Welcome back to another article (part 4 of 10) discussing the specific card choices when building a cube - today we are looking at the Calm domain. The full series is available from the chapter navigation.
Calm Legends
Each Legend you include should inform the card list for that domain. Calm Legends want three clearly different strategies:
- , , and somewhat want to do movement tricks and double-conquer
- , , and want to hold battlefields - this is the most uniquely Calm strategy
- , , and again are looking to hoard Equipment and exploit them for value
That means we have 55 slots to support moving and holding while having enough Equipment to reach critical mass. Calm is a really flexible domain, with a surprisingly deep pool of potential combos - this might be my favorite domain to design for and play with.
Lee Sin doesn’t fit the bill with everyone else here - mea culpa, I decided to just not support him at all. All the other buff legends (such as Leona, Sett, and Kha’zix in his overlapping colors) are in the 12-player expansion, so all the buff synergy cards also exist there and not in the main deck. I don’t have other options for Calm-Body (PG Yi is too strong, XP Yi is too weak) so I am mostly waiting for any new Calm-Body legend to push Lee Sin to the expansion. In the meantime he is basically a “good stuff” legend, just play efficient cards and buff them to win combat math when you can.
Calm Cards
Out of 55 cards, we have a split of 31 units, 17 spells and 7 gear - second only to Body domain. Since it has a lot of gear, I trimmed spells a bit to ensure players have enough to conquer with. I also included every viable Equipment to support both Azir and Jax.
Unit Choices
I would recommend no less than five 2-drops per color, and generally 6+ is ideal. Calm sits right at six, with four of them able to draw cards. The two that don’t ( and ) are solid early plays with 3 Might while on defense.
Holding is something Calm wants to do more than any other domain, so I tried to include several payoffs across the curve. and provide early game value to lock down a battlefield; , , and draw cards in the mid-game. Finally, and help you close out the game on the crucial final turns. Calm has more “when I hold” triggers than every other domain combined, so a player should reap the rewards from a well-timed defense.
With so many gear, you want units that maximize them - , , and , Ascendent are amazing the more Equipment you have. If you are picking Equipment aggressively, these units should go around the table and fall back to you near the end of the pack.
Calm also has several “when I move” triggers - obviously is an all-star - but and , Remorseless are no slouches either. Being able to move any of these twice a turn with Yasuo or Akali legends can turn the tide of a game in your favor.
It is not all narrow units though, cards like , , and are good cards without power costs that can be splashed in any deck, even without a Calm legend.
13/31 Units are Champions, one of the highest ratios in the cube. Because Calm is split between 3 distinct strategies, make sure you scoop up a champion that fits. Several units that can’t be in the champion zone in Constructed play, like or , are powerful enough to build your early gameplan around them.
Non-Unit Choices
Calm is the color of counterspells, so we have every single one currently printed. Six different counterspells allow for multiple Calm players to get a few each, forcing your opponents to respect open runes. If you ever get to a huge signature spell, you will never forget it.
In addition to classic combat tricks like and , Calm carries some stun cards too! and will thwart the biggest attacker, or simply the crew back home if you can’t. Of the 17 spells, 12 are Reaction or Hidden, so you can usually play with open runes and disrupt your opponent’s best-laid plans.
Finally, we have 5 incredible Equipment for and . In a 25-card deck, you want about 6-8 Equipment total to make them playable (perhaps a little less for Jax). Smaller gear like and let Azir open with a Sand Soldier on turn 1, and bigger ones like and are ideal for Jax to re-equip over and over. , with her ability to make Sprites each turn, can also abuse most Equipment in addition to .
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 simple card with a lot of nice synergy. Of course it’s ideal in Azir, but it doubles as a turn 1 play if needed, or a 4-cost spell for Jhin. With Renata Glasc you can double conquer empty battlefields, so this is a commonly splashed card into many domains. Calm has the unique position of having several 4-cost spells (or 2-cost repeats) but no 5+ cost ones, making it the only color that is great for Jhin but not for Lux.
is another card that serves multiple purposes - it is primarily a removal spell, but also makes the battlefield frustrating to attack (especially when you know he will return to hand), letting you finally get that battlefield hold (and all the associated triggers and rewards).
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.
is the talk of the town these days, but I think its just much better in constructed. With only one Heron, one Falling Star, and one Rebuke in over 350 draftable cards, its simply too inconsistent. Often it's barely better than a vanilla 7 Might, and I prefer the flexibility of Tasty Faefolk instead.
could be included if you want to edge a few more slots for Azir. I found it to be a bit too weak for Jax or Lillia to care about, and XP basically doesn’t exist in Cube so getting even Level 3 is difficult. I try to avoid cards that only appear in one deck, and that’s why it was cut.
Despite having lots of gear, I didn’t find room for or . They are both a bit narrow - for units that cost power I didn’t like how often they turned out to be blank abilities. Other cube designers could include them, they aren’t bad cards. They live in the expansion with Legend alongside numerous additional gear, where the extra gear gives them higher chances of being worthwhile in a specialized deck.
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.
Changelog: Vendetta v2
Changes from the initial Vendetta list:
- Allay, Eager Admirer
- Esteemed Hierophant
- Meditation
- Last Stand
- Reinforce
- Mask of Foresight
- Scuttle Crab
- Affectionate Poro
- Blitzcrank
- Crumbling Sands
- Thwonk!
- Resonating Strike
Calm is a really solid color with a ton of playable options, it was difficult to find slots for all the stuff you want to support. The goal here is to further support (who gets very little from Fury) and the various Calm “holding” strategies.
Allay and were meant to block enemy spells, but heavy control decks weren’t really a thing - Body and Fury decks are happy to just smash face without needing to target with spells. Mind is mostly debuffing, so Esteemed Hierophant often felt like a vanilla 5 Might unit. Replacing them with and keeps the unit curve the same, but brings much-needed combo potential to , , , and .
Calm only had five 2-drops before, so is added to give them more options for early plays. Since it draws cards, it replaced . is meant to be a big combat trick, but giving your unit Temporary is too big of a drawback (you don’t hold), so fills that sleeve instead.
and are generically decent cards - they are somewhat useful in any random Riftbound game. But you really want domains to feel unique, for each card to reinforce (heh) the color’s identity. Is Calm about holding alone? Not really, especially with now in the mix. Is Calm about playing big spells or searching your deck for a unit? Not really. By replacing them with and , we keep pushing Calm as the color for counterspells and strong holds, so I think they are better uses of the slot.