Welcome back to another article discussing the specific card choices when building a cube - today we are looking at the Body domain. The full series is available from the chapter navigation.
Body Legends
Each Legend you include provides direction for that domain. Body Legends have a few primary gameplans:
- and can play big units and absorb their power costs
- Miss Fortune and want big units to ready and double conquer with them
- and will be the main customers for Equipment, for other Gear
While might prefer a swarm strategy to maximize his legend, there’s nothing wrong with playing him as a big-dude deck either. Ambush units work well with him, and Body-Fury domains have them in abundance.
That means we have 55 slots primarily to support big units - Equipment naturally fits into this strategy, making any unit larger and making them better targets for readying, ganking, or buffing.
Despite this seemingly narrow focus, Body is one of the harder domains to pick cards for - because it has 2 separate “parasitic” mechanics in the card pool. Both XP and Buffs require generators and spenders to make the most of the mechanic, and drafters would need very specific, often underpowered cards to make it work. This means there are tons of unusable cards across both Origins and Unleashed that aren’t considered for the card list.
In the end, I chose to support neither - focusing on big bodies and gear instead. That means Lee Sin is hung out to dry for the meantime, he can be played as a deck full of the best Body-Calm units and just buff them for value, but there are vanishingly few cards that synergize with buffs.
Body Cards
Out of 55 cards, we have a split of 34 units, only 12 spells and 9 gear - the most of any domain. I recommend trying to keep a roughly 60-40 split of Units to Non-Units, since Riftbound is about board presence and fighting over Battlefields. Since Body has the most gear, I play a bit more units to ensure players have enough bodies to equip them on. The large number of Equipment also support both Fiora and Jax’s gameplan.
Unit Choices
I would recommend no less than five 2-drops per color, and generally 6+ is ideal. Body sits right at six, but with several Gear that can also function as a turn-1 play. and are very flexible, able to be efficient whether going first or second. Many low-cost Body units are more powerful in the midgame, such as , , or , so drawing them late game doesn’t feel as weak as other domains.
With so many Equipment, there are 5 Weaponmasters ranging from 2- to 5-cost. Opening lines of Equipment-into-Weaponmaster keeps your rune economy smooth, and sometimes even accelerating you with ! We need a mix of Mighty units for Volibear but also 3-4 Might units for Fiora to make Mighty, so pick up , or for ways to trigger her ability midgame.
needs a minimum number of Empowered units to activate her Legend, so we have 4 in Body alone. Ideally we get more in future sets, but for now cards like and are late enough picks that you can get them reliably without spending a high pick on them. She also benefits from Gankers like or , who can double conquer from an empty board with her legend ability.
15/34 Units are Champions, the highest ratio in the cube. Body Legends should have no trouble finding a good Chosen Champion. Volibear shines here as he isn’t shackled to playing a 10+ cost CC like in Constructed games. , , and are standouts for any Body legend, but really shine in Volibear decks.
Non-Unit Choices
The Body domain has the best Might pumps in the game, unlike Fury they can be used on offense or defense. Conquer or hold with the likes of or , then protect your units with or . There are several units with Deflect already, getting Hexdrinker puts the hurt on removal-heavy decks from Mind or Chaos.
Body doesn’t have traditional removal, instead we have “fight” spells, where units deal damage to each other. If you have the biggest unit, and you should, then , , , and even will tilt the board in your favor.
is hard to make work, but if you get some combination of , Tools of the Empire, and you have something resembling a gameplan. also appreciates the extra ways to Empower a card for her decklists.
Spicy Picks
These are a few cards that you could replace - every cube has a bit of flavor that the designer just happens to like, these are my pet cards. If you have a better idea for the card slot, go ahead and swap them out.
is a sneakily easy to trigger unit. At worst it’s a 4/4 that doesn’t deramp you, but there are over 45 cards (12%+ of the draftable pool) that enable him. That’s an average of over 6 per domain plus several signature spells. You might not be able to afford too many of those double-power plays in a row, but you won’t have to look hard to draft them.
I am not sure if is considered spicy, but we need to have something for to theoretically do. It is not super efficient, but with you can make 4 Might mechs each turn. Despite lacking other buff synergies, I think Arena Bar is better than as a turn-1 play (when going 2nd), increasing the power of your subsequent on-curve plays. Disc might also see fringe play in as a repeatable Empower-enabler.
is a recent inclusion, the hope is that with readying effects like Ambessa or Wallop you can use it as the closing play to seal a double-conquer victory against giant holds. This slot isn’t locked down though - 10-cost units are hard to play anyways - feel free to let me know what else you would play instead.
Notable Exclusions:
For all colors I opted not to have Seals or Decrees. Seals are a bit too swingy - if you get them early they can be extremely powerful, but they are dead draws late game and most decks have no way to discard/draw them away. I didn’t want to include too many “hate” cards that warp matchups after sideboarding, and just personally I am not a fan of Decrees and their power level.
requires a very specific decklist to work, and even then there is no guarantee you would draw your 1 copy before losing 8-0. I didn’t want to run , , , and other extremely expensive units just to potentially enable a deck that still doesn’t feel overly powerful in draft.
If you wanted to add some dragon spice to your list, I think a package of , , , and could be interesting. Other domains have a few dragons here and there, and most of these cards will go late in the pick order for a fun draft deck. There are 18 printed Dragons as of today, but several are nigh-unplayable - still a cube designer could easily fit 12+ in their list to support this gameplan. I am not sure how consistent it would be, so I went with more generically useful units instead.
As mentioned in the Legend section, nearly every single card with the word “buff” is in the 12-player expansion. I won’t list them all here, but when you go up to 12 players, suddenly Lee Sin gets all the toys he is missing currently in the main list. Instead I leaned more on Gear and Empowered synergies for my cube while I await a new Body-Calm legend.
Changelog: Vendetta v2
Changes from the initial Vendetta list:
- Determined Sentry
- Master Yi, Tempered
- Renekton, Brute
- Warwick, Hunter
- Flurry of Blades
- Unyielding Spirit
- Mobilize
- Mistfall
- Baccai Witherclaw
- Yordle Explorer
- Deadbloom Predator
- Corrupted Dragon
- Guttural Roar
- Wallop
- Marching Orders
- Cataclysmic Duel
- Sett, the Boss (Legend)
- Ambessa, Matriarch of War (Legend)
This is the biggest changelist for any domain, which surprised me as Body generally does well in draft already. The goal is to remove weak/underperforming cards, especially ones that require very specific situations to shine.
was rarely worth the card slot, and Master Yi was effectively a blank 4/4 Chosen Champion. was understated and cost too much to Empower in fast formats, while needed exactly or to be impressive. Instead we get to shore up Ambessa and , who has a surprisingly large pool of cards to trigger from in all domains. The top end gets two powerful game enders in and , the latter of whom is amazing with Ambessa.
was too much lost tempo, too narrow, and lacked enough buff triggers to be played - and Mistfall alone isn’t enough to justify playing Lee Sin. Instead we double down on what Body can already do - more fights with , readying with , and combat buffs with .
I try to give each color some sort of reset button, and plays into Body’s identity as “the biggest unit” domain. Retaining your big monster then following up with “fight” cards is a great method to stabilize and close out games against swarm decks.