Old Borders Power Cube

I still have my foiled proxy power 9 laying around and i know some of my gaming group wants to assemble broken stuff and crush those enemies. I'm not against powerful magic, but i want to test something else than "black lotus into t1 jace 2.0, gg" kind of games.

What i'm aiming for is to have a format where you occasionally have explosive starts, but the core of the games won't be decided in two turns AND to make a format that feels kind of its own compared to my more traditional main cube. What i thought of first to make this happen was to see what it would be like to have those over the top cards mixed with almost unplayable cards. To accomplish this, i decided to try out a cube that bans the modern environment completely, so only cards before Mirrodin are welcome.

Also the card pool gives me leeway to add in some crappy but nostalgic cards that doesn't jump out that much, this is something that probably will get appriciation from those old school players i'm playing with. What cards am i talking about, well go check the list and see if anything takes you back to the old school magic where Shivan Dragon was the Queen: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/51383

What does this change?
-No planeswalkers
-The usual powerhouse power max cards get a lot worse: Show and Tell, Channel, Eureka, Storm, Recurring Nightmare, Tinker, Fastbond etc..
-Creature based decks get better because the lack of trump cards like planeswalkers, but then again creatures also get much worse.
-Blue becomes overly powerful if not nerfed and i have snipped the power level a bit, so not every best card in blue exists in there. (no ancestral, opposition, mana drain, treachery)

What comes to cube size, i wouldn't mind a bigger pool per se, but with this low card quality to choose from making a huge cube would be almost impossible and would result in diminishing returns. For instance white is really struggling for cards that i would like to add already. It's 550+ now and it probably will stay that size, unless i go for the power max route and make my first 360 cube.

Some clear strategies:

Rebels (monoW):
This tribal seems to be just for the resiliency. Nothing fancy, just card advantage to an aggro deck.

Goblins (monoRw):
Lots of bad cards, but together might get there, only time will tell if this works. Also this format has a plausible reason to make goblins a thing, because the cards that would replace them aren't that hot either.
Ball Lightning's and Hill Giants with a negative or minor positive abilites aren't too interesting, goblins are more sexy.

Zombies (monob /Br):


Elves (monoG)


Reanimator:
Not much surprises here. Reanimation spells are the best of the bunch, but the targets are mostly not that impressive. Like in every cube with reanimator i have to keep an eye on how well reanimator performs, since this might be the best strategy in here.

Opinions?

I know some of you are grinding your teeth for the power 9 and the fast mana, but i want to test them with the crappy cards and take a feel what it was like back in the days of magic and take them out if those cards warp the format TOO much.

What cards should exist in this format that i have left out ? (nostalgic value or just great cards)
Any interesting archetypes that could be made from cards that i left out ?
Some cards that you feel are WAY WAY over the top in the color pie ?
Some cards that you feel are WAY WAY too crappy to be ever picked in this cube ?
What if i go for a route where every color has tribals ?
 
Totally love this. Will be following your progress closely. I was going to start my own blog, but no sense in duplicating. I'll live vicariously through yours.

I looked at your list and I spent some time searching on cube tutor. There was a guy on MTGS who had a cube like this, with a ton of play test information too. As I started playing this game after Mirrodin, my knowledge of how the game played in the early days is somewhat limited. I had friends who introduced me to the game who were playing since Alpha, so they know. And I remember facing Preacher, Maze of Ith, etc type decks.

So my own personal feeling is that trying to balance this will not be fun because old school Magic wasn't balanced. It was very combo focused IMO. Spells were way better than creatures. And even the successful creature decks (think Goblins) only won because of a critical mass of combo type cards (Goblin Lackey, swing, drop Siege-Gang Commander on T2). Or Elves (how easily can I get 20 mana? Pretty easily if you didn't draw a removal spell).

I'd accept old school Magic for what it is: Broken Magic. Not suggesting you just toss in Sol ring, Library and the moxen (every game will revolve around who picked them up in draft if you do). But I would probably run stupid shit like Balance and storm combo. Because, well... why not?

I agree with you that traditionally super broken things like Reanimator are nerfed in a cube like this. No one today would waste time reanimating Akroma for example when they could get something that was much better. Or tinker especially. Tinker into Triskelion? It's practically a fair play versus the necropotence deck or whatever other absurdity will manifest. Tinker might even be weak sauce. So by all means run Tinker and don't be too afraid of it. You may end up removing it simply because you can't break it hard enough.

Blue will of course be the best color. And taking away enough to where it isn't the strongest color would probably be a mistake in a cube like this. That is sort of the nostalgia behind the game. And part of why a card like River Boa is so playable (because practically everyone will have islands). It is what it is.

As far as missing cards?
Soltari Brothers is the only obvious one. I know shadow and protection are both non-interactive crap mechanics, but reality is those dominated Magic's early history and white is woefully shit. These are probably the two best aggro creatures white has and I'd avoid that archetype like the plague without them. Even with them, it's a hard sell for me and I wouldn't go there unless I had already picked up an Armageddon or Tangle Wire or something.

On that note, there is no way a rebel deck will win in this meta. Which brings me to the cube size. The power level variance you are going to get with a list this restrictive will be massive. Even a 360 list (which is the highest I would go), there are going to be silly looking packs (Longbow Archer next to Recurring Nightmare? Uh... guess I'm playing a Bx deck?). I'd also strip the living hell out of your gold section. 2 cards per color. Gold offerings back in these days are dreadfully bad.
 
My 30th birthday gaming event is coming next weeks weekend (real birthday in christmas) and i wanted to make this cube in time for that event. Because i realized i probably should make this event early, i now know i can't make this whole cube in time. So i might try make this 360 for now and move from there since it's cheaper.

The list looks like this now: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/59955
361, because Tarpan is a running joke in our finnish mtg community, so it just has to be there.

I took out the fast mana and cut some bad cards. Also golds are now 2 per guild.
 
Looks really good.

White section still not sold on though. But maybe I'm underestimating the anthem deck? I just don't see how white weanie pushes damage through with stuff like Fresh Volunteers (splashably doesn't do damage) and Steadfast Guard (vigilantly runs into walls). Break down and run the soltari brothers. Just do it. :) OK, I won't mention it again.

Armadillo Cloak (over Phantom Nishoba)? I'd also add Elephant guide. With no equipment, I think cards like this go up in value by a lot (despite the 2 for 1 danger). And speaking of green, Thornscape Battlemage is the best of that cycle. I'd run him.

Maybe swap the moxen for the diamond cycle (fire diamond, etc)? Clearly massive downgrades, but running mox is going to warp this cube a lot. Playing with moxen is fun though. I'd add Worn Powerstone and Thran Dynamo to support the Wildfire deck. And probably Upheaval, for Tog and the UR version of Wildfire.

Really excited to hear if elves and/or goblins come together. A lot of those cards are poisony, but probably less so in a list like this because the overall power level of creatures is so much lower than your typical cube.
 
On a mostly related note, wanted to bounce some thoughts off you on the topic of lands.

So, clearly this is an old bordered cube. I know. That said, mana fixing is so vital and fetches are so good for the game mechanically, it seems a shame not to be running the whole cycle just because Wizards waited a billion years to print the enemy ones (it's not like the mechanic is foreign). And if you were to take an honest look at the original dual lands versus the shock lands, which of those is the more interesting and better designed?

Then we come to a subject that there are several threads on and a bunch of lengthy posts with links to articles written by smart people. And it all revolves around how much fixing there should be. Not sure where you fall in that whole argument, but I'm pretty far towards the end of the spectrum which thinks more is better. And so I'm personally of the opinion that you should up the lands section in your cube and run at least 3 fixing cycles (I'd run 4). If you want to stick old bordered, just run an entire playset of pains. I'd probably do double shock, single fetch and then either pains, scry or bounce lands. And I'd be totally noncompliant on the old bordered design constraint with the lands at that point. But frankly, this is one area of cube design where compromise I feel just hurts the overall product. You can make a really interesting meta out of older cards. But skimping on mana bases just means more games will be won off of screw. And other than reminiscing about that one time you couldn't get a second forest and you died to [insert bad card here], there really is very little upside to having bad mana. It might even be a worse problem in an older cube where color requirements were a lot more severe.
 
So both Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow have judge foils with the old bordered card format. This is very clearly stretching the definition of this cube, but adding one or both of these cards would help your aggressive creature decks immensely. And they honestly don't feel that out of place given the high propensity for protection in early magic. This cube will also have more answers than most cubes with all the enchantment/artifact removal floating around. And with one (at most two) swords and no other equipment, you can't have them dominating the format. One deck will be WW + sword.dec, but it might actually win a few matches and that would sort of be satisfying off the back of some of the useless shit in the white section.
 
On a mostly related note, wanted to bounce some thoughts off you on the topic of lands.

So, clearly this is an old bordered cube. I know. That said, mana fixing is so vital and fetches are so good for the game mechanically, it seems a shame not to be running the whole cycle just because Wizards waited a billion years to print the enemy ones (it's not like the mechanic is foreign). And if you were to take an honest look at the original dual lands versus the shock lands, which of those is the more interesting and better designed?

Then we come to a subject that there are several threads on and a bunch of lengthy posts with links to articles written by smart people. And it all revolves around how much fixing there should be. Not sure where you fall in that whole argument, but I'm pretty far towards the end of the spectrum which thinks more is better. And so I'm personally of the opinion that you should up the lands section in your cube and run at least 3 fixing cycles (I'd run 4). If you want to stick old bordered, just run an entire playset of pains. I'd probably do double shock, single fetch and then either pains, scry or bounce lands. And I'd be totally noncompliant on the old bordered design constraint with the lands at that point. But frankly, this is one area of cube design where compromise I feel just hurts the overall product. You can make a really interesting meta out of older cards. But skimping on mana bases just means more games will be won off of screw. And other than reminiscing about that one time you couldn't get a second forest and you died to [insert bad card here], there really is very little upside to having bad mana. It might even be a worse problem in an older cube where color requirements were a lot more severe.

So both Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow have judge foils with the old bordered card format. This is very clearly stretching the definition of this cube, but adding one or both of these cards would help your aggressive creature decks immensely. And they honestly don't feel that out of place given the high propensity for protection in early magic. This cube will also have more answers than most cubes with all the enchantment/artifact removal floating around. And with one (at most two) swords and no other equipment, you can't have them dominating the format. One deck will be WW + sword.dec, but it might actually win a few matches and that would sort of be satisfying off the back of some of the useless shit in the white section.

Sorry, i forgot to add 'watch this thread', so i didn't see these posts in time.

First off i don't mind stretching the rules if the benefit is to have a better experience in my cube. That being said, going for an old bordered cube where there are cards that aren't old bordered would make a disconnect to the environment what i'm going for. What is the point of making a limit to the environment if i don't go for it 100%? This means i won't be adding cards that doesn't have old borders. Swords are sort of something i could go for because they look cool, but the problem is i hate equipments. They either are really bad or they are really oppressive. Skullclamp is maybe the only equipment that gets me excited in a cube. Swords should be changed so that they don't offer a protection - then i would probably add them.

Also me hating equipments answers the question why Phantom Nishoba over Armadillo Cloak. Equipments Auras are wonky and they offer 2-for-1's against you, meh. Phantom Nishoba is not also a really powerful creature, but it also gives reanimator a nice target to go for. It also serves my nostalgic side for being a card i played in my reanimator when i started to make real decks.

Your rebel yell has been heard, but because i still haven't tried this cube they will be as is. Shadow and protection are both miserable mechanics and i rather leave them out if possible. I know 2 mana 2/2 is a horrible card, but i'm pretty confident it does enough when you go for the rebel plan, since you get card value out of your rebel searchers. You shouldn't over look the fact that you can get a free dude every turn, it doesn't have to be super powerful to matter really. Maybe it will never work, maybe it does, but i will never know for sure if i don't try it out.

Land base is a hard one. I have never made a 360 list before, but having 31 lands means every player has potentially 3.8 non-basiclands which to me seems healthy enough. Having more painlands is something to think on, but i still want to play with the cube before i start cutting interesting cards for non-basics that in theory might make mana screws happen less. This is also one selling point for me to not go for 360, so i can add more stuff that i want to see along with more non-basics ;)
 
I'm finally about to finish my cube! Cards and sleeves are on the mail so in a month i'll finally play with this pile.

My list at the moment: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/51383

At the moment i'm playing with some nutty cards like power 9 and Upheaval mainly because it attracts players and my gaming group has asked for moxen.
It's possible that after a few plays they will be off the list.

Storm is off though. It's just too nutty and it will ruin the format i'm sure about that :D
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Looks sweet. Mox will be busted of course, but in a cool old school way. Should be fun seeing these cards from a different perspective. Looking forward to hearing how it goes.
 
My 30th birthday gaming event is coming next weeks weekend (real birthday in christmas) and i wanted to make this cube in time for that event. Because i realized i probably should make this event early, i now know i can't make this whole cube in time. So i might try make this 360 for now and move from there since it's cheaper.

The list looks like this now: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/59955
361, because Tarpan is a running joke in our finnish mtg community, so it just has to be there.

I took out the fast mana and cut some bad cards. Also golds are now 2 per guild.
I love how Tarpan is a running joke in your community as well!
 
I took a draft. Starting with a p1p1 Living Death, I went into UB Reanimator, and it fehlt incredibly well supportet. Great format I really enjoyed it and I love old school MtG.

UB Reanimator from CubeTutor.com












One thing, though, you're running Proteus Machine, but then you're missing out on strong morph cards like Willbender. Why is that?
 
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