General Old border cube archetypes

[Nanonox]

Yeah part of the charm of these cubes for me is how scrappy you have to be sometimes. The contrast between spells and creatures is pretty funny too!

Speaking of Red creatures, let's look at Goblins! Based on how shitty most of the creatures are, I am drawn towards kindred decks to get a little extra "oomph" and synergy. Does it draft on rails? For sure that is possible. It's also a pretty safe way to get newer players to latch onto an archetype and get people (like me) more excited to attack with a 1/1 for 2.

I will note that all of these have the correct creature type printed on them which greatly helps!

Goblin payoffs

I find myself with a few catergories of goblin payoffs. The first one is just tutoring



These lets you get your best targets and sometimes provide card advantage (or virtual CA in the case of Recruiter where it guarantees that you don't draw a land if you don't need one). The Ringleader requires a critical mass of Goblins to be worth it. I like these because you really get the feeling of playing with a goblin hoard. The downside is that these can make games feel a little samesy since you are likely to just get your Siege-Gang Commander and go face.

Next type of payoffs is using goblins as fodder



Skirk Prospector is a super interesting payoff. Converting creatures into mana has the potential to be busted (see Phyrexian Altar and friends). It's also a sacrifice outlet for something like Black Market.

Siege-Gang is a beating even absent a goblin theme, but it gets turbo-charged in one.

Clickslither base stats are perfectly fine, but in a goblin deck? It's nuts! This is a good way to support kindred decks. You can go combo with Berserk too.

Goblin Grenade is one I am less a fan of. There is enough good burn in old-border that you don't need to add a narrow card for the effect. The rate is top notch if you can pull it off though, but not worth the downside IMO.

Then you have pingers



Sparksmith is BS for me. Repeatable damage that can take down virtually anything in the right deck doesn't make for great Magic. Sure you lose life, so there is a cap on how much you can use it, but they lose their board. I'll add Goblin Sharpshooter as a messed up card that can take over the game with minimal effort. It's a sweet one, but a bit too pushed I think for old-bordered.

Incinerator is a better version of the effect I find. You ding one creature, you get your cycling value and move on. Maybe you can Tortured Existence it or something, but at that point it's an engine and I'm ok with that.

This one doesn't fit into any of my little categories, but it's an iconic goblin with a high ceiling you kind of have to work for. The Ragavan of old times maybe? You have to clear blockers and you get a snowballing board. I like it for the history and as a potential counterpoint to how explosive spells decks can be.



These are just extra goblins that are sweet and fill out your deck. Not sold on the Hunter, but I do like the rest.



Shout out to these two who are received the retro border treatment, but "feel" old school (for me at least).



Kindred or no for old-bordered aggro?

Edit: forgot one of my favourite goblin related cards



Double your sacrifice fodder or answer a big scary threat.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Big letter vs spirit of the law with the gristlebrand suggustion

 

[ravnic]

If I would do an old border cube (I am so close to it) I would allow my self retroactively old bordered cards, if they feel okay in the context. Like, Mogg War Marshal or Krenko's Command seem totally fine in old border and give you some solid two drops that work with the proposed goblin typal theme.

 

[ravnic]

Btw, you know I love madness. I could see it in a old frame cube as a nonwhite archetype.

Stuff to discard:


Cheap discard outlets:


Most discard outlets are great for reanimator and other graveyard strategies as well.

 

[Seeker]

Cheap discard outlets:

this has some real "Griselbrand as a lifelinker" energy, so I will Kramer in with an equally helpful suggestion:

you forgot Psychic Frog

(mostly just messing with you, Frog's obviously way dumber than Kavu)

 

[ravnic]

Yeah, I was kinda hesitant to include that one.

 

[Nanonox]

Great list. There are a ton of discard outlets in old-border! Plus a lot of dredgers. I feel like dredge is a mechanic that works well in old border and there are a lot of classics.

A few others that can be good to discard



Other than the madness stuff, maybe you can lean into creature count matters in Golgari

 

[Seeker]

Oh my god, any excuse to play Tombstone Stairwell is a good excuse!

And you probably can't get away with this - probably - but if you are literally only playing with lifelong grinders who know every card cold and you're trying to support not-self-mill in the cube:

(this is Ruin Crab, not Hedron Crab, so it doesn't work with Tombstone Stairwell, RIP)

Currently $20, because the promo was only released in Japan with a manga compilation of set stories first released online. It's not even from the manga that is sloooowly getting its promos released in English five years after Japan (We're getting the original art new border Snuff Out! Eventually! I assume!)

 

[ravnic]

Some cards should just get a retro frame printing already. After finally getting Noose Constrictor, my biggest wish now would be this guy:

 

[henkdetenk]

+ +

Nostalgic kitchentable dreams.

 

[henkdetenk]

Some cards should just get a retro frame printing already. After finally getting Noose Constrictor, my biggest wish now would be this guy:

You filthy heathen, an old bordered kraken or sea serpent should force you to sacrifice half your mana base or something similar just for being on the battlefield, not be cheaper and/or better than green fatties.

In all seriousness, I'm still in love with early 2000's old border design philosophy. Discarding, threshold, cycling and flashback go hand in hand so well, and if your whole cube is old border you can live the dream and play UB madness, like how Magic is supposed to be played. Vomiting out your hand to wild mongrel and flashbacking in undercosted things like roar of the wurm or grizzly fate



Of course the most fun by far is

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

Wow Zombie Infestation rocks I might have to try that card.

Some other cool weird stuff in this lane:

 

[Nanonox]

Wow Zombie Infestation rocks I might have to try that card.

Have you ever tried recursive Black beaters?



After zombies and goblins, the last kindred deck I want to explore is elves. They are a classic and are different enough from the other two that it gets interesting.

Elves have fantastic tap abilities. They generally produce mana someway or another, but they can also do more. Outside of mana dorks, we have



Birchlore Rangers is another great one, but Morph is a whole thing, which I don't want to include in this particular post. Wellwisher could be another solid candidate, but I don't really like dragging the game on too much. Wirewood Channeler and Elvish Guidance are worse versions of Priest of Titania, but can add redundancy.

Repeated Piper abilities seems like overkill, but there has to be a demographic for it. Timberwatch can fuck your shit up really quickly, so watch out!

Then you have the untappers which is what makes the archetype interesting.



The nice thing here is that these work with any creature! Arcanis, the Omnipotent, Kamahl, Pit Fighter or maybe even Shepherd of Rot. Point being, you don’t have to be elves to enjoy these abilities.

If you want to be a little more committed, Hivemaster is a cheap token producer. At 2 mana, you don’t need a ton of tokens to feel good about the card



Then you have incidental elves that can lead you down a ramp direction with Eathcraft or sacrifice with Goblin Bombardment



I like elves as a kindred deck for ramp, sacrifice or token strategies, where you don’t have to go very hard to feel like a kindred deck.

Did I miss any favourites?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

 

[Hemlock]

 

[Nanonox]

I listed Wirewood Elf instead of Symbiote oops!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It’s a pity Nettle Sentinel isn’t old border

Anyway, some more of my favorite old elves:

 

[henkdetenk]

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?

I wanted to ask in response to this (but forgot), but how many enchantresses and enchantment matters cards would you run in a 360 card environment when enchantment control is a thing? Or maybe I should be asking at how many enchantments would including a yavimaya enchantress or an enchantress presence start making sense?

I always feel enchantresses are such dead cards unless you're already knee deep in enchantments and auras in your environment. On the other hand, if the enchantment payoff is in green only, it's relatively easy to splash to other colors to snatch up whatever sweet enchantments happen to come along.

 

[Nanonox]

In a 360, I would be ok running these 4 payoffs for a minimalist theme and a good amount of bread and butter enchantments to make them worthwhile



I've found that card advantage isn't always easy to come by in these colors so these are highly relevant payoffs. There is also the possibility that you add an aura theme like gaytransmulldrifter suggested to have more decks care about these payoffs. I think it's the way to go personally.

After that, I would add a few more pieces like Auramancer and Enlightened Tutor that can be useful in both style of decks.

As for the density of enchantments, I think it's pretty easy to get a good amount in there. For example, since there is no spells matter payoff cards in old-border (like Young Pyromancer), you can replace your Rampant Growth with Fertile Grounds and be pretty happy. Do that with removal, threats and build arounds and you'll be good. A hard number of enchantments at 360? I'd want at least these just for the control deck.

Spoiler: Enchantments at 360

Last thing is that you need the control pieces to be there for that deck. Wraths, finishers and ways to get ahead on mana and/or cards as the game goes long. I'm just theory crafting, but having drafted a few cubes on CC, this has felt "right".