This is a tribute to what many consider to be one of the greatest--or at least one of the most notorious--blocks of all time. To my knowledge, no block has seen so many cards banned and/or restricted across such a broad range of formats; one card--Memory Jar--was preemptively banned before it could even see play due to how obviously broken it was. Even the block's more "fair" cards, such as Morphling and Masticore, dominated Standard and the now-defunct Extended format for substantial stretches of time. Other cards, such as Gaea's Cradle, Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, and Grim Monolith see play in eternal formats to this day and carry a hefty price tag as a result.
After the release of Tempest Remastered--itself a modern-day reboot of another excellent block--I began to think about what other blocks could similarly be retooled for the modern day. Urza's Block was the obvious choice. It is my hope that Wizards of the Coast will someday undertake a formal remastering of Urza's Block in the same manner that they did with the Rath Cycle, it's questionable whether that will actually happen.
2. The Project:
This "cube" is intended to be an approximation of how WotC might go about remastering the Urza's Block using its own modern design principles (while understanding of course that the card design in 1998 was such that a perfect approximation would be impossible.) I also wanted to retain as much of the flavor of the original block as possible while creating a balanced drafting experience (draft in original Urza's Block was inherently imbalanced; more on that in a minute.) This created a good deal of tension and--since the block was immense at almost 700 cards--proved far more difficult than I had initially expected.
Certain elements had to be pared back significantly or got the axe entirely. Color hosers--especially white's "protection from [color]" creatures and the "Runes of Protection" (i.e. Rune of Protection: Black) are not a part of the modern game and were more or less removed entirely; the number of such cards in the set is therefore quite limited, and all such cards are at uncommon rarity and above. "Fast mana" cards like Dark Ritual, Tolarian Academy, Serra's Sanctum, etc. would never see print today, and were likewise omitted. I made certain exceptions in this regard for Gaea's Cradle, Thran Dynamo and Grim Monolith, because I knew everyone (including myself, most likely) would scream bloody murder if they weren't in the set. There are some additional notable omissions: Elvish Piper, Energy Field, Exploration, Crop Rotation, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, and Fluctuator didn't make the cut. At the end of the day, this block simply has too much "broken" to fit into 269 (249 once you omit the basic lands) cards, and I didn't want this to simply be a "greatest hits" from the original block--I wanted it to be a coherent, balanced, and functional set. Anything that otherwise truly bends the rules of the game--i.e. Sneak Attack, Show and Tell, Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain, and even Tinker were upshifted in rarity.
Color balance was perhaps the biggest remaining issue. Anyone who had the "fortune" to play the original Urza's Block drafts could tell you how obscenely overpowered black was. Here's just a short list of cards that black had at common in the original block: Dark RitualExpunge, Befoul, Pestilence, Corrupt. Most of those cards have been upshifted to uncommon so they are unlikely to show up as much (approx. 1 copy per 8-man draft as opposed to 3-4 copies). Black still has the best removal at common overall, though this is offset to some extent by the relatively lower quality of its creatures. I'd argue that black is still probably the best color overall, though not by nearly as big of a margin. I think consolidation has helped in this regard too; part of the issue with the original Urza's Block is that the other 4 colors simply had a glut of crap cards, particularly at common; rarity downshifts have further mitigated the power gap. The most notable downshifts were with green's creatures to compensate for the color's more or less complete lack of workable removal.
I've also tried to do my best to delineate the identities of each color so that each has an intuitive strategy--i.e. red has lots of aggressive little weenies, green has slightly-undercosted fatties (many with the "echo" mechanic), blue has a lot of bounce, countermagic, etc. Unlike many modern draft sets, there isn't really a distinct archetype for each color pair beyond what you'd expect based on the color pie (U/W control, G/R fatties, B/R "nuke the board", etc.), because this was originally a "mono-color" block with no gold cards. Looking at the list though, you could conceivably make a B/x "reanimate for value" type deck, a G/w "enchantments" deck, etc.
3. Basic Stats:
Total Unique Cards: 269
Commons: 101 (4 copies of each)
Uncommons: 80 (2 copies of each)
Rares: 53 (1 copy of each)
Mythic Rares: 15 (1 copy of each; randomly inserted every 8th rare)
Basic Land: 20
Format: 8-man draft
Semi-random booster packs of 15 cards each (11 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare/mythic rare)
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. I've proxied up the list (currently in the process of acquiring the actual cards) and am playtesting the cube as we speak. What cards would you add/subtract? Let me know in the comments.
You may well be right about Symbiosis, but green is otherwise so one-dimensional that I'm not sure how big of a deal it is. I already made a similar upshift on Rancor for similar reasons. I'll have to see how it plays out in real time.
I'd already considered the bit about Opposition. You're right that it's a total bomb if it sticks around, but since it's an enchantment and each color either has ample ways to either deal with an enchantment (blue, white, green) or the creatures themselves (red, black), it didn't concern me all that much once I'd thought about it. Show and Tell and Time Spiral, on the other hand, are both so potentially game-warping that they seem mechanically inappropriate at rare. They're also huge money cards while Opposition is just above bulk, so I could never see them actually ever being reprinted at rare.
I've had the idea of making an Urza's Block cube for quite a while, and am planning on starting it in the upcoming weeks / months. Your post will prove to be very valuable. I'm curious how you've liked your setup since you started?
Keep up the good work, loving this post.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A hobby is by defenition something you're not any good at - otherwise it'd have been your work. Magic is my biggest hobby so I mustn't be very good at it.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1. Introduction:
This is a tribute to what many consider to be one of the greatest--or at least one of the most notorious--blocks of all time. To my knowledge, no block has seen so many cards banned and/or restricted across such a broad range of formats; one card--Memory Jar--was preemptively banned before it could even see play due to how obviously broken it was. Even the block's more "fair" cards, such as Morphling and Masticore, dominated Standard and the now-defunct Extended format for substantial stretches of time. Other cards, such as Gaea's Cradle, Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, and Grim Monolith see play in eternal formats to this day and carry a hefty price tag as a result.
After the release of Tempest Remastered--itself a modern-day reboot of another excellent block--I began to think about what other blocks could similarly be retooled for the modern day. Urza's Block was the obvious choice. It is my hope that Wizards of the Coast will someday undertake a formal remastering of Urza's Block in the same manner that they did with the Rath Cycle, it's questionable whether that will actually happen.
2. The Project:
This "cube" is intended to be an approximation of how WotC might go about remastering the Urza's Block using its own modern design principles (while understanding of course that the card design in 1998 was such that a perfect approximation would be impossible.) I also wanted to retain as much of the flavor of the original block as possible while creating a balanced drafting experience (draft in original Urza's Block was inherently imbalanced; more on that in a minute.) This created a good deal of tension and--since the block was immense at almost 700 cards--proved far more difficult than I had initially expected.
Certain elements had to be pared back significantly or got the axe entirely. Color hosers--especially white's "protection from [color]" creatures and the "Runes of Protection" (i.e. Rune of Protection: Black) are not a part of the modern game and were more or less removed entirely; the number of such cards in the set is therefore quite limited, and all such cards are at uncommon rarity and above. "Fast mana" cards like Dark Ritual, Tolarian Academy, Serra's Sanctum, etc. would never see print today, and were likewise omitted. I made certain exceptions in this regard for Gaea's Cradle, Thran Dynamo and Grim Monolith, because I knew everyone (including myself, most likely) would scream bloody murder if they weren't in the set. There are some additional notable omissions: Elvish Piper, Energy Field, Exploration, Crop Rotation, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, and Fluctuator didn't make the cut. At the end of the day, this block simply has too much "broken" to fit into 269 (249 once you omit the basic lands) cards, and I didn't want this to simply be a "greatest hits" from the original block--I wanted it to be a coherent, balanced, and functional set. Anything that otherwise truly bends the rules of the game--i.e. Sneak Attack, Show and Tell, Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain, and even Tinker were upshifted in rarity.
Color balance was perhaps the biggest remaining issue. Anyone who had the "fortune" to play the original Urza's Block drafts could tell you how obscenely overpowered black was. Here's just a short list of cards that black had at common in the original block: Dark Ritual Expunge, Befoul, Pestilence, Corrupt. Most of those cards have been upshifted to uncommon so they are unlikely to show up as much (approx. 1 copy per 8-man draft as opposed to 3-4 copies). Black still has the best removal at common overall, though this is offset to some extent by the relatively lower quality of its creatures. I'd argue that black is still probably the best color overall, though not by nearly as big of a margin. I think consolidation has helped in this regard too; part of the issue with the original Urza's Block is that the other 4 colors simply had a glut of crap cards, particularly at common; rarity downshifts have further mitigated the power gap. The most notable downshifts were with green's creatures to compensate for the color's more or less complete lack of workable removal.
I've also tried to do my best to delineate the identities of each color so that each has an intuitive strategy--i.e. red has lots of aggressive little weenies, green has slightly-undercosted fatties (many with the "echo" mechanic), blue has a lot of bounce, countermagic, etc. Unlike many modern draft sets, there isn't really a distinct archetype for each color pair beyond what you'd expect based on the color pie (U/W control, G/R fatties, B/R "nuke the board", etc.), because this was originally a "mono-color" block with no gold cards. Looking at the list though, you could conceivably make a B/x "reanimate for value" type deck, a G/w "enchantments" deck, etc.
3. Basic Stats:
Total Unique Cards: 269
Commons: 101 (4 copies of each)
Uncommons: 80 (2 copies of each)
Rares: 53 (1 copy of each)
Mythic Rares: 15 (1 copy of each; randomly inserted every 8th rare)
Basic Land: 20
Format: 8-man draft
Semi-random booster packs of 15 cards each (11 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare/mythic rare)
Anyway, without further ado...
4. The List:
1 Academy Rector
1 Replenish
White Rares:
1 Elite Archers
1 False Prophet
1 Glorious Anthem
1 Mother of Runes
1 Opal Archangel
1 Opalescence
1 Radiant, Archangel
1 Serra Avatar
1 Worship
White Uncommons:
2 Clear
2 Congregate
2 Flicker
2 Herald of Serra
2 Humble
2 Monk Idealist
2 Path of Peace
2 Radiant's Dragoons
2 Sanctum Guardian
2 Seasoned Marshall
2 Serra's Embrace
2 Voice of Grace
2 Voice of Law
White Commons:
4 Angelic Page
4 Brilliant Halo
4 Cessation
4 Disenchant
4 Erase
4 Expendable Troops
4 Field Surgeon
4 Hope and Glory
4 Monk Realist
4 Opal Caryatid
4 Opal Champion
4 Opal Gargoyle
4 Pacifism
4 Pegasus Charger
4 Radiant's Judgment
4 Sanctum Custodian
4 Scent of Jasmine
4 Serra Zealot
4 Wall of Glare
Blue Mythic Rares:
1 Show and Tell
1 Time Spiral
Blue Rares:
1 Back to Basics
1 Barrin, Master Wizard
1 Gilded Drake
1 Morphling
1 Opposition
1 Palinchron
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Tinker
1 Treachery
Blue Uncommons:
2 Confiscate
2 Exhaustion
2 Fleeting Image
2 Fog Bank
2 Metathran Elite
2 Opportunity
2 Peregrine Drake
2 Raven Familiar
2 Rewind
2 Thieving Magpie
2 Thornwind Faeries
2 Windfall
2 Zephid's Embrace
Blue Commons:
4 Annul
4 Bouncing Beebles
4 Bubbling Beebles
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Coral Merfolk
4 Frantic Search
4 Hermetic Study
4 Horseshoe Crab
4 Kingfisher
4 Miscalculation
4 Pendrell Drake
4 Pendrell Flux
4 Power Sink
4 Rescind
4 Scent of Brine
4 Sigil of Sleep
4 Snap
4 Veiled Serpent
4 Vigilant Drake
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Black Rares:
1 Abyssal Horror
1 Attrition
1 Dark Hatchling
1 Darkest Hour
1 No Mercy
1 Persecute
1 Phyrexian Negator
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Phyrexian Tower
Black Uncommons:
2 Bone Shredder
2 Corrupt
2 Diabolic Servitude
2 Engineered Plague
2 Expunge
2 Order of Yawgmoth
2 Pestilence
2 Phyrexian Defiler
2 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Priest of Gix
2 Sanguine Guard
2 Vampiric Embrace
2 Victimize
Black Commons:
4 Befoul
4 Duress
4 Exhume
4 Giant Cockroach
4 Hollow Dogs
4 Looming Shade
4 Phyrexian Broodlings
4 Phyrexian Debaser
4 Phyrexian Denouncer
4 Phyrexian Ghoul
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Ravenous Skirge
4 Scent of Nightshade
4 Sicken
4 Skittering Horror
4 Slinking Skirge
4 Swat
4 Unearth
4 Unworthy Dead
Red Mythic Rares:
1 Sneak Attack
1 Wildfire
Red Rares:
1 Bedlam
1 Brand
1 Covetous Dragon
1 Fault Line
1 Gamble
1 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Welder
1 Lightning Dragon
1 Repercussion
Red Uncommons:
2 Avalanche Riders
2 Ghitu Slinger
2 Ghitu War Cry
2 Goblin Marshall
2 Goblin Matron
2 Heat Ray
2 Keldon Champion
2 Outmaneuver
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Shivan Raptor
2 Shiv's Embrace
2 Steam Blast
2 Viashino Cutthroat
Red Commons:
4 Arc Lightning
4 Falter
4 Fiery Mantle
4 Flame Jet
4 Goblin Cadets
4 Goblin Mason
4 Goblin Medics
4 Goblin Offensive
4 Goblin Patrol
4 Goblin War Buggy
4 Reckless Abandon
4 Shower of Sparks
4 Scent of Cinder
4 Scrap
4 Thundering Giant
4 Trumpet Blast
4 Viashino Runner
4 Viashino Sandscout
4 Wild Colos
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Gaea's Cradle
Green Rares:
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Greater Good
1 Hidden Gibbons
1 Might of Oaks
1 Multani, Maro-Sorceror
1 Thorn Elemental
1 Weatherseed Treefolk
1 Whirlwind
Green Uncommons:
2 Albino Troll
2 Anaconda
2 Ancient Silverback
2 Bull Hippo
2 Cradle Guard
2 Crosswinds
2 Gaea's Embrace
2 Gang of Elk
2 Hidden Ancients
2 Hidden Guerillas
2 Hunting Moa
2 Rancor
2 Yavimaya Enchantress
Green Commons:
4 Acridian
4 Blanchwood Armor
4 Elvish Herder
4 Elvish Lyrist
4 Emperor Crocodile
4 Fertile Ground
4 Heart Warden
4 Hidden Spider
4 Hidden Stag
4 Hush
4 Lull
4 Plated Spider
4 Priest of Titania
4 Scent of Ivy
4 Simian Grunts
4 Symbiosis
4 Wing Snare
4 Yavimaya Elder
4 Yavimaya Wurm
Artifact/Land Mythic Rares:
1 Grim Monolith
1 Masticore
1 Memory Jar
1 Metalworker
1 Phyrexian Processor
Artifact/Land Rares:
1 Thran Quarry
1 Defense Grid
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Phyrexian Colossus
1 Powder Keg
1 Ring of Gix
1 Smokestack
1 Thran Golem
Artifact/Land Uncommons:
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Forbidding Watchtower
2 Ghitu Encampment
2 Spawning Pool
2 Treetop Village
2 Caltrops
2 Dragon Blood
2 Mobile Fort
2 Thran Dynamo
2 Thran Foundry
2 Thran Turbine
2 Ticking Gnomes
2 Urza's Armor
2 Voltaic Key
2 Worn Powerstone
Artifact/Land Commons:
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Polluted Mire
4 Remote Isle
4 Slippery Karst
4 Smoldering Crater
4 Wall of Junk
5. Conclusion:
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. I've proxied up the list (currently in the process of acquiring the actual cards) and am playtesting the cube as we speak. What cards would you add/subtract? Let me know in the comments.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
I'd already considered the bit about Opposition. You're right that it's a total bomb if it sticks around, but since it's an enchantment and each color either has ample ways to either deal with an enchantment (blue, white, green) or the creatures themselves (red, black), it didn't concern me all that much once I'd thought about it. Show and Tell and Time Spiral, on the other hand, are both so potentially game-warping that they seem mechanically inappropriate at rare. They're also huge money cards while Opposition is just above bulk, so I could never see them actually ever being reprinted at rare.
I've had the idea of making an Urza's Block cube for quite a while, and am planning on starting it in the upcoming weeks / months. Your post will prove to be very valuable. I'm curious how you've liked your setup since you started?
Keep up the good work, loving this post.