Art by Steve ArgyleWelcome to my cube! This is a Shards block to Return to Ravnica block nostalgia cube. It’s based on cards from 2008 to 2013 (ALA-M14 to be exact, list below) and was chosen because this is when I was in high school playing Magic everyday and the game has never been the same to me. It could also be called The Silver Age cube in some respects, I think the time between M10 and M15 is pretty important and the design was a little different back then. It is similar to cubes themed on “The Death of Extended” etc but distinctly different due to the small time frame chosen.
The coolest (and my favorite) part of playing this cube is getting to watch Shards of Alara multicolor and Return to Ravnivca multicolor cards interact in the same space because never before has there been a format of the correct power to let those synergies shine like they do here, being 5 years apart in their irl printings. The power level of decks created by this cube should be around that of your average Standard deck (in a multicolor format) or at least, that’s what I’m aiming for.
This cube was created first with Standard data collected all the way back to 2008 thanks to https://mtgtop8.com/ taking the top 250 most played cards from each respective format. ALA–ZEN, ZEN-SOM, SOM-INN, INN-RTR, etc and then pooling those together and filling out the holes from there, with some help from the CubeCobra Recommender™©® (thanks!) This is the 4th draft I’ve made of this cube from scratch and it’s come a long way since being pure data! A lot of thought has gone into this and I hope it shows. This last and final draft was created from a pool of 1003 possible inclusions by hand in Excel, paying particular attention to Mana Curve and Color Balance. It’s now a tight 450, but started as a much larger (and lower power) 540.
“Baltimore Singleton” - aka singleton except for lands.
Sets included:- Shards of Alara
- Conflux
- Alara Reborn
- Magic 2010
- Zendikar
- Worldwake
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Magic 2011
- Scars of Mirrodin
- Mirrodin Besieged
- New Phyrexia
- Magic 2012
- Innistrad
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Magic 2013
- Return to Ravnica
- Gatecrash
- Dragon's Maze
- Magic 2014
Besides these included sets, 20 cards have been added that break these rules and they are as follows:
05/06/24 UPDATE: Added Shardless Agent and Baleful Strix because they're power and flavor matches, as well as personal favs. I think they fit well and this was always a vibes-first cube anyways. Enjoy!
05/11/24 UPDATE: Added Mortify alongside a package of disenchants, it matches vibes imo as it was originally from the OG Ravnica block as an Ozhov card and was in Standard 1 season later with Theros, added it as part of a larger package of disenchant effects which seemed to be needed. Speaking of, added Reclamation Sage as well, as it's similar to cards in the pool, namely Viridian Corrupter but without infect, it's a fairly evergreen core set card from m15, vibes are fine.
05/17/24 UPDATE: The updates are going well and the double shocks seemed solid. Added Hero's Downfall with Innistrad art as well because there are 18 planeswalkers in here and sometimes it's a little much.
5x Off-restriction nonland cards:
Shardless Agent
Baleful Strix
Mortify
Reclamation Sage
Hero's Downfall
5x Khans of Tarkir - Friendly Color Fetchlands
Bloodstained Mire
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Windswept Heath
Wooded Foothills
5x Khans of Tarkir - Clans Color Tri-lands
Frontier Bivouac
Mystic Monastery
Nomad Outpost
Opulent Palace
Sandsteppe Citadel
5x Kaladesh - Enemy Color Fast Lands
Blooming Marsh
Botanical Sanctum
Concealed Courtyard
Inspiring Vantage
Spirebluff Canal
These limitations were fudged for these lands in specific since they have the spirit of the format in mind and only complete cycles of lands that were already included in this era to begin with. Zendikar Enemy Color Fetchlands, the original Shards Tri-lands and the original Scars of Mirrodin Fast Lands. As with many cubes, the rules may be broken in the effort of good solid mana fixing for all color combos.
There are a lot more lands in here than a typical cube of its size, 70 total, 65 fixing lands for a whopping 14.5% of total cardpool. But this is to go along with the also vastly expanded selection of multicolor cards, 75 total, 16.67% gold which needed to be included to fit the theme and feel I was going for. The guild's multicolor card selections aren’t totally balanced between each other, each having between 5 and 7 choices, but special effort was made to make sure it was close, and it felt right.
Special thanks to everyone who gave me feedback to keep upping the number of lands until we got here. I’m very happy with it and I think it plays well and matches that Standard deck spirit of only having to play as many basics as required. We’ve come a long way from 40 in a 540 lmao
Decks are likely going to be 2-3 colors, even 4 or 5 can be possible with the fixing we have access to here, here are some common ways I see decks forming as I’ve playtested:
- Mono White Weenie
- Mono Blue Tempo
- Mono Black Aggro
- Mono Red Burn
- Mono Green Stompy
- Azorius Control
- Orhov Aristocrats/Tokens
- Dimir Control
- Izzet Tempo aka "Spells Matter"
- Rakdos Aggro
- Golgari Midrange
- Gruul Aggro
- Boros Aggro
- Selesnya Zoo/Tokens
- Simic Ramp aka "Turbo Lands"
- Bant Midrange
- Esper Reanimator
- Grixis Control
- Jund Midrange
- Naya Zoo
There are many other combinations possible as well but this is just what is common and strongly signaled by the colors/cards in each combo.
NOTE: Later I might come back and add links to the mtgtop8 decklists that each color combo here evokes for me as part of the vibes, but for another time alas~
While this is based on Standard formats and there aren’t going to be very many “win the game combos” besides Splinter Twin which was actually part of this era, here are some other two card major synergies to be on the lookout for. (No I’m not cutting conscription lol)
(hint: there is no Pestermite, that’s Lorwyn baby!)
At the time of writing I'm pos. #6 in the Featured Cubes queue.
If you're here because you saw this on the front page! Please stay, have a draft, I haven't made updates in a while but this is still an active cube and I'll be looking over every single draft! Thank you so much.