This is a budget cube, meant for (1) friends who love to draft but don't want to spend too much money; or (2) game stores that want to put some of their bulk cards to use by having a cube on hand that customers can pay a small fee to draft any time. Every card in it is <$1 at the time this list was created. It supports sealed for 2 or 4 players and draft for 4, 6, or 8 players.
Archetypes
The idea with this cube is to maximize the number of possible archetypes by choosing two-color archetypes that synergize well with other color pairs that share a color with them.
Thus:
Azorius - Valuetown
Boros - Token Aggro
Dimir - Surveil Control
Golgari - Graveyard
Gruul - Ramp Aggro
Izzet - Unblockable Spellslinger
Orzhov - Aristocrats
Rakdos - Reanimator
Selesyna - Tokens and Counters
Simic - Counter Bogles
To get an idea how this works, note that Golgari Graveyard goes well with Orzhov Aristocrats, which goes well with Selesnya Tokens, which goes well with Gruul Aggro, and so on. There are a lot of cards in each archetype category that could be played in others. I also prioritized cards with hybrid converted mana costs -- 10 for each guild -- in order to increase flexibility when drafting.
Given the large number of gold cards in this cube, I also added several multicolored-matters cards as a bonus archetype. That said, with all the hybrid-costed cards, you could also draft a monocolored deck (even a monocolored, multicolored deck!).
Lands
Furthermore, I settled on the tri-color lands for nonbasics because they provide the best fixing on a budget. Consider this: Say you had a full set of the original dual lands. Sure, they do come into play untapped, but beyond that, how many would help you fix your mana in an Izzet deck, for example? One. With the tri-color lands, there are three lands that include both blue and red.
Now, if you put that together with the archetype synergies, it makes for a cube that encourages a wide variety of mixing and matching, as well as supporting splashing a third color. Want to make a Jund deck? Go ahead! Gruul gets you aggressive creatures and effects; Golgari recurs your creatures; and Rakdos controls the board. While, of course, Savage Lands is the perfect nonbasic for a Jund deck, if you just look at what lands will get you two of your three colors, there are seven to choose from!
Categories
The categories below are not meant to indicate the only cards that could work in each archetype, but just the ones that I put in the cube with each archetype in mind. Remember, though, that the archetypes have intentional overlap, so a white card from "Orzhov" might work great in a Selesnya deck, for example. The only other category is "General Utility," which includes the nonbasic lands, some colorless mana rocks, some colorless graveyard hate, and the multicolored-matters cards. (Each guild category also includes that guild's locket for extra card draw and ramp/fixing.)
Feedback
If you have any ideas for how to improve upon this cube, let me know in the comments. Suggestions welcome!
