Hello and welcome to the Magic Super Cube!

This is the blog in which I take a look at sets throughout Magic’s history from among the sets that were Standard legal or would have been Standard legal and pick cards from among them and use them to make a massive Cube.

Today we are starting a brand new block by taking a look at Kamigawa block, which at the time was not viewed very well. In modern times the block is looked at fondly, but at the time the set wasn’t held in high regard, especially when compared to Mirrodin.

I do have to say, this set was the hardest to pick cards for in a while, especially because it is a big set at 306 cards and that there were a lot of tough choices and cuts that I made to adhere with the rules I had set up way in the beginning, which really makes me want to have changed the rules and have more cards to pick from.

However, rules are rules and I’ve come this far so no changing it now.

White

Would you believe me if I said that white was the second easiest to pick from, and that really is saying something because every color was difficult to pick from.

The difficulty for white came from the creature spells, where there was one creature that I wanted to include because I personally like it, but I thought about it and realized that while it would be nice to have, there were other picks that would make the Cube more fun to play with. I ended up choosing a creature that had a unique way of providing protection and creature that works really well as a control piece in a sacrifice deck.

The noncreature spells were also hard, but the difficulty was the fact that I had personally decided that there was a cycle of cards that I did want to include, and it made some of the future picking much more difficult. As much as I could have omitted these cards, they do provide an interesting play style and one that I would like to have in the Cube. Thankfully there was a solid control card that I could pick so that helped pick up the slack.

My picks for white are Eight-and-a-Half Tails, Ghostly Prison, Honden of Cleansing Fire, and Yosei, the Morning Star.

Blue

Blue was among one of the more difficult colors to choose from, but not quite the hardest.

The creatures also provided some difficult choices, but this was because the mechanic that was prevalent in blue was returning lands to your hand, which has some niche applications, but overall made me take some serious considerations with the creatures that were available. The creatures I chose ended up helping a typal strategy gain some card advantage and a way to copy instants and sorceries at a bit of a cost.

The noncreature spells were fairly easy in comparison, with the one being the cycle pick, which I will no longer mention because that cycle is now obvious. The reason why the noncreature spell was easy to choose from was because of how iconic that spell is within the history of Magic, as well as how strong it can be in certain decks and strategies.

My picks for blue are Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Gifts Ungiven, Honden of Seeing Winds, and Uyo, Silent Prophet.

Black

Black would probably rank in on being the second hardest of the five colors to pick from.

The creatures weren’t too bad to pick from, but I still had to make some decisions. One of those decisions had me picking a creature that supports a particular creature type, even though that creature type isn’t as well represented in the Cube yet, and the other creature also helps a particular creature type in being a tutor for that creature type and also has some sacrifice synergies attached to it.

The noncreature spell was pretty tough to pick from because there were a lot of good options to pick from, and trying to narrow down the one that I think would have been the most interesting was tough. I decided that having an interesting way to have an opponent discard cards would be ideal, even tough it does have some downsides attached to it, especially since it doesn’t quite count as discard.

My picks for black are Blood Speaker, Honden of Night’s Reach, Marrow-Gnawer, and Struggle for Sanity.

Red

Red, by a country mile, was the easiest of the five colors to pick cards from and it wasn’t even close.

The noncreature spell would have been tough, but there is a particular noncreature spell that is iconic in a spell slinger deck that not having it would have made that archetype not as viable as it could be so it was very much an easy include.

The creatures were also very easy to include because there is an infamous creature that made its debut in this set that is a massive degenerate combo enabler and the other creature choice is a powerful payoff for an Equipment deck that helps tie the archetype together because of it being a tutor and a finisher all in one.

My picks for red are Desperate Ritual, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Honden of Infinite Rage, and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

Green

And on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, green was definitely hardest color to choose cards from.

The creatures were the hardest to choose from because there were a ton of creatures that would have been solid picks to choose from, with at least one of them being able to be picked in a later set. The choices that I ended up picking involve a creature that works well as a control piece, which widens up the opportunities for green in the Cube, and the other creature is an iconic creature that has a well known nickname, and happens to fetch a land and work with sacrifice decks.

The noncreature spell was also incredibly difficult to pick from, again because there were a lot of great picks which made things incredibly difficult. The other downside is that a lot of them don’t get reprinted in Standard legal sets, which really made things harder, but I think that the pick that I ended up going with is a great pick because it can be a great draw engine for creature focused decks.

My picks for green are Dosan the Falling Leaf, Glimpse of Nature, Honden of Life’s Web, and Sakura-Tribe Elder.

Lands and Artifacts

While there were plenty of options to pick from for both lands and artifacts, I had a real tough decision to make here.

There were some lands I wanted and some artifacts I wanted, however I had made the decision to have the Shrine cycle of cards in the Cube, and since I didn’t want them to take up the noncreature spell slot for the Cube, I had to cut down the number of artifacts and lands for the Cube.

The lands were where I was especially heartbroken because I chose a cycle of lands, and while I could have chosen some of the other utility lands, I ended up only going with one other land because of how strong it is as a color fixing piece, rather than some of the more utility lands.

The artifacts weren’t so bad in terms of losing picks because of how artifact heavy the last three sets were, and there are still some interesting and powerful artifacts in this set. One is an Equipment that happens to work really well with Godo, another is an Equipment that works well in typal and/or color specific type of decks that happen to have a legendary creature, one is a very specific form of protection, and the last is an iconic artifact from the set that I had to include it.

My picks for lands are Eiganjo Castle, Forbidden Orchard, Minamo, School at Water’s Edge, Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers, Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep, and Shizo, Death’s Storehouse.

My picks for artifacts are Konda’s Banner, Sensei’s Diving Top, Shell of the Last Kappa, and Tenza, Godo’s Maul.

In Conclusion

This was the hardest set to pick cards from in a while, and what makes it difficult is that I didn’t have enough space for some picks and those picks get lost because they don’t come in Standard sets. As is the way of the Cube, so we must press on.

When we return to the Magic Super Cube, we are going to be taking a look at the next set of the block in Betrayers of Kamigawa, and that was the set that introduced a very popular mechanic that has seen a good number of appearances and is somewhat timely to the most recently released set, though in a different form.

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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