Hello and welcome to a late edition of the Magic Super Cube!

If you didn’t know, this is the blog series where we go throughout the history of Magic and pick cards from Standard legal sets or sets that would have been Standard legal if the format existed and make an enormous Cube.

We begin a brand new block by looking at the first of Tempest block, Tempest. I have to tell you, this was one of the hardest to pick cards from out of all the sets so far because there are so many iconic cards that came from this set, also because this is a massive set of over 300 cards.

This was also the set that introduced on of my favorite creature types: Slivers. Yes I am that guy, and my picks reflect that because in each color I picked at least one Sliver. The other choices that weren’t Slivers were exceedingly difficult because again, there are so many great cards to choose from.

Let’s get started!

White

Starting things off was probably the easiest of the five colors, which isn’t saying much because I had a hard time picking from white, which really sets the tone.

The noncreature card I decided for a somewhat controversial pick because of how it interacts with the rules. One of the criteria for choosing cards for the Cube are cards I find fun to play, and while it can be annoying to play with, I decided that this card would be interesting to play with.

The creature pick, that wasn’t a Sliver, was tough because there were some decent choices, but none that really stood out. In the end I decided on a cheap creature that is quite evasive. Each of the five colors have two Slivers to pick from, and the one from white provides a really good combat effect for all Slivers.

My picks for white are Humility, Soltari Foot Soldier, and Talon Sliver.

Blue

Blue was the beginning of how tough things would be, because of how many great picks there were.

The only creature I chose for blue was the Sliver pick, and of the two available Slivers, my pick is probably one of the better picks because it provides a solid effect that would be great if you manage to pull a good number of Slivers.

The noncreature picks were tough and I went back and forth on a few choices. In the end I chose a control piece that would help keep a blue player safe against go wide aggro decks and the other is an amazing way to tutor cards into your hand and into your graveyard.

My picks for blue are Intuition, Propaganda, and Winged Sliver.

Black

Black was pretty tough, but overall I have to say it was probably the second easiest to pick from among the other five colors.

Again the only creature pick is the Sliver pick, and it was really a toss up between the two Slivers that were available. In the end I chose a Sliver that would be interactive and can work in two particular strategies depending on how you want to play it.

The noncreature spells are where it was a little tricky, but I am satisfied with my picks. They both interact with the graveyard, one being a touch more random but has the chance of being played multiple times if you sink enough mana into it and the other is an iconic spell that made its debut here.

My picks for black are Corpse Dance, Mindwhip Sliver, and Reanimate.

Red

This one was tough, particularly because I had to look at what cards would be available in later sets and ones I could only really pick here.

This was the last set where I had a Sliver as the only creature pick, and the one I picked was pretty easy. Of the two Slivers, one was a much better value in what it did because it would help make an aggressive Slivers deck work.

The noncreature spells, again, proved to be a bit tricky because of me deciding on whether or not I could pick some cards now or pick them later. The first noncreature spell is a way that can potentially deal with control decks, although it can be annoying to deal with, and the second is a card that I was surprised wasn’t easily available in future sets, but would be very important for a future strategy.

My picks for red are Boil, Goblin Bombardment, and Heart Sliver.

Green

Of all the colors, green was the toughest to choose from, which is not usually the case.

For the one noncreature spell I had to go through several to make sure that I wouldn’t get a repeated pick from before, because this is where some reprints start showing up more frequently outside of Core sets. The one I ended up picking is a card that plays amazingly with a particular strategy I want to slowly start cultivating (hint, hint).

There is a non-Sliver creature choice here, but it was tough because there are some pretty solid creatures in green to choose from. I ended up picking a creature that would help a particular creature type that isn’t Slivers. My Sliver pick was pretty easy and I chose one that was pretty good for the time and can help get the aggressive Slivers deck to become more effective.

My picks for green are Eladamri, Lord of Leaves, Harrow, and Muscle Sliver.

Multicolor

We return with some multicolor picks, and there was one of every color pair to choose from.

I ended up choosing the five allied pairs over the enemy pairs because they provided a nice variety of creature and noncreature cards to play around with and I have picked the enemy pairs for a few sets and wanted to switch things up.

One is a solid creature for its mana cost and abilities and stats, what ends up being a very expensive removal spell, a board wipe that can synergize with a particular strategy, a big creature with a downside, and another efficient creature for its mana value and abilities.

My picks for multicolor are Sky Spirit, Lobotomy, Spontaneous Combustion, Segmented Wurm, and Ranger en-Vec.

Artifacts and Lands

Out of all the categories, the artifacts was the hardest choice to make out of all of the other options, and lands was also a bit of a difficult choice as well.

Talking about the land first, there were a couple of land cycles that I could have picked from, but they would have been kind of boring to play with. However there were three other lands that had me thinking about having fewer lands to make more room for artifacts and these three were perfect because they were a mana accelerant, a mana fixer, and a land destroyer.

The reason I needed more room for artifacts was that I wanted a particular cycle of cards because they would work really well for the Cube, but there were also two other iconic artifacts that I wanted to include because of how well they would play with the Cube as a whole.

My picks for artifacts are Altar of Dementia, Emerald Medallion, Jet Medallion, Lotus Petal, Pearl Medallion, Ruby Medallion, and Sapphire Medallion.

My picks for lands are Ancient Tomb, Reflecting Pool, and Wasteland.

In Conclusion

This was a tough one for sure, but one that really had me make some hard choices and that is always a bit of good fun.

When we come back to the the Magic Super Cube we are going to be looking at the next set in Tempest block which is Stronghold, a smaller set so that should hopefully make things a bit easier. It also has fewer Slivers so that shouldn’t take too much space…right?

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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