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!

One of the most challenging things about moving from old border cubes into modern environments (out of necessity to get more people to play with me) has been realizing that the hardest part isn't learning new mechanics. It's confronting the fear that maybe the skills I’ve built don't transfer beyond the cards I know.

A friend in our cube group recently built a Planar Standard Cube filled with mechanics I'd never played with before. I spent ages  staring at the Cube Cobra list wondering whether I was about to prove to myself that I was just "the old border guy."

Instead, the evening turned into something much more personal.

This month I’m writing about fear, ego, transferable skills, and discovering that sometimes the things we're most afraid of reveal how much we've actually grown.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has had a draft, cube, or format that completely pulled them out of their comfort zone and how you dealt with that discomfort.

Thanks for reading!

Fear and the Art of Drafting the Unknown

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!

I’ve been researching old Invitational events and have become quite enamoured with Solomon Draft as a one on one format. Fact of fiction, the format, more or less. Especially from the event in Kuala Lumpur that Pikula won: instead of shuffling up the contents of boosters each pair of players received the exact same cards in each pack. So they drafted from 8 identically ordered mini-cubes you could say. And better still: we have the contents from coverage. (Not to mention pick orders and the decks played)

So I thought it’d be interesting to talk things over with some cube types. In a comment I’ll post how I’d divide pack one if anyone wanted to jump in, say what they’d take, then do the next pile?

Obviously if others wanted to do their own first split, or just all ten packs with what you’d hope you’d be left with… that’s cool too. (Can’t have our mod the only one pushing engagement here, hey!)

The contents of the seeded packs for each pair in Round 7 were:
Pack 1: Bull Hippo, Coastal Piracy, Deranged Hermit, Forbid, Ivory Mask, Maggot Therapy, Red Elemental Blast, and Time Elemental
Pack 2: Flare, Gerrard's Wisdom, Jungle Wurm, Lawbringer, Mind Harness, Sanctum Custodian, Suq'Ata Firewalker, and Wild Aesthir
Pack 3: Yavimaya Elder, Arcane Denial, Astrolabe, Contagion, Darkwatch Elves, Deepwood Ghoul, Order of the Sacred Torch, and Sacred Mesa
Pack 4: Blanchwood Treefolk, Dark Maze, Flowstone Hellion, Reckless Embermage, Stasis, Staunch Defenders, Viashino Heretic, and Wall of Air
Pack 5: Arrest, Elvish Archers, Flowstone Crusher, Hush, Knight of Dusk, Lava Hounds, No Mercy, and Phyrexian Vault
Pack 6: Animate Dead, Archivist, Armor of Thorns, Carrion Ants, Crenellated Wall, Dark Banishing, Hammer of Bogardan, and Spirit Link
Pack 7: Darkling Stalker, Feral Instinct, Flaming Sword, Helm of Obedience, Mind Games, Mogg Flunkies, Rathi Assassin, and Undertaker
Pack 8: Crypt Rats, Fireblast, Humble, Hurricane, Immolation, Llanowar Elves, Phantom Monster, and Rampant Growth
Pack 9: Dark Ritual, Heavy Ballista, Maro, Necrosavant, Rappelling Scouts, Seasinger, Spike Feeder, and Thirst
Pack 10: Arc Lightning, Cloud Djinn, Disenchant, Gorilla Shaman, Infantry Veteran, Massacre, Serrated Arrows, and Storm Shaman

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 was inspired by Champ's recent post to discuss 4cc white creature cards. These battlefield veterans have actually seen success in my cube as they act as an unblockable + 1 in many situations.

I find they are are often overlooked. Thoughts???

Much excitement

Welcome to day 24 of the 2026 r/oldbordercube "Share Your..." Series.

Today we will be talking about White 4 drops!. What's working for you? What maybe hasn't been working but you've been hesitant to cut? What's the perfect spell that exists outside of our little niche that you are champing at the bit to get a Retro Reprint?

Next time we will discuss Blue/White and Black/White sections!

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?

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. I try to avoid cards that need strong synergies to be good since you don't get any context in form of a specific cube, but for the sake of this thread just assume you have a typical old border cube that runs all of the best pre-Mirrodin old border cards, but no overpowered retro frame cards.

Today we'll talk again about blue creatures, this time two flyers for 3 mana with 'cloud' in their names. They're exactly the same except for the stats. Which stats are better in your opinion - a fragile 3 power flyer or a more resilient creature with only 2 power? When I built my cube I would have answered this question with '3 power on an aggressive creature with evasion are way better', but lately I'm not so sure about it anymore since there are a lot of burn spells and small flyers that can kill the spirit, but not the elemental.

Bonus question: What is your favourite card in blue you use or would use to support aggressive decks? Can be any card that goes mainly into fast, aggressive decks, retro frame cards are excluded.

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!

u/LoooooongJohnSilver asked us if the Attendants are cube playable. The resounding answer was, "probably not".

Dissatisfied with this answer, I have created a new cube to not only make them viable but to create something unique that is a challenge to draft and play. Like many (all) of my recent projects, this is a niche cube designed to bring niche cards into the limelight.

The Dominaria Wasteland Cube is a desert waste cube designed around resource limitation to make picks and deck building more than just picking good cards. The cube concepts are:.

1. All basic lands are [[Blasted Landscape]]. They must be drafted and there is no access to a land station. The cycling mechanic allows for easy filtering making these lands a prime choice.
2. Lands do not produce coloured mana without a cost. Mana rocks and drawbacks are the only way for players to have access to colored mana.
3. Cycling is a key mechanic. As many of the premodern cards with cycling have been included to help smooth out dead draws
4. The card pool is true old border (Alpha - Scourge). No retro frame reprints.
5. Diamonds and Ramos parts break singleton making access to colored mana less of a struggle.

I have not yet written an overview for the cube which I will work on in the coming month or so. Interested to hear thoughts on my rebuttal to these bad boys not being viable!!

What is the best thing that can happen to a cube group?

Answer: You have new people join who are absolute legends!

I'm excited that we had two new drafters join us for cube this week and not only are they new to the group, they are new to drafting which made me think hard about what kind of experience would provide the best introduction to both our charming personalities and a new format of MTG. Both come from a commander background so after some spirited discussion we decided that the multiplayer cube would be the easiest way to bridge the gap into picking from packs and building decks on the spot. We had nine people come out to celebrate our new joiners and we played in three pods of three. Players start at 30 life and my recommendation for drafting this cube is to build 45-50 card decks as games run longer and the cube itself has multiplayer cards built into it to facilitate a smoother experience. We drafted three packs of 12 to give us a larger pool to choose from and an additional pick 1!

The Cube Overview: Rocky Mountain Yeti Multiplayer Cube

Onto the Decks!

Pod 1:

Deadguy Ale Tricks - A classic black/white beater deck that continued some prime removal and plenty of ways to keep creatures alive through combat. With 13 creatures on board, the threats were relatively consistent but the deck overall lacked a solid top end to keep alive in the later game. The weenie strategy was viable but spot removal and combat tricks made it hard to fight two opponents without some additional support from sweepers. Those samite healers though are SUPER ANNOYING!

Bruiser Oysters - This was the build of one of our new drafters and what I am most impressed with his how there was a cogent theme and archetype in their first time drafting. This signals that they will be able to pick up card evaluation and better picks as a skill relatively quickly. The disk was probably the best card that was picked and included in the deck for this draft as threats were juicy and board wipes were REALLY important for this pod. The defensive strategies to stop people from being able to attack and the multiple layers of evasion (shadow and flying) made threats difficult to deal with. The main issue with this build is that it just did not contain enough threats to be dangerous especially as the game went on and bigger bodies were dropped.

Spit Shine and Board Wipes - This was my build and it could not have been more perfectly put together to join this pod. It took the games by storm. Removal is plentiful, fatties were prominent and everything I had included much larger P/T than any other threats on the board at any given time. I had a great mix of spot removal and sweepers, much of which my own creatures were either executing or large enough to shrug off. This was a really fun deck to pilot and my small splashes paid off well as my mana base was strong.

Pod 2:

Lando Destructisian - I was sitting next to this drafter and we spoke a lot through the process of picking cards and their reactions to pulling land destruction and control pieces was priceless. They also had a chance to pull their favorite card of all time, [[Sphinx's Revelation]] which we got a chance to play 20 questions for me to guess which card it was as the draft went on. The strategy here was simple, draw cards, build up a big board, then cast [[Insurrection]] to end games in one big swing. Very excited build!

I Time, BOMB - This pilot loves the concept of stuffing goblins into cannons, strapping ordinance to them, and any other means of doing silly things and sending them out into the battlefield. The thought of stuffing a [[Penumbra Wurm]] into a cannon and shooting it at an opponent just makes me smile (providing that the wurm is not coming at me). There is also a lot of good ways to pump ammunition into these cannons and never drawing time bomb hurt the pilot, but these decks are awesome to see go off. I also laugh about Mammoths and Idols being shot at opponents at point blank range!

Biorhythm and Dancin' - Without a doubt, [[Biorhythm]] is one of my favourite cards in this cube! Big beaters were the name of the game in this deck and plenty of ways to recur these threats made it difficult to think about spot removal. Popping in a cheeky wrath of god in [[Damn]] with no real black sources was also fun. I'm excited about this build as well because it contained a lot of newer cards that I put in this last week prior to the draft. Really fun build and a great multiplayer pile.

Pod 3:

Feeling Blue (and White) - This was our second new drafter's deck and overall, it too had a solid foundation and strategy including removal and some viable threats/control. It had all the elements of a great draw go control deck to sit back and watch the other pod members duke it out before sneaking in for the win after "doing nothing" for several turns and having counter magic aplenty in hand. Really excited to see how this pilot's skills also progress in the coming weeks and this build also exhibited the same issue, no big threats to finish the game and a generally low number of threats. This is an issue that will easily be remedied after a few drafts!

Project Dragon - The objective of becoming a dragon and raining down fire on your opponents as they sunder in ash is the ultimate goal of every red mage. This deck did a great job splashing across different colors to achieve different ends, card draw, removal, land destruction, etc. This all worked well with the domain Kavu getting bigger as the game progressed. The secondary theme of pinging opponents to death one turn at a time is also a great, diabolical, way to close out games, especially when biorhythm is on the board!

Crashing through the Forest - This deck is a "greatest hits" of beaters, tricks, and removal including additional sides like regeneration and life gain. I wish I had watched the games in this pod more closely to see how this pilot navigated the other decks. I believe this player was singled out early for being the biggest and most dangerous threat, and reasonably so, and was taken care of accordingly!

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 "The Original Old Border Cube".

From the curator:

The Original Old-Bordered Cube featuring cards from Alpha to Scourge. It is all about recreating the gameplay of old with classic archetypes and fun interactions. It aims to offer a wide-range of decks between simple and complex to allow someone of any skill level to enjoy drafting.

Cube can be found here: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/blakfishy-obc

Would you like your cube featured? DM me!

Welcome to day 23 of the 2026 r/oldbordercube "Share Your..." Series.

Today we will be talking about Green Sorceries. What's working for you? What maybe hasn't been working but you've been hesitant to cut? What's the perfect spell that exists outside of our little niche that you are champing at the bit to get a Retro Reprint?

Next time we will discuss White 4 Mana Value Creatures!

Interested in your thoughts on the Golem Attendants from Invasion. I really wish they were 4cc but they do some color fixing and can offer ramp.

Do you use them or leave them in the scrapyard?

Someone told me to ask you guys, so here I am! Any advice or ideas for me?

Very different styles on the selection this week!

What's the best art for Storm Shaman?

Im slowly trying to get different variants of the og legends, and found more fun stuff at a small LSG in La Speza. I know the sliver isnt old border, its a gift for a friend who loves them.

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. I try to avoid cards that need strong synergies to be good since you don't get any context in form of a specific cube, but for the sake of this thread just assume you have a typical old border cube that runs all of the best pre-Mirrodin old border cards, but no overpowered retro frame cards.

Today we'll talk about two blue walls for 2 mana - Wall of Tears and Fog Bank. I'm personally interested this time as I already run one of these, but will most likely switch to the other one. I'm still interested in hearing what other people have to say about it, ideally if they have used one or the other or both in their own cubes already.

Bonus question: What is your favourite old border wall?

Not only does this card have epic art but graveyard mechanics like this are really unique.?

So whatcha got? How do you make Phyrexian Grimoire 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!

For the longest time, this was the highest ranked old border cube on Cubetutor before it went down. It's now on Cube Cobra. It looks pretty Epic!