Hello and welcome to the Magic Super Cube!

Since it has been a while, for those who don’t know or are unaware this is the blog series where I go throughout the history of Magic and look at sets that were Standard legal or would have been Standard legal had the format existed and pick cards from those sets in order to make a huge Cube.

We return with taking a look at Kamigawa block by taking a look at the second set of the block, Betrayers of Kamigawa. Betrayers of Kamigawa introduced an incredibly popular mechanic, Ninjutsu, to the game and has several cards that have made their mark in Magic history.

Even with it being a smaller set of 165 cards, there are several pretty powerful cards in the set that made some of the choice pretty easy. What helps is that there are not a lot of lands and multicolor cards, meaning that each color gets four cards.

White

Of the five colors, I would say that white was the hardest of the five colors to pick cards from. There wasn’t too much that stood out, but there were still some cards that would help in a general sense for the Cube.

The creature spells were probably the hardest to pick from, so I decided on a creature that provides utility during combat and a creature that plays well into a creature type and a particular card type that is present within this block.

The noncreature spells were a bit easier because their utility is much more apparent. One is a combat trick that works well with some cards from this block and the other is a strong, if expensive to cast, board wipe.

My picks for white are Final Judgment, Hundred-Talon Strike, Kami of False Hope, and Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens.

Blue

Blue in comparison to white was easier to pick from, especially since this is where the popular Ninjutsu mechanic starts making its appearance.

As it is a popular mechanic, of course my creature choices are cards that have the mechanic. One is creature that is one of the staple Ninjustsu creatures and the other is a way to find Ninja’s in your deck, which for a Cube of this size may be limiting but still has it’s uses.

The noncreature spells were also pretty easy to pick from, with one being a card that can tap or untap two separate targets and the other being a big splashy card that, while it doesn’t end the game, can definitely help even the playing field.

My picks for blue are Higure, the Still Wind, Ninja of the Deep Hours, Sway of the Stars, and Toils of Night and Day.

Black

Black was also pretty easy to pick cards from, probably the easiest of the five colors in this set.

The noncreature cards were easy because one is a removal spell that can make use of the Arcane mechanic by being a source of potentially repeatable removal, and the other is a very powerful card that interacts with legendary creatures and has become a multi-format staple.

The creature cards were also pretty easy, with one creature being a way to make use of instants in your graveyard in a unique way and the other being another popular Ninjutsu creature that happens to work very well as a way to steal creatures from your opponent’s graveyard.

My picks for black are Goryo’s Vengeance, Horobi’s Whisper, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, and Toshiro Umezawa.

Red

Red was probably the second hardest color to pick cards from, mostly because of the creatures.

While there are plenty of interesting Goblin cards in this set, the creature cards I chose are not Goblins. One of the rules of the Cube from so long ago were cards that I think would be fun to play with, which is why I chose a creature that plays around with your opponent’s life total and the other being a creature that plays with one of the less liked mechanics of the block.

The noncreature spells were a bit easier to pick from, with one being a way to play around with sacrifice strategies for a small cost and the other being a seemingly innocuous buff spell that is banned in Modern and can help play well with big mana red spells later on for the Cube.

My picks for red are Blazing Shoal, Crack the Earth, Fumiko the Lowblood, and Heartless Hidetsugu.

Green

Green was pretty tough to pick cards from, but not as much as red or white.

The noncreature spells play in some interesting spaces because one is a way to potentially generate a ton of mana if you happen to play in an aggressive strategy and the other is a token generator that has some chance of recursion if you happen to play a bunch of a particular creature type.

The creature cards also play into some interesting space because one is a way to generate a ton of mana for you and your opponent and the other creature can potentially help you get a lot of mana all at once if you happen to play Spirit and/or Arcane spells.

My picks for green are Mark of Sakiko, Petalmane Baku, Shizuko, Caller of Autumn, and Sosuke’s Summons.

Multicolor, Lands, and Artifacts

Knocking all three of these out because in the case of the multicolor and land cards, there really weren’t that many options while there were a ton of artifact options.

There is in fact only one multicolored card that I think is pretty neat, so that became an auto include. This also applied to the two available lands as well, which is also helpful because one can be used for mana fixing and plays well with some future mechanics and the other actually works well in land sacrifice strategies.

Now the list of artifacts is pretty long, so to summarize: four Equipment were chosen with one of those Equipment being a card that came back into prominence because of it being unbanned in Modern, one being used in a degenerate strategy for a card that was later banned in Modern, one that can auto attach to a creature we control, and the last being a potential control piece.

The other artifacts includes a card that can give your permanents conditional indestructible, a way to steal an opponent’s card from the top of their library, and a card that allows you to break a particularly well known rule because, around the time of this card’s printing, a particular rule was adjusted.

My pick for multicolored card is Genju of the Realm, my picks for lands are Gods’ Eye, gate to the Reikai and Tendo Ice Bridge, and my picks for artifacts are Mirror Gallery, Neko-Te, Ornate Kanzashi, Ronin Warclub, Shuko, That Which Was Taken, and Umezawa’s Jitte.

In Conclusion

This set was easier to pick cards from than I had initially thought, with a lot more iconic cards in this set than I realized.

When we return to the Magic Super Cube we are going to be finishing up Kamigawa block by taking a look at Saviors of Kamigawa, which while not well received at the time (a common sentiment of the block), there are still some pretty interesting cards in the set, including my favorite bad mechanic in all of Magic.

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