u/HD114

I won a 7pt game with this card last week and it stuck with me!

What's the best art for Spirit Link?

I try not to call out specific color hosers here but I think this one has some potential in the OBNCCC

So whatcha got? How do you make Wrath of Marit Lage work...?

Friendly reminder, please ensure all recommendations have an old border printing and they apply to the cube format. Failure to do so will result in a Grizzly Bear coming your way!

I have been refining this list now for a few weeks after getting input from several members of our community! I got the proxy order today and was able to sleeve it up and it's ready to draft!

This is my first attempt at a waste cube and at 8 players this is also a desert cube meaning that lands are drafted as the packs are passed and there is no land station.

Each eighteen-card booster contains:

• 12 nonland cards
• 6 lands

The complete cube contains:

• 288 nonland cards
• 30 unique non-basic lands
• 114 Blasted Landscapes
• 432 cards total

Blasted Landscape has been errata'd to function as a basic Waste, providing a reliable foundation of colourless mana while retaining the cycling mechanic. Every coloured source carries a cost and there are no "standard" colored lands. To reinforce this philosophy, no spell in the cube requires more than a single coloured pip in its casting cost.

Would love thoughts on the list now that it is complete prior to the first draft!  

EDIT: Should probably link the cube!

https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/GLMDW

The solar eclipse in Glasgow was less than impressive as the clouds were mostly dominating the sky. So instead of trying to stare at the sun, we rocked up to cube and this week the pod voted on the jund goblin cube to bring some levity to the table. The last major update to this cube was from Lorwyn Eclipsed and the new blight mechanics added a fun new keyword to the list. I have not gotten my hands on any of the new Hobbit goblins and that will be the next set to grace the cube but until then, we spent the event hurling goblin grenades at each other and sending the red tide forward at every opportunity possible. Originally a 270 cube, I added a module to bring it up to 360 for a full pod and we had this opportunity to bring out the backup gobbos! The special rule of this cube is that everyone receives a goblin grenade prior to the draft to add to their deck which always proves to be funny and interesting to watch them volley across the table.

The Cube: Glasgow Limited Magic Something Gobliny This Way Comes...

Onto the Decks!

Gut Sprawl - The windmill slam of [[Gut, True Zealot]] set this deck up for a good run from the very start. Unfortunately, the pilot did not manage to get a green creature to go with his Herald and as such, the dragon was never summoned... This deck did have some of the best ramp of the evening but ramp doesn't really get you anywhere without some bombs to back it up and as such, lots of little pings and beats got over the top several games.

10 Lands, Lucky - This deck was statistically improbable but somehow managed to not have any mana issues in any of the games that I watched. What you will also notice is that there are A LOT of bodies in this build. In fact, only eight spots were non-creature picks and as a result, there was a lot of pressure from this deck every single game

The Combo that Never Was - I managed to steal the combo piece required to make this deck go infinite and that made me happy. Still, it was piloted by a player attending very high level competitive play and he managed to build something that was still very strong. The big butts on goblins like [[Champion of the Weird]] were hard to deal with and plenty of removal in lightning form made this a powerhouse brew.

Tokens and Recursion - Coming from a premodern background, I always love to see a good piledriver being abused with tokens and recursion. Not much else to say about this deck as the game plan was simple and straight forward which is exactly what a goblin tribal build should do!

It was a Dark and Stormy Liege - One of my favorite creatures in the cube is [[Boartusk Liege]] and being able to bring out oversized goblins with a good pump is always gratifying. With the low cost horde, the [[Guttersnipe]] and [[Grapeshot]] made a great stormy recipe for pinging opponents to death as goblin grenades dropped from the sky! (Key reminder to those new to the grenade, it's a sorcery, not an instant... lol)

Dangit, I Forgot the Goblins... - This deck was on its way to being amazing and then I finished drafting my last pack and realized that I had only drafted a few goblins. Good ones, but not enough to stem the tide of other larger goblin tribes that wanted my patch. This was the first time that I had gone down the treasure route and man, it was REALLY fun to generate tons of treasure but it wasn't enough to buy off my invaders... they smashed my skull on a rock and laughed heartily.

Well, That was Quick - My nemesis' partner (and my friend, despite this match up), built this thing. It was disgusting. By turn three it was mostly over for the opponent and damage just piled up magically (no pun intended) and there was nothing that could be done about it.... [[Battle Cry Goblin]] was an MVP here and from there, things just got worse and worse. Needless to say, many picnics were ruined by this [[Picnic Ruiner]].

Thanks to the crew at RNG for giving us a place to cube week after week!

We are Glasgow Limited Magic. If you are interested in coming out to cube with us, want to get your cube drafted, or looking for a new way to play Magic, come join us! You can DM me for details as we are always looking for new players to join us to draft!

Today we are picking from "POWERED OLD BORDER." Cube

From the curator:

This is a brand new cube! - Rough....

Cube can be found here: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/7624df59-c5a0-40f8-84e8-c7642c223406

Would you like your cube featured? DM me!

I didn't realize this card had a third printing!

What's the best art for Ball Lightning?

It's time for This or That Tuesday. I will show you two or more cards with similar effects and power level and you tell me which one you'd pick if all of them were in a pack and/or which one you'd run in a typical old border cube. This week we will have a slight departure from our normaly scheduled program as I have had a specific request from one or our members, u/Aquacode2 to show two Dragons they are evaluating for inclusion into their cube!

Today we'll talk about two bigguns, Nicol Bolus and Crosis, the Purger! The choice is based on the following cube: Old and Unpowered. Which one would you add based on the list?

Bonus question: What are two cards you are debating between in your current project(s)?

I really like symmetrical effects like this, so how do you abuse this well since it needs to be one sided?

So whatcha got? How do you make Liability work...?

Friendly reminder, please ensure all recommendations have an old border printing and they apply to the cube format. Failure to do so will result in a Grizzly Bear coming your way!

Back to London for more consulting, had the opportunity to draft with my favorite London Cube Crew and we gathered together on Monday night to crack packs of the Never Cube. We had six drafters (plus me, for the dreaded seven) show up to our reserved table at the famous Mythic Goblin to look at a cube full of cards none of them had seen before! Magic’s early years left more behind than what was printed. The Never Cube brings those pieces together through infamous sets like Spectral Chaos and other amazing fan made old school sets from across the current community. It offers a way to explore them as complete works, to see how they function in play, and to experience a version of the game that exists just beyond its recorded history. Some of these paths were never taken; here, they can be. This will be a tougher report to read as there is no cube cobra page for this project and the photos are the record of the cards played.

The Cube Overview: The Never Cube

Onto the Decks!

Reading Rainbow - Rainbow Connection is one of the coolest cards in Spectral Chaos. An emblem before they were a thing, and symmetrical, it gives all players the ability to tap lands for any colour and if you cast it once, it starts in play for the rest of the night. This is silly but a really fun play pattern. This was a P1P1 and the pilot then built his sideboard to be transformational after game one to end up in five colour good stuff. This deck played very well and only dropped one match to a largely mono coloured brew!

Black and Blue and Red All Over - This was the 3-0 build this evening and Book the Dead proved it's amazing card draw capacity in full as the ability to essentially cycle dead cards in hand was really key to help find the right mana sources and bring the right cards to the top of the library. Protection is a really powerful mechanic in all of these sets so many games were a riddle of moving parts with these creatures running past one another to deal damage.

The Band and the Bard! - Banding is a really strong mechanic in Magic (especially for those who understand how it works) and this deck made use of white for removal and preventing damage in combat. This is really strong with banding as you can start to make really advantageous blocks and attack's that end up netting you board state as threats are removed on the opponents side.

Don't Mind if I Orc - This was the most fun deck of the night that had Orcish Informant giving the opponent the ability to arrange the top three cards of your library each turn. This is just bad as there was not a lot going on for the pilot to get a new three to surface after the shuffle had happened so you basically get to draw what your opponent wants each turn. The deck also had walls that helped slow combat down to work through the slower draw phase.

Island Walking Board Wipes - This was a great deck to watch get piloted in the few games I got to watch. The island home/island walk threats were very real but required some serious setup to make work. This includes the Slave Ship that ended up acting as a Noah's Arc after the Great Flood would wash the board away and allow big swings for lethal. The Ship also gave this pilot the ability to pull threats out of their opponents deck which is always a fun bonus!

RG Beats - It turns out RG beats is good across both the existing MTG universe and those that never saw print! This deck used the Crow Whisperer that has a bolted on [[False Orders]] to move blockers aside and get in for damage all the way through the game. The Mazer mini lotus and other great tools like creature tutors helped establish a board very quickly and the custom triomes in the cube that prevent you from playing lands are easily played around with Mushroom Forest that lets you put lands into play from your hand each turn.

My Deck Misadventures - This was my deck and it broke ALL the rules of good limited construction. It splashed cards with multiple (LOTS) of pips but my P1P1 of Animate Lands forced me to go wide and force the strategy to work. I forced the deck and man it was bad. BUT, it was fun to create demons from my lands, pump them and send them in as banders, until the enchantment was removed which killed all my lands and my boys.. Other than these large mistakes, the deck was superb!

Thanks to Mythic Goblin for giving us a place to play cube in London!

If you ever find yourself in London and looking to cube, look up the Central London crew!

If you want to see more old border cube content, join us at r/oldbordercube!

Back to London for more consulting, had the opportunity to draft with my favorite London Cube Crew and we gathered together on Monday night to crack packs of the Never Cube. We had six drafters (plus me, for the dreaded seven) show up to our reserved table at the famous Mythic Goblin to look at a cube full of cards none of them had seen before! Magic’s early years left more behind than what was printed. The Never Cube brings those pieces together through infamous sets like Spectral Chaos and other amazing fan made old school sets from across the current community. It offers a way to explore them as complete works, to see how they function in play, and to experience a version of the game that exists just beyond its recorded history. Some of these paths were never taken; here, they can be. This will be a tougher report to read as there is no cube cobra page for this project and the photos are the record of the cards played.

The Cube Overview: The Never Cube

Onto the Decks!

Reading Rainbow - Rainbow Connection is one of the coolest cards in Spectral Chaos. An emblem before they were a thing, and symmetrical, it gives all players the ability to tap lands for any colour and if you cast it once, it starts in play for the rest of the night. This is silly but a really fun play pattern. This was a P1P1 and the pilot then built his sideboard to be transformational after game one to end up in five colour good stuff. This deck played very well and only dropped one match to a largely mono coloured brew!

Black and Blue and Red All Over - This was the 3-0 build this evening and Book the Dead proved it's amazing card draw capacity in full as the ability to essentially cycle dead cards in hand was really key to help find the right mana sources and bring the right cards to the top of the library. Protection is a really powerful mechanic in all of these sets so many games were a riddle of moving parts with these creatures running past one another to deal damage.

The Band and the Bard! - Banding is a really strong mechanic in Magic (especially for those who understand how it works) and this deck made use of white for removal and preventing damage in combat. This is really strong with banding as you can start to make really advantageous blocks and attack's that end up netting you board state as threats are removed on the opponents side.

Don't Mind if I Orc - This was the most fun deck of the night that had Orcish Informant giving the opponent the ability to arrange the top three cards of your library each turn. This is just bad as there was not a lot going on for the pilot to get a new three to surface after the shuffle had happened so you basically get to draw what your opponent wants each turn. The deck also had walls that helped slow combat down to work through the slower draw phase.

Island Walking Board Wipes - This was a great deck to watch get piloted in the few games I got to watch. The island home/island walk threats were very real but required some serious setup to make work. This includes the Slave Ship that ended up acting as a Noah's Arc after the Great Flood would wash the board away and allow big swings for lethal. The Ship also gave this pilot the ability to pull threats out of their opponents deck which is always a fun bonus!

RG Beats - It turns out RG beats is good across both the existing MTG universe and those that never saw print! This deck used the Crow Whisperer that has a bolted on [[False Orders]] to move blockers aside and get in for damage all the way through the game. The Mazer mini lotus and other great tools like creature tutors helped establish a board very quickly and the custom triomes in the cube that prevent you from playing lands are easily played around with Mushroom Forest that lets you put lands into play from your hand each turn.

My Deck Misadventures - This was my deck and it broke ALL the rules of good limited construction. It splashed cards with multiple (LOTS) of pips but my P1P1 of Animate Lands forced me to go wide and force the strategy to work. I forced the deck and man it was bad. BUT, it was fun to create demons from my lands, pump them and send them in as banders, until the enchantment was removed which killed all my lands and my boys.. Other than these large mistakes, the deck was superb!

Thanks to Mythic Goblin for giving us a place to play cube in London!

If you ever find yourself in London and looking to cube, look up the Central London crew!

Today we are picking from "WyldStallynz Powered Pre-Modern Cube."

From the curator:

This is a brand new cube! - Rough....

Cube can be found here: https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/WYLD

Would you like your cube featured? DM me!

This is one of the first cards I saw as a kid! The art for later sets is wacky and makes no sense for the first one...

What's the best art for Flight?

I have added this card to at least five cubes and cut it every time! I need ideas!! This also has one flavor text from one of my favourite short stories.

So whatcha got? How do you make Horror of Horrors work...?

Friendly reminder, please ensure all recommendations have an old border printing and they apply to the cube format. Failure to do so will result in a Grizzly Bear coming your way!

The build process has started!! Trying to find all the stuff I already own before I start buying more cardboard. This is one of my favourite parts of cube design, going through my collection and finding gems I'd forgotten I had!

As Edinburgh prepares unleash The Fringe Festival on its inhabitants, it's always interesting to see how the city shrinks and swells with the seasons as I make my way over each month on the train. This was a very busy Sunday as the weather was nice (for some of the day) and the temperature has dropped a bit making it a reasonable action to stand outside. Arriving at the Jewel Miner's Welfare and Social Club, we waited patiently for the other members of the pod as we watched several rounds of lawn bowls in the courtyard. In the end, six drafters come to the table to draft my old border version of the beloved Ornithopter Cube and duke it out across a lazy Sunday afternoon! My version of this cube is remarkably different as I include 101 ornithopters instead of just 100 like everyone else.

The Cube Overview: Rocky Mountain Yeti I Got 101 Problems and They’re All (Kitty) Thopters

Onto the Decks!

Cloaked Thopters - This was a beautifully crafted "traditional" deck that made big thopters with enchantments and used removal to clear the board to swing in and beat down any opposition. This deck went 3-0 and was a beautiful nod to simplicity as it functioned well in all phases of the game. Beautiful build and a lovely pilot.

Spell Slinging Thopters - I always love drafting my pods with groups that I don't get a chance to play with very often because I very often get the opportunity to see deck building and picks that players make from a different perspective. My friend and I built this cube together and we have consistently tinkered with blue (no pun intended) and have never been quite sure it if cuts the mustard. This draft proved to us that a very viable control strategy not only exists but wins games! Per usual, [[Ray of Command]] for the win!

None Shall Pass (Including Thopters)! - We wanted there to be a way for people to win without having to swing in for damage and win through combat alone. It was an important design goal to keep control as a viable archetype and this deck perfectly encapsulates this strategy. With prime removal and pingers like [[Mask of Intolerance]] and [[Ancient Runes]], the pilot controlled the board really well and stayed nestled comfortably in a safe space while his opponents suffered.

Grind Core Thopters - This deck was a GRIND! Using [[Trinisphere]] and [[Void Mirror]] to keep the board clear and tool like [[Skull of Orm]] to recur key win cons, it was really hard to not run out of gas against this deck. With essentially infinite resources through Mirari's Wake and the ability to buy back things like [[Elvish Fury]], the path was clear to long drawn out games that tested the best player's patience.

Thopter Bunching! - One of the key questions that a pilot must always ask themselves is, how many thopters should I run in my cube. This pilot said, 14 is my number and while this may have a lot of threats on the board, this can be difficult without a way to make more than a few of them dangerous. This cube runs an alpha copy of Orcish Oriflamme and while it's great early game, it can be difficult to remove threats of the opponent without a way to pump further. This was answered with [[Mob Mentality]] which is one of my favourite cards in the cube but I don't know if this had the legs to square off against bigger threats. A good first run of the cube for this pilot!

Misfortunately Equipped Thopters - This was my deck and I was trying to be cute with equipment and enchantments to control the flow of things that were making thopters bigger and better. Unfortunately, I didn't play against any "standard" thopter decks with this strategy and got trounced by control and a spell slinging mage. This was a good lesson that you can't assume that your opponents are going to draft what you think they are and a lot of the time, the things I drew didn't have much effect on the board like I thought they would. Was a really fun build though and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Thanks to the Ark Games Club for giving us a place to play cube each month in the Burgh!

We are Glasgow Limited Magic. If you are interested in coming out to cube with us, want to get your cube drafted, or looking for a new way to play Magic, come join us! You can DM me for details as we are always looking for new players to join us to draft!

As Edinburgh prepares unleash The Fringe Festival on its inhabitants, it's always interesting to see how the city shrinks and swells with the seasons as I make my way over each month on the train. This was a very busy Sunday as the weather was nice (for some of the day) and the temperature has dropped a bit making it a reasonable action to stand outside. Arriving at the Jewel Miner's Welfare and Social Club, we waited patiently for the other members of the pod as we watched several rounds of lawn bowls in the courtyard. In the end, six drafters come to the table to draft my old border version of the beloved Ornithopter Cube and duke it out across a lazy Sunday afternoon! My version of this cube is remarkably different as I include 101 ornithopters instead of just 100 like everyone else.

The Cube Overview: Rocky Mountain Yeti I Got 101 Problems and They’re All (Kitty) Thopters

Onto the Decks!

Cloaked Thopters - This was a beautifully crafted "traditional" deck that made big thopters with enchantments and used removal to clear the board to swing in and beat down any opposition. This deck went 3-0 and was a beautiful nod to simplicity as it functioned well in all phases of the game. Beautiful build and a lovely pilot.

Spell Slinging Thopters - I always love drafting my pods with groups that I don't get a chance to play with very often because I very often get the opportunity to see deck building and picks that players make from a different perspective. My friend and I built this cube together and we have consistently tinkered with blue (no pun intended) and have never been quite sure it if cuts the mustard. This draft proved to us that a very viable control strategy not only exists but wins games! Per usual, [[Ray of Command]] for the win!

None Shall Pass (Including Thopters)! - We wanted there to be a way for people to win without having to swing in for damage and win through combat alone. It was an important design goal to keep control as a viable archetype and this deck perfectly encapsulates this strategy. With prime removal and pingers like [[Mask of Intolerance]] and [[Ancient Runes]], the pilot controlled the board really well and stayed nestled comfortably in a safe space while his opponents suffered.

Grind Core Thopters - This deck was a GRIND! Using [[Trinisphere]] and [[Void Mirror]] to keep the board clear and tool like [[Skull of Orm]] to recur key win cons, it was really hard to not run out of gas against this deck. With essentially infinite resources through Mirari's Wake and the ability to buy back things like [[Elvish Fury]], the path was clear to long drawn out games that tested the best player's patience.

Thopter Bunching! - One of the key questions that a pilot must always ask themselves is, how many thopters should I run in my cube. This pilot said, 14 is my number and while this may have a lot of threats on the board, this can be difficult without a way to make more than a few of them dangerous. This cube runs an alpha copy of Orcish Oriflamme and while it's great early game, it can be difficult to remove threats of the opponent without a way to pump further. This was answered with [[Mob Mentality]] which is one of my favourite cards in the cube but I don't know if this had the legs to square off against bigger threats. A good first run of the cube for this pilot!

Misfortunately Equipped Thopters - This was my deck and I was trying to be cute with equipment and enchantments to control the flow of things that were making thopters bigger and better. Unfortunately, I didn't play against any "standard" thopter decks with this strategy and got trounced by control and a spell slinging mage. This was a good lesson that you can't assume that your opponents are going to draft what you think they are and a lot of the time, the things I drew didn't have much effect on the board like I thought they would. Was a really fun build though and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Thanks to the Ark Games Club for giving us a place to play cube each month in the Burgh!

We are Glasgow Limited Magic. If you are interested in coming out to cube with us, want to get your cube drafted, or looking for a new way to play Magic, come join us! You can DM me for details as we are always looking for new players to join us to draft!

If you want to see more old border cube content, join us at r/oldbordercube!

Today we are picking from "Phitt's Classic Cube".

From the curator:

Cube with old frame cards only.

Modern cards with old frame printing are allowed, but I try to have as few as possible of these. Plus the power level of new cards has to be at least remotely comparable to real old frame cards, not the other way around. That's why you won't ever find cards like Wurmcoil Engine, Dauthi Voidwalker or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in this cube.

Cube can be found here: https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/PhittClassic

Would you like your cube featured? DM me!

I love greens penchant for wild animals and the wolves have so many cool treatments across all the cards they have been featured. So cool that this card had a printing in P3K!

What's the best art for Lone Wolf?

This card is clunky, and slow but I've seen it do some really cool things and would love to see some others!

So whatcha got? How do you make Living Artifact work...?

Friendly reminder, please ensure all recommendations have an old border printing and they apply to the cube format. Failure to do so will result in a Grizzly Bear coming your way!