Hello and welcome back to the Magic Super Cube!

If you didn’t know, this is where we look at Magic sets in order and choose cards from Standard legal sets or sets that would have been Standard legal had the format existed and pick cards from each of those sets and make a massive Cube.

We take a quick detour from the powerful Urza block and take a look at 6th Edition, or Classic Sixth Edition as it was known at the time. This was a significant set in the history of Magic since it solidified some of the major rules of the game, got rid of card types like Interrupt, introduced the stack, and a bunch of other major rules changes.

While that doesn’t do a lot to influence the picks in the set, what does is the fact that this is a massive set of 350 cards, and it’s becoming more difficult for me to pick cards from core sets because of how many cards I have already chosen from in previous sets, meaning that there is going to be some interesting picks.

Let’s get started!

White

We begin with white, and to start off this was pretty difficult. What did help was that there was limited land choices and a decent number of artifact choices and no multicolor choices, meaning that I could do four picks for each color again.

Looking at the creatures, a lot of the ones I wanted to choose were already chosen, which made some of the pickings slim. in the end I chose a creature that would work well as a decent blocker and a creature that had some additional utility during combat.

The noncreature spells were a bit easier, including a pseudo-removal spell that is pretty iconic within the history of Magic that it spawned a wide variety of similar spells along with a spell that provided a bit of counter play to burn strategies.

My picks for white are Ardent Militia, Kjeldoran Royal Guard, Pacifism, and Warmth.

Blue

Blue was a little easier to pick from, mostly because there was a lot of me picking cards that would have been chosen prior but haven’t because there were more interesting picks in their original sets.

My noncreature picks for blue include a card that I completely blanked on in the original set but actually provides a very interesting form of card advantage and plays well into a particular playstyle and the other pick is an expensive counter spell, but also provides an additional utility along with it.

My picks for creatures lean more so in the space of being an interesting creature that has an ability that blue shouldn’t have and a creature that can play into a very specific typal strategy that doesn’t have much support now, but will develop more support over time.

My picks for blue are Ancestral Memories, Desertion, Merfolk of the Pearl Trident, and Wind Spirit.

Black

Black was probably one of the tougher picks, mostly because the ones I wanted to pick were already chosen in previous sets. Keeping an Excel document does make things a bit easier, but it still can be a bit of a pain.

The creature picks again leaned on me picking some interesting creatures, with one having a creature type that doesn’t appear often but does present an interesting playstyle, while another plays well with a land type strategy, but the biggest support piece for it won’t come along until much later.

The noncreature spells provide a bit more of a utility, including a discard spell that is actually decently strong, if a bit pricey to cast, and the other is a card advantage spell with a downside that can actually play decently well with certain strategies later in the Cube.

My picks for black are Coercion, Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore, Infernal Contract, and Nightmare.

Red

Red was a little tough to pick from, facing issues very much in a similar vein to the other colors.

The noncreature picks were probably the easier to pick from in red, mostly because it was more picking from cards that I haven’t chosen yet and that list was pretty light all things considered. I went with a classic burn spell and a combat based anthem.

The creature spells were much harder to pick from, mostly because my options weren’t really too favorable in my opinion. The ones I did end up choosing was a decent creature for the rate, and a creature that had a sort of downside, but one that can function decently for a particular deck in the future.

My picks for red are Balduvian Horde, Fire Elemental, Orcish Oriflamme, and Pyrotechnics.

Green

Green was probably the easiest of the five colors to pick from, but that really isn’t saying too much since there was still some interesting picks.

The creatures that I chose acted more so as a way to help fill out a bit of a future typal synergy that has a unique combat interaction as well as a solid creature for green to have in Cube, mostly because it allows green to interact with flying creatures and is an iconic creature I have omitted for a while.

The noncreature spells where were things were easier because one allows green to get creatures into play or cards into the graveyard which can help facilitate all sorts of archetypes for the Cube, and the other helps open up another typal strategy that can have some support or at the very least be an efficient token generator.

My picks for green are Call of the Wild, Elven Riders, Giant Spider, and Waiting in the Weeds.

Land and Artifacts

I am combining my land pick with the artifact pick because there is only one pick for lands and a lot of picks for artifacts.

My sole pick for land is the only land that I haven’t chosen from among the other lands that were available in the set, and to be fair it is a decent land that lost to a cycle of lands from the set it originally came from.

I had a lot of room for artifact picks, and among those picks were a cycle of cards I wanted to include but couldn’t because of other interesting artifacts from the set they came from. The other artifact picks include a way to steal a card from an opponent with a unique time limit restriction, a sacrifice outlet that draws cards, a way to cycle a bunch of cards from your hand, and a way to remove a card in a unique way.

My pick for land is Crystal Vein, and my picks for artifacts are Marble Diamond, Sky Diamond, Charcoal Diamond, Fire Diamond, Moss Diamond, Grinning Totem, Phyrexian Vault, Teferi’s Puzzle Box, and Wand of Denial.

In Conclusion

The was a tough set to pick from, mostly because of a lot of the options that were available to the Cube were cards that I already chosen and the options I hadn’t chosen were limited.

When we return to the Magic Super Cube we are going to be finishing up Urza block by taking a look at Urza’s Destiny, which has a decent number of iconic and powerful cards that help close out the power of that particular block.

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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