Hello and welcome back to the Magic Super Cube!

If you didn’t know this is where we go through the history of Magic and choose cards from Standard legal sets or sets that would have been Standard legal had the format existed and make an enormous Cube out of the cards I picked.

We are going to be finishing up Tempest block with Exodus, another small set that has a bunch of well known and iconic cards. It was actually pretty easy to make my picks because of how many well known cards were in the set.

The best part is that since there was only one land in the set and a small number of artifacts in comparison and no multicolor cards, I could choose five cards of each color for the set rather than the usual three, which made it much more flexible to pick cards.

Let’s get started!

White

Starting things off with white, I would say that of the five colors this one was probably the second hardest, which isn’t saying much since all the choices were pretty easy this time around.

For the creature spells I decided that there should be a decent variety. One is a big creature that has an interesting downside, the other is a creature that has solid evasion and a removal ability attached to it, and the last is an iconic creature that has become a cornerstone of a very particular strategy.

The noncreature spells were a bit more of a challenge, but in the end I decided on two cards that work really well in more control based decks, one if you want to have a way to block creatures better and the other to play against a heavy lands strategy without shutting yourself out too much.

My picks for white are Exalted Dragon, High Ground, Limited Resources, Soltari Visionary, and Soul Warden.

Blue

Next up is blue, which was probably the third easiest to pick from, and that was with a solid number of cards to choose from as well.

Starting with the noncreature spells, there is a card that is incredibly strong with certain combos in many formats, a card that acts as a discard outlet and a card that can tap and untap things, and way to take advantage of tapping our opponents things.

The creature spells were a little more difficult, but I ended up picking a creature that is very much the prototype of a particular ability that was introduced years later in a much more effective way and the other being a way to gain information from your opponent at a pretty cheap rate.

My picks for blue are Curiosity, Dominating Licid, Mind Over Matter, Rootwater Mystic, and Theft of Dreams.

Black

Black is next and that was the second easiest to pick cards from, since a lot of picks were basically auto includes when I realized that this set had them.

This is very evident of the noncreature spells, with one of them being an excellent way to sacrifice a creature for a massive value and is cheap to cast, a way to close the game in a much more aggressive strategy, and one of the best reanimation spells that also acts as a sacrifice outlet.

The creatures were a bit more tricky, but not too bad. I chose a cheap creature that has a minor downside in the grand scheme of things but is a solid rate for creatures of this time and another creature that I had no idea existed but now want to put in any deck that can support it because of how effective it is at shutting down a very popular Commander strategy.

My picks for black are Carnophage, Culling the Weak, Hatred, Recurring Nightmare, and Spike Cannibal.

Red

Next up is red, and this was definitely the hardest to pick from out of all of the colors, though there were a couple of easier choice to pick from.

With the noncreature spells I took a good look at them and had to make some tough choices. I ended up picking an interesting control piece in red that works well in creature decks, another card that works great with creatures in that it deals some burn damage, and the last is a burn spell that punishes greedy mana bases.

The creatures were pretty tough since there were some decent choices but nothing major that really stood out. In the end I picked a creature that offers a bit of recursion for a particular card type and a cheap creature that works well with a particular creature type.

My picks for red are Anarchist, Onslaught, Pandemonium, Price of Progress, and Raging Goblin.

Green

Green was by far the easiest to pick from among the five colors, especially since I opened the number of picks for each color to be five.

The creatures that I picked almost fell in immediately in how quickly I picked them. One is creature that simultaneously mills cards and ramps, another is a creature that is pretty solid for their rate, and the last is another creature that ramps though has become a little more open ended in the lands it can search as time has gone on.

The noncreature spells were chosen even more quickly, especially with how iconic those spells are. One is a way that can cheat creatures into play that also happens to mill as well and the other is a cheap way to tutor for a creature card and put it into your hand at the cost of discarding a creature card and one mana.

My picks for green are Avenging Druid, Mirri, Cat Warrior, Oath of Druids, Survival of the Fittest, and Wood Elves.

Artifacts and Land

This wasn’t too difficult, because once again there was only one land to choose from and a couple of other interesting artifacts to pick from as well.

The one land that was available in the set came right out of nowhere for me, mostly because I expected it to be in a much larger set, especially with how powerful the land is, despite having a downside that depending on your strategy could be good or bad.

The artifacts were pretty interesting, because there were a couple of solid artifacts that could help solidify certain strategies in the Cube. One is a way that rewards you for playing into one or two specific creature types, another is a cheap artifact that can help you keep cards in your hand, then there is a control piece that makes things a bit more difficult for those shy of mana, and the last is an artifact that makes more artifacts and plays well with a popular strategy that will get more developed as more cards enter the Cube.

My pick for the land is City of Traitors and my picks for the artifacts are Coat of Arms, Spellbook, Sphere of Resistance, and Thopter Squadron.

In Conclusion

This was one of the easier sets to pick cards from, especially with there being more options to pick from for each color and with all the iconic cards that were in the set.

However, speaking of iconic, when we come back to the Magic Super Cube, we are going to one of the most powerful blocks in all of Magic, and that is the first of Urza’s block in Urza’s Saga, and I can already see that it is going to be a bit of a doozy narrowing down what cards to choose.

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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