Art by Melissa A. BensonI love the look and feel of older cards and so wanted to create a cube to tap into that feeling. Warning: high amount of nostalgia!
This cube features cards from the original Magic set Alpha through Alliances. Why did I choose this time period? While I love the idea of a true Old School cube that only includes cards up to Fallen Empires, I wanted to add in some of the redundant effects from Ice Age to round out some strategies. Since the card pool is static, it also helps to increase variety.
I didn't want to include Mirage for a variety of reasons. As a prequel to the Weatherlight Saga, it doesn't really have the flavor I was looking for. Additionally, it introduces top of the library tutors, slow fetches, and a number of other effects that I didn't really find in the spirit of Old School. (The cards were also printed with stronger colors and have much more streamlined card text, in a way marking a phase shift in Magic set design.)
I realize that this makes the cube kind of halfway between a '95 and '96 cube, but it is what it is.
I've also decided to make lands non-singleton. I feel like having access to the full suite of dual lands makes decks a little stronger, more refined, and just feel a little more 'old-school', which I like.
Here's a sampling of archetypes found in this cube:White Weenie: While white doesn't have the most disruptive of creatures in Old School, it easily has the most mass pump effects (Crusade, Call to Arms, Angelic Voices) ensuring that your creatures can outclass and overrun your opponent. This deck also has access to Armageddon which can push it over the top.
/x Control: Wrath of God and Balance are two of the super rare board wipes in Old School, which makes adding white to your control deck pretty good. You can use Island Sanctuary for protection or Hand of Justice for removal. Disenchant is easily a first pick. It's also got the bodyguards to fog opponents, which can be brought back repeatedly with Enduring Renewal. (ER is also a combo card you can make a deck around.)
/x Tempo: This deck seeks to play cheap blue creatures (generally fliers or islandwalking Merfolk thanks to Lord of Atlantis) and follow it up with bounce or land control in the form of Mana Vortex and/or Land Equilibrium. This deck also makes great use of strong, punishing creatures such as Serendib Djinn. Zur's Weirding is also a powerhouse in this deck, preventing your opponent from drawing key spells.
/x Control: Probably the strongest deck in a vacuum as blue generally has the strongest spells. It often takes the form of a fliers deck because of how good Moat is. (There are only a small number of cards that can destroy enchantments.)
Stasis: Stasis can easily soft lock a player out of the game. Bounce it to your hand with Time Elemental. Additionally, you can put Instill Energy on a Birds of Paradise to continually pay the upkeep.
/x Aggro: This deck seeks to attack your resources (Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole, Strip Mine) while deploying cheap, disruptive creatures (Hypnotic Specter being the premier creature here). It also has access to ramp in the form of Dark Ritual giving it an advantage in the early game.
/x Reanimator: Black has a number of ways to reanimate (Hell's Caretaker, Soul Exchange, Animate Dead, and Dance of the Dead) creatures from the graveyard. The threats you want to reanimate tend to be resilient (like Deep Spawn) or kill in a small number of hits (Polar Kraken).
/x Control. Black has a number of control elements that are tough for certain decks to deal with. Regenerating creatures, repeatable creature kill, hand disruption, and even a board wipe in the form of Hellfire. It generally wins with Underworld Dreams or a giant Nightmare when the board is clear.
/x Aggro. Attack your opponent hard and fast while backing it up with extremely efficient burn. Red generally has the weakest aggro creatures, so you probably want to pick up a Goblin King or something. If you can also land a Blood Moon then your creatures are most likely unblockable as well.
Big Red: This deck seeks to pick up Mana Flare and Gauntlet of Might and control the board with X spells and giant threats. Cards like Earthquake are especially good here, as is Shivan Dragon due to the firebreathing. Red also has a number of regenerating creatures that play well with Nevinyrral's Disk and red's damage based board wipes.
/x Ramp: Play your mana dorks and ramp spells so you can cast large threats early and hopefully overrun your opponent. Autumn Willow is the premier creature here as shroud is exceptionally powerful in this cube. An early Gaea's Liege is also pretty good as in a few activations your opponent won't be able to cast much.
/x Enchantress: Even though there's only one enchantress creature in the cube (Verduran Enchantress), card draw is rare and giving green access to a consistent form of it is quite strong. The deck plays pretty differently depending on what color you pair with it, so feel free to experiment!
/x Control: If you can build around Arboria, then it functions like an even better Moat, which is absurd. You can also play Living Plane and things that kill creatures, Tracker + Regeneration, Thicket Basilisk + Lure, Titania's Song. There are number of ways that green can control the field making it easy to win with any decent threat. Green is also the only color that can repeatedly untap Time Vault.
/ Tramplers: This is a midrange deck that seeks to bring out hasted and/or trampling threats (such as Ball Lightning) and use the many pump effects (Berserk being the best) to potentially kill your opponent in one hit. Sword of the Ages can also sacrifice the creature after combat for some strong reach. You can even go Atog artifacts and make it unblockable with Goblin Sappers before making it huge.
/ Tokens: This is a value deck that focuses on making tokens (Icatian Town, Caribou Range, Sengir Autocrat, etc.) and then getting additional utility out of them (Krovikan Horror, Ashnod's Altar, Fallen Angel). Tokens are strong against aggressive and midrange decks because you're clogging up the board with random blockers. Eventually, you can use them to feed big threats such as Lord of the Pit and Minion of Leshrac.
Artifact Control: Artifacts have a number of control elements that can slot into nearly any deck. Relic Barrier + Howling Mine/Winter Orb, Icy Manipulator, Ivory Tower, Meekstone, Floodwater Dam, Millstone (know what your opponent is drawing with Field of Dreams), Shield of the Ages, Time Bomb, Mirror Universe, etc.. Discovering all the different uses is quite fun!
Giant Robots: This seeks to utilize Mishra's Workshop, Mana Vault, and other fast mana to play large artifact threats that beat down hard and fast such as Juggernaut and Su-Chi. You can also use Triskelion/Tetravus as more resilient threats which also combo with Tawnos's Coffin. This deck also plays very nicely with The Abyss.
- Note if you draft an Urza's Tower, you're given 1x Urza's Mine and 1x Urza's Power Plant. (This is for each copy of the tower you draft.)
This is just a sampling of the many unique interactions featured in this cube. Have a draft and discover for yourself! All while being bombarded by nostalgia! As a side note, I will say that due to the nature of Old School, your best draft experience will be to focus on archetypes and build-arounds. Trying to draft a 'good stuff' red deck that's forced to play a bunch of derpy goblins isn't generally going to work out. Playables can sometimes be tight, especially if you start taking a lot of dual lands. This is exasperated by the fact that the Cube Cobra AI is really not good at drafting this cube in particular. They'll routinely take cards that are quite bad in their deck just because it fits the color they've chosen. So if you're planning on that Goblin King wheeling then yeah, it might not, so just be aware of that.
All in all this cube is a labor of love and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy playing it also!