Turning the Foundations Starter Collection into a Cube

 Magic: Foundations is the signpost for a new experiment in the MTG world. Products designed to be an entry point for new players that will last for 5 years. One of the products offered to help onboard players is the Foundations Starter Collection.

Normally products like this are not meant for me. This time I see it as an opportunity to make a cube for new players.

Why a Cube?

From the list online, it contains a mass variety of cards with almost all of the cards being printed at just a single copy. I could only assume it was meant to be a good enough collection to start building commander decks. But with most cubes being singleton, the design does lend itself into that direction. 

The majority of the cards themselves function independently, which is great for drafting where you don't know which decks will get what cards. This is great for introducing new players to drafting as it minimizes the amount of terrible choices drafters can make. Synergies still exist among the cards with WotC not shying away from combos or alternative win cons in the set and in this product. Their inclusions allows the curator to showcase the depths of the game, while making the experience enjoyable.

A couple of things to note is that the artifact section is fairly lacking with most cards being chosen for their flexbility. In regards to the parasitic cards, most cubes can allocate a small percentage of slots to them to give certain decks their defining characteristics, though the hate cards need to go unless you want players sideboarding.

Composition and Additions

So let's look at what is currently present with the initial product.

Based from this, this is currently the characteristics of each color and color combination

White: Lifegain, Go Wide Tokens, Fliers, Cats

Blue: Card Draw, Flash/Instants, Fliers, Instants/Sorceries

Black: Lifegain, Vampires, Reanimation, Sacrifice

Red: Burn, Go Wide tokens, Instants/Sorceries, Dragons

Green: Elves, Ramp, +1/+1 Counters, Big Creatures

Azorius (White/Blue) : Fliers

Orzhov (White/Black) : Lifegain

Boros (White/Red) : Tokens Aggro

Selesnya (White/Green): Midrange Aggro

Dimir (Blue/Black): Graveyard

Izzet (Blue/Red): Instants/Sorceries Matter

Simic (Blue/Green): Midrange

Rakdos (Black/Red): Sacrifice

Golgari (Black/Green): Graveyard

Gruul (Red/Green): Fires

Identifying these will inform the curators decision on what cards to include when filling out the missing cards or as you are making adjustments.

If you want to make your own decisions of what cards to add, I recommend finding cards that  have an overlap with at least two of the things mentioned. Do be aware effecient, powerful cards as they will naturally start taking over your cube if enough of them are placed in. 

Here are some examples of cards I'd want to put in for a foundations cube and logic of why.

Elementalist Adept is a perfect example for what I just described. It's well statted and has prowess and flash, making it playable in a vacuum. Decks that care about any of its characteristics make this card all the more better. 


Goblin Surprise is exemplary for instants in red. The card is an aggressive modal card that can be played at instant speed. The modes keep your options flexible and giving you different lines of play based on the game state. It is a card that will thrive in almost any red deck and will do thrive in decks that care about tokens or instants.

Day of Judgment would be added just based on the function of the card. Though it doesn't have synergies with anything else, its gameplay value cannot be understated and is important for balancing out certain gameplay patterns. Cards like these help diversify your meta as they can neuter certain decks completely, force them to play around these cards, and remind your players to diversify their drafts to counter this.

The End Step

https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/WakeUpFoundationCube

With some adjustments this is my list. I chose cards that were easy or cheap to acquire while removing narrow cards. I tried to keep it within foundations as much as reasonable since some playstyles don't have enough support at singleton.

Thanks for taking the time to reading this and I'm hoping this will be a great starting point for your cube journey. Don't fret too much about whether a choice is right or not for your cube since you can always adjust it. So focus on having fun.

If you want a more detailed guide on building a cube from scratch, check out this article which also discusses some more nuanced topics like color identity and how to avoid parasitism.

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