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HOUSE RULES

Pathfinder can have any number of the basic sites from the draft kit in its Atlas.

If you draft Adept Illusionist or Brother Knight, you get an additional copy of that card.

STRATEGY GUIDE (revised after 4 draft):

The cores and mixes are quite good. There are many expensive bombs, getting them out before your opponent develops their board is an easy way to win. The curve is less than perfect. I would prefer there to be about 10 more 2-mana minions so you'll need to prioritize 2-mana minions highly. Premium removal is needed to stop the many bombs. Keep an eye out for an Avatar that fits with your gameplan, or the generically great ones like Elementalist and Druid. Some of the best cards in the cube are the Cores/Philosopher's Stone, Four Waters, The Green Knight, Infernal Legion, Ring Of Morrigan.

PICK ORDER SUGGESTION

Artifact Ramp

Premium 2-Mana Minions

Removal

Threshold Fixing

Bombs

Everything else

COMBOS

The Green Knight + Lady of the Lake

13 Treasures of Britain + Kythera Mechanism

Pnakotic Manuscript + Plague of Frogs or Tadpole Pool or Tufted Turtles

Drums of Doom + Druid

ELEMENT RANKING

Fire and Water

Air

Earth

ARCHETYPES

MIDRANGE

Everything is some form of midrange, which is refreshing given the state of constructed. Your average curve will be something like:

1 spell that costs 1

5 spells that cost 2

7 spells that cost 3

5 spells that cost 4

3 spells that cost 5

3 spells that cost 6

The hardest part is getting the one and two mana spells so be sure to prioritize those. Only prioritize 5 and 6 mana cards that are either great removal or legitimate game enders.

AGGRO

It's very hard to draft an aggressive curve due to a lack of premium 2-mana minions. So take some 5-6 mana spells even if you're trying to beat down. You're unlikely to end the game quickly so you'll want some top end.

CONTROL

By control I really mean a midrange deck with a higher than average curve or a deck that has a larger than normal suite of premium removal. Ideally both. I think Archimago has a real shot at being a competitive control Avatar if you amass 10+ good magics to control the game with.

RAMP

You can watch me draft Earth ramp in this video: https://youtu.be/dLSqqBLDWgw?si=NSrYj2kjRkAkBwaU

You want 5+ sources of ramp and 5+ expensive cards to cast (6+ mana). This is the only deck that can use Black Obelisk effectively. I don't think this deck necessarily needs to be Earth but there are 3 or more sources of ramp in Earth that help a lot and some of the best things to ramp into are in Earth so it's pretty likely that's where you want to be.

COMBO

you can watch me try to draft Combo in this video: https://youtu.be/TSx69NCtN6A?si=Iz7NjJkRGvbDH8s9

There's not a ton of combos yet but some of the ones that exist are quite potent. The two combos that draw cards are what I think of when I think of a combo deck (see list of combos above). Seer is the best Avatar to assemble these. If you pick up one half of the 13 Treasures combo, other players are unlikely to draft the other half so you're pretty likely to get it assembled. The small deck size makes it easier to assembling them consistently.

CUBE DETAILS

Sites:

There are 2 sites in every pack. I broke singleton for 2 of each of the dual- and tri-element sites. That is all the fixing sites in the cube (so no colour out of space etc.) There are 7 utility sites of each element. There are no colorless sites, they can be a trap for newer players, and none are powerful enough to justify pushing out single-element sites that would see more play.

Avatars:

No Sorcerer because he's uninteresting. No Enchantress because not enough auras. I've been very impressed with the effect of the Avatars so far. Witch, Deathspeaker, and Archimago are the most questionable. I saw Archimago come together once and be good. Witch I've seen played and really wasn't impressive. Deathspeaker's been played before and wasn't great either. Don't risk playing the tri-element sites with Pathfinder.

Minions:

The general advice I've heard is you want about 17 minions, 7 non-minions in your Spellbook. That's 70% minions. I applied this benchmark to the entire cube. Currently 63% of spells (non-site, non-avatar cards) are minions. It turns out the 3-mana 3-power minions aren't good enough. There are lots of these replacement level minions in the cube currently acting as curve fillers. They will exit the cube when Gothic comes out. Just a word of advice, most of the one-power minions are there for a specific purpose such as Deathspeaker, you shouldn't be playing most of them without a reason. Stop playing Apprentice Wizard in limited! The body doesn't do anything so you're just paying 3 to draw a card. Just put a different card there and save yourself the 3 mana.

Stats for nerds:

60 spells of each element

28 multicolor spells

7 sites of each element

20 multi-element sites

2.0 sites/pack

Average Mana Cost of Minions in Each Element:

Earth: 4.0

Fire: 3.8

Water: 3.7

Air: 4.1

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