Hello and welcome back to the Magic Super Cube!

If you were not aware, this is where we look at the history of Magic and pick cards from Standard legal sets or sets that would have been Standard legal had the format existed and make a huge Cube out of the cards that were picked.

For those of you who were expecting Magic Project: Omega, unfortunately that blog has been cancelled and I am sorry if you were waiting to see that get further developed.

However, instead of having a blank middle of the week, we are going to instead have Magic Super Cube every week and today we are going to be talking about the first of one of the strongest blocks in all of Magic, and that is Urza’s Saga.

This was not as hard as I was initially expecting, but there were some interesting challenges that went with picking cards for this set.

Let’s get started!

White

Since there are no multicolor cards in this set, I was given a little more freedom in picking cards for each color, with there being four cards from each color.

That being said, white was definitely the toughest of all colors, mostly on the creature front. There aren’t too many interesting creatures to pick from, so the creatures that I decided on was a creature that provided value to a soon to be developing archetype and a massive creature that also benefits from a niche archetype.

The noncreature spells were a bit easier, and there were some other potential options that I could choose in later sets. My noncreature picks include a solid bit of value, especially with go wide token strategies and a unique card that can either be used as removal or can be combined with future cards for a neat strategy.

My picks for white are Glorious Anthem, Monk Idealist, Pariah, and Serra Avatar.

Blue

Blue is next and I’ll say it wasn’t too difficult to pick cards, which surprised me because blue is usually pretty challenging when picking creatures.

My problems when picking creatures mostly came because there were a couple that I wanted to choose from, which doesn’t often happen in blue. I ended up choosing a creature that is pretty iconic in terms of how it became a reference on future cards and another being a powerful creature that has a deceptively powerful ability for much too cheap of a cost.

The noncreature spells also presented an issue in that there were several options for me to choose from. In the end, I chose a classic way to cheat things out into play and a way to get a massive amount of card advantage.

My picks for blue are Gilded Drake, Morphling, Show and Tell, and Windfall.

Black

Black was pretty tough to pick from, in a similar vein to white where the creatures proved to be a bit difficult.

The noncreature spells also proved to be a bit challenging, similar to blue in that there were several options for me to pick from. One was an obvious pick because of how iconic of a card it was for playing cards from the graveyard and the other being a pretty strong reanimation spell for its rate.

The creatures, like I said, were a bit tougher and it took a bit to choose but I ended up picking a decently costed creature that had solid abilities to flesh out black creature suite a bit and a creature that helps in a particular type of deck that requires casting a lot of spells.

My picks for black are Crazed Skirge, Priest of Gix, Victimize, and Yawgmoth’s Will.

Red

Of the five colors, red didn’t give me as much trouble as the other colors did, though there were some interesting concessions that I made.

For the noncreature spells I went back and forth on what I wanted to pick from, deciding on the more interesting cards rather than the first appearances of cards that would appear in later sets. With that it let me choose an efficient yet risky tutor card and another infamous way to cheat a creature into play.

The creature spells were a bit easier, mostly because there are some pretty strong ways to make use of a developing typal strategy. One is a powerful tutor that is available for that creature type and the other is a way to cheat out a creature of that type onto the battlefield.

My picks for red are Gamble, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Matron, and Sneak Attack.

Green

This was a tough color to pick from because there were a lot of solid options to choose from.

The creatures were a little easier to pick from, but that isn’t saying too much. One is a creature that helps a particular strategy that while not the first to do what it does, is a very solid option for that strategy and the other creature makes use of another creature type that while not as developed, still one that will always have cards added to that typal strategy.

The noncreature spells were tough because there was a bevy of options to choose from. In the end I decided on a way to help narrow down what you want to get from your library as well as a cheap way to get an additional land drop each turn.

My picks for green are Abundance, Argothian Enchantress, Exploration, and Priest of Titania.

Artifacts

For the first time in quite a while, I am separating artifacts and lands because there are some interesting things to talk about for each.

Urza’s block is well known for having powerful artifacts, and while there were plenty to choose from, I had to narrow down what I thought would make for an interesting Cube, at least in my personal opinion.

I decided to pick an artifact creature that is a pretty iconic character in all of Magic, a well known mana rock, a way to manipulate tapped cards, a slow but steady way to generate a lot of mana all at once, and a strong control piece that needs to be dealt with before it takes over the game.

My picks for artifacts are Karn, Silver Golem, Lotus Blossom, Smokestack, Voltaic Key, and Worn Powerstone.

Lands

Lastly are the lands, which among all the colors and cards available was the easiest to choose from.

The reason I wanted to have this be its own section was more so explaining that there was actually another land cycle that I could have added along with the obvious picks. I decided against that land cycle, which is a solid land cycle because those lands in fact Cycle, partially because I thought that having more picks for the other colors would add more variety to the Cube.

So in the end the land picks were in fact the obvious picks, mostly because most of this particular cycle of lands are some of the strongest lands printed in Magic’s history, with a notable exception but I decided that completing the cycle was important.

My picks for lands are Serra’s Sanctum, Tolarian Academy, Phyrexian Tower, Shivan Gorge, and Gaea’s Cradle.

In Conclusion

This was a pretty tough set to pick cards from, but not as tough as I was initially expecting. Yeah there were some troubles, but for the most part I managed to pick some pretty interesting cards I think.

The next set we are going to be talking about, Urza’s Legacy, is definitely going to add some powerful cards to the Cube as it helped define one of the more dire times of Magic’s history, but that is for next time.

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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