“Restrictions breed creativity.” It’s a maxim oft-repeated by Magic’s long-time head designer Mark Rosewater. As a result, those of us who toil away curating our own Cubes — people generally without formal game design experience who nonetheless vie to employ the existing ~26,900 Magic: the Gathering cards into a coherent draft format that is maximally satisfying for their particular play group — lean heavily on this concept.

Nowhere is the notion that “restrictions breed creativity” more true than in the so-called “guild” sections of Cubes, a selection of cards that slot into up to ten two-color combinations affectionately named on popular Cube management platform Cube Cobra after their respective guilds from Ravnica. While there are many approaches that Cube curators take to filling their two-color sections (if they’re filled at all!), perhaps the most common strategy is to add roughly one card for each guild for every 100 cards in the full list. 

With the most popular Cube sizes in the 360-500 range, that means most Cubes will only run three to five cards per guild, making these slots both some of the most competitive and the best opportunities for Cubes curators to flex their style and represent their goals. There may be massive diversity in the ~300 Boros cards that players may consider for their Cube lists, for example, but there are some clear trends across the typical list that are worth examining to understand what the guild is capable of as 2024 rolls around, and help Curators understand how to best optimize their precious guild slots to make for the best drafts possible.

Earlier this month, the team at Cardboard by the Numbers engaged in analysis surrounding the most popular new cards for Cube printed in 2023. We’ll be using that same data today to help us grok the “state of Boros” in Cube, which explored the 100 most-popular Cubes on CubeCobra with the following criteria: 1) the Cube has been updated in the last month, 2) the Cube is unrestricted, or otherwise does not have limits to cards included based on rarity, expansion, date of release, etc., 3) the card is intended for 1v1 gameplay, and 4) the Cube can support a full draft table of at least 8 players.

I wanted to start with Boros because of the significant change the guild has seen this year. More than half of my own red & white cards have been swapped out this year for fresh cardboard, and similarly, 40% of the MODO Cube’s Boros section is updated with cards sporting a 2023 copyright. But why the switch? And what exactly is being played?

Some classic Cube favorites like Figure of Destiny and Lightning Helix have held on, but joining them are an assortment of ten cards all released since 2020. To go even further, half of the top Boros cards in Cube were first printed this year. War may never change, but the war-centered guild in Magic: the Gathering sure seems to!

A quick note: for the purposes of this analysis, I’m using cards that are typically played as red and white cards, regardless of strict color identity. Additionally, lands and mana artifacts within Boros are most often treated differently by Cube curators and don’t necessarily compete for the same “slots”, and have thus been excluded from this analysis.

Power (Level) Rising

Ajani Vengeant was long considered the ultimate Boros card: a planeswalker that dominated in midrange, control, and even some aggro builds, he was a flexible threat that kept opponents’ threats at bay but could also “Lightning Helix” your opponents to the dome for that last bit of damage. He was also the rare ‘walker cast with designs towards cracking his ultimate, a valid win-condition in an era where individual threats on the board were less potent. 

But now, Ajani has fallen out of favor, to put it mildly. While it’s an imperfect measure, particularly considering both that the median Cube on CubeCobra has not seen an update in the last two years and that more cards are printed each year than in the first decade of the game’s existence, Ajani’s play-rate has dropped 485% among all Cubes on the platform since its peak when the Cube Cobra first launched in 2019.

Contrasted to this year’s powered favorites, it’s not hard to see why. 

Overnight Legacy staple Forth Eorlingas! Is one of the most-played cards in powered Cubes of all shapes and sizes with a 91% play rate, with a higher inclusion rate in our sample than even long-time format staples like Stoneforge Mystic (77%) and modern marvels like Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath (86%). With a minimum cost of just two mana, it’s the cheapest way to become the monarch available to Cube curators, and its token effect scales in a way that’s disastrous for anyone on the other side of it.

As you can tell from the disparity in interest between powered and unpowered Cubes, not all curators are interested in the monarch mechanic. Besides the card being prohibitively strong on its face for all but the most power-motivated lists, the monarch mechanic is costed for multiplayer and can feel oppressive in 1v1 matches, creating a natural snowball effect for the player with the crown. As such — and because of its use of an additional game piece required to track — many Cubes will exclude the mechanic as a rule. But for any list looking to emulate or create the most powerful matches of Magic ever played, Forth Eorlingas! Seems like a slam dunk.

Kaldheim’s Showdown of the Skalds is a compelling pick in terms of power-level as well. For most of the low-curved aggro decks interested in the saga, the card reads as a “draw four” with upside for four mana, an effect otherwise unheard of at the cost. Interestingly, the play-rate between powered Cubes and unpowered ones is identical, representing how card draw is (mostly) only as strong as the cards you’re able to rip from the top.

While I don’t think the Powered/Unpowered dichotomy is the most useful for discussing Cubes generally (mostly because of the unbelievable diversity of “unpowered” lists and a dislike of the assumption that powered is the “default” when it makes up a small minority of games of Cube played), the differences in preference it reveals quite clearly demonstrates the different ways that cards are selected for guilds. The (admittedly small) sample-within-a-sample of 22 powered Cubes optimize had a 50% hit-rate for including Comet, Stellar Pup — a clear #3 choice after Forth Eorlingas! and Figure of Destiny and well ahead of Rip Apart. For anyone who’s played with it, the card is clearly busted, random chance or not, and the card’s occasional forays into Legacy and Vintage only serves to validate the huge power-level boost that Boros has gotten recently. Where it was once considered one of the most shallow guilds from a Cube curator POV, Boros is anything but now. 

Signposts in Boros

As mentioned before, most Cube designers are not necessarily formal game designers themselves, and (rightfully) lean on the practices of Studio X for inspiration on how to make a good limited format. As the excellent Magic Data Science loves to highlight, one of the central strategies in the design skeleton that underlies modern set design are, as he calls them, “#2CUDS”: 2-color uncommon draft signposts. These cards help guide drafters into major themes of the color-pair in draft. To emulate that guiding element in their own drafts, many Cube curators have moved away from using coveted guild slots for efficient removal, “goodstuff”, or generic threats and towards build-arounds and archetype enablers. 

Particularly in the unpowered Cubes in the sample can you see this trend. The most popular retail archetypes in Boros over the last few years are all represented: “go-wide” or tokens-matter can be found in over a quarter of unpowered lists in Krenko-alike Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon and to a lesser (but no less impressive) extent in the recursive finisher Otharri, Suns’ Glory.

Likely the next most common retail archetype seen in red/white is equipment, a trend also reflected in the designs of commanders in the last few years. Kellan, the Fae-Blooded found his way through the Omenpaths into 14% of all sampled Cubes by being the most capable representative of this archetype to tango with Magic’s most famous faces. Adventure cards have over-performed in Cubes of all styles since their first appearance in the original Eldraine expansion, and Kellan takes advantage of the format by providing both a way to get the equipment and a bonus for using it with both sides at competitive costs. This helps smooth the usual tension in equipment decks of either not having enough swords or enough dudes to hold them, all within the same piece of cardboard.

In no small part beloved thanks to her strong showing in multiple 60-card formats and as a commander, Winota, Joiner of Forces is a card that asks drafters to approach the draft and their curve-out in a different manner, opening up novel new deck building strategies. Heartflame Duelist asks you to prioritize burn spells even more than you may have otherwise. The last few years have provided many more of these style of cards at higher power levels than ever before.

One of my favorite niche archetypes for Cube, legends-matter, also got some love! An impressive 13% of unpowered Cube curators were also willing to try out Merry, Esquire of Rohan as a card that slots into equipment-matters decks, buries opponents in card advantage in historic decks, and works well enough in more generic aggressive strategies as well. 

What’s Missing?

I don’t think I could talk about The State of Boros in 2023/2024 without mentioning a few other cards printed this year that have been undoubtedly impressive but have not yet caught on to the same degree.

Wildfire Awakener is perhaps the most powerful card excluded from the list. Between the X in its mana cost and Convoke, the flexibility on how you cast the card and the impact it can have on the board is only limited by your imagination. For those excited by monarch in their Cubes, the King of Rohan is a beast of a Magic card. Of Éomer, King of Rohan, popular Cube writer wtwlf123 said the “card is a cracked #mtgcube card”, saying that it’s “A deadly combination of board impact and value, it wins a lot of games when it resolves”. Another recent arrival that has the chance of being a longtime Cube player is the constructed favorite Quintorius Kand, whose cascade-like ability can drive an incredible amount of value.

Additionally, from my list, I’m a big fan of Riders of Rohan. Aside from doing a great job capturing the feeling of one of my favorite groups in The Lord of the Rings, the card is one of the most insane army-in-a-can payoffs we’ve seen to-date, with the ability to bring out 8 power for five mana with half of it hasty, plus the option to give the whole crew the ability to attack the turn you cast it for only one mana more. Even in my relatively powerful 720 list, this card has been able to close out games with style. 

For peasant Cubes, it’s also worth noting that one of the most-played new cards of 2023 was Boros as well: Imodane’s Recruiter. An absolute menace in his home format of Wilds of Eldraine, peasant curators have gravitated towards the finisher as one of their favorite cards from the guild.

Fallen Friends

We already discussed Ajani Vengant’s precipitous loss in favor over the last few years, but those who have long wandered the halls of Cube history may have noticed a few other auspicious omissions as well. The Guilds of Ravnica legends Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice and Tajic, Legion’s Edge are only found in 2% of the sampled lists a piece, and Gatecrash favorites from Vintage Cubes of years past like Assemble the Legion and Boros Reckoner saw even fewer inclusions. Even niche favorites like build-around queen Feather, the Redeemed only saw a single nod in our sample of 100 Cubes (and it sure wasn’t The Regular Cube!).

End Step

Boros in Cube has become much more dynamic and began to contribute to more novel archetypes, while simultaneously finally receiving cards powerful enough to first-pick even in powered Vintage lists. As evidenced by the last section, there’s more than a dozen cards beyond the top 12 list that I’d be happy to play in my reasonably high-powered Cube as well, giving maximum flexibility to curators who want to take Boros into new directions other than “aggro” or “equipment”. The color combo is in a good place, and I expect it will only continue to evolve as more novel red/white cards hit WotC’s printers. 

What do you think about the current state of Boros in Cube? What options/archetypes are you looking for?

This is part 1 in a 10-part series on the many dual-colored combinations of Magic cards for Cube. Please check back frequently in the coming weeks for more!

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Miles Atherton is the editor-in-chief of “Cardboard by the Numbers” and has been playing Magic since 2006. Since studying Agricultural Economics at UC Davis, he’s built a career as an award-winning marketing executive in the entertainment industry with a love of data journalism. He’s also written for Anime Buscience and Crunchyroll News, serving as Executive Editor of the latter from 2016 to 2021.