The Gleeman's Journey - A Custom Cube

Blackjacks Tavern is a gathering point for all manners of interesting patrons. Some nights, you may have Gremlins from the Deathmatch Arena, others, a duo of Ninjas. Tonight, we find ourselves with perhaps the oddest of visitors. A gleeman hailing from Metrix.

This particular gleeman tells some tall tales. Supposedly, he has seen every corner of Rathe, and interacted with every variety of beast. Many tales he tells are too flamboyant to be true, too exciting to be fact, too exhilarating to be experience. And yet, exciting they are.

On this particular night, he is telling a tale told across three distinct lands, and with six distinct characters. How they are connected still seems to be a mystery, though I have no doubt he will arrive at the destination of this story all the same.

Seeing as you are jumping in halfway, allow me to introduce his characters to you, so that you are not lost should you indulge in his entertainment.

360 cards.

6 heroes.

3 talents.

2 classes.

All done in little more than 18 days.

Building a completely custom cube is not a small feat, but looking back on the journey I've taken, it was well worth the effort.

If you would like to see the full gallery of cards in this cube, you can find it here: https://www.blackjackstavern.com/the-tavern

But, we're not done yet. I didn't just want to make a cube. I wanted to craft it. And to create a playable, functioning set ready to be drafted, I have a lot more work to do.

Namely, these cards are in no way, shape, or form balanced. The next step of this journey is just that: To balance these cards. To whip these cards into shape and into place.

This article serves an entry point for anyone looking to help me test these cards, as well as a time capsule of the first version of this cube. So let's take a look at what this cube offers. At the different heroes that make up the contents of it's depths.

Part 1: Volcor

Draconic features two heroes, the Royal Executioner, K'aakai (Currently investigating the curious case of the undying Dracai) and the Dwarven King, Monte. Both heroes have two intended decks (As well as a plethora of unintended decks just waiting to be discovered).

K'aakai is a bit mechanically complicated. Effectively, once you complete the built in Fealty questline, you can start fueling Fealties into the Draconic passive ability. To describe it in as few words as possible, once you attack with a Draconic stealth, at any point in the chain, you can activate it as though you were to activate a weapon attack. This will then create a Hunt token (1 power Assassin attack with stealth and ephemeral) with all base abilities of the activated Draconic stealth card. In other words, you get to double up on your Stealth attacks.

K'aakai's two intended gameplay styles abuse the doubling up in different ways.

The first deck you may find yourself gravitating to is Aggro K'aakai. By doubling up your Stealth cards, if you have a damage positive ability on the card, like what's found on Ruthless Following, you can start raking in some incredible damage numbers. Hit them twice with earlier Draconic cards or your daggers, and then Ruthless Following effectively becomes a 0 for 8 with a broken Fealty.

If you're playing this sort of deck, you'll often find the Draconic activation is quick, costing no action points. If you can then give the Hunt go again through a card like Keep the Scent, you get to bank that extra action point. Having these extra sources of go again does shore up any problems you may have if you can't manage to hit before your powerful Stealth.

With all these attacks being thrown around, making your way to the fourth chain link for rupture becomes almost elementary. Thankfully, there's no shortages of powerful rupture payoffs in the cube. Pick up a copy of Scraping the Ashen Sky to close your turn with 7 dominate and an extra Hunt.

The other deck you may find yourself playing on K'aakai is midrange disruption. Presenting a Stealth with a threat attached is one thing, but it's another thing entirely if your opponent is worried about having to face it twice. Cards like Ace up the Sleeve present these threats, forcing the opponent to question whether or not they want to take a hand wheel to the face two (or more) times in a row.

These questions become even harder to answer the moment go again gets involved. Sure, your opponent might be able to block your hits in such a way that you don't have the action points to spend on the Draconic activation, but all of that gets thrown out the window the moment you decide to give the threat go again through a card like Touch with Wild Flames.

And what if your opponent plays perfectly, blocking exactly what they need to in order to prevent on hits? Are you not still an Assassin deck with attack reactions to push through your on hits? Try a card like Crippling Reflex, which serves double duty to push through the current threat and creates an additional threat on both the base Stealth and the following Hunt.

Monte features a relatively simple quest: Put a red card in your pitch zone. Upon doing so, your daggers get to come in quite literally for free. They cost zero resources, cost zero action points, and get +1 damage assuming you've played a Draconic card somewhere. The moment you get a red card in your pitch zone, you get 2 free damage without even trying.

Monte's two intended decks attempt to break that free damage.

Your first deck you'll fall into is a simple aggro deck. Step one: Pitch a red card. Look for a 1 cost card like Steady Breathing to put a red card in your pitch zone with minimal lost value. Anything you can find that puts about 5 damage on the table is worth picking up to easily manage a two card 7.

Assuming you've found the red card to pitch, you've basically got two free chain links. The odds one of those attacks hits is quite high, so consider picking up cards like Boiling Hot Pot, which trigger off of other cards hitting for added value.

With your top end taken care of, consider picking up some cards like Bound to the Arena to raise your floor. Bound to the Arena is fairly easy to keep around and effectively increases every turn you put together by 2 damage moving forward.

Monte's other deck is a lot more explosive. Found in the cube are a number of cards like Storm of Steel, which enable you extra attacks. Storm of Steel can manage up to four attacks with the same weapon, though other cards might represent different total swings.

Now, three extra weapon attacks on their own aren't really super exciting, until you bring a card like Molten Flow into the mix. For every point of damage you can stack on your weapons, this five attack turn gets another 5 damage. Molten Flow is twice as effective, representing 10 damage in a single card.

Damage is one thing, but what if you can stack hits on the weapon? Consider cards like Sharpened Senses, which turns every single one of your extra weapon attacks into a potential to draw a card and extend your turn even further. With enough of these effects stacked on a single turn, there's almost nothing your opponent can do to prevent inclement lethal.

Part 2: Solana

Light features two heroes, the Vampire, Harker and the General, Danu (Who really just wants to return to her simple life as a Lumberjack). Each hero is designed to support two distinct archetypes.

Harker is basically the definition of value. The hero ability is relatively self explanatory. 2 resources and a card in soul for 2 damage, every stealth hit gets you some extra life. The real intrigue enters play the moment you consider the Glinting Edge tokens.

Harker is built on these Glinting Edge's, which are 1 cost 0 go again stealth attacks that get +1 assuming you control a +1 counter thanks to Light's card pool. The simple fact that these weapons feature stealth means that Harker has the unique ability to completely ignore other stealth attacks should they desire.

The first deck is a value based deck, finding ways to wring out every bit of value you can from every corner of Harker's abilities. Try searching for cards like From an Odd Angle to get rid of your starting Letter Openers to free up some room for Glittering Edge tokens. And if you have an extra edge, consider tossing it for extra value and some life gain from Harker.

While you're making these dagger tokens, consider cards like Filled with Sol to maximize the buff you generate. Try finding some cards that key off of having buffed power or can transfer the power buff across the combat chain, like in the case here. 2 for +2 isn't much, but quickly goes out of control when you can start doubling it up.

And double it up indeed, as cards like Collector's Obsession can be easy to trigger and incredibly powerful to play out. Try digging for these cards that play off of every single ability you utilize to maximize your effectiveness on every angle.

The other deck you might consider on Harker is one in which you go all in on dagger cards. As the only hero with stealth daggers, you can quickly find some degenerate combos that get out of control. Consider a card like Behavioral Patterns, which enables essentially permanent Hunt generation while under a Glinting Edge.

Alternatively, consider a card like Empowered Will, which both pumps your entire turn and reduces the cost of both Harker's ability and dagger attacks. It's as if you're playing out a Monte deck, but with a completely different class and talent.

And to make your turns even a bit more degenerate, assuming you have free dagger swings and free Harker activations, play a card like Pierce Through the Hide to throw the daggers you've already attacked with away so you can buy a few more and extend a bit further.

Danu is both arguably the most complicated hero in the pool and the most interesting one to try and break.

The mechanic is a little complicated, as it manipulates +1 counters on weapons and weapon attack proxies. To put it simply, if you attack with a weapon, you create a proxy attack of the weapon in question. Light cards in this cube like to put +1 counters on attacks. Warrior cards in this cube like to +1 counters on weapons. If you put a +1 counter on a weapon, it does not get added to the proxy attack. Likewise, if you put a +1 counter on the proxy attack, it does not get added to the weapon. Danu's ability then allows you to rectify that. This grants your weapon attacks an ability to move +1 counters from the weapon attack proxy to the weapon assuming it has greater than twice its base and has a +1 counter on the attack.

Danu also gets to have go again on the weapon attacks when banishing cards in your arsenal, but that's self explanatory.

The first deck you'll look to play from Danu is quite easy to pick up on. Your axe may start out small, but if you can pump it up even just a single time, the rest of your turns get a permanent buff that can grow out of control until you have an 8 power axe.

In order to start pushing through your first couple counters, consider picking up a card like Heavy is the Hatchet. These cards provide both the necessary buff and some evasion to ensure the card manages to hit and move the counter.

But on the off chance you do miss, Heavy Hand provides you a second chance. Though it is not an "extra attack", this action card does come with the attack keyword, allowing you to swing your weapon when you otherwise might not be able to. There are a ton of cards like this in the cube, so keep your eyes out for any that allows you to push your weapon a bit further with the attack keyword.

To make all of this function as intended though, you're going to want to find a +1 counter somewhere, so try and pick up a few copies of cards like Marching Tempo to power up your weapon swings as much as possible.

The alternative playstyle for Danu is a bit of a divergence of gameplay. While you could spend all your cards pushing your Axe as large as possible, you could also just get a single counter on it and now you have a one card 4. And then if you can find a second counter, a one card 5 is just good math. Suddenly, we're operating in the space of incredibly disgusting fatigue states.

If you want to get to these disgusting states, consider running defensive cards like Dress Wounds to gain life or block extra damage and make the game go long enough for your horrible deeds to play out.

For as much value as possible, consider running some courage generators like Sharpen the Axehead. These cards allow you to create your buffs on different turns than when you intend to use them, and can even allow you to bank your buffs for a single incredible swing, should you see fit and desire to do so.

To close out the game, you need some way to get around defenses. Pick up cards like The Harder They Fall, which has so much value written on it in the endgame, you'd be crazy not to at least consider it.

Part 3: Misteria

Mystic features two heroes, the Serpent Tamer, Wan and the Cosmic Visitor, Chakra (Who's still a little confused as to what they're exactly doing here...).Each hero is designed to support two distinct archetypes.

Wan is effectively an answer to the question "What if Nuu was more cohesive and not just fatigue/value slop?" The hero features a chi ability to effectively double up attack reactions as well as a passive ability to grant extra attack reactions on stealth chain links. The hero ability is relatively straight forward, with most of the intrigue coming from the card pool and how it interacts with each other.

One deck you can build with Wan is a bit strange for how aggressive Wan's ability seems to be. Wan is tailor made for a late game value engine, allowing you to use the Chi ability to play a reaction from your arsenal, bounce it to hand, and arsenal it for the next turn. Take Split the Flow, for example. It and two Chi allows you to put a card into your deck and keep it in your hand for the next turn, a net +1 card to your deck's size. There are a few cards like this that allow you to retain cards or even go positive in card advantage, so keep an eye out for them.

While you're in this end game, you may want a good target to attack and close the game. Spotlight can fill this role, providing hand knowledge and defense disruption, allowing you to dodge powerful reactions and potentially even cancel their last blocking card in hand. Consider looking for cards like Spotlight that you can close games with.

But you do need to somehow remain in the game for that obscene length of time. Consider cards like Malice, disruptive elements that remove your opponents threats before they can be played so you can stall the game as long as possible.

The other Wan deck is more standard. Why worry with stalling the game when you can just kill your opponent in a single powerful reaction step? Meteor Shower, for example, is a 0 cost card that can very quickly get to some powerful damage numbers with enough Chi to play with. There are a number of cards in the cube that can serve this role, though Meteor Shower is among the best. It and a single Chi is +6. Add another Chi and you're sitting at +13. One more Chi and you can manage +22 in reactions.

But perhaps instead of attacking with just a single stealth, try and find cards like Hunt the Unending Serpent, allowing you to go an extra stealth chain link deep to double up your Fang Strike generation.

All of this is well and good, but might be a problem if you can't find the pieces you need. Thankfully, it's not that hard to pick up a few pieces like Contingency Plan to draw some extra cards and dig for the elusive combo.

Chakra is the first hero in the game to feature a built in "stance swap" style of gameplay. When you pitch your first Chi to the hero ability, you are offered a choice of targets to ascend.

Ascending your shield grants it +2 and a powerful activated ability which ascends your hero after enough uses. Ascending your sword creates two Courage tokens and ascends your hero at the end of the turn if you've played enough blue cards. Regardless of the path you go down, ascending your hero results in an incredible turn where every single blue you play is substantially cheaper to play out.

The first deck Chakra may build is focused on ascending the shield. The shield already provides incredible defensive value on it's own, but you'll probably need to augment it in certain ways so you can manage to survive a Monte or Wan power turn. Consider cards like Movement of the Heavens in order to keep enough blue cards in hand to activate the shield a few more times to ascend Chakra.

Assuming you manage to stay defensive enough, you'll still need cards to play on your turn, and your sword unfortunately requires a cost. Thankfully, Warrior comes full of cards like Steady Heart, which generate you Vigor tokens in order to cheat out the last resource and swing with your weapon without needing to pitch a single card.

And if you don't want to get Vigor tokens, the cost reduction from Chakra still allows you to play some cards without pitching that you otherwise would. One good example is the Heat of Battle, which swings your sword for 4 total damage and a potential ponder (to get more cards to defend with next turn.)

Alternatively you can focus Chakra into the sword, playing an aggressive value deck. Your first quest in this deck is going to be ascending your hero. If you can manage that, the cost reduction means every subsequent ascension is child's play. But your first ascension might be a bit difficult. Consider cards like Duel, a 0 cost blue that you can throw out as necessary to trigger half of the ascension cost.

Assuming you've ascended, though, start looking at some high cost beaters, like Moon's Pull. It and two blues swings for a staggering total of 11 damage, with 9 of that coming in reaction speed. You get to reduce some expensive hammerers down to more manageable costs, so try focusing on pulling off these powerful combos.

Alternatively, you can try cards like Study the Blade, which allow you to spread your value over multiple turns. Not only are you ascending every turn, but you're getting +3 on every swing. Cards like this can increase your floor far enough that even the most defensive opponents might stagger to your swings.

Part 4: Considerations

Of course, you don't have to use these archetypes as hard and fast guides. What happens if a Monte deck can resolve a Study the Blade? How might a Behavioral Patterns Harker deck look when using the Hunt cards like Keep the Scent? And that's not even including the other 324 cards featured in this cube.

Combinations are endless, with some draft lines I likely haven't even considered here.

I will leave you with a single card, which is perhaps my favorite card in the whole cube:

(The frame is chaos as I am still waiting on Fabkit to make hybrid card frames functional)

Jackdaw's Razor is pretty simple. A 1 cost +3/2/1 that creates a Blacktek Claw token, which is a simple 1 for 1 go again dagger item (doesn't take a weapon zone) that destroys itself at the end of the turn you attack with it.

K'aakai might want the card as a way to bank hit triggers. Hold onto a few of these, and swing it when needed to ensure your Hunts are quick.

Monte might want the card as a free red pitch outlet. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just bank them for any turn you miss an outlet to put a red in your pitch zone.

Harker can do so much with this card it's incredible. Dagger throwing, extra chain links for buffs, the possibilities are endless.

Danu might can almost treat these cards as an extra courage token. Given the cost of the Axe at 2 resources, a blue pitched into it leaves a floating that would happily be spent on a Claw for 1 go again.

Wan goes nuts with the dagger, as they have the unique ability to bounce the reaction back to hand to keep making dagger tokens. Eventually, he can manage a simple 12 chain link turn to close out a game without fear of blocks.

Chakra has Study the Blade. Shall I say more about how this might interact positively with a few daggers sitting off to the side?

I hope you've gotten to meet our cast of characters and found their introductions amicable.

If you want to see more of what they might be able to offer, return to the top of the webpage and click on that link to see the full gallery.

With our starting point for this cube established, it's time to start testing and balancing. I have no clue when the first actual draft of this cube will happen, but it's still a pretty far distance away.

But there's no time like the present, so let's begin testing. Let's see what exactly this cube might be able to offer.

If you would like to join into the discussion in real time as I'm testing and developing, stop into the Fabcube discord server and say hello! Maybe even build a cube while you're at it. You can find the link here.