Cube Cobra Overview: The Premodern Cube

The Premodern Cube

(360 Card Unpowered Vintage Cube)

(360 Card Cube)

Overview List History Playtest Analysis Blog

The Premodern Cube

Cube ID

premodernmagic

Art by Glen Angus

360 Card Unpowered Vintage Cube1 follower

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$11,060

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Mana Pool$3428.27

Overview

This is a 360 cube that aims to recreate the feel of old-border magic and the format Premodern. It captures the many archetypes, and cards played in Premodern and back in 2001-2003, around Odyssey to Scourge. All cards in The Premodern Cube are Premodern legal.

What is Premodern?

For those unfamiliar with Premodern, the format allows cards from 4th edition all the way up to Scourge, the last old-bordered set. It is essentially the gap between Old School 93/94 and Modern.

NOTE: Portal sets, supplemental, and promo sets are not legal.

The sets legal in Premodern are:

Fourth Edition
Ice Age
Chronicles
Homelands
Alliances
Mirage
Visions
Fifth Edition
Weatherlight
Tempest
Stronghold
Exodus
Urza's Saga
Urza's Legacy
Classic Sixth Edition
Urza's Destiny
Mercadian Masques
Nemesis
Prophecy
Invasion
Planeshift
Seventh Edition
Apocalypse
Odyssey
Torment
Judgment
Onslaught
Legions
Scourge

The cards banned in Premodern are:

History

The Premodern Cube started back in December of 2021. I had just discovered that Premodern was a format and it was love at first sight.

Some background: I had always loved the look and feel of old cards. I am relatively new in the Magic scene, only starting to play since 2017. I was eleven then, and when my dad taught me how to play I was instantly hooked. Recently I wished I had learned back when the game was new, so I could get a feel of how the game was like back then and how the game was less powerful, so you could play with the decks you wanted and still win. When I learned of Premodern, it was like my wish was granted.

I quickly made a few premodern decks of my own and got them shipped to me right away. But that wasn't enough. My thirst for Premodern was not yet quenched. So, I thought of my other favorite thing in Magic: Cube.

And so, The Premodern Cube was born.

Aesthetic Preferences:

🎨 Old-Border Foils: I love old-border cards, which is partly why I made this cube. I love the look and feel of them. And the foils? Absolutely beautiful.
✨ Old-Border Promos: old FNMs, old Judge Promos, and the old arena promos are something that I've always loved. Even if they take quite hefty chunks out of my bank account.
🃏 Black-Bordered: I try to use black-bordered cards over their white-bordered counterparts. If a white-bordered card is in this cube, its either a foil IRL, or its the only premodern legal version available.

Quick Note: due to the lack of fixing lands, there are four copies of each painland.

Supported Archetypes:

: The Rock
: Goblins, Burn
: Aggro
: Threshold
: Reanimator
(): MUD
: Enchantress
: Lands, Madness
: Deadguy Ale

Brief Overview of Each Archetype

The Rock

Overview: The Rock is a Midrange, fair deck that looks to play discard and removal until there are enough mana sources in play to play big threats. Recursion plays a key part in producing the critical mass of threats to end the game the longer it goes on. If the high power threats aren't enough to finish the game early, recursion provides the boost to get over the hump and finish off the opponent.

Key cards:

Threats: Blastoderm, Ravenous Baloth, Deranged Hermit, Krosan Tusker, Spiritmonger

Removal: Smother, Vendetta, Diabolic Edict

Discard: Duress, Cabal Therapy

Utility: Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Roots, Birds of Paradise, Yavimaya Elder, Pernicious Dead, Recurring Nightmare

Spice: Adding in white can give you access to many good threats, such as Spectral Lynx and Exalted Angel. It also opens the door for great gold cards like Gerrard's Verdict and Vindicate.

Burn / Sligh

Overview: I'm pretty sure most of you are acquainted with burn. If you're not, then its basically about using cheap, efficient creatures like Jackal Pup, mixed with direct damage spells like Lightning Bolt to kill your opponent ASAP.

Key cards:

Creatures: Jackal Pup, Grim Lavamancer, Ball Lightning, Mogg Fanatic

Spells: Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Fireblast, Flame Rift

Other: Sulfuric Vortex, Cursed Scroll

Threshold

Overview: Fill your graveyard as fast as possible with self-mill cards, discard outlets, and cheap spells/cantrips in order to turn on various cards with threshold like Werebear.

Key Cards:

Threshold payoffs: Werebear, Nimble Mongoose, Mystic Enforcer

Graveyard fillers: Wild Mongrel, Mental Note

Reanimator

Overview: Bring big creatures (well as big as they can get in Premodern) back from your graveyard with reanimation spells, such as Reanimate.

Key cards:

Targets: Symbiotic Wurm, Verdant Force, Phantom Nishoba, Akroma, Angel of Wrath

Reanimation spells: Exhume, Reanimate, Animate Dead, Necromancy

Graveyard fillers: Careful Study, Putrid Imp, Buried Alive

MUD

(

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Overview: MUD is a STAX deck that uses artifact-based mana generators, such as Metalworker and Thran Dynamo, to play artifact pieces that lock your opponent out of the game. Efficient artifact creatures like Masticore serve as the primary win conditions.

Key Cards:

Lock pieces: Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, Sphere of Resistance, Mishra's Helix

Artifact creatures: Masticore, Karn, Silver Golem, Triskelion

Mana generation: Metalworker, Thran Dynamo, Mind Stone, Ancient Tomb

Other: Black Vise

Enchantress

Overview: Enchantress is an enchantment based deck trying to gain massive amounts of card advantage from the namesake Enchantresses, (Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, and Verduran Enchantress) with playing multiple enchantments. Mana acceleration, like Wild Growth, is played early on to get the enchantresses down quickly.

Key Cards:

Enchantresses: Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, Verduran Enchantress

Enchantments: Elephant Grass, Sterling Grove, Solitary Confinement, Karmic Justice

Mana acceleration: Wild Growth, Fertile Ground, Exploration

Other: Exploration, Ancestral Mask, Words of Wind

Lands

Overview: Utilize lands, land searches, and land ramp to play payoffs like Trade Routes or ramp into big creatures like Verdant Force. Lands also has a graveyard theme with graveyard fillers like Sylvan Safekeeper and cards that care about your graveyard like Terravore.

Key Cards:

Land ramp: Exploration, Harrow, Summer Bloom, Burgeoning

Creatures: Verdant Force, Symbiotic Wurm

Payoffs: Trade Routes, Seismic Assault, Horn of Greed

Graveyard fillers: Crop Rotation, Sylvan Safekeeper, Seismic Assault

Other (Optional): Terravore

Madness

Overview:

Key Cards:

Madness payoffs: Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm

Discard outlets: Wild Mongrel, Aquamoeba, Merfolk Looter

Other: Squee, Goblin Nabob, Wonder