Hello and welcome back to the Magic Super Cube!

If you have managed to find your way here and have no idea what this is, this is the blog where I go through the history of Magic and pick cards from every set that was Standard legal or would have been Standard legal had the format existed to make an immense Cube out of all those sets.

We have made our way to Fallen Empires, and interesting set in that it was massively overprinted to deal with the high demand of the game at the time, and due to overprinting the set had made Wizards much more aware of how much to print.

This set also started making creature types matter making typal, or tribal as it was known at the time, a theme that would become much more developed as a concept for future sets to further explore.

There are some interesting picks here so let’s get started!

White

Going into choosing the cards from Fallen Empires, white was tricky because a lot of the cards were not that great.

This mostly was an issue when picking creatures because they all have odd effects that are too expensive or too slow to get working. The creature I ended up going with was a creature that could provide some utility, even if it may be a bit slow.

The noncreature spells I chose were much more useful because there were some more interesting effects to use. One is a way to force a block or it could potentially remove a creature from play and the other is a mass token generation spell that is always useful.

My picks for white are Farrel’s Mantle, Icatian Scout, and Icatian Town.

Blue

Blue was a lot easier to pick than white, especially since one of the typal supports of the set is a creature type that will be seen as we go on.

For the noncreature spell I had picked it was almost too obvious of a pick, but it is also an incredibly useful card for blue to have, especially as blue develops to have some more spell slinger or big spell archetypes in the future.

The creature spells that I chose were a little more difficult because I had to narrow down to a few choices. In the end I chose a creature that had a form of evasion that was fairly unique while picking a creature that has incredible utility for the creature type in the future.

My picks for blue are High Tide, River Merfolk, and Vodalian Mage.

Black

Black proved to be a bit more difficult than it has historically been, but I think there are some interesting choices.

For the creatures, I decided not to do too much typal focus and instead looked for unique creatures or unique effects. The unique creature is actually I believe the first mention of a creature type that would later define some aspects of Magics greater story and the other is a creature with an effect that black doesn’t get,

The noncreature card I chose was another obvious choice, more so in how iconic and powerful the card can be, especially in a Cube.

My choices for black are Ebon Praetor, Hymn to Tourach, and Thrull Wizard.

Red

When looking at red, there was a lot of typal options to choose from that I had a hard time picking cards.

I had one creature pick here and I decided that the typal card I would pick would be something that has typal synergies, but can also be used even if you didn’t fully dedicate to the typal strategy.

The noncreature cards that I picked were interesting. One of the picks fully dedicated to being a typal support piece, an iconic one at that, and the other pick is something that will definitely help aggro decks in the Cube for the future.

My picks for red are Goblin Chirurgeon, Goblin Grenade, and Goblin War Drums.

Green

While I could have easily gone into some more typal picks for green, I decided to follow some more utility aspects for the color.

The creature pick I went with was something that added some potential aggressive strategies for green while also adding a potential seed for an archetype in the future.

My noncreature picks were where I decided to go full in on utility, one is a way to interact with the graveyard and the other is an effect that is in green that protects from aggressive strategies.

My picks for green are Night Soil, Spore Cloud, and Thelonite Druid.

Artifacts

There were a decent number of artifacts to choose from and I decided to fully commit to some interesting utility artifacts.

This includes ways to act as a generic form of dealing some damage, a generic way of gaining some card advantage, and a more chaotic form of gaining card advantage.

Two of my artifact picks are also some early ways of boosting creatures via artifacts, way before Equipment became a part of Magic.

My picks for artifacts are Aeolipile, Conch Horn, Ring of Renewal, Spirit Shield, and Zelyon Sword.

Lands

When looking at the lands from the set, I realized that I had not picked a lot of lands for the Cube.

There are two land cycles in the set that would prove to be very useful, one for banking mana in the long term and the other for a small burst of mana when necessary.

The only reason I didn’t add every land from the set is because the only unique land in the set is not that great, despite its ability to tap for mana of any color.

My picks for lands are Icatian Store, Ruins of Trokair, Sand Silos, Svyelunite Temple, Bottomless Vault, Ebon Stronghold, Dwarven Hold, Dwarven Ruins, Havenwood Battleground, and Hollow Trees.

In Conclusion

Fallen Empires has a decent number of unique cards, and while I could have gone heavy into the typal aspect of the set, I decided to explore some of the more unique designs of the set, but still have some typal synergies for the Cube.

When we come back to the Magic Super Cube we are going to be diving into Fourth Edition as a way to help reestablish some fundamentals for the Cube.

As usual, here is the Moxfield link to keep up with all the cards in the Cube!

See you next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

Socials

Bluesky: @jmcasualnerd.bsky.social

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jmcasual