The main focus of this update is, as the title implies, nerfing the creatureless (or very creature-light) control deck that Bones has pioneered. He's had consistent success with it online and visited Baltimore for a recent Cube night and 3-0'd very handily with it in paper, too. The deck basically just plays as much removal and interaction as it can get its hands on and Bow of Nylea to never die to decking, eventually milling its opponent out.

I do not want to completely eradicate this deck, I just think it should be very difficult to pull off and not super consistent. Rather than cutting some of the key power outliers for this deck, like Bow of Nylea or Viridian Revel or Vraska, Golgari Queen, which I think are fun and exciting, I've decided on the following changes to address it:

• Cutting down on the density of disenchant effects. Fewer of these floating around will make it harder to fill one's deck with them.
• Making more of the removal contingent on having a creature in play.
• Adding some new cards that are particularly difficult for the disenchant deck to deal with.

First this cube got me to add Triomes, which I am on record as disliking in almost every cube, and now it's got me adding the Monarch, a mechanic I typically strongly avoid. To be fair, the Initiative has retroactively made the Monarch look incredibly simple and clean, but I still don't love the idea of introducing something to track that is not attached to a card on the battlefield. All that said, I do find the Monarch to be a cool fit here. It's a weird include in a cube where all the creatures have zero power, and two specific cards serve my goals of punishing creatureless control decks very well:

Court of Garenbrig is just a slam dunk, imo. It's card advantage, it's a potentially really substantial power and toughness buff, it plays well with the +1/+1 counter theme, the creatureless or very creature-light control decks don't want it, and it will be a nightmare for them to see it across the table. The only reason I can see cutting this card in the future is if the Monarch proves to be just as snowballing here as it does in many other cubes, but I think there are enough combo decks floating around to not be too worried about that. It could be a problem in the fair/midrange mirror, but we will see.

Court of Ardenvale is a little worrying, tbh, but still worth trying. Like Court of Garenbrig, it's also card advantage and it's also going to be really good against the creatureless control decks, but unlike Court of Garenbrig I could see those control decks actually wanting to play this one. Specifically paired with Engineered Explosives or a Seal this could be a scary control card. I do think there are, mathematically, not a ton of hits for this that the creatureless control decks want to play, so I personally would probably not be interested unless I also had a lot of fetch lands to help guarantee something to buy back with it turn over turn. Maybe the scariest will be when any other deck happens upon that sequence, but at least the Court itself can be interacted with. This one is definitely on my radar as potentially being a problem, though.

Retraction Helix has been such a fucking banger since I added it. It's a combo card with Jeskai Ascendancy or Paradox Engine, it's efficient interaction for the card types that matter, it's kind of cracked with Echoing Boon, and it's extremely on theme. Normally I avoid functional duplicates of cards, but I've loved it so much I can't help but also add Banishing Knack.

Sheltered by Ghosts feels a little underpowered to me and asking to get blown out with a 2-for-1, but when it does stick it's a great rate for an O-ring, and it for sure fits the bill for removal that is contingent on controlling a creature. The ward 2 will actually matter quite a bit for the voltron-style aggro decks, too.

This is a hammer against the disenchant control decks and generally just a very playable card if a given matchup ends up being about inevitability. Curious to see how it plays out, though, because is a steep cost.

I hesitated to include these at first because they don't have anything to do with the Ornithopter theme, but Duress has been great here, and given that black lacks Disenchant effects, it has felt lacking in interaction. These are especially good for proactively clearing the way for a combo, which I really like.

The bouncelands are a good fit here, especially if you subscribe to the Bones and Barash school of inevitability. Barash always chooses to be on the draw! These allow you to run a lower land count but still very confidently keep 2-land hands. The abundance of Ornithopters means you'll basically never have to do the 'discard to hand size' of shame on the draw on turn 2, and there are a couple MDFC lands to pick up. I think 10 is way too many to include and just chose to add one to each guild that does not get one of the 6 horizon lands, somewhat arbitrarily. I think ~4 is roughly the right number, but I'm not sure which four make sense to include, or if it even really matters, but this is as good a place to start as any.

Trasn the Town is coming back as a source of card advantage that rewards aggression. Tyvar's Stand is getting a test as a Snakeskin Veil that also doubles as a win condition with enough mana. Chrome Mox will be a great addition for all the combo decks that can draw a huge amount of cards and fills all the roles that 0 mana value artifacts do here. Voyage Home is coming in to add more depth to the Thoughtcast variants, which I do think get better the more you have in your deck.

• Detention Sphere, Pernicious Deed, Collective Resistance, Force of Vigor, Fragmentize, and Return to Dust are all getting the axe to limit breadth of disenchant effects. Blame Bones!
• Enchantress's Presence is the card advantage engine with the least to do with the theme. It was sometimes a role player in the creatureless control decks, but is mostly being cut as a commitment to the focus on Ornithopter.
• Replenish saw very little play and is being replaced by Brilliant Restoration.
• Aggravated Assault is admittedly a pet card of mine that I just really wanted to squeeze in, but as far as I know it's done very little. Way outclassed as both a value and combo card.
• Kazuul's Fury is a bit bland. While the Fling sometimes matters, I only have so much room in the cube.
• Hyena Umbra is a step or two behind all the other protection spells.
• Faithless Looting and Demand Answers are both very generic and there to ostensibly provide a discard outlet for Daretti, Scrap Savant, but I don't think he needs it because he's so neatly self-contained.
• Silkguard is getting cut for Tyvar's Stand for now. I like the +1/+1 counters, but it always confuses players as to how this interacts with Echoing Boon and in general I think the 'go big' aggro decks have proven a bit better than the 'go wide' ones.
• Spire of Industry is just getting cut to make some room for the bounce lands.

Court of Garenbrig seems basically perfect to me and well worth introducing the Monarch.

Voyage Home and Trash the Town are both not super exciting, but they fit the bill.

Clever Concealment is another sick Alex suggestion. I only wish that it were possible to have white creatures here and make this 'free'. is asking a lot, but phasing is probably as good as protection actually comes.

This also brings us to exactly 1/4 of the Ornithopters altered.

I had two reasons for excluding Krark-Clan Ironworks until now:

1. It's mechanically so similar to Ashnod's Altar here, and on account of costing 33% more mana, noticeably worse.
2. It has a non-negligible price tag.

However, I just found one that I tried out in the Degenerate Micro Cube ages ago, hanging out in a box, so the second reason is nullified. As for the first, well, it is still mostly a worse Ashnod's Altar, but that is a card I am very happy to have redundancy for because the sacrifice decks have been some of my favorite. I think this is especially good in the Faith's Reward and Second Sunrise decks, as @tjornan points out, because it can sacrifice itself (and any other trinkety artifacts laying around) and it also makes Skullclamp, Transmogrant's Crown, and Heirloom Blade all a tick better — cards I am happy to bolster a little bit.

As discussed a number of times, the board wipes ended up not being as good here as I initially expected. That said, having a really high density of them is somewhat crucial to the very creature-light control decks that some people feel are against the spirit of the format. I am happy to cut a couple of the less interesting ones for the next couple of additions.