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
• Tinker and Welder
• Shops

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. If you have any especially trashed or naively altered versions of any of these cards, please email me at andymangold@gmail.com.

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
  • Mishra's Workshop with... Karn, Silver Golem
  • 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.