Hello and welcome to the Magic Super Cube!

This is the blog series that has me explore sets from Magic’s history that were Standard legal or would have been Standard had the format existed and then pick cards from among those sets in order to make a massive Cube from those picks.

We are entering a powerful era of Magic in the Mirrodin block, a time in Magic’s history that after Eighth Edition had changed the card frames to a mixed reaction, the power that came directly after it had people think that Magic was dead. Of course it wasn’t but this block is one of the strongest contenders for one of the most powerful eras of Magic.

The set has 306 cards, with a majority of them being artifacts and I can tell you that the artifact section is massive and probably the hardest time I’ve had picking artifacts in a while.

White

The five colors are reduced down to three, which wasn’t as bad as I was expecting in some cases, with white being one of the easier colors to pick from.

The noncreature spells were a bit tough to decide on, or rather one was pretty easy to pick and the other not so much. I ended up picking a card that was a very well known recursion piece for an oft despised deck and the other is a cheap to cast way to get a couple of tokens on the battlefield.

The creature spell was not that difficult in comparison because while there were plenty of interesting creatures to choose from, one stood out because it aided a card subtype that was introduced in the set and I think having that start becoming a theme would be very important.

My picks for white are Auriok Steelshaper, Raise the Alarm, and Second Sunrise.

Blue

Blue wasn’t too bad either, and if I had to pick I would say that it was the easiest of the five colors to pick from.

The creature spell is actually one of the easiest choices that I have made for blue in quite some time, with it being a very strong card in artifact based decks because of how efficient of a draw engine it is in those sorts of decks.

The noncreature spells were also pretty easy, with one being the first card to showcase one of Mirrodin’s strongest mechanics that made it a much stronger draw spell than expected and the other being a very cheap way to deal with artifact and enchantment spells.

My picks for blue are Annul, Thoughtcast, and Vedalken Archmage.

Black

Black was solidly in the middle when choosing cards for each of the five colors.

The hardest part came from choosing noncreature spells because there were some choices that I thought were decent but then gravitated towards others. I chose a discard spell that punished opponents who didn’t play artifacts and a way to deal with creatures if you were in an artifact based deck.

The creature spell was what the reason why black landed in the middle, and that was because of how easy it was to pick it. There is one creature in black that is incredibly powerful, especially for it’s rarity that it is banned in Pauper for how strong it is.

My picks for black are Disciple of the Vault, Irradiate, and Wrench Mind.

Red

We are now approaching the two colors I had the hardest time with, with red being the one that was almost the hardest to pick from.

The noncreature spells made it difficult because there were a lot of great options to pick from that it made the choice hard. The ones I ended up choosing is a card that is a massive boon for low to the ground aggro decks and a way to get a massive burst of mana.

The creature spell is what made the choice even harder because unlike black, I had some decent options to pick from. I decided on picking a creature that I don’t think people would expect, purely because it works for a purely specific strategy, but can be a massive boon in that strategy.

My picks for red are Mass Hysteria, Seething Song, and War Elemental.

Green

This was the hardest color to pick from, and there are plenty of reasons for it.

Starting with the creature spell, there were plenty of options to choose from that all played into different utilities that I could lean towards. I decided on a creature that plays into an aggressive strategy for green, and one that benefits from dealing damage while doing so.

The noncreature spells were also pretty tough to pick from because there are a couple of ones that are first printed here and I would like to have chosen them now rather than later. However there are other great ones that are only printed in this set as it’s Standard legal form, and it is a modal creature tutor. Since some were available later, that made my other noncreature pick be a removal spell that refunded you.

My picks for green are Deconstruct, Slith Predator, and Tooth and Nail.

Lands

Before we get onto the artifacts, we can knock lands off pretty easily, which is saying something because there was difficult choice that I had to make.

Obviously there is an iconic cycle of lands that were released in this set that were in for sure, but there is also a land that is iconic because of how powerful it is in multiple. Since this is a Cube which only have one copy of cards in them, I thought that it would be fairly safe to add to the Cube and add a potential strategy to make it stronger as the Cube grows.

My picks for lands are Ancient Den, Cloudpost, Great Furnace, Seat of the Synod, Tree of Tales, and Vault of Whispers.

Artifacts

And now the hardest set of choices for the Cube, and that is the artifacts.

This was difficult because of the number of artifacts available in the set, and the quality of artifacts in the set along with the difficult decision to leave some artifacts out of the the choices because of them being a part of a cycle, which would have taken a massive number of the artifact slots that I was already choosing.

I ended up choosing a popular artifact that works really well against low to the ground decks, a popular artifact mana rock, a creature that could potentially enter play for free, a way to cast a powerful cheap spell consistently, a way to get a creature to attack and protect it at the same time, a mill based win condition, a creature that prevents you from losing, an Equipment that is part of a set, and an artifact that can be a board wipe.

My picks for artifacts are Chalice of the Void, Chrome Mox, Frogmite, Isochron Scepter, Lightning Greaves, Mesmeric Orb, Platinum Angel, Sword of Kaldra, and Worldslayer.

In Conclusion

This was a hard set to pick cards from in every regard, which hasn’t been the case in an expansion set in quite some time. It is also one of the times that I wanted to expand the card choice pool for a set, but as per the parameters I set back in the beginning, it is what it is.

When we come back to the Magic Super Cube we are going to be taking a look at Darksteel, which is another powerful set despite being a small one, and one that has a notably powerful design mistake.

As usual, here is the Moxfield link to keep up with all the cards in the Cube and here is the second part of it Moxfield II!

See you next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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