Welcome back to another article discussing the specific card choices when building a cube - today we are looking at the Mind domain. The rest of the series can be found below:
Mind Legends
Each Legend you pick should have an impact on the card list for that domain. These Legends want to do a few different things:
- , , and want a lot of little spells
- , and want big spells - especially ones that make units to impact the board
- and want token synergies
When picking cards, I want to emphasize what Mind does best - Draw cards and reduce Might. Because , , and aren’t included I do not have to include a critical mass of Gear, Deathknells, or Hidden cards. Of course they exist here and there, but with only 55 slots you need to focus on just a few mechanics, so I am focused on spellslinging first and tokens second. See the “Notable Exclusions” section for a long-winded explanation of why those three legends didn’t make the cut.
wants to try and hold, which isn’t explicitly a Mind thing. She leans more heavily on Calm cards for hold synergies, but all the -Might effects in Mind do help her gameplan. Instead of synergies, Ahri can simply be played with the best most efficient units you can muster across 3 domains. The great thing about Ahri is that she doesn’t demand any slots for her strategy, you can spend those slots emphasizing the spells for all the Legends who need them.
is the odd man out and I do not have a great solution - Body has 4+ ready-able gear but I am not sure any of them besides Tools of the Empire are game-changing. Mind has no Gear for him, I am not convinced readying or is even worth the energy cost. I have considered cutting him and just having 26 Legends for the time being, he is the least likely to be played at the moment.
Mind Cards
Out of 55 cards, we have a split of 29 units, 26 spells and only 2 gear. This is the most spell-heavy of all domains, which makes sense given how many Legends want spells, we end up with the fewest units of any domain. I tried to put in as many spells-that-make-units as possible to make sure Mind decks could still contest battlefields.
Unit Choices
I would recommend no less than five 2-drops per color, and generally 6+ is ideal. Mind is the most spell-centric of the domains so I only have 5, but non-unit cards like , , and can be played on turn 1 if needed. Obviously and are extremely useful and should be picked early if you are going Mind.
Because there are relatively few 2-cost and 6+ cost units, there is a hefty number of 3-5 units. Nearly all of them draw cards, reduce might, or make/buff tokens. If it doesn’t support the main 3 strategies, it doesn’t make the cut.
I noticed while building the Cube that Mind has a shockingly high number of power costs on units, nearly every unit at 4+ cost also wants a Mind rune recycled. Many of the options that don’t require power are either very weak or gear-centric, so whenever possible I have included , , and just to have generically playable units that don’t de-ramp you. Because of the power costs, and really overperform here.
and are surprisingly powerful engines for spell and token decks. Of course, needs no explanation - it’s one of the universal “first pick, first pack, force Mind” cards in the cube.
Only 10/29 units here are Champion units, which is pretty low compared to other domains. I have considered cutting somewhat weaker units like or , but if I replaced them with non-champion units you might find yourself short of effective Chosen Champions. Mind is perhaps the most difficult domain to find the right balance of units, which makes sense given its identity as a spell-first color.
Non-Unit Choices
While only having 2 Gear, both are pretty crucial. is great for scoring points, but serves as an excellent 2-drop (instead of a unit) that is easy to trigger every turn. Frigid Jewel is a massive power spike to cards like Hwei and token units - with 14/55 cards in Mind having “draw a card” printed on them, it can be a game-changing opening play.
Because of Legends like , we need power-costing spells like and that aren’t high picks but overperform in her deck. Because of and , we make sure to include overcosted but powerful cards and for late picks that shore up your big-spell count.
and benefit from anything small or targeted - , , and more enable surprises in combat and draw for Ez.
Because so many Legends want spells, it is easy to include cards that everyone can use. and are high picks that work well for most Mind Legends, and given the tight rune economy and are stronger in Cube than in Constructed.
Mind has a lot of modal spells, cards that serve multiple purposes. is both offense and defense (and a cost reducer for Lillia), is gear removal, base killing, or both. can save you in a variety of ways for only 1 energy. Anything that draws cards can trigger Frigid Jewel, and so on - Mind lives up to its name as a galaxy-brained domain for experienced drafters.
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.
has been the biggest surprise to me. He was added more recently as Lillia support and already I want to never remove him. From small advantages like ’s ability making an extra Recruit to massive upside with , he is shockingly good for a card that has never sniffed Constructed play. Great example of a late pack pick that significantly improves token decks.
and the mech package of , , and just make me happy. I like Rumble in League, but a full Mech deck just isn’t possible in Cube. Both Production Surge and Iterative Design happen to complement and , and if you get them with Rumble they are surprisingly efficient. Rumble also provides with rewards for successful holds. It doesn’t hurt that they all happen to work with Zilean too!
I often say you shouldn’t include cards just for one Legend, but I broke that rule with . It is basically only useful in Lillia decks, but she REALLY wants this as a chosen champion, and you can often get her late in a pack. Otherwise, having a random Accelerate unit in a color not known for that can surprise people.
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 unit I go back and forth on the most - given how tight the power costs are for Mind, he would be a solid solution. I think he is a totally reasonable addition, for now I want Mind to have that tight rune economy and encourage drafters to solve that problem, but this would be the first unit to add if I went to 56 cards per color. This would be the #1 budget replacement if you are missing any unit from the main list. also could be played - but my concern is that if you don’t manage to hold, it becomes yet another power sink when you can scarcely afford it.
is Mind’s “board wipe” but truthfully I find it too powerful. Often players will stack up for the big final hold, and I want players to fight it out on the battlefield. Unchecked Power deals so much damage that nothing survives it, and losing a game because you lost 20+ power to a single card (while your opponent loses nothing) leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
is the single most controversial exclusion of the legend pool. People love the big guy! Because every Mind legend wants spells, trying to fit enough Gear into the 55 slots to make Ornn playable seems to come at the expense of everyone else. Mind doesn’t have a deep pool of Equipment - and Zero Drive aren’t amazing on their own. is pretty underwhelming if he’s only a 5-6 Might unit. Then you would want , , , , and so on - what do you cut for so many cards?
Instead the 27-card expansion pack for Mind is heavily gear-centric. When we go to 12-players, I can comfortably add about 15 gear-related cards to give the potential Ornn player cards to pick, often late in the pack. But for the tighter 8-player version I think it’s correct to cut him. If you really want to include him in your cube, you could replace Lillia and cut nearly all of the Sprite and Mech-based cards to clear up 10 or so slots. Just expect Ornn to lean heavily on Calm, Order, or Body for the Equipment needed to be viable.
’s exclusion is more of an Order problem than a Mind one - most Constructed LeBlanc decks run surprisingly few Mind cards anyways. I will save LeBlanc’s explanation for the article on Order to keep this already-long post a bit shorter.
is currently the 12-player expansion Legend for Chaos-Mind, so I put cards like , , , and there instead of the main deck. All of them cost power too, so I didn’t feel like adding them to the main deck would alleviate the domain’s resource issues. I am not convinced you could have a critical mass of Hidden cards to make him worth it, but I am also unsure that there are enough Empowered cards to make playable as the Chaos-Mind legend either. Hoping for a better alternative in future sets!
In terms of cards I would like to include but just didn’t make the cut - , , , , , and are just on the cusp of being played now. If you are missing a few cards from my cube list, look to these for budget replacements.
Changelog: Vendetta v2
Changes from the initial Vendetta list:
- Otterpus
- Dr Mundo
- Turn to Dust
- Clairvoyance
- Cloth Armor
- Covert Informant
- Mel, Newly Awakened
- Soul Shepherd
- Mesmerize
- Shock Blast
Mind was in a pretty good place, these changes are overall pretty minor tweaks. Dr Mundo and had the same problem - too expensive, too slow. Dr Mundo was basically a death sentence if you played him at home near the end of the game, and you often had less cards in your trash than you would expect, making him a relatively mild 9-10 Might that would shrink each round.
was too expensive and did not affect the board. is generally a better card draw spell, and Lux/Jhin rarely wanted the huge card draw effect when Mind already draws plenty of cards.
was meant to be a cute combat trick, but is more versatile and works with all the spell synergies. In a domain that already struggled with power costs, Cloth Armor was brutal to re-equip. Otterpus is only good in your opening hand, and even then wasn’t that impactful - provides more support for token decks and notably doesn’t have a power cost.
With and added, there were enough Empower effects to slide in . Even if you don’t have Empowers, paying 3 to deal 4 is comparable to other solid removal spells. It is a struggle that 4 out of the 5 new cards have power costs, furthering the domain’s challenging rune economy, but that is simply a trait of the domain for the time being.