Hey folks! Welcome back to the Juniper Order Library! The Juniper Order is the name of our Magic: The Gathering league that I run out of my house. I wanted a cool, deep-cut lore name like The Spike Colony or The Duress Crew or The Order of the Sacred Torch, and the Juniper Order is kind of perfect for us up here in Minnesota. We're (mostly) lapsed players who (mostly) cube, but you never know what we might be up to. I write about Magic: The Gathering, our meetups, and other topics I find interesting.

meetup iv

Meetup IV features the Daybreak Games Vintage Cube, as chosen by the winner of Meetup III, which was me!

about daybreak games vintage cube

The Juniper Order last played the Daybreak Games Vintage Cube back in Meetup I. For those unfamiliar, a "vintage cube" is a collection of (arguably) the 540 most powerful Magic cards ever printed. Rather than curating my own cube, I have chosen to maintain a physical copy of the Daybreak Games Vintage Cube, playable on Magic Online.

Despite this cube not being my own design, I have put my creative fingerprints on the aesthetics. To give you a feel for how I maintain my cube, here are some examples of packs you might open.

As you can see, I've leaned into the Booster Fun treatments. I'm using lots of full art cards, showcase frames, Secret Lairs, and Universes Beyond. I've also printed proxies of Magic Online Vintage Masters versions, Eternal Weekend prize arts, and other "modern frame" versions of reserve list cards. There are no custom proxies (every card reflects an object that WotC has produced in some form) so there are a handful of cards that have never received a modern frame treatment.

When possible, with the help of The Multiverse Project, I also match card versions to the current set. For Meetup IV, the most recent update is for Lorwyn Eclipsed. I've identified every card in the cube that has an art version from the planes of Lorwyn or Shadowmoor. These specific prints are featured in this iteration of my cube.

the draft

A snow clipper came through the night before Meetup IV and messed with travel plans. So it was just us metro area folk: tallbeard, MacUserJoe, watts1500, and myself. Four players drafting means five packs of nine cards each since we like more first picks and less chaff in our 45 cards. We briefly talked about drafting strategy, noting that the "A plus B" combos are a lot less exciting since we're only seeing one third of the cards in the cube. Expect a midrange slugfest!

Pack one, pick one put a Mox Sapphire in my lap! A piece of Power is always a nice way to start! I was then passed a Sol Ring! So definitely some power getting opened at our table! I think I also picked up a Coveted Jewel late in the pack... synergy decks like artifacts tend to need a density of cards to function, which can be tough with a smaller chunk of the cube being opened. But Mox, Sol Ring, Jewel is a nice start, and we didn't come here to not swing hard.

I don't remember exactly what packs I made these picks, but there were some fun ones. Getting Forensic Gadgeteer as a last pick and then picking up Basalt Monolith later, who says you can't A+B? I picked up Echo of Eons thinking of it as a mana sink. I saw Lion's Eye Diamond shortly after and forgot that I had Echo for a minute, just thinking it might be a nice one to get with Urza's Saga on the off chance. As I started to pick a different card, I remembered Echo and confidently took the LED. I went into pack 4 with basically no win conditions other than Urza's Saga. But I'm passing all these Wan Shi Tongs and whatever other mid late games with no fear. Win conditions are overrated! Egg Hammer (that's Myr Battlesphere for those of you who don't play Sonic: The Hedgehog) came up pretty late, and Tinker really helped out there too. Displacer Kitten was also a pretty fun pick up with Coveted Jewel and Basalt Monolith lying around.

Here's how it turned out:

I've got infinite mana from Basalt Monolith + Forensic Gadgeteer (and Walking Ballista to empty it into,) I've got Echo + LED, I've got Tinker to get Coveted Jewel or Egg Hammer, I've got Displacer Kitten to go nuts, I've got Mox and Sol Ring to get with Urza's Saga, Ugin to stabilize the game, a little interaction and a couple utility creatures. I thought this deck looked really nice! I did identify that I was leaning hard on fast mana, and some early pressure backed up with some well timed interaction could really wreck my day.

round one

First round matchup has myself against watts1500, with tallbeard and MacUserJoe in the other bracket.

My opening hand on the play looked very good. I had an answer for the turn two Deep-Cavern Bat, but the turn three Loran of the Third Path on my Basalt Monolith was backbreaking. Left with expensive cards and no realistic way to cash them in, Sheoldred just drained me out. Not a great start. My fears about interaction came to be.

Game two had a very similar vibe, and I imagined myself losing until watts1500 started missing land drops. I managed to stick an Egg Hammer to close it out.

Game three I sandbagged a little bit, trying to play around the disruption and set up for a big Displacer Kitten turn. I put out the cat, hoping to untap with it, and my plans paid off! I got to go a little nuts with Kitten and took the match two games to one.

In the other bracket, tallbeard is on Naya midrange and MacUserJoe is on Temur midrange. I peeked over a couple of times and just saw a mess of a board-state. Close games with tallbeard ended up taking the match with his powerful late game.

round two

The winner's bracket featured myself versus tallbeard, with watts1500 and MacUserJoe in the other bracket.

tallbeard was on an aggressive Naya build with double Mox. Not a lot of interaction, but plenty of relentless beats. It's almost the perfect deck to just beat me up with.

I lost the first game and won the other two. Figure of Fable was a pretty big thorn in my side in all three games. I remember having an opener with Balance and hoping that tallbeard would go wide, but they just pumped mana into Figure. Fortunately I drew Dismember to force some more action and get a little card advantage. There was another situation where I put out Displacer Kitten and hoped to untap with it, but he flashed in Phelia, which forced a block when he attacked and blinked Murderous Redcap. The kitty was dying either way so best to trade with a busted card when I can. There was another play where he cast Laelia, attacked, ripped Delayed Blast Fireball off the top with the mana to cast it! How lucky! Since it was cast from Exile it would have killed my team and put me dead to the attack! I almost picked up my cards but I had Force of Negation to break it up. These were some really close games that maybe felt more one sided because of how big my deck goes when it wins, but getting to that point wasn't easy.

In the other bracket, watts1500 won his first match in the Juniper Order! Removal, Sheoldred, and a little bit of lifelink to swing the midrange matchup.

round three

With four players, the last round is the player you haven't played yet. Me against MacUserJoe, with tallbeard and watts1500 in the other bracket.

My brain was shot at this point, I honestly don't remember much about the match other than both games ended with me comboing off, passing the turn because I can't actually win while comboing off, then casting Counterspell on his Fiery Confluence.

The other match was a long slugfest between watts1500 removal and resilience against tallbeard's relentless attack. Sheoldred put in work being large enough to brawl with anything in tallbeard's deck, with really only Swords to Plowshares to get him out. It looked like watts 1500 was going to take the match, but tallbeard got the ground-and-pound victory with Murderous Redcap and Reflection of Kiki-Jiki.

cleanup

I ended up taking the 3-0 for the event, but I've implemented a new rule that you don't get to choose twice in a row. The choice for the next event passes down to tallbeard at 2-1.

We're also going to take a "non-canonical" detour into elendale's Un-set Cube for the next meetup that he is able to attend.

Meetup IV was a really fun time with a lot of close games, which is all you can really ask for. It's been fun to see the Juniper Order getting better at cube.

See you in the next one!