MTG Salvation

After seeing Frogczar's 1994 cube here, I decided to build a version of my own. Every card in the cube was available in 1994, which means the only expansions allowed are Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, and Fallen Empires.

List is up at Cube Tutor, Google Doc, and below the images here.









I still need to find a Legends Dakkon Blackblade and get up pictures of the 15 Legends in the cube.
A few cards break the one-of rule: There's one of each Mishra's Factory, and to help with mana fixing there are two of each dual land and two City of Brass.

Looks neat. How have your sessions played out? What kinds of decks have folks drafted?

I love it, can't stop staring at those pictures!
Do you play with 1994 rules too? mana burns and interrupts and all?
Seems like a huge power level gap between the top tier cards and lower tier cards in this cube, which makes it all the more fun I guess!
Is Time Vault actually playable?
Do you actually flip your Chaos Orb?

Chiming in to say that this looks sick as hell. Do the cards with question marks next to them mean that they are questionable inclusions?

I've played a decent amount with fallen empires cards (uh don't ask) so I'm going to try to find some gems there for you.

Armor Thrull is pretty playable. Certainly more so that Nettling Imp, which I've never put in a deck.

Conch Horn lets you get through the awful spells in your deck, combos well with Miracles. What is War Barge.

I'm not sure if you're trying to limit red X spells, but Dwarven Catapult isn't bad.

Elvish Hunter is removal! Farrel's Mantle is repeatable removal, like an early Jitte.

Goblin War Drums can be okay. Homarid Spawning Bed is kind of neat. Most blue creatures are so bad that their cmc in 1/1 tokens is a huge upgrade.

Spore Cloud can be a double fog for slow green decks. Thorn Thallid is better than Cat Warriors I think.

I'd throw in a few evasive aggro one-drops to help those quicker strategies out. Scryb Sprites, Flying Men, the Balloon Brigade.

edit: couldn't stop, recommending cards from The Dark.

Electric Eel is another playable one drop, although harsh multicolor. Carnivorous Plant mucks up the ground nicely. Maybe Rag Man, although black is loaded with utility creatures with terrible stats already. Wormwood Treefolk seems better than either Durkwood Boars or Elven Riders.

From Legends, Wall of Heat is nasty.

This is glorious.

Obviously this means little without having played this cube, but black looks pretty stacked.

This simpily looks divine to play. I occasioanly talk to my friends about what the earliest a cube could have formed. Our guess was Ice Age but it's interesting to see this one set earlier.

What do the commonly drafted decks look like? I imagine white decks have trouble with a grand total of one spot removal spell available at the time.

City in a bottle made my day.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Druge Skeletons, couldn't find room for it?

I agree fully with the inclusion of 2x dual lands.

I appreciate you went and got acctual versions of all the cards instead of getting an 8th edition City of Brass instead of the original one.

I assume beta/CE basics?

Just drafted this on CubeTutor. Had a really cool White Blue prison deck. Locksdown with Moat/Meekstone/Island Sanctuary. Would win with Rod of Ruin/Alladin's Ring. Sounds like the best/worst deck ever.

http://cubetutor.com/draftdeck/561

I got into magic in 1994. Looks amazing!

EDIT: Some random ideas.

Candelabra of Tawnos would be neat in a cube with 4 Mishra's Factories and a Worskhop. Can randomly serve as a fixer too.

I think The Rack can be good too, also it's a combo with Disrupting Scepter.

How about Eureka?

Maybe The Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale? You already have quite a few griefer control cards.

Also, needs more Sol'Kanar the Swamp King. On this I will not budge.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'll work on some information about common decks.

Quote from SpEkKiO99

I love it, can't stop staring at those pictures!
Do you play with 1994 rules too? mana burns and interrupts and all?
Seems like a huge power level gap between the top tier cards and lower tier cards in this cube, which makes it all the more fun I guess!
Is Time Vault actually playable?
Do you actually flip your Chaos Orb?

We don't play with 1994 rules, primarily because they're too confusing. I don't remember everything clearly at this point, and most of the players in my area started within the last five years.

Time Vault is pretty bad, but there are a handful of cards in there for nostalgia and the hope of sweet stories. It, Animate Artifact, Instill Energy, and Transmute Artifact are all pretty low picks, so it's possible to set up infinite turns (maybe with some help from Demonic Tutor and Ring of Ma'ruf). Unlikely, but I know I'll be trying for that deck a few times before taking it out.

We do indeed flip Chaos Orb and Falling Star, but they only affect one thing that they touch instead of everything; otherwise gameplay is miserable as everyone spreads their permanents out too much.

Quote from sf45

Chiming in to say that this looks sick as hell. Do the cards with question marks next to them mean that they are questionable inclusions?

I've played a decent amount with fallen empires cards (uh don't ask) so I'm going to try to find some gems there for you.

Armor Thrull is pretty playable. Certainly more so that Nettling Imp, which I've never put in a deck.

Conch Horn lets you get through the awful spells in your deck, combos well with Miracles. What is War Barge.

I'm not sure if you're trying to limit red X spells, but Dwarven Catapult isn't bad.

Elvish Hunter is removal! Farrel's Mantle is repeatable removal, like an early Jitte.

Goblin War Drums can be okay. Homarid Spawning Bed is kind of neat. Most blue creatures are so bad that their cmc in 1/1 tokens is a huge upgrade.

Spore Cloud can be a double fog for slow green decks. Thorn Thallid is better than Cat Warriors I think.

I'd throw in a few evasive aggro one-drops to help those quicker strategies out. Scryb Sprites, Flying Men, the Balloon Brigade.

edit: couldn't stop, recommending cards from The Dark.

Electric Eel is another playable one drop, although harsh multicolor. Carnivorous Plant mucks up the ground nicely. Maybe Rag Man, although black is loaded with utility creatures with terrible stats already. Wormwood Treefolk seems better than either Durkwood Boars or Elven Riders.

From Legends, Wall of Heat is nasty.

Thanks for your thoughts, and for catching my errors. The question marks are old and should be deleted. The printed list here is also slightly off; I'll work on updating it. In the mean time, the CubeTutor and Google Doc are up to date.

A few cards are in mostly for classic 2-card combos from 1994. Nettling Imp is fantastic with Royal Assassin, Flood, or Icy Manipulator, and isn't awful without them if you have a beefy blocker to eat their little guys or just want to clear their blockers. War Barge is pretty bad without Merfolk Assassin or Time Elemental, but blue is both heavily played and pretty commonly splashed off a couple of duals for Ancestral Recall or Time Walk, so the islandwalk side is relevant more often than it might be in a normal cube.

Dwarven Catapult and Wormwood Treefolk are in, though Dwarven Catapult isn't in the pictures. Carnivorous Plant was in, then swapped for Wall of Brambles since green is so heavy on 4s and short on 3s, but eventually I cut back on Walls to decrease stalled boards (Wall of Heat, Wall of Vapor, Wall of Shadows, and Living Wall were all on the list at one point too). The only ones that survived are Wall of Swords (since it stops fliers and white is already short on playables) and Wall of Wonder (since it can attack).

Blue is already pretty tight, and I don't think it wants 1-drops anyway. Red and Green could use more/better ones, but I don't think Scryb Sprites and Balloon Brigade are it. Ghazban Ogre maybe?
I considered Conch Horn and Jeweled Bird just as cyclers to shrink decks, but I'd rather people play a mediocre 23rd card than a cycler. This cube is about playing old cards more than optimization anyway.
You're probably right about Thorn Thallid over Cat Warriors, and Spore Cloud is worth a look.

Quote from metalevolence

This is glorious.

Obviously this means little without having played this cube, but black looks pretty stacked.

I'm glad you like it! Black does have some pretty great cards and the best spot removal, though a lot of its good cards deal you damage (Ashes to Ashes, Pestilence, Hellfire, Juzam Djinn) so you have to be careful.

Quote from Pringlesman

This simpily looks divine to play. I occasioanly talk to my friends about what the earliest a cube could have formed. Our guess was Ice Age but it's interesting to see this one set earlier.

What do the commonly drafted decks look like? I imagine white decks have trouble with a grand total of one spot removal spell available at the time.

City in a bottle made my day.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Druge Skeletons, couldn't find room for it?

I agree fully with the inclusion of 2x dual lands.

I appreciate you went and got acctual versions of all the cards instead of getting an 8th edition City of Brass instead of the original one.

I assume beta/CE basics?

Just drafted this on CubeTutor. Had a really cool White Blue prison deck. Locksdown with Moat/Meekstone/Island Sanctuary. Would win with Rod of Ruin/Alladin's Ring. Sounds like the best/worst deck ever.

http://cubetutor.com/draftdeck/561

A local guy wants to build Ice Age/Mirage after his experience with this cube. Those blocks are certainly a lot more balanced.
City in a Bottle and Golgothian Sylex maybe shouldn't be in, but I like them. Library of Alexandria is powerful enough that I'd sideboard in City in a Bottle even if that was the only Arabian Nights card I saw (as long as I wasn't playing a lot of Djinni myself).
It was either Drudge Skeletons or Walking Dead; no reason it couldn't be the skeletons, but both is bad.
It was time-consuming (and hard on my collection) to get all this stuff, but I knew from the start that I'd have to get originals. You're right about the basics; I meant to picture some of them too. I'll do that when I put up the Legendary picture.
Looking at that draft deck reminds me that I need to try out Millstone. Anyone have an Antiquities Millstone for trade?

Quote from Fredo

I got into magic in 1994. Looks amazing!

EDIT: Some random ideas.

Candelabra of Tawnos would be neat in a cube with 4 Mishra's Factories and a Worskhop. Can randomly serve as a fixer too.

I think The Rack can be good too, also it's a combo with Disrupting Scepter.

How about Eureka?

Maybe The Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale? You already have quite a few griefer control cards.

Also, needs more Sol'Kanar the Swamp King. On this I will not budge.

1994 is when I started, too! Part of the reason I decided to build this.
Candelabra might be good occasionally, but I don't know how often it would be worth a card for me to run it in a deck. I'd need a lot of good targets to consider it, and the best ones (Library, Maze, Workshop) are all very high picks. I'll have to think about it.

The Rack and Eureka I'll think about too. I really want Eurkea to be good, but it'd be hard to build a deck around without many ways to cast it reliably, and the biggest creatures have upkeeps of some sort anyway.

Not including Tabernacle - you're right about control already having a strong advantage, and I don't want to push that any more.

You'll be happy to know that Sol'kanar is already in instead of Gwendlyn. The list in the original post is off by about 10 cards; the CubeTutor and GoogleDoc are correct, though.

I've had a 180 card 1994 format cube up on tappedout for a while. It's a fun format, and it cool to see other people making cubes out of it.

Absolutely gorgeous. Bravo!

I've considered adding more City of Brass to my '94 cube to help the color fixing as well. Perhaps doubling up the dual lands is a better fix.

I wish as had as many black-bordered Alpha/Beta as you have here. I would be afraid to play with it!

Please post what changes you make to the creature base (if any), especially in white. I find the choices to be slim for white creatures. I've also tried to keep the costs in a nice curve and the number of doubled mana symbols down for more splash-ability across all colors.

-Frog

You mentioned Jihad in your article. Any reason it isn't in your current list? Did you mistake Army of Allah for Jihad just like everyone did back in the day when flipping through peoples trade boxes?