equip Lightning Greaves onto your Tinkered Blightsteel Colossus.

Reanimator

Speaking of cheating big things into play, this also plays quite well into the next major archetype: Reanimator. This is about as classic of a deck as you can get, with the goal being to shove massive creatures into your graveyard as quickly as possible with something like Entomb, Bitter Triumph, or Liliana of the Veil. Then you bring them back onto the battlefield with cards like Reanimate, Animate Dead, and Necromancy. Some of your best targets are the likes of Griselbrand, Atraxa, Grand Unifier; and Valgavoth, Terror Eater, but really it's hard to go wrong with most of the Cube's biggest creatures.

Sneak and Show/Flash

There is a small subset of creatures that are more difficult to reanimate, though. Many of the Cube's biggest creatures have an interesting line of text that shuffles them back into your deck as opposed to letting them go to the graveyard. These include the likes of Worldspine Wurm, Blightsteel Colossus, the classic eldrazi titans like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and so on. To get these out, you'll want to use cards that put these into play without the use of the graveyard. These methods mainly include Sneak Attack, Show and Tell, and - for cards that you don't mind dying instantly like the Wurm - Flash. All of your Reanimator and Tinker targets are great here, making it not only a great strategy in its own right, but one you can build into those kinds of decks as well.

It's worth noting, though, that Show and Tell can be a bit of a trap in league play because your opponent could be on a similar deck, resulting in the card backfiring on you. It's far better in pod play with single elimination events where no one else can have Show and Tell but you. Still, it's dicey either way, so play both it and the similar Eureka at your own risk.

Storm

Going on a different angle, let's talk about one of the most beloved archetypes of the Vintage Cube: Storm. If you've ever played - or even watched - Modern or Legacy play, chances are you've seen some variation of a Storm deck. Play out lots of spells like rituals, cheap artifacts, and more to generate a large storm count and win off the back of a big spell like Tendrils of Agony or Brain Freeze. While extremely fun, though, these kinds of decks can be difficult to build around, and as such can be either very powerful or end up being a mistake that doesn't come together. Thankfully, there are some alternate paths you can take as well if your deck doesn't quite come together.

Underworld Breach Combo

One of the best ways to do this is with Underworld Breach. It's a powerful spell that, much like Yawgmoth's Will, enables you to recast spells from your graveyard. Unlike Yawgmoth's Will, though, Breach allows you to repeatedly play your spells over and over again, at a cost of exiling some cards from your graveyard. If you use Lion's Eye Diamond or Black Lotus alongside Brain Freeze, though, you can continually cast each of these cards over and over again. Eventually, you'll have cast Brain Freeze enough times that you can mill your opponent instead or else go for a Tendrils of Agony or Thassa's Oracle play instead.

Doomsday

Speaking of Thassa's Oracle, let's talk about another angle you can take as far as combo decks go. Doomsday has a history of being an incredibly complex deck in both Legacy and Vintage...or at least that used to be the case. Thanks to both Thassa's Oracle and - at least in Cube - Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, it's never been easier to win off the back of a single Doomsday. The real challenge is setting up your deck properly to go off, but with a couple cantrips and a Thassa's Oracle, it can be quite simple to pull off.

Wheels Combo

Additionally, while a very different style of combo, you can do some really nutty things with wheel and Timetwister effects. These represent cards that effectively swap out your existing hand for a new one, and do the same for your opponent. Historically, these have been great for Storm-style decks as a way to refill your hand. In recent years, though, they've taken on a newer role thanks to powerful cards like Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils. These stop your opponents from drawing hands entirely, often ripping away all cards from their existing hands in the process. Alternatively, you can simply use Orcish Bowmasters and let your opponent have their cards as you ping them to death thanks to all the cards they drew.

Classic Control

You don't necessarily need to be all in on combo nonsense, though. Sometimes a good old fashioned control deck will get the job done just fine. This Cube offers all kinds of different options for counter magic, board wipes, and spot removal, meaning you can lock down boards with ease using the right build. From there, you can either put down a big, hard to deal with creature or a powerful planeswalker to close out the game. While I'm definitely highlighting this with White-Blue cards, there are many flavors of control possible in Cube, so make sure you experiment and try different things!

Drafting Mono-Color Decks

One thing you shouldn't be afraid to do in Vintage Cube is jumping into a mono-color lane. While it's certainly appealing to get crazy by drafting lands of several colors and playing all kinds of nonsense, sometimes it pays to go deep on a single color. In particular, White, Red, and Green are all excellent for this. Mono-Blue decks can tend to be a bit mediocre and rely on support of additional colors, and as such Blue is the one color that's hard to utilize on its own.. Additionally, while Mono-Black is feasible, it tends to be far less effective compared to the other colors, though it has received some fresh support as well with this most recent update.

Mono-White

Many players consider Mono-White to be one of the better archetypes of the whole Vintage Cube environment. Yes, an arguably fair deck is among the best things you can be doing in a field of truly broken decks. The reason for this is simple: it's a deck that can be low to the ground and beat down your opponents while simultaneously controlling and taxing their plays. If you're familiar with Legacy Death and Taxes, the concept is pretty much the same. You can play it as a straight aggro deck or else lean on a more controlling midrange deck thanks to cards like Palace Jailer and Parallax Wave.

Mono-Red

Alternatively, you could simply lean all into a more aggressive deck with Mono-Red. Burn is one of the more classic archetypes of eternal Magic formats, and Vintage Cube provides an outlet for the best cards ever to grace a Red Deck Wins list. Oftentimes these cards provide solid support for a variety of different archetypes, however, fairly often Red gets overlooked, making it remarkably easy to build a powerful Mono-Red deck that can simply beat opponents down before they can even try to get up to some shenanigans.

Mono-Green

If you're someone like me who loves casting Green spells, Vintage Cube provides an awesome way to go nuts. Mono-Green Ramp has always proven a potent strategy, utilizing tons of cheap mana dorks to rapidly build up to some of the biggest and baddest creatures in the game. Reanimator? Sneak Attack? Who needs those when you can just play them outright? You can even utilize cards like Green Sun's Zenith to find precisely what you need, or use Natural Order to cheat on your mana a little more and break out the big creatures fast.

Mono-Black

Last but not least is Mono-Black. As noted before, these kinds of decks tend to be hit and miss compared to the other three mono-colored lists previously mentioned. However, you can often play them as a decent midrange deck or else go deep on a Reanimator strategy thanks to most of the cards working within Mono-Black. Most recently, the Magic Online team added in Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber off the back of its recent standout performance in Standard. To buffer it a bit, they also added in several demons like Archfiend of the Dross and Blade of the Oni to help make sure you take as little damage to it as possible.

Pivoting From Mono-Color

One particular benefit for building up any of these mono-colored decks is how easy it is to pivot off into something else if your draft goes awry. Let's say you start out in a Mono-Red deck as you pick up plenty of cards in your first pack that work well for this strategy. Then you get to pack two and the Red cards dry up. You can easily pivot well into a two-color deck, building off the cards you've already got. Boros is particularly exceptional here, especially thanks to all the cards from the Modern Boros Energy deck that you can compile in one deck here.

Green is perhaps the best for this. Ramp provides a lot of flexibility in mana, as you frequently will find yourself drafting a couple of mana dorks that can tap for colors other than Green. This makes it extremely easy to maintain your core ramp strategy while adding in powerful splash cards. In Green-Blue, you can gain access to the likes of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath as well as Oko, Thief of Crowns. With Red you can include the Sneak Attack package and with Black you can take advantage of its excellent removal and Reanimator cards.

These are just a handful of ways you can go about this, but it shows that it's not necessarily a bad option to go one color and add in another if things don't work out. Get experimental, try out different things, and see what works. You might be surprised to find that something like an Orzhov deck works wonders!

So What's New?

So now we've gotten the more classic Cube archetypes, let's look at some of the new hotness. As noted above with Mono-Black, the Magic Online team has added in some new things throughout the year. I'll be covering not only the ones added in the most recent update, but also touching on a few powerhouses added earlier this year, starting with the bird in the room...

Nadu Combo

Nadu, Winged Wisdom has been enemy number one for many players of Constructed Magic throughout 2024, but would you believe me if I said it was also incredible in Cube? You'll be surprised how easy it is to take a Nadu during a draft only to get passed several key pieces for the deck, including Lightning Greaves which you can use to go off with. With the right deck, it's entirely possible to go through your whole deck, cast Thassa's Oracle, and win. You can even go the Endurance loop route with Sylvan Safekeeper if you're really feeling bold. I personally have drafted this a handful of times throughout the year and I promise you it's the real deal. Don't sleep on the bird!

Lhurgoyfs

While perhaps not necessarily an archetype, one thing that has stood out in the last few months has been the addition of these powerful Tarmogoyf variants. Tarmogoyf on its own has historically not been the greatest Limited card, and that remains true in Vintage Cube. However, when you staple some powerful effects to it, its stock goes up quite a bit. All of these cards are quite powerful, and building a deck themed around buffing up all of your Goyfs can prove a fun challenge for you to try out. Even if you don't want to build the Goyf deck, though, every one of these is worth having in any on-color deck that can run them, making them excellent additions to the Cube overall.

Aristocrats/Sacrifice

One of the newer strategies the Magic Online team is looking to push a bit is sacrifice - or aristocrats. An emphasis was placed on the addition of Marionette Apprentice and Goblin Bombardment as ways to push this. While there aren't too many Blood Artist-esque payoffs to speak of in the Cube, it's still worth building around, especially if you can take advantage of cards like Recurring Nightmare. If you want a great way to provide sacrificial fodder, token generators do a great job, and the recently printed Ocelot Pride makes them in ridiculous quantities. Best of all, this provides a solid secondary strategy if your main sacrifice theme doesn't pan out.

Up the Beanstalk and Domain

Last but not least, the coolest addition to this iteration of the Vintage Cube: Domain. One aspect of these updates the Magic Online team sought to add in were the Up the Beanstalk, and to help support this, Domain was brought in as a strategy. Many of the cards this kind of strategy the Up the Beanstalk strategy benefits from involve high mana costs. Cards like Leyline Binding and Scion of Draco both get cheaper the more domain you have, and Overlord of the Hauntwoods helps set those up perfectly. Each also happens to trigger the Beans, providing a powerful core engine for those willing to try putting it together.

That wraps things up for some of the major archetypes and newer aspects of the Cube that you can expect over the next few weeks! It's important to note that while these are some of the more obvious ways to build your decks, the beauty of Cube - particularly Vintage Cube - is that there's always new and unexpected things for you to do. You might build one of the more typical archetypes and then the next draft, you're rocking five color good stuff because you picked up so many lands that you can make it work. Try new things, get out of your comfort zone, and have a good time.

The Vintage Cube is live right now and goes through January 22nd, meaning you've got over a month to enjoy all the fun this special draft environment has to offer. For all the details on the Winter 2024 Vintage Cube and the full list of changes, check out this article here. Jump in, check it out, and I'll see you in the draft leagues! May all your pick one, pack ones be filled with power!

Paige Smith

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