CUBE 93/94
A while back one of our members came up with an idea of creating a cube. Not the ordinary vintage cube though, but even more nostalgic one, a 93/94 cube. We started gathering information all over the web and after few days of brainstorming the first list of more than 360 cards was ready, with almost all of Old School archetypes mixed together.
The idea was simple, because we all love old black bordered cards, why not to go pure nostalgia and play something from the past, when we were all young and pretty? Of course no proxy, no white borders, as the name of the team obliges.
A decision was made for the cube to not be a singleton one, because let's face the truth, most of old cards are barely playable, and while the card pool being also limited to just Alpha/Beta and 4 first expansions (it was one of the foundations, these cards just look better than others!), it would make the games less fun. We wanted to play something powerful, not sit and watch our armies of Grizzly Bears and Hill Giants. Fun fact although, both of them were in the first cube version. ;)
We played for the first time and, who would have known, it was a blast! You could play an existing Old School archetype, or create a completely new one. Everything was viable and no one was disappointed by the deck they created.
It was not ideal though, so we started looking for some changes.
After few months and few more sessions, bad, weaker cards, or the cards no one ever played were cut, while we added few more to create more diversity in the format. We also cut the cube down to 360 cards (this was done after first session, to make all the combos viable) and (almost) equalized the number of cards between colors. We added some cards that you draft in multiplies, to strengthen some archetypes (ie. if you draft a Merfolk of the Pearl Trident, you get 3 more). We added some cards to make combo and control more viable, because it seemed aggro was the best deck to draft in the past versions. Now you have a chance to win with anything you want. Ponza, Reanimator, Power Monolith, UW Control, your brew, everything is there. Any cards restricted in Old School we still keep as a one-off, so the games are not about drawing a P9. It still feels rare, keeps the power of the decks in check and also allows you to feel the joy of opening a piece in your booster pack, and maybe switching to a completely different archetype afterwards.
We also added the mana burn rule recently, just for the nostalgia to hit us even harder.
All the cards are being slowly shifted to their English version, we started with mostly foreign black bordered (but there were never any wb or proxy cards!), now we are missing just 26 cards + dual lands. It looks insane!
You can see some decks we drafted below:
As for now, we have played almost 10 sessions already, and we can't wait to do another one. Of course this is not something you could play every day, as it is still limited, but with playing once every month or two, when we gather enough players, it will last for years.
Current decklist of the cube can be viewed here (with all the history of changes as well):
Current Cube list on Moxfield.com
The list is not yet set in stone. In the team we have an internal cube discussion topic, and after the session if we feel something is underplayed or we need to adjust some archetype, we are brainstorming and adding/removing cards. This is almost as fun as drafting and playing.
You can see current images of all the cards in cube below:
If you have any ideas or suggestions for our cube, or just want to write your thoughts about it, please comment @ Moxfield. Thanks!
Black Bordered Boomers Team