Art by Alan RabinowitzCloned from Vintage Old Border Cube which was cloned from Old Border Cube. Thanks to those creators as they made my job massively easier.
A Vintage Cube for casual playing with friends and my wife and I. There are some less lenticular cards for flavor as well, but not many.
All old boarder and some fun wonky cards and to showcase altered builds of famous decks throughout MTG history.
Plan for about ６１０ cards.
Showcases some of magic’s cornerstone archetypes and maintains nostalgia.
White weenie, Angelic, Lifegain
Draw-go control (The Deck)
Reanimation, Deals with the devil (Necro Black Deck)
Goblins & Orcs Aggro & Land disruption (Sligh Deck)
Ramp/midrange
Blink/Draw-go control
Mill control
Reanimator
Lands Ramp
The Rock Deck (ProsBloom also)
Recursive aggro
Earthquake Midrange
Ramp
Pingers
Land destruction
Typical aggro should have a high density of one drops. However, the old border restriction makes this difficult. Instead this cube's white weenie deck uses a high density of WW 2 power creatures that are evasive and hard to deal with like White Knight and Soltari Priest. The deck should focus on keeping the board clear to press the advantage with a suite of efficient removal spells and using flicker/protection effects to ensure their creatures stick. Anthems can be used to increase the power of the creatures which means more damage per turn and creatures are more likely to survive combat. The general mana progression for creatures (with exceptions) is: Soldiers & Clerics -> Knights -> Angels. Lifegain is more for flavor and variety.
Made possible by all the counterspells and cantrips. Obviously cannot counterspell everything, so teaches players which are the necessary cards to counterspell.
Originally only a couple counterspells existed, but as Magic expansions increased, more became available. With the only non-land and non-counter cards (aside from Whispers and Impulse) being a creature or two and Nevinyrral's Disks, these decks often played nothing in their own turns, earning them the nickname, "Draw-Go" modeled off the original famous MTG deck, "The Deck".
As a general rule, of course, always leave mana open even if you have nothing but land in your hand. Bluffing to win the psychological game when your opponent automatically assumes you have a counter in hand whenever he casts a spell.
Blink is made possible by the timeshifted versions of Restoration Angel and Flickerwisp. This archetype is intended to be but realistically could be X as the most important factor is a high density of ETB effects with some support to give them extra triggers. The flicker effects are either instant speed (e.g. liberate) or repeatable (e.g. Equilibrium. This gives the cards utility outside of the archetype in the form of creature protection or control, respectively.
Reanimator is designed to be a deck although it is possible to build a reanimator deck with just one of those colors. Both colors have self-discard and big fatties to cheat into play like Reya Dawnbringer and Scion of Darkness. They also both have reanimation effects. The reanimation effects are currently in the 3 to 4 cmc range to avoid the deck being too fast for other decks to deal with. However, this may change with testing.
The difficulty in building this deck is finding the right ratio of self-discard, reanimation effects and creatures to reanimate. The density of these effects will be adjusted over time to ensure none of them are over or under represented within the environment.
Goblins is a mono-red, creature heavy aggro deck that wants to beat face and use burn to either keep the board clear or use the last points of damage. A high density of 1 drops helps this strategy along with a potential Goblin Lackey to get out the gate quickly. To press the advantage goblins will rely on synergistic cards like Goblin Piledriver, Sparksmith and Goblin King. Modeled off the first famous Sligh aggro deck that showed the importance of proper mana utilization.
Any X deck can focus on ramp as long as it has a critical number of ramp effects. Combining with the other colours gives access to control elements to ensure the game lasts long enough for you to deploy a fatty. This strategy needs to be fairly focused which can make it a glass canon. To avoid this, some of the top end creatures are chosen to be resilient or replace themselves in death like Silvos, Rogue Elemental and Symbiotic Wurm. The glass Canon is also avoided with strong midrange cards like Ravenous baloth and Argothian Wurm as the deck can ramp these into play early without needing lots of ramp effects in play at one time.
Artifacts is inherently flexible for what colors it works with but it is most supported in . Red allows for Goblin welder and Goblin engineer to set up loops with artifacts that can be reset like thopter squadron. White has enlightened tutor to find key pieces and Armaggedon to capitalize on the ramp. It's worth noting that a high density of big artifacts are not included in the list as the options in old border do not give a good enough pay-off for the investment of going so deep in synergy. This is also the reason that Tinker is not in the cube.
The deck is an aggressive deck that is slower than goblins but has more staying power if the game goes long. The core of this deck is cards that bring creatures back from your graveyard Oath of Ghouls, Oversold Cemetery, and Squee, Goblin Nabob. These recursive cards provide advantage when paired with discard effects like Oppression; and sacrifice outlets like Goblin Bombardment and Phyrexian Plaguelord which are very strong when combined with Tombstone stairwell.
Pingers is the deck which is a control deck that tries to build an engine to gain long-term advantage. The pingers package involves cards like Prodigal sorcerer combined with curiosity or sigil of sleep. The deck should be supplemented with one-for-one removal spells to keep the board stable enough for the pingers to become effective.
This deck developed by Sol Malka in 1999 focused on disrupting the opponent and controlling the board. The name The Rock is a reference to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The deck was initially called “The Rock and His Millions.” The “Rock” in the original decklist was Deranged Hermit, with the “Millions” being an allusion to Dwayne’s fans and the tokens Deranged Hermit created. The name was shortened to The Rock over time, especially after the Hermit rotated.
An Original Mirage Block Combo Deck and one of the first famous combo decks.
Utilizes Prosperity, Cadaverous Bloom, and Squandered Resources to remove most of its hand to generate large amounts of mana with Cadaverous Bloom, feed that into a Prosperity, sacrifice its lands to Squandered Resources, and eventually win with a giant Drain Life. Its functionality was partially based on the old rules for life loss, in which players only lost the game at the end of a phase; frequently the pilot would go to zero life from multiple Infernal Contracts before restoring their life total with Drain Life. While the deck is no longer played, it was one of the first true combo decks to dominate the Pro Tour (source MTG Wiki).
There are some build around cards that add additional archetypes to the cube.
One of these is Oath of Druids which is a deck that controls the board and only contains big and resilient threats. This is best paired with blue for cantrips and control spells. Defense of the Heart can add redundancy to this deck.
The last note-worthy SCA is Standstill. Standstill gives your opponent a difficult decision to make: don't play their spells or let you draw 3 cards? This deck fits into a generic control shell where you should break the symmetry of not being able to play spells by having cards that win without needing to be cast like creature lands and cycling Decree of Justice.
-Runs a full set of Shock lands, Fetch lands, and Pain lands.
-Variety of Utility lands depending on archetype.
-Mana rocks start at 2 mana.