Cloned from Neoclassical Cube

The Neoclassical Cube is my attempt to capture and celebrate the spirit of the early days of Magic. It is a synergistic, wide power band environment that pursues the archetypes and play patterns of pre-modern.

• Burn
• Control, with mill as a win condition
• Reanimator, with appropriately old school payoffs
• Big ramp with Wildfire and Upheaval
• Megrim Combo
• Madness
• Cycling with Astral Slide
• Tinker and Welder
• Naya "Kird Ape" Zoo

In the spirit of neoclassicism, I am not strictly limiting myself to cards printed in the pre-modern era. Newer printings of cards are permitted, though they must clear a high bar for inclusion, ideally calling back to a classic card. They may not:

• Feature relatively radical mechanics, like double-face cards, the initiative, mutate, etc.
• Use counters that did not exist in pre-modern
• Use non-evergreen mechanics that did not exist in pre-modern
• Reference planeswalkers
• Be of a power level inappropriate for pre-modern Magic (as decided subjectively by me)

This cube is played unsleeved and features heavily played and damaged cards accordingly. I am currently seeking the following heavily played cards for the Cube:

• Recruiter of the Guard
• Imperial Recruiter (Portal)
• Sylvan Tutor
• Serra's Sanctum
• Volrath's Stronghold
• Candelabra of Tawnos
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• Gaea's Cradle

If you have a lead on a suitably damaged copy of one of the above cards please email me: andymangold@gmail.com. I am also accepting 'special' versions of any card in the cube: copies with their borders sharpied out, unique wear patterns, text scrawled on them, naive/low-effort alters, etc.

As I've explored this cube I've gotten better at identifying the broad design patterns of "old-school" Magic:

• Powerful enablers, weak payoffs
  • Entomb and Reanimate with... Verdant Force
  • Tinker with... Triskelion
  • Survival of the Fittest with... Arrogant Wurm
  • Goblin Welder with... Phyrexian Colossus
  • Tolarian Academy with... Stroke of Genius
  • Necropotence with... Hypnotic Specter
  • Fastbond with... whatever
• Card advantage without board presence
• Burn spells that target players
• Color-matters
• Narrow, "obvious" hate pieces and sideboard cards
• Powerful cards require risk and investment

One detail of old school Magic I am trying to capture is the naïveté of the early days of Magic R&D. I want to recreate the era of Magic where absolutely egregious, broken cards were played alongside total jank.

Influences:

• The Old Border Foil Cube which I played at CubeCon 2022
• Dear Gonti, Love Sophie by Rhystic Studies and the EDH deck that inspired it

This list is very much a work in progress.