Set the Power to Maximum!

Posted on Nov 22, 2024

"No Holds Barred" Vintage Cube Starts November 27th on Magic Online!

By Chris Wolf and Ryan Spain

Greetings, Vintage Cube enthusiasts! Earlier this year we polled the Magic Online Discord community on which of four alternative Vintage Cubes they would be most interested in playing, and the “No Holds Barred” option—the most powerful cards and strategies with nothing cut for play patterns—won by a landslide. Much like the recently featured Vintage Cube LIVE Prize Cube, this is a non-canon version of the Vintage Cube, so just like last time, we won’t be looking at this iteration through the lens of a changelist. Instead, we’ll give you an overview of the “barred holds” that are usually cut for play-pattern concerns, but have been allowed in this iteration, which should give you an idea of what this Cube is all about. Let’s kick things off with one of the most powerful mechanics…

The Initiative

Created with four-player games in mind, this mechanic is outrageously strong in 1v1 duels and is a perfect example of an inclusion that would normally be left out because of its play patterns, complexity, and a cube-warping nature. While sometimes risky to take the initiative, it’s almost impossible to ignore, as it snowballs quickly into an insurmountable resource advantage for the player who can keep it. This snowball effect tends to make initiative the focus of any game where it shows up.

So how do we get past every game devolving into battles around who gets to take, re-take and keep the initiative? Fortunately, the answer aligns nicely with the theme of the Cube: By adding powerful, game-ending combos into the mix, which allow players to skip the midrange initiative battle and try to end the game with a combo before the initiative player can close out the game with damage. Vintage Cube has always had combo cards, though, and you will see old familiar combos like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite here, so what makes the new combos in this iteration different? Generally, speed and power, but at the cost of play-pattern health. Let’s look at some of the incoming ways to win combo-style.

The Combos

On top of the combos that Vintage Cube regulars will recognize, such as Brain Freeze + Underworld Breach and the aforementioned Kiki/Splinter Twin plus untappers, we’re bringing in the most unreasonable combo cards imaginable.

Demonic Consultation rounds out the Doomsday package alongside Thassa’s Oracle and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and presents a cheap and powerful avenue to end games quickly without trying to contest the initiative. Chain of Smog combines with Sedgemoor Witch and/or Witherbloom Apprentice for infinite Pest tokens or loss of life. Finally, Time Vault is back to combine with Tezzeret the Seeker, Manifold/Voltaic Key and Mirage Mirror for infinite turns, while Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner can at least yield a couple. There’s also a pretty unconventional way to do it from your graveyard with Shifting Woodland.

Time Vault has appeared in the Magic Online Vintage Cube before but has been effectively banned from the “canon" MTGO Vintage Cube for one simple reason: being downright silly, and not in a cute way. The same goes for Demonic Consultation, which in addition to being dirt cheap is also incredibly hard to interact with. And speaking of silly cards …

The Silly

This suite of cards can hang power-level-wise in regular Vintage Cube, but they have not been included for different reasons (except “Name Sticker” Goblin, which was included for a short time). Invert Polarity and Comet, Stellar Pup mostly read: “Win the game or get a medium effect, based on coinflips,” which isn’t the variance or gameplay experience we are generally aiming for, but for this iteration, all bets are off.

Additionally, some curators of tabletop Vintage Cubes take the “maximum power” approach of including silver-bordered and test cards like Jack-in-the-Mox, Mox Poison, or even custom versions of Moxen. Luckily, we have our own silver-bordered Mox on Magic Online with Gleemox, and even though it has self-banning rules text on the card itself, you are certainly free to play it here!

Strategic Inclusions

Adding this layer of absurd combos and a busted mechanic like the initiative means making other tweaks to the environment to offer both additional support and additional counterplay to these incoming absurdities.

More Fast Mana

Now that there are all these broken cards and strategies in the Cube, you’ll want to get them out early, and you don’t always open Power, so we added these if you find yourself struggling for fast mana.

Individual Card Support

Unlike the Vintage Cube LIVE Prize Cube, the overall archetype structure remains largely the same here as it is in the canon Cube. You still have your white and red aggressive strategies, artifacts, a variety of classic combo strategies like Reanimator, so we want to take the time here to discuss some specific card choices made for this environment.

• Archon of Emeria
  • A popular staple in Vintage Initiative, the archon helps combat the stronger combo decks alongside Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and can slow an opponent’s initiative strategy if they are relying on a lot of nonbasics.
• Auriok Salvagers
  • This one was also featured in the Vegas Live Prize Cube and is here to expand the pool of possible combo strategies to circumvent the initiative. Combine this with Black Lotus or Lion’s Eye Diamond for infinite mana!
• Suspicious Stowaway
  • The Werewolf Looter has been in the canon Cube before, and it gets revitalized here by its ability to take the initiative from your opponent. Cheap, unblockable creatures are a powerful counter to the initiative.
• Force Spike
  • With this environment being significantly faster and early turns/plays mattering a lot more, we feel that Force Spike is in a good spot here to help defend against early game bombs.
• Paradoxical Outcome
  • PO has been in the Cube before and while we understand it can be somewhat narrow, it’s also a big payoff when you get there. In this environment, we get a couple of extra cheap artifacts and more fast mana to support it, and the win-the-game ceiling is also exactly what we’re seeking.
• Dress Down
  • Dress Down deserves a special mention because it is so good at nullifying the initiative, as well as being one of the best ways to foil an opposing Thassa’s Oracle.

• Dread Fugue/Dreams of Steel and Oil/Unmask
  • We wanted each color to have additional counterplay, and these discard spells double as both protection for and against combo decks.
• Persist/Unmarked Grave
  • With black diving deeper into combo as a color in general, we figured we’d toss in a couple extra Reanimator support cards as well. Persist works nicely with the land-cycling creatures, and Unmarked Grave can tutor either your reanimation target or your reanimation spell if you picked up From the Catacombs. It also fetches up potential combo pieces that do their thing from the graveyard, such as Echo of Eons, Sword of the Meek, and Brain Freeze with Underworld Breach in play.

• Fear of Missing Out
  • This new card slots nicely into Vintage Cube in general, but it’s worth pointing out that it also benefits from the presence of the Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin combo, because it can function as another combo piece for those cards.
• Razorkin Needlehead
  • A newcomer poised to give draw-heavy combo decks a difficult time, and you can also combine with “Draw 7’s” of your own like Timetwister and Memory Jar for a good chunk of damage.
• Reckless Stormseeker
  • This is a real threat in initiative world, since haste is such an integral part to fighting that battle successfully, and it makes next-turn combat calculations difficult for your opponent.
• Tarfire
  • With the recent advent of Goyfs and Delirium, we feel like this is in a good place right now with its +1 to card types in the yard thanks to its rarely-seen kindred type.

• Goblin Cratermaker/Cankerbloom
  • In addition to Cathar Commando and Outland Liberator, these two act as additional ways to counter the notorious Time Vault combo. As on-board disruption, they double up on their value by threatening your opponent’s life total while threatening their ability to execute a busted combo.
• Ursine Monstrosity
  • This lives up to its name, becoming truly monstrous in no time, especially when accelerated out with a mana Elf. It also helps to enable various graveyard synergies and trample helps win the initiative battle.
• Balustrade Wurm
  • Hasty midrange threats have been somewhat of a gold-standard for green recently, so this one is a real no-brainer, especially when you’re involving yourself in initiative battles. The fact that this is uncounterable and can come back from the ‘yard is just the cherry on top

• Lim-Dûl’s Vault
  • We added this previously in an effort to bolster the Storm archetype, which did not prove incredibly fruitful. But with a multitude of game-ending, 2-card combos we feel like it will be a great fit here!
• Ertai Resurrected
  • Ertai has also seen the light of play in the Magic Online Vintage Cube before and mainly got cut for archetype considerations. We feel it belongs here for its flexibility to be either proactive or reactive, offering counterplay to many combos while putting a body on board to fight for initiative.
• Lutri, the Spellchaser
  • Lutri is abstractly powerful—a free companion for any blue or red deck—but we don’t feel it is particularly interesting. Since we are on all the silly/broken things in this Cube, though, we figured now would be a good time to give it a go and see where it lands for players.
• Abrupt Decay
  • An old card at this point and perhaps overall not worth its salt anymore, with Time Vault and Twin combo present in this Cube, as well as several other game-warping permanents at mana value 3 or less—Hullbreacher, Orcish Bowmasters and Broadside Bombardiers to name a few–it feels like a good time to abruptly decay some opposing threats.
• Mental Misstep
  • Mental Misstep is generally a lot less effective in Cube than it used to be in Constructed because there aren’t enough reliable targets. Nevertheless, we decided to include it here as one of the only ways to disrupt Demonic Consultation regardless of the colors you are playing, while also being able to counter Ocelot Pride and Ragavan before you’ve taken a turn.

• Fall from Favor/Emberwilde Captain/Aragorn, King of Gondor
  • The initiative is the real king when it appears in a Cube, but the monarch is no slouch either, so with this powered-up iteration, we’re also throwing a couple of card-drawing, emblem-delivery services with a solid rate into the mix.

You Have the Power!

We hope you give the No Holds Barred Vintage Cube a shot and have fun with some of the absurdities lurking within. Should the canon Vintage Cube take the “maximum power” approach? Should this iteration go away and never return? Should some of the super-broken stuff stick around? Let us know what you think over on the Magic Online Discord, and happy Cubing!

Don't forget - you can also use expiring Season 3 Qualifier Points (10 per draft) to get free runs of this Cube over the next two weeks.

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