Hello and welcome to my "'94 Magic" Cube! Some time ago, I decided to create my own unique format called "'94 Magic" to play amongst my friends. The format consisted of only cards available in 1994. You can read more about the casual vintage format here. Having enjoyed playing with '94 Magic for a bit I decided that the Cube format would be a perfect for it. It gives players a real taste of what it was like when I started playing Magic in the Fall of 1994. The cards were pretty different back then, creatures were vastly inferior to where they are now and spells were much more powerful.
Note:Since I wrote that opening paragraph, "Old School" or Magic 93/94 has become a real thing. There are Old School format tournaments featuring cards from this era held around the world. I'm not sure when the idea for such a format was originally started, or who started it first. I suspect that many casual play-groups featuring players who had old cards and who have been playing since the dawn of the game came up with the same idea simultaneously. My friends and I certainly did a few years before it became a "real" format with a large following of players.
I'm pleased that so many players are excited to break out their old cards and enjoy them again just like in the "old days". I also appreciate all the interest that this Classic Cube has created in the format and cards. Thanks for taking a look and enjoy!
The cube consists of cards only from the following expansions: Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised (core sets), Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark and Fallen Empires.
Summary of the Cube: 360 Cards.
Each color contains: 32 Creatures and 25 Spells
There are also: 15 Artifact Creatures, 15 Multi-Colored Creatures (Legends), 25 Artifacts and 20 non-basic lands
30 of each land (a mix of Beta, FBB Italian Revised, Revised and Unlimited currently)
I also have a foil Power 9 proxy set (which I created) that I carry along in the box if anyone is interested in drafting them. I swap out cards appropriately to fit them in. There are 4 additional foil "power" proxy cards including Library of Alexandria, Time Vault, Gauntlet of Might and Mishra's Workshop.
I love these kinds of cubes. I'm trying to put together something similar from '95-'96 era when I started. The creatures back then just don't hold up to today's creatures but I'm nostalgic. I would suggest Dakkon Blackblade from legends for your cube. He was one of my favorites from back then.
I'm considering removing the poison creatures (Marsh Viper and Pit Scorpion) for vanilla creatures. No one has even attempted to use them. What would be good replacement creatures at that CC from this card pool not already present?
Necrite or Mindstab (Thrull?). FE 3 drop black 2/2's. Pretty vanilla in body, but I loved the thrulls from FE.
Very cool concept for a cube!!
Norrit is like Nettling Imp @ 4cmc also, but has the untap ability, which may be abusable with the legendary cards.
I noticed black didn't have breeding pit. Not sure if it's strong enough tho.
Does King Suleiman have enough targets? Otherwise his body is rather undersized.
Thanks!
Well, Norritt is from Ice Age, but I do like his flavor, he just isn't in the pool of cards.
Every single Djinn and Efreet is present in the cube with the exception of Mijae Djinn, so yes, he has lots of targets. Additionally, White is really low in creatures, there just aren't very many of reasonably playable value.
Eventually I might replace Serpent Generator with Mirror Universe once I get ahold of it. The poison cards are just too few and underpowered to be included.
ohhh, i should have read more closely. Ice age was so close to FE, didn't know it wasn't 1994. Breeding pit in noncreature spells. duh, i missed that. Khabal ghoul seems fine. Spitting slug is also a surprisingly huge body for the cost, good choice.
How does this play btw? does it curve out reasonably? archetypes shine through or just bodies and spells?
I noticed Dragon Whelp and Nightmare wasn't listed. I can understand nightmare, but even a 3/3 or 4/4 flyer for 6 is probably GG.
I think with poison you'd want dwarven warriors type cards or the artifact that does it. I agree, seems too narrow
Knowledge vault seems decent in limited. Colorless source of slow card advantage
ohhh, i should have read more closely. Ice age was so close to FE, didn't know it wasn't 1994. Breeding pit in noncreature spells. duh, i missed that. Khabal ghoul seems fine. Spitting slug is also a surprisingly huge body for the cost, good choice.
How does this play btw? does it curve out reasonably? archetypes shine through or just bodies and spells?
I noticed Dragon Whelp and Nightmare wasn't listed. I can understand nightmare, but even a 3/3 or 4/4 flyer for 6 is probably GG.
I think with poison you'd want dwarven warriors type cards or the artifact that does it. I agree, seems too narrow
Knowledge vault seems decent in limited. Colorless source of slow card advantage
Nightmare is just very expensive to cast. I wanted to try to keep the curve down, but it's definately a contender. I'm not sure what I would take out that's 5 or 6 CC in black where Nightmare would fit. Demonic Hordes? I really like the Hordes and they are equally black-mana dependant.
Knowledge Vault is cool to be sure, the space is so tight for cards though. I think I'd rather squeeze in Mirror Universe because it's so iconic.
It's plays reasonably well, but it's mostly spells and bodies. There aren't many themes outsides of that to push with such a limited card pool. One can focus on land destruction to a small degree. Creature-stealing is available as well and very powerful. There are some good discard spells also. Old man of the Sea is brutal. Mostly, it's an opportunity for old-timers like myself to feel like I'm playing back in the day.
You can see the curve by clicking the stats link above to see the decktech stat page. It's pretty good, but it was hard to find the right fit for many cards.
Nightmare is better than stone-throwing devils or wall of putrid flesh in the abstract, but I can understand your curve concerns.
re Dragon whelp: I still can't read apparently
Very cool concept. I just may try something similar and include Ice Age and Homelands (not much gained there) to finish out the block, tho it does lose the nice 1994 theme
Which rules do you use for this? It would feel logical to use old school rules, but it might get very confusing for some.
Current rules apply. It's just too weird to try and use the old rules. Interrupts faster than instants? No thanks. Poly, Mono and Continuous artifacts are weird enough to try and explain to people.
Nightmare is better than stone-throwing devils or wall of putrid flesh in the abstract, but I can understand your curve concerns.
re Dragon whelp: I still can't read apparently
Very cool concept. I just may try something similar and include Ice Age and Homelands (not much gained there) to finish out the block, tho it does lose the nice 1994 theme
Awesome! If you do, please post your 95' cube with pictures.
Nightmare was in for a while, I might bring him back. You're right about it being better than Wall of Putrid Flesh. I like the wall because it's flavorful and the artwork is disgusting. Also, it gives black a little something extra against white (not that it's needed necessarily).
I included 1 wall for each color and tried to pick the best one I could. Wall of Wonder is actually really good as just a creature.
haha putrid flesh is pretty gross. tons of flavor, tho I'm not sure what it has to do with enchantments. maybe dead flesh isn't affected by enchanted living beings?
phyrexian gremlins is a techy answer for black. i checked and they didn't errata it at all, given how it used to interact with mono artifacts. I suppose most mono artifacts were errata anyways. nvm
when I get a chance, i'll put together a list and pm for comments ^_^. Balduvian Hordes?
This is exactly what I have been looking for. Im planning to do the same thing but was thinking of calling it 'Classic cube' and keeping it limited to A/B/U -> The Dark. (the game was ruined the day they put copyrights and dates on cards!)
One of the benefits I have is owning a Collectors Edition set so that puts me pretty far ahead of the game. I also inherited a sizeable collection of Italian Legends cards so that will also help until I replace them with English ones.
Thanks for giving me the foundation to work off of!
Awesome, glad to see you're interest in this cube too!
I know there are some other 93-94 players out the who omit Fallen Empires, but believe me, the card pool is so limited that you'll want to include them.
Besides, Fallen Empires has its own nostalgia for better or worse and it's still an "original" expansion.
If you do omit the set, I'd love to see your cube list and compare the differences.
Here is my first draft 460 some cards. Ive got about 400 of them so should be able to proxy the rest and get testing to figure out what needs to change
After reviewing the mana curve of the cube, I have decided on a few changes to thin out the 4-drops with lower casting cost cards. Here's what I came up with:
Flying Carpet -> Disrupting Scepter
Petra Sphinx -> Argivian Archaeologist
Living wall -> Wall of Spears
Crimson Manticore -> Atog
Carnivorous Plant -> Fire Sprites
Ghost Ship -> Water Wurm
Water Wurm is crap, but pretty much every other decent blue creature less than 4 mana is already in the cube. There weren't a lot of options. Voldalian Mage was the only other consideration. Strangely, there aren't a lot of options for green two-drops, so the fire sprites made it in. They help the mana fixing a little at least and they fly.
Current rules apply. It's just too weird to try and use the old rules. Interrupts faster than instants? No thanks. Poly, Mono and Continuous artifacts are weird enough to try and explain to people.
If you're going to do a '93-'94 cube, you need to do it by '93-'94 rules.
+$0.02
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Worldbuilding project of mine
Safir Alliance | Hoennverse
Beautiful cube, Frogczar. I'm starting to put it together now.
Just out of curiosity, what do you swap out when you bring in the Power?
Is their effect less pronounced than it would be in a regular powered cube?
Hey, thanks!
Yeah, I feel like '94 cube is a great way to play a "throwback" game of Magic. However, we don't play with the old rules set. The old rules just cause a lot of confusion and frankly aren't very good. I still have my Revised rulebook, but nobody really wants to try and play with it.
I've swapped in the power only once. The result was very unbalanced. Whoever drew the power they drafted usually won the game. When I swapped in the power I tried to take out cards that similar in either casting cost or function. Thus, I would take out something like Copy Artifact for Time Walk (blue, 2CC sorcery), Fellwar's stone for a Mox (mana rock). Obviously, this doesn't work particularly well once you run out of cards that are similar in those manners, but that's what I would try to do.
I haven't made any changes to the cube lately. I've been away from Magic for a few months actually, playing other games. One of the changes that I want to make is to add a Guardian Beast and a few other big cards like Ali from Cairo.
When I get my hands on them, I'll make a note/post about it here.
Happy '94 cubing! I'd love to see pictures of your cube when you get it put together!
Note: Since I wrote that opening paragraph, "Old School" or Magic 93/94 has become a real thing. There are Old School format tournaments featuring cards from this era held around the world. I'm not sure when the idea for such a format was originally started, or who started it first. I suspect that many casual play-groups featuring players who had old cards and who have been playing since the dawn of the game came up with the same idea simultaneously. My friends and I certainly did a few years before it became a "real" format with a large following of players.
I'm pleased that so many players are excited to break out their old cards and enjoy them again just like in the "old days". I also appreciate all the interest that this Classic Cube has created in the format and cards. Thanks for taking a look and enjoy!
The cube consists of cards only from the following expansions: Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised (core sets), Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark and Fallen Empires.
Summary of the Cube:
360 Cards.
Each color contains: 32 Creatures and 25 Spells
There are also: 15 Artifact Creatures, 15 Multi-Colored Creatures (Legends), 25 Artifacts and 20 non-basic lands
30 of each land (a mix of Beta, FBB Italian Revised, Revised and Unlimited currently)
Visual Spoiler
Draft this cube on cubetutor!
I also have a foil Power 9 proxy set (which I created) that I carry along in the box if anyone is interested in drafting them. I swap out cards appropriately to fit them in. There are 4 additional foil "power" proxy cards including Library of Alexandria, Time Vault, Gauntlet of Might and Mishra's Workshop.
Blue
Black
Green
Red
White
Artifacts/Multi-Colored/Lands
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Arabian Nights
Island of Wak-Wak
Guardian Beast
(maybe's)
City of Brass x3
Legends
(maybe's)
Thanks for looking!
-Frog
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Jacques le vert -> Angus Mackenzie
Jasmine Boreal -> Rasputin Dreamweaver
Farrelite Priest -> Thunder Spirit
I'll get all the Elder Dragons in at some point, useful or not, they belong in this cube. I think they are just too iconic for '94 magic to leave out.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Revelation -> Concordant Crossroads
Tor Wauki -> Palladia-Mors
Tobias Andiron -> Dakkon Blackblade
Still looking for Nicol Bolas to round out the Eldar Dragon Legends.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Nebuchadnezzar -> Nicol Bolas
I'm considering removing the poison creatures (Marsh Viper and Pit Scorpion) for vanilla creatures. No one has even attempted to use them. What would be good replacement creatures at that CC from this card pool not already present?
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Very cool concept for a cube!!
Norrit is like Nettling Imp @ 4cmc also, but has the untap ability, which may be abusable with the legendary cards.
I noticed black didn't have breeding pit. Not sure if it's strong enough tho.
Does King Suleiman have enough targets? Otherwise his body is rather undersized.
360 Uncommons only Cube!
Thanks!
Well, Norritt is from Ice Age, but I do like his flavor, he just isn't in the pool of cards.
Every single Djinn and Efreet is present in the cube with the exception of Mijae Djinn, so yes, he has lots of targets. Additionally, White is really low in creatures, there just aren't very many of reasonably playable value.
Breeding Pit is already in. Great card.
I think I'm going to put in Khabal Ghoul at the 3CC spot where Pit Scorpion was and then Spitting Slug in where Marsh Viper was (to also increase the 3 drops in the cube).
Eventually I might replace Serpent Generator with Mirror Universe once I get ahold of it. The poison cards are just too few and underpowered to be included.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
How does this play btw? does it curve out reasonably? archetypes shine through or just bodies and spells?
I noticed Dragon Whelp and Nightmare wasn't listed. I can understand nightmare, but even a 3/3 or 4/4 flyer for 6 is probably GG.
I think with poison you'd want dwarven warriors type cards or the artifact that does it. I agree, seems too narrow
Knowledge vault seems decent in limited. Colorless source of slow card advantage
360 Uncommons only Cube!
Dragon Whelp is in already.
Nightmare is just very expensive to cast. I wanted to try to keep the curve down, but it's definately a contender. I'm not sure what I would take out that's 5 or 6 CC in black where Nightmare would fit. Demonic Hordes? I really like the Hordes and they are equally black-mana dependant.
Knowledge Vault is cool to be sure, the space is so tight for cards though. I think I'd rather squeeze in Mirror Universe because it's so iconic.
It's plays reasonably well, but it's mostly spells and bodies. There aren't many themes outsides of that to push with such a limited card pool. One can focus on land destruction to a small degree. Creature-stealing is available as well and very powerful. There are some good discard spells also. Old man of the Sea is brutal. Mostly, it's an opportunity for old-timers like myself to feel like I'm playing back in the day.
You can see the curve by clicking the stats link above to see the decktech stat page. It's pretty good, but it was hard to find the right fit for many cards.
Thanks for the suggestions!
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
re Dragon whelp: I still can't read apparently
Very cool concept. I just may try something similar and include Ice Age and Homelands (not much gained there) to finish out the block, tho it does lose the nice 1994 theme
360 Uncommons only Cube!
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Current rules apply. It's just too weird to try and use the old rules. Interrupts faster than instants? No thanks. Poly, Mono and Continuous artifacts are weird enough to try and explain to people.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Awesome! If you do, please post your 95' cube with pictures.
Nightmare was in for a while, I might bring him back. You're right about it being better than Wall of Putrid Flesh. I like the wall because it's flavorful and the artwork is disgusting. Also, it gives black a little something extra against white (not that it's needed necessarily).
I included 1 wall for each color and tried to pick the best one I could. Wall of Wonder is actually really good as just a creature.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
phyrexian gremlins is a techy answer for black. i checked and they didn't errata it at all, given how it used to interact with mono artifacts. I suppose most mono artifacts were errata anyways. nvm
when I get a chance, i'll put together a list and pm for comments ^_^. Balduvian Hordes?
360 Uncommons only Cube!
Pit Scorpion -> Khabal Ghoul
Abomination -> Nightmare
Marsh Viper -> Spitting Slug
I'll be replacing Serpent Generator with Mirror Universe eventually.
Just need to get my hands on one.
-Frog
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
One of the benefits I have is owning a Collectors Edition set so that puts me pretty far ahead of the game. I also inherited a sizeable collection of Italian Legends cards so that will also help until I replace them with English ones.
Thanks for giving me the foundation to work off of!
I know there are some other 93-94 players out the who omit Fallen Empires, but believe me, the card pool is so limited that you'll want to include them.
Besides, Fallen Empires has its own nostalgia for better or worse and it's still an "original" expansion.
If you do omit the set, I'd love to see your cube list and compare the differences.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dOMVWtpThv4_5p16on73fSo-K6odt3L_slVckAxRctc/edit
Serpent Generator -> Mirror Universe
I think my next long-term changes will be to find a Eureka and an All Hallows' Eve.
Before these cards get any more expensive.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Flying Carpet -> Disrupting Scepter
Petra Sphinx -> Argivian Archaeologist
Living wall -> Wall of Spears
Crimson Manticore -> Atog
Carnivorous Plant -> Fire Sprites
Ghost Ship -> Water Wurm
Water Wurm is crap, but pretty much every other decent blue creature less than 4 mana is already in the cube. There weren't a lot of options. Voldalian Mage was the only other consideration. Strangely, there aren't a lot of options for green two-drops, so the fire sprites made it in. They help the mana fixing a little at least and they fly.
-Frog
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
If you're going to do a '93-'94 cube, you need to do it by '93-'94 rules.
+$0.02
Safir Alliance | Hoennverse
Custom Sets
“Mind”: Preliminary Design | “Body”: Preliminary Design | “Spirit”: Preliminary Design
Just out of curiosity, what do you swap out when you bring in the Power?
Is their effect less pronounced than it would be in a regular powered cube?
My 1994 Magic Cube
Japanese cards on eBay -- Legacy, Modern, EDH, Cube.
Hey, thanks!
Yeah, I feel like '94 cube is a great way to play a "throwback" game of Magic. However, we don't play with the old rules set. The old rules just cause a lot of confusion and frankly aren't very good. I still have my Revised rulebook, but nobody really wants to try and play with it.
I've swapped in the power only once. The result was very unbalanced. Whoever drew the power they drafted usually won the game. When I swapped in the power I tried to take out cards that similar in either casting cost or function. Thus, I would take out something like Copy Artifact for Time Walk (blue, 2CC sorcery), Fellwar's stone for a Mox (mana rock). Obviously, this doesn't work particularly well once you run out of cards that are similar in those manners, but that's what I would try to do.
I haven't made any changes to the cube lately. I've been away from Magic for a few months actually, playing other games. One of the changes that I want to make is to add a Guardian Beast and a few other big cards like Ali from Cairo.
When I get my hands on them, I'll make a note/post about it here.
Happy '94 cubing! I'd love to see pictures of your cube when you get it put together!
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube