Hello and welcome back to the Magic Super Cube!

For those of you who managed to stumble on to this for the first time, this is the blog where I go through the history of Magic and choose cards from every set that was Standard legal or would have been Standard legal had the format existed to make a huge Cube.

We return to a Core set with Fourth Edition, a massive set full of reprints and ways to help reestablish some fundamentals for the Cube. We are again doing an even split of choosing creatures and noncreature spells for each color and adding some cards that should have been in the Cube that are finally making their appearance.

There was plenty of cards to choose from and narrowing them down wasn’t easy, but I made my picks and here they are!

White

For white I wanted to fill in some gaps of well known cards that I missed the first time going around that I have few to no more chances to add to the Cube, which is true for many of my pick.

The creatures I choose bring about a cheap creature with a unique ability that I think should have a minor presence in the Cube while the other creature is using a creature type that won’t be relevant for a while, but made it’s appearance very early in Magic’s history.

The noncreature spells are adding some iconic cards that I didn’t choose because there were other strong choices made for older sets, but I am including them here because there may not be a chance to include them in the future.

My picks for white are Amrou Kithkin, Benalish Hero, Land Tax, and Wrath of God

Blue

With white I wanted to continue the trend I set with white by adding cards that I missed during the first go around.

The noncreature spells were cards that I didn’t pick the first time around because of space, but they are iconic cards that should be in the Cube, with one of them having a mirror in another color, which is a theme I do carry in the other colors as well.

The creatures I chose are not particularly strong, but they have some aspects about them that are iconic for blue and can help set up some minor typal themes in the future, as well as being decent creatures for blue as a whole.

My picks for blue are Blue Elemental Blast, Control Magic, Mahamoti Djinn, and Water Elemental.

Black

Now that we move on to black, we continue adding cards that have a last chance to being added over better cards.

The creatures I chose are iconic creatures that I wished I could have included in the first go around, one of which has a unique mechanic that doesn’t appear on too many cards and the other being an incredibly iconic card that can have some typal synergies in the future.

One of the noncreature spells is incredibly iconic that it spawned a whole mechanic based off of it and the other is a card that is a color break, but an interesting card to have for the Cube.

My picks for black are Deathgrip, Fear, Nether Shadow, and Sengir Vampire.

Red

Red was one of the harder colors to pick from, so I decided to go by the standby of picking either classic cards or ones that would synergize with the Cube.

This is very evident with the creature picks, with one of the creatures being chosen for one of the stronger typal aspects of the Cube while the other is an iconic creature for red that I felt I needed to include early.

The noncreature cards are what I had the most trouble in because there were so many that I could choose from or I have already chosen. In the end I went with a burn effect and a mirror to a previously mentioned card.

My picks for red are Ball Lightning, Goblin Balloon Brigade, Manabarbs, and Red Elemental Blast.

Green

Green breaks a lot of the trends that I had set with the other colors because I had done a decent amount of iconic cards already and decided to pick some interesting cards.

For the noncreature cards I had one classic card that I didn’t include prior and feel like this is one of the last times I have the option to add it to the Cube, and the other is the mirror to another card, completing the mirrors in the Cube.

The creatures that I chose included one absolutely iconic creature in green that may not be strong for the Cube, but definitely needs to be a part of it and a creature that I completely missed in earlier sets but is part of the Cube because of how rare it is for green.

My picks for green are Channel, Grizzly Bears, Lifeforce, and Land Leeches.

Artifacts and Land

I chose a lot of artifacts and one land for my last picks and there is a reason for that.

Most of the lands in the set were ones that I already chose in other sets, leaving the only unique one being something that I think is nice to have in the Cube, but won’t make a huge impact.

The artifacts on the other hand are plentiful and I chose a decent number of them to fill out the set. Many of them are effectively the same card but work with different colors, while some of the others filled out different niches and provide interesting aspects to the Cube and for setting some interesting ideas for the future.

My picks for artifacts and land are White Mana Battery, Blue Mana Battery, Black Mana Battery, Red Mana Battery, Green Mana Battery, Ivory Tower, Meekstone, Sunglasses of Urza, The Hive, and Oasis.

In Conclusion

Fourth Edition helped a lot in adding some iconic cards into the Cube while also being able to help solidify some fundamentals for the future of the Cube.

When we return to the Magic Super Cube we are going to be delving into Ice Age and the interesting aspects of that set with a less than well received mechanic and some very iconic cards as well.

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

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