General Old border cube archetypes

[Nanonox]

I’ve been having fun experimenting with the old border restriction and am intrigued by the possibilities of the various archetypes. I know some of you have experience or even curate some of these cubes and thought it would be fun to steal share ideas.

When talking about old-border, I am including some of the newer cards that got the treatment and make sense for me. I understand some people don't include those cards, so don't! Share whatever your vision of old-border Magic is.

First up is an archetype I really enjoyed drafting in a couple of Old bordered cubes I tried and definitely want it to be part of my own.

GW enchantment control



The above give you a good idea of what the deck is all about. Get value and cheat on mana thanks to some enchantment payoffs and win a long, drawn-out game from there. The win conditions are actually pretty sweet too



Humility makes everything irrelevant allowing you to overwhelm the opponent with a string of dorky 1/1s. Mirari’s Wake also buffs them to get superiority. I have never tried Opalescence, but that could definitely work. Anyone have experience with that one?

You have the classic old-school White control package



That is backed up by wrath effects which conveniently kill your Academy Rector (but also Argothian Enchantress!)



Zuran Orb can become a combo piece alongside both Land Tax and Balance. Likewise for Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins which are on the riskier side.

And Green has an effective enchantment ramp package in these



Which can be enhanced via



These sacrifice lands help trigger Balance and Land Tax but are risky. Candelabra works with the Green enchantment ramp and Serra's Sanctum too.

Combine that with versatile enchantments and you have a strong control deck.



Here is an example deck list from the Neoclassical cube from Andy at LPR


Do you support a control enchantment package or do you go for something more aggressive or not support it at all?

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

Something else cool you can do with enchantments in old border is a GW aggro auras package. I ripped this idea from the Original Old Border Cube and have been tinkering with it. Pretty fun if your cube is board-focused.

Start with some classic good auras:


Add in guys that make blocking a problem for your opponent:


Season with enchantment support to taste:


There's also some other solid aura removal in old border white that you didn't mention:


I think enchantments are awesome in old border because they are really densely interwoven into the card pool. They got enchantments that do basically anything. You can add cards like Enlightened Tutor and it can be a completely different card to every drafter at the table.

 

[Seeker]

Relevant to this thread, the CI tag has functionality that I'm pretty sure it didn't have several months back:

[CI]|TESoltari Trooper[/CI]

(edit: but good luck getting this to work if you want to swap between images in the same post, I'm pretty sure the way it works is "first instance of CI in the post for that card wins and you are stuck with that one across an entire post")

 

[LadyMapi]

Yeah, I've been experimenting with it and it seems... buggy?

 

[Nanonox]

I think enchantments are awesome in old border because they are really densely interwoven into the card pool. They got enchantments that do basically anything. You can add cards like Enlightened Tutor and it can be a completely different card to every drafter at the table.

100%! They can be pretty wild too, so you are in for some spicy decks.

Your aura package is tight. Shadow creatures are the perfect fit for them and are among White's best options for going aggro anyways.

You had me look up other cool auras



Huge in the right deck



There are a ton of sweet activated abilities in old border and I think these untap auras could unlock some fun lines



An aura for the cheat deck, where I like the risk involved and it forces a minimum amount of creatures to work.

Relevant to this thread, the CI tag has functionality that I'm pretty sure it didn't have several months back:

Very nice, going to try and edit the post to make it work.

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

Here's a package that's been somewhat emergent in Old Border Kitchen Table: goofy GR turbo ramp channel fireball combo type shit

On top of the usual suite of dorks and rampant growths, you can throw in some of these more explosive mana cards:


Then on top of the usual suite of ramp target idiots, give people some big dumb stuff to do with all that extra mana:


This can be incorporated into a GR midrange/ramp plan and allow for occasional explosive combo moments. A couple decks:

 

[Nanonox]

lol at the Whammy Counter on the Jack-in-the-Mox.

Next I'd like to take a look at Suicide Black. An aggressive and disruptive deck that uses its life total as a resource to play overstated dorks (for the time and in Black!) .

This one is close to my heart as it is the first deck I was playing in Vintage in the 2000s since the only power 9 it used was Lotus and Jet and you could get away not playing them. I remember pimping it out with full Beta cards when they were cheap and preying on The Deck with all the power and duals.

In a cube setting, here are some standout threats



I love Jinxed Idol as a sacrifice outlet and a source of repeatable damage. Throwing away a Ravenous Rats to it feels amazing, but leaves the opponent with the option of sending it back. The Rack is a little dicey as it can often be dead, but you are trying to strip their hand pretty aggressively.

Alongside some disruption



Hand and land hate is a classic part of the archetype, but I am not a huge fan of Hymn to Tourach. The risk of non-games is a little too high for my tastes. There was also Nether Void in the vintage deck I played which was brutal! Cast a threat, and ritual out a Nether Void to seal the deal. A little too unfun for what I have in mind here, but totally legit if it's your thing.

The "Suicide" angle isn't quite as apparent yet, but these should make it real



Speaking of life loss, I notice that a lot of the creatures are incidental zombies and I think adding these two makes a lot of sense for the deck's gameplan and can offer some novel gameplay alongside creature untappers.



Shepherd gives you reach and hopefully your life total is just a bit higher than the opponent's. Makes me think of Earthquake in a Red aggressive deck. It could be that Crypt Rats is the better option, but a little kindred fun has appeal IMO.

Ideally, you would have a bit of life gain to not succumb to all the life loss triggers and these definitely help



There is also the option of going into a Stax build with Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack. This archetype can also easily branch out into a sacrifice deck, which I'll probably explore next.

Do you support a more fleshed out zombies theme? Thoughts on Hymn to Tourach and Nether Void?

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

Definitely the biggest hurdle I've had with black and trying to support Necropotence is that the pickings are actually quite slim on lifegain in old border black. You're making me take a second look at Corrupt and Vicious Hunger haha. Drain Life would be perfect but it is one of the most miserably templated cards of all time. Just look at how many fucking times they tried to reword this thing. I think the Beatdown Box Set printing is the closest to being coherent but it's still not great. I posted this card in my playgroup's chat and asked them if they thought it was confusing and they started debating what it even did lol. I THINK if you want to extend this suicide black theme out you kinda lean on the orzhov lifegain stuff, white has some nice options like Soul Warden for a lifegain card that also stands alone as a solid sideboard vs aggro.

Also I'm running 3x Carnophage bc too many fucking cards have been errata'd to be zombies for me to want to run Sarcomancy lmao.

 

[inscho]

If you want a combo there’s always:

 

[spicewitch]

and my axe

 

[spicewitch]

ok it's possible that only grappler, agility, and fury are old border. but they're rrrrad

 

[henkdetenk]

Kird Ape and Rancor are old border too, silly.

 

[ravnic]

Young Wolf has a retro frame printing too, but sadly it doesn't say on it what the one word of rules text it has means (undying) which sucks for cube obviously.

 

[Seeker]

Young Wolf reminded me, an archetype I love that isn't really that good but that doesn't stop me:


So generally you want
-artifacts that make mana to ramp to them / survive Wildfire (but not Haups), Fire Diamond style, like Kai's Worlds-winning deck from 2001 with Covetous Dragon
-speaking of, giant idiots survive Wildfire!
-enchantments survive both (Stormbind or whatever will stay in play, or a Wild Growth to make Wildfire less symmetric)

Depending on how you feel about "fake" old border (i.e. stuff first new bordered, but reprinted later) there's actually a lot of individual effects even if they're all less represented than I'd like:
-Darksteel Citadel and all ten of the Bridges exist as indestructible lands
-Golgari Grave-Troll, Experiment One, and Dimir House Guard can regenerate from Wildfire (but, again, not Haups)
-Utopia Sprawl to be Wild Growth #2
-Ulvenwald Mysteries?! yeah sure okay it combos pretty well actually
-Beyond Young Wolf, there's also Butcher Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger
-Suspend isn't well-represented in old border, sadly, but there's Gaea's Will and Inevitable Betrayal, maybe Glimpse of Tomorrow and Lotus Bloom
-Arclight Phoenix, Haunted Dead
-Cthonian Nightmare (not a lot of energy support but maybe with Primal Prayers?)
-stuff like Flickerwisp and Fiend Hunter
-and of course Titania, Protector of Argoth, who is already busted enough without blowing up your opponent's entire board before she makes 20+ power

 

[Nanonox]

This

Definitely the biggest hurdle I've had with black and trying to support Necropotence is that the pickings are actually quite slim on lifegain in old border black. You're making me take a second look at Corrupt and Vicious Hunger haha. Drain Life would be perfect but it is one of the most miserably templated cards of all time.

I never realized that Drain Life was so confusing. It's been part of Magic since I started playing so definitely a blind spot for me. I think that Corrupt and Hunger are a necessary evil if you want to go down this life payment route.

I THINK if you want to extend this suicide black theme out you kinda lean on the orzhov lifegain stuff, white has some nice options like Soul Warden for a lifegain card that also stands alone as a solid sideboard vs aggro.

This is a good point and I think you are right. There is one newer card they did in old border that I really want to include for those situations



Alongside Necropotence, Necrologia and Skeletal Scrying, it looks pretty good when 1 life = 1 card. Maybe even Ivory Tower could be decent if you have a full grip.

If you want a combo there’s always:

ok it's possible that only grappler, agility, and fury are old border. but they're rrrrad

Maybe this could be the start of a Berserker deck in Selesnya? Atog + Bestial Fury could be a starting point in Gruul.

Young Wolf reminded me, an archetype I love that isn't really that good but that doesn't stop me:

Wildfire is pretty great here! I am often too chicken to run Jokulhaups though. It does its job too well and really nukes the board making the asymmetry tough to crack. I kind of like Devastating Dreams too as another land + creature wrath.

You nailed the cards to make it shine. I'll add stuff like Parallax Wave that can protect your creatures just before resolving one of these (and add Cataclysm to that list of effects). If you are mostly creature-less, Repercussion seems like a brutal finisher (that would be a cool deck with stuff like Breath of Darigaaz and Crater Hellion).

With all the artifact mana available, you could also run a little untap package if you have 5+ life to spend.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

New card in old border with lifelink

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Do you ever run altered proxies in this cube? I mean, it's so easy to change Drain Life to Death Grasp with "Spend only black mana on X."

Edit:

Spoiler

 

[alvoi]

Is Drain Life really too difficult to grasp? Like, you deal X damage to the creature, and you "drain" its "life" so you gain life equal to the damage you dealt that was necessary to kill it. Clearly, you cannot drain 5 life points from a creature with only 3 toughness!

Sometimes I feel cards are wordy but their effect is easily understandable thanks to flavour and themes, and I feel this is such a card.

By the way, I really shouldn't open this topic, since I am struggling to resist my urge to build an old-bordered cube

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

I think it isn't really that hard to understand, especially if you are a Magic player and read Magic cards all day, but if you barely think about Magic like most of the people I play with, the phrase "but not more than the toughness of the creature or the life total of the player Drain Life damages" or whatever variant is technically parseable but just reads quite badly.

 

[Rusje]

View attachment 10634

New card in old border with lifelink

And completely outclasses the creatures in old border. With a draw 7 when dealt with. No thanks.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

And completely outclasses the creatures in old border. With a draw 7 when dealt with. No thanks.

Mm, taking my ridiculous suggestion at face value, good choice good choice