Welcome to the Wilds of Eldraine update for The Awesome Cube! In this article I'll be discussing all the relevant cards from the Wilds of Eldraine and Wilds of Eldraine Commander sets. I'll also briefly cover the Universes Beyond product lines for Doctor Who and Fallout. Wilds of Eldraine is the follow up to the immensely successful Thone of Eldraine and explores the fallout of the Phyrexian War on the plane and how it has affected both its denizens and its leadership structure. I thought the set really succeeded with its greater focus on Fairy Tales, but that enjoyment didn't translate to the gameplay quite as much as I'd hoped it would have. My main disappointment lies in the limited environment and how much of the intended mechanical space was devoured by the aggro gameplay. The individual cards were cool, I just wish they coalesced into a more successful draft format. Nevertheless, we still have a bunch of things to discuss. As usual, I'll begin by covering the mechanics of the set before moving on to the individual changelog including those cards that didn't end up making the cut. All discussion will be made within the context of my own cube, The Awesome Cube, whose list can be seen in my profile. With that out of the way, let's jam.
Roles
Roles are the flagship mechanic of Wilds of Eldraine not only in density of effect but in complexity as well. As the type line indicates, roles are Token Enchantment - Aura Role tokens that are produced by many effects in Wilds of Eldraine. All role tokens grant the enchanted creature +1/+1 and provide one additional bonus that differs from role to role. There are a grand total of 7 different roles in the set and it can get quite confusing trying to remember what bonus each role grants, especially for players unfamiliar with the mechanic. This is doubly annoying when you consider that many of the cards that create roles do not have rules text indicating what they do on the card. While I have access to the specific tokens, I'm not a huge fan of how they are implemented visually. I've never enjoyed the visual design of the Kamigawa block flip cards as too much information is squeezed together on a single card, resulting in squashed artwork and text boxes. These tokens have the same issues as flip cards with the added complication that the artwork for the Wicked and Cursed roles are actually mistakenly inverted. This makes it difficult to flip through tokens and find the one you need quickly. Despite the fiddley nature of the mechanic, roles provide very little in terms of strategic depth and, ultimately, do not feel all that different from a +1/+1 counter. Much of this is due to how inconsequential the additional bonuses feel, with the sole exception being the Young Hero role. Adding multiple +1/+1 counters allows a creature to scale with a game and creates new attacks as turns pass. Despite my grievances with roles, I'm still going to discuss these cards in this article, but I'll be keeping this in mind for future updates if they prove frustrating.
BargainBargain is a keyword ability that allows you to sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token when casting a spell to gain an additional benefit. It's important to note that you cannot sacrifice creatures for bargain unless they are tokens, making it a potentially awkward ability in some game states, and much less of a slam dunk in 
in particular. Because I'm not supporting any artifact or enchantment strategies in my cube, the asfan of those permanent types is lower than what we see in Wilds of Eldraine. This means the vast majority of bargain triggers will be tied to sacrificing tokens, which are fairly plentiful in every color except 
. I like what bargain provides from a deckbuilding and strategic perspective though. It changes the context of cards as a game or draft progresses and it requires you to think about what's most important to you: the bargain effect or the permanents you have in play when you cast the spell. My cube isn't set up to take advantage of bargain as well as some other cubes, but it's a fine mechanic that I enjoyed playing with.
Celebration is an ability word printed on and 
permanents that provides a benefit as long as two or more nonland permanents entered the battlefield under your control this turn. This results in you needing to cast spells precombat, normally to gain some sort of benefit for the ensuing attack step. Playing spells postcombat is so engrained into us as Magic players and its interesting to see a mechanic that encourages you to play differently than expected. Because the celebration triggers are public knowledge, it also opens the door for tricky plays should you be able to trigger it after telegraphing that you cannot. Unfortunately, neither nor are particularly adept at playing permanents at instant speed, as flash is a tertiary ability in both colors. Nevertheless, the opportunity for interesting play is there as it interacts favorably with planeswalkers and cards like Lingering Souls that produce multiple permanents with a single card. Getting around having to cast multiple spells in a single turn is key to maximizing your celebration triggers, something that both colors are able to do quite reliably. While most of the cards are of a tempered power level, there are still a couple that are worth discussing.
Adventures were the flagstone mechanic of Throne of Eldraine and it makes a triumphant return here in Wilds of Eldraine. Adventures are a subtype of instants and sorceries that are printed on permanents to create a type of split card. Players can cast either side of the split card from their hand, but if they cast the adventure it will be put in exile after resolution. You can then cast the permanent side of the card from exile for as long as it remains in exile. The mechanical twist we received for its return was the implementation of off color casting costs covering all ten color pairs. This widening of the design space allows for players to play an adventure card for one half of the effect with a possibility of splashing the second. They also expanded the use of adventures beyond creatures as there is a cycle of mythic enchantments with adventures on them as well. Adventures were a smash hit during their first iteration and the only thing that's changed is a greater appreciation of the power level. They are still among the most exciting cards in the set and I am excited to see how they continue to evolve the mechanic in future sets.
Doctor Who // FalloutI've always been fascinated by the concept of Doctor Who, and intimidated by the sheer scope of the series. Having never seen a single episode of the show, I find myself unable to get excited about any of the cards in the set. The characters and story events hold no meaning to me and while I can tell that a lot of passion went into its creation, including cards from something I am woefully ignorant of goes against my enjoyment of the Universes Beyond product line. I have every intention of starting Doctor Who eventually, and perhaps once I've completed the series I'll go back, explore the set, and come to appreciate its translation of such a beloved series. Until then though, I'm going to pass on discussing or including any cards from the set. I'm taking the same vantage point with Fallout as I've never played any of the Fallout games either. The difference here is that I'm not really inclined to play any of them as they've never looked that appealing despite my love of video games, and RPGs in particular. Something about all that open space and total lack of direction has always turned me off. I'm thrilled for those players who are passionate about these properties being able to have their love of one combine with their love of Magic and I'm excited to see what's around the corner for Universes Beyond.
WhiteSimilar to Faerie Guidemother, Cheeky House-Mouse provides a telegraphed boon to one creature, if you choose to send it on an adventure, and a perfectly reasonable aggressive creature if you play it on curve. Both creatures excel against the same type of deck, mid-range creature decks that look to gum up the ground and go over the top with larger creatures. While early game creatures can likely block the creature you cast Squeak By on, the +1/+1 bonus can still create an attack where there otherwise was not one. I'm still not the biggest fan of Savannah Lions variants unless they provide a significant or synergistic upside. Fortunately, Cheeky House-Mouse has some strategic depth to it and provides an effect that doesn't have a lot of access to as it's often not worth a full card in cube. It's at least much more relevant than Skymarcher Aspirant's Ascend ability that grants flying. It's only active once every couple of games and doesn't do as much to keep the card relevant into the later stages of a game.
The best adventure cards curve one half of the card into the other, allowing you to accrue full value through normal sequencing. Virtue of Loyalty provides you with an instant speed Knight token for two mana and a Brokers Ascendancy that untaps all your creatures every turn for five mana. While neither part of this card are worth playing on their own, the sum of the parts is extremely interesting. This gives decks late game inevitability without compromising their density of early game plays. It fits seamlessly into 
token decks that are already planning on going into the mid-game anyway. The anthem effect is slower than I'd like as it doesn't provide any offensive benefit on the turn you cast it. Despite this, untapping all your creatures and boosting them makes it very difficult to race in any sort of creature based mirror match. While there are still going to be matchups where this is primarily cast to make a Knight token, I feel the total package does enough across the various decks to see consistent play.
For discussion of Skymarcher Aspirant see Cheeky House-Mouse, above.
Maul of the Skyclaves' prohibitively expensive equip cost resulted in it playing out like an aura far more than I'd like. The initial effect is very good for the cost, and if you are able to keep moving it around, it does make any creature into a viable threat in combat. It's just so rare that you can afford to spend your entire turn doing that. Often times I'd rather just play a cheaper equipment that provides a smaller bonus because I can fit it alongside another spell in the later stages of a game. Players have so much to do with their mana that they aren't often looking for an expensive mana sink, even if it does allow you to push through congested board stalls.
Regal Bunnicorn is going to play out as a two mana Crusader of Odric much more often than it plays out as a Tarmogoyf. This is a commentary on its play patterns more than its power level as it does possess the ability to run away with games in the right deck. Oblivion Ring effects feel like two for ones as it keeps growing regardless of what you are casting as long as it sticks on the battlefield. Unfortunately, all scenarios where this does that are predicated on the fact that you are successfully playing to the board, dodging removal spells, and generally not losing permanents to attrition. Even go wide token decks experience loss through gameplay and each one makes Regal Bunnicorn a little smaller. When this happens mid-combat it can result in you getting blown out by a block or attack that looked safe beforehand. Trading with other creatures in combat can even result in its death postcombat since the damage stays on it when its toughness shrinks. Tarmogoyf was an undercosted beater who only ever got larger the longer a game went on. It's just much more difficult to exile cards from a graveyard than it is to remove them from play. All of the things about Crusader of Odric style cards holds true for Regal Bunnicorn. When things are going good it's a house. When you are struggling through an interactive match or your opponent has cast a Wrath of God, it's just not going to help you. The only reason I want to play with this is because it's an adorable bunny rabbit, and that's just not a compelling enough reason.
I'm not nearly desperate enough for another copy of Luminarch Aspirant to include Spellbook Vendor in my cube. There's just too many small frustrations that overcomplicate and underpower it. You need to pay 
every time you want to use the ability, role tokens are inherently and unnecessarily complicated, and you are unable to target the same creature multiple times. Luminarch Aspirant is good because it's a cheap way to grow your creatures over time and you will always have a target for the ability, even if you are putting counters on itself. Spellbook Vendor eats into your mana every turn and quickly runs out of viable targets. Being able to Scry 1 whenever a creature you've already targeted attacks does very little to make up for all of these complications.
I've never been a fan of Beast Within style cards that provide opponents with replacement creatures, even if they are worse than what you removed. There's just too many ways to use a creature in cube. They can be enhanced with anthems or equipment, they can be sacrificed for value, they can be utilized as chump blockers, etc. A creature doesn't have to be good to hold value when you get it for free. Stroke of Midnight may only give your opponent a 1/1 token, but I'd still rather play something like Oblivion Ring because it forces your opponent to have an answer if they want anything back at all. Three mana is still a bit clunky for removal spells in cube and while I'd like to give more access to reactive spells, I'm not going to include cards just because they can be cast at instant speed.
Werefox Bodyguard is a Banisher Priest with flash which certainly adds a lot of playability to the card, and letting you sacrifice it for an added benefit helps mitigate scenarios where you would otherwise be blown out by a removal spell. Now unfortunately, gaining 2 life is hardly the benefit I'd like to see as it does almost nothing to make up for the risks of losing your creature mid-combat and it's highly unlikely your tempo deck cares about its life total at all. And while you are technically able to leverage flash to turn it into an expensive Flicker effect, its very mana intensive and not the optimal play pattern. That's ultimately where my frustrations lie with Werefox Bodyguard. Upgrades were made to the base design, but I'm not sure any of them really matter all that much. The card carries the same risks and follows a lot of the same play patterns as Banisher Priest, a card I cut because I wasn't satisfied with how easy it was for opponents to get their card back. Skyclave Apparition has similar blowout potential but at least when it dies you aren't worried about retriggering ETB effects and your opponent won't get back a fully recharged planeswalker. If that sacrifice effect were something that actively helped further the gameplan of a tempo or aggro deck, I'd be much more inclined to give Werefox Bodyguard a test at the very least.
Court of Ardenvale mirrors Court of Grace as a four mana enchantment that makes you The Monarch immediately but makes you wait until your next turn for any additional value. You run the risk with both cards of losing The Monarch before you can untap with it, but only Court of Grace has a guaranteed way to try and capture it back. A Sun Titan trigger is hardly guaranteed value in my cube and you do really need to recur something on the first turn you untap with Court of Ardenvale in play, especially if you've lost The Monarch already. The Monarch can be oppressive in single player Magic and I feel that these two cards are too similar to run both. I'd be more interested in Court of Ardenvale in another color, as has difficulty getting cards into its graveyard in time to interact favorably with cards like this.
Thraben Inspector that has synergy in the spells matters shell that's totally playable in any other deck playing mana definitely has a home in cube. It's a cheap, efficient way to get a little bit of card advantage while you stem early game bleeding against an aggressive opponent. In cubes that don't feature a lot of aggressive creature decks this goes way down as there are certainly many more ways to accrue card advantage more directly. My cube heavily features creature combat and this is a perfect fit. I wasn't sure initially whether it was quite worth a slot. The more I think about it the more I keep wishing I had one in my defensive decks just to buy me an extra turn or two in the early game.
Foretell, like Morph, really loses a lot of what makes it special when you can't fill your deck with lots of different cards with the mechanic. Playing the guessing game with your opponent and forcing them to try and figure out what they need to play around is where a lot of the power, and fun, of the mechanics lie. Without this interaction, exiling Behold the Multiverse facedown feels silly as opposed to clever. When played at face value it's just another interchangeable four mana card draw spell. Being able to break up the cost across turns makes it playable, but it doesn't make it good enough to make up for the gameplay you know is missing.
I was pretty interested in Sleep-Cursed Faerie until I realized that its activated ability doesn't untap it so much as it merely removes a stun counter. While this makes sense within the rules it makes the card a pain to read and is just begging players to make mistakes with it. It's simply too slow as printed, as there isn't a stage of the game where it's going to be worth waiting or putting mana into it to actually start attacking.
Ice Out needs to be able to be bargained reliably in order to be even remotely playable in cube. The delta between Counterspell and Cancel is extremely wide, particularly when you receive no extra benefits of any kind. I feel zero confidence that my decks will have a steady supply of artifacts, enchantments, or tokens to sacrifice. I feel even less confidence that the ones you do have will be expendable.
I'm only highlighting Quick Study to mention that Divination got an upgrade to instant speed and that's pretty cool. It still pales in comparison to Thirst for Discovery and Frantic Search since they provide a similar effect but also give you the option of filling your graveyard. Card draw is great but its these little bonus points that make them perform differently across multiple decks, and that's a key part of what makes cube so fun.
Speaking of four mana card draw spells, I'm currently playing both Fact or Fiction and Memory Deluge. Fact or Fiction naturally digging deeper into your library, putting cards into your graveyard, being easier to cast, and being generally more interactive with your opponent means it's not going anywhere yet. Memory Deluge is a much closer comparison though. It really comes down to whether it's easier to trigger Bargain or Flashback in your individual cubes. In mine, has lots of natural ways to get cards into its graveyard, and it has the fewest ways to make tokens out of any color. It's very close though, and I couldn't blame someone for preferring one over the other. When it really comes down to it, I just can't see either one of these cards lasting in the long term. There are always going to be cheaper, more synergistic card draw spells printed at some point. I don't want to make a swap when there just isn't that much to gain from what will ultimately be a transient card in the first place.
Lagoon Breach is the kind of card I'd love to have free access to if it was stapled to a cube worthy card of its own. It's an inexpensive way to answer a resolved early game creature, something decks usually struggle with without dipping into another color. Unfortunately, Horned Loch-Whale misses the mark in just about every other category. Having flash is extremely awkward on a telegraphed creature that enters the battlefield tapped. I think having it enter untapped would actually create worse gameplay because it would just make every combat encounter a chore to progress through. The solution here is just don't give it flash in the first place. As a six mana creature, it's not a particularly good finisher either as it lacks evasion and any sort of tangible value if you don't send it on an adventure. This makes it a very poor reanimation target as well. The addition of Ward 
makes the card better, but also less interactive, something I'm always looking to shy away from.
Rat tokens, like Decayed tokens, have proven to be incredibly underwhelming when taken at face value. This means that in order to maximize Lord Skitter, Sewer King you will need to both be aggressive and have ways to utilize the tokens once they no longer have clear attacks. Being a 3/3 for will allow him to play out more proactively than Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia is able to. Serving as incidental graveyard hate will come up from time to time and I'm glad it won't cost you an entire card to have access to the effect. Lord Skitter, Sewer King should be a serviceable curve filler for any Orzhov or Rakdos deck that provides consistent value over time.
As a straight removal spell, Locthwain Scorn is a bit underwhelming when compared to the competition as a two mana sorcery. However, gaining 2 life is not irrelevant for a deck looking to survive into the late game, and -3/-3 will still kill most early game threats. I expect Virtue of Persistence to be sent on an adventure nearly 100% of the time as there should always be a target to kill and you are almost always going to draw it before you get to seven mana. It's unfortunate that you have to wait a full turn to see your first return on investment when cast for full value and that was the most common complaint with Debtors' Knell during its time in my cube. Casting a seven mana spell and then dying before you could reap any benefits was extremely frustrating. However, Virtue of Persistence allows you to always get value beforehand and provides you with a bridge to the late game. Despite the risk, Debtors' Knell was one of my favorite cards when it was in my cube and being able to have access to that effect again is extremely exciting, especially considering a good amount of the risk has been mitigated.
All things considered, Court of Locthwain is probably the most fun The Monarch card that I've seen so far. Drawing cards off of your opponent's library has always been something I find immensely entertaining and Court of Locthwain allows you to do it every turn. If you retain The Monarch it even lets you cast one of them for free each turn. It's important to note that there is no timing restriction on the casting of these spells. You can cast any card that has been exiled at any time, even if Court of Locthwain leaves play. While the free spells are restricted to your own turn, which card you cast is still your choice. This prevents you from being frustrated if you reveal a spell you can't or don't want to cast in the same turn. At its ceiling you are drawing two extra cards (and casting one of them for free) per turn. This gets out of hand very quickly but also creates incredible stories that I'm excited to listen to. The floor of losing The Monarch immediately still leaves you with a Coercive Portal which is a great place to improve upon.
Flesh Carver's activated ability is too difficult to activate alongside casting your other spells and that ultimately makes it a difficult card to recommend. Playing it as a 2/2 intimidate that dies into a 2/2 token simply is not good enough anymore. While it will sometimes immediately sacrifice two creatures and attack for 6 on turn four, many other games it sits in play as a 2/2 and simply threatens to sacrifice a token while you cast your other spells. Sacrificing a creature and having this killed in response still gives you a 2/2 but it feels so much worse than that. It still feels like Flesh Carver should be good, I just can't ignore how often it isn't in actual drafts.
For a long time Doom Blade and its brethren were the gold standard of single target removal in . Their efficiency was able to make up for their conditionality, and there were so many variations that it was easy to select a couple that were tailored to your cube environment. However, once removed from their natural limited environments, these targeting restrictions began to feel somewhat arbitrary and the cards started to blend together. In the interest of creating some differentiation, I'm going to start phasing some of these out of the cube in favor of more unique and interesting removal spells. Cast Down may be a better removal spell than Locthwain Scorn for now, but it's far less interesting and will only get worse as the density of legendary creatures continues to increase over time.
Phyrexian Arena is another long time cube stalwart that has started to show its age. The repeated life loss adds up a lot faster than it used to and it's often difficult to take a turn off to cast a spell that provides no immediate value. There are still games where the sheer volume of extra cards allows you to simply out card advantage your opponent. However, there are just as many where it finds itself in a sideboard in favor of something that allows you to stabilize against an aggressive opponent or push an existing advantage more effectively. Court of Locthwain accomplishes a lot of what Phyrexian Arena is trying to do, without asking you to take a turn off, and it doesn't compromise your life total in the process.
Spiteful Hexmage is an extremely awkward card. It's clearly designed to be an aggressive one drop, but it only serves that purpose within the confines of Wilds of Eldraine itself. In an environment where you can use role tokens to override the Cursed Role it creates you can potentially curve out into a 4/3 with upside attacking on turn two. Outside of that environment though, you are going to have to already have 1/1 creatures to enchant or something like Bloodghast or Blood Artist that won't mind the Cursed Role. Since there isn't a way to leverage the role into potential upside, this is just jumping through a lot of hoops for a vanilla beater that you can't play on curve.
Being unable to block results in Tangled Colony really only being playable in aggressive decks. Its token generation being contingent on when it takes damage only further pigeonholes it into that strategy. Ultimately, your opponent has full control over not only how many Rat tokens you can produce but whether you produce any at all. This makes it an awkward fit in any aristocrats build that isn't strictly focused on an aggressive gameplan. It's ultimately too narrow in what it's able to do and gives your opponent too much agency over how good it can be.
Lord Skitter's Butcher is a Callous Bloodmage for the aggro deck, and only the aggro deck. Making a Rat token and giving all of your creatures menace fail to provide any value at all when you are behind on board. The same can be said for the card draw ability which requires you to sacrifice a creature to even use it. Callous Bloodmage excels in cube because it fits in any deck and can provide value at any stage in the game whether ahead, behind, or at parity. It's extremely versatile in a way that Lord Skitter's Butcher can only aspire to be. The card isn't bad, it's just more narrow than I like and supports a deck I'm not looking to actively push.
I've always been a fan of value reanimator where you reanimate threats several times over the course of a game instead of one big threat on turn two. The gameplay is better for both players and there are less instances where the game ends after the first reanimation spell, and the winner is determined by whether your opponent had a removal spell or not. Back for Seconds is one of the better options for this strategy as there are a lot of significant threats you can reanimate that cost 4 mana. is one of the better colors for bargain, but the fact that you absolutely need to bargain for Back for Seconds to even be cast makes it too much of a high risk medium reward card for me.
Barter in Blood has always been a card with a ridiculously high ceiling and a floor that's unacceptably low. Breaking symmetry depends on not only what you're playing in your deck and how you sequence your creatures, but your opponent's decisions as well. It's simply too difficult to extract the necessary value without crippling yourself reliably. Rankle's Prank is Barter in Blood with upside, I'm just not sure how much that upside is going to matter. Each player discarding two cards and losing 4 life are both skewed towards aggro decks that empty their hand and try to race their opponent. This stands in stark opposition with sacrificing two creatures, which is best leveraged by creature light control decks. While this could be seen as a way for Rankle's Prank to be played in many different decks, it's nearly impossible to get your mana's worth without choosing the Barter in Blood mode as it presents by far the highest upside. It's going to be difficult to do that and utilize either of the first two abilities effectively. Instead of being playable everywhere, Rankle's Prank fails to find a home at all.
Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator has exactly one scenario where it's an interesting, and potentially powerful, planeswalker. When used in conjunction with cards like Bolas's Citadel and Doom Whisperer it can mitigate life loss and allow you to maximize your spells and abilities. With enough triggers, there is a world where you can kill your opponent with the ultimate by exiling their entire library. The only cards my cube is running that would really be able to take advantage of this interaction are Adanto Vanguard, Griselbrand, Toxic Deluge, and Sylvan Library. While does have a number of ways to use your life total as a resource, most of it is in the form of life loss instead of life payment. If you aren't using Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator as a combo piece, these two abilities are largely irrelevant. Paying 5 mana to make Nightmare tokens that will only grow in combination with the +1 ability just doesn't do enough on its own.
Young Hero role tokens greatly outperformed my expectations in the Wilds of Eldraine limited environment. They always seemed to be able to put on one more +1/+1 counter than it felt like they should have, consistently making whatever creature they enchanted a problem. While there is an opportunity cost of having to wait until the next attack step to receive your first +1/+1 counter, I feel that this is greatly overstated as a potential risk. The important thing is that you can turn it into damage by the next attack step, which happens as long as you aren't sacrificing Embereth Veteran mid-combat. Embereth Veteran being able to enchant a creature with a Young Hero role when it no longer has functional attacks is going to create new attacks and allow one creature to scale better with the rest of the board. If that allows you to attack with a Goblin Rabblemaster or Hellrider when you otherwise wouldn't be able to profitably, that's going to swing a game. It's a significantly bigger upside than Rakdos Cackler having a second toughness. It's just such a boring, forgettable card and I'm glad we're at a point where we don't need to play creatures like that to make aggro viable.
Similar to Charming Prince, Charming Scoundrel is an extremely versatile card because its spread of abilities allows it to play well in virtually any kind of deck, matchup, or game state. It can be a Valley Dasher that deals an extra point of damage when it dies. It can ramp and fix your mana, serve as a discard outlet, sculpt an awkward hand in the early game, or enhance a second creature all while leaving behind a 1/1 body to chump block or sacrifice for value. The ceiling isn't as high as some other two drops that can really pressure an opponent or demand a removal spell, but it is an excellent role player that should nearly always make the main deck when drafted.
Brazen Scourge is a fine floor for an aggressive creature and, as decks should be able to reliably trigger celebration, Goddric, Cloaked Reveler should be able to attack as a 4/4 flier pretty consistently. While it's unreasonable to expect it to trigger on curve, you can trigger it the turn you cast it if you play it alongside a cheap creature or have a planeswalker that makes tokens. As a legendary creature with haste that rewards you for going wide, Goddric should excel in both RW and RG while being perfectly acceptable in RB as a curve filler in aggressive builds.
For discussion of Rakdos Cackler see Embereth Veteran, above.
I really like reconfigure as a mechanic, but Reconfigure 
just proved to be too much in combination with discarding your entire hand. Every time I saw Ogre-Head Helm in play the entire game had to revolve around it in order for it to do anything at all. It did make blocking tricky for the opponent because it was difficult to tell whether or not its controller actually wanted to trigger the ability at all. When its controller had a grip full of cards it was often safe to assume that it was attacking and having its trigger declined though. Ogre-Head Helm was just too dependent on an ability that you oftentimes didn't even want to activate in the first place. The upside exists, but a lot has to go right for you to see that to fruition.
Keldon Flamesage was really disappointing because it was just too difficult to plan a turn around its ability. The ability restricts how many cards you reveal, the mana value of what you can choose, the type of spell you choose, and restricts your usage of the ability to the same turn you trigger it. Add in that you actually have to connect with an opponent and it's nearly impossible to make any sort of strategic decision beyond "enlist, attack, pray". Even when everything goes correctly you can reveal a Counterspell you can't cast or a Pyroclasm you don't want to cast. You just end up hoping to get lucky more often than not and it never feels like you've done something clever.
Torch the Tower is an interesting card because if it consistently did 3 damage to a creature or planeswalker, exiled whatever it killed, and then let you scry 1 it would be among the best burn spells in the cube. Unfortunately, it does require you to bargain in order to attain that upside. Bargain is both difficult to trigger in the early turns of a game and also not necessarily worth it while you are still developing your gameplan. Determining whether to sacrifice your token is going to depend on whether the exile clause is relevant or not. Exiling a Bloodghast is going to be well worth your sacrifice but I'm not so sure the same can be said if the only upside is getting to scry 1. This is especially true if you are running other cards that care about sacrificing permanents that also provide more significant upsides. If I was looking for creature removal with upside I'd rather run Unholy Heat whose alternate mode significantly changes the value of the card in a way that's more consistently relevant.
Imodane, the Pyrohammer is the first of two cards that are really only playable in dedicated burn decks. While in play she turns all of your burn spells into Searing Blaze, allowing you to control the board while reducing your opponent's life total in the process. One of the tricky parts of playing burn is knowing where to direct your spells as you have a limited amount of resources compared to most opponents. One of the reasons I don't support dedicated burn as a strategy is because of how boring it is in both the drafting and deckbuilding process. Being forced to make decisions is about the only thing the deck has going for it and even that takes a long time for players to understand. I'm not looking to add a card that streamlines that process, especially when I'm not currently supporting the deck anyway and she provides no value outside of that strategy.
Redcap Gutter-Dweller is an awkward mix of aggression and slow, grindy card advantage and as such, is going to have a tough time finding a natural home. Despite making three creatures on ETB it doesn't block particularly well. The Rat tokens can't block at all and the main body is undersized until you start making sacrifices. Being limited to sacrificing one creature per turn, and only during your upkeep, removes a lot of the interesting play decisions that could make this more difficult to handle in combat. Redcap Gutter-Dweller is going to have a tough time getting played over any of the other four drops in the aggro deck and has to remain in play for far too long before it starts becoming a real problem.
Like most middling The Monarch cards, too much of Court of Embereth's value is tied up in actually being The Monarch. Getting a 3/1 each turn for four mana is really underwhelming and I've never been a fan of effects that reward you for how many creatures you control. When you are ahead on board and in hand, you're going to win those game. If you're behind on board when you cast it you're very likely giving The Monarch up immediately and while the 3/1 tokens can help you get it back, it's going to take a couple of turns to do so. Court of Embereth feels far too much like a win more card for me to be interested in it.
Despite mirroring Bonecrusher Giant on its adventure side, Virtue of Courage is nowhere near as playable. Being able to curve an inefficient removal spell into an efficient creature with upside is the key to making Bonecrusher Giant one of the best creatures in . Curving into a five drop enchantment that provides no value up front and is contingent on you having a steady stream of burn spells directed at your opponent isn't quite as enticing. As there aren't many ways to deal noncombat damage to opponents without casting spells, it's very likely that Virtue of Courage is unable to find a home outside of a dedicated burn deck. I've spoken before how I am not a fan of supporting that strategy in my cube.
When evaluating Hearth Elemental it's important to note that Stoke Genius is not Tormenting Voice. You can cast it even with no cards in hand to draw two cards. This makes it an excellent top deck in the late game as you can draw two cards for two mana and then follow it up with a 4/5 creature immediately. How much mana you have to put into the creature is ultimately what will determine how badly you want Hearth Elemental in your cube. Izzet decks will obviously be able to take best advantage of it as you're not going to be able to rely on Adventure cards contributing to the cost reduction very often. My main concern here is that spells that require you to discard your hand have not performed particularly well. Bedlam Reveler, Ox of Agonas, and Ogre-Head Helm were often frustrating to play with for that exact reason. Players don't go hellbent often so unless you have a really bad hand, it's difficult to cast Stoke Genius without giving something up. It fills your graveyard, but has less ways to take advantage of that than you might think. I think Hearth Elemental is one of the better Tormenting Voice variants we've seen and I do like that effect, I'm just more confidant in the ones I'm currently playing at the moment.
Add Realm-Scorcher Hellkite to the list of bargain cards that are underwhelming on either side of the bargain. As a six mana dragon, Realm-Scorcher Hellkite needs to do more than 4 damage without requiring additional mana to be funneled into it. Instead of rewarding you for your sacrifice, having four mana added to your mana pool merely raises the card to what you would expect in the first place.
As I've said many times already, Rat tokens being unable to block has proved very problematic and has hurt the playability of the cards that make them. Song of Totentanz is, again, only going to be playable in aggressive decks as a way to go wide and deal the last couple points of damage. Giving the tokens haste helps telegraph this as does making the spell a sorcery. The problem is that with these restrictions in place you start to notice how mana inefficient the spell is. Secure the Wastes gets away with it because it's so multipurpose. You can create an army of attackers or blockers, keeping it relevant under a wider array of board states and in more decks. Song of Totentanz is unable to provide any value when behind and while it does create tokens for the sacrifice deck, there are more efficient ways to do so.
GreenI was happy with Turntimber Symbiosis from the perspective that it was a Tooth and Nail style card for the ramp decks that didn't take up a slot in your main deck. Unfortunately, it's really not worth the baggage associated with an MDFC. Bramble Familiar provides similar early game utility and late game effect without having to flip it back and forth in its sleeve. Like Turntimber Symbiosis, Fetch Quest only searches among the top seven cards, but it can hit creatures or enchantments (it can also hit lands, but let's be honest that would be a disaster). It also mills the remaining cards instead of putting them on the bottom of your library which makes this much more interesting in the Golgari decks. I wish you could reanimate from among the entire graveyard instead of just the milled cards as the possibility of missing is still higher than I'd like. That said, having a functional creature until you can afford Fetch Quest goes a long way towards softening the blow.
Court of Garenbrig is really toeing the line as to what's acceptable from a power level perspective. As always, my policy is to actually play the cards and make an evaluation as to what they feel like in the environment. Sometimes the sheer size of my cube lessens how oppressive cards feel simply because you see them less often. Court of Garenbrig distributes multiple +1/+1 counters across creatures you control every turn, doubling them if you maintain The Monarch. This makes it very difficult for opposing decks to attack and block profitably. Because your creatures grow so quickly, it doesn't matter what creatures you have in play when your triggers go on the stack. A simple Llanowar Elves can attack as a 5/5 on turn 3 if curving out successfully. While you can't put any counters on your creatures if you don't have any, The Monarch should be able to draw into some even in the face of a Wrath of God. Court of Garenbrig is one of the best cards in the cube and I'm very excited to see it in action, even if it quickly finds itself a victim of power level cuts.
Gruff Triplets is another extremely powerful card, although probably not quite as good as Court of Garenbrig. Gruff Triplets makes three 3/3 creatures with trample that turn into 6/6 creatures should one of them die. If two die the remaining copy becomes a 12/12 trample. When combined with reanimation or blink spells you can go even wider with copies and grow the remaining creatures beyond even that. Because the copies get +1/+1 counters equal to the power of the one that died, they also wear equipment extremely well and benefit doubly from Glorious Anthem effects. This is a very difficult creature to deal outside of Wrath of God effects as each removal spell or trade you make in combat only grows the remaining copies. Gruff Triplets are easily among the best six drops in cube and should fit very smoothly into any base deck regardless of what you pair it with.
For discussion of Turntimber Symbiosis see Bramble Familiar, above.
Even if it hasn't aged as well as I'd like, Saproling Burst is still a good card, able to produce anywhere between 1 and 6 tokens of varying size to suit your needs. It can be activated at instant speed to create extra blockers or surprise attackers in a pinch. Unfortunately, all that optionality comes at a heavy cost. Players just functionally do not understand what Saproling Burst does and it's gotten to the point that they won't do the math when it's in play and refuse to draft it at all. It's further complicated, and somewhat justified, by how impossible it is to remember the difference between Fading and Vanishing. The two mechanics ruined each other and if it's not written on the card it just demands a trip to the internet to look up the rules. There are plenty of ways to make tokens nowadays and clearly nobody is going to miss playing with or reading Saproling Burst.
Kogla, the Titan Ape provides a lot of ancillary benefits but they don't add up to actually winning a game as efficiently as Gruff Triplets. It's important to get good value out of the ETB fight ability because once it resolves you are left with a large creature that can be chump blocked for days. The Trygon Predator trigger on attacks is nice in certain matchups but I'd much rather just have trample to actually end the game. The same goes for the awkward indestructibility effect if you return a human to your hand. Gruff Triplets is resistant to removal in a more proactive way that doesn't require you to hold up mana or control other creatures.
Blossoming Tortoise is one of the best ways I've seen recently to support the lands in the graveyard deck that I'm still not supporting. Outside of simply getting more mana, the biggest payoff to this archetype seems to be repeated land destruction with Strip Mine and Wasteland which sounds completely terrible to play against. I have no interest in supporting this archetype at any point unless the payoffs improve in play quality. Without that, Blossoming Tortoise is still a solid contributor to the Golgari graveyard decks as a repeated way to mill cards for profit. It's a shame that the only other upside of the card comes in the form of supporting creature lands. There just aren't enough creature lands in the cube to build synergies around and I don't think this card does enough unless you hit all the cross synergy support.
Unlike Bramble Familiar, Thunderous Debut will be stuck in your hand for the majority of the game. These cards are just way too expensive to justify putting into decks, especially when only one deck can cast them in the first place. Bramble Familiar is at least playable in builds besides all in ramp. For all that mana you still need to bargain Thunderous Debut for it to do what you want it to. I can't imagine casting this and not being able to put the creatures I find onto the battlefield. There's just too much risk associated with such a narrow card.
ColorlessSyr Ginger, the Meal Ender has pretty good stats as a colorless 3/1 for but it might as well be a vanilla creature for all the text on the card. Aggro decks aren't going to want to sacrifice it to gain life. I don't have an artifact deck to support the middle ability so its unlikely you will be triggering that more than once a game. The most relevant text is the anti-planeswalker clause but trample, hexproof, and haste don't exactly guarantee you will kill a planeswalker and this is still going to trade with whatever blocks it. If you have a heavy planeswalker metagame and support artifact aggro synergies this probably fits very well into your environment. It's a bit of a mismatch for me outside of being a generically good aggro creature. One thing this did inspire me to do is to start creating a list of all the Boros Artifact cards in case I want to fold that strategy into the cube at some point. This definitely makes that list if nothing else.
Hylda's Crown of Winter is a cheaper Icy Manipulator that can't hit lands but can tap down creatures on your own turn for free. Unfortunately, tapping lands is a really important safety valve to have and it's what makes Icy Manipulator playable in so many different decks in the first place. Being able to cash the crown in for some extra cards is nice but it doesn't solve the issue of what you are doing when you don't have any creatures to tap down. Control decks would rather just play actual removal spells and aggro decks would want something that's actively good against the slower decks. Despite being an aggressively slanted card, it's not heavily desired in the deck its designed for.
AzoriusI'm very excited about the prospect of Twining Twins as it provides another Momentary Blink effect for my cube. blink has always been an archetype that has struggled to find adequate support despite how fun it is to play. The fact that Twining Twins fits smoothly into Azorius tempo shells as an evasive flier works out perfectly. I really like that you get the full Flickerwisp effect that can be used to clear out potential blockers in evasive builds or attackers in defensive ones. Twining Twins should fit smoothly into any Azorius archetype while increasing the density of a beloved and underrepresented effect.
Dream Trawler performed roughly as expected as a difficult to cast and even more difficult to answer control finisher. I was hoping that the conditional hexproof might prove a bit more interactive than it did in retail limited, but it might as well be straight hexproof for how much it dissuades interaction. Dream Trawler is a cool card that does end games, but it does so in ways antithetical to my cube philosophies. Twining Twins provides archetypal support while being way more fun to play with and against.
BorosI really like the idea of every gold color combination having access to at least one creature land. It allows those decks to attack from a unique vantage point and mitigates mana flood while fixing their mana. Boros is the guild that probably struggles with this effect the most simply because they are most punished by having an ETB tapped land in their deck. It's just more difficult to find a turn where they can afford to go off sequence. That said, Restless Bivouac provides a very nice reward for decks willing to invest in it. Activating your creature land for four mana has shown to be a little too expensive for the most aggressive decks, so only costing 3 should make it palatable enough to see play. For that investment you get a your choice of either a 3/3 attacking creature or a 2/2 attacking creature and a +1/+1 counter to put somewhere else. This can create new attacks that otherwise were not available, and if it means letting your Goblin Rabblemaster attack an extra time, it might be worth trading off your land in the process. Put enough pressure on your opponent and it can become difficult to justify blocking Restless Bivouac at all, as it's likely to be less threatening than your other attacking creatures. If this lets you spread out a couple extra +1/+1 counters, all the better.
Inspiring Vantage is one of the only fast lands I've played in my cube and it makes sense from a Boros perspective. That said, I do think the criticality of being untapped on the first two turns is mitigated by entering tapped for the rest of the game. My aggro decks extend out a bit farther in the mana curve than many cubes that stop at three mana and play ten one drops. I've been punished by this cycle just as much as I've been rewarded, and since I play hardly any double pipped cards for two mana, it's not often that you need to curve from to . I'd rather have a land that fixes your mana just as effectively while providing a fun and unique upside in the process. It's also an annoying cycle of cards to read in general as players often have to put more thought into their sequencing than necessary to make sure their land doesn't accidentally come into play tapped because they misread the card.
Heartflame Duelist is a frustrating card to read because you're never going to actually gain life by casting Heartflame Slash, not that the aggro decks playing it would care too much about gaining life either way. Essentially this is just an inefficient removal spell stapled to a mediocre creature and while that's worked before, it's not going to work as a gold card. The slots are limited and I'm not interested in adding generically good cards, especially when they are as replaceable and redundant as Heartflame Duelist is. has a lot of access to burn spells, has plenty of cheap creatures to attack with. It's just not providing anything unique or exciting that would make me want to cut something that is.
Kellan, the Fae-Blooded is a perfect seed for a Boros section that supports both legendary creature and artifact synergies. While I do think that's where my section is headed eventually, I'm not yet at the point where I've made the necessary changes to support that. As such, I'm going to put this on my watch list for that impending adjustment down the road. Birthright Boon is a Stoneforge Mystic trigger even if it misses out almost entirely on the Aura clause. Kellan curves out perfectly afterwards as a double striking anthem once you equip him with whatever equipment you tutored for. This will almost assuredly go into my cube at some point, it's just about adjusting the environment to support him.
GolgariDespite initial appearances, Mosswood Dreadknight isn't actually a card that cares about the graveyard. While this would normally be a problem, it does fit perfectly into graveyard decks because it plays to that deck's strengths as a grindy card advantage engine. Because the death trigger on Mosswood Dreadknight allows you to cast Dread Whispers until the end of your next turn, it's pretty much impossible to disrupt the card advantage loop without exile based removal. This is appreciated because it allows you to curve into it as a two drop creature without having to worry about giving up on your adventure. It also lets you attack and block aggressively as the fastest way to draw extra cards is to just let it die. Mosswood Dreadknight plays well when ahead on board or as a difficult to kill defender and I expect it to be a solid inclusion in any Golgari deck.
Restless Cottage costs more to activate than Hissing Quagmire but it aligns better with the Golgari gameplan. Turning into a 4/4 that creates a Food token when it attacks allows Golgari decks to race a little more effectively, offset some of life they lost while casting certain spells, and can act as a serviceable blocker into the midgame. I'm less crazy about exiling a card from a graveyard (I'd be much happier if it milled one card instead) but as it's essentially tacked on for free, I'm not going to turn it down. Hissing Quagmire was a functionally similar blocker but much worse once you were able to turn the corner. Deathtouch while attacking just doesn't matter on a 2/2 as it's too easy to simply not block it and go unpunished. Restless Cottage presents a clock that's twice as fast and provides some life gain to offset some early game aggressive starts by the opponent.
Assassin's Trophy is a good removal spell but it's in a color combination that already has adequate access to that effect. There are plenty of spells to remove creatures and plenty of spells to remove noncreature permanents. I'd rather the gold section provide archetypal support or splashy spells that draw people into those colors more effectively. From a sheer performance perspective, it was dicey giving your opponent an extra land when it would ramp or fix their mana in the early game. This sometimes led to awkward draws where you had interaction, but didn't want to use it.
For discussion of Hissing Quagmire see Restless Cottage, above.
IzzetRestless Spire is the cheapest creature land we've seen yet and the bonus is pretty good all things considered. A 2/1 first strike has a good chance of making through combat unscathed, especially in combination with some burn spells to clear the way, which should allow you to Scry 1 multiple times. It's a shame it only receives first strike when it's attacking but it would likely have to cost more mana to activate. As it is, it's very clearly aggressively skewed which makes it a natural fit in the Izzet tempo decks, even if it's not quite as much of a slam dunk in the Izzet control decks. That said, the control decks won't turn down a tap land if it fixes their mana and provides nominal upside afterwards.
For discussion of Spirebluff Canal see Inspiring Vantage, above.
I really liked Eidolon of the Great Revel as a way to punish opponents for casting cheap spells but the symmetrical nature of the card proved difficult to break and players started turning against it. Scalding Viper halves the damage output but also takes away the symmetry of the effect, only punishing opponents. As it turns out, 1 damage is a lot less than 2, which means it has to stay in play far too long to turn a profit even with Steam Clean as an underwhelming precursor. The 2/1 body is built to trade in combat which plays awkwardly with the grindy nature of the ability.
OrzhovShambling Vent is an imminently replaceable creature land so it's a shame that Restless Fortress underwhelms to the point where I prefer its predecessor. As we've seen with Wandering Fumarole four mana is just too much for a 1/4 creature as it can't kill anything it blocks and doesn't deal enough damage when it attacks. The life drain is the obvious draw here but draining 2 is still a very slow way to end a game when it takes your entire turn to do so and fails to clear anything off the board in the process.
RakdosDecadent Dragon is a card with a very high ceiling that plays out exceedingly awkwardly. The main issue I have with the card is just how difficult it is to maximize Expensive Taste. Playing cards from your opponent's library is fun but notoriously unreliable, so effects that force you to pay the actual colored mana requirements tend to be very inconsistent. While Decadent Dragon can create Treasure tokens to help with that, it can't do so until it's able to attack. This puts you at least two turns away from casting any of the spells you exile with your adventure. Being able to play lands off of it is nice, but hardly why you are playing the card. Decadent Dragon makes you do too much work for a payoff that's inconsistent and difficult to plan around. It also doesn't really fit in thematically with anything the actual decks are trying to do, it's just a large evasive creature with upside.
Simic decks have naturally evolved over time to inherit the ramp space in my cube to great effect. The Goose Mother is another modal spell that rewards you for having a lot of mana at your disposal. Unlike Hydroid Krasis though, it actually excels at lower values of X and is therefore imminently more playable earlier in a game. Being able to cast it as an X/X flier for X makes it an efficient body regardless of the cost. There aren't a ton of ways to make Food tokens in my cube so it's likely that this is going to be your only way to do so. Because of that, I don't expect this to draw nearly as many cards, or gain as much life, as Hydroid Krasis. The Goose Mother is more about having a scalable body with upside than gaining as much life and drawing as many cards as possible. It's a solid creature for the majority of the game and provides a significant benefit if you draw it after you've ramped to higher values of X. These are the kind of ramp payoffs I've come to love. They reward you if you draw them after you have excess mana, but aren't dead cards in your hand in the interim. This creates far more solid games of Magic than relying on only 8 drops that you never want to draw while you are still developing.
Restless Vinestalk is the most expensive creature land in cube aside from Celestial Colonnade and it needs to provide comparable value in order to be worth activating. Fortunately, attacking as a 5/5 trample and turning a second creature into a 3/3 should do enough to qualify. The adjustment of the second creature is a very flexible ability that will most often give a creature you control +1/+1 or +2/+2. This could allow your Llanowar Elves or a Plant token to trade with something in combat where it was otherwise unable to attack profitably at all. Alternatively, you can target an opposing creature to make it smaller than it currently is, creating a better attack for Restless Vinestalk itself. This is one of the better creature lands in cube and is in the color combination that's most able to afford a more expensive activation.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest leaves my cube for what feels like the fifth time as it's just not a philosophical fit with what Simic decks are trying to do. I've seen the argument that you can start attacking with your Llanowar Elves once you are ready to start drawing cards, but I've rarely seen that play out in practice. My cube plays to the board with far too much consistently for there to be open lanes for your mana elves. It can still serve a purpose in combination with evasive creatures, but it's sending an awkward signal to drafters that isn't backed up by the available cards in the cube. I'd much rather play something that gives drafters more accurate direction.
For discussion of Botanical Sanctum see Inspiring Vantage, above.
ConclusionThe Wilds of Eldraine brought back and iterated on one of my favorite mechanics for cube in Adventures, it highlighted a new mechanical and flavorful aspect of the plane, and gave me a lot of cards and mechanics to discuss. I'm very pleased with this return and am still motivated to continue my quest of catching back up to the present day. Next up is The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander, and Jurassic World Collection. I'm getting closer and closer to actually discussing cards that were released in the calendar year. Until then, may all your booster packs contain a card for your cube.