This is a synergy cube with legacy format legality (since 2008!) with no fast mana (Sol Ring, Moxen; Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond included, Black Lotus), no absurd card advantage (Library of Alexandria, Ancestral Recall), no insanely powerful cards like Time Walk.
Also, there will be no non-interactive cards (True-Name Nemesis, Jace, Memory Adept - Milling as a strategy) and limit the color-hosing (anything with Protection from
Combos require some work to be assembled (Reanimator, Welder, Tinker). Cheat-into-play strategies are kept in strict check; no cheat-into-play cards (Oath of Druids, Through the Breach, Sneak Attack, Eureka, Natural Order, Show and Tell), and there are no "free" cards either (Daze, Force of Will, Snuff Out), so mana is important.
No signets or talismans, but there are plenty of 2-cmc mana rocks to make up for it. I feel signets make the cube too multi-colored, I'm trying to promote 2-color decks, with the occasional 3-color if the drafter prioritizes mana fixing. Life gain is kept to a minimum as it helps the aggro decks. Each color pair contains multiple archetypes, so decks usually consist of combining some factors of one with the other, but astute drafters who read the lanes are rewarded (synergy!).
There are no planeswalkers limits, but I do watch their numbers. I do believe there is a point where there are too much of them. With the few I do run, I like to have a variety of them to hit either a common macro-theater (aggro Elspeth, Knight-Errant, midrange Garruk Wildspeaker, control Jace, the Mind Sculptor) or act as a build-around (Daretti, Scrap Savant, Saheeli, Sublime Artificer etc). Game play has significantly increased with the lower amount of planeswalkers in the cube (less than 5%).
No proxies, no foil, no foreign, no un-sets, supplemental sets can be included (like conspiracy and commander) as long as there aren't any rule changes (no monarch cards or draft-matters cards). Most vintage level power cards aren't included either (Balance, Treachery, Umezawa's Jitte, Skullclamp). The Swords aren't included either because of the protections. No tutors either (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor), except some in green to promote a toolbox style deck (Green Sun's Zenith, Birthing Pod, Once Upon a Time).
This cube promotes interactivity with deep strategic decisions. It contains synergistic and powerful cards meant to be drafted in a limited environment. Decisions during the draft is as important as decisions during game play. This cube has long moved away from the max-power traditional cube paradigm and a great effort has been made to reduce the oppressive, repetitive, or game-warping cards. There should always be a way to outplay your opponent, so there are few-to-none of the hard-to-deal-with cards (indestructible, hexproof, shroud, undying, persist; not that there is anything wrong with these inherently). There are plenty of avenues for the Timmy, Johnny, and Spike player, albeit all decks still fall within the more traditional deck-building trappings (this is not a purely Johnny-cube).
Mainly, this cube provides a way of showing off a creative draft deck or a highly efficient draft deck. I want high-variance in the draft decks, but low-variance game play with branching decision trees. I don't subscribe to the cube school of Hyper-geometric Analysis.
Duplicates
There are signpost cards for most archetypes in the guilds. The cube is mostly singleton except for the double Fetchlands, double enemy Shocklands, and quadruple Wastelands in the Utility Land Draft.
The cards below are drafted using a voucher system, courtesy of user @Shamim. All those cards benefit the decks they are played in by having more copies in the deck without becoming oppressive, thus defining deck archetypes themselves. The voucher is only used to provide a second copy of a card, so you will need to draft both the card and the voucher. There can be up to 4 copies of the voucher in the draft.
Champion of the Parish
Bloodsoaked Champion
Gravecrawler
Monastery Swiftspear
Young Pyromancer
Experiment One
Collected Company
Birthing Pod
Souldherder
Archetypes
Roughly, as of this writing, the archetypes:
w-u: Flyers, Blink, Control
u-b: Reanimator, Control, Tempo
b-r: Artifact Sacrifice, Stax, Aggro Self-discard, Artifact Control
r-g: Ramp, Lands-Matter, Wildfire, Midrange
g-w: Humans, +1/+1 Counters-matter, Pod, Collected Company, Lands-matter, Landfall
w-b: Human Aggro, Control, Aristocrats / Stax, Death and Taxes
b-g: Graveyard-Matters, Reanimator, Midrange, Control
g-u: Self-Mill, Ramp, Tempo
u-r: Spells-Matter, Counter Burn, UR artifacts (Tinker), Upheaval, Wildfire
r-w: Tokens, Aggro, Artifact Aggro, Tax and Burn
Utility Land Draft (40 cards)
The Utility Lands are drafted rotisserie style, 4 picks per player. So in a 6-player draft, 24 cards are chosen, and in an 8-player, 32 cards are selected.
Academy Ruins
Ancient Den
Arch of Orazca
Barren Moor
Bojuka Bog
Castle Ardenvale
Castle Embereth
Castle Garenbrig
Castle Locthwain
Castle Vantress
Cavern of Souls
Desolate Lighthouse
Eiganjo Castle
Faerie Conclave
Flagstones of Trokair
Forgotten Cave
Gavony Township
Great Furnace
Kessig Wolf Run
Lonely Sandbar
Mishra's Factory
Mutavault
Mystic Sanctuary
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Phyrexian Tower
Ramunap Ruins
Reflecting Pool
Seat of the Synod
Secluded Steppe
Teetering Peaks
Tranquil Thicket
Tree of Tales
Treetop Village
Unclaimed Territory
Vault of Whispers
Vesuva
Volrath's Stronghold
Wasteland
Wasteland
Wasteland
